Shadows Gray

Chapter Twenty-Six



It’s Christmas Day and our celebration is half hearted. Lu, being Chinese, doesn’t celebrate the holiday and Dr. Smythe tells us apologetically that since he never liked Christmas much he doesn’t feel the need to impose it on his wife. It’s any other day to them and since it is their house, any objections seem crass and impolite.

So, it’s off to Bea’s new house we go; simple hand make gifts tucked under our arms as Israel, Dad and I leave the Smythe’s. We will collect Prue on the way and take her for dinner with us and return her afterwards. Emme and Joe will of course be there. All we are missing is Luke, and of course, Rose.

It’s been two days since my conversation with my sister and I have told no one. Several times I have rehearsed a dialogue with Israel in my head, but each time I open my lips nothing comes out. It’s as though I need to speak with her again, feel her out, see if things are as bad as I fear, and then come to a decision.

Also, I don’t know where exactly to find her again. And my family has been through me and my madcap searches for Rose before. They haven’t exactly ended well up to now.

Dad has collected enough shillings and Israel has earned a tiny salary this week so that we can take an omnibus to pick up Prue and get back home again. Prue had sent a message boy to let us know that she had secured a position with Sir Halloway three days ago and is comfortably situated. Whether or not she is close enough in proximity to us to travel with us again remains to be seen, but hopefully time is on our side and eventually we can all find homes nearer to one another. Dad has kept tabs on Bea and Joe and they are content enough in a small room in a rundown neighborhood where Bea is attempting to do enough laundry to eke out a living. Emme is living with some other girls; I try not to think of it as a brothel.

“Prue!” I give in to a rare display of courage and pounce on her as she enters our tiny carriage, enfolding her in my embrace. “I’ve missed you!”

“Good Lord, child, don’t smother an old woman,” Prue brushes off her old coat and smoothes out imaginary wrinkles, but I can tell she’s pleased enough to see me. “Well, look at you. You look like a woman, now don’t you?”

I look down at my blue dress. It’s a new one from Lu. I spent yesterday letting out the hem to accommodate my height and it does look rather nice I think. It’s a sapphire kind of color, and the jewel tone sets off my hair and skin tone. At least that’s what I think Lu told me.

“Thanks for noticing,” I respond, dryly. “These two wouldn’t notice if I was wearing a potato sack.” I gesture to Dad and Is.

Dad looks offended. “Didn’t I say you looked nice? I thought I said so. You look very pretty, Sonny, dear.” He pats my knee, absentmindedly as ever and goes back to staring out the omnibus window. He always acts absentminded when he isn’t intoxicated.

Israel doesn’t take the bait. “What?”

“You didn’t notice my dress. Just like you didn’t notice the last time I got dressed up.” I may as well back him into a corner, I think. See if a cornered mouse will take the bait.

“I didn’t say I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re oblivious.”

Israel rolls his eyes. “Quit hinting for compliments and take the ones people offer you of their own free will.”

“Well, if you’d offer one occasionally I wouldn’t have to beg!”

“Children! Knock it off; you’re giving me a headache.” It’s difficult to see in the relative dimness of the cab, but I can hear the scowl on Prue’s face. “And here I was thinking I had missed you two. Stubborn, quarreling, argumentative little brats.”

“He started it,” I object.

I have to strain to catch Israel’s reply and I may have imagined it, but it sounds like he mutters under his breath something about him being the one to finish it.

The cab jerks to a halt and we all pile out, ungainly in our unaccustomed finery. My dress catches on the door and I nearly plow down Dad and smack into Israel, who catches me with a groan.

“Oh that’s nice on a girl’s ego,” I grumble. “I’m not that heavy.”

“I meant to say, was that a fly that landed on me? A mosquito? A feather?”

“Just your little wife. And I twisted my ankle, blast it!” I blink back the tears.

“Here, sit down a minute. Let me take off your boot.”

He undoes the laces of my boot and removes it as painlessly as possible, but even so, I wince and bite my lip to keep from crying out like a baby. It feels red hot and I’m sure it’s swelling.

