A bang and a muffled oath jerked me from sleep. I always woke the same way these days—with a jolt and a pounding heart. In the dim morning light of our bedroom, I saw Mary move about. We rented two rooms in the upper half of a house and shared the kitchen downstairs with the people in the bottom half. But as Aunt Ida repeated many times, it was a roof over our heads. She said that so many times, I knew she was trying to convince herself. A bride should have a nice home with her husband, I thought, not be stuck in two rooms with someone else’s children. I only hoped she didn’t see it that way.
Mary bumped into my bed again. “Drat it,” she muttered.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Did I wake you? I’m sorry,” she said. “But since you’re awake . . .” She swept back the curtains. “Now I can at least see. I’m going to be black and blue from stumbling around this room. It’s so different from our other bedroom. I guess I’ll get used to it in time.”
She might—but I’d never get used to this new bedroom, to half my family gone. I burrowed beneath the blankets and watched as Mary buttoned her skirt—a skirt that came from the relief office, like my bed, and the blankets, and the curtains on the windows. Mary bent to search beneath the bed.
“Why are you dressed up? Are you going back to the bank?” I asked. Mary had not been to work since the explosion.
“No,” she said. “Ah! Here it is.” She held up a shoe triumphantly, then sat on the bed to put it on. “I’m going to the relief office. I thought I’d volunteer my clerical skills. I’m sure they could use all the help they can get.”
“What about the bank?”
“I can’t go back there, Rose. I feel a fool. Such silly hopes for Horace. I’m afraid I became quite uppity with the other girls there. I couldn’t face them.” She gave a half laugh. “Not that it matters. I doubt I have a position there anymore. I said some pretty awful things to Horace the day of the explosion, and then I stormed out. I was just a good-time girl to him, Rose. No one special. Certainly no one he would marry. Mam knew that, but I was so headstrong.” She stood. “So that’s the end of my dreams,” she said briskly.
“Mam didn’t mind you having dreams,” I told her. “She and Da were proud of you.”
Mary sat back down and put her hand over mine. “Thank you, Rose. So, do you have any dreams?”
I thought about that one. I didn’t think so. When every minute of the day was filled with worry and terror of school, books, Sister Frances and the other girls, there wasn’t much time left for dreams. Except that once I had thought I might be a teacher. I guess that was a dream, even though it didn’t last long.
“Not really,” I finally said.
“It’s a hard time to dream,” Mary said softly. “Anyway, I’m off to a new start.” She stood and smoothed down her skirt. “I need to be busy and I need to help someone else. It takes a person out of themselves. I only wish I could bring in a bit of money for Aunt Ida and Uncle James. I’ll keep a lookout for another paying position.”
I wanted to ask her if she thought we’d be sent to an orphanage, then realized that Mary was too old for an orphanage. Maybe she could take care of us if Aunt Ida and Uncle James couldn’t. I felt my hopes rise. But that wasn’t fair. How could we tie down Mary, who yearned for so much?
“You should still dream,” I told her.
“Well, you never know. I just might.” She smiled and left.
I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. The room was cramped, even though it held only two narrow iron beds and a small table with a basin and pitcher. A cupboard with our clothes stood in the hallway outside, unable to fit in the room. The hall landing was also where Patrick slept on a cot. Aunt Ida and Uncle James slept in the other room. I wasn’t sure where we’d put Winnie and Ernest when they came home from the hospital.
I felt a twinge of guilt as I splashed water on my face. I still had not visited either of them. I had returned the nurse’s cape to Camp Hill Hospital, but had run quickly in and right back out again without seeing anyone, and that included Sister Therese. I thought of her rosary pushed deep into the pocket of my coat. I’d never used it. I didn’t say prayers anymore. They might be answered.
I locked eyes with myself in the mirror over the basin. I no longer looked like me—Rose. My face was thinner, cheekbones too pronounced, freckles redder than ever, hair straggly. Mam would hate me looking so dishevelled. I grabbed a comb and attacked the tangles, then gave up and threw the comb down. Even the clothes I wore weren’t mine—neither stitched by Mam nor knitted by Granny. I had nothing left of me.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Aunt Ida hurriedly dried dishes. “Try to get down a little earlier, Rose,” she said. “We only have so much time to use the stove.”
We cooked and ate our meals first, then a family of seven used the kitchen.
“There’s oatmeal in that pot.” Aunt Ida nodded with her head to the stove. “And tea. But before you eat, could you please wake Patrick?”
I went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up. “Patrick! Aunt Ida says if you don’t get up now, you won’t have time to eat.” She hadn’t said that, but the threat of no breakfast would get Patrick up faster than any other.
“Where’s Uncle James?” I asked as I helped myself to porridge.
