Eastland (8 page)

went hungry. Yet somehow, she’d managed to scrounge together
enough pennies to buy a crepe of ribbons and flowers for the
VandeKipps’ front door.
At the end of the block, I’d turned back toward home, relieved to know that good still existed, when something flickered.
I looked at the corner house. Through the parlor window, a
candle glowed, a notice for the neighborhood that someone in
that home had died. I stared up and down the street.
Candles blazed from dozens of windows. Not in every home,
but in every other, maybe every third or fourth. Crepes hung on
the doors of those candle-lit homes, a further sign of the torment
within. I thought of the joy of last Saturday morning.
How could things have gone so terribly wrong in such a short
time?
Yet one look around, and I knew I was not alone in my despair. Everyone had to live a new life. Forget BC and AD. Time
had taken on a new meaning. Now there was only BE and AE.
Before and after the
Eastland
.

My eyes cracked open. What was that noise? I raised my heavy
head from the dining room table and a sharp pain shot down
my neck. At some point during the night, I must have fallen
asleep while taking down the cuff on Eamon Mulligan’s only
pair of decent trousers. I rubbed at the prickles assaulting my
still-asleep arms and listened to the cascading boom of thunder
outside. It was another stormy day. I shook off my disgust and
looked about the lamp-lit room for Eamon’s pants.

The mountain of mending near Mama’s Singer had disappeared. Some of the clothes were now ironed and folded and
arranged all about me on the dining table. Others, like Mrs.
Ivanko’s new, black mourning dress, hung on hangers over the
back of Mama’s bedroom door.

The room was stifling.
“Bonjour, chérie!”
Mama stood at her ironing board, which was actually a solid

oak plank suspended between two kitchen chairs. The board was
wrapped in a red woolen blanket and topped with an old sheet.
The chairs had been moved near the range so that Mama could
keep her three Sad irons hot on the cook plates. She traded the
cool iron in her hand for a fresh, hot one on the stove as she
creased a seam on yet another black dress.

She shook her head and set the hot iron back on the cook
plate. “Good?
Non?
” She held up the new floor-length cotton
dress she’d been pressing.

