The hall opened into a sun-washed kitchen. The woman went to a screened door. Patrick and I crowded in beside her to see five children in the yard.
“He’s over there. At the bottom of the garden.” Mrs. Halliday pointed to a small boy near the back fence. She opened the door. “Gordon,” she called.
The boy turned around, but even before I saw his face I knew it wasn’t Bertie. This boy was too stocky.
“That’s not him,” I said. I fought tears that threatened to spill over. I had wanted it so badly to be Bertie.
“I’m very sorry.” The woman put a hand on my arm and pushed me into a chair. “Sit down. You children look all done in. Let me get you both a glass of milk and a sandwich.”
“We don’t want to be any trouble,” I said, but I sank into the chair. My legs couldn’t carry me any farther.
“Did you come from Halifax to look for your brother?” The woman bent and took a pitcher of milk and a slab of ham from an icebox. She had a calm, kind way about her that I immediately took to.
“We arrived on the train this morning,” Patrick said. “Rose thought she saw her brother yesterday in Halifax, and then getting on the Truro train with a woman. We told our aunt Ida that we were coming to visit Winnie, Rose’s sister. She’s at the hospital here.”
“I see.” Mrs. Halliday cut bread and placed thick slices of ham inside. She put the sandwiches on a plate and set them and glasses of milk on the table before me and Patrick. Patrick tucked right into his. I took a bite, chewed, but found I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. I reached for the glass of milk. Mrs. Halliday sat down opposite us and picked up a sock she was darning. The needle flashed silver in and out of the wool, and I swear it could have been Mam sitting there.
“I wish Gordon was your brother,” she said. “No one’s come to claim him or two of the others. We’ve placed an advertisement in the Halifax paper to run tomorrow. Hopefully someone will see it and recognize the children. Some arrived here so little that they can’t tell where they came from or who their parents are. I’m afraid they’ll be separated forever.” She glanced up from her needle. “If you two youngsters are here looking for your brother, your parents must be hurt . . .” Or worse, her eyes finished: sympathetic green eyes, not as brilliant as Mam’s but with similar laugh lines spreading outward from the corners.
I took a second gulp of milk, hoping to wash down the stubborn lump of sandwich, but choked instead. Patrick thumped me hard on the back, nearly knocking me off the chair.
“Stop it,” I gasped. Tears spilled over my cheeks. I tried desperately to stop them, but that made them fall harder.
The woman set down her sewing, came around the table and put an arm around my shoulders. “Hush, hush, dear.”
“You don’t understand,” I cried. “I need to find Bertie. I have to.”
Mrs. Halliday’s arm tightened around me. I turned and clung to her, and the story spilled out of me. I couldn’t stop the flood of words. Mam buried in the cemetery. Da and Frederick dead. Winnie and Ernest hurt. Bertie lost. Sister Frances. School. The way I’d not talked to Da the morning of the explosion because I was mad at him. The fact that I was slow.
“So I prayed to God and asked Him to make it so I didn’t have to go to school and He answered with the explosion. I caused the explosion,” I sobbed. “So I thought if I could find Bertie, it might make it a bit better.”
Mrs. Halliday patted my back and handed me a handkerchief. I mopped my eyes.
Patrick’s chair screeched as he pushed it back from the table. His mouth gaped open. “You caused the explosion! I thought I’d caused the explosion!”
Chapter 19
“Oh, my. Such a burden you two have been carrying around.” Mrs. Halliday returned to her seat across from us. She folded her hands on the table, sewing set aside.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cry . . . and you made us this nice lunch. You must think we’re dreadful—”
Mrs. Halliday put her hand up to stop me. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger,” she said.
She was right. I had told her things that I couldn’t tell Aunt Ida. It might be that she reminded me so much of Mam.
“So I understand why Rose thinks she caused the explosion, but why do you think you did, Patrick?” Mrs. Halliday asked.
He ducked his head and twirled the milk glass around and around in his hand. “Well, I thought maybe God was punishing me.” He shot a glance my way. “I tease people sometimes.”