“He went to help clear away some of the wreckage on the docks. No one can work until it’s done,” Aunt Ida said. “Though he has another of his headaches.” She sounded worried.
The bump on Uncle James’s head had left him with severe headaches. The doctor said they would go away eventually, but for now they plagued him daily.
A newspaper sat on the table. I ate a spoonful of porridge, then opened the paper to the only page that interested me: the one that carried advertisements put in by people searching for missing family members. More important, it had a list describing the unidentified injured and dead, updated every day. Laboriously, I sounded out the words. Male. Age about 35. Black hair and moustache. Fleece-lined underwear. Blue cotton shirt.
Patrick staggered through the room to the outhouse, then back in and flopped into a chair.
“Breakfast is on the stove,” I said.
With a sigh he got to his feet and spooned porridge from the pot into a bowl. He still expected someone to serve him, Aunt Helen had spoiled him so. He poured milk over top and brought it back to the table. Abruptly he yanked the newspaper from my hands and spread it out next to his bowl.
“Hey, I was reading that,” I protested.
“No, you weren’t. You can’t read.” Patrick laughed, exposing a mouthful of grey porridge.
“Give it back,” I cried.
“Children,” Aunt Ida scolded. “Stop fighting and eat.”
Fighting! I kicked Patrick hard beneath the table and widened my eyes at him. Only two days and we’d already forgotten our promise to each other to not fight. Patrick grimaced, so I knew he’d got my message, but he still didn’t give me back the newspaper
“What do you want it for, anyway? You’re not looking for anyone,” I muttered.
“Well, who are you looking for?” Patrick asked.
“Bertie,” I told him.
He shot a quick glance at me. “I’ll look for you,” he offered.
I wanted to do it myself. I was afraid he’d be careless and miss an advertisement. But I had to admit he could read faster, and Aunt Ida wanted us out of the kitchen.
“Nothing matches his description,” Patrick said after a moment. “Nor my Dad’s.”
I looked up, surprised. I hadn’t known Patrick still hoped his father was alive.
“That’s it. We have to leave.” Aunt Ida took the bowls from us.
“I’m not done,” Patrick protested.
“Next time, come down earlier,” Aunt Ida snapped. I’d never seen her so irritable.
“But . . .”
I kicked Patrick again, and he glared at me but said nothing further.
Aunt Ida quickly rinsed and put away the bowls. “Out,” she said.
Patrick grabbed the newspaper from the table.
As we went upstairs, I turned to Aunt Ida. “Can we put an advertisement in the paper for Bertie?”
“Oh, Rose.” She sighed. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. I’ll ask James to insert it. But please don’t get your hopes up.”
“Thank you.” I hugged her tightly.
“Now, if you would tidy the beds, please, I’m going to the hospital to see Ernest. Are either of you coming with me?” Aunt Ida looked at me pointedly.
“We have plans,” Patrick said quickly.
I glanced at him in surprise. I didn’t know we had plans, but if it got me out of a hospital visit, I’d go along with him.
“Rose, you haven’t been once to see Ernest or Winnie,” Aunt Ida said. “Even Patrick’s visited your brother.”
“I’ll go tomorrow,” I promised recklessly. “But Patrick’s right. We have plans.” I didn’t even feel bad about the lie. Lies didn’t matter now that I didn’t go to confession anymore. I quashed the thought that it would have mattered a great deal to Mam.
Aunt Ida raised her eyebrows. “Very well. Tomorrow. I have some items I need from the store. I’ll give you children a list, if you’d please pick them up after your . . . plans. And be sure to comb your hair, Rose, before you go out. It looks dreadful.”
She went into her bedroom. Patrick flopped down on his cot.
“Get off so I can make your bed,” I ordered. “Though you really should make it yourself. I’m not your maid.”
Patrick got to his feet, but ignored me, engrossed in the newspaper.
“What plans do we have?” I asked him.
He looked somewhat embarrassed. “It’s something that I saw in here.” He pointed to a page.
“What?”
“I wondered—” He stopped. “It says here that there is going to be a funeral for some of the unidentified bodies from the Chebucto Road School this morning. A ‘mass funeral,’ the newspaper calls it.” He spoke in a rush. “I want to go, and I wondered if you’d go with me.”
I stopped straightening the blankets.
“My Dad might be one of them,” he continued. “I want to go just in case. I’m the only person left alive in my family to see him . . . to see him buried. I’ll check the newspaper every day for Bertie if you’ll come with me. I don’t want to go alone.”
I had been so wrapped up in my own misery, I hadn’t even thought for one minute how Patrick must feel all on his own. At least I had Mary and Ernest and Winnie, and maybe Bertie.
