by Darcie Chan
“Help,” he managed to say before he fell. “I think I need—”
Chapter 32
Sunday, December 2, 1934
On Sunday afternoon, having spent a second night alone at the farm, Michael stood outside the door to the maternity wing, waiting as his uncle broke the news to his mother about the death of his father. “You’ve been through more than a boy of fifteen should,” his uncle had said before going in. “She’ll be incredibly upset. You needn’t have that memory to further burden you.” Even so, Michael heard his mother’s screams plainly through the heavy double doors.
He stood, head bowed, with his hands in his trouser pockets. To distract himself from his grief, he forced himself to think about various trivial problems and their solutions. The Whibleys were caring for Onion and the chickens. He wouldn’t be attending school on Monday, and his uncle had already written a note to the principal, explaining what would be a lengthy absence. His uncle didn’t know about the loan office, but Michael hoped his boss would understand when he didn’t show up for work on Monday.
A few minutes after his mother’s cries had quieted, Michael began to wonder whether he should go in to see her when a nurse approached him. She carried a tiny bundle in her arms, and he recognized her as the nurse who had held his infant sister in the window of the nursery for the family to see.
“You’re Mrs. O’Brien’s son, aren’t you?” she asked. “I’ve heard the news about your father. I’m so very sorry.” The bundle in her arms stirred, and the nurse began to gently pat it. “It’s not quite feeding time, but I thought that holding the baby might bring your mother some comfort.”
“Maybe so,” Michael said. He craned his neck closer, trying to get a better look at his sister. “Would it be all right…do you think…I could hold her?”
“I don’t see why not, but only for a moment. The doctor doesn’t want her outside the incubator for long. Make sure you keep her swaddled, and support her little head at all times. There, that’s it.” The nurse carefully transferred the baby into his arms and helped position her properly.
Michael gazed down at his sister’s face, marveling again at how perfect and small it was. He could scarcely believe that a human being could be the size of his tiny sibling. Even Tabby the barn cat was easily twice her weight. Carefully, gently, he brushed his lips against the baby’s forehead. Her skin was softer than velvet.
“How long will she have to stay in the hospital?”
“If everything is stable with her growth, until she gains enough weight that the doctor feels she’s strong enough to go home. I expect both she and your mother will be here for some time. Now let’s bring her inside,” the nurse said.
“I can carry her?”
“Yes. Walk slowly and carefully. Keep both hands on her and your arm beneath her head, and she’ll be just fine.”
They entered the maternity ward. It was smaller and slightly more private than the women’s ward, and there were only two women besides his mother. The nurse led the way to the last bed on one side of the room, where a privacy curtain had been pulled. Inside the curtain, his uncle Frank sat on a chair beside the bed.
“Mrs. O’Brien? I brought two people who’d like to see you,” the nurse said. She stepped sideways, making room for Michael to approach with the baby.
“Oh,” his mother said as she looked at the two of them. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and tears continued to leak out of them as she spoke. “Is it the first time you’ve held her?”
“Yes,” Michael said. He came closer, bent down, and placed his sister in his mother’s arms. Before he straightened, he wrapped his arms around them both as best he could. “I’m so sorry, Mother. I feel like I should do something, and I can’t.”
“Just your being here is a comfort, Michael. There’s nothing any of us can do.”
Frank quietly slipped out of the curtained area and returned with another chair for Michael.
“Mother, what’s her name?” Michael asked.
His mother smiled down at the tiny infant before she answered him. “Your father and I…we always said that if we ever had a baby girl, we’d name her Grace. We talked about it when he was home those few days last June. Maybe we can use Elizabeth as a middle name, after your grandmother. After everything that happened, and how she took care of me all that time…”
“I think Lizzie would’ve loved that,” Frank said.
“And Father, too,” Michael added. “Grace Elizabeth.”
His uncle cleared his throat. “Anna, circumstances being what they are, I wanted to suggest to you that we give Grace the sacrament of baptism right away, if you’re willing.” He reached into his jacket and removed a small glass bottle of clear liquid. “I brought a bit of holy water with me.”
His mother looked at Frank with vacant eyes, but she nodded and carefully turned Grace in her arms so that the baby’s downy head was accessible. Frank bowed his head to pray before he removed the stopper from the bottle and softly began the rite of baptism. As he sprinkled a few droplets on her head, Grace blinked. Rather than cry out, though, she flung her tiny arms free of her blankets and open wide, as if to accept the love flowing from all of them into her soul.
—
“It’s not right for you to stay at the farm by yourself indefinitely, Michael,” his uncle said as they ate dinner at the Holy Cross Mission rectory. “You can stay here until your mother is well enough to go home. I’ll have to talk with her once she’s strong enough and figure out what we need to do.”
Michael nodded. He realized he had no other option.
“We need to go out to the farm tonight, though,” his uncle continued. “You’ll need to get some clothes and whatever personal things you’d like. Your mother asked me to get some things for her as well. We’ll drop them off at the hospital on our way back into the city.”
