I had brought him clean trousers and a shirt earlier, which he hung on hooks that funeral-goers used to hang their coats on, and which are as far from the bodies as they can be. He had come into the sitting room because he’d wanted to hear for himself what Mrs. Arnold told Maggie we were supposed to do with the child.
Maggie repeated to him what she had told Dora Sutcliff and me when I was boiling the baby bottles. I already knew that Mrs. Arnold had said there were more orphans in Philadelphia than people willing to take them, so I watched Maggie’s face instead of listening to her words.
A girl can always tell when something is not quite right with her sister. I know there is something Maggie is not telling us about how she found the baby. She says she can’t remember in which row house the baby lay crying because finding his dead mother upset her. Mrs. Arnold, Uncle Fred, and even Mama believe her. But I don’t. I think she does remember where she found him. I just can’t figure out why she is pretending she doesn’t.
At first I thought maybe it was because she did see evidence that a father lived there, and she’d lied about not seeing any. I was thinking all the rest of the afternoon we’d hear from the police that a distraught father had come home from work to find his poor wife dead and his baby missing. But there has been no telephone call like that. No father has contacted the police to report a missing baby and apparently no grandparent or aunt or neighbor or friend has, either.
I’ve been wondering how that can be. When that woman’s body was carted away by the authorities—surely someone noticed she was dead—didn’t they see the cradle in her front room and wonder where her baby was? And since there has been no telephone call from the police, does that mean no one has found her yet, or have they found her but no one cares that there is an empty cradle in her house? Or maybe they think her baby already died. Uncle Fred told me seven thousand people in Philadelphia are dead from the flu. Seven thousand people in just eleven days. What’s one more immigrant woman and her fatherless child?
The baby grins at me now and gurgles a sweet, little sound. Maggie leans down and snuggles him, and his smile widens. He is so very much like Henry. Not in the shape of his nose or chin or mouth. It’s that smile and innocent gaze that are Henry’s. I look at this baby and I want to forget what I’ve been pondering all day. I want to push away any and all questions about why no one has reported him missing and why Maggie says she can’t remember where she found him. I want to forget that the plague that so disinterestedly brought him to us is at this very minute wanting to snatch away Willa. I just want to forget every terrible thing that is happening in the world right now and love this little child whom Maggie rescued.
Maggie looks up at me. “Isn’t he precious?”
And the words “Tell me why you’re lying,” which sit unspoken on my lips, just fall away like they’d never been there at all.
CHAPTER 28
Maggie
I don’t want Evie’s help with the baby during the night, but when he starts crying a little after two and I’m struggling to hold him and get a bottle ready, I’m glad when she comes downstairs to help me. So is Uncle Fred. He comes out to the kitchen ahead of Evie, looking like Ebenezer Scrooge in his long underwear, and asks me if I’ve dropped the baby in hot oil, for the love of God.
“That’s just how babies cry when they’re hungry!” I tell him, feeling a little exasperated by his question with the baby in one arm while I fiddle with getting a saucepan onto the stove. I have no idea how I am going to light the burner, because Uncle Fred is already turning to go back to his bedroom. But then Evie appears in the kitchen, passing Uncle Fred as he shuffles out. She doesn’t say a word; she just takes the baby so I can light the stove and pour the milk in the pan.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I wasn’t asleep anyway.” She pats the baby’s back and shushes him, swaying back and forth like she’s a hammock in a breeze.
“Suppose Mama is awake, too?” When I came down the stairs with the crying baby, I couldn’t hear anything else but the baby’s wails.
“I don’t think so. It’s been quiet in Willa’s room, so a little while ago, I opened the door a tiny bit and peeked inside.”
“You did?” That surprises me. Evie always follows the rules. Mama had clearly told us to stay out of Willa’s room.
“I just wanted to see if . . . if she needed anything,” Evie says.
I stir the milk and wait.
“Mama is asleep, half in a chair, half on Willa’s bed,” she continues.
“And Willa?”
“She’s asleep, too.”
“You’re sure?” I can’t look at her. I just keep my eyes on the milk.
“She’s sleeping.”
Evie hums softly to the baby as I fill the bottle and then test the temperature on my wrist. I reach for the baby and she hands him to me without a word. I stick the nipple into his mouth and he starts to suck greedily. As I walk into the sitting room to sit in Uncle Fred’s big, cozy chair, I hear Evie wash up the milk pan and then head back upstairs.
I don’t mean to fall asleep in that big chair with the baby in my arms, but that’s what happens. When I wake, it is just before dawn. I can hear Willa coughing above me.
When I take the baby into the kitchen to start warming his milk before he starts crying for it, there is Mama, standing at the stove waiting for the teakettle to whistle. I come to a stop at the doorway. She snaps her head in my direction.
“Stay right there, Maggie,” she says, softly but urgently. “I don’t want you or him near me. I’ll be done here in just a minute or two.”
“How is Willa?” I ask.
