As Bright as Heaven(31)

“Yes, I do,” Maggie insisted. “I could tell that’s what Grandma said by what Mama said.”

I know I wouldn’t give that baby the flu. I don’t have it. I don’t feel sick. I think Maggie is wrong. I think if you catch something, you know it.

Mama is sad today that we’re not going to Quakertown, and I’m a little sad, too. I think Uncle Fred should fix his own dinners and wash his own socks.

“It’s not that hard,” I told Mama. It’s not. I’m only seven and I know how to make a sandwich.

“He’s so busy because of the flu,” Mama said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “He barely has time to sleep. We should stay and help him.”

So we’re not going.

Mama had some ladies from the church visit her this afternoon. They had gone to a big meeting on Walnut Street. A lot of people aren’t happy with the mayor because he let the flu come, and they want to do something about it. I was listening to them talking to her. She invited them in for tea, and they sat in the sitting room. I sat on the stairs to listen because I had nothing else to do. The ladies said that at that meeting they’d all decided they needed to find a way to help.

“The school and church cafeterias have been turned into soup kitchens, and volunteers are making food for people who are too sick to cook their own meals,” one of the ladies said.

And Mama said that was a good idea.

“Mrs. Bright,” another lady said, “might you be willing to take some of this food down to a few people on the south side who have no one to take care of them? We have a list of names and addresses. There are so many poor souls down there who are suffering alone. Could you spare a few hours from your day to do this work of mercy? We’ll provide the soup and a surgical mask.”

I thought Mama would say no. She is always telling me and my sisters to be careful and not to be around any coughing people right now and to stay away, stay away, stay away from Uncle Fred’s dead bodies. But she said she would go.

And the church lady said someone would be by in the morning with jars of soup. All Mama had to do was take the food to the people on the list and then bring the jars back to the church in the afternoon, and the next day it would happen all over again. They told her she might need to take a cab, though, because the streetcars might not be running. Mama said she’d find a way to get there.

“It’s so nice to have you and your family at the church, Mrs. Bright,” the lady said. She said Mama was such a kind person and what beautiful girls she had and how proud her own mama must be of her that she would put the needs of others first, just like Jesus.

Mama just said, “Thank you” and “Would you care for a second cup?”

They didn’t have time for a second cup. They had other ladies to visit, because they had lots of names and lots of lists.

When they left, Evie came out from the kitchen, where she’d been boiling water in case there was to be a second pot of tea.

“You’re going to do it, Mama?” Evie asked. “Isn’t it a bit dangerous?”

“I may as well be of use if I am to stay here,” Mama said. “It’s only dangerous if you aren’t careful. Besides, can you imagine what it must be like to be ill and have no family to look out for you? To feel as though you’ve been abandoned?”

Evie didn’t say anything, so I guess she can’t imagine it.

That means tomorrow will be an even longer, more boring day. Mama will be gone and there’s no school and Flossie can’t come over and I can’t even play with Gretchen.

I miss Papa. He should be here.

I miss Henry.

I wish they were both here.

I wish the flu would just go back to where it came from.





CHAPTER 21



Maggie


Mama isn’t going to let me go with her.

I can see it in her eyes before she says a word. We are standing together in the kitchen, and she is gathering a basket of items to take along with the soup that the church men brought.

“I want to go with you,” I say.

She turns from the pantry shelves with that look mothers have that just says no. I’m already deciding how I’m going to get her to change her mind; the words are right there on my tongue. I’m not a little child anymore. I’m thirteen. I want to help all those people, too. I know how to be careful. I will wear my mask. I can carry the basket.

All this is true, but the real reason is I can’t spend another day at this house, pretending I don’t see all the bodies piling up on the stoop and in the parlor and even in the carriage house, where Uncle Fred used to keep the extra caskets, back when there were extra caskets. I am tired of Evie telling me what to do and Willa’s whining and Uncle Fred’s stomping about, complaining that he can’t take any more bodies. I want to be where something good and right is happening, even if it’s just me and Mama taking soup to a sick person lying in a bed.

I open my mouth to list all the reasons I should be allowed to go with her. But then that “you’re not coming” look falls away from her face, and another one takes its place. I haven’t seen her look at me that way since Henry died. Her eyes are saying things that her mouth isn’t quite ready to say. Like she maybe wishes she could shield my sisters and me from what is happening and how hard it is to be a mother and yet so powerless.