Light Over Water

Light Over Water

©2012 Noelle Carle

Cover Photos: Lighthouse,
©Rainer Plendl/Shutterstock.com; Poppies, ©bonsai/Shutterstock.com; Ornament,
©Karlionau/Shutterstock.com Book

Book Design: Sandy Flewelling,
True Blue Design

Peace, Perfect Peace: Composed
by Edward H. Bickersteth, Jr., 1875

Abide with Me: Composed by
Henry F. Lyte, 1847

 The chapter titles contain
words or phrases from primary documents from World War One: in particular,
President Woodrow Wilson’s address to Congress, 2 April 1917: from
http://firstworldwar.com
: Source Records of
the Great War, Vol. V, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923

This
book is dedicated to the loving memory of Cortland Finch – a gentle man who
went over the water and whose life was changed because of it; and to Sarah
Finch, who waited for him.

To
Russell who never gave up even when I wanted to.  I am for you…

The
voice of the Lord is over the waters;


The
God of glory thunders;

The
Lord is over many waters. Psalm 29:3

 
Prologue

September 1918

Alison Gran
ger shut the heavy office door behind her and leaned against
it, trembling with weariness.  She inhaled two great breaths and blew them out
forcefully, trying to clear her mind and renew her energy, but even in here the
air was stale and smelled of sickness.  She held her hands out in front of her,
staring at the red, chapped skin; surprised at how they shook.  Sinking into
her father’s large desk chair of smooth, worn oak and hearing the whisper of a
groan it made when she settled was a familiar and comforting act in a room that
was always alive with her father’s presence, even when he wasn’t there. 

The rest of her
home was a strange and difficult place to be now.  The once peaceful,
well-ordered house had declined into chaotic confusion and at times a place of
death, but to the best of purposes.  To better accommodate his sudden influx of
patients, Dr. Daniel Granger, Alison’s father, started bringing them to his
home, if they could be moved.  It began with the schoolteacher - Mrs. Reid, and
her three charges, followed by two other children, whose parents both died, and
then the storekeeper, Vernon Cooper, until every bed was filled, and the floors
in the parlor and dining room were covered with makeshift pallets.

Those moments not
spent caring for the ill were taken up with cleaning everything from the dirty
linens to her own hands.  Her father insisted on this cleanliness, especially
after helping the sick in their care.   Their neighbor, Ida Gilman, stout of
body and heart, spent hours at their home, cooking nourishing soups for her
father and brothers and those recovering.  Together, in an unlikely
partnership, they soothed those struggling for breath and cried over the dead. 

Alison hadn’t slept
a whole night for weeks, and neither had her father, who moved mechanically,
his usual vibrant energy leached away by the demands of so many taken ill.  Her
eldest brother Remick, however, was curiously invigorated and purposeful,
helping them wherever he could, unmindful, finally, of the loss of his arm.  He
read for hours to the two orphans, who had seemed on the verge of dying.  They
then strangely recovered and were well enough to be a nuisance now.  He took
the wagon and roamed the village, checking at the houses, along the wharves, or
in the outlying fields for those who sometimes just collapsed where they stood,
unable to move themselves.  He was untouched by the disease, while their
youngest brother succumbed in two days.

Alison was driven
on by pity and despair and fear; fear of what it would do to her if the
enormity of this epidemic embraced her.  No matter what the newspapers or
pamphlets said about it, they were in the midst of the most sweeping epidemic
since the Middle Ages, her father said. They’re trying to keep the public from
panic, he told her.  Or they don’t want the enemy to know how bad it is.  But
it was very, very bad. Her mind refused to ponder the death toll in the whole
village of Little Cove, but she could not stop the litany of names - those
closest to her who were dead.  Her precious little brother Davey; three of
Sam’s siblings, including the baby Caroline – but not, thank God, Esther, and
not, please God, Sam.  She always said it in her mind like that, in a small but
desperate prayer.  And there were only three in the village that knew that her
own baby, who had no name, was lost.

She put her
throbbing head down on her arms, as they lay folded on the desk in front of
her.  She felt their frailty and wondered why she hadn’t died too.  She tried
without success to keep out of her mind the picture of Davey’s skinny little
chest, heaving for air, of the blood rimming his nose and pooling in his ear,
of his eyes wide with terror, and finally, of his stillness.

She must have
slept.  The room was dim and her neck hurt when she lifted her head.  The door
to the office was open, and Remick stood there, lamp in hand.  He was so
unmoving and hesitant that Alison immediately stood up, causing the old chair
to slide back on its wheels into the bookcase.  “What’s the matter?  Is it
Father?” 

Remick’s thin tanned face was
in the shadows, but Alison could see his deep-set eyes gleaming with unshed
tears.  He licked his lips and said slowly in a voice that was hoarse, “Can you
come with me?  We have…”  He didn’t finish his sentence but trailed off as he
seemed to swallow hard.  

          Assuming it was
another patient, Alison’s shoulders fell and she sighed, and then moved to walk
past him.  “Who is it now?”

