letters

Letter Four

The neighbors would not stop fighting, and Will could not fall asleep. Not even the pillow over his ear or the snoring of his father drowned out the obnoxious voices from next door.
Who fights at six in the morning? Will thought to himself irritably. Yet again he shifted in his cot, back aching.
It seemed someone was always fighting, or at least talking. If it wasn't Will's parents, it would be the neighbors next door or across the hall or maybe even just ghosts in the walls having a heated discussion.
Hell, Will could even hear the neighbors breathe. The walls were so damn thin in the tenement.
And it wasn't just the walls that made Will restless. It was either always too hot, or too cold. Bugs would get in and make homes where they were unwelcome. Sickness was absolutely rampant.
The bathroom was disgusting--it was so rare to use it before others got to it first that most people didn't even bother at all. The air was full of dust and must and the smelly breath of others and Will could barely stand it.
He spent most of his time outside, either hanging around the hat factory or playing with a couple of the other tenement kids.
Bored and agitated, Will scanned the bedroom. His sister lay next to him, and his other sister next to her. His baby brother assumably lay in the crib against the window. There were his parents, curled up and seemingly comfortable. And there was his grandmother, Lily, who had taken the bed because of her ailing condition. She normally slept with Henry, her husband, but he wasn't there.
Where was he?
Will sat up at last, having given up on going back to sleep. There was no way he could sleep now, with the heat and the yelling and the snoring and the smell all bearing down at him at once.
He had to get the hell out of here.
On calloused, bruised feet Will stood and nimbly crept from the bedroom. The snoring of his family told him that he hadn't awoken anyone. He quietly entered the living room, which was also as the kitchen. To his surprise he found his grandfather in a rocking chair, sucking on a pipe and grasping a photo.

"Pa?" Whispered Will.
His grandfather turned to face him, mildly surprised.

"Hello there," he said. Will drew up a chair and sat next to him.

"You're awake?" Will was surprised.
His grandfather had been so sad as of late, and spent most of his days in bed. It was rare to see him up like this, especially at this time.

"I can ask you the same thing." Henry chuckled.

"I can't sleep," Will admitted.
He wanted to look at the photo.
Curiosity began to pulse through his veins.

"Neither can I," said Henry. Will waited for him to speak further, to explain the photo, to talk, something--but the older man just sucked on the pipe. Will worried that his grandfather would recede back into his depressed state. He needed to keep the man talking before he disappeared again.

"What's that?" Will finally blurted. Henry looked down at the picture in his hand.

"This?"

"Yeah." Will wanted to peer over, to look, but he also didn't want to upset his grandfather. Henry just chuckled.

"It's just me and my brother Drew."
Will had heard minimal talk of Drew. He only knew that he and Henry were brothers, and they had lived in the West for a time. "I found this picture just last afternoon," Henry continued. "It had fallen between the floorboards."
Will narrowed his eyes, trying to see the photo through the dark. It was a terribly old photo, dark and ripped and stained. He could make out two figures, likely Henry and Drew, standing together. Perhaps their arms were around each other's shoulders—Will couldn't really tell. Their faces were shrouded in shadow, but they seemed happy.
"We were happy in the West," said Henry softly. "We loved each other."

"Then why did you leave?"
Will regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. This was obviously a touchy subject. He and his grandfather rarely spoke about anything other than the weather or the Sunday paper--conversations like this were one in a million and Will didn't want to rupture the moment.
But the question didn't seem to phase Henry.

"Drew and his wife, they had kids. Lots of them. I saw the way Drew struggled with money. He could barely support he and his wife alone, let alone the kids."
Will listened intently. He had never heard any of this before. "And Lily and I," Henry continued, "well, we had a kid on the way. And we were terrified that we'd end up in the same situation. We had to get out of there. We had already spent so much on migrating to America to begin with, you know? So it was either move now or never."
Will nodded.

"So Drew didn't come with you?"

"No."
Silence followed this.

"I'm sorry, Pa." Will inched closer to him for comfort. Henry simply smiled.

"That was long ago, now. So we moved here, and I got a job. And then your father grew up, and got a job, and now we're here." Henry chuckled.
Will reached over to pat his grandfather's hand. They had never spoken for so long before, and Will felt so much closer to him now.

"Thank you for listening to an old man's rambles," said Henry.

"Anytime, Pa."
So Will and Henry just stayed there, sitting in the smell and the heat and the noise, until sunlight began to filter in through the dirty windows and everyone awoke.