In Short – Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)

May 31, 2024

Kate appears (left) with her sister Mary

Photo credit: Bob Kelly

Maid of All Work

By Sonja Livingston

Have you seen to the fire, Kate?

Have you polished the silver? Swept the pantry? Buffed the floors with linseed and beeswax? Have you wiped the sills, passed over the statue of Our Lady with a kerchief, not forgetting the ribs of her robe where the dust collects?

The socks are in need of darning. The coffee needs roasting. The sugar requires pounding from the block. And don’t forget the bishop’s visit tonight—the potatoes to peel, fish to scale, the cake with raisins the priests like so much.

Up before first light, you won’t feel the soft side of a bed again until midnight.

Hard work, the priests say, brings us closer to God.

Stifle that yawn, Kate. Look at the floor to hide the circles under your eyes. Say Yes, Father when addressed. Think of the other girls waiting in the wings for this job. You were those girls once. Big-eyed. New. In the convent by 20, out again for poor health. You returned to your parents’ farm where your mother lit candles and prayed to the saints but there would be no sugared violets or flowing veil for you, Katie Croake. No benevolent widower, no fair-minded shopkeeper, no farmer just arrived from County Meath.

Instead, you clean other people’s homes. Instead, you live-in and work round the clock. Instead, you take a job for those without options, which means Irish girls and newly freed women up from the south. You work for a retired pastor in Burlington, a lumber baron in Glens Falls, but are most at home back in Port Henry caring for the priests. Housekeeper, some call you. Servant and hired girl. Biddy, they say. Skivvy. Domestic. Maid-of-all-work.

Your braid silvers as the years pass, your midsection goes slack. Only your eyes remain blue as the overhead sky—nowhere near as sparkly as your sister Mary’s, but then not everyone’s meant to shine.

It’s a calling—is it not, Kate?

And you, chosen among women to dip a feather in turpentine and run it along the crevices to keep the bedsteads free of bugs.

To some, a house is a set of rooms, to others it’s the most solid thing in this world. You’ve memorized the stick of windows in August, the creak of top stair. You’ve counted the cabbage roses in the dining room wallpaper, studied every last bowl, plate and fork. You know which families attend Sunday Mass and what they put in the collection plate—you’ve pondered the stinginess of those in grand houses and the generosity of those on the mountain, hands black from shifts in the mines.

Paid a pittance but there are tips at funerals and a coin from the bishop upon kissing his ring. A trifle, the few dollars you’re paid, still you manage to send your sister’s youngest to school. No miner’s cough or early death for Johnny Cawley, who lands an office job in Schenectady thanks to you.

Now the clergy have finished their dinner.

Harness that gift you have for disappearing as you bring in the kettle and cake. Be silent as the painting of the dead monsignor on the wall as you slice and serve, hushed as a wallpaper rose as you pour the drinks. Tamp down the scarlet of your cheek when the bishop murmurs, perfection, after his first bite—no matter how much he sounds like the voice of God.

Wait in the kitchen while the men move on to the port. Wait in the kitchen as they drain the bottle of whiskey. Wait in the kitchen until all sound fades and the table can finally be cleared. Climb the stairs, Kate. Kneel at the side of your bed. Pray for the parishioner sick with consumption. Pray no illness befall your sister. Pray your niece in Poughkeepsie has a good marriage. Pray you won’t be let go—but if you are, pray the next girl remembers to wax the stove so it does not rust. Cross yourself, Kate. Say Amen. Alleluia. Thanks be to God.

Morning and the rooster’s crowing down the way.

Still dark but the priests will want their coffee before mass. Pull yourself from the mattress, old girl. Dab your face with water. Pause before Our Lady on your way downstairs. Pull cups and saucers from the cupboard. Fill the pot.

And now the sun’s rising. Look how the light spills through the window, turning the breakfast things gold. Now here’s the boy coming up the walk with the milk—that boy’s always singing, no matter how you warn him he’ll wake the fathers with his noise. A different tune this morning, at least. A Tipperary song. One your father used to sing. Alone, all alone—the boy sings—by the wave-washed-strand.

The years are not easy, Kate.

You outlive your mother and father; lose nieces and nephews, brothers and your favorite priest. You survive mine closures, children leaving for cities and dwindling tithes. You live through slavery, war, and mobs jeering Susan B. Anthony as she campaigns across the state. You withstand blizzards and floods, cholera, typhoid, and the slow realization that loneliness is a great portion of this life—but you keep these rooms spic and span through it all.

A house should be like a woman, you once read, inviting, pious and clean.

We live more than a century apart, old aunt, but are linked by more than blood.

I too am without children. I too worry over my sister. I too have mistaken the word of man for the voice of God.

But let’s leave this business for now. Let’s forget all that needs doing and return to the scent of coffee and sound of a boy singing—even if the scene’s made of my own longing, isn’t longing is as true as anything else?

Put down your kettle and come sit by my side, Kate. Teach me the words to that old song as the sun slips from its casing and offers itself whole.

Sonja Livingston (she/her) is the author of four books of creative nonfiction and the flash memoir workbook, 52 Snapshots. Honors include an AWP book prize for Ghostbread (a memoir of childhood poverty), a New York State Arts Fellowship, an Iowa Review Award, an Arts & Letters Prize, and a VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. Sonja is an associate professor of creative writing in the MFA Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Sonja is currently at work on a series of profiles that combine research, history, and speculation to breathe life into overlooked lives of immigrant ancestors. “Maid of All Work” highlights the life of Kate Croake, a third great-aunt. (Kate appears (left) with her sister Mary above / Photo credit: Bob Kelly).