“Her fever doesn’t seem quite as high this morning. So. There’s that.” She purses her lips together like she doesn’t want to say anything that might change that fact somehow. The kettle begins to sing and she takes it off the flame and pours the hot water into a teacup where she has a little brass steeper waiting. The steeper is in the shape of a pudgy cat. I’ve always liked it. She sets the kettle down on the stove and twirls the steeper. I smell Earl Grey. Then she looks at me. “You’re going back out with Mrs. Arnold today?”
“She said she’d be back for me first thing this morning.”
“I know yesterday was a difficult day for you, but it’s very important that you try to remember which house it was. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mama,” I say, very glad that she didn’t ask me to promise that I will do my best to remember. She asked me if I understood. I understand perfectly. “He may not have anyone else, though,” I add.
“I know that. But we must make sure. Because we know what it’s like to lose a child, don’t we?”
I nod. I understand that perfectly, too. “No one has called the police department about him.”
“Yes. Uncle Fred told me that.”
The baby makes a little waking sound. Soon he’ll be fussing for a bottle. Mama withdraws the steeping ball even though it hasn’t been in the cup long enough.
“Mrs. Arnold told me the city has too many orphans and not enough foster families to care for them,” I say. “The orphanages are all full.”
“Maggie—”
“They are! He’s going to need a home, Mama!”
She lets out a long breath as she sets the pudgy brass cat on a saucer. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re the ones who should be giving him one.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t it be us? We have the room. We even have the clothes and the diapers!”
I hadn’t meant for that to hurt her, but I think it did a little. She flinches, same as when you touch something that is hotter than you think it will be. I want to say I’m sorry, but she speaks again before I can.
“Let’s just consider all this one day at a time. If Mrs. Arnold thinks the authorities would appreciate us taking this child, then—”
“She already told
me they would.”
Mama goes on as if I hadn’t rudely interrupted her. “Then we can talk to Uncle Fred and we can write to Papa and we can see if it’s the right thing to do for the child. It has to be about what’s best for him, Margaret, not about what’s best for us.” She picks up her cup. “You need to step aside now so I can get back upstairs.”
I move away from the entrance to the kitchen. Mama comes through the doorway and looks down on the baby from several feet away. Despite the motherly smile, I see exhaustion and worry and distress on her face.
“Willa’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”
Mama just nods and turns from me to head for the stairs.
• • •
I wait all morning and half the afternoon for Mrs. Arnold and she never comes for me. Uncle Fred finally sends me down to the church to see what is keeping her. I find Miss Heloise in the kitchen with a group of ladies who are washing up soup jars just brought back from their mercy missions. Boxes of groceries have just been delivered and more dirty jars are being brought in by old men in felt caps.
“Oh!” Miss Heloise says when I ask for Mrs. Arnold. “She’s not here. She’s home sick. I’m afraid she took ill last night.”
“She’s sick? With the flu?”
“I’m afraid so. What is it you need, dear?” She moves about the kitchen like it is on fire.
“Well, I . . .” My voice just falls away when I realize Heloise is now so busy with all Mrs. Arnold’s responsibilities heaped on her that she’s forgotten all about the baby.
“Did you come to tell me your mother can resume taking food down to South Street? We missed her today.”
“She can’t right now. My sister’s not feeling well.”
Someone calls her name. She pats my shoulder. “Oh. I see. Sorry to hear that. All right, then. I’m sure I can find someone else.”
She tells me, sweetly, to run along home, she is so very busy.
When I get back to the house, Evie is playing with the baby in the sitting room and Uncle Fred is making coffee for himself and a crew of grave diggers the city has sent over to load up a truckload of decaying bodies.
“Well?” he says, but I can tell he is too busy to talk to me about what to do with the baby, which is fine with me because the answer to the problem is clear as day. The adults are making it much too complicated.
“Mrs. Arnold wasn’t there.”
“So now what?” He pours coffee into a cup. “I haven’t heard back from the police, you know. No one’s asking about that child.”
“Mama said this morning we need to think about keeping him,” I answer. “The orphanages are all full and he probably doesn’t have any other family. We’re all that he has now.”
“I suppose,” he says, and turns from me to pour more coffee.
I can’t help smiling a teensy bit at those two words as I make my way to where Evie and the baby are.
There will be no more trips to South Street with Mrs. Arnold—or anyone else. Willa is going to get well, the flu is going to go away, the war is going to be won, Papa and Jamie will be coming home, and the baby is going to be ours.
CHAPTER 29
Willa
I’m so cold. Is it still daytime? Where’s Evie?
I want Mama.
I’m so cold.
• • •
Mama touches me and I don’t want her to. Her hands are like fireplace pokers.
Don’t touch me. Why is there ice in my bed?
She holds a cup to my lips, but I don’t want a drink. Leave me alone.
I want Papa.
Make it stop.
• • •
Someone pulls back my blanket and it hurts. My heart hurts. My arms. My neck. Someone tries to bend close to me and I push them away. My throat hurts. My heart. My head.
Flossie, how did you get in here?
She has a new parasol. Pink with lace and ribbons. She laughs and runs through the grass. I see birds.
