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“What about Uncle Thomas?”

“He was always kind to Sara, but didn't stand a chance against Lizzie, from what I understand. I wish I had paid more attention.”

I was thinking the same thing, because I spent a lot of time with Sara growing up. Grandpa died two years after I was born, and I remember her saying that as much as she missed him, nothing would equal the grief she felt from losing her mother and sister. Her words were: “It was so deep it served as an inoculation against all future suffering.” Weird how you remember certain phrases.

Sara stayed on in their apartment, not far from our house and even closer to my school. A convenient halfway house when I was a teenager. Mom told her friends that Lew's mother had turned into an eccentric as a widow, but to me she was just the way a grandmother should be. She let me call her Sara because Grandma and Nana were too stodgy for the new age into which I was born and she was reborn. She began consulting psychics, teacup readers, and Ouija boards, much to Mom's alarm. Retha thought her mother-in-law should be beyond searching for the beyond. Sara also started smoking in her sixties, which really bugged Mom. She was afraid it might have the wrong influence on me, but little did Mom know I needed no help. Gail and I and most of our friends were smoking every chance we could get. It was Sara who called me on it, when I stopped in one day reeking of nicotine. “It's a nasty habit, Arabella. Not one thing going for it — health, cost, smell. You've been blessed with a beautiful smile, so why ruin it with yellow teeth? Set yourself a goal: hold off until you're my age and then you can smoke all you want.” She got through to me.

Sara talked a lot about her mother and how she wished they had had more time together. Unfortunately, it often did not get past my ears because my brain was filled with more pressing issues, like what to wear to the freshie dance — the slacks that made me too tall or the skirt that made my hips too wide?

“Whatever is good in me came from her,” Sara said of Jane Hughes, “but I'm afraid I ended up with a lot of my father.” She must have meant her bone structure, for she said he had small, fine features, and her mother had a larger open face with a pronounced chin, and big hands

and feet that Dad and I inherited. Otherwise, I could not imagine any of Roland Hughes in Sara, when she described him. He was usually drunk, he was mean, and when his wife took ill with the flu, he did nothing to help. Reading Jane's mention of La Grippe in her letter made me feel odd. Here I sat knowing she would die of it before she did, but after she
did
die. Where's the before and after in that?

Maybe I had not been totally deaf, because Sara's words started coming back. I now remembered her telling me that when Jane got sick, Roland assigned his two eight-year-old daughters as nursemaids. Sara said it was a task they had undertaken willingly and did not need his accusations that they were lazy. She knew even then his outbursts were from fear, but they hurt just the same. Their brother Llewellyn, ten years older than they were, had already left home. He had lied about his age to join the army. Sara said he would have joined the circus to escape the mines and his father's drunken rages, so the First World War came along at the right time. “Except it was the wrong time,” she had added, “because he never did come home. Our brother's life was even shorter and sadder than our mother's.”

Funny, how my mind was clearing through the fog of the headache. I recalled being shocked when Sara said she was thankful her mother and brother had died at the same time until she explained that they were connected cosmically now through death as well as birth. As a kid, I liked listening to Sara's theories of reincarnation: that we are surrounded by the same souls in every lifetime, so we should work things out with them during this one. If a husband acted too much like a baby, for example, he might end up as his wife's son next time around until he learned to mature. I had not thought much about it since then, but could now see Sara sitting in her Queen Anne chair, making a steeple of her fingers, as she suggested her tall son — my father — might be her brother. And — with the letter still in my hand — I could hear her saying that I just might possess the spirit of her beloved mother. I would be nearby to usher her out of this existence just as she was there to assist at her mother's departure. She believed it was almost a holy rite for which she was chosen. Janet had gone to an outside pump for fresh water, and their mother called Sara to her bedside. She spoke so softly that Sara had to climb onto the cot. She told her that if she had a son, she should name him Lew, because he was a fine and gentle man with no one to help him at the end. Then her mother squeezed her hand and died with a smile on her face.

For Sara it was the moment she grew up. She was certain Jane had sent Janet out deliberately, so she could be alone with her. When her sister came back and saw Sara sitting next to the bed holding their dead mother's hand, she screamed and dropped the glass of water. Then their father came crashing through the curtain, wailing about his dear wife. Sara said she thought he was going to hit her for letting her mother die, but he crumpled in a sobbing heap at the foot of the cot.

Later Sara insisted that because Jane Hughes said, “he
was
such a fine and gentle man,” she knew her son was already dead, although the news had not reached them yet. She also called him a man for the first time because she was able to see him dying like a man on the battlefield. Sara had heard many stories about dead relatives coming to guide you over to the other side.

I looked up at Dad watching me. “You were named after your uncle Llewellyn?”

“The request from my grandmother's deathbed? Yes, I do know that story.”

“Any pictures of him?”

“Not that I know of. In other words, Mother could only remember him as tall, dark, and melancholy. On account of their father, she said. But he was always helpful to his mother. Sara was six when he was shipped overseas.” Inching his way to the dining room where his paper and paints covered the table, Dad stopped and said seriously in his teacher's voice: “You know, the influenza pandemic killed more people than any other disease outbreak in human history. More died of the flu than were killed in the First World War. In Canada alone, during one month in 1918, a thousand people died every day, close to 50,000 total. Worldwide estimates are between forty and a hundred million, statistics from other continents being unreliable.” He shook his head. “No memorials and very little space given in the history books to such a catastrophe.”