“Hah!” I exclaimed.
“I guess I’m not always nice,” he mumbled.
He shifted nervously on his chair. “I tease Rose because she’s dumb. She can’t read properly or learn stuff.”
“Rose doesn’t strike me as the least bit dumb,” Mrs. Halliday said. “She found her way to me in her search for her brother, and that takes some initiative and courage.”
I wasn’t sure what initiative was, but it sounded good. I did know about courage, though. Great-grandmother Rose had courage. Courage had brought her to Canada from Ireland. Had it brought me here to Truro? I felt better thinking I had courage like Great-grandmother Rose.
“I thought maybe God was teaching me a lesson,” Patrick said.
“I’m not sure what church you go to, and I don’t think it important that I do know,” Mrs. Halliday said slowly. “I just want to say this: the God I know would never hurt people. Would yours, Rose? Patrick? Bad things happen. Occasionally, people intentionally cause them—like this war we’re in—sometimes they’re an accident, and sometimes they’re the way of the natural world.”
I sat for a long time, silent. I’d never thought it through before. Things had changed so fast, I hadn’t had time. I just knew I had prayed to God to make it so I didn’t have to go to school, and then the explosion happened.
A small girl came in from the backyard, and Mrs. Halliday put an arm around her and pulled her close, then after a quick word sent her back out to play. I worried that I wasn’t answering Mrs. Halliday fast enough, but she didn’t press me. She let me take my time. I liked that. When Sister Frances tapped her foot impatiently, my brain stopped dead. When I grew up, I vowed, I would always give people time to think. I focussed my thoughts on what Mrs. Halliday had said.
Was that it? Had the explosion been an accident? I thought about St. Joseph’s Church on a Sunday morning, and the peace that filled me as I bent my knee and bowed my head in prayer. The saints who watched over me. My talks with God.
“Maybe it was an accident,” I said finally.
Mrs. Halliday nodded encouragingly.
“The two ships collided. Uncle James said one of the pilots on board must have made a mistake. The one ship had explosives and they blew up and that caused the explosion. God wouldn’t hurt that many people just because I prayed for myself, would He?”
“Rose, people pray for themselves all the time. We’re selfish, but He understands that,” Mrs. Halliday said. “And Patrick . . .”
He grinned sheepishly.
“God wouldn’t give you so hard a lesson. But I think you’ve learned from the explosion, anyway.”
“So, I didn’t cause it?” Patrick asked.
“No,” I told him. “And neither did I.”
And I believed myself. I really did believe that my prayer hadn’t caused the explosion. I could have floated right around Mrs. Halliday’s kitchen, I felt so light right then.
“Now, you said you were going to see your sister, Winnie,” Mrs. Halliday reminded me.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s at the hospital. Aunt Ida gave me a map of how to get there from the train station.”
“Well, I suggest you go visit your sister. No more searching for Bertie today. When you get back to Halifax, tell your aunt Ida that you thought you saw him get on the train. She can contact the proper people, like the relief office and the police, and they can start a search for him. You should have told your aunt where you were going. Don’t go off on y
our own again,” she chided gently.
“We won’t,” I assured her.
Patrick wolfed down the rest of his sandwich and looked hungrily at mine.
“You can have it. I’m really not too hungry,” I said, glancing apologetically at Mrs. Halliday.
After Patrick had eaten my lunch, too, we gathered ourselves up. Mrs. Halliday placed my hat firmly on my head.
“You look after yourself, Rose. And if you find Bertie, will you let me know?”
“I will,” I promised. Suddenly my arms went around her neck and held on tight. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“You’re very welcome.”
Patrick and I left the house and walked back the way we’d come.
“So you thought you’d caused the explosion?” he said.
“And you thought you had.”
“But we didn’t.”
“No, we didn’t,” I said.
