If I Die Before I Wake

by Jean Little

  “Don’t you laugh at me, girl!” she snapped. “Hasn’t that precious aunt of yours taught you any manners?”

  I was furious, Jane. I did not stop to think. “Yes. She taught me that personal remarks are not in good taste,” I shot back.

  I was marching away with my nose in the air when I overheard her mutter, “My, my, what a hoity-toity miss! Rose’s doing, no doubt.”

  It was as though she had pulled a cork in me and let the devil out. I was hurting so. I whirled around and a stream of wicked words poured out of my mouth. “Why did you come? You’re not a relation. Nobody wanted you here,” I shouted. But, because my throat was tight and sore from crying, my shout was not as loud as I meant it to be, thank goodness.

  Grandmother heard me, of course. I swear her ears are as sharp as a cat’s. “Fiona Rose Macgregor, go to your room this instant,” she rapped out. “Your father shall hear of this.”

  I ran up here. I have vowed not to let myself cry any more so I am writing it out for you instead, hoping to take some of the sting out.

  Bedtime

  I was sure I had disgraced the family, but then Fan came up and told me the people had all left. She also said that hardly anybody noticed what had happened because Theo chose that exact moment to make a grand entrance with the Prince of Denmark in tow. He does time things well, bless his heart.

  While everyone was cooing over Hamlet or backing away fast, Miss Trimmer took herself off, huffing and puffing. Those are Fanny’s words, not mine.

  “Whatever you said surely upset her apple cart,” said my sister with immense satisfaction. Then she plunked herself down beside me and waited to hear the whole story.

  But, Jane, what does that woman matter when Jemma is not here any longer to laugh with us? Fanny and I sat and talked softly until I saw how weary she looked and I made her go to bed and neither of us went back downstairs.

  When Aunt tiptoed in later she kissed us both, believing we were asleep. Then she stood and looked down at us for a long moment before she crept away. I watched her through my lashes. When she was gone, I tried to go to sleep. But I couldn’t turn off all the thoughts churning inside me. So I decided to share them with you. As usual, you have helped me sort myself out.

  I just yawned, so I’ll stop. Good night, Jane.

  Saturday, November 23, 1918

  The world feels so empty and grey. The rain has made the last of the leaves fall so the trees seem to be grieving with us. I cannot imagine how we will manage to go on from here. We are not the same family any longer. It is like those soldiers I saw in the hospital who had had their legs cut off. They seemed lost and so do we. One of them said he supposed he was lucky, but he did not feel like himself without his leg. I barely took it in. But now I think I feel what he felt. Without Jemma we are not the Macgregor family I introduced you to when I began this diary. We are a different group of people.

  This morning Theo asked me where Jemma had gone. I did not know how to answer. Then words just came from somewhere deep inside me. “Jemma has gone to be with Mother. Mother has her safe now.”

  He kissed me, which he hardly ever does these days, and ran off and Aunt said softly, “That was well done, Fee. And I believe it is the truth.”

  I had not known she was in the room but I am glad she heard, because I was uncertain about it. We hugged each other and that hug let me step back from the terrible hurt. For a little while, life felt usual. I cannot explain this, Jane. And it didn’t last. But remembering it gives me hope that the day will come when things will feel normal again.

  Is longing for that day being untrue to Jemma somehow?

  Sunday, November 24, 1918

  Miss Trimmer took Grandmother to church. The rest of us stayed home. Grandmother said she would represent the family and accept people’s condolences. Aunt made a face behind her back and went upstairs again.

  But, Jane, I must tell you that Jemma’s death has aged Grandmother. She used to march about. Now she totters. And steadies herself with chair backs. So she does care.

  I tried to read but found myself going over and over the same page, not taking in any of the words.

  We need Jemma here to buck us up. Jo especially, although she is keeping busy now with helping the sick. I think Carrie helps her a lot. She’s sensible. I remember how I liked having her with me on the streetcar that day I came home to Fanny. William also shows up every so often, which helps. But Jo is locked in her sorrow. Jemma was like a key to the laughter inside them both and Jo does not know how to go forward alone. I know because I feel it too.

