The Storm (33 page)

Had Jaq meant what she'd said? Or had she simply been using Molly to pass the time until she could leave New Hope? Was she lying in the arms of that woman in New Orleans right now, the one she'd mentioned a few times, laughing about the little country girl she'd been able to twist around her smallest finger so easily?

Ever since Jaq had told her that Mr. James was dead, then left her all alone, the days had been monotone. Occasionally she overheard a distant melody, glimpsed a flash of color, but the ache that spread throughout her kept her senses blurred.

As the pain dulled, she might forget her losses for a second, then recoil from the quick memory that Mr. James was dead and, even worse, that Jaq had deserted her without a word. Mr. James hadn't chosen to leave; Jaq had. Mr. James couldn't come back; Jaq
could
. But what were the chances of that? About as small as the odds that she might pull her own heart from the well where it lay underwater.

The women at church, even Mother Russell, seemed to sympathize with her. But she couldn't admit to anyone, even Patrick, how much she missed Jaq.

Only her pain kept her company, almost like a living creature. It existed even between her and Nellie, who should have been able to comfort her with her warm hairy side, her soft tits and eyes.

Not even the Christmas carols she loved could make her feel better. She kept her distance and existed in a gray land with no music, no odor, no taste.

“Why did you leave me, Jaq?” she would whisper as she milked Nellie.

When she visited Mr. James's grave she cried for him, but she also gazed toward the woods where she and Jaq had gone that picnic afternoon. She thought about Jaq's stories, her driving lessons, their trip to town, their kiss. Who cared if the women voters had helped elect their favored candidates? Being able to vote meant nothing without having someone to live for. She wanted Jaq. She would become a cipher, vanish without her.

She pulled Patrick even closer and stared at the dim afternoon sun that barely warmed the gray, cold day. She wanted to rest her head on his and weep forever, but her heart lay stranded like a solitary pebble dropped on a vast desert.

*

Jaq laid her fountain pen down, slowly folded a letter, and placed it on the pile in her desk alcove. The stack contained one for every day since she last saw Molly.

But she couldn't send them. She was another Typhoid Mary. Someone should quarantine her indefinitely too. How many people had she killed unintentionally? Grandfather, Henry, Eric, Angus, Mr. James, and Sister Mary. She should add Helen to the list and was surprised Molly and Patrick weren't on it. Almost everyone she'd ever loved or been close to had died or disappeared. She couldn't bear to endanger Molly and Patrick, to put them in death's crosshairs again. Molly needed to forget her and find a new, safe life.

It had been two months, and Molly hadn't called. She and Patrick needed to recuperate, and she needed to grieve for Mr. James, who'd been a good husband, as far as that went.

Jaq had been busy too—helping Mother care for Father and doing most of the housework until some servants resurfaced after the threat of the influenza epidemic receded. At least she'd learned some useful skills in New Hope.

But she wanted to talk to Molly. With Mr. James dead, maybe…

She could have discussed the situation with Willie, but she'd left town. Jaq had eventually written Aunt Anna and had finally received a reply today. She slit the envelope open and began to read.

Sunday, December 22, 1918

New York City

Dearest Jaq,

I've been rooted here in my morris chair, my shoulders and arms so heavy I've had to strain to leaf through a newspaper and hold my cup of coffee. We beat the Kaiser, didn't we, but the Spanish flu defeated us.

I have real coffee today, and its fragrance tantalizes me. Was able to actually buy a small can of Folgers yesterday afternoon and look forward to an abundance of sugar and flour, as well as tires and gasoline. With the soldiers beginning to return, we should have plenty of manpower before long.

Unfortunately, the news in the
Times
dampened the good mood my coffee created. An estimated three million have died these past three months, and the influenza is still racing along Alaska's northern coast. Some are saying that it's five times deadlier than the War.

I know what you mean about being a Typhoid Mary. Not only did I fail to determine the cause of this outbreak, but I also couldn't discover a cure.