Don’t touch me.
It is nighttime.
It is daytime.
Flossie?
Shhhh, Mama says, I’m right here.
• • •
I hear a baby crying.
Henry.
I try to sit up. I want to see Henry. I want to see him!
But a dragon pins me to my bed with his sharp claws. His mouth is full of fire.
Henry!
I cough out fire.
I’m the dragon.
CHAPTER 30
Pauline
Three days after falling into the abyss, Willa climbs out. She had at last heard me calling, felt my strong arms around her, and obeyed my command that she find her way back to me. I haven’t left her side except to fetch food and water and use the toilet. It was my duty to stay at the very edge of where she’d fallen and, if need be, dive in after her.
When she wakes just now, I can tell the sickness has released her. She has come back to me.
The scarlet glassy-eyed stare is gone, and her eyes once again shine clear like the sky, blue and beautiful. The gray tinge to her skin, which is now cool to my touch, is gone, too. The cough lingers, but it no longer sounds like the screeching of a wounded animal. The worst is over, and though she is as weak as a newborn kitten, my darling Willa has survived.
As I cry tears of joy at her whispered request for pancakes with blackberry syrup, I know this time I have not failed. I battled for my child and I prevailed. With Henry I had beseeched the heavens—for days on end—that he might be spared. But it was as if I had voiced no protest at all. Death had come for him anyway. Willa returned to me is the proof that I have somehow convinced my companion to leave her be. Perhaps during these months that Death has trailed me, and as I’ve labored to understand its nature, it has grown to care for me. Is such a thing even possible? It seems profane to even think it. After all this time together, and despite all that has happened, I am sure now that Death is not the enemy, but something else surely is. My companion has been suggesting to me month after month since Henry died that it spreads its reach with the tender embrace of an angel, not the talons of a demon. But I still don’t understand why.
I am so grateful Willa was spared, but why does it come for the young and innocent at all? Why does it not wait until the body is old and gray and full of years? As a dull ache in my bones and heat under my skin starts to spread, I want to call out to the room, “What is it you want?”
Because I still do not know.
I can feel the fever creeping over me as just outside Willa’s door, the orphan child makes a happy, cooing sound. Maggie or Evelyn is taking him downstairs for a bottle or breakfast or maybe just to hold him and sing nursery songs to him.
“I hear a baby,” Willa whispers now. “Is it Henry? Am I in heaven?”
I smile down on her. “No, sweetheart. You are not in heaven. You are home. And we have a guest with us. A little baby. He’s not Henry, but he’s very sweet. He’s staying with us right now.”
Interest gleams in her eyes. “I want to see him.”
“When you’re all better.”
“What’s his name?”
I shake my head, the simplest of moves, but arcs of pain spiral across my head and shoulders. “I don’t know. We might have to give him one while he’s here.”
Willa thinks on this for a moment. The room begins to sway.
“I like Alex. Can we call him Alex?” she says.
I want to grab Willa’s blanket and wrap it about me. A chill in the room has turned to an icy blast. “Alex is a nice name,” I mumble as I try to stand.
“Mama?”
“I need to see about your pancakes, love. You just stay put and I’ll—”
Then I hear the shattering of porcelain.
I’ve fallen across the nightstand where a teacup had been sitting.
As the room tilts, I remember it had been one of Fred’s mother’s teacups and I am sad that I’ve broken it.
The flu has released my daughter, but now it has sunk its teeth into me. I feel its jaws tightening, and my body’s inability to deflect it. As the world goes sideways, my companion seems to lean toward me as if to cushion my fall.
Just before my head hits the floor, I whisper the question I had seconds earlier wanted to shout. “What do you want?”
And as the room darkens I hear the answer.
I will show you.
CHAPTER 31
Evelyn
I am woken by the sound of china breaking and the thump of something heavy hitting the floor in Willa’s room. Tendrils of daylight are spilling onto my coverlet from the gaps in the curtains. The street below my bedroom window is quiet.
What comes to mind first is the sickening image of Willa lying unmoving in her bed and Mama rousing from sleep to find that our little girl has died in the night. The bedside table has overturned as Mama throws herself upon Willa’s lifeless body and the contents atop it have flown off, some of them breaking. I have no sooner pictured this horrible scene than I hear Willa cry out Mama’s name, rather than the other way around.
I spring from my bed and throw open my bedroom door, nearly crashing into Maggie, who is flying up the stairs with a wide-eyed baby in her arms.
“Stay there,” I command, and Maggie takes a step back as I yank open Willa’s bedroom door.
Mama is crumpled on the floor by Willa’s bed. Pieces of a broken teacup lie around her head. Her face is pale and a tiny trickle of blood is seeping out of a thin line on her forehead where a porcelain shard has cut her. Willa is half sitting up in her bed, her pale face creased with worry. But even in a swift glance, I can see my sister is better. Her eyes are bright and clear and her skin a faint peach color.
“She just fell over,” Willa whispers, her voice full of fear.
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