It was reassuring to see Dad had not lost his confident, professional manner, so I kept him going. “How did it start?”

“No one is sure, but they do know the mutability of the virus is what made it so deadly. One theory says it started from a pig in China. Does the swine part sound familiar? Probably the one today developed the same way. Flu viruses could be passed from pigs to humans and vice versa. In this case the pig might have contracted a bird flu virus at the same time as it held the human flu virus. Inside the pig, the bird flu strand would humanize, allowing it to keep birdlike features that make it so infectious, yet at the same time acquiring properties that allow it to grow in the lung cells of a human being. No doubt I'm oversimplifying.”

That's simplifying?
I rolled my eyes to myself, and decided not to ask any more questions.

Silenced, Dad proceeded to his artwork. “Have a look at some of the young Jane Owens' other letters.”

I picked up another one dated May 17, 1894. I was hoping for more specific names, but it too was addressed “Dear Brother and Sisters.”

I take the pleasure of answering your letter we received
last week. Dear Catherine, I don't think you can wish any
more to see us than we do to see you. It upset us so much
to hear of you being sick. Mama has been more sick than
usual for three weeks, keeping to her bed the whole time.
She is stronger now but still not well. Gomer has the flu,
Tommy has a very bad cold, but work is steady in the
mines and he will have 26 shifts this month. Now that
I am chief cook and bottle washer, it wouldn't do for me
to be sick. I am only troubled at times with catarrh in
the head, causing my nose to drip.

My work at one household is hard. The mistress is
only two years older than I am and is a common girl from
Nanaimo. We were in the same grade at school last year.
Her husband is from here too and worked with Tommy
until he was somehow made tram boss. Now they think
they are royalty and the rest of us are servants. The good
part is holding her baby while the nappies are rinsing or
when she goes out.

My other customer makes up for working at that place.
When he brings his clothes to our house to be washed, he
usually leaves apples or peaches or a piece of fresh lamb
with us. I often deliver the clean clothes back to his cabin
for the sake of a walk in the fresh air. Last week I met his
younger son and a daughter at his cabin. They are golden
in colour with smiles all over their faces. When you come,
I will introduce this dear friend to you.

Tommy sends
$
20 and more next time. He will roast a
bullock for you and I don't know what he isn't going to do.
I will make coconut cake, sponge cake, custard and lemon
pies. We are expecting a great arrival. Mind to write.

I remain

xxxxxxxxx
your loving sister, Jane
xxxxxxxxx

In the middle of the letter a wave of grogginess hit me. A warning from headquarters that the ache had not quite run its course and I was to show it some respect by resting. Or was it the word
catarrh
in Jane's letter tickling a gene trail that led from her sinuses to mine. Eerie, seeing your destiny in front of you. I wanted to know more about them. Were Margaret and Catherine the only sisters? Did they live together? The “2” in “$20” had been written in different ink. “Can I take these letters home with me?”

“Take everything.” Dad was completely engrossed in the task of drawing a cat pushing a piece of sponge up a staircase. A grey tabby with a bobbed tail that looked a lot like Mister, our first pet. “It's the children's book I'm working on,” he said apologetically. “About a cat named Sissipuss.” When he saw the reference was lost on me, he added. “I'm going to see if he'll get along with our old friends Cedric the Cockroach and Thump the Butterfly, or if they're too outdated for him. He's a postmodern cat.”

My head wasn't up to anything intellectual, so I said, “Thanks for supper. I'll call you tomorrow.”

Back at my apartment Drill Sergeant Headache had taken full command of the blood vessels in my head again. Left, throb; right, throb. You win, I muttered, popping two liquid gels and slithering out of my jeans and sweatshirt into a loose nightgown. One more thing before I shut all systems down. I took the picture from home and carried it to my dresser where I had left the other, still in its ugly gold frame. I looked at them together, blinking away the pulsations blurring my vision.

They were a match.

Using a knife, I pried open the rusted prongs holding the frame against the backing and removed the photo. Measured one against the other, they were exactly the same size. If I closed my eyes and mixed them up, I could not tell which was Sara's and which came from the garage sale. No need for forensics to prove these pictures were identical. But I did have need of sleep right now and fell onto my bed, pulling my duvet around me. The letters and pictures stuck behind my eyelids like flyers pasted against a lamppost by the wind.

Who was Jane Owens? Could I read her life between the lines?

JANE IS NOT SURE WHAT has wakened her so early. Was it the sudden rush of rain on the roof, Mama's moaning in the bed next to her, or Gomer's croupy cough from Tommy's room? In the darkness, she slips from under her warm comforter and shivers at the sting of the cold wooden floor on her bare feet. She pulls on her housecoat and slippers with a cougar's stealth, practised for a year through a sick or sleeping household. She tiptoes to the kitchen, the aroma of yesterday's roast lamb infusing the cool dewy air. Carefully removing the iron cover from the stove, Jane ignites the kindling she laid out last night. The fire will be just right for Tommy's bathwater and breakfast when he comes home from his shift, giving her enough time for a letter. She lights the coal oil lamp at the far end of the table where its glow will not waken the sleepers. At the back of a curtained shelf under a pile of tea towels, Jane keeps her few treasures: the fine vellum paper and fountain pen Cassie gave her as a parting gift, and two sterling silver bangles Mama and Father presented on her confirmation into the Methodist Church when she was twelve. She slides out the pen, a sheet of the paper, and a bottle of ink from the store.