A Death-Struck Year (5 page)

It was Grace, still dressed in her school uniform but wearing a smart gray hat and gloves. “Cleo, I came to say good . . .” She trailed off, her eyes on my satchel. “Where are you going?”

I pulled her into the room before leaning out the door and peering down the hall. Deserted, thank goodness. I shut the door with a snap. So much for a quick escape.

“I’m going home.”

The last thing I wanted to do was to stay here under quarantine. Barely a mile away, my house stood empty. Mrs. Foster was off visiting her son for another week or so. But Jack and Lucy were on their way. What was the harm in waiting for them there? I was eighteen, nearly, and I could manage on my own for two days. I
hated
living here.

Grace looked bewildered. “But there’s no one at your home. Is there?”

“No.” I held up both hands to stem her protest. “Jack and Lucy are on their way.” I showed her the telegram. Grace snatched it from my fingers, her brows furrowing even further as she read Jack’s message. “I’ll wait for them at the house.”

“Alone?”

“Shhh!”
I glanced at the door. With any luck, I could lose myself in the crowd before anyone thought to wonder where I was. “Yes, alone. Please promise me you won’t say anything.”

“This is a terrible idea! You could be attacked by burglars. Or worse! You could die of the influenza and no one will know because you’ll be all alone!”

“Grace . . .”

Grace shook her head. “No. You’re coming with us. Father is waiting downstairs.” She glanced about the room. “Where’s your luggage?”

I wrapped my arms around her. “You know I can’t go with you. Miss Elliot would never allow it. Besides, I can’t leave the city.” The Skinners were driving to their summer home in Florence. Grace’s parents were convinced that the fresh sea air would stave off the worst of the epidemic. It was hours away by automobile. Jack would be angry enough when he discovered I wasn’t at school. I didn’t want to think about what he’d do if I left Portland.

Grace pulled away, unhappy. “You’ll go straight home? You won’t do anything foolish?”

“I won’t,” I said, exasperated. “What would I do?”

“What about provisions?” she pressed. “Do you have enough food? You’ll have to arrange for milk delivery. And ice.” Her frown deepened. “Your house is enormous, Cleo. I would be scared to death, staying there all by myself.”

Grace was not helping.

“You make it sound like I’ll be alone for a month!” I said. “The pantry is full, I’m sure, knowing Mrs. Foster. And I can always walk to the bakery and buy a sandwich if I need to. It will be like camping.”

Grace looked unconvinced. “You’ve never camped a day in your life,” she pointed out, before sighing. A great put-upon sigh. “You’re sure?”

“I am.” I tried to remember which dairy and ice service Mrs. Foster used. And what about firewood? Did we have enough? Who did I telephone for that? I could honestly say I’d never once given the purchase of firewood a thought.

Grace relented. “
Fine.
I’ll keep your ridiculous secret. For now.” A small stack of cream-colored note cards lay on her desk, beside a teacup filled with freshly sharpened pencils. Grace wrote on a card before handing it to me. “This is our address in Florence—”

I sighed. “I know your address, Grace.”

Grace snatched my hand, set the card on my palm, and looked me straight in the eye. “Take it anyway,” she ordered. “Will you promise to telephone if you change your mind? Or if you need help? Anything? I can take the Packard myself and be back here straightaway.”

I folded the note in half and looked out the window. Grace’s father stood by his car, frowning at a pocket watch. I thought of all that had happened today. I thought of Grace leaving. There was a lump in my throat the size of an apple.

“I promise,” I said.

Grace sidled closer until our shoulders touched. “Miss Elliot is there,” she said, pointing. “You see? With Emily and Miss Bishop.” She looked at me, worry and indecision stamped on her face. “But I was just outside. No one is watching the back gates.”

The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I made my way toward the south entrance. Grace was right—not a soul occupied the back lawn. I passed empty tennis courts and abandoned picnic tables and walked right through the gates. I’d just started to relax when I heard the rumble of an engine behind me. The sound grew louder and more ominous as it approached. I kept my gaze on my shoes and stifled a groan.

It had been too easy.

The car slowed beside me and stopped. The engine sputtered into silence. Left with no choice, I looked over my shoulder.