“What are we going to do, Uncle Frank? Without Father, I don’t know if I can earn enough. What if Mother has to sell the farm? And the hospital bill for Mother and Grace…”
“Don’t worry about that now, Michael. I know you feel responsible, but your mother is the one who has to decide how to handle things when she’s up to it.”
Everything’s changing too quickly, Michael thought as they arrived at the farmhouse. It didn’t feel right being there alone, and yet it seemed just as wrong to be packing up his things, preparing to sleep elsewhere for an uncertain length of time. It was almost a relief when his knapsack would hold nothing else. He carried it down the hall and set it by the door.
His uncle was in his mother’s room, putting her things in a suitcase. Michael’s gaze traveled to the back door. Quickly, he slipped outside and opened the trapdoor to the root cellar. He ran to the pile of burlap sacks in the corner, pawing through them with fervor until he found the case containing his mother’s secret silver. It was a small miracle that, in the many months that had passed since she’d revealed it to him, she hadn’t moved her prized possession to another hiding place.
Michael assumed his uncle didn’t know about the flatware, since his mother had kept it a secret even from her own husband. The burlap sacks strewn all around were large enough to hold the flatware case, so he slid it inside one of the newer-looking ones and slung it over his shoulder. Back upstairs, he transferred several of his larger books to the sack and twisted the top closed.
Frank emerged with a large suitcase and a smaller satchel. “All set?” he asked, and Michael nodded. As they were putting the bags in the backseat of the parish sedan, one of the books slid out from the burlap sack and onto the ground.
“Wuthering Heights,” Frank said as he retrieved the book and handed it to him. “Never cared for it much.”
“Me, neither,” Michael said. He dropped the book back into the sack and twisted the top closed more tightly than before.
Back at the hospital, they hurried to reach the maternity ward before visiting hours ended for the evening. Carrying the smaller of the bags, Michael followed his unc
le toward his mother’s bed. She was awake, sitting with her hands in her lap and staring blankly straight ahead.
“Anna, I brought you the things you wanted. Do you want me to set them on a chair so they’re easier for you to reach?”
His mother turned her head toward Frank. “All right,” she said, and then she looked curiously at Michael. “Is he a friend of yours?”
Frank looked at her with a furrowed brow before glancing in Michael’s direction. “Anna?”
“Hmm? I just wondered if he’s a friend, since he’s here with you. Or is he someone Niall knows?” She craned her neck to peer at him over his uncle’s shoulder. “Are you helping Frank with the wedding?”
A chill ran down Michael’s spine. His mother was looking directly at him, but her eyes were strangely empty.
She didn’t know who he was.
“Anna,” Frank said in a calm, careful voice, “this is Michael. Your son. Don’t you remember him?”
His mother gave a strange, high-pitched giggle. “Oh, don’t be silly, Frank. I don’t have a son! Why, Niall and I won’t even be married until next week!”
Michael opened his mouth to say something, but a sharp look from his uncle warned him against speaking.
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow, Anna. You get some rest tonight,” Frank said. He bent to kiss Anna on the forehead and then quickly ushered Michael away from her bedside. “We need to find a doctor right away. And we need to make sure they don’t bring the baby to her while she’s in this state.”
“What’s happening? Uncle Frank? Why didn’t she recognize me?”
His uncle didn’t answer him until they were completely outside the maternity ward. “I think your father’s death has affected her mind. The grief and maybe the stress of everything that’s happened. Somehow, her mind has taken her back in time and blacked out all the painful things that have happened.”
“She’s…she’s gone insane?”
“I couldn’t say. I saw the same sort of thing happen one other time, to one of my parishioners who lost her son in the Great War. She lost touch with reality, although she eventually recovered.”
“Mother’s a strong person.”
“She is,” his uncle said. “I know that probably better than anyone. She’ll make it through this, and I’ll see to it that she gets the care she needs.”
—
On Monday morning, when he opened his eyes, Michael was confused about where he was. The spare room in which he was sleeping was furnished with only a bed and a chair. The windows lacked curtains, allowing the sunlight to shine into the room unimpeded.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. There was a note from his uncle on the seat of the chair:
Michael, help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I have church business to attend to today and tonight. We’ll visit the hospital tomorrow.
Frank
Michael looked at the burlap sack in the corner of the room and got out of bed.
By midmorning, he was walking along the main road from Colchester to Burlington, the burlap sack slung against his back. Every so often, when he heard a car approaching, he extended his arm with his thumb sticking upward, hoping for a ride. It was about six miles from the mission to the loan office, and the case of flatware in the burlap sack was getting heavier with each step.
An old pickup truck finally rattled to a stop several yards ahead of him, and Michael jogged up to meet it.
“Where’re you headed?” the driver asked through a window.
“Burlington.”
“What’s in the sack?”
“Just some personal things. Clothes, books, and such. I’m going to stay with my aunt. She lives a few blocks from Church Street.”