I studied the tight bodice, the high collar, the long, narrowcut sleeves. “Perfect mourning outfit. Who’s it for?”
Mama held it up against me.
“Me? No!” For a few peaceful, sleepy moments, I had forgotten about Mae and her wake tonight. But now my forgotten pain
came surging back with a vengeance. “Please, Mama. It’s a lovely
dress.” If a mourning dress could ever be considered lovely.
“And I appreciate the time it must have taken you to make it, but
can’t I wear my burgundy suit? The one with the velvet cuffs?
Mae always said I looked so smart in it.”
“
Paaa!
Now, take the dress to Mrs. Ivanko. If she has money,
she can pay. If not, then she will owe us.” Mama opened the
icebox and peered inside. “We will eat when you come back.”
I retrieved my umbrella and Mrs. Ivanko’s dress from the back
of Mama’s bedroom door and walked outside in the same clothes I
had on yesterday. Unlike me, the rest of the world had not slept late.
Delivery trucks and wagons lined the curbs, dropping off their
funeral wares. The undertaker, Mr. Drojewska, and his three
eldest sons dodged the rain as they darted from one crepe-draped
house to another. There had to be hundreds of last-minute details
to attend to before visitations began. I crossed to Mrs. Ivanko’s
house and climbed the wooden steps to the front porch. I set my
wet umbrella aside and stepped toward the bay window.
Would it be polite to peek? Did I even want to see what was
waiting inside that parlor?
I had no choice. I peered through the sheer lace curtains.
A simple pine coffin had been arranged for viewing in front
of the stone hearth. The casket rested on a wooden bier cabinet
that housed a tin-lined compartment and a boulder of ice. This
ice-filled bier worked much like our icebox at home, keeping the
corpse cool and slowing decomposition. Bouquets of roses and
wildflowers encircled the casket, the fragrance of the blossoms
working to hide the ammonia smell of the embalming fluids.
The whole idea of dead bodies in the parlor gave me the creeps.
I shuddered and leaned in closer to the glass.
The long coffin cover had been removed; an angled corner
visible from behind the bier. Mr. Ivanko had been dressed from
head to toe in his Sunday-best. I recognized the slightly shabby
brown suit and Oxford shoes from Mass each week. A man in
a more formal black dinner jacket seemed to be directing the
activity in the parlor. The formal man signed a bill of goods for
the flowers. I waited until the florist and his assistant left and
then rang the bell, entering through the open front door.
The foyer was sweltering, yet I continued to shudder as I
waited for the formal man to appear.
“Ah, my sister’s dress.” He strode toward me. “You must be
Mrs. Pageau’s daughter?”
I nodded and handed Mrs. Ivanko’s brother the mourning
gown.
“Elena is still in her room. I’ll see she gets this. Thank you.”
He pulled a billfold from his trouser pocket. “How much does
my sister owe?”
“Three dollars. But if she needs time to pay, we can wait.”
“No need.” He counted out three one-dollar bills and handed
them to me. “We pay our bills. No charity. We may not have
much, but we have our dignity.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you. My sympathies on your loss.” I cleared
my throat. “I’d understand if you don’t want to say, but do you
know what exactly happened to Mr. Ivanko? Where he was on
the ship? Mrs. Ivanko was hysterical with worry.” I found myself
reflexively touching my scalp.
“When I learned about the disaster, I caught the first train
from Milwaukee. By Saturday night Elena still had no word,
so I went to the Armory to try and find the body.” He paused,
staring beyond me as he ran a hand over the dress draped
over his arm.
I knew what he was thinking. I, too, could still see the horror of the morgue, and it left me speechless as well. His head
snapped up. He stared at me as though I’d just arrived.
“Ah, yes. The Armory. Number 426. His body had been
brought up by bell divers late in the day. They told me he’d been
at the bar.”
On the Main Deck. Lowest passenger level of the ship.
I thought of all those flushed-face patrons and prayed that
Mr. Ivanko had been pleasantly numb when the end had
come.
“Nine years with Western Electric, and this is how it ends.
I know Elena will receive some insurance money, but it’s small
consolation.”
“We’ll look after her,” I said, echoing Mama’s words. “Again,
sir, my deepest sympathies. Will you convey our condolences to
your sister?”
“You have my word, Miss Pageau.” Mrs. Ivanko’s brother
escorted me to the front door. “And you be sure to thank your
mother for all her hard work.”
I tramped down the steps, my heart heavy with dread. So
this was how it would be tonight? Visitation from one house
to another? Standing in front of coffin after coffin, widow after
widower, lost friend after lost friend?
Did I have the strength? I didn’t know, but I was sure to
find out.
I was lowering my head to open my umbrella, when someone
bumped into me from behind.
“Sorry.” The voice was female. “I was looking for something.
Didn’t see.”
I turned around.
Dolly O’Brien stood with one hand in her purse. She
closed her bag with a snap, looked up, and then flung her
arms around me.
“Dee! Oh, I’ve done nothing but think about you for two
days. How are you?” She squeezed me hard and then stepped
back. “I’d better give you room to breathe.”
Dolly was right. I needed to catch my breath. Seeing her
again had brought back all the torment of that life-altering moment in the morgue. My legs gave way. Dolly wrapped her arms
around my waist, supporting me.
“Think you can make it to your porch?”
Dolly helped me across the street and down onto my front
porch steps. She sat beside me and grasped my hand, but
I couldn’t look her in the face. She was too much of a painful
reminder. Raw grief washed over me like a torrent, and I broke
down.
“Sorry, Dolly. It’s just that you remind—”
“Don’t concern yourself one bit.” She tucked a sweaty strand
of my hair behind my ear. “You’ve been through so much.
Surviving the capsizing and that ghastly morgue.”
“But you made it off the
Eastland
as well. I mean you’re
here. I saw you early Saturday morning on the way to the docks.
Didn’t you make the boat?”
She shook her red head, her sparkling emerald eyes now
puffy and dull. Dolly was clearly suffering along with the rest
of us.
“My hem came down. I turned back home to fix it. I got on
the
Teddy Roosevelt
instead. Saw the whole thing …” Her voice
drifted off for a moment. “I knew that Western Electric would
need me, so I rushed to the plant. Worked eighteen straight
hours from Saturday ’til almost dawn on Sunday. I was on my
way home after that shift, when I heard about Johnny. I went
straight to the Armory.”
Now it was Dolly’s turn to cry. I kept hold of her hand and
put my free arm across her shoulders.
“To think that you went to work after what you’d witnessed?”
I thought of the twenty-five-hundred passengers. There had
to be countless families left at home frantic with worry and
desperate for information. I remembered how distraught Mrs.
Koznecki had been without any word. Of course the switchboard
operators had had to work that morning.
“You’re amazing, Dolly.”
“We do what we have to.” She blew out a puff of air. “I’m off
to work now. Or at least I should be, but sitting here with you is
comforting. Lord knows, we can all use some reassurance right
now. The world’s gone mad. The gates at work have been under
siege. People are desperate to get those jobs.”
“Dead employees replaced already? We haven’t even had the
funerals.”
“Western Electric figures it lost nearly five hundred workers.
Can you imagine?”
But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to think of my coiling department
without Mae. Without countless other women. All my friends.
“But don’t you bother about any of that.” Dolly jumped up
and then extended her arms down to me. We clasped hands
again as she pulled me to my feet. “All that telephone wire will
still be there when you’re ready to return.” We hugged for the
longest time. “You take care of yourself, Dee Pageau. You have
enough to manage in the next few days.”
She strode away, wiggling her fingers at me over her shoulder. I watched her go, while I organized my List of Things to
Deal with This Week.
Tonight, Mae’s wake. Find courage to face her dead body
again.
Tomorrow morning, funeral Mass at St. Mary’s.
Tomorrow afternoon, burial at Bohemian National Cemetery.
Live every day of my life without Mae.
I sagged back down onto the step and wept.

