As Bright as Heaven(62)
The phone’s receiver hits the cradle and I take to the stairs to fly up them as quickly as I can.
I tiptoe into Willa’s bedroom, fully clothed, not wanting to meet Papa on the stairs and intrude on what might be the only solitary moments of grief he will have this day. I can’t think about my grandparents. I don’t want to think of them the way Papa is right now. Who can really say if we’d have brought the flu to Quakertown like Grandma Adler had feared? Was it already hiding inside Willa when Mama asked if we could come and they’d said no? No one really knows. I push away thoughts of my grandparents from the folds of my mind. I will contemplate how I feel about their decision on another day. Not this day. Not now.
I lay out a down comforter on the rug near Willa’s bed and stretch out upon it. Her bedsheets haven’t been laundered since she recovered and remnants of the flu might be clinging to them and I’ve now a house to run. I can’t run any risk of catching this sickness. Despite the ample feathers sewn inside the comforter, the floor beneath me feels hard as stone.
? ? ?
Today, the first full day without Mama, it was announced that a Philadelphia doctor named Paul Lewis has created a vaccine for the flu. From the moment the killing influenza descended, doctors and scientists everywhere have been looking for a way to immunize people against it. In New York, another doctor has come up with a vaccine, too. And so has a doctor in Boston and a team of doctors at an army hospital in Washington, D.C. The newspaper doesn’t say if the Philadelphia vaccine works, only that a limited number of doses is available. The board of health sent ten thousand doses of Lewis’s vaccine to our local physicians. Papa took us to get vaccinated—me, Maggie, Willa, and Alex—making the case that we live in a funeral home and are daily exposed to the menace. Even though Willa already had the flu, Papa wanted her to get the injection as well in case she isn’t fully immunized. Some flu victims are having relapses.
As we wait now in the doctor’s office, I hear one patient whisper to another that he’d heard this new vaccine won’t stop the flu; it just makes people think that it will.
“What good is that?” says the other patient, clearly displeased.
“It will make you think you are strong, so you will act strong,” the first patient replies. “People who are weak fall faster than people who aren’t.”
I look over at Papa. He heard the two people talking, too. I can tell he did when our eyes meet.
It does seem too much to hope for that an effective vaccine could be ready so quickly when Louis Pasteur, for example, spent nearly a year working on the rabies vaccine. But who of us in that waiting room wants to look hope in the eye and challenge it to prove itself worthy of trust? I can see that Papa does not wish to challenge it. He wants to embrace it, frail and untested as it might be. His gaze tells me he wants me to embrace it as well.
The nurse calls our names.
Papa stands first and then we all follow.
CHAPTER 40
Willa
Today is the twenty-seventh day of October, and the flu is finally leaving.
It must be, because yesterday all the churches were open again, and today so were all the schools.
It had been a long time since Papa was at church, because he was at the army camp. People kept coming up to us to talk to Papa and give us hugs and sad looks. They asked if there was anything they could do and he said, “No, thank you,” and then they all made silly faces at Alex and asked if we were going to keep him.
“We’re looking into what we need to do to let him stay with us,” Papa said, and they said what a wonderful thing that was to do. I don’t know what Papa meant exactly. Alex is an orphan. He doesn’t have any family but us. What’s so hard about keeping him?
Some of the church ladies wanted to know if Papa can stay home now or if the army is going to make him go back. Papa said he asked for extended leave. I don’t know what that is or why he needs it to stay home. He only had one more week of training anyway. Plus, Maggie told me the newspaper says Germany will surrender. I do know what that means. No more war, and Papa can stay home.
After church yesterday we came home and Evie made us dinner and Maggie helped and it was me and Papa who watched over Alex while they got it ready. It was strange watching Papa hold Alex and play with him. It was like Henry had never left. Everything Papa would have done for Henry he was doing now for Alex. And Alex liked it. It was strange but it was not strange. I wanted to tell Mama this and it made my throat hurt that I couldn’t. She’s been dead nine days. I looked at that china dancer. It would have felt really good to smash it against the wall.
At first Papa said I didn’t have to go back to school right away if I didn’t feel well enough yet. Mrs. Sutcliff already said she’ll watch Alex while we girls are at school, so she could mind me, too. But I didn’t want to stay home another minute. I was tired of it. Three weeks of no school when it’s not summer is too long. I missed Flossie. I missed art class and reading time and lunch with my friends. Mrs. Sutcliff is nice, but she’s not Mama and she’s not Evie.
So I went today. Maggie had to walk slow with me because I get tired fast. I was so glad to see Flossie. She got the flu, too, but not as bad as me. She got it from her brother. And I probably got it from her. I guess that means Mama got it from me. But I don’t want to think about that.