As Bright as Heaven(44)

“Of course.” Dora Sutcliff caresses the baby’s cheek with a finger like he’s her own child. “So, you’ll let me know if you hear from Jamie, then?” she says to me, her brow wrinkled a bit.

Jamie told me in one of his letters this past summer that sometimes it’s hard for him to find a suitable place to write. And sometimes there isn’t anything to say. He can’t tell me where he’s fighting or where his unit is headed or what they must do when they get there. I have been left to imagine what he’s doing and seeing. And what it’s like to be chased by the enemy and running from mortar shells and yellow gas that can kill you if you breathe too much of it.

It occurs to me that finding the baby is already filling an empty spot inside where my concern for Jamie’s safety and my need to hear from him had been widening like a great hole in the ground.

“Seems like such a long time since either of us has received a letter,” Mrs. Sutcliff continues, more to herself than me.

“If I get one, I’ll bring it over,” I say.

Mrs. Sutcliff bids us good-bye and sees herself out. The baby coos in my arms.

Evie turns to the remaining bottles, which are knocking together in the furiously boiling water. She removes them one by one as I stand there holding the child in the failing light of day.





CHAPTER 26



Pauline


No mother should ever have to hold her child in her arms, cold with fear that her baby is dying. I have already hovered in that terrible place. I made my truce there. I owe Death nothing. I should not have to remind that specter of this.

This one is not yours, I’ve been repeating all day, while I sponge away Willa’s fever and soothe her thrashing. I have sensed her wanting to drift further and further away from me, and I have been pulling her back, pulling her back.

This one is not yours.

The hours I’ve spent in this room are already a blur, but I dare not leave Willa’s side. I must win this contest of wills. I must stay vigilant until Death slithers away completely.

This one is not yours.

Sometime in the afternoon Fred had come up the stairs. I heard his heavy footfalls, different from those of Evelyn and Maggie. He’d called out to me from the other side of the door.

“Don’t come in,” I told him. “It’s not safe. Do you know if a doctor is coming?”

“I called Dr. Boyd, a good friend of mine, and he said he’ll try his best to stop by this evening, but you know there’s no medicine for this, Pauline.”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t do all that we can.” I placed a cool hand on Willa’s brow and she whimpered slightly. “It doesn’t mean we do nothing.”

He’d hesitated a moment. “Yes.”

“And the police? Did you telephone them about the baby?” I’d heard the infant earlier that afternoon. His cry for attention had woken an ache in my breasts that nearly felt like milk would start spilling from them. I had laid an arm across my chest to stop it, even though I knew there was nothing in my bosom to nourish a child. My milk had dried up months and months ago.

“No one’s reported a missing child,” Fred replied. “But they said they’d make a note of it.”

“Where is he now?”

“Evelyn and Maggie are with him.”

“And did Maggie tell Mrs. Arnold what happened?”

“She went to the church earlier like you asked and then the two of them drove down to South Street in Mrs. Arnold’s car to see if Maggie would have better luck remembering which house it was. She got back a bit ago. They couldn’t find the house, though.” He sounded like he was baffled by the idea that a stranger’s baby was now staying in the house.

From somewhere above me I heard the infant’s lusty wail for attention. Willa echoed it with a low whimper of her own.

“I don’t know how long the baby will be with us and we need a few things,” I said. “Baby bottles, rice cereal. That kind of thing. Evelyn will know what to get. Can you give her some money?”

“It’s already been taken care of. Don’t fret about that.”

“Make sure the girls stay away from this room, Fred. I will only come out when I know no one is on the stairs. Tell Evelyn to fix me a tray later and then leave it outside the door. And I’ll need some broth for Willa.”

I looked down at my youngest child, wanting her to open her eyes and tell me she doesn’t want broth. She wants ham loaf. Why can’t she have ham loaf?

But Willa, with her eyes closed, was silent except for her labored breath.

“All right,” Fred said. And then there had been a pause, before he said, “Shouldn’t I call the Red Cross so that Thomas can be notified?”

A little dagger pierced my soul. “Notified of what?”

“That . . . that Willa has the Spanish flu. Shouldn’t he be told?”

My youngest child trembled slightly under my hand at that moment. Of my three girls, Willa is the one least likely to throw a punch in her defense. Evelyn can wisely reason her way out of trouble, and Maggie will simply plow past it, but Willa will make friends with an enemy before realizing it desires to harm her. I hadn’t wanted to admit aloud, in full hearing of my companion, that the flu that had already killed so many raged now inside her.