by Noelle Carle
“A lovely evening, isn’t it?”
Mary started, then laughed lightly at her inattentiveness. “Doctor Granger! You startled me. Yes, yes. It’s a glorious evening.”
He moved to walk beside her. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to speak with you. May we stop here a moment?” They stood on the playground near the swing set. Mary smiled and sat down in one of the swings.
“Have a swing, Doctor?”
He shook his head. Standing closely in front of her, his face became serious. With her back to the sun, it shone in his face and he squinted. He was dark-haired like Alison, with graying strands over his ears. She noted that his eyes were a green blue in the light. He had a long, rather serious face that transformed when he smiled into childlike impishness, complete with dimples. He toyed with his pocket watch, thoughtfully turning it over and over as he started to speak, then hesitated again.
“You wanted to speak with me?” she said.
“Yes. Yes I do. But now that it comes down to it I find it rather a delicate matter.” He cleared his throat then met her eyes. “I want to thank you.”
She tilted her head and asked curiously, “What for?”
He licked his lips, quickly glanced about, then said quietly, “Alison told me how you had planned to help her.”
“Oh.” Mary looked down at her hands and shrugged slightly.
Dan hastened to add, “I feel it was very noble of you, to be willing to protect her reputation at the peril of your own.”
Shaking her head she looked up at him. “There was nothing noble about it. It was pure self-interest on my part, I assure you.”
His eyes narrowed. He looked surprised but skeptical. “Self-interest maybe, but not only that. It’s obvious that you care about our children; about my children.”
Mary felt a prickle of tears beginning and hoped he couldn’t see with the sun in his eyes. “I do, very much. I care for your Alison, and Owen and little Davey. All of the children here.”
Dan reached out to still the swing that she had nudged into motion with her foot. He stepped closer. “Then may I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Why are you leaving?”
Mary sighed. She decided to be blunt and honest. “It hurts too much to be reminded of what I can’t have. These are not my children, my very own.” Tears threatened then so she stopped speaking, clamped her lips together and shook her head.
Gently the doctor reached down and took her hand. It felt dry and warm, and Mary felt no urgency to pull away. “There are sicknesses in the body that need rest to heal. And others that need work to heal. It’s the same with the heart.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Where could you ever go where there are no children? And where could you ever go where there are so many who already love you?”
The other board members were arriving at the school. They were looking curiously at the doctor and the teacher at the swings.
Still gripping her hand, with a searching gaze, Dan Granger implored her, “Please don’t go.”
In September, a second bout of influenza spread rapidly from crowded military training camps where hundreds died each day, to troop ships that carried the sickness across the ocean and around the world. Scarcely a country was untouched by this newer, if possible more virile, sickness. Yet Little Cove remained blessedly unaffected. There was little contact with the rest of the world, set way out on the tip of a point as they were. But the unfortunate death of Tim Cooper brought it home relentlessly.
When they heard of Tim’s death there was profound grieving, for he had been coming home after an injury that disabled but did not kill him. However, the ship also carried those who were diseased and Tim, in his weakened state, quickly succumbed. At least, Gladie Cooper said, they would have the comfort of burying him at home. She was brave in her grief, genuinely sorrowing, but trying not to make a show for there were other sons still in danger. Vernon, his dad, closed the store on a weekday for the first time in twenty-eight years and kept it closed for three days. Tim’s sisters stayed home from school, awaiting the arrival of their brother’s body.
It was a brilliant and warm day in September. When the kids filed out of school that afternoon, they saw, moving slowly towards the Cooper’s store, a wagon with a long rectangular box in back. As it passed by the school, Alison saw the ravaged face of Vernon Cooper as he listlessly held to the reins. She burst into tears and she could hear others around her sniffing or sobbing aloud. Robbie’s death and the events of the day of his funeral crowded in her mind as she slowly reached for Davey’s hand to go home.
“What is it?” Isabella Eliot asked, awed by the sudden silence of her classmates.
