The Second Life of Mirielle West

by Amanda Skenandore

  “The Sears and Roebuck catalog. You like it? Cost me half a month’s wages. I bought it to wear the day I arrive home, but”—her voice broke, and her eyes turned glassy in the overhead lamplight—“well, it’s probably too fancy for the dingy Fort Worth train depot anyway.”

  Mirielle took her by the shoulders and gave the dress a head-to-toe appraisal. “Nonsense. Wear that snappy silk jacket you have, and it’ll be perfect for daytime wear. Why, your son will hardly recognize you, you’ll be so lovely.”

  Tears sprung in Irene’s eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to say you’re not lovely anyway, only that—”

  “I know, baby.”

  Mirielle pulled her close and hugged her. For the past three days, ever since their talk in the living room, Irene hadn’t seemed herself. Maybe all Mirielle’s worry about not fitting in had rubbed off. “Never mind what you look like. Your son’s going to be so happy to see you step off that train he won’t notice what you’re wearing. Your grandkids too. It will be like you never left.”

  Irene stiffened and pulled away. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose with a hankie she plucked from her brassiere.

  “And when I get out of this doggone place,” Mirielle said, “you’ll bring the whole family out to Los Angeles, just like we talked about.”

  Irene nodded, then drew Mirielle back into a crushing embrace. “I love you, baby. You hear? Don’t you ever forget that.”

  “I love you too.”

  Irene tugged on her ruby ring until it slipped off her finger. “This is for you.”

  “I can’t take that.”

  “ ’Course you can. It’s more suited to a big-city sophisticate than a farm girl like me anyhow.”

  “Irene, you’re nuts. Your husband gave you this ring.”

  “And I’m giving it to you.” She took hold of Mirielle’s hand and slipped it on her finger. “There. A little remembrance of me.”

  “You’re the one who’s leaving and gonna forget all about us here.”

  “You’ll be out soon enough, baby.”

  Mirielle held out her hand. The ruby sparkled in the lamplight. Maybe the ring wasn’t as garish as she’d thought. Even so, she couldn’t keep it. The ring was probably worth more than anything else Irene owned. But Mirielle would wear it tonight to humor her. “It’s beautiful.”

  “You bet your socks it is. Now come on, or we’ll miss all the to-do.”

  * * *

  By the time Mirielle and Irene got to the rec hall, the Hot Rocks had taken the stage, and dancers crowded the floor. Many wore handicraft costumes—pirates and jokers and witches. Others had made paper masks. The tables and chairs encircled the dance floor like at a cabaret club. Ribbons, flags, and multicolored bunting decorated the whitewashed walls. Streamers festooned the water-stained ceiling.

  Irene kissed her cheek, then wandered off into the crowd. Mirielle stood alone a moment, feeling overdressed. Then she spotted Frank by the sandwich trays and punch bowl, dressed in the same dapper suit he’d worn in New Orleans. Now was as good a time as any to apologize for running out on him during the film. But before Mirielle could reach him, she was waylaid by Mr. Li asking for a dance.

  She danced two songs with him, then a foxtrot with Billy, and a one-step with Mr. Hatch. Jean and the twins joined her for the Charleston and then she caught her breath over a piece of cake with Irene. They laughed at Sister Verena, who stood sour-faced in the corner with a few of the other sisters, and joked she was waiting until the stroke of midnight to silence the band and smudge everyone’s forehead with ash.

  Something about Irene was still off, though. She didn’t ramble on, as she was prone to doing, and her laughter was thin and clipped. Just nerves, she insisted when Mirielle asked. Just nerves.

  After a few more turns on the dance floor, Mirielle looked around for Frank. He wasn’t seated at any of the tables or hot-footing among the dancers. The cake had been reduced to crumbs, and only a few stale sandwiches remained. She circled the room twice, then asked Irene if she’d seen him.

  “I think he went to fetch somethin’ from his cabin.”

  Mirielle decided to go after him. It would be easier to talk without so much noise. Outside, the houses were dark, and the walkways empty. The smell of damp earth hung in the air. A raccoon scuttled across the quadrangle lawn where the old cemetery had been. She caught up with Frank at the far end of the colony just as he was exiting the walkway. He didn’t turn around, though he must have heard her footsteps.

