As Bright as Heaven(10)

He and I pore over that first page, sounding out every word at a wretchedly slow pace. I don’t know how long we are absorbed in the task. Long enough for him to be missed downstairs, I guess. Because next thing I know, there is someone else in the room—a young man with wavy brown hair, slate blue eyes, and Charlie’s kind features. But this man is thinner. Taller. He is smiling down on me, and for a second I feel like all the clocks in all the world have stopped. Our eyes catch each other’s, and it’s a breath or two before the world starts turning again.

“Well, here you are, Charlie. We were all wondering where you were,” the young man says. “Time to head back home.”

“She was reading,” Charlie says.

“You were reading.” I close the book and put it in his lap. “Take it with you. Keep it as long as you like.”

Charlie is beaming as he stands up.

I stand up, too. The man steps forward. “How do you do? I’m Charlie’s brother, Jamie,” he says.

I start to answer with my own name, but Charlie fills the tiny space of silence. “This one’s Maggie. Evelyn and Willa are the other two. Sometimes people call Evelyn Evie.”

Jamie tips his head toward me. “A pleasure to meet you, Maggie.”

I want to say something in return, anything, but my tongue seems tied up in knots.

Charlie puts the book in the crook of his arm, closes the lid on my empty trunk, and starts to drag it to the door. “Thanks for letting me borrow the book, Maggie!”

“Let me help you with that.” Jamie bends to grab the other end of the trunk as Charlie hoists it over the threshold.

“Nah. I got it. It’s empty now. I got it. Here, you can carry Maggie’s book for me.”

Jamie takes the book and then steps away to let his brother do his job. It appears to be one thing Charlie can do, and he wants to do it.

When Charlie is on the first step, Jamie turns back to me.

“That was nice, what you did for my brother,” he says softly, looking at the book in his hands and then at me.

“Pardon?” I’ve heard the words, but I can’t make sense of them. I’m wondering just how long Jamie Sutcliff was standing there, watching us toiling over the words. The whole time?

“Not many people take the time to make him feel like he can try something new.”

“Reading is new?”

“It is for him in a way.”

“Why isn’t he in school?”

“He went for as long as he could. He just can’t retain what he learns from books and teachers. Not like you and I can. But today’s the first time in I don’t know how long that he even wanted to try reading a book again. So thanks. You’re very kind.”

Jamie turns to leave, and I find that I don’t want him to.

“Wait. . . .”

Jamie pauses at the open doorway.

I search for a reason to have asked him to stop. “Um. Charlie says I should see Hog Island. He says you take him there sometimes.”

Jamie smiles. “I do.”

“So. Maybe . . .”

“You want to come with us next time we go?”

“Okay. Yes.” I look away, embarrassed by how forward I’ve been. “It’s just that, we just moved here and, well, I want to get to know the place.”

“Sure.” He turns, takes a step, and eases back around. “And I meant what I said. You were very kind to Charlie just now. I appreciate that.”

He is on the third or fourth step and gone from my view before I can whisper the words you’re welcome.

I’m alone in my room again, and my heart is beating like I’ve just run up the two flights of stairs to get to it. I can’t explain why, but I feel like everything about my life is suddenly different. Not just the outside of it—like where I live now—but the inside of it as well. Something has begun deep within me.

I don’t understand what it is. I just know I don’t want it to stop, even though it scares me a little. I don’t want to go back to where I was yesterday.





CHAPTER 7



? February 1918 ?





Evelyn


Everything in the city is different. The way we start our day and the way we end it, the way we eat our meals, the way we bathe and wash our clothes and say our prayers. Even the night sky seems different; because there are so many lights here, the stars are shy and shimmer less.

My school is not just a walk down a lane anymore; it is a brick building many blocks away, and I must take a streetcar to get there. It’s a private academy that Uncle Fred is paying for because Papa told him I want to go to college and Uncle Fred says this school is the best. Maggie and Willa go to a different one closer to home, although Maggie can join me here next year if she wants to. I must wear a white high-collared blouse and the same dark blue skirt every day and my hair must be pulled up into a neat pile on top of my head like I am already married. The boys wear vests and ties, and their hair must be slicked into place. The boys’ classes are on the first floor and the girls’ are on the third, and we are allowed to experiment with polite conduct toward one another on the second floor, where the dining and music and art rooms are.

On my first day, my classmates were most interested in where I’d come from and in which neighborhood I lived now and what my father did for a living. They hadn’t heard of Quakertown and were thoroughly shocked when I answered that Papa is—I am still getting used to saying this—an undertaker. Maggie apparently had the same reaction at her school. Willa’s new classmates don’t care what someone’s father does for work; they don’t even ask.