A Death-Struck Year (24 page)

I would have been the greatest aunt ever.

They vanished. I saw Edmund. He was different. Older. He sat by a fireplace with a book in his hand. A woman leaned over and kissed him. He smiled at her. The woman was brown-haired and blue-eyed and pretty. She was not me. I felt a twinge of regret. Had life been different, had there been more time . . . I could have loved Edmund Parrish desperately.

My brother was lifting me up, up. He was running. My head fell back, and I saw the night sky, filled with a million twinkling diamonds. Ah, well. It would be nice to hold my mama again. And my father. And to laugh with Kate. So be it.

It was a fine night to die.

Tuesday, November 12, 1918

When I woke, the war had ended. I did not know it at the time. My world had grown small. A room, a bed, a body that felt as though it belonged to someone else entirely. Someone old and weak, with one foot toeing the grave.

I opened my eyes.

Jack was sitting in my bedside chair, watching me. He had a beard—an odd sight. Lucy didn’t like beards. He held my sketchbook in his hands.

“You open your eyes sometimes,” he said quietly. “And you close them. And I’m not sure if you understand anything I’ve said. Can you hear me, Cleo?” He waited, and when I didn’t respond, he said, “Hannah Flynn’s been by. I wish you’d wake up, so I could yell at you good and proper.” He dropped his head onto the bedding, by my arm. “But when I think of you, just a kid, waiting in that carriage, I understand why you did it.”

“Lucy.”

Jack’s head snapped up. He searched my face, and I felt his hands, large and warm, wrap around one of mine. “Cleo?”

“Lucy?” I asked again, not recognizing my own voice. It was dry and whispery, a ghost.

“She’s fine, darlin’. The baby too. She’s sleeping. It’s three in the morning.”

Lucy was safe. I felt myself sinking, wanting to rest. I struggled to stay awake. “Edmund?”

My brother looked mystified. I realized he didn’t know who Edmund was. He didn’t recognize his name. Edmund hadn’t been by, and that could only mean one thing.

“Parrish,” I said, forcing myself to finish. When had it happened? I had to know.

“I know who he is, Cleo.” Jack looked past me. “Turn your head. He’s right here.”

I turned, slowly, my head throbbing the entire while. The pain was worth it. Before I fell back into darkness, I saw Edmund on my window seat, fast asleep against a pile of pillows. Looking just as I remembered. And beyond him, through the glass, was the largest moon I’d ever seen.

Thursday, January 16, 1919

Through the window, I could see Lucy making her way toward the school doors. Jack was in Victoria until tomorrow, on business, and Lucy and I were to spend the rest of the afternoon at the shops. As she was wrapped in a long black coat with a fur collar, one could not tell she was in a family way. But even from this distance, I could see how healthy she looked. Despite Lucy’s history and the influenza, despite everything, the baby would come in July. My niece or nephew. I could not wait.

Miss Abernathy’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “. . . on thinking before one speaks. Can anyone recall President Lincoln’s exact words? Anyone? Hmm? Miss Berry?”

I turned my head. “‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool,’” I said, “‘than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.’”

“That is close enough. Thank you. Now, who can tell me why . . .”

I looked out the window again. Nearly three months ago, a suspicious train conductor, thinking Lucy looked sickly, had demanded she and Jack disembark at the next stop. My brother refused, explaining she was only tired from the baby.
My wife is well. We have paid for this car. We will remain on board.
But the conductor would not be swayed. When the train pulled into Yoncalla, Jack, Lucy, and five other passengers were forced off. They’d had to wait hours for the next train. And when they’d finally arrived, weary and aggravated, at Union Station, I’d collapsed at their feet.

It had been a bad time for everyone.

Beside me, Grace propped her book up on the desk so Miss Abernathy wouldn’t see the letter she wrote to Anthony, a boy she’d met in Florence during the epidemic. There was a funny, dopey look on her face, the kind Margaret used to have whenever she spoke of Harris.

Margaret was gone, her chair in the back of the classroom empty. She’d run away with Harris the day school closed, so that he would not have to report for training at Fort Stevens. She’d sent her parents two postcards from Canada. One from Vancouver. One from Toronto. And then, just after Thanksgiving, a telegram had arrived—both Margaret and Harris had died in Quebec, of influenza.

