Chapter 20
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Miriam counted her few remaining coins. Yes, she had to use some for the trolley. She wouldn’t have time tomorrow to walk clear home and back. But she had to see her family to say good-bye.
Just the thought brought a monstrous lump to her throat. A year. It would be a year before she could return to Chicago. A year stretched to eternity. Her common sense chided her. It is only a year. Other people are gone from their families for years on end. You can write letters, and you know the mail comes to Blessing, not just from it.
Common sense was not a comfort, not by any means.
Right after breakfast the next morning, she tucked the extra bread, cheese, roast chicken, and a jar of soup into her bag. Cook was so generous to send food like this to her family. If only she were bringing better news too. She’d waited, hoping Mrs. Korsheski would have found ways to help like she said she would, but there had been no mention of anything so far.
Their train tickets were for Friday afternoon and it was already Sunday.
A knock at her door raised her hopes, but they were dashed again when it was Corabell standing there, wringing her hands, sniffing back tears.
Miriam put on a welcoming face. “Come in.” She stepped back. “How can I help you?” She wanted to scream, “What are you bawling about now, for heaven’s sake?” But she refrained. That would bring on a crying jag that would flood the room.
“I c-can’t go to Blessing, Miriam. I just can’t.” The can’t came out on a wail.
Miriam guided her to the edge of the bed and sat her down. “Of course you can. No one ever died of homesickness. And look, you’ve not even left Chicago yet. Go see your family today and enjoy yourself.” She didn’t mention saying good-bye.
Corabell nodded, sniffed, mopped, and heaved a sigh. “Thank you. You are so good to me. I know I am a ninny; after all, this is the chance of a lifetime.”
“Right.” She was glad to see that this young nurse had indeed been listening to her counsel in former bouts like this. “Corabell, I hate to rush you, but I need to catch the trolley. I will see you this evening at supper.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. I’m taking up precious time with your family.” She rose to her feet. At least no more tears flowed. Smiling even though her lips quivered, she thanked Miriam again and left.
Miriam sagged against the closed door. What a worrier that woman was. How she ever had the courage to enroll in nursing school was beyond what she could imagine. Yet she was a good nurse in her caring for patients. For some reason ill women found comfort in Corabell, and she often could be found at the bedside of a patient. Especially those in extremis or comatose. Why could she be so compassionate in helping patients and yet such a soggy mess of tears when it came to leaving Chicago? Quickly, before she had any more interruptions, Miriam pinned her hat on her nest of hair and, basket on arm, headed for the outside door. The trolley would not wait.
But once she hopped on, it sure was slow. Or perhaps she was too impatient. That thought almost made her smile. Her? Impatient? She smiled at the dowager sitting across from her, but all she received in return was a slight nodding of the head. A dip, you might call it.
When the trolley finally reached her stop, she stepped down and, ignoring strictures to be more ladylike, walk-trotted the three blocks to the tenement where they lived. By the time she stepped onto the fourth floor, she needed to stop and catch her breath. But the need to see her family was greater, so she strode down the hall, ignoring the smells of filth, despair, and stale booze. She knocked the three, pause, one signal and waited for someone to unlock the door.
Her sister, Mercy, the one closest to her in age, threw wide the door and, along with the others, piled around Miriam as she hugged each one.
“I was beginning to think you were never coming.” Eight-year-old Truth, whose dark hair hung in one long braid, hugged her again.
“I’ve come every time I said I would.” She kissed her finger and tapped it on the girl’s turned-up nose.
“No, one time you had a ’mergency and couldn’t come.” Her eyes darkened reproachfully.
“Oh, that’s right.” Truth never forgot anything. She hugged her little sister once more and asked, “Where is Tonio?”
“He got a job for two whole weeks.” Joy, the quiet one, loved school but gave it up to stay with their mother. So the others taught her whatever they could when they were home. Miriam brought her books from the hospital library to read whenever she could.
“And maybe longer.” Este, at fourteen, worked as many places as he could and, when not working, picked up coal along the train tracks for them to heat with in the winter. He brought wood when he could scavenge that too. He helped with the sewing business by picking up and delivering orders.