“Hush, Bella!” Cleo clamped her hand across her sister’s mouth. She leaned over and whispered loudly. “It’s Timmy Cooper’s body.”
“His body!” Richard crowed. “I want to see!” He started running after the wagon.
Vernon Cooper turned around in his seat, his face contorted with a fierceness that was foreign to him. “Just go home now!” he bellowed. He waved his arm as if shooing them away. “Just go home and quit gawking!”
Richard stopped short. He turned around, his cheeks red and his eyes watering. He muttered to his friends as he rejoined them, “Just wanted to see a dead body. I never got to see one.”
They moved slowly on their way to their homes. Only a few of the older kids remained to see Mr. Cooper draw up to his home with the wagon. The kitchen door banged open and Gladie Cooper flew down the steps. She rushed to the back of the wagon, pulling on the coffin and sobbing wildly. They saw Mr. Cooper draw her away from it, motion to some men that had gathered by the store, and gently lead his wife back into the house.
Davey continued staring as they passed by the store to the road that led out to their house.
“Get going,” Owen muttered.
“I never got to see a dead body neither,” he whispered loudly.
“There’s nothing so special about a dead body,” Alison hissed loudly. “It just looks like someone sleeping. It’s not exciting, it’s sad. Very sad!” And even as she said it her eyes filled with tears again at the thought of Tim Cooper, gone forever.
Gladie felt a great comfort in finally having Tim’s body here in their own home. She had wanted to see him, to open the coffin and at least say good-bye, but Vernon said no. What good would that do, he questioned. Their boy was home now and would rest in the ground with their other family who had passed on. He said it gruffly and she knew he was sorrowing in a way that he’d never done before. Their life had been good - easy and carefree from the time they married. Their relatives all died of old age, without a sickness or early death in one of them. They were unacquainted with grief. She felt it best to grieve in private, and except for her sudden reaction when she actually saw Vernon drive up with the casket she had done so.
The coffin was sealed by port authorities in Boston, so said a sheaf of papers that Vernon brought home with him. It should be opened under no circumstances because of the threat of contagion. Gladie didn’t even know what that meant, but she had her suspicions that somehow the Army sent them an empty box. What if Tim’s body wasn’t even inside? Even worse, what if it wasn’t Timmy in there, but someone else.
These thoughts coursed through her mind all through the supper, which no one ate, and as she cleaned up afterwards. The girls and Vernon had gone to bed almost after the meal, exhausted by their sorrow. Gladie lit an oil lamp and tiptoed into the parlor where the coffin rested on their dining room table. She drew up a chair and sat beside it. She tried to reach Timmy with her mind, but suddenly realized she was leaning towards that dangerous type of mysticism that Pastor Whiting warned about. She had always felt she had some sort of connection with Timmy. They were close and she would know if there was anything wrong with him. But she had to admit, even as soon as he left for training, she couldn’t reach him in her mind. She thought of him now and there was nothing. Was it
Tim in there? Her throat closed up and she swallowed hard, unable to keep the tears from seeping out her compressed eyelids. I need to say goodbye to him, she thought. My baby. My little baby boy.
She listened suddenly and heard the rumble of Vernon’s snoring upstairs. She set the lamp on the table by the coffin and went out to the little shed where Vernon kept his tools. She brought in a crowbar and a screwdriver and soon had removed the lock. You can’t keep out a determined mother, she thought triumphantly. He was dead, she reasoned. How could he harm anyone now?
