In the Shadow of Blackbirds(78)

Human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours.

The phrase spurred me onward to the kitchen.

Human beings have always managed to find …

It sliced through the onions with eight swift beats.

… The. Great. Est. Strength. With. In. Them. Selves …

It rustled in the papery onion skins shuffling in a pouch made of my nightgown’s skirt.

… during the darkest hours. Human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours.

I lifted the blankets off my aunt.

“No,” she screamed. “It’s too cold. Kalt! Kalt!”

“I’m smothering you in onions. You’d do the same for me, and you know it.”

I scattered the onion halves over her upper body while she pulled her knees to her stomach and hacked and shivered. More blood gushed out of her nose, this time in a stronger flow. I wiped her up again and changed her pillowcase, but she stained the new case within five seconds. I attempted to give her an aspirin for the fever, but she threw it up.

“I should call a doctor.”

Human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours.

Back in the kitchen I picked up the telephone’s black, horn-shaped earpiece and turned the crank on its boxy oak body. It took a hundred years for the operator to answer.

“Number, please,” said a female voice at the other end.

“I need a doctor.”

“A specific doctor?”

“Any doctor. My aunt’s sick with the flu, and her nose won’t stop bleeding.”

“Is it a dangerous level of blood loss?”

“I don’t …” I massaged my eyes. “Yes—it seems dangerous. She’s burning up with a fever and throwing up, too. I can’t give her an aspirin.”

“I’m afraid most doctors are too busy to answer their phones right now. I’ll try connecting you to an ambulance dispatcher. One moment, please.”

A series of clicks traveled down the line, and all I could think about was how swiftly time was passing. The cuckoo clock would be striking six in the morning in three minutes.

A man from the San Diego Police Department picked up, but he told me I’d have to wait at least twelve hours before an ambulance would be available.

“I hear sirens outside my house,” I shouted into the mouthpiece. “Why can’t one of those ambulances just stop by and get my aunt?”

“Because they’re already being used to transport other patients. We’ll put her name and address on a list and get a car there as soon as possible.”

“What if she dies before then?”

“Then cover her with a sheet and put her outside. A separate ambulance is making the rounds to pick up bodies.”

I hung up on the man and pressed my forehead against the telephone’s sharp wooden edge. “This can’t be happening. It’s too much.” I whacked the green wall with my fist. The sensation felt exquisite, so I whacked it again until the cuckoo clock bounced off its nail and splintered on the floor. The second hand still ticked, so I stomped on the clock’s face with my bare foot and kicked the contraption across the kitchen, where it cracked against the icebox with a terrific crash.

The ticking stopped.

I had killed a clock.

I should have been saving my aunt and my dead first love, but instead I had murdered a beautiful Swiss timepiece, handmade in the nineteenth century by one of my greatgrandfathers up in the Alps. My fist throbbed. Little clock handprints bruised the sole of my foot.

Death gave a good chuckle. I’m beating you, little girl. You see? You can’t fight me. Why even try?

I grabbed clean cloths and returned upstairs to Aunt Eva.


THE REST OF THE DAY UNFOLDED MUCH THE SAME: nonstop running up and down the stairs with soup and tea and cold compresses. Fruitless telephone calls to find doctors and ambulances. Bloody noses. Rasping coughs that sounded like the last gasps of a drowning person. Skin color checks. Onions. Vomit. Curse words that would have made my father cringe. Clothing changes when I couldn’t stand the mess of fluids on my own skirts.

I opened a cookbook and learned how to make onion syrup by filling a jar with alternating layers of onions, brown sugar, and honey, but the concoction would need to sit overnight to be ready to consume. When my stomach growled, I stopped to eat an apple and drink a glass of water, but my breaks couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes apiece. There was no time to slow down.

Somehow, night returned before it seemed due. Aunt Eva had made it onto a list for an ambulance, but every time I called for an update, the dispatcher added another twelve hours to the wait.

“I’ll pay you money,” I told the man near midnight. “I’ll pay you to pick her up sooner. I bet you’re fetching rich people faster than the poor souls who slave away in the shipyard. That poor woman worked her fingers to the bone to keep the navy safe, and you’re just letting her die up there.”

“Miss, her name is on our list. We’ll get her as soon as we can.”

“You’re not a true patriot. You’re not one hundred percent American.”

“Miss—”

“I’m sorry, that was a terrible thing to say. I hate when people say that. I’m sure you’re a fine person.”