Margaret occupied the passenger seat of a shiny new roadster. She wore a moss-green coat and hat. She eyed my satchel, her expression disapproving. “Your brother is going to kill you, Cleo.”

I glanced past her at the sandy-haired boy in the driver’s seat. “You are hardly one to lecture,” I said.

Harris leaned around Margaret with a sheepish grin. He had a wide, friendly face and ears that stood out even more after a recent haircut. “Afternoon, Cleo.”

“Hello, Harris.”

Margaret opened her door. “Come on.” She scooted over to make room. “We’ll take you home.”

“No, it’s fine. I feel like a walk.”

Frowning, Margaret moved back across the seat. “Jack and Lucy are on their way home? You won’t be alone for very long?”

“I won’t.” My own questions ran through my mind.
Where are you going? What will you do?
But I kept quiet, because I was hardly innocent. And because Harris would be heading off to Fort Stevens tomorrow.

Reaching into the car, I wrapped both arms around Margaret before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “You’ll be careful?” I asked.

Margaret sniffled. “I will. You too, Cleo. Try not to do anything I wouldn’t do.”

I laughed. Stepping back, I looked at Harris, whom I had known since we were children. “Lucy and I will keep your mama company the next time we’re in Salem, Harris. And I’m sure Jack will stop in on your father. Don’t you worry about anything except coming home safe.”

Harris’s ears turned bright pink. “My parents will appreciate it. I’m obliged to you, Cleo.” Margaret placed a hand on his arm.

I shut the door. As the car continued on its way, Margaret stuck her head out the window and waved. I waved back. Before they disappeared, I caught a final glimpse of green: green hat, green coat. And a rare wide smile. I dropped my hand and hurried down the path.

I never saw them again.

Friday, October 11, 1918

“O
regonian
! Get your paper here! ‘Influenza Hits Portland! Mayor Shuts Down City!’ Paper, paper! Paper, mister?”

I flipped a nickel toward the newsboy standing on the street corner. He was about ten, with a blue cap pulled over scruffy hair. The child caught the coin and thrust a newspaper my way, then pirouetted neatly and palmed a second nickel tossed from the opposite direction. With the paper tucked in my satchel, I made my way down Thirteenth Street.

Portland was a city of more than two hundred thousand residents, with a long, meandering river, the Willamette, bisecting it into east and west. St. Helen’s Hall was located on the southwestern edge of the city; my house was north on King Street. I avoided a baby carriage. Dodged a delivery boy on a bicycle. And I felt as though I’d stepped into another world entirely.

It was the masks.

On the corner of Thirteenth and Jefferson, at the florist, Mr. Pressman held the door open for two elderly matrons. A red carnation was pinned to his lapel, as usual. But a white gauze mask covered his thin mustache and cheery smile. Startled, my gaze roamed over the crowd. I saw another one. And another. And there, the man with the cane. Another.

All around me, automobiles clamored for a share of the road alongside lumbering trucks, wooden carts, and the occasional horse-drawn buggy. A streetcar driver bore down upon unsuspecting pedestrians, oblivious to the indignant cries and raised fists left in his wake. I stared after the car, perplexed, until I realized it was a summer trolley put back into service. Unlike the cold-weather cars, summer trolleys had no doors, windows, aisles, or sides. Affixed to the rear of the streetcar was a sign that read, simply,
SPIT SPREADS DEATH
.

There was a new placard in the window of Hammond’s Drug Store:
SPANISH INFLUENZA REMEDIES. TRIED-AND-TRUE CURES, COMPLETELY EFFECTIVE
. Directly below were displays of mustard tins, quinine jars, onion crates, and baskets filled with Vicks VapoRub. Customers rushed in and out, and I could see Mr. and Mrs. Hammond through the window, frantically trying to fulfill orders. The druggist and his wife, too, were masked.

I passed a small stone church, chains wrapped around its front doors. By then panic had set in, hard and sharp.

I turned left, on Salmon Street, and quickly headed for home.

King Street was in a neighborhood set high in the west hills. Home to judges and lawyers, hoteliers and publishers, and one architect: Jack. My father had built our home, a mix of pale sandstone and English Tudor, when my brother was a baby. The house was big and rambling, with enough room for five children. I wondered sometimes if my parents had dreamed of a larger family.