  “Hey,” she called.

  He stopped on the bottom step and said over his shoulder, “Hey yourself.”

  The far-off jangle of music carried across the night air like a whisper.

  “Sure was a swell party tonight.”

  “Ya come all the way here to tell me that?” he said to the darkness that blanketed the lawn and nearby cottages.

  “No.” She descended one of the steps, then another, rubbing her bare arms against the cold. “The other night—”

  “Let’s just forget about it.”

  “No, you’re a real peach for doing that for me, and I acted shamefully. It’s just . . . I wasn’t expecting that, and it reminded me so much of home. Of my life before.”

  He turned around. The dim light from the walkway cast slanted shadows across his face. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Not bad, just . . . jarring.”

  He shrugged out of his suit jacket, climbed the two steps that separated them, and draped the jacket around her shoulders. It was warm and smelled of him—soap and sandalwood and liniment. The worsted wool collar tickled her neck the way she’d imagined his kisses would.

  “I don’t know why I can’t stay away from ya, Polly,” he said.

  “I don’t know why I don’t let you.”

  He gazed at her with an intensity fit for the screen. That’s the look! she could imagine the director saying. Let’s raise the backlighting and zoom in.

  Charlie had gazed at her with that same hunger once, hadn’t he? Mirielle couldn’t picture it. Even the shape and variegated hue of his eyes were fuzzy in her mind.

  Now then, Frank, lean in and kiss her, the director would say.

  Mirielle held her breath. On cue, Frank drew closer. Just before their lips met, the thrum of bicycle tires and thud of feet sounded on the walkway. They pulled quickly apart and looked in the direction of the noise. The dance, it seemed, had ended, and the last of the partygoers were trudging toward them. They smoked and laughed and sipped punch from cups they’d filched from the rec hall. Some peeled off toward their respective houses. The others, either too drunk to find their way home or intent on partying the night through, neared Mirielle and Frank. Billy and Rose were among them.

  “Frank,” Billy said. “You’re just the fella we were looking for. Spin us a few records on your phonograph, won’t you?”

  Frank glanced at Mirielle, then back at the small crowd. “Kind of late for that, don’t ya think?”

  “It’s not even midnight,” one of them said. “Mardi Gras hasn’t ended.”

  “I’m tired,” Frank said, giving Billy an intent look. “Why don’t ya go pester Irene.”

  But Billy was clearly too drunk to pick up on the innuendo. “She turned in early.” He looped an arm over Frank’s shoulder. “Come on, old man. We’ll not take no for an answer.”

  Frank sighed and looked at Mirielle, his handsome blue eyes apologetic. “Ya coming?”

  She wanted to. Like mad. To dance with him until everyone else tired and went home, then start up again where they’d left off and finally kiss. She handed back his jacket. “I better not.”

  CHAPTER 51

  The next morning, Mirielle slept through breakfast and sprinted to the infirmary to arrive on time for work. In the weeks prior to Mardi Gras, influenza had spread through the colony, and most of the sickbeds remained full. The women asked after yesterday’s festivities as Mirielle checked their vital signs and delivered their pills. She recounted th
e parade and party at least a dozen times, describing the floats and music and costumes and food all with great detail when she saw how it brightened the women’s eyes.

  “I hope they throw another party next year,” one of the women said. “I haven’t celebrated Mardi Gras in ages.”

  “Of course we will.”

  Mirielle realized only later as she passed out the women’s midmorning snack the mistake of her words. There wouldn’t be any we next year. She’d be gone from this place, home with her family. Carville would be nothing but a memory.

  That ought to make her happy. It did make her happy. As long as she didn’t think about those she’d be leaving behind. Jean, Madge, Mr. Li, Frank. Everyone who’d never make it to twelve negative tests, whose only hope was a cure.

  Mirielle was so distracted by these thoughts, she tripped on the leg of one of the beds. She managed to catch herself before falling, but not without spilling the pitcher of milk she’d been carrying all over her uniform.

