And then the silence is broken by terrible coughing from upstairs.
We all turn our heads toward the staircase. A second later Papa is on the steps and heading up to his bedroom, pulling out of his pocket a white surgical mask that the army must have given him.
•••
At sunset, Evie takes up a tray of food for Papa and Mama, but when she brings it back down after we’ve eaten our own supper, the food on the tray looks untouched.
The next few hours slink by as we wait in the sitting room for Papa to come back down. Alex falls asleep, but I keep him in my arms rather than put him in the bureau drawer by the hearth. Willa dozes curled up on Evie’s lap.
Just after the clock in the hall strikes nine o’clock, we all notice that it’s suddenly very quiet upstairs. Uncle Fred goes up to Mama’s room. He comes down some minutes later and stands at the entrance to the sitting room. He exhales long and slow like he’s smoking a pipe. But there is no pipe.
“I think you girls need to come up and say your good-byes,” he says softly.
“No,” Evie whispers.
“What?” Willa says, half-asleep. “Where are we going?”
I don’t say anything. A tingling sensation instantly creeps all over my body and a rush of hotness fills my ears. Alex startles and then slips back into deep slumber.
“You can bid her farewell from the bedroom door,” he continues. “She won’t want you to come any closer.”
The three of us just stare dumbly at Uncle Fred.
“Come on, then,” he says, trying to sound gruff, but his voice is high and airy, like an old woman’s. He steps over to Willa and scoops her up to carry her up to our parents’ bