As Bright as Heaven(51)

I look up at Thomas and I say, “I will.”

He kisses me and when his lips come away from mine I tell him Willa is going to live.

“Oh!” he says.

He is looking away from me now, at something in the distance.

“Here it comes,” he says.

And then I am awake and my body is ablaze.





CHAPTER 33



Willa


I’m not allowed to get out of bed yet, but at least Maggie let me see the baby. She brought him to my bedroom door and let me look at him, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to let him get too close to me. He can’t come into my room until it’s for certain the flu from Spain isn’t inside me anymore.

I had the flu for three days, but I don’t remember much about them. I remember looking at Evie’s flower book on the first day and then feeling really bad and lying in my bed, hot and cold at the same time and wishing I could just disappear. Then the flu left me yesterday, but it made me sleepy. Seems like all I do is take naps. I am tired of naps.

That sounds like a funny joke.

I must do whatever Evie says because she’s in charge while Mama’s sick. Mama has the flu now, too. Evie’s taking care of me and Mama. Maggie is taking care of the baby. It’s better for the baby if one of my sisters takes care of Mama and the other one takes care of him. Maggie probably got the baby because she found him. He’s an orphan. That means his mama and papa are dead. Maggie says we might get to keep him because he needs a family and we have the room.

“I told Mama I like the name Alex,” I said to Maggie, when she was standing there at the door with the baby so I could get a look at him.

“Alexander was Henry’s middle name,” Maggie said, and I wasn’t sure if that meant she liked the name Alex or didn’t.

“But we would call him Alex.”

She just nodded. It was a nod that said she’d heard me, not that the baby’s name is now Alex. “We’ll see,” she said a second later.

The baby smiled at me from the door. He’s got brown hair and dark eyes—not like Henry—but he’s still sweet as can be. I wanted to hold him and Maggie said soon. He was wearing one of Henry’s outfits. I remembered it was the one Grandma Adler had made.

“Does Mama know he’s wearing Henry’s clothes?” I said.

“She does,” Maggie answered.

I wanted to see Mama then. I missed her. She had promised me pancakes with blackberry syrup.

“I want to see her.” I started to get out of bed.

“Not right now, Willa.” Maggie started to rush into the room even though she still had Baby Alex in her arms.

But I was all woozy and I had to plop back down onto my pillows.

“You’re not well enough yet.” Maggie had stopped halfway to my bed. “You need rest right now. And so does Mama. Promise you won’t try to go to her room alone, Willa.”

Well, I hadn’t thought of that yet, but I probably would have.

“Willa?”

I was thinking about it.

“Willa!”

“What?”

“Promise me.”

But I wasn’t going to promise her. “I’m tired.” I rolled over so my back was to her.

“Mama wants you to stay in bed and rest,” Maggie said a second later.

Baby Alex said, “Goo.”

“I bet Mama wants you to make us pancakes with blackberry syrup,” I said.

“Stay in your bed and I will.”

She left without me having to promise anything.





CHAPTER 34



Maggie


It’s the fourth day since Mama came down with the flu. Today she will start to feel better. This is the day when Willa woke up with cool skin and clear eyes. Today will be different. I already feel like it will be.

I’ve been sleeping in the sitting room with Baby Alex to avoid the stairs and the second floor. Mama’s bedroom is right above me and I heard her coughing all through the hours of the night.

But last night was still only the third full day. Today is the fourth day and today will be different.

Uncle Fred heard Mama last night, too.

I heard him go up to her room twice while we were all trying to sleep. The second time he said aloud to the whole house as he climbed the stairs that we girls and Mama should have been allowed to go to Quakertown when she asked. Then early this morning, when the sun was just barely up, I heard him on the telephone to Fort Meade. He said they must let Papa come home. It’s an emergency.

It doesn’t feel like an emergency. It just feels like the fourth day. And it’s quiet now. Mama is asleep. Evie, too, I hope.

Baby Alex slept through it all, and now he’s sucking on a bottle and staring up at me.

Willa started calling him Alex, short for Alexander. Alexander suits him. I think Mama will like that name. She and Papa had given it to Henry for a middle name, so she must’ve liked it enough for that. Alex needed a name. We couldn’t just keep calling him “the baby,” as though he were a thing like the house or the war or the flu. So that’s what it will be.

I’d written Jamie yesterday and told him about the baby, but we hadn’t settled on Alex yet. I told him the same story I told everyone else. Writing it down made it seem more like the truth than how I’d really found Alex. As I wrote down the words that the baby was alone in the house except for his dead mother, I felt as though my story of how it happened was really how it happened. He was alone. I couldn’t find the house a second time. And no one has called the police about him. I also wrote that Willa had the flu but was much better, and that Mama had it now but would certainly start feeling better very soon. I didn’t tell him Charlie was sick with it now. I figured that was something Mrs. Sutcliff was supposed to tell him. Or not tell him.