Three Rivers Rising (8 page)

What have I done?
It is all happening so fast.
Surely I did not think it through.

The bags are stowed.
Father settles me in the carriage
and goes to help Mother.
I sneak a look around.
Peter is just out of reach
in the shadows
by the treeline.
No last kiss?
No last embrace?
I did not consider this consequence.
Surely he is thinking the same thing.
Surely he understands.

Father climbs in after Mother. “Driver!”
The carriage lurches forward.

So this is the final goodbye,
this artless parting,
until next season.

I watch Peter until my eyes sting.
He does not wave.

So much can change in a year.

OFF-SEASON
1888–1889

Nursing School

Kate

Student nurses’ house:
sign in,
choose a bed,
no window—
less draft.
Others might care for a view,
but not this girl.
Keeping the body functioning—
that’s the job.
That’s what we’re here to learn.

Suitcase under bed.
Long room,
empty and silent.
Dusty yellow light
lies in squares.
Camphor,
gauze,
and
cod liver oil
the only perfume,
except perhaps
the iron smell
of bed frames
and laundry starch.

Pure physical order.
Lungs breathe at last.
Hear footsteps clicking in the hall.
Breath hesitates.
Sitting resumes.
Not waiting.
Just existing.

Nursing shifts are long.
Clock turns twice
with scant hours of sleep.
No breaks.
Training is doing.

Stop the wound.
Catch the blood,
or the sick.
The sights,
the smells—
new girls turn away
pale
or faint
or retch.
Or they fall
exhausted.
I take over their shifts.

Student house is gone cold
for holiday break.
Winter blows through
empty halls.
Mud’s frozen solid.
No meals.
No one knows
I remain.

Set by a secret store
of food,
but mice got in.
Throw it all away.
Filthy varmints.

Pile up blankets
from other girls’ beds.
Stay under there, mostly,
all day.

Alone in the student house,
starving,
cold,
and stubborn,
I don’t mean to hear church bells
on Christmas Day.
Bundle up,
go out
to track the sound
and find the church they belong to.
Follow the priest
to the little side house.

Hide behind a tree
until he’s gone,
then ring for the housekeeper
at the back door.

We strike a deal.
She’s happy enough
to get free
of the heavy work,
and I get a bellyful
of roast duck
and mince pie—
yes,
before I can stop myself,
mince pie.

Nearly black out
from nourishment.

Nursing staff graduates me quick,
gives the address
of the New York doctor
who will employ me.
No sense wishing for home
or what might have been.

Head Nurse and the others
are glad to be rid of me,
they make no secret of it.
They raise eyebrows,
shake heads
when they see
I can’t stop polishing
and counting instruments,
counting boxes of supplies,
counting chairs,
people,
windowpanes,
tiles …
Even sitting still and silent—
the teachers can surely tell—
I’m counting.

East Conemaugh

Maura

Nights in this valley can be long and cold,
especially for the wife of a railroad man,
so I bring my basket of scraps near the fire
to start a new quilt.
It warms me as I work
and sets me to remembering
my own girlhood
on a little farm in these hills:
a little plot of soil
for potatoes and beans,
a chicken coop,
a pig, a horse, sometimes a cow,
a tiny slant-roof house,
and all five kids burrowing under the blankets
as the fire died down.

My little ones sigh in their beds,
the one yet-to-be turns in my belly—
this quilt will be for them,
to tell them the story of my life,
and how it began their lives.

The dampness
in this valley
is a constant companion,
at least until Joseph gets home.
I toss on another log
and it burns colors.
I begin my quilt
with a faded blue like violets
cut into a little slant house.

Ears straining for the engine whistle,
resting my feet on a stone warmed by the fire,
I smooth Joseph’s panel
over my lap:
a copper-haired baby taking his first steps
on a gray-brown ship,
leaving behind the green green hills
of Ireland.

The copper scrap is cut
from the last short dress of my girlhood.
His ship is a leftover from making
new thick wool work pants.
And the still-fresh green
is from my old dress sleeves—
when the elbows wore out,
the dress became a skirt.
I stitch these pictures to solid squares,
alternate them
with simple pieced
nine-patch squares.

The squares of our youth—
my little blue slant house,
his green hills still warm with sunshine—
connect to
the center panel of our union.
This is our family tree.

I work the last stitches
on the middle square:
mountain laurel
in bloom
like the June bride
that I was,
white lace
and blushing
ever so slightly pink.

I am about to roll the stone
toward the fire one more time
when I hear my husband’s special signal just for me:
one long pull, then two short.
I sing along,
toooooooooot-toot-toot
,
through smiling lips.

I pack my piecework into the basket
with a humming and tapping of foot,
put the fire to bed
and pull the pins from my hair.
I rub knuckles to cheeks
and race to the door,
his blushing bride once again.

Joseph walks toward the house
in that slow way,
grinning. “There’s my bright-eyed girl!”
He lifts me into his arms.
“Careful. The baby.”
We both look down at my belly
and laugh at the wonder of it.

I free the buttons on his work shirt
and he closes the door
on the blessedly long, long winter night.

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

Lake Conemaugh

Peter

Dear Celestia
,

Winter on the lake
.
I wish you could see it
and hear the quiet of the snowfall
.

Only a few of us up here
.
A skeleton crew
.
The cabins are so God-awful cold
and the larder’s full of mice
.

I read your letters every night,
until I fall asleep
.

I found some old snowshoes
in the clubhouse
and asked around if I could use them
.
One fella said they belong to old peg-leg Givens
and he won’t be needing them
,
or at least one of them
.

Well, we had quite a laugh
,
but later I felt bad about it
.
I wondered if Givens has the
phantom pain
you hear about
,
an ache where a piece of him used to be
,
and I got to feeling pretty bad for old Givens
,
because that’s how I feel
without you
.

Is he missing that old leg?
Wondering if it’s moving on
to have a great life
without him?
Is it thinking of him? (Ha-ha.)

I guess Papa’s probably right—
what could possibly come of this?
Maybe we don’t have to know
.

I just know I keep feeling this way,
wishing you were near,
wishing it was summer
all year
forever
.

Truly yours,
Peter

Institut Villa Mont Choisi

Switzerland

Celestia

Directrice Blanchard confiscates Peter’s letters—
Father paid her handsomely for her trouble, I am sure—
so I intercept the letter carrier at the corner.