I reached into the rear seat and retrieved the measuring stick from the floor, then twisted the gasoline cap and set it on the tank. I pushed the stick into the opening, counted to five, and removed it. Just as I feared, the stick came back clean, save a small greasy spot at the tip.
I had run out of gas.
Disgust washed over me. I tossed the stick back onto the rear floor, replaced the cap, and dropped the seat into place. The Auditorium loomed behind me. I would not look at it. I couldn’t go back in there, not even to ask for help.
Not today.
Not ever.
I slammed the door shut.
Tugging my coat closed, I walked. Past a group of nurses with pity on their faces. Past the anxious-looking couple hurrying toward the Auditorium steps. Past a soldier pacing on the corner, inhaling his cigarette as if someone were about to snatch it from him.
I walked on.
Hearing nothing.
Seeing nothing.
But Kate.
The rain came before I’d gone a block. A few drops at first, and then a downpour. I didn’t turn back. I tipped my face to the sky. Welcomed the coolness on my skin. In this world of mine, it was the rain, it was the rain alone, that made sense.
Night had fallen hours before, leaving the streetlamps to chase the shadows. Shivering, I looked around and realized I had walked clear across town. The Lang & Co. Wholesale Grocery stood dark and shuttered for the night, but beside it the Western Union Telegraph Office still bustled. I could see the men and women queued up through the large front window, a reminder that I’d heard nothing from Hood River. I forced the thought from my mind. Not now. Not now.
In front of the telegraph office, the Skidmore Fountain stood quiet and serene. I sat on the stone edge and swung my shoes inside the fountain. The storm had passed, leaving a small amount of rainwater gathered at the bottom of the basin. I skimmed the shallow water with my toe.
Pushing my dripping hair from my eyes, I studied the statues rising from the fountain’s center. Two maidens, their backs aligned, faced opposite directions. Their dresses were gathered in long, draping folds, and their arms were braced high above their heads, holding up a large oval disk. I looked at the one closest to me. The statue’s head was slightly lowered. She stared directly at me with impassive eyes. She did not look cold or confused or scared. I envied her lack of emotion. What I would give right now, to feel nothing.
Pale death, the grand physician, cures all pain. I’d thought the saying romantic when I’d first read it in school, but now it just sounded stupid. Whoever had written it had never been inside an influenza hospital. Death cured nothing. Did nothing to ease the pain of those left behind. I thought of Kate’s laughter, of her kindness, of her fingers flying across the keys. And I wondered how God could have made such a terrible mistake.
I gasped as a draft whipped through my wet coat. It was a foolish, dangerous thing I had done. I knew it. I needed to go home. And I would have to walk. No conductor would allow me on his streetcar. Not like this. Even if one felt sorry for me, the police officers stationed by the trolleys would override him. I looked toward the west hills. Miles away. Swinging my legs out of the fountain, I tried not to think of the distance.
Headlights flashed through the darkness. I looked away, waiting for the car to pass, but it did not. It came to a sudden, screeching halt in the middle of the street before swinging up onto the sidewalk and stopping within a foot of the fountain steps.
I backed away, nearly tumbling into the horse trough built into the side of the fountain. Catching myself, I threw a hand up to shield my eyes from the lights. The engine was impossibly loud. And scary. I calculated the distance to the telegraph office. The car door swung open, and a tall, dark figure emerged. My shoulders sagged as I realized two things. One, I would not be attacked and left for the dead on the steps of the Skidmore Fountain. And two, I would not have to walk home after all.
Edmund took in my soaked clothing and hair plastered to my head. “You’ve gone crazy!” he yelled. “Have you gone crazy? I’ve been driving around for three hours trying to find you!” He stormed toward me, looking madder than I’d ever seen him. He yanked off his coat. Swung it over my shoulders. Squeezed the water from my hair, felt my forehead, my neck. Tipped my head and peered up my nose. Looked in my ears. Blew warm air on my hands. All the while still shouting. “Your car is at the hospital. I thought you were with Hannah. Then I find out you’d walked off into the freezing rain in the middle of a flu epidemic! Have you gone crazy?”