Slowly she lifted the lid. Her heart quickened as she made out a form, encased in a sheet. An odor of decay enveloped her and her stomach clenched. She swallowed hard, but she lifted the sheet, unwrapping the layers around the head. With a swift intake of breath, and then a quiver of disgust, Gladie saw her only son, lying as if he slept. His skin was gray and he was bloated but it was her son. Liquid had gathered at the corners of his mouth and eyes and she took her handkerchief and wiped it away. Tears fell unheeded as she gazed at him. Her boy, yet not her boy. A man now. How could he be dead? She dare not touch him; the smell was almost overwhelming but she continued to gaze. After some time, she felt an easement in her heart. This decaying body was just a shell, wasn’t it? His soul was no longer there. It wasn’t wrong to feel repulsed at a body that was empty. She raised her head and looked about the room, whispering, “Good-bye, my darling boy.” She allowed herself one light touch on his forehead, just a brush of her fingers, remembering times when he was sick and she’d lay her hand across his hot dry forehead. He felt cold and damp now and she knew that whatever happened after you died had happened to Tim. He was not in this rotting body anymore. She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, and reattached the lock, regarding it critically to see if Vernon would be able to see that it had been tampered with. Satisfied with her work, she went to bed.
The next day, Gladie shook hands and greeted every person who came to Tim’s funeral. Almost everyone in the village was there, she noted with satisfaction. And even though the service was for her son, she had made most of the food for the reception after. Vernon stood with his friends in a corner and spoke to almost no one, but Gladie thanked each person for their presence there. It was the best funeral she’d been to in a long time.
Chapter Eighteen
Fiery Trial and Sacrifice
Alison first realized that something was wrong, really wrong, when the next week in the middle of the day, school was closed and all the children were sent home. Mrs. Reid had received a note from Pastor Whiting and immediately she stopped the classes. Many of the students were out sick already. Davey stayed home, tended by Aunt Pearl, while the doctor saw to several patients in several different homes.
Owen said to Alison as they streamed out the door, “I’m going over to Cooper’s store with Will.”
“No, you’re not. Mrs. Reid said we’re all to go to our own homes.”
“Aww, come on, Owen. How’s she gonna know anyway?” Will asked, fidgeting with his books.
Mary Reid, with narrowed eyes and a grim mouth, stood behind Will and said in a voice that made him jump, “Do you think I’ve gone blind, lad? Now go on home. The store is closed besides. You cannot go.”
Owen laughed and Will scowled. Alison questioned, “Cooper’s store is closed again?”
Mary nodded and pulled Alison aside. In a low serious voice she told Alison, “The pastor brought a note from your Da. Mrs. Cooper died this morning. Vernon has whatever took her. He wants everyone to go home and stay away from each other.”
Alison peered at her teacher. Her skin was pale but she seemed to be perspiring. “You’re not well, are you?”
But Mary waved her away, hustling to take the Eliot girls in hand. Alison hollered to Owen, “Wait for me!” and ran to catch up with him.
Aunt Pearl had moved Davey downstairs to her room. When Alison tapped on the door and peeked in, Davey was asleep. Beside him in the rocker, Pearl dozed too; her hand lay on his arm. Alison could hear the congestion in Davey’s breathing and smelled the onion poultice that Aunt Pearl had spread on his chest.
Doctor Granger stopped home briefly in the mid afternoon. He was tense as he scrambled down from the buggy and strode into the house. “Owen,” he barked. “Where’s Remick?”
“Out in the garden,” Owen replied, not glancing up from his drawing.
“Go get him and bring him in here.”
Owen dropped his pencil at his father’s abrupt tone and ran out through the back kitchen door.
“Alison. I want you to move out as much furniture from the den as you can. Get all our extra blankets and make four beds on the floor.”
Alison gazed at him, never having seen him in such urgency. “Yes, Father. What is it?”
“Your teacher has collapsed. The twins have it too. And Mr. Cooper is bad. I need them all together to care for them.”
The boys came in through the kitchen and heard his last words. He turned to them. “Remick, go over to Gilman’s farm and borrow their wagon. Ask Ida for as many blankets as they can spare. Owen, you go with him and bring Mary and the girls, and Mr. Cooper here. They’ll all need help moving.”
“But we just saw Mrs. Reid this morning,” Owen noted. “She seemed fine. The twins too.” Even as he spoke Alison remembered her teacher’s pale sweaty face. She wasn’t fine.
“This is fast and it’s strong,” their father answered. “I believe it’s the influenza that took Gladie Cooper. If we can keep it contained, it may not spread to the rest of the community. Although I’m sure it’s what some of the others already have. I’m going to check on Davey.”