“Help me up and we can hobble in the house,” I pull hard on Is’s arm and stand.

He sighs. “I suppose this is the part where I offer to carry you?”

“Thanks, but no thanks, Prince Charming. I can make it, but you’ll probably have to fetch all sorts of things for me all evening.”

“Like what, Princess?”

“Oh, you know! Ouch! Cookies and ham and drinks and the paper and my pipe and cookies and mashed potatoes and my slippers and cookies…”

My list continues on as he loses patience with my slow motion shuffle the way I knew he would and he sweeps me up intolerantly in his arms.

Several hours later I have officially eaten more cookies than Joe, I am pleasantly relaxed by a glass of hot spiced wine, the fire is burning nicely in the tiny fireplace in the tiny two room home, and we are about to open gifts.

“To Emme from Sonnet,” reads Prue. As usual, being our matriarch and also the most bossy, Prue hands out the presents and we all wait obediently and quietly. As a little girl, the more I clamored and begged, the more she ignored me. We have all learned that lesson and so we sit, hands folded meekly on our laps and not a peep crosses our lips, not even Joe’s, who of course, has the most gifts.

Emme opens her package to reveal a large sugar cookie in the shape of a high heel shoe that I cut out painstakingly with a knife, cursing the lack of easy cookie cutters. I have given everyone the same thing, though a message written in icing on each is personalized and so is the shape of the cookie. Emme’s says ‘You’ll always be my Fairy Godmother,’ and it’s a sort of homage to the night she dressed me up and made me wear her pretty shoes. Emme smiles at me and promptly eats the stiletto.

Our assortment of gifts is silly and simple. No one has money to buy anything real and so it is food or something sewn or written on paper for everyone. Dad has homemade cards that are surprisingly poetic. Mine is a poem about a little blue bird that flies away but never strays too far. I think it is a metaphor for me and the sweetness of the sentiment chokes me up a moment.

Prue hasn’t gotten anything for anyone but she barks out an order to come see her at Sir Halloway’s and she will have homemade cake for everyone. Just be sure to come in the back and wait until dark, she says.

Our lovely time is momentarily interrupted by a tantrum by Joe, who evidently had gifts in mind the size and description of the ones he got for his birthday not so long ago, but so many years in the future. Suddenly a typical little boy, he is unimpressed by large sugar cookies and a tiny set of marbles and a homemade card. Red faced and snotty and finally worn out from crying, he falls asleep with his head in Emme’s lap. We all remember being Lost at such a young age and no one minds his temper and anger.

Dad opens his cookie from me, which is in the shape of a bow tie and Prue opens her which is shaped like a teapot. Bea’s is shaped like a sewing machine, although it’s terribly done because it was an impossible shape to make and she holds it upside at first, while smiling at me ever so politely. I am suddenly anxious for Israel and his cookie but he laughs long and loud when he sees it.

“’To my favorite husband,’” he reads, holding up the ball and chain shaped cookie.

Everyone laughs and I don’t even blush, but revel in our contentment and joy of the night. All too soon, it is nearly midnight and we have to leave. Israel will be up at the crack of dawn and Prue says Sir Halloway’s favorite meal is breakfast so we have to get her home. And so we do.

Before I know it, I am snuggled up in bed and thinking of Rose and how I can get to her. In spite of being what I think of last, I do not dream of her and I sleep peacefully without stirring at all, even with a throbbing ankle to keep me up.

********************

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, dawns bright and uncharacteristically sunny. I limp down the stairs and still full from our holiday feast the night before, decide to skip breakfast and instead resolve to find Rose again. If it takes all day and if I have to pound on every door I pass, I will find her and bring her home. Dad deserves to know his daughter is alive. And if she needs help, we will help her. My will resolved and my mind made up, I set out.