I dragged myself out of my bedroom and down the creaky
hallway, struggling to pin my watch to my new mourning dress
with hands that would not stop quaking. Mama nodded her
approval.

“Fits well.
Non?
”
“No. I mean yes. I don’t know what I mean.” I tugged at the
cinched waist, the high collar that threatened to choke me. “To
tell the truth, Mama. It’s a little tight.”
“I took it in here and there. So now it fits your figure.”
“What figure?”
Mama waggled a finger at me and headed into the dining
room. I trailed after her, confused, yet curious. She stopped and
pointed. “Look.”
I stared into the gilded mirror that covered one entire wall. A
black-clothed image stared back.
The reflection looked like me, but different somehow. The
girl in the mirror had a bosom that seemed to stretch the limits
of her seams. Her hips were round and fleshed out wider than
her waist. The woman gawking back at me had what men called
‘an hourglass shape.’
“When did this happen?”
“You have become a young lady. I only wish Papa could see
you now.” Mama pulled me to her. “We must hold tight to each
other.”
As if I would ever let go. I wanted to stay wrapped in her
arms for the rest of my life.
“It is time.” She released me. “To say
au revoir.
”
“But what if I can’t say good-bye?” I ran a finger around the
inside of my collar, trying to breathe.
Mama touched my cheek. “What would Mae want?”
I leaned my face into her warm, work-hardened palm. I knew
the answer without evening thinking, but I lingered there a little
longer than necessary, gathering strength from her touch. I
lifted my head and threw back my shoulders.
“Mae would want me to be brave.”
Mama opened the front door. “I will be there with you,
ma
petite
.”
I gave her a weak nod and an even feebler smile, snatched up
our umbrellas, and headed onto the front porch. Mama shut the
door behind her and then turned and gasped.
A swell of people flooded the sidewalks on both sides of the
street. Hundreds upon hundreds of mourners had turned out
for the visitations this evening. So many wake-goers, in fact, that
we couldn’t open our umbrellas. It didn’t matter because today I

On our block-and-a-half walk to Mae’s, we stopped at
five different homes where we waited in long lines to pay
our respects. Some of the homes had lost two or three family
members. The parlors were filled with coffins arranged head
to toe in front of the window. The six VandeKipps were not to
be waked in their empty home. Mr. Drojewska had offered to
keep the bodies at his funeral parlor and bring their coffins to
St. Mary’s tomorrow.

But the hardest part of this whole ordeal was seeing a
deceased neighbor with bruises. I knew these black-and-blue
corpses had not had a peaceful death. They’d been tossed or
dragged or perhaps something or someone had slammed into
them. Mr. Ivanko had not been injured, at least not in a place
visible to me.

What about Mae?
I’d only seen her body on the morgue floor for a split second
before I’d fainted. Would she be battered and discolored? Had
she endured a horrifying death? Had she suffered before she’d
died? The questions made my temples throb. By the time we
neared the peacock-blue Victorian, I had a full-blown headache.
Mama yanked me to a stop. She clutched my arm, her fingers
digging into my skin.
“What is it, Mama? What’s the matter?”
Her right eye twitched uncontrollably. She was in the throes
of a premonition.
“It is you.” And then she smiled, which was strange for my
mother, since her predictions almost always heralded disaster.
“What do you see?”
“You. In a veil.”
“Like at Mass?”
“
Oui
.” She shook her head. “
Non
. Not like that.”
“I’m in church? But not at Mass?”
She stared at me, her face beaming despite the rain and the
wakes and the crushing crowd.
“You are getting married.”
“What!” I lowered my voice. “To whom, Mama?”
“I cannot make out the face.”
“Damn!”
“Delia! Your mouth!”
“Sorry.” We started walking again. Mama patted my arm.
“Do not fret,
ma petite
.” Her right eye twitched again. “The
man I see is just around the corner.”