She walked quickly through the
back hallway and opened the door to the parlor, as Remick remained silent
behind her.  Irritated at his odd behavior, Alison strode into the room.  It
was as before; four patients on the pallets on the floor, the children together
in one chair dozing, and the air heavy with the rank smell of sickness.  Their
father wasn’t here.

“Alison, he’s
upstairs.  It’s Owen,” Remick said, gesturing with the lamp back out into the
hall.  “He’s bad,” he said in a strained voice.  She could see Remick’s face
clearly now and it was colorless, looking like gray parchment in contrast to
his gleaming eyes and messy black curls.  Those eyes held barely controlled
fear behind them.

“No!”  An anguished
grimace twisted her face as she lifted her skirts and took the stairs two at a
time.  At the top she headed down the hall to her brother’s bedroom.  She
pushed the door open to find their father slumped on the bed beside their
fifteen-year-old brother.  They could hear strangled breathing, but both
realized it was their father, sounding like he was choking.

“Papa?”  Alison rushed over to
the bed.  Owen’s skin was tinged blue, his eyes were closed and he was still. 
Their father was holding him, crying into his chest, which was unmoving.

          The doctor peered up
at his daughter and son through streaming tears.  His eyes, already shadowed
and puffy, were red with exhaustion.  His face was contorted and his skin
looked waxy and pale.  “He’s gone.  Owen is gone,” he sobbed. 

Remick set the lamp down onto
the bed stand.  He put his arm around Alison’s shoulder.  She leaned against
him and wondered if a person could die of heartache.  The sobs started in his
chest like a low throbbing next to her. 

Their father lifted his head
and laid it against the bare wall behind him.  “I can’t do this anymore,” he
gasped.  He reached over and caressed the still smooth cheek of his middle
son.  “He was fine this morning, and now…how can this be?”

Chapter One

April 6, 1917         

Lives of Peaceful and Innocent
People

Change came to the
village of Little Cove, as it often did, on the tide.  Emerson Beal’s mail boat
arrived with its load of goods as the tide surged in. He always laid on his
horn upon arrival and helped Vernon Cooper unload the mail, the various
foodstuffs he’d ordered for the week and usually gave him the rundown of the
week’s news, having taken the first paper off the top and perused it as he made
his rounds.  Today, however, he unloaded quickly without saying a word.  He
only gestured silently as he threw the bundle of papers, sniffed eloquently and
shook his head as he backed away from the wharf.  The other deliveries were
forgotten as the black headlines blared out their message to Vernon Cooper,
owner and proprietor of Cooper’s Market.  He spat into the water and gave a low
grunt as he lifted the newspapers and bounded back inside his store as if his
back was not tender nor his arms losing their strength. 

Young William
Eliot, who delivered the papers before school, was ready to make his bundles
and load them in his wagon, usually a solitary duty; but on this day Mr. Cooper
helped him and hurried him on his way.  He took two from the pile he sold at
his store and shuffled in a hunching arthritic gait towards Mary Reid, their
senior school teacher, as she crossed the road from her home to the school. 
Without a word he turned the paper so she could see the headline. He stared at
her, his wooly gray eyebrows lifted high and his watery blue eyes alert with
importance.  “Big day, teacher,” he intoned.  Then he handed it to her and
headed for the church where he knew Pastor Whiting would be.

          Mary Reid held the
newspaper to her chest and closed her eyes. Big day indeed!  She drew in an
uneven breath, and then slowly opened her eyes.  She had been waiting impatiently
for this day for nearly two years.   She held the paper out in front of her and
read the headline again, then savored each word of the main story.  She almost
laughed aloud, exuberant as she was, until the sound of the children’s voices
arriving for school sobered her.  She searched for and saw the older boys in a
corner by the fence, laughing as they wrestled and kicked a ball around -
except for Owen Granger, who naturally had his dark head bent over a pad of
paper and was drawing and explaining something to Chester Gilman who sat
cross-legged beside him.  These boys - her boys, as she often thought of them,
may never know such carefree days again.  Then tears came to her green eyes and
her face lost its high color, remembering Ian.

          She collected herself,
pushing Ian Reid safely away, out of mind for now.  She went inside to her
classroom and set the newspaper on her desk, contemplating again its
importance.  After a few moments she rang the bell to convene classes for the
day. Rena Mayhew, the other teacher at the tiny cove school, gathered together
the young ones, assembling them in an orderly line to march into their separate
room.  Before they began, Mary drew Rena aside and told her of the news. 
Knowing Rena would be troubled by it, she spoke quietly with her.  “I think it
might be best if you speak nothing of this to your children.  Let their own
parents tell them, when and if they chose to.”  She met Rena’s frank brown
eyes.  “Your young man has been waiting for this, hasn’t he?” 

          Rena nodded, pinching
her bottom lip fiercely to keep it from trembling. 

          “Then make him
proud.  Don’t try to keep him out of it,” Mary insisted. 

          Rena, an accomplished
nineteen year old with her teacher’s certificate and a lifetime resident of
Little Cove, drew her hand away from her mouth, sniffed lightly and blinked. 
“Will he have a choice?”  she questioned, looking both curious and defiant at
once.  She turned back to her charges and smiled mechanically.  “Come along,
ladies and gentlemen, to our classroom.”