I'm still wearing my old chenille robe, and my hair's down, so let me try to respond to your latest letter, dear Jaq. I'm certainly no authority on relationships, never having achieved a lasting one of my own. But if I were you, I wouldn't let Molly slip away. She sounds like a good match for you. Let her continue to regain her health and put her past behind her, but keep your heart open. When she's ready, you need to be ready for her. It won't be easy for her to leave everything she's known and venture into a new way of life with you, especially with a young son to care for. But I have faith in you, and in her, if she's the one you really want.

You're not a Typhoid Mary. Your mother was wrong to blame you for her father's death. She probably spoke out of shock and grief and doesn't even remember her words. You're an adult now, so try to look at the situation objectively. You're a small cog in this great wheel of life, and although it may feel as if you can cause others to die, you can't. No more than I can blame myself for causing the death of millions by failing to diagnose and cure this epidemic. It's tempting for both of us to assume such self-importance, but we need to let it go and do what we can, instead of burdening ourselves with what we can't.

The world will go on. The War's over and the politicians are haggling over the terms of the armistice now. Though the French and the British want to punish Germany harshly for their aggression, President Wilson is determined to be less punitive. I hope he can prevail. Women have almost achieved the right to vote, thanks to Alice Paul and her faithful followers. Your father is recovering from the flu, and I'm sure you played an important role in that victory. Let's enjoy our gains.

Most important, don't be afraid to love, my dear. So keep Molly and her son safe in your heart until they come to you.

Your loving aunt,

Anna

Warmed by her aunt's wisdom and optimism, she folded the letter and slipped it into its envelope. She'd let it keep her company as she waited. Maybe Molly and Patrick would become part of her life after all, but was she really ready for that? She knew what she wanted, but she had to be practical.

How would she provide for Molly and Patrick? She had some money her grandmother had left her, but that would cover only her expenses. She couldn't expect her parents to take the three of them in. That would be unbearable. She supposed she could get a job working on people's cars. That was about her only skill, but would anyone trust her to do what they expected a man to?

Did she want to stay in the South? Being in Europe, especially Paris, had given her a taste of a much freer way of life than she could ever expect to experience here. At least that's how it seemed. She really wanted to explore that possibility, but could she expect Molly and Patrick to leave everything they'd ever known and pursue some vague notion of freedom halfway around the world in a country devastated by four years of war? Molly and Patrick had both said they wanted to travel, but living somewhere so foreign would be so very different from a pleasure trip.

Could she live in Paris without Molly and Patrick? Suddenly she wished they were all back on the farm together, with everyone still alive and Mrs. Russell still making their lives miserable. Compared to being alone in Paris, those recent days seemed like a pleasant dream. She needed to talk to Molly. This was too much to decide by herself. She'd waited long enough. Father seemed to have recovered. She'd make the long drive back up to New Hope as soon as she could.

On St. Valentine's Day, Molly gazed out the window at the garden. A year ago she and Patrick had spent part of the morning cutting seed potatoes into pieces, each with a sprouting eye. Afterward she'd knelt with the sections piled in a bushel basket beside her and carefully placed a piece, eye up, into the furrows Mr. James had plowed. Then he had come along behind her and covered the potatoes with soft red dirt.

Each sprout nestled in the ground, slowly pushed its blind way upward, and emerged into sunlight in several weeks. But now Mr. James rested in the same ground as the potatoes. Surely his soul was making a similar journey into a brighter world.

This year it had rained practically nonstop, and had since last fall. She'd welcomed the gray, wet days. Every day she'd asked herself why Jaq had disappeared without a word. Was she enjoying herself so much with her lover in New Orleans that she'd totally forgotten her?

A vase of jonquils and hyacinths sat on the dining-room table. She hadn't realized the flowers were already blooming. She usually filled the house with containers of them, but Mother Russell had evidently gathered this spring bouquet, their blooms so much paler yellow than normal.