Three other schoolmates had passed on. Emily had recovered, though her lungs remained weak. Her father had arrived from Hawaii to bring her home. Thinking of them all, I wanted to weep. But I felt like a dishrag that had been wrung out to dry. There were no more tears left in me.

We had a new housekeeper. Mrs. Dinwiddie was lovely and cheery and made delicious fried chicken. But it wasn’t the same. I missed Mrs. Foster. She’d recovered from the influenza. Her son and grandchildren had too. But her daughter-in-law had not, and Mrs. Foster had chosen to remain in Hood River, to be close to her family.

And Edmund. He would be gone too. His train would leave on Saturday for New York, where he would finish his studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. He wanted to be a bacteriologist: an expert in infectious diseases. At the Rockefeller Institute, he’d learn from some of the best scientists in the world. A fearsome group of men and women, with all sorts of awards and letters printed after their names. I was happy for him. I was. This was an important opportunity. I told myself that it was enough to know that he was out there somewhere, and that he was safe. Though it was hard. He was still here, in this city, and already I missed him.

I felt strange sometimes, restless. Being in this classroom, in this town—where everything
looked
normal. The masks were gone, the shops open, the ribbons pulled from the doors. People smiled and laughed and visited. But no one spoke of what had happened. Lucy said it had been too much. That people needed to forget the war and influenza both.

The bell rang. Chairs scraped as we gathered our books.

“Cleo.” Louisa stood by my desk, holding out a small book. “I found this in your old room, under the bed. May I borrow it?”

I started to ask what she was doing rifling around under my old bed and then decided I didn’t want to know. Taking the book from her, I glanced at the title.
Famous American Women: Vignettes from the Past and Present.
I hadn’t realized it was missing. I thought about how I’d felt last fall—anxious about my future, worried because my entire life had not been neatly mapped out before me. I still didn’t know who I wanted to be, what I wanted to study, not for sure. But the uncertainty felt like a small thing now; it no longer bothered me.

I handed the book back to Louisa. “You may keep it,” I said.

She looked surprised, then suspicious. “You’re letting me have it?”

I nodded. “I don’t need it anymore.” Smiling, Louisa thanked me and walked off.

Grace turned to me. “Fanny and I are going to the pictures Saturday night. The new Mary Pickford movie is out. I know Edmund is leaving in the morning. But will you come after?”

I could tell she expected me to refuse. I’d been saying no a lot, preferring Edmund’s company, or solitude. I wanted to refuse, but Grace looked worried and sad. Margaret had been her friend too.

And out of nowhere, I remembered a conversation that took place a lifetime ago.
I was stabbed five times, Cleo. I keep thinking I never should have made it home from France. At the very least, I shouldn’t be able to use this hand. I figure every day I’ve had since then is a windfall.

Like Edmund, I’d been given a second chance to live my life.

A reprieve.

A windfall.

Margaret and Kate were gone. But Grace, she was right here. And I thought it would be nice for once to sit in a dark theater, to watch the new Mary Pickford movie and not think so much. Maybe if I tried harder, I could feel like my old self again. At least a little bit.

And so I smiled. And I said, “Thank you, yes, I’d love to come.”

Friday, January 17, 1919

We had only meant to go on a drive. A quick trip across the bridge, perhaps, because there was no such thing as privacy at home with my brother around. Instead, Edmund and I had found ourselves here, stopped on Third Street, looking up at a building that held too many memories for both of us. Mostly bad ones.

“Even the outside looks different.” I peered out the car window. It was late afternoon, after school. The air was cold and damp. The only other person about was a man with a cane, walking his dog.

“It’s quiet,” Edmund said from the driver’s seat. His face had filled out some, and the shadows were gone from his green eyes. “The ambulances are gone. And the families on the steps.”

He was right. I’d grown so accustomed to the noise—the sirens, the men, women, and children weeping—that this calmness struck me as odd.

