“Mrs. Fleming, it’s Kathleen Collins. Why didn’t you send someone for me?” Kathleen asked, forgetting Lily had been sent for last week.
“Ma said she wasn’t sick enough. She seemed to be doing better than last week, but then yesterday she took a really bad turn. The doctor had to come,” Jess said, her face white with shock and grief. Kathleen gave the ten-year old a quick hug.
Kathleen knew that families in these tenements didn’t send for the doctor unless it was really serious. They couldn’t afford his fees.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“He said there was nothing to be done. She will be gone by nightfall,” Jess repeated tonelessly.
Kathleen gaped at the child who didn’t appear to understand the harsh reality of the words she was repeating. Her eyes rose to meet those of Mr. Fleming and she saw he agreed with the doctor’s assessment.
“Children, leave me be. I want to talk to Kathleen. Alone.” Mrs. Fleming took an age to get the one sentence out, punctuating each word with a cough. “You too, Dave.”
Kathleen waited for Dave Fleming to escort his children outside. Then she moved closer to her friend, taking Mrs. Fleming’s hand in hers.
Mrs. Fleming tried to take her hand back. “You shouldn’t touch me, love, don’t know if it’s catching.” Mrs. Fleming coughed into a rag. Kathleen spotted the fresh blood. Still, she moved closer to the woman who had stood by her family when they needed help. She held Mrs. Fleming’s hand tighter, wanting to erase the fear from her eyes.
“What can I do for you?” Kathleen asked. “Why didn’t you send for me?”
“I thought I had more time. I didn’t think it would take me so fast. My mam and gran had it, but with them it took years. Kathleen. My children. Will you make sure they are looked after? Dave will be able to cope with the elder boys, but he won’t know how to deal with the young ‘uns. The girls, they need a ma. They need….”
“Shush now, the girls will be just fine as will the rest of the family. We will look after them. Would you like some water?”
Kathleen held Mrs. Fleming up so she could take a small sip of water. She couldn’t believe how light the woman was. She had faded away to almost nothing. Why hadn’t she come to see the Flemings a couple of weeks ago? She might have been able to do something for them.
“Kathleen, can you ask.…” The woman struggled to get the words out. It took every ounce of her strength to speak.
“What is it?”
“Ask Father Nelson to bury me in a decent grave. I have the money put by. I couldn’t care less where they put me but, Dave, he will insist on it. Don’t let him waste money though. I don’t need the best casket or any of the trimmings. Heaven don’t care about those things, but my family does.”
Kathleen swallowed hard, the woman was being so brave. She nodded her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“I think you best send them back in, dear. Thank you.”
“Oh, Mrs. Fleming, after everything you did for my family, I wish there was something I could do for you,” Kathleen whispered, her voice shaking with the effort to stop her tears.
“There is. My girls.”
Kathleen shouted for Dave to come back, not wanting the woman to die without her family by her side. She pulled out of the way and left the little family to it. She had to go and tell Lily and Bella.
Chapter 4
New York
Careful not to touch Lily for fear of carrying germs, she outlined what was happening. Lily paled, her hands going to her mouth.
“Mrs. Fleming? Why didn’t she send us word when I didn’t come last week? Why didn’t she send for me again? Tell me it was urgent.”
“She said she thought she had more time. She is worried about her family. I said we would look after them.”
“Of course, we will. Dave Fleming is a wonderful husband and father. He will be just fine with a little bit of help from us and his neighbors. I’m sure once people know they will help too.”
Kathleen would have once agreed with Lily. When she lived here, neighbors tried to help each other. But times were even tougher now, there was less work and thus less money to go around. The people might have great intentions, but intentions couldn’t make a dollar stretch further. When you were struggling to feed and keep a roof over your own family, charity wasn’t something you could afford.
They didn’t have to wait long. The wails of the children told them their friend had passed on.
“Tommy, take Lily home please,” Kathleen said. “This is no place for her.”
“What about you, Kathleen?” Lily asked, looking concerned.
“I am fine. I will stay with the Flemings. Tommy can escort you home, and Mini Mike can go for Father Nelson. You heard what the doctor said, Lily. You need to be especially careful.”
“I will stay too. There might be something I can do,” Bella said quickly. Kathleen gave her a grateful look before turning back to Lily.
Kathleen could see Lily was fighting the will to protect her child with her need to be there for their friend. “Mrs. Fleming wouldn’t want you to risk the babe. Go. I will be fine. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Kathleen took the basket of things from Mini Mike and turned to go back into the Flemings’. She took a second to say a quiet prayer for the woman who had done her best to shelter and protect the Collins family when they needed her. It was time for her to repay the favor by making sure her young ones were looked after.
Twin girls looked up as Kathleen and Bella made their way inside. She hadn’t noticed them before. Given their age, she assumed they were friends of Helen Fleming, Mrs. Fleming’s youngest daughter. The twins were visibly upset.
Kathleen bent down to greet them. “Girls, maybe you should go home. Mrs. Fleming has died and her family need time to say goodbye.”
“We don’t got a home,” one of the girls said. “Not anymore. We were staying here.”