She'd been almost thoughtful since Mr. James died, though she sporadically urged Molly to buck up. But these spring flowers communicated that necessity whereas Mother Russell's words didn't.

Wandering into the living room, she slowly opened the piano, which she hadn't touched since October, and fingered a few keys. She even picked up the sheet music for “I'm Always Chasing Rainbows” that she'd bought when Jaq drove her and Patrick to town. The tinny tone of the piano sounded strange; the usually smooth ivory felt rough and foreign.

Suddenly she remembered something Jaq had mentioned last summer, though it seemed a lifetime ago. Talking about the music she had listened to in New Orleans when she was young, she'd said it sounded like the musicians were composing as they played or sang, instead of reading from a page of music.

Molly hadn't understood that concept and had tucked it into her mind to ponder. Now its meaning sprang to life.

She picked out the tune again, without looking at the sheet music. She usually played it in a quick, lively manner, but now she let her sorrow wash through her and well up through her arms and hands onto the keys. She played the same notes as she had earlier but could almost feel Jaq's presence. She saw her dark hair and eyes, felt the scar on her forehead she tried to keep hidden. She smelled the rose water they'd made together that glorious day and heard her voice as she shared her adventures. But most of all she tasted Jaq's lips on hers, the most exhilarating sensation she'd ever experienced.

She played the familiar tune again, and it came out differently—as if it had a life of its own, as if the piano was playing her, adding notes she'd never seen written down but that somehow sounded right, like the field hands' constantly changing rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It became in turn a spiritual, a sonata, a symphony, and a simple song for Jaq, as she played it repeatedly.

She glanced at the paper and pen she used for writing music, lying unused on the back of the piano. She might compose a new song and call it “The Storm,” to commemorate her first lengthy conversation with Jaq last Easter.

But then she closed the piano's cover, sighed, and walked to the front porch, where she sat and gazed at the distant trees. Her new music, from her heart instead of her head, relieved a little of the loneliness she'd lived with since Jaq went away. But only the wind in the pines played the kind of music she could hear and lulled the storm that had raged in her since Jaq left.

*

Jaq watched her mother stoop over a rosebush in their backyard, one of the rare moments she stooped for anything. Wearing a heavy apron and leather gloves, she pruned the plants to make sure they grew exactly as she wished and that they bloomed their hearts out.

This was the first day Jaq had felt like getting outside since she'd collapsed at the end of December. She'd been planning her trip back to New Hope when suddenly she developed what the doctor diagnosed as the influenza that had killed so many. With her high fever and resulting weakness, she'd had to stay in bed for more than a month. Now, she seemed to be slowly beginning to return to normal, though her mood and that of New Orleans in general was still somber. She felt exhausted, like everyone she knew seemed to be.

Now, with winter on its way out and spring trying to make inroads, she sat in a chair on the lawn and watched her mother for a while. Then she ventured out to where she'd accumulated a small pile of thorny limbs. She'd never paid much attention to her mother's St. Valentine's Day ritual, but her experience in the rose garden with Molly had sensitized her to the flower.

“Why do you insist on doing such backbreaking work, Mother? Are you the world's expert on roses?”

She glared. “I am the world's expert on
my
roses.” She straightened, then stretched her back from side to side. “I have never known you to show any interest in what I do out here. You must be bored and feeling better.”

“Yes, I am.”

Her mother slipped her sharp shears into her apron pocket. “Ah,
ma petite
. I do not mean only your fight against the dreadful influenza. Even before you became ill I noticed how you lay around the house day after day, lost in a dream. He was a fine young man. You loved him very much, no?”

“No! Yes! I mean I don't know—”

“Shh. It is all right. I myself knew a man like him once. In France, before I met your father. He will always be with you, in here.” She took off one glove and put her bare hand over her heart.

“Mother. You don't understand—”

“Your mother understands everything. You have to learn to endure your loss and accept what you cannot change in life.”

Mother would never understand or accept the real causes for her grief, but for the first time Mother had shown an interest in her feelings.