She lowered her voice. “How is Mama?”
“Waiting for you. She said if she was sleeping, you were to wake her.” Mercy picked up the basket Miriam had set on the floor. “Thank you. Anything will be a treat after a rather steady diet of porridge. Este found some potatoes and carrots in the dump at the market that were so good. He is a master at finding things we might use. Mama was talking about the gardens they grew in England. Wouldn’t a garden be a wondrous thing?”
Miriam dug in her bag and pulled out her remaining coins. She would walk back to the hospital. Handing them to Mercy, she whispered, “I just wish it were more.” Should she tell them about Mrs. Korsheski’s possibly sending work their way? Holy Father, let it be so. She caught herself. Such a habit and yet so futile.
The others followed her as she opened the door to their mother’s room, where the figure in the bed barely raised the covers.
Her eyes fluttered open and she extended a thin hand. “Oh, you have come. You have finally come.”
Miriam sank down on the edge of the bed, and the others found places to sit, both Joy and Truth perching at the foot. The heat in the room nearly captured her breath. Summer in Chicago could be punishing. Heat in the summer, bone-freezing wind and cold in the winter. She kissed the back of her mother’s hand. If only there were something more that could be done for her. Possibly another visit to the hospital. Last time it had helped build her strength.
“When will you be on your way to North Dakota?”
“We leave Friday afternoon.” Her fingers on her mother’s wrist told of an ever weakening heart. “Mercy said you were talking about your gardens in the old country. I heard that the ground is so fertile where I am going that whatever you put in the ground comes up tenfold. They plant cottonwood trees by just sticking a green branch in the ground and watering it.”
“Ah, the gardens we used to have in England. Oh yes. When you get to Dakota, go walking among the fields and gardens for me, please. What do they grow?”
“I don’t know. I hear the winters are much colder than in England or here in Chicago, and with lots of snow.”
“Ah, the goat cheese I used to make.” Her smile made her whole face brighten. “We had a herd of goats, so we had plenty of milk, and—” But a cough cut her off. When she could breathe again, she asked, “How is your school going?”
“Very well.” She went on to describe the two nurses who would be going with her. “If Corabell can get over her fears of being so far away from home. And Vera? All she dreams of is a husband. But they are both good nurses.”
“What if you meet the man of your dreams out there?” Mercy poked her sister on a shoulder blade. “You could, you know.”
“Don’t you fear. I will be back. Mrs. Korsheski has promised me a position at the hospital in the surgical ward if I prove my skills well in that area. She feels we will come back with far more experience than we would gain here.” She watched her mother’s eyes close in spite of her efforts to stay awake. Turning, she caught Mercy’s nod. “All the time?”
“No, but today is worse. She was so excited you were coming that I think it wore her out.” She motioned to the door, and they all filed into the other room.
“So tell me what has been happening.”
“With Mother or . . . ?” Mercy picked up a pillowcase she was embroidering.
“With everything.”
For the next two hours, her siblings shared what had been happening and asked Miriam questions about life at the hospital. When the shadows lengthened across the room, she went in to say good-bye to her mother. “You will write to me, won’t you?” she pleaded, the ache in her heart almost unbearable.
“I will. I just hope you can read it.”
“Oh, I will read it. Mother, I am going to ask Mrs. Korsheski if they will admit you to the hospital again to see if there is anything more they can do. Are you eating?”
“Yes, some.” She clung to her daughter’s hand. “I know the others save out the best bits for me, and that is unfair. They all work so hard, they need every bit of food we can find.”
“Cook sent some soup for you. She said to be of good courage and asked if there is any way you can get out in the sun, at least for a bit every day. You do sit in front of the window in the morning, don’t you?”
Her mother nodded. “When I can.” She smiled with her eyes more than her mouth. “You go with God, and I pray He will bring you back to us.”
“He will.” If not God, I will make sure I come back. He’d not answered any of her prayers for so long she had pretty much given up on the love He said He had for them. Or at least the priest had said. That thought brought up another. “Has a priest been here to visit you?”