I let him holler. I let him finish. And then I asked, tiredly, “Where is she?”
Just like that, the fight drained out of him. He looked away. He shook his head and didn’t answer.
“Is she still at the hospital?” I persisted. “Did they take her—?”
“Shhh.” He cupped a hand on each side of my face and kissed me. A car sped past, a loud whistle and male laughter trailing behind it. Neither of us looked up.
Edmund rested his forehead against mine before saying, “I took her.” His voice was ragged, reminding me I was not the only person today who’d been forced to see and do things they had never dreamed of. “Sergeant LaBouef and I drove Kate to the mortuary. Her father came with us. She was . . . They’ll take good care of her.”
I stepped back, hand pressed to my mouth, wishing I hadn’t asked. “I’m scared I’m going to wake up tomorrow, and you won’t be here,” I said. “My family. They won’t be here. They won’t be anywhere.”
“I’ll be here.”
I shook my head, blinking back the tears. “How do you know? You can’t.”
He reached out and pulled his coat tighter around me. “I will be here,” he repeated. “And so will you. And if you care anything about me, Cleo, you will let me take you home. Now.”
I nodded. He kept his arm around me, holding me up, and led me to the car.
We were in my kitchen, by the fire, huge mugs of tomato soup in our hands. Canned soup Edmund had heated up while I bathed and put on warm, dry clothing.
“The Cookes will be going home soon,” Edmund said.
“Yes.”
“And the boy, Mateo Bassi?” he asked.
Surprise flickered through the numbness. I had never mentioned Mateo. Not to Edmund. “He’s still at County,” I said. “But he doesn’t have pneumonia. The doctors think he has a chance.”
Edmund nodded as though he already knew. “That first day at the Auditorium, I thought, I won’t see her again. She’ll wash her hands of this whole sorry mess, stay home, and bolt the doors. Who can blame her? But I saw you the next day, and the next, when so many others have walked away.”
I looked down at my soup, saying nothing.
He set his mug on a small table. “I know what it’s like to lose a friend and wonder why you’re the one left behind. To think that nothing makes sense. Not one thing. I know it, Cleo.”
Edmund reached out and poked at the fire. I watched the flames dance over his silver watch and his tags, and listened.
“But when you wake up tomorrow and think there’s no reason to keep going, to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other, I hope you remember that William Cooke and Abigail Cooke and Mateo Bassi will grow up simply because you chose to stay the course. It’s no small thing.”
Outside, the rain came down in torrents.
We sat, warmed by the fire, listening to the distant rumble of thunder.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wednesday, October 23, 1918
The sound of an engine woke me. I lifted my head, turning a bleary eye toward my bedroom window. The curtains had not been pulled the night before. The sun had yet to make an appearance. In these moments between dawn and daylight, Mount Hood stood in stark relief against a fading purple sky. I dropped face-first into my pillow.
A car door slammed. There were voices, male voices. I scrambled out of bed, shivering in the morning chill. Goose bumps appeared on my arms. I tugged the quilt free and
wrapped it around my shoulders before scurrying across the wooden floor. I peered out the window.
A truck was parked on the curb, the words U.S. ARMY emblazoned across its side. I could see Sergeant LaBouef in the driver’s seat, his profile sharp and distinctive. Behind the truck was my own Tin Lizzie, looking as clean and polished as when Jack first drove it home. As I looked on, Edmund stepped from my car dressed in a tan mackintosh and a brown checked cap. He didn’t try to smother a yawn. He walked around to the truck’s passenger door, then paused, turning to look at the house.
Our eyes met through the glass. I placed one palm against the windowpane before mouthing the words Thank you. Unsmiling, Edmund inclined his head. An acknowledgment. The truck roared to life, its engine loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Edmund jumped in. His window remained open. I could see his arm resting on the frame.
