by Lynn Austin
“My name is Danny Carver. I met you once before, but you probably don’t remember.”
Lucy couldn’t imagine ever meeting him. His overalls and work shirt were stained with red clay from the brick factory. He ran his hand through his hair, which was the color of wet sand, and she saw red stains beneath his fingernails and in the creases of his knuckles.
“I came to your mansion during the flood. You let me play in your playroom and ride on your rocking horse.”
He smiled—a wry grin that laughed at the world—and Lucy did remember him suddenly. But she was too proud to admit it. “Dozens of children stayed with us during the flood,” she said primly.
“I know. And I always respected your family for that.”
Lucy didn’t respond. She had been taught to act very coolly toward young men who were attracted to her beauty, especially unsuitable strangers.
“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was about your father—even though it happened eleven years ago. He saved my life, you know.”
“He saved many lives.”
“Yeah, but he saved me in person. He came up to my family’s apartment and warned all of us to get out. Said the dam was about to break. My grandmother was old and couldn’t walk too good, so your father carried her out to his carriage in his arms.”
Lucy watched Danny’s face as he spoke and saw that his emotion was genuine, his sneer a shield of defense. “Then your father came back for me and my brother. He put Jake on his shoulders because the water was so deep, but he said I looked like a big brave fellow, and he was sure I could get through it on my own. My mother had to carry the baby. I remember how cold the water was as I waded into it, and how your father whistled ‘Yankee Doodle’ as if we had nothing at all to worry about. He let me hang on to the back of his coat, and he lifted me up into his fancy carriage when I finally made it there. I had never ridden in a carriage before. ”
Tears came to Lucy’s eyes as Danny brought her father to life again. She had forgotten how he had loved to whistle.
“We lost everything in the flood,” Danny continued. “Not even a blanket or a tin pot was left. Our tenement and everything in it simply vanished. All that remained of our neighborhood were piles of junk and tons of mud. But at least we got out alive. Your father was a brave man.”
“Thank you. It was very kind of you to tell me your story. I miss my father. You might have been one of the last persons to see him alive.”
“I was on my way over there,” he said, pointing to the levy. “I wanted to see where our apartment used to stand. Want to walk there with me?” He had a kind face, a respectful voice, and Lucy thought that he might be nice looking if he were properly dressed. She glanced back at the crowd and saw that her mother and grandmother were still occupied.
“I would like that,” she replied. They started walking together, with Lucy carefully picking her way in her dainty shoes. He slowed his stride to match hers.
“Do you remember what The Flats used to look like before the flood?” he asked.
“No. I’m sorry, but I was only six years old at the time.”
“Yeah, and you probably weren’t allowed down in this part of town, were you? . . . No, don’t apologize,” he said as she started to. “I don’t blame your family for keeping you away from that place. You probably shouldn’t go near the new workers’ neighborhood they built to replace it, either.”
He halted a few minutes later in the middle of a bare, grassy area and pointed to the place where they stood. “Here. This is where I used to live.”
Lucy glanced around and saw nothing that made this spot of land distinguishable from the rest of the park. “How do you know that this is the place?”
“See that church steeple on the hill across the river?” he asked, pointing to it. “I used to see it from my apartment window. It was straight across the river.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment. “My tenement was three stories tall with four apartments on each floor—packed with people of all ages, shapes, and colors. You could hear three or four languages at a time, and people yelling, laughing, cursing . . . babies crying . . . It seemed like there was always laundry hanging out, day and night, and I remember that our drinking water tasted terrible. But all the families watched out for each other, you know?” He smiled his crooked grin again. Lucy nodded, but she had no idea what he meant.
“Most of the fathers worked at the brickyard or in your tannery. None of us had very much, but it was home. We lived on the top floor, and I loved to watch the boats go by on the river. We’d go for a swim in the summer when our apartment got too hot, and my father used to take me fishing sometimes on Sunday afternoons. That was his only day off. . . . He died in the flood, too.”
Lucy stared at him in surprise. “Why didn’t he get out when you did?”
“He was at work when the alarm sounded. They shut down the brick factory and told everyone to get to higher ground, but he decided to help with the evacuation. They said he was trying to convince two elderly sisters to leave their house. It was further downstream and right on the riverbank. When the logjam at the railroad trestle broke, the river swept the house and all three of them away.”
“I’m so sorry!” Lucy rested her hand on his arm. “It seems we have something in common then, don’t we?” She had never met anyone who truly understood her loss, and she felt a kinship with him.
He raked his fingers through his sandy hair and nodded. “The word hero never meant much to me when I was a kid. It didn’t change the fact that my father was never coming back. I couldn’t understand why he left us. I was furious.”
