Chapter 4 - The House Above the Laundromat
The bus ride to East Boston was long, cold, and smelled of wet wool and diesel exhaust.
Grace sat near the middle of the bus, holding Noah close to her side as the vehicle bumped over the frozen ruts of Meridian Street. Noah’s head rested against her hip, his small hands holding the paper napkin containing the remaining piece of chocolate cake like it was a sacred relic. He was already half-asleep, exhausted by the excitement of high-ceilinged rooms and warm steak.
Grace looked out the scratched window at the brick triple-deckers passing by.
East Boston was a neighborhood of steep hills, narrow alleys, and old wooden houses built so close together that neighbors could shake hands from their bathroom windows. It was a place where people worked two jobs, spoke three languages, and remembered every favor—and every insult—for fifty years.
She got off at the corner of Bennington Street.
The wind off the harbor was sharp, carrying the salt-and-mud smell of low tide mixed with the fried-oil scent of the corner bodega. Grace took Noah’s hand, pulling his knit cap down over his ears as they walked toward an old four-story wooden building with peeling green paint.
The ground floor was Luo’s Laundromat. Through the steam-fogged windows, four row lights burned yellow over twenty industrial washing machines that clacked and hummed like iron horses.
Beside the laundromat was a narrow gray door with three broken brass buzzers.
Grace used her brass key, pushing the door open into a hallway that smelled permanently of bleach, damp wool, and cold grease.
"Watch the third step, Noah," she reminded him automatically.
"I know, Mom," he mumbled, his feet dragging as they climbed the dark, creaking stairs to the second floor.
Their room was at the end of the hall, directly over the laundromat’s massive water boilers. It was twenty feet long by twelve feet wide. It contained a twin bed for Noah, a pull-out sofa for Grace, a small laminate table with two mismatched chairs, and a metal hot plate sitting on a low bookshelf.
A small radiator near the window hissed like a dying cat every twenty minutes, giving off just enough heat to keep the glass from freezing over on the inside.
Grace locked the door behind them, setting her purse on the table.
She helped Noah out of his jacket, hung it on the single coat hook behind the door, and set the chocolate cake on a plastic plate.
"Get into your warm pants, sweetie," she said gently. "I'll turn the hot plate on and warm up some water for tea."
Noah nodded, climbing onto his bed and pulling his blue fleece blanket over his knees. "Mom?"
"Yes, Noah?"
"Is eight old enough to get a job?"
Grace stopped with her hand on the teapot handle. She turned around, looking at his small, round face, his wide blue eyes framed by long eyelashes that looked just like his father's.
"Why would you ask that, Noah?"
"Because," he said, staring at his boots. "The man in the big restaurant was looking at us. And I saw you looking at the money in your purse three times on the bus."
Grace felt a sharp, cold knife turn in her chest.
She walked across the small room, knelt beside the twin bed, and took his small, cold hands in her own.
"Noah, look at me," she said, her voice dropping into that steady, unbreakable tone she used whenever the rent notices arrived. "Your only job is to go to school, read your books, and grow big. Do you understand me? I am your mother. It is my job to worry about the money. Not yours. Ever."
Noah looked at her for a long second, then nodded slowly. "Okay, Mom."
"Good boy," she whispered, kissing his forehead. "Now rest your eyes for a bit."
She walked back to the small table and sat down.
The silence of the room settled over her, heavy and thick, broken only by the low hum of the washing machines through the floorboards beneath her feet.
She looked at her purse. She had zero dollars and zero cents.
Tomorrow was Thursday. The weekly rent of one hundred and sixty dollars was due to Mr. Luo by five o'clock on Friday afternoon. If she was late again, he would change the lock on the narrow gray door down below. He had done it to the family in room 2B two months ago, leaving their plastic garbage bags of clothes sitting on the icy sidewalk in the middle of a snowstorm.
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Grace reached into her pocket, pulling out a small yellowed receipt from the public library where she had printed her resume three days earlier. She took a pencil stub from her drawer and began writing down every business within six blocks that might need someone to scrub floors after hours.
Outside, on the opposite side of Bennington Street, a black Lincoln Continental pulled to the curb beneath a dead streetlight.