Touched, I leaned my forehead against the glass and watched as the truck disappeared down the street.
The courier hurried down my front path, tripping once before climbing on his bicycle. I didn’t pay any attention as he pedaled away—I was too focused on the Pikes’ home across the street. A sliver of black wool fluttered against their front door. It had been there all morning.
I walked into the house and shut the door.
CLEO, LEAVING TOMORROW. WILL STAY NIGHT IN K. FALLS, BALDWIN HOTEL. HOME FRIDAY. HAVE MRS. FOSTER MEET SO. PACIFIC #13. 7:30. JACK.
Klamath Falls. Jack and Lucy would be in Oregon tomorrow. There was a chair beside the entry table. I sat down, hard, and pressed the telegram to my chest.
The spider was black and hairy, with scuttling little legs that made my skin crawl. I shoved my chair back so fast it nearly tipped over. The spider made its way across the kitchen table and onto my spoon before tumbling into the bowl of oatmeal. Normally, I would have hollered for Jack, who would have coaxed it onto a newspaper and escorted it outdoors. Or screeched for Mrs. Foster, who would have rolled up the same paper and thumped the spider flat. I would not have bothered with Lucy. She would have taken one look and started screaming right alongside me. I eyed the creature floundering in the milk. This is your lucky day, spider, I thought. I did not have the heart to watch anything die today.
I folded the front page of the Oregonian into a square and set the paper’s edge alongside the bowl’s rim. Seeing the lifeline, the spider plucked its thin legs from my breakfast and scurried onto a small, grainy photograph of Mayor Baker, who looked as if he were at his wits’ end. Tipping the paper downward so the spider wouldn’t be tempted to crawl up onto my arm, I opened the back door and knelt, giving the newspaper a gentle shake. The spider jumped onto the porch and scurried between the railings.
It was midmorning. Since waking at dawn, I’d done nothing except think of Kate. And of Edmund. And of Hannah. I wondered how she was making do, with people falling ill all around her. And with volunteers like me, who’d decided they’d had enough and stayed away.
Straightening, I watched my old wooden swing rock in the breeze beneath a gnarled oak tree. Great piles of wet sunset- colored leaves carpeted the ground. Our gardener, Mr. Rose, should have been here by now, raking and preparing the garden for winter. I thought about sifting through Mrs. Foster’s telephone numbers and contacting him myself, then dismissed the thought. Even if I could get through, Mrs. Foster would not appreciate my meddling with her routine. She would call Mr. Rose herself when she returned.
Behind me, the kettle whistled. I shut out the cold and tossed the newspaper onto the counter. I set about making my tea. Gathering my cup, I retrieved the newspaper and placed both beside the bowl of ruined oatmeal.
I stared at the paper. Minutes ticked by before I unfolded it and skimmed through until I found the list on page seven. Twenty-nine dead yesterday. More than two hundred in total. A terrible curiosity filled me as I read through the names:
B. B. Armstrong, 39, machinist, 998 East Seventeenth Street.
Zoe Z. Novel, 25, teacher, 853 Upshur Street.
George A. Groshens, 33, fireman, 426 Beech Street.
It went on. Machinist, teacher, fireman. Lives reduced in print to the barest of facts. Was that really all they had been? There was no mention of their dreams or disappointments, or of the people left behind to mourn their loss. I felt angry at the waste. I started to turn the page when I saw the last name printed on the list.
And I remembered there was another reason I’d begun to shy away from the paper. A part of me had known that, had I continued to look, eventually I would come across a name that would crack my heart wide open. For me, today was that day.
Katherine Bennett, 17, 520 Goodpasture Island Road.
Kate.
I crumpled the paper with both hands and threw it across the room.
“Hannah.” I was hovering in the door of the ticket office.
Hannah glanced up from her desk, her eyes widening when she saw what I held in my arms. “Oh!” She jumped to her feet and crossed the room.