“You don’t have to check the newspaper for me,” I said. “I’ll go with you. Da or Fred might be there, too. Should we tell Aunt Ida?”
“No,” Patrick said. “It would upset her.”
I saw the sense of that and nodded. “Let me finish the beds.”
The large number of wagons and relief vehicles had churned the roads to a thick, cloying mud. At first I tried to step around the ankle-deep puddles to save my boots, but soon gave that up and splashed through them.
“Should we have gone to Mass first?” Patrick asked.
I shrugged. “There will probably be lots of prayers and church stuff at the funeral,” I said. I didn’t want to go to Mass. I’d been only once since the explosion, and hated it. We’d gathered in a hall because the church was destroyed. The familiar words were spoken, and the incense, the altar boys and the priest were the same, but the peace they had once brought me was gone.
A large crowd had gathered outside the Chebucto Road School yard beneath a sky heavy with low-slung clouds. Patrick and I wormed our way to the front and peered through the close-packed bodies to see coffins laid in rows. Two small boys climbed a nearby fence and shouted joyfully at the heights scaled, but found themselves rudely plucked from their perch and soundly scolded for their disrespect.
I stared in disbelief at the number of coffins that stretched as far as my eyes could see. The past eleven days, I’d heard the number of dead repeated: one thousand, some said; more like two thousand, others announced. My brain couldn’t picture that many people. To see the numerous coffins laid out in front of me made it real. Was Da or Fred in one of them? Uncle Lyle? It didn’t matter. So many coffins—I would surely know someone who lay within. A small bouquet of flowers lay on top of each one, and to see the bright blooms made my breath catch in a sob.
Churchmen huddled in a group, black hats pulled low against a biting wind. There was no way to know which church the dead attended, so all the ministers and priests were invited to speak. I could see Duncan standing to one side with a group of undertakers, the delivery wagon ready to bear coffins to the various cemeteries. He occasionally blew on his hands to warm them. Behind me, a woman cried quietly, and a man beside her wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
A band played a hymn, then Father McManus stepped forward and began a prayer. His voice sounded weak and thin in the open air, no wood beams and stone arches to catch his words and send them on to Heaven. One after another, the churchmen spoke, but I didn’t hear them. Instead, I fought my own battle with God. I hadn’t spoken to Him since the day after the explosion, but now I silently screamed at Him. How could You let this happen to us? To me? Don’t You care? Of all my prayers, why did You choose to answer this one?
I looked down to see my hand inside Patrick’s. I didn’t know if he had reached for mine, or I for his. Tears trembled on his eyelashes, though he blinked rapidly to hold them back. He looked so lonely and bewildered, I left my hand where it was.
The skies began to weep a cold rain that turned to ice when it hit the ground. Umbrellas mushroomed, and the churchmen scurried to the protection of their motor cars for the journey to the cemeteries.
My hand was abruptly released. I tucked it inside a pocket to keep warm.
As I turned away from the sight of the coffins being loaded in the various vehicles, I saw the red hair of a child carried in a woman’s arms. She hurried toward the street.
“Bertie!” I shouted.
I thought I saw the child’s head turn, but the woman was swallowed up by the crowd and I lost sight of them.
“That’s Bertie,” I said to Patrick. “Hurry.”
We dodged about people as I frantically searched for the woman. Then, up ahead, I saw her again. If only she was close enough for me to see the child clearly. I began to run, but the crowd closed in and I lost her yet again.
“I think she’s going to the railroad station,” Patrick gasped. He puffed beside me, out of breath.
Suddenly, I slipped on the icy road and fell heavily. Air whooshed out of my lungs and my sore arm stung fiercely. Stunned, I lay there until hands helped me up.
“That’s quite a fall, young lady,” a man said.
“You’ve cut your knee, dear,” a woman said. She dabbed at it with a handkerchief.
“No,” I screamed. “Leave me alone.” I pushed at the hands that held me, that kept me from Bertie.
The man and woman drew back, startled, and I ran off, Patrick close behind. We arrived at the station to see a train pull out in billows of white steam. I tore up and down the platform to see inside the windows of the passenger cars as they swept by. Finally at one, a white face topped by red hair peered back at me.
“There! There!” I pulled on Patrick’s arm. “It’s him. It’s Bertie! Where is it going? Where is this train going? Read the schedule!” I yelled at him. I pushed him toward the station entrance where a board listed the arrivals and departures. I needed him to read it. I might get the station wrong.
“Just a minute.” Patrick studied the printed schedule hung on the wall. “Truro. It’s gone to Truro.”
“We have to go there.”
“We don’t have a ticket or any money to buy one,” Patrick pointed out. He examined the schedule again. “Besides, that was the last train today. The next one to Truro is tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
“Then we’ll go tomorrow and find Bertie.”