“I’ve always felt the same way. I would much rather have my father back than have him applauded as a hero. To tell you the truth, I didn’t care about all the people he saved. I didn’t know any of them. I felt like they stole my daddy from me. My eighteenth birthday is coming soon, and he won’t be here to celebrate it with me. The other girls will all get roses from their fathers when we graduate from the female academy in a few months, but my father won’t be there.” She stopped, surprised by the strength of the emotions Danny had stirred. Then she realized what she had just said. “I’m sorry. You were one of those people he saved. I didn’t mean—”
“That’s okay. I know exactly how you feel. For a long time I used to hate those two stubborn old sisters who wouldn’t leave their house. I figured they’d killed my father just as surely as if they’d stabbed a knife through his heart. It probably wasn’t right to hate them, but he was dead and their stubbornness was to blame.”
“I blamed the entire town. I hated the mayor and the police and the firemen—it was their job to save and protect people, not my father’s.” Lucy didn’t say it aloud, but she also blamed her mother. It had been her fault that Daddy went up to the cabin in the first place. If he had stayed home, he never would have known about the dam. He would have been drinking his coffee in bed when the dam burst. But Lucy didn’t tell Danny that part, because if her father had lived, he and his family would have died.
The band played a lively tune in the background as they stood side by side remembering the disaster, and it seemed inappropriate. She suddenly thought of something else. “Your father’s name must be on the new memorial, too.”
“It is. That’s why I came today. I wanted to see it.”
“Well, I would like to see it, too. Will you show it to me?”
“Sure.” They walked back across the grass together, but when Lucy looked closely at the granite marker, she regretted her request. Her father’s name stood above all the others, chiseled in huge letters. She found Henry Carver’s name listed below it in much smaller letters.
“That’s not fair,” she murmured. “They died doing the very same thing.”
“Life is seldom fair, Miss Garner. And you know what else? They put the names of the two spinster sisters my father was trying to save on there, too. See?”
Lucy looked where he pointed and read their names: Elizabeth Dawes, Esther Dawes. I
t seemed so unfair. As Lucy’s memories returned, she recalled how angry and cheated she had felt in the weeks following the flood.
“Our home was a terribly sad place after my father died,” she said. “I was planning a huge party for my seventh birthday, but I never had it. I was going to ask Daddy for a pony—a real one this time, not a wooden one like the one you rode. That probably sounds selfish and petty considering all that you lost, but I was very young and I couldn’t understand all the changes in my life.”
There must have been changes in Danny’s life, too, she realized. How had his family survived? Lucy’s family had income from the tannery, and she hadn’t lost her home. She had never given much thought to all of the people whose homes had been destroyed while hers had been spared. The differences seemed unfair to her now—like the big and little letters on the monument.
“How did you get by after your father died?” she asked. “Where did you live?”
“We managed.” He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, and she recalled the gesture from eleven years ago. “They set up a tent city for a while, and it developed into a sort of shantytown.”
“Who supported your family?”
When Danny didn’t answer right away, Lucy was sorry she had asked. He looked away but not before she saw his cheeks flush. “My mother found work. And I did odd jobs and things—delivering ice and newspapers, running errands. I took a job at the brickyard when I was fourteen. They thought I was much older.”
“Lucy!” She whirled at the sound of her grandmother’s voice. “It’s time to leave.”
“Good-bye, Daniel. Thank you—” But before Lucy could finish, Grandmother Garner gripped her arm and yanked her away.
“Why in the world were you talking to that person?” Her voice sounded as cold and hard as the monument stone. “Don’t you know it’s unseemly to talk to such people?”
“He was telling me about Daddy. He said that Daddy rescued him from the flood and saved his life.”
“You can’t believe a word those people say. They’ll tell you anything to win your trust.”
“But it’s true, Grandmama. Danny’s father died in the flood, too. He was helping Daddy save people. I saw his name on the marker.”
Grandmother didn’t seem to be listening. “It’s bad enough that your mother fraternizes with those people, which is why she isn’t invited to all of the places that you and I are. But you mustn’t ruin it for yourself the way she did. Come along now.”
Lucy glanced over her shoulder as her grandmother led her away, but Daniel Carver had disappeared in the milling crowd. As Lucy rode home in the carriage, her heart felt lighter in spite of the somber occasion and the memories it had evoked. For the first time in her life, she had met someone who understood the loss she had lived with for so many years—someone who understood that a father couldn’t be remembered in a granite marker and flowered wreaths.
CHAPTER
23
Lucy was reading a book in her room a few evenings later when one of the servants interrupted her. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Lucy, but there is someone at the back door asking to speak with you. He is not a respectable gentleman and I refused to let him in the house, but he insisted that I—”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“Yes, Miss Lucy. Daniel Carver.” Lucy’s skin prickled and warmed as if she had stepped into a tub of steaming water. “Shall I send him away, Miss Lucy?”
“No! I’ll speak with him.” Lucy found it hard not to run. She used the servants’ stairs to get to the back door, aware that her grandmother would never allow Danny into her house, nor would she want Lucy speaking with him. She couldn’t say exactly what drew her, but her heart raced as if she had run up all those steps instead of down them.
