“I don’t know what you can do make them dry in an hour,” Anna said. “But thank you for trying.”
Mrs. Singer raised one thin eyebrow. “If the next train leaves before three, I’ll eat my own hat and yours for good measure. It always takes longer than they claim.”
The matron went out as Jack came in.
Rosa said, “Where did you get that?”
“It’s pink,” Lia said, and giggled.
“These girls are mocking me, Anna. Mocking me.”
“You’re wearing a pink dressing gown,” Lia pointed out. “You look silly.” It was true, the old dressing gown the landlord had found for him was big enough, but it had faded over the years from what had probably been a somber maroon to a delicate pink.
“And you have cocoa all around your mouth, like a mustache and beard. Let’s get you cleaned up and down for a nap.”
Anna’s stomach gave a terrific growl and so she sat down to eat while Jack folded back the covers. Both the girls were asleep before he had finished tucking them in. Anna, her hair still dripping, sat in the chair beside the bed and went about the business of putting herself in order, when she would have liked nothing more than to climb into bed with them.
Jack came up behind her with a fresh towel. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”
While he pressed water from her hair she closed her eyes and let herself be drawn down and down into the comfort of it. Then he ruined her lovely half sleep. “Listen now, while I talk. No arguments, just listen.”
Anna drew in a deep breath and let it go in one long sigh. She got up from the chair and went to the window, but he followed her.
Jack said, “Nobody in this world could have done more for these girls than you have. Rosa doesn’t see that now, but she will. You have to remember that and leave guilt and remorse behind, because while it seems as though she’s ignoring you, she’s watching every move you make.”
Anna nodded and yawned, and, leaning forward to put her head on Jack’s unyielding shoulder, she fell asleep.
? ? ?
THE SUN BROKE through the last of the clouds just as they reached the railroad office, and that, Jack decided, could be taken as a good omen. From there things moved quickly; tickets were bought, and all four of them settled on the crowded train while a faint rainbow appeared over Raritan Bay.
Anna sat across the aisle with Lia, who was taking in the scenery with something like astonishment. After Washington Square’s walkways and benches and neatly manicured bushes and trees, Staten Island would be overwhelming.
Once or twice he had heard Aunt Quinlan telling stories of her childhood in the endless forests and mountains of northernmost New York state, and so it came as no surprise when Lia asked about bears and panthers, wolves and moose.
“Not here,” Anna told her. “The endless forests are far away. It’s a long journey.”
“Beaver?” Lia asked hopefully. “There must be beaver.”
Anna raised a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe the conductor could tell you. See, he’s coming now to take our tickets.”
You had to admire Anna’s way of dealing with the girls. Rather than try to convince them they should not be sad or angry or disappointed in something, she gave them something else to concentrate on. He had seen this strategy work dozens of times already, as it worked now. Lia tugged on the conductor’s sleeve to ask a question, and for the rest of the journey she looked forward to his trips through the car, when he would stop and tell her about Staten Island when he was a boy, about plentiful beaver and deer, porcupines and foxes.
Rosa was listening, but she took no part in the conversation. Jack tried to imagine what she would be feeling, the relief of knowing her brother was alive and well, the fear that she would be turned away and not allowed to see him. She was angry at everyone and everything, but she focused most of that anger on Anna and Elise.
“It’s understandable,” Anna had said to him last night. “She trusts me not to reject her for being angry. If I could be dispassionate about any of it, I might say that she is thinking of me like a mother. Someone who will take the worst she has to offer, and never turn away.”
Drifting between consciousness and sleep, he had thought about this Anna, who had once lost a brother. She understood Rosa’s sorrow and anger better than he ever could.
? ? ?
IN TOTTENVILLE THEY wasted no time wandering through the village or finding a meal but went straight to Mr. Malone. The old man’s face broke into a wide smile at the sight of them, but this time he didn’t try to communicate. Instead he picked up a short rod and struck a bell that hung over his head. Before Jack could make sense of it, Mr. Malone’s son stuck his head out of a workroom of some kind, his hands full of tack.