The worst of the Spanish influenza had passed through the city by Thanksgiving, enough so that the health office had closed down the Auditorium’s emergency services. A fumigation crew had been called in. The building would reopen to the public for the first time next week. It felt wrong to me, seeing the advertisements in the newspaper. The symphony would be playing next Friday, and the following week, three evening performances of
Hamlet
were scheduled, plus a matinee on Sunday.

“Do you want to go in?” Edmund asked.

I turned to him, surprised. “Will they let us?”

“I’m sure I could talk our way in if you wanted. Hannah stopped by last week. She said the chairs are all back in place. The red ones. And the carpets.” He paused. “The piano that was in the basement . . . it’s been put back onstage.”

Hearing this last part made my throat tighten. “It looks like it did before,” I said. “As if nothing happened.”

Edmund reached for my hand, pressed a kiss against it. “You don’t have to,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I’m ready to see it either.”

I looked at the Auditorium. I thought of the musicians and actors who would come back. Life was slowly returning to something that looked normal. But what about me? Would I ever be able to think of this building as anything other than a hospital? To walk onto the orchestra floor, all dressed up, and not see the men and women and children on their cots? Or the floors slick with blood and worse? Or the soldiers on the stage? Would I be able to sit in one of those chairs, program in hand, and not think of Kate?

I looked down at Edmund’s hand in mine. Seconds passed. I shook my head. Edmund gave my hand one last squeeze, and a moment later we were driving away. I forced myself not to look back, concentrating on the buildings that flew past, and the man walking his dog, and the raindrops that began to fall from the sky.

Maybe one day I’ll go back,
I thought.
Someday.

But not yet.

Although the characters in this story are fictional, the events that took place are not. Between 1918 and 1920, an estimated 30 million to 50 million people worldwide died from Spanish influenza—more than died in World War I; more than were killed by the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Nearly 675,000 Americans were among the dead. Though the pandemic’s origins have never been confirmed, most experts agree it did not come from Spain. Strong evidence suggests a strain of the influenza virus may have originated in Haskell County, Kansas, early in 1918. From there, it likely spread to a nearby military base before moving on to Europe and the rest of the world.

What is particularly chilling about Spanish flu is that it struck not only children and the elderly, as is typical, but healthy young men and women. So great was the number of dead among soldiers, nurses, students, and pregnant women that one doctor noted, “They were doubly dead in that they died so young.”

The first outbreak of flu in the Pacific Northwest came in late September 1918, when a trainload of troops from the Boston area arrived at Camp Lewis in Washington State. Illness spread rapidly throughout the region. On October 11, 1918, the Portland mayor George L. Baker ordered all mass activities shut down, including schools, club meetings, theaters, church services, and parades. His decision was echoed in towns and cities across the United States as health officials tried to forestall an epidemic by preventing large groups from congregating.

Despite their efforts, the death toll was high. The Oregon State Board of Health reported 48,146 cases of Spanish influenza, with a mortality rate of 3,675 for the period of October 1, 1918, to September 30, 1920. A third of those deaths were in Portland. Mortality counts across the country were grim: Salt Lake City, 576; Omaha, nearly 1,200; Seattle, over 1,400; Minneapolis, nearly 2,000; Washington, D.C., 2,895; San Francisco, over 3,000; Boston, 4,794 in the fall of 1918 alone; Philadelphia, 12,191; New York City, 20,608.

Portland’s Public Auditorium, only a year old at the time, was one of several emergency hospitals established. It was managed by the city and the American Red Cross, and eventually by the U.S. Army’s Spruce Division. Decades later the building was remodeled and renamed the Keller Auditorium. Very little of the original structure remains.

The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton in 1881. In its early years, the humanitarian organization provided disaster relief during the Johnstown Flood of 1889, the Spanish-American War, and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. But it was during World War I that the Red Cross experienced tremendous growth. Prior to the war, there were 107 chapters throughout the country. By 1918 the number had jumped to 3,864. Participation was considered a patriotic duty for the war effort. Schoolchildren collected fruit pits; the carbon from the pits was used to make gas masks. Additionally, women produced great quantities of sweaters, socks, blankets, and medical supplies for soldiers at home and abroad.