  Sister Verena looked up from the stack of records she was sorting and gave Mirielle a sour look. A smudge of ash darkened her forehead, reminding Mirielle that she, along with all the other Catholics, were fasting today. No wonder she was cranky.

  Mirielle cleaned up the milk that had spilled on the floor, then hurried back to her room to change. The house was empty when she arrived—Jean at school or playing hooky and the rest of her housemates in the rec hall absorbed in a game of poker or gin. They played almost every morning before lunch, and it didn’t surprise Mirielle that Lent hadn’t stopped them.

  But as Mirielle changed out of her clothes, she heard a soft scratching noise. Not one that started and stopped like a mouse gnawing at the baseboard. But continuous. She crept out wearing only her chemise and followed the sound to Irene’s door.

  Irene was probably doing some last-minute packing for tomorrow’s departure, Mirielle decided. Though that didn’t quite explain the noise. She knocked twice on the door. When Irene didn’t answer, she let herself in.

  The light was off, and heavy curtains shrouded the window. The sharp scent of disinfectant filled the room. The scratching noise sounded from somewhere within. “Irene?”

  No reply. Mirielle felt along the wall to the window and pulled back the curtains. Irene lay on the bed facing away from her.

  “Get up, sleepyhead. It’s nearly eleven.”

  Irene’s room was tidier than Mirielle had ever seen it, but none of her clothes or trinkets had been packed into her trunk. Of the many framed photographs that hung on her wall, only one had been removed. It lay face-up on her nightstand beside her glasses and an opened letter. “How are you ever going to be ready to catch your train tomorrow? I told you I’d help you pack.”

  Only the steady scratching sound replied. Mirielle looked about the small room for the source of the noise. Irene had dragged her phonograph in from the living room and wedged it in the far corner. A record spun on the turntable, the needle rasping over the label.

  “Irene, you’re going to ruin your machine.” She crossed the room and raised the tonearm. “Never mind your record.”

  The disc was scratched, and the label shredded. Mirielle lifted it off the turntable and turned toward the bed. “Come on. We’d better get a start on all this if you don’t want to miss your—”

  Mirielle dropped the record. It shattered on the floor. “Irene!”

  Irene’s face was frozen in a grimace, her eyes fixed and dull. Foam had crusted around her open mouth. Her tongue was ashy white and swollen to twice its normal size. In her haste to reach her friend, Mirielle kicked over an empty bottle. It rolled on its side, stopping beneath the phonograph. Mirielle’s eyes snagged on the label: Lysol.

  “Irene! Oh, God. Irene.” She sank beside the bed and shook her. Irene’s limbs were cold and stiff. She slapped Irene’s cheek, watching for a flinch, a breath, a twitch of an eyelid. Nothing.

  Mirielle scrambled away from the bed and screamed.

  * * *

  Two days later, Irene was buried beneath the newly leafing pecan trees in the cemetery at the edge of the colony. Mirielle stared at the small white gravestones dotting the yard, engraved with only a name, patient ID number, and death date. Hector’s stone and a handful of others stood bright and upright. The rest were speckled with moss and listed with the roll of the boggy ground. It sickened Mirielle to imagine Irene’s among them, all the more when she realized it wouldn’t be her real name etched on the stone. Mirielle didn’t even know Irene’s real name. Now, she never would.

  The official report listed heart failure as the cause of her death. Mirielle kept the empty Lysol bottle to herself. Irene’s death didn’t need to become fodder for the Rocking Chair Brigade. Besides, a broken heart fit just as well with the letter Mirielle had found beside Irene’s bed. It was addressed from her son and said simply that he didn’t want her to come home, however many negative tests she’d had. Like Mr. Hatch had said, once a leper always a leper.

  Mirielle felt gutted and numb walking back from the cemetery. How could Irene’s son be so cruel? The high, barbed-wire-topped fence glinted in the distance. For the first time, it seemed not only to be keeping them within but protecting them from all the evil without.

  A small group had gathered at Frank’s cottage, just as they had after Hector’s funeral, but Mirielle couldn’t bring herself to attend. How could she listen to Frank’s phonograph and not hear that scratching sound again? It was enough that no matter where she went, she couldn’t shake the mingled scents of death and disinfectant. Couldn’t close her eyes without seeing Irene stiff upon the bed.