Alison went about her tasks, pulling extra chairs and a table from the den to the front room. Chester Gilman had died from influenza. Is it what Davey had? Her mind was scrambling even as her hands worked. Davey didn’t go to Cooper’s store recently. And he wasn’t at school. Could it be something in the air? She shook her head as she realized she was standing still. She carried the load of blankets to the den and began arranging them on the floor. A step behind her caused her to turn and see her father, pale and worried.
“Davey has the same thing.”
“Oh, Papa!” she breathed. Her father was a good doctor, but he always seemed to forget what he knew when it came to his own children.
“I’ve got to help him, but these others are sick too.” He fumbled with his watch, looking at it as if it held the answer.
“Aunt Pearl can take care of him. She knows as well as you what to do. And you can check on him as often as you like.”
He drew in a breath and slowly straightened. “You’re right, daughter. “ He held out his arms and drew her near. “I’m going to need help here. The hospital in Bath is too far away. I’ve been reading in the papers about this, if it’s the same thing that has struck in Boston and Philadelphia. People can die very quickly from it.”
Alison pulled away from him. “What do we do? Is there medicine for it?”
He shook his head. “Aspirin for pain. There’s no vaccine I know of, although they’re working…” His voice died away as he looked at his daughter. “We must cover our mouths and noses, in case it spreads through the air. Find my handkerchiefs and tie one over your face. Make some for the boys too. And wash your hands as well as you can every time after you’ve touched a patient. There are some who think disease spreads by touching the sick one. I’ve been reading…”
But he didn’t finish for Aunt Pearl yelled at that moment; a shriek that brought Alison and her father to the bedroom.
Pearl was holding a towel in front of Davey’s nose. It was already crimson with his blood. “Oh, dear Lord!” the doctor breathed. “Allie, get a bowl.”
She ran out to the kitchen and back so quickly that later she couldn’t even remember moving. Her father had moved the towel away to see blood dripping from the boy’s nose in a steady stream. Pearl snatched the bowl from Alison and scrambled onto the bed on Davey’s other side.
Alison cou
ld see Davey’s lips were tinged blue; in fact his whole body looked dusky. “He’s got a fever,” Dan muttered. “Get me a bucket of water from the well, Allie.”
When she got back in, they had laid Davey on his side. Pearl held the bowl under his nose while Dan listened to his back. Alison dipped a cloth in the cold water and handed it to her aunt. Davey’s back was also dark, like it was covered with bruises. And she could hear how difficult it was for him to breathe. He moaned after each breath. It hurt Alison to hear it and tears welled in her eyes.
“Is this influenza, Dan? How can it be?” Pearl asked in a panicky voice.
Two days later they buried Davey beside his mother in a corner of their property. Nearby was a large old sugar maple that Davey had loved to climb in. Ida Gilman showed up at the door after the boys borrowed their farm wagon, saying she hardly cared if she lived since Chester died, and she didn’t know much about nursing but could cook for their hospital. Louise came to help also, as they both appeared unaffected by the disease. Ida cried all day when they buried Davey but kept an ear open for the needs of their roomful of patients and cooked soup and bread.
Pearl took to her bed with a crushing headache and limbs that felt as weak as a kitten’s. She insisted she didn’t have influenza, yet lingered in a twilight between life and death for three days before recovering.
Owen died in a matter of hours, with such pain and suddenness that his father was completely confounded. His symptoms resembled nothing anyone else had exhibited so far.
They lived in a fog of grief. Remick took the wagon to town, to check home by home how people were managing. He informed them how to care for the sick, if there were those who could, and brought those who had no one back to their home. In one home both parents were dead and the two children huddled in a bed together burning up with fever. But in others the sick were being taken care of. The Alley’s, Charles and Aurietta, were both well. Remick relayed to his father that they yelled at him not to come in, but asked him if he knew where they could buy garlic, a live deer or any cucumbers. To keep the flu away, they explained.