  Monday, November 25, 1918

  School was to open on Armistice Day but they put it off a day. We planned to go back today but we couldn’t. Even if we felt ready in ourselves, we would make the other girls uncomfortable, I know. I have felt it myself. You don’t know where to look or what to say. I took Hamlet around the block and got stopped twice and felt tongue-tied.

  I asked Aunt what you should say when someone tells you how sorry they are for your sister’s death. Poor Aunt. She looks so white and pinched. Gaunt. I don’t think I have ever used that word before but it describes Aunt’s face. She sighed and then smiled at me.

  “Just say thank you and then go on to something else,” she told me. “But, Fee, you will also have to offer sympathy to others in the days ahead. We are by no means the only bereaved family we know. You had better think about how you yourself will express sympathy to others.”

  I was horrified. But she is right. I am thinking. It will be so hard to speak about such a thing but I will try.

  Tuesday night, November 26, 1918

  Even food tastes flat and wrong these days.

  Every mail brings letters and cards saying how sorry everyone is. Just as you begin to feel things might come right again, you have to read them. Some say horrible things. One said, “God needed your child more than you did and called her home to be with Him.”

  I felt like spitting on it. I would feel like spitting on God if I thought He really believed we didn’t need Jemma. We need her so badly.

  Wednesday, November 27, 1918

  Theo is wolfing down a bowl of Big Six before he goes outside and trying to make up a rhyme about it. There’s a contest with a money prize for the best one. All he has come up with is,

  I wouldn’t say “Nix”

  To a bowl of Big Six.

  Maybe I should help him. Let me see. Tricks. Mix. Fix. Sticks. Chicks. Hicks. Licks.

  Do let me fix

  A bowl of Big Six

  With your morning Horlicks.

  It’s a marvellous mix!

  I’ll think it over.

  There are still a few cases of people dying of the Flu, but not so many now. People talk about the soldiers coming home soon. Some families are planning big celebrations. But so many of us are not ready to celebrate. Maybe we never will be again.

  But Carrie came to see us yesterday and looked at us and promised to bring William and both her sisters over soon for a rousing game of Pounce. I am really glad they are coming.

  I wonder if William keeps remembering the terrible things he witnessed in Flanders. Carrie said once that he has bad dreams. They sleep next door to each other and she can hear him get up and pace the floor when he wakes.

  Bedtime

  They came and we played Pounce. Father won!!! Imagine that.

  “Your father has hidden depths you young ones do not dream of,” Aunt teased. And her eyes sparkled with laughter for the first time since Jemma’s death.

  Jo seemed more like herself. She tried not to keep gazing at William but she can’t help herself. At least, that is what it looked like to me.

  Thursday, November 28, 1918

  Mrs. Manders invited me into her library to choose some books. We hardly know her, even though she lives so close, and I had no idea she had such shelves and shelves of books in her house in her own library. She calls it The Book Room.

  I am so grateful to her and so glad to have some new
stories. She has children’s books as well as lots of others. I brought home Eight Cousins which I have already read but we don’t have it. I also borrowed At the Back of the North Wind and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and one book I picked out that I’d never heard of before. Mrs. Manders looked at it in my hand and said, “You’d better not let your grandmother catch you reading that one.”

  I think I shall read it first.

  Jemma’s friend Faith Fielding was there. I did not know she was Mrs. Manders’s granddaughter. She said reading had helped her get through bad times. When I got home, I remembered that her brother was drowned a couple of years ago.

  Just as I was leaving, she took hold of my hand and said, all in a rush, “I felt as though the sun went out when Jemma died. It’s shining again now but it isn’t as warm or as bright as it used to be, is it, Fee?”