I dashed up the front steps and let myself in. I dropped my satchel beside the umbrella stand and tugged my gloves free, setting them on the entryway table. The air smelled faintly of cigar smoke and furniture polish.

I looked about. To the right was the parlor with its grand piano and fireplace. To the left, a closed door led to Jack’s study. Directly ahead, up a short flight of steps, was the formal dining room. Unlike the world outside, everything was in its place.

I stood in the center of the foyer, listening to a sound I’d been desperate to hear for weeks. Silence. Yet it did not thrill me the way I thought it would.

It was the sound of being completely and utterly alone.

That night a storm raged. The rain and wind rattled the windowpanes. The house creaked and moaned, like an old man rising from a chair. I lay in bed with the covers tight over my head. In total darkness, I regretted every Poe story ever read. Was sorry for every minute spent with Shelley’s
Frankenstein.

I pulled the covers down and sat up. Switching on the lamp, I checked to make sure Jack’s old baseball bat still leaned against my night table within arm’s reach. My bedroom was decorated in soft greens and yellows, with a small fireplace and a window seat piled high with pillows. I looked around to make sure nothing—or no one—lurked where they shouldn’t.

My satchel sat by the door. After climbing out of bed, I padded barefoot across the wooden floor and fished the newspaper I had yet to read from the bag. The room was chilly, my fire having died out hours ago. I rushed back across the room and flung myself beneath the covers.

A package of shortbread cookies lay open on the night table, and I helped myself to one. I’d found Mrs. Foster’s list of grocers in a kitchen drawer by the telephone. But the provisions I’d ordered, including ice for the icebox, would not be delivered until morning. There were plenty of packaged foods and canned goods in the pantry, though. My dinner had consisted of shortbread cookies, canned peaches, and a glass of water. Grace was right. This was as close to camping as I was likely to get.

I unfolded the
Oregonian,
smoothing it onto my yellow quilt. Influenza and war dominated the front page.
MAYOR ORDERED TO CLOSE UP CITY. TICONDEROGA SUNK, SCORES KILLED. WOUNDED MARINE ROBBED.
I read one unsettling story after another before a tiny article near the bottom captured my attention.

NURSES ASKED TO RESPOND
:
RED CROSS APPEALS TO WOMEN TO ENLIST
.

The American Red Cross has issued an urgent plea that all graduate nurses, practical nurses, women with nursing experience, and Red Cross nurses’ aides enroll for immediate service in combating the Spanish influenza. Also needed are members of the community willing to canvass neighborhoods, distributing prevention literature and helping to locate and transport unattended cases to area hospitals. Those with automobiles are particularly encouraged to make themselves known. The Red Cross is mobilizing every possible resource from the Atlantic to the Pacific. To this end, it asks that all available nursing material in and around Portland enroll at the Public Auditorium.

Unattended cases.

I stared at the words until they started to blur. What did they mean? Were people lying in their homes with no one to care for them? Too ill to telephone for help? Children too?

I leaned against my headboard, watching as lightning flashed across the sky, listening to the deep roll of thunder. Common sense told me not to even consider it. I was in enough trouble as it was. Others would help, surely. Wouldn’t they?

I read the article a second time, feeling as if it had been written for my eyes only. I didn’t have any nursing experience. Absolutely none. But I had two automobiles. Jack’s Packard was parked in our old carriage house, alongside the Ford that Mrs. Foster used for the market and other errands. Last summer Jack had taught me how to master the Ford’s testy hand crank and how to keep from rolling backwards down Marquam Hill. It had taken some doing, and it was the only time I’d ever heard my brother scream, but I could drive either car now, easily.

I shoved the newspaper beneath my bed, then turned off the lamp and pulled the covers to my chin. I stayed awake for hours. In the darkness, I no longer thought of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster or of burglars creeping up the stairs.

I thought of my parents.

Of my mother and father, and that last terrifying night in the carriage. Twelve years had passed, but I still knew exactly what it was to be an unattended case.

Saturday, October 12, 1918

“First name?”

“Cleo. C-L-E-O.”

“Last?”

“Berry.”