Kathleen looked into the girl’s eyes and saw she was telling the truth. The poor child looked scared to bits, but she was trying to be brave, holding her sister’s hand tight.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. My name is Kathleen Collins. Mrs. Fleming once looked after my family too.”
“She was a really nice lady. Da said she would look after us. What’s going to happen now?”
Kathleen didn’t know. She doubted Dave Fleming would be able to mind his own brood, without worrying about extras.
“I will check with Mr. Fleming. But for now, why don’t you sit down and have a cookie. They were baked today and are delicious.”
The girls rubbed their hands on their dresses before taking the cookies.
“You go into your friends. I will stay with these girls,” Bella said. “I don’t want to go inside as I don’t know the family.”
“Thanks, Bella,” Kathleen whispered before she hurried into the room where the family sat around the bed. Mrs. Fleming would need to be laid out. She caught Colm Fleming’s eye and motioned the lad over to her. They were of a similar age.
“Colm, I am so sorry for your loss. Your ma was a good woman.”
“Thanks, Kathleen. I wish I’d known how bad she was, but she hid it.”
“Mothers are like that,” Kathleen added softly, thinking of her own mam. “Colm, there are twin girls outside. They said they live here.”
“Aye, Megan and Eileen, Tom Doyle’s six-year-old young ‘uns. Tom went blind in an accident down the mill years back. His missus left about a year after and took the baby with her. Nobody knows where she went. Ma took the twins in as Tom couldn’t handle them anymore. He said he would come back with some money, but he never showed up.”
“So, they’ve been abandoned?”
Colm looked around to check no one was listening.
“Don’t tell the Priest, but rumor has it Mrs. Doyle done away with herself. Ma said Tom was sick with grief. Said the girls would be better off here, but now…Da won’t be able to mind them too. You will have to take them.”
“Me?”
“To Lily Doherty. Your Bridget took a train load of orphans away last year. The Doyle girls need a home.”
Kathleen thought of the two little ones outside and her heart melted. Six years old and all they had was each other.
“Sorry, Kathleen, but what else can we do?” Colm asked. “I can’t mind them. I got a job on the railways. I was lucky after all the closures ‘cause of the crash in shares. Da has his hands full here.”
“I know, Colm. Best of luck with the job. I will stay here, but Bella, my friend, will take the twins to Lily.”
“I miss you, Kathleen.” His cheeks flushed as it hit him what he had said. “I mean, I miss all of you, Shane most of all. Tell him I said hello when you next hear from him.”
Kathleen found herself nodding. Colm gave her hand a gentle squeeze before taking his place back with his family. They were saying the prayers for the dead.
Chapter 5
New York
“Miss, what’s going to happen to us?”
Bella looked down at the little girl, her arm wrapped around her sister, both faces smeared with cookies.
“I don’t know, Megan, isn’t it?” she asked the one who had spoken.
The girl nodded.
“My friend Kathleen will be back in a minute.”
To her relief, Kathleen didn’t take long inside the small room. “Bella, can you take the twins back to the sanctuary. I need to stay here and help the family. I might be all night.”
“Are you sure I can’t do anything to help you?” Bella asked, despite not wanting to go inside. Dead bodies scared her.
“Thank you, but no. You take the girls, that’s helping me. I will see you later.”
The twins looked between Bella and Kathleen.
“We don’t want to leave. We want to stay here, our da knows we are here. He said he’d come back.”
Bella exchanged a quick look with Kathleen before kneeling, so she would be on the same level as Megan.
“Megan, we can’t stay here as lots of people will come to say goodbye to Mrs. Fleming. I am going to take you to where we live and give you some dinner. You can stay with us for a few nights, and if your da comes, someone will tell him where you are.”
“I’ll tell him, Megan. You go on with these nice ladies. That’s what Mam would have wanted you to do,” a red-haired lad with freckles said.
“Thanks, Colm,” Kathleen answered. “Can you go for the midwife for me please. Someone needs to see to your mam.”
The young man was gone before Bella could offer her condolences.
“That was Colm Fleming, he and my brother Shane were once best friends,” Kathleen explained before turning to go back into the room.
Bella took the girls’ hands and walked them slowly back to the sanctuary. Tommy came with them despite her protests.
“Ain’t safe for you to be walking the streets, Miss Bella. That’s for sure,” he mumbled. She didn’t argue with him but insisted he go back to wait for Kathleen once he had something to eat. She didn’t want anything to happen to her friend.
The twins didn’t seem hungry, so she took them upstairs where she gave them a bath and put them to bed. They wanted to share a bed, so she decided to give them the bed in her room. Eileen cried but Megan didn’t shed a tear which worried Bella. She wondered how the twins had ended up with Mrs. Fleming.
“Please don’t leave us. We don’t like the dark,” Megan said quietly.
“I won’t leave you. I will sleep here on the floor,” she promised. She told them a story until they fell asleep. She watched the two little innocent faces and wondered what life had in store for them now.
