“They’re all dead,” he reminded her, and she laughed through her tears.
“I guess that’s true.” She smiled. “They just don’t look or act dead, and they don’t seem to know it.”
“No, they certainly don’t,” he agreed. They seemed as alive as any friends they’d ever had, and the two families had come to love each other and gave each other strength. Blake vowed to himself to be there for Bert in the months ahead. It was all he could do. Despite what they knew, they were unable to interfere, and he wondered if maybe that was how it was meant to be, as cruel as that seemed to them.
—
Josiah left the next day. He was being sent by train to New Jersey for basic training, and then would embark for Europe. They wouldn’t see him again before he left for the front, by troop ship from New York. He wouldn’t be allowed to tell them when he was going, but Bert thought they would train him for combat for about a month, or a little longer, which would land him in Europe in early June. The war was chewing up all the young men in Europe, and they were hoping that fresh troops from the States would turn it around.
There was no dinner with the Butterfields the night he left, and they didn’t come to the dining room for two days. Gwyneth was trying to be brave, but she looked ragged when they dined together again, and even Augusta was subdued, missing her grandson, and there suddenly seemed to be a huge hole at the table where Josiah had been.
Bert and Blake talked business that night, as Blake explained to him how the progress at the start-up was going. There were a few problems, but he wasn’t worried about them. Blake felt that the two founding partners were too fearless about taking risks, but he hoped they knew what they were doing. They’d been successful before. It seemed insignificant now compared to Josiah going to war, but at least talking to Bert about work was distracting. Sybil and Gwyneth were conversing quietly. Sybil had just said something to Gwyneth about coming back to her office in the afternoons, when she happened to look down the table toward Augusta and saw her turning purple, while Angus stared at her in a panic. There was no sound coming from her, and she was obviously choking. Her airway was blocked by something she had eaten, probably a piece of meat. They’d had leg of lamb for dinner that night. Sybil watched her for an instant and then ran down the length of the table to where Augusta was sitting. The old woman looked terrified, she was getting no air and could make no sound. Sybil knew she would be unconscious shortly.
“I’m going to help you,” Sybil said as calmly as she could, hoping she could do the Heimlich maneuver on a woman her size. Augusta had a voluminous body, and Sybil pulled her up from her chair, stood as closely behind her as she could get, put her arms around her, formed one hand into a tight fist and curled the other around it, and plunged them into Augusta’s abdomen sharply, as everyone at the table stared in shocked horror at what was going on and what Sybil was doing. Sybil, Blake, and their children had taken Red Cross classes many times, and Sybil was certified in advanced first aid and CPR. She made the classic movement twice, trying to force the object to pop out as the air in her lungs would propel it upward. Augusta was fighting her, but on the second try it worked, and the piece of lamb that had been stuck in her throat flew out of her mouth, shot across the table, and landed in front of Magnus. Augusta spluttered and coughed then, but her airway had cleared. She looked mortified and turned to Sybil, still standing behind her, and waved her away.
“How dare you put your hands on me, you wicked girl!” she berated her. “You tried to strangle me, while I was choking.” She looked outraged. “You nearly broke my ribs!”
“No, truly, I didn’t try to strangle you, Mrs. Campbell. It’s called the Heimlich maneuver, to keep people from dying from choking. It saves a lot of lives. My children know how to do it too.”
“Heimlich. Foreign, naturally. And German, that’s even worse than French. The Germans are probably using it in France to kill British soldiers.” Gratitude was clearly not part of Augusta’s make-up, and she was obviously fine now, so Sybil apologized for manhandling her and went back to her seat, relieved that it had worked.
“Mother, Sybil was trying to help you,” Gwyneth said, attempting to defend her friend. “You were choking.” And Phillips had already removed the offending piece of meat that had nearly killed her. She glared at Sybil several times from the opposite end of the table, but as they left the dining room that night, she walked over to Sybil and spoke to her gruffly.
“I’m sure you meant well, but don’t ever do that again. I’d rather choke than have you break all my ribs.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Sybil said meekly, but she knew that she had embarrassed her and hurt her pride more than anything. And it had been no easy task getting her arms around the corpulent woman.
“You didn’t. But you can’t trust those Germans. Leave it to them to come up with such a barbaric remedy for choking. Quite dreadful, I assure you.” She left the room on her brother’s arm then, and disappeared even faster than usual. As Sybil walked up the stairs that night, she thought about how tragic it was that she could save an old woman from dying who was already dead, but she couldn’t save a twenty-three-year-old boy they all loved from going to war and being killed there. It truly wasn’t fair, and Augusta Campbell might have recovered from choking another way, but Sybil couldn’t take the chance. But she was sure that somewhere, though she would never have admitted it, Gwyneth’s mother was grateful. Blake teased Sybil about it later when she climbed into bed.
“Tried to kill the old lady at dinner tonight, did you?” She laughed in answer, remembering Augusta’s look of indignation once Sybil had saved her. “Don’t forget, my darling, that no good deed goes unpunished, even with ghosts.” He laughed at her again, while Sybil tried not to think of Josiah. She’d been worrying about him all night, and already missed him. She hoped they would see him again soon. In the meantime, at least she’d saved Augusta’s life, whether she appreciated it or not. The children needed a grandmother, after all, and she was the only one they had, even if she was a ghost, and a cantankerous one at that.
Chapter 8