The driver was grizzled and wrinkled, a good fit for the rusty truck he was driving. “I’ll be passing through there,” he said after a long pause. “Don’t trust hitchhikers in the cab, but you can climb up in the back, if you want.”
“Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.”
Michael scrambled into the bed of the pickup. The late autumn air was frigid against his face, but it was far more comfortable than carrying the flatware into Burlington.
The driver pulled over at the corner of Church and Main, and Michael jumped down from the truck. He wished so much that he had more to offer the driver than his thanks.
Mr. Borisov already had customers milling around the counter when Michael walked into the loan office. Obviously, he had arrived far earlier than his regular starting time, but he ignored the look of surprise on his boss’s face. Instead, he took the burlap sack directly to the back of the store, where the containers holding the scrap gold and silver were kept. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that they were full. It meant that the gold buyer hadn’t yet arrived for his monthly visit.
While Mr. Borisov dealt with his customers, Michael took the flatware case from the sack and opened it. The pieces were neatly in their compartments, and they shone enough that he could see his reflection in the spoons. His mother had managed to keep them polished.
He had wrestled with the idea of what he was about to do, but he’d decided that he had no choice. His mother was recovering from surgery and now was apparently sick in her mind. His new sister was weak and fragile. A great deal of money would be needed to pay for their medical care and afterward, and his father and grandmother were gone. His uncle had sworn himself to a life of poverty. And he himself was only fifteen, unable to command the wages of an adult, even if he could find a job paying them, and even being as willing and able as he was to shoulder the responsibility of a man who was fully grown.
His mother’s secret insurance policy was all they had.
—
On Tuesday, Michael went with his uncle to the hospital, where they found that Anna had sunk deeper into her delirium. When she wasn’t sleeping, she alternately babbled nonsense or stared blankly at nothing in particular. His uncle was receiving regular updates from her doctors, who seemed to feel that her mental recovery would be lengthy. His mother seemed to recognize Frank, but Michael was a stranger to her.
Grace was hanging on, although her health, too, was precarious. She weighed little more than she had at birth. Michael hadn’t been allowed to hold her again, though he saw her through the nursery window in the arms of the nurses.
The rest of the week, he stayed at the rectory. His uncle was uncharacteristically grim and busy. They rarely saw each other except at dinner and during their visits to the hospital that took place every few days. Michael thought about trying to go back to school, but he could barely focus on reading, and he couldn’t imagine sitting in a classroom with his mind so dulled by sadness.
On Friday morning, he was awakened by his uncle gently shaking his arm.
“Uncle Frank?”
“Michael, wake up. We need to talk.”
He sat up in bed, and his uncle took a seat at the end of the mattress. “The hospital called an hour ago. Grace passed away last night.”
Michael said nothing. He thought he might not have heard his uncle correctly.
“They did all they could for her. She grew weaker and weaker, despite having the best care, and in the end, the doctors couldn’t save her. She was too small and born too soon.” His uncle cleared his throat. “Your mother’s doctors think it best that we not tell her. She doesn’t remember Grace right now, anyway. They want to send her to a hospital called the Brattleboro Retreat. It specializes in compassionate care for the mentally ill. It requires the consent of her closest living relative who is of age. Since Seamus is in prison out of state, they’re looking to me to make the decision, but I wanted to speak to you first.”
Michael felt his body trembling, still trying to adjust to the shock of hearing his sister had died. “Will this place—the retreat—will it help her get well?”
“It might. I think she has the best chance of getting well there.”
“Does it cost anything for her to go there?”
“The Brattlebo
ro Retreat is a private facility. I’m working on getting her a charitable admission, with the assumption that the farm will be sold to help cover the expense. It’s also possible that your mother will receive some sort of death benefit from your father’s employer in New York.”
“I can help, too,” Michael said. He got out of bed and went to his knapsack, where he withdrew a roll of bills and a thin object wrapped in cloth. “Mother had a set of old sterling flatware that she kept hidden. She got it from her mother after she married Father. It was a secret. Nobody knew about it but me. She told me her mother gave it to her so she’d have something valuable in case of an emergency.
“She was upset with me, that day she had Grace, because she found out I’ve been working in the loan office in Burlington since early summer. I know the gold buyer who comes around each month. Monday, I got a ride into the city and sold the flatware.” He held out the money to his uncle. “There’s almost a hundred dollars here. It might not be enough to cover everything we need or already owe, but it’s a start.”
His uncle took the bills and looked down at them, then nodded.
“I kept this,” Michael said as he unwrapped the thin object. “It’s the sugar spoon from the set. Mother told me her mother had it engraved especially for her. I didn’t think it’d be right to part with it. Do you think I could bring it to her in the hospital?”
The little sugar spoon shimmered in the light of the morning sun. His uncle picked it up, looking closely at its engraving.
“I worry that seeing you right now would upset your mother further,” Frank said. “She’s still confused and wouldn’t recognize you. But I can keep the spoon and give it to her once she starts to recover.”