“Not since Father Mulganey grew too old to serve. The younger priests don’t seem to take care of their flock the way he did.”
Not surprising, Miriam thought. You no longer have anything to put in the offering box. But if God was serious about taking care of the poor and the widows, why had He not sent help?
“It is not our place to question the almighty God. I will pray for you, my Miriam, not that I have ever quit. That He will keep you safe and bring you home again.”
“Well, in the meantime, I will ask Mrs. Korsheski if you can be admitted again.” She leaned over and kissed her mother’s pale cheek. “You eat that soup and you will feel better.” For that is all I have to offer you. She shook her head. No, she couldn’t go. She could not leave her family like this. She would tell Mrs. Korsheski in the morning.
Her mother clasped her hand. “Listen to me.” Her voice took on a semblance of authority. “You will not cancel your plans to stay here for us. God has provided for us so far. We have a roof over our heads, and we have not starved to death. You will go.”
Miriam nodded, anything to pacify the agitated woman in the bed. “I have to leave now. I will write.” She kissed her mother’s hand again. “Thank you for praying.” Knowing what she’d just said bordered on a lie, she left the room, hugged her sisters and brothers too, since Tonio had come home, and started out the door.
“I will walk partway with you.” Tonio stood from his place by the window, where an evening breeze was blowing off the lake and breathing coolness into the room.
“You needn’t do that.” She wanted to lie and tell him she was taking the trolley, but . . . “Only to the trolley, then.”
“You have the nickel for that?”
“She gave all her money to me.” Mercy ducked when she caught Miriam’s glare.
“Give the nickel back to her. She will take the trolley.” Tonio cocked an eyebrow at his older sister. “I will be paid this week. The trolley is safer for a woman alone on the streets in the evening.”
Miriam tried to not accept it, but when Tonio took the coin from Mercy and laid it in her palm, she gave up. She hugged everyone again and followed Tonio out the door and down the stairs. He swung her basket as they walked, after tucking her hand around his crooked elbow.
“Uh, I have a question. When did you become this man I see?”
“Over the last months. I could no longer be a boy. My family needs me too desperately. Men are more likely to be hired than a boy.”
“I see.” But she didn’t. “Do you think this job might last longer?”
He nodded. “I work harder than two of the others put together. The foreman has noticed.”
“What are you doing?”
“Loading railroad cars.”
The trolley was only half a block away when they reached the stop. She took her basket back after hugging him tight. “Please take care of yourself so you can take care of the others.” He nodded. “And write to me. I need to see home through your eyes.”
“I cannot promise that, but I will try.”
She stepped up and dropped her nickel in the coin box. She should have walked instead.
“I saved you a plate,” Cook said when Miriam arrived in the dining room after all the others had left. “How is your mother?”
“More frail all the time, if that is possible. But she said she has good days and bad days, and today happened to be a bad one.”
“The others said the same.”
“I’ll be right back.” When Cook returned, she handed her a warm plate of mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted chicken, and a mixture of canned vegetables. “We have gingerbread for dessert. You can have it with applesauce or hard sauce.”
“I’ll take the hard sauce. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that.” Miriam picked up her plate and set it on a white-clothed table, then retrieved her utensils and the square of gingerbread. “Thank you. I feel guilty for eating so wonderfully when my family is getting by on so little.”
“That’s life, all right. Now, you enjoy your supper and leave the worrying to God. He’s much better at it than we are.”
There it was. God again. Should she tell Cook of her new certainty? That God was sitting up in His heaven and maybe shaking His head over what was going on down on earth but not lifting a finger? She knew what she had to do. Go tell Mrs. Korsheski that she absolutely refused to go. No, that wasn’t the best way. But her family could not survive without her help. If she had to, she’d go to Mrs. Shaunnessy, head of the nursing school, and explain the situation.
But what if they do not allow you to stay in school if you don’t accept their plan? Kick you right out for insubordination? Then what will you do? Would the voice of torment never cease?