The Boston Girl

But even after that night in the doorway when I had bruises all over my back? Even then I kept fooling myself.

I’m still embarrassed and mad at myself. But after seventy years, I also feel sorry for the girl I used to be. She was awfully hard on herself.

It was my fault.

It was barely eleven o’clock when I got to Celia’s house but the kitchen was already a disaster. There were pots and dishes on every surface and a hill of unpeeled potatoes on the table, where Celia was standing over some thick and sticky syrup that was dripping onto the floor. Jacob ran toward me, his hands and face smeared with the spill but Celia stared at me as if she wasn’t sure why I was there.

And then she started to sink, as if her knees were letting go in slow motion, until she was sitting on the floor between the table and the stove. That must have been when I realized that the pool on the floor was blood because I screamed, which scared Jacob, who started crying.

Celia’s hands were bleeding from cuts on her fingers and palms, all the way to her wrists. “What happened?” I said. “Does it hurt?”

She didn’t seem to be in pain. She smiled at me and watched me try to wrap her hands with the dishcloths as if it had nothing to do with her.

Meanwhile, I was begging her to tell me what happened. She just shook her head.

I tried to lift her onto the chair, but even though she was ­nothing but skin and bones, for some reason I couldn’t budge her. I kept saying, “Celia, stand up. Celia, please. Celia, talk to me.”

By then, her eyes were closed and I’m not even sure she heard me.

Finally I propped her up so she was leaning against the stove. I picked up Jacob, who was sobbing, and told Celia I was going to get help.

That’s when she opened her eyes and said, “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”

I said, “It’s okay. Stay still. I’ll be right back.”

People were standing on the sidewalk to see what was going on with Jacob screaming and when they saw him and me covered with blood, someone hollered, “Murder!”

I tried to tell them about Celia but they were yelling “Call a cop! Get that kid away from her!”

A policeman pushed through and said, “Hand me the boy.”

I told him Jacob wasn’t hurt. “It’s my sister. She cut herself but I can’t carry her. She needs a doctor. Hurry.”

He ran inside and I stood on the stoop with Jacob, who was whimpering and shivering in my arms. I could feel the blood starting to harden between my hands and his shirt.

The cop came flying out with Celia in his arms, her head folded against his chest like a sleeping baby. “Out of my way,” he said, and ran to the saloon across the street. He kicked the door open and yelled, “Riley, I’m taking your beer cart!” He wrapped Celia in a horse blanket and set her down on the seat beside him. When I tried to climb in back, he said, “You get the little boy someplace safe and go fetch the husband.” He sounded calm but I could see his hands were shaking; he wasn’t much older than me.

As he was driving away, I yelled, “Where are you taking her?”

Someone behind me said, “He’ll go to the Mass General on Fruit Street.”

Someone else said, “No. Mount Sinai is closer.”

“I don’t think it matters. Did you see the color of her?”

A woman crossed herself and said, “Poor thing.”

I ran home, handed Jacob to Mameh, said Celia had had an accident and I was going to get Levine.

I was still covered with blood when I walked into his office and before he could ask I said, “Jacob is fine. Celia cut herself.”

“What are you saying? Where is she?”

“Mount Sinai, I think. I’m not sure. A policeman took her.”

He told me to get Myron from school and wait for him at my house. But first, I went for Papa and I swear the lines on his face got deeper when I told him what happened.

When I got back with Myron, Jacob was wrapped in a towel, his hair wet from a bath, and my mother was feeding him carrots. Papa sat across from them with a prayer book in his hands, rocking back and forth.