  I just shook my head. I cannot decide whether to tell Jo. I think I will wait. I know, because of almost losing Fanny, that she feels as though half of her is missing and she will never be whole again. I want to tell her I know, but even though I love her so much, I cannot speak of it quite yet.

  Friday, November 29, 1918

  I do not want to write even one word tonight. I feel like throwing this diary at the wall. I won’t, Jane. I promise. But the point has gone out of everything we do. I could not even keep my mind on the book Grandmother would not want me reading.

  Saturday, November 30, 1918

  Today I met Jo on the stairs and I reached out and hugged her. “I know how it is, a little, because of nearly losing Fan—”

  I got that far and she hugged me back. “I have thought of that. You are the only one,” she said.

  Then she went on up and I went down and I think we both felt better. A tiny bit.

  December 1918

  Sunday, December 1, 1918

  It is December and Christmas is coming but nobody in our house feels a smidgen of joy. Even Hamlet and Pixie still seem sorrowful. And Theo looks like a small, white-faced ghost.

  Jemma was such a one for singing carols as she did housework. She knew all the verses. And she changed her voice for “Good King Wenceslas” until you shivered with that poor boy who was the page.

  Hard as it is, Fan and I must put our heads together and think of ways to make Christmas a happy day for Theo. He’s so little. He lost out on Hallowe’en, and Thanksgiving was not a bit real because it’s the day we were sent away and only Theo was home with Father and Aunt and Grandmother. He must not be robbed of Christmas, too.

  Monday, December 2, 1918

  Today we went back to school. Fanny and I stuck together like glue and ran like rabbits when it was time to go home. Hardly anyone but Mr. Briggs spoke to us and, just as I thought, they all looked away. But we are not the only ones. I will have to find out who else is gone. Some are missing, but maybe they are ill now or sent away as we were.

  Last night, I waited until Theo had fallen asleep and then I called a family meeting. I told them what I thought about Christmas. I said I knew we did not feel like celebrating, but Theo is only five.

  At first, nobody spoke. Then Father clapped his hands together and grinned at me. “What a great sister you are, Fee,” he said. “You are positively inspired. Tell us what to do and we will all help.”

  I looked around at them and everyone, even Jo, was beaming, Jane. So we pledged ourselves to plan.

  Tuesday, December 3, 1918

  It was easier to think of planning than to come up with brilliant ideas. I am wracking my brain but it just sits there. After all, Theo has a dog and a set of soldiers and lots of books. I will keep thinking.

  Fanny and I went together and bought Aunt some new leather gloves for seventy-nine cents. They are not all that expensive, thank goodness, since we want to get Theo something splendid and we do not have much spending money.

  Would Theo want a goldfish, Jane? After all, he has Hamlet.

  Would Aunt mind?

  Not if Theo loves it!

  Wednesday, December 4, 1918

  Aunt made proper Christmas puddings today. She saved up the ingredients and Grandma sent things from the farm. The house smells entirely festive. Theo’s eyes are beginning to shine.

  Fanny thinks a goldfish would be perfect. We have not spoken to Aunt about it yet.

  Later

  Father got out the box of Christmas stories which he has collected and tonight he began to read Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I was supposed to be studying but I could not tear myself away. We thought Theo would fall asleep and then we would stop, but we only stopped when the last ghost was coming towards Scrooge. Theo was wide awake and his eyes were like saucers!

  “It’s not to be read aloud to a little boy just before he goes to bed,” Father said. But he promised to go on tomorrow.

  Thursday, December 5, 1918

  It is bedtime and I am almost too tired to write, even to you, Jane. We have so much schoolwork to review because of all the time we missed.

  Father is insisting we catch up. I am pretty sure others fathers are not making their sons and daughters work this hard, but there is no point in arguing with ours. I feel as though I am drowning in Mathematics and Geography, which I dislike. Father says Geography is a wonderful subject and he made me read “Cargoes” by John Masefield. It is a great poem about cargoes from all over the world. It did NOT make me like Geography. The writer of our Geography text had not an ounce of poetry in his soul. His words trudge across the page. Boundaries, time lines, crops, industries, capital cities, seas, rivers and lakes. There is never anything lively to be said about any of them. I think Father should try writing a good geography book because when he tells you about the mountains in Tibet or the cathedrals in Europe or the Russian steppes, you can hardly bear not going to see. I wonder if he would consider such a thing.