Thankful Bella had taken the twins, Kathleen waited for the midwife. The same woman did the birthing and laying out of the dead. But Colm sent word to say she was at a birth so wouldn’t be able to come till morning. Annoyed Colm didn’t make an appearance, Kathleen wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t leave Mrs. Fleming; even in death the woman deserved her dignity. She would have been the first to ensure a body was decent when the priest arrived. So, Kathleen boiled some water on the stove, then asked Dave Fleming to leave. They left Jess, Mrs. Fleming’s ten-year-old, with Kathleen.
Together they washed the woman down and changed her into a clean shift. They couldn’t do anything about the bed, it being the only one in the house.
Father Nelson arrived soon after. Before he got a chance to walk inside to Mrs. Fleming, Kathleen explained she had asked Bella to take the Doyle girls to the sanctuary.
“Good idea, Kathleen, we will deal with them tomorrow. I can’t believe she’s gone. She was a wonderful woman.”
Father Nelson smiled at her, but Kathleen could see the older man was deeply affected by the death of Mrs. Fleming. The warm-hearted woman had been the soul of this community.
Chapter 6
New York
Bella went looking for Kathleen the next morning having asked Cook to look after the Doyle girls. She left the twins tucking into big bowls of creamy porridge with added cream and sugar. Cook had taken one look at the little ones and decided they needed fattening up.
She found Kathleen in the sewing room.
“I thought you would be with the Flemings. Don’t you have to go to the funeral?” Bella asked, wanting to hug Kathleen but she didn’t feel able. She was getting better at showing her feelings, but this didn’t extend to physical displays of affection.
“It’s tomorrow morning. Mrs. Fleming has a sister who is coming, and Dave’s brother will be back from his trip too. They thought it best to wait,” Kathleen replied, the red circles around her eyes showing she had been crying. She looked shattered.
“Why don’t you go back to bed? I can do your quota,” Bella offered.
“You have your own work to do but thank you. I will be fine. Losing Mrs. Fleming, it got me thinking about my own family. Mam and Da.”
Bella wasn’t sure how to respond. She had never known her da and she only had a vague memory of a mother figure. She picked up her work and went to sit at her machine. Then she remembered the twins.
“What should I do with the girls? I let them sleep in my room last night. Cook is with them now.”
Kathleen looked unsure. “I guess we should ask Mrs. Wilson or Lily.”
“Lily won’t be here today according to Cook. Mrs. Wilson will be in later,” Bella volunteered before threading the needle for her machine. “I could bring in a blanket and some toys left over from the last group of kids. They could play over there. I don’t think the other ladies will mind. Especially under the circumstances. They are bound to know Mrs. Fleming.”
“Good idea. I will go fetch them,” Kathleen suggested.
Bella was glad Kathleen went to get the girls. Although she felt sorry for them and didn’t regret letting them share her bed, she didn’t want to get too close to them. Children didn’t last long in the sanctuary. They either went back to their parents or they joined orphan trains and were sent west. She didn’t want to risk getting hurt. But the twins called to her. She felt for them in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for Jacob, Lizzie, or any of the other children who had lived at the sanctuary since she’d arrived.
She had to be careful. The twins were so sweet and lovable she could already tell giving them up to their new home would be difficult. And that was only after one day. Disgusted at her weakness, she put her head down and got to work.
Sometime later, Kathleen returned with the girls who played on the blanket while the women worked. The atmosphere in the room was strained as Bella had expected it to be. Most of the women knew Mrs. Fleming personally or by reputation. Her loss would leave its mark. Bella couldn’t help thinking how different it would be if she were to die. Who would mourn her? Kathleen would, maybe even Lily as they had grown closer over the last few months. Bridget, Kathleen’s sister had advised Bella to trust Lily and she’d been right. But still only two people in the whole world would mourn at her funeral.
Some legacy she would leave.
“What has you looking so glum, Bella?” Kathleen asked, her face a mask of concern. “You didn’t know Mrs. Fleming. Has her death reminded you of someone special?”
“No, not really. I was just thinking about who would be at my funeral if I were to die.”
Kathleen paled in front of her. She didn’t get a chance to apologize as her friend admonished her.
“Mary Mother of Jesus, why would you be thinking something like that now? You are young and healthy. Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella. I won’t let it.”
Chapter 7
New York
Kathleen looked around the church, packed to the rafters for the funeral service, and afterwards the large procession followed the coffin to the graveyard. Closing her eyes, she could picture the smile on her neighbor’s face knowing all these people turned out to pay their respects. She wouldn’t have believed she was so highly thought of. That was what made Mrs. Fleming special. She did everything for others because it was the right thing to do, not because of how it made her look.
Mrs. Fleming was laid to rest surrounded by her family, neighbors, and the families of all those she had helped over the years. There were so many people who came up to Dave Fleming afterward to pass on their condolences and tell him how his wife had helped them.
“I knew Darlene was special, but I had no idea she helped so many. She had a heart the size of Texas,” Mr. Fleming told Kathleen. “That was where she was from, you know. Her pa settled there after the war. I should have stayed in Texas, but they said there were more opportunities in New York. But that was a lie. Never could give her the life she deserved, and now she’s gone.”
“She loved you and her family, Mr. Fleming. I never saw her without a big smile on her face. She was happy.”
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