Danny Carver smiled when he saw her, his admiration as clear as his gaze, then he snatched off his hat and lowered his head. “Excuse me for bothering you again, Miss Garner, but after we talked the other day I remembered something that’s been eating at me all these years.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small lump of wood, handing it to her. It took Lucy a moment to recognize it as a toy boxcar just like the one that had belonged to her little wooden train.
“It’s yours,” he said. “I stole it from your playroom eleven years ago. I’ve felt sorry about it ever since and more than a little guilty, but I was too ashamed to walk all the way up here and return it to you. Besides, my life was . . . Well, things were pretty hard after the flood. But anyway, I wanted to give it back to you. I knew it was wrong to steal.”
“Then why did you take it?”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. She followed him as he turned and walked a few paces into the garden, then hoisted himself onto the low stone wall. She remained standing.
“I don’t really know why I took it. But this house, all your toys and things, all the food . . . it felt like a dream. I guess I wanted something that would help me remember that it was real. Then when I found out we’d lost everything in the flood . . . I don’t know, but for a long time that little boxcar was the only thing I owned. My father was dead, and it reminded me of him for some reason. And I didn’t want to forget him.”
“To tell you the truth, I never even noticed it was missing. I had so much more.” She spun one of the little wooden wheels with her finger, aware that she took for granted her way of life and all her possessions. It occurred to her that she was the one who should feel guilty, not Daniel.
Lucy was silent for so long that Daniel finally slid off the wall, brushing dirt from the seat of his pants, and said, “I guess I should go.”
“No, wait! I-I enjoyed talking with you the other day.”
He smiled his crooked grin. “Yeah, me too.”
“Tell me more about yourself. Where do you live now? What’s your life like?”
“There isn’t much to tell. I’ve worked in the brickyard for the past six years—”
“Six years? How old are you? And what about school?”
His only reply was a shake of his head as he hoisted his lanky body onto the wall again. “I live in a boardinghouse in New Town— that’s the workingman’s part of town that they built to replace The Flats. And I’m twenty.”
“Do you live all alone? What about your family?”
“I don’t have one, really. My baby sister died the first winter after the flood, and my brother, Jake, has been on his own almost as long as I have. We don’t see our mother much.”
The tragedy he had faced made Lucy feel ashamed of her pampered life. She was glad that the darkness hid her flushed cheeks. “Why did you let me go on and on about not having a seventh birthday party or a new pony?”
“Because I don’t think grief and loss are something you can measure, Miss Garner. We both have a hole in our childhood where our fathers used to be, and that makes us alike, no matter how different we are.”
“Please, call me Lucy.”
“If you want.” Except for his first glance, Danny had averted his eyes the entire time he’d talked to her, as if he’d been taught that laborers didn’t look wealthy young ladies in the eye. But he looked at her now in a way that made her heart pound.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked. He shook his head, his gaze still fastened on her. Lucy knew how to make polite conversation, but she struggled for something to say. “Do you enjoy your work?”
“Not really. It’s boring and backbreaking. But I consider myself lucky to have a job at all. Especially with all the new immigrants coming to town who would gladly do my job for less money.”
“Is there some other job you’d rather have in the future?”
He scratched his head. “I guess I just don’t think that way, Lucy. I know what you’re really trying to ask—what am I looking forward to in the future, what do I hope for and all that. You mentioned yesterday that you were graduating from school soon, so I assume you’re looking forward to starting something new. But things don’t work that way for people like me. If
we have a decent job, we hang on to it. Maybe we’ll wind up as foreman someday and make a little extra money, maybe not. But from where I stand, the future looks pretty much like the present, so why waste time trying to see into it?”
His words appalled Lucy. “How can you live without hope?”
He gave his now-familiar shrug. “I guess you don’t miss what you never had.”
“You’ve lived your entire life without hope?”
“Pretty much. I used to hope that my father would come back, but that didn’t get me anywhere. And for a while I hoped that my mother would change, but . . .” He looked away.
“Let me help you, Danny. I can talk to our foreman at the tannery and see if he can get you a better job, and—”
He held up his hands to stop her. “Don’t start down that road, Lucy. It isn’t going to take me anywhere. Believe me, I know.”
“I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“Listen, why don’t you tell me more about your life?”
“Because it seems shallow and selfish beside yours.”
“I would still like to hear about it. If you want to be friends, that is.”
“Yes, I really would like to be friends. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who understands how I’ve felt all these years about losing my father.”
“Good. Then tell me what it’s like to be Miss Lucy Garner.”
“Well . . . I live here with my mother and grandmother. I don’t have any sisters or brothers.” She could hear the apologetic tone of her voice and was certain that Danny could hear it, too. “I attend a small, private female academy here in town—I’ll graduate in a few months.”
“What do they teach you in school?”
She was ashamed to tell him she was taking classes in French and watercolor painting and piano. “I like geography,” she said, instead. “It’s interesting to learn about other countries. Grandmama said that I might—” Lucy stopped, embarrassed to say that they had talked about traveling to Europe someday. “My grandmother has been to Paris,” she amended, “and she says it is very beautiful.”