My familiar barking fish man is not around today – perhaps it’s too early in the morning for anyone in their right mind to be thinking of fish, or perhaps they haven’t been caught yet – and I am nearly alone in the streets. To keep my ankle from swelling and to keep the pain at bay, I stuff my boot with snow every block or so. Whenever I do pass someone, I make it a point to ask if they’ve seen anyone who matches Rose’s description. Person after person shake their heads no, until finally a girl around my age nods her head which is bonneted in some sort of hat that looks like a blackened mushroom. It bounces as she nods.

“Yes, miss, I think I seen her. Real yellow hair? Pretty but needing some tending? Sure, she’s been around here a bit. Wanders by at around two o’clock every day she does. Comes outta that there doorway, in that house over there. See the one there? With that bush in front? That one? That’s old man Tate’s house and no one seen him in a month or two. She his daughter or something?”

“Something like that.” My, but she’s good at finding abandoned homes to call her own, I think. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

“Have I now?” the girl holds out a grubby gloved hand, expecting payment for her information. Her fingers poke out and I don’t know whether the gloves are designed that way or if they are simply falling apart and full of holes.

“Not that helpful,” I reply, wryly.

The girl leaves in a huff and I approach the door behind the bush. Though not as frightening as the old abandoned house where I had originally thought Rose was hiding, I am still wary and cautious. Frightened of what’s behind the door, or frightened of being shut in behind it, I don’t know the answer.

Just frightened. That’s all.

I knock, at first lightly and with no conviction. Then, harder and with a take-no-prisoner thump.

I don’t know whether to be surprised or relived or a little of both when the door swings open to admit Rose’s beautiful face. Her hair is combed and draped over one shoulder, she looks bathed and clean, and her face is smooth and free of any emotion at all. She does not smile, she does not speak. She looks, with all intents and purposes, like she does not know me at all.

“Hello, Rose, it’s me. Sonnet. Do you remember we spoke the other day? You invited me for tea?” I will my voice to not shake, to not quiver with the emotion that is behind my words, to be strong and unfussy.

Rose wrinkles her forehead. “Did I? Was it today? Oh dear. I am dreadfully sorry to have forgotten. Come in, come in.” Her face wreathed in the most stunning smile I have ever seen on a person, she opens the door wider and beckons me in.

“Please excuse the mess. I’ve been busy, you see. I do like to keep busy. I find it relaxes the mind, don’t you?” She gestures to the area inside, probably the parlor if I’m not mistaken. It is strewn about with paper. Paper everywhere, paper with drawings and paper with words and paper with nothing at all but blank whiteness. They are piled willy-nilly here and there and everywhere.

“I don’t like the words, you see.” Rose sighs very loudly. “The words and the photos. He keeps them from me because he knows they upset me, but sometimes I find them. The doctors used to write things down and I hated that, I hated them. Words, words, words! Stupid letters, stupid pictures. I hate them all. They all have to burn.” She glares at the offending piles and kicks one. The pages flutter to the floor like autumn leaves. Then she turns to me and it’s as though the last moment hasn’t happened. Her face is cherubic again and she claps her hands together.

“But we must have our tea, sister! I will fix it. Is it four o’clock already? I don’t know where today has gone…really I don’t. But the civilized ladies take their tea at four o’clock every day. You stay here and I will be ever so quick.” She bounds out of the room like a little rabbit.

Emotionally exhausted already, I sink down into a nearby chair. Will I have the mental stamina, I wonder, to be able to deal with this on a daily basis? The mood swings and the memory lapses are intense and disturbing. I do not know the best way to go about this. Do I agree with everything she says? Do I gently correct her when she’s wrong? It’s nowhere near four o’clock but that seems to be the least of our worries.

Rose enters the room again with a tray.

“I put lots and lots of sugar in your tea, sister. But no milk. Just the way I’m sure you like it. I’m never wrong about how people take their tea.” Rose hands me a chipped teacup very gingerly. “It’s very hot now, take care. We wouldn’t want you burned, would we? Here; I’ll blow on it for you.” She leans down and puffs a cool breath on my tea and for a moment our hands our wrapped around the cup together before she lets go.

I raise the cup to my lips as she does with hers, but it is as I feared when my hands first grasped it: the cup is empty and the tea does not exist.