Patrick began to whistle and pulled out his bag of candy. I studied the map that Aunt Ida had drawn for us. We’d turned ourselves around by our trip to Mrs. Halliday’s, but I could tell where we were.
“Here, let me see that,” Patrick demanded.
I stuffed it into my pocket.
“Well, I hope you know where we’re going,” he said. He held out the paper bag. “Do you want a candy?”
I put my hand out, only to have the bag pulled away from my fingertips. He laughed and held it out again, this time letting me take a candy.
I hurried my steps, anxious now to get to Winnie. It had been nearly two weeks since I’d seen her last. I remembered the soldiers carrying her into the hospital. I missed her dreadfully. I’d make it up to her by telling her the best story I could.
As we walked, I formed my first prayer in a long time. Please, God, help me find Bertie. Not just for myself, I hastily added, but for my family. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe in You. It felt good to talk to Him again.
At the hospital, I asked a nurse where Winnie could be found. She directed us upstairs to a long room with beds filled with children. More children sat at three small tables set in the middle of the room. They drew pictures or turned the pages of books. Winnie sat in a bed, propped up by two pillows.
“Rose,” she yelled when she caught sight of us. She bounced on the bed.
I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life. I hugged her gingerly, fearful of hurting her, though obviously nothing hurt too much, for she flung herself at me.
“You should have come before,” she said accusingly.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll explain why I didn’t when we have lots of time,” I told her.
Winnie smiled. “See what I got?” She held up a china doll. It reminded me suddenly of Catherine. I briefly wondered where she was right now.
“You can hold it,” Winnie offered.
I’d forgotten how quickly Winnie forgave and forgot. I took the doll and admired it.
“And now you hold it, Patrick,” she ordered.
He sighed, but picked the doll up by an arm, dangled it, then dropped it on the bed.
“And I got a huge cut on my stomach,” Winnie said. She pulled up her nightgown to show me a large bandage. “It’s sewed together. Do you want to see?” Her fingers reached toward the dressing.
“No. That’s fine,” I said hastily as I pulled down her nightgown.
“I also got a new storybook. When you’re sick, everyone’s extra nice to you,” she confided. She plopped the book in my lap. “Do you want to read it?”
I opened it, but as usual the letters jumped around and I couldn’t make sense of any of the words. “It looks very nice,” I said weakly, and closed the book.
A nurse came and stuck a thermometer in Winnie’s mouth.
“It’s good, but not as good as your stories,” Winnie declared around the thermometer.
“Keep your mouth closed,” the nurse ordered.
Winnie grimaced, but did as told.
“She’s making excellent progress,” the nurse said to me. “I understand your aunt and uncle are Winnie’s guardians now that her parents are dead?”
I saw a shadow darken Winnie’s eyes. I had wondered if she knew Mam and Da were gone. She did.
At first I didn’t really know what the nurse meant by “guardian,” then realized it was what Catherine’s grandmother was for her, so I nodded. I guessed that meant Aunt Ida and Uncle James were also my guardians and Ernest’s and Patrick’s. If we had guardians, surely we wouldn’t go to an orphanage.
“Well, please tell them that we are sending Winnie back to Halifax to Victoria General Hospital at week’s end. Now that things have settled down there, they have room to take her for her convalescence. She’ll be closer to her family.”
The nurse took the thermometer from Winnie’s mouth.
“Rose tells the best stories. She’s going to tell me one now,” Winnie said to the nurse as soon as her mouth was free.
“Are you?”
The nurse looked around the room, which was full of children. “Do you mind if some of the other children listen? It’s a long day for them, stuck in here. Many don’t have any family to visit.”
I stared at her, aghast. She wanted me to tell a story to the whole room? I could feel my legs begin to tremble. It was just like being asked to read at school. Taking my silence as agreement, the nurse gathered the children around Winnie’s bed. Some sat and some lay on the floor. Others crawled to the ends of their beds to hear.
I swallowed hard. “What do you want to hear?” I asked Winnie.
“A story about Great-grandmother Rose,” Winnie replied.