  Instead, Mirielle sat with Jean on the back porch steps of house eighteen, watching the daylight drain from the sky. Jean leaned against Mirielle’s shoulder and played her harmonica. She’d taken to the instrument like a natural and practiced every day since Christmas. But this tune—slow and wistful—Mirielle hadn’t heard before. The notes tangled like bramble around her heart.

  She mulled over every word Irene had said at Mardi Gras. The dress. The ring. Surely by then, she’d made up her mind to . . .

  Mirielle couldn’t even think the word suicide without the weight of it threatening to crush her. She wrapped an arm around Jean and listened to her play. How many deaths had the poor child seen? How many more awaited her?

  That night, after everyone went to bed, the silence of the house haunted Mirielle. Her pulse pounded. She breathed faster and faster, but still thirsted for air. She threw on her kimono and peeked in Jean’s room once, twice, three times, just to be sure her chest was rising. She turned on both living room lamps and tried to read a magazine. The words were no more comprehensible than Chinese.

  A quiet knock at the front door made her jump, and she sat for a full minute unscrambling her wits enough to stand and answer it. Frank stood on the walkway, still dressed in his funeral suit. In the two days since Irene’s death, she’d forgotten how close they’d stood on the steps the night of Mardi Gras. Forgotten how tempted she’d been to kiss him. Forgotten everything but how to move and breathe.

  “Polly, I reckon ya don’t want company but—”

  “Mirielle. My real name is Mirielle.”

  “Mirielle.”

  Her name had never sounded so comforting. She flung herself against him and wept into his chest. His arms encircled her. She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that in the doorway or how he managed to shepherd her back into the living room without releasing her from his embrace. He held her, and they cried together, Mirielle’s sobs loud and relentless, his a slow, silent trickle. What a relief not to have to explain her sorrow, anger, and fear. He felt them too.

  With their eyes still wet, her lips found his. She kissed him with abandon. Firm and then light and then firm again. He sank onto the couch and pulled her beside him, trailing kisses down her neck. She enmeshed her hands in his hair. His curled fingers slipped beneath her nightgown, sweeping over her skin. She shuddered at his touch. His fingers lingered on her thig
h, just above her knee, but went no farther. They kissed until her lips were numb as if they could draw out the sorrow this disease had injected into their lives. Then she laid her head against his chest and fell asleep to the steady sound of his breathing.

  CHAPTER 52

  Mirielle awoke in her bed with only a vague memory of Frank carrying her there before he left. Morning shone brightly outside her window. She closed her eyes against the light. The sadness of Irene’s death still engulfed her, but last night’s panic was gone. Rolling onto her side, she came face-to-face with the framed picture on her nightstand. Charlie. She said his name over and over again in her mind, hoping to stir something more than languid ambivalence. Frank had saved her last night, not by anything he did. His presence was enough. Someday she’d be able to share her grief with Charlie too. But he’d never fully understand Carville and the tragedy she absorbed here.

  She shrugged off her blankets and sat up. She was due in the infirmary today for her tenth skin scraping. Any other morning, she would have hurried to shower and dress, eager to get the test done with and hear Doc Jack pronounce her slides negative. Today, even that couldn’t liven her step.

  Sister Verena greeted Mirielle with her usual pinched-lip expression when she arrived. “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, I was . . . er . . . I overslept.” A feeble smile found its way to her lips. Sister Verena would swoon if she knew Mirielle had fallen asleep in Frank’s arms.

  “Well, Dr. Jachimowski was called away to assist with a surgery.”

  “I’ll wait.” She crossed the infirmary to where Sister Loretta was rolling bandages and sat down to help even though it was her day off. The old sister chatted amiably at her while Sister Verena tended to the bedridden patients, eyeing Mirielle suspiciously from across the room.

  Doc Jack arrived thirty minutes later, remarking how well she looked during the examination. The lesion on her neck had vanished, and the others remained faint and flat. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up,” he said, transferring flecks of skin and tissue from the spot beneath her thumb to the last of his slides. “With any luck, you’ll be out of here in just a couple of months.”