I tightened my hold on the sleeping toddler—a brown-haired, blue-eyed little girl—and spoke in a rush. “I could hear her crying from the porch. No one answered my knock and the doors were all locked, so I climbed in a window. I took her temperature. She has a fever, but it’s slight. I thought it best to give her a bath and feed her before I brought her in. She took some water, but she won’t eat. And her name is Winnifred. Winnie.” I took a deep breath and finished: “She told me her name before she fell asleep in the car.”
Hannah was staring at me with the oddest expression.
“What is it?” I asked, smoothing the child’s hair.
“Nothing. I didn’t expect to see you. Here, give her to me.”
I transferred the child into her arms. I’d had no intention of ever returning to the Auditorium, of even driving near it. Until I’d climbed into my car, merely meaning to move it into the carriage house, and saw Kate’s Red Cross bag lying up on the front seat. The list of addresses had fallen to the floor. We’d not had a chance to make our rounds yesterday before Hannah had called us in. Before Dr. Montee had spoken of a vaccine. Before my whole world had gone to pieces. And tempted as I was to throw the list into the fire and be done with it, I couldn’t.
If not me, then who?
Hannah pressed the back of her hand against Winnie’s cheek. “Where are her parents?” she asked.
“I don’t know. She was alone. I searched the house and the yard. There was no one.”
“Where does she live?”
“On Russell Street. Eight twenty-three Russell Street.”
Hannah looked thoughtful. “A woman was brought in late last night. Someone found her wandering Morris in her nightgown. No shoes. No coat. He brought her here.”
Morris was only a few blocks away from Russell.
“How is she?” I asked.
“I’ll find out. Thank you, Cleo.” Hannah adjusted the blanket around the girl and turned to go.
I stepped forward. “Hannah.”
She turned.
“I wanted to say goodbye. For now. My brother’s coming home Friday and I’m not sure . . . that is . . .” I trailed off, feeling terrible. What a time to abandon ship. “The truth is, I’m not supposed to be anywhere near here. I’m sorry, Hannah.”
To my surprise, Hannah smiled. “Cleo, look at this child. Why are you sorry?”
I looked at the ground. “There are other children.”
“And you are one person.” Her tone was firm. “You’ve been a godsend. Just like Kate was. But there’s such a thing as tempting fate.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Go. Keep your family close. I’ll see you when this is all over with.”
With that, Hannah left, Winnie cradled in her arms.
I left the Auditorium, my steps slow and tentative on the slick granite. I’d tried to find Edmund, but Sergeant LaBouef said he’d gone to Chinatown with some of the other soldiers. Patients had been turning up from the Chinese district, an area just south of the train station. Most of the
men who lived there didn’t have families, so no one thought to check on them. Edmund had gone to help. He wouldn’t be back anytime soon.
The wind whipped at my scarf, lifting it off my red coat and flinging it over my shoulder. It was a strange feeling, walking around without pamphlets and masks, without my armband. Without Kate. I held my hat in place with one hand as I crossed the street.
I drove away without a backward glance.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thursday, October 24, 1918
The Bennetts lived on the eastern edge of town in a cherry-colored farmhouse. A dairy barn, also red, with a Gothic roof and adjacent silo, stood off to one side. Cows grazed in the yard, and the smell of hay and manure scented the air. I stood on the porch with my hand raised to knock. A voice drifted through an open window. Old and frail. An elderly man. I dropped my hand and listened.
“I have scheduled the service for Saturday, Mrs. Bennett. I’m afraid it will have to be very small, under the circumstances.”
“I understand, Reverend Fitch. Thank you. There will just be my husband and myself. And the children, of course.” Kate’s mother sounded fragile and exhausted. And broken.
I lowered my head. What was I thinking, coming here? The Bennetts were in mourning. I was a stranger. I had not thought . . . I’d lain in bed last night until a welcome exhaustion overtook me and I fell asleep. Then I had woken, dressed, and come here. No, I had not thought.
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