I thought with a pang of the Irish Chain quilt. I didn’t know if I could tell a story of Great-grandmother without the quilt. “Are you sure?” I asked. “What about the princess in the Citadel? Maybe the children would rather hear about her.”
“No, one about Great-grandmother Rose,” Winnie repeated firmly.
I closed my eyes and imagined Winnie and me back in our room on Albert Street, just the two of us. I remembered then a small patch from the quilt, a faded grey wimsey cut from a work dress. I took a deep breath.
“After forty-five days on a ship crossing the ocean from Ireland, Great-grandmother Rose and her three children arrived at Quebec. So many were sick on board that they quarantined the passengers. For three weeks, Rose lived in a corner of a shed, the family sleeping on a bed of straw. When it came time to leave the island in the middle of the vast St. Lawrence River, Rose asked, ‘Where do I go?’
“She was in a strange land that she knew nothing about. A kindly man told her to take a steamer to Toronto, where work was plentiful for new immigrants. With the last of the priest’s money, Rose bought passage for herself and her children on a steamer ship and went to Toronto. Canada was a big country, and Rose felt frightened by the thick stands of trees that crowded down to the riverbanks. When she arrived in Toronto, Rose left the ship and stood on the dock, lonely and scared. She had no money and nobody to turn to.” I paused a moment to let the words sink into the children. I knew it was the same for them. Since the explosion, we all felt like strangers in a bewildering new land.
“Rose went into the Widows’ and Orphans’ Home. The rules were strict and difficult to live by, but it was a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Then one day the head of the home came to her. ‘Your son is ten years old and we have arranged for him to work on a farm.’ And she took him away. A few days later the head came to Rose again. ‘Your older daughter is eight and we have arranged for her to train as a domestic in a doctor’s house.’ And she took her away. Now Rose had only one child left with her, my grandma. At first she could think of nothing but the empty spot in her heart, but then she vowed she would bring her family back together.”
Suddenly I was hearing the words of my story as if for the very first time. They rang in my heart, and I knew I’d found the key to the quilt. It had been inside me all along, just needing to be brought out.
I h
ad courage like Great-grandmother Rose.
“Rose went out and got work as a cook at a boarding house. She worked hard for two years, and earned enough money to buy passage for her family to Halifax. ‘I want to be as near Ireland as I can,’ she said. She went to the farm and got her son, and went to the doctor’s house and got her daughter, and they were all together again.”
At the end of the story, there was a moment of silence, then everyone clapped. Embarrassed, I realized the nurses and a couple of doctors had also stopped to listen. My cheeks turned crimson at the attention.
“Stories are for bedtime,” a voice announced loudly.
My head whipped around. On the floor, dressed in a cap and coat, was a red-haired boy.
“Bertie!”
Chapter 20
I sat on my bed, working out a new story to tell the children at Victoria General Hospital. I went in regularly now, twice a week, to tell them a story, then stayed to help them with their afternoon snack. It had all come about from my visits with Winnie there. The nurses said I had a wonderful way with children, and Sister Therese said I had a wonderful way with words.
She told me that a kindergarten would soon be set up for the little ones, to get them off the streets until school could be started up again. Then she asked me to help out at the kindergarten. I hadn’t told Aunt Ida yet, but Sister Therese had said there would be a small stipend for me. I kept that part secret because I wanted to surprise Aunt Ida when I handed her my first wages.
Today, though, my mind wandered away from my story planning. Six weeks after the explosion, our lives had fallen into a pattern of sorts. Slowly, we were becoming used to each other in this new household, though some people, like Patrick, took more getting used to than others. I could hear him, Bertie and Ernest laughing all the way upstairs from the kitchen. Aunt Ida said she had no idea boys could be so noisy. I will say this for Patrick, though, he certainly did bring Ernest out of himself. I’d worried dreadfully when Ernest first came home, black patch over one eye and so silent. Patrick had immediately dragged him outside to show him a new sled Uncle James had got for them.
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