  Friday, December 6, 1918

  Father says he has just the present picked out for Theo but he won’t say what it is. He wants to surprise us all.

  We finished Dickens and tomorrow Father has promised to read The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke.

  Saturday, December 7, 1918

  Grandmother had a bunch of her WCTU ladies over, Miss Dulcie Trimmer among them, so Fan and I took Theo sledding. We stayed out all afternoon and came in with our teeth chattering and our noses bright pink. Aunt made us cocoa and we went to bed early. We entirely missed having to be polite to Miss D.T.

  But, once she was gone, we came down in our nightclothes for the reading of our Christmas story.

  Monday, December 9, 1918

  I am sorry, Jane. I know I missed yesterday. But we are back attending church although we don’t linger afterwards. Then, in the afternoon, there is Sunday School and we are rehearsing for the Christmas Concert. Then it is evening and we need to hear the Christmas stories. Father says those who do not study do not get stories. I do not think he would make us forfeit one, really, but I can’t take the chance.

  Last night he read “Why the Chimes Rang.” I could tell Theo was pretending he was the Little Brother.

  The rest of the day was filled with doing jobs for Aunt and keeping Theo out from under her feet.

  Also, there are times when I need to go away by myself and remember Jemma. Otherwise it might feel as though I was forgetting she had been such a part of our family.

  Tuesday, December 10, 1918

  I am making Father read my choice of story tonight. I know he thinks it is “overly sentimental” but I don’t care. It’s The Birds’ Christmas Carol. Have you read it yet, Jane? Carol Bird is a little sick girl and she dies at the end, but even so I still love the story. And it is funny in spots. Theo will love those bits. Even Father’s voice grows husky when the angels come.

  Wednesday, December 11, 1918

  I was just going to start studying when Father gathered us all up — all but Aunt — and took us to the photographer to have our picture taken. Nobody asked him why because we all guessed. We have no family picture of us all together since we wer
e small. He asked us not to say where we had been. Theo promised. He is good at keeping secrets.

  Is Father giving Aunt the photograph for Christmas? He had a queer look on his face when the photographer got us all settled and looked us over.

  “You have good-looking children, Mr. Macgregor,” the man said.

  “They’ll do,” Father said. But he had to clear his throat before he spoke.

  Fanny says she saw Father blink back tears. I know how he felt.

  Thursday, December 12, 1918

  I am not in the right mood to write in this diary. I hate everybody tonight. I squabbled with Fanny, and Aunt lectured me about being self-centred. Be glad, Jane, that I am not telling you more.

  Friday, December 13, 1918

  It is all right, Jane. I have made peace with the world. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat.

  I am not going to write down what Fanny and I have decided to give Theo, just in case somehow he glimpses my words. But it is a wonderful present. Oh, I did hint at it but it is more than I said.

  Tonight we started on the Christmas part in The Pickwick Papers. Jemma loved that part. I can still hear her laughing at their trying to skate.

  Saturday, December 14, 1918

  Headache.

  Can’t write.

  Sunday, December 15, 1918

  Our Sunday School class is meeting again and we are putting on a performance of “The Cratchits’ Christmas Dinner” at the concert. Aunt is still anxious about our going but Father says he thinks the danger is over.

  I wish Miss Banks read as well as Father. I play the part of Martha, who hides behind the door when the father comes home. Ethel Maynard from Jo’s class is Mrs. Cratchit. They moved to Canada from England two years ago and she still talks with a perfect English accent and she is also good at acting. Miss Banks was going to have us do a play based on “The Little Match Girl” but we said we wouldn’t. It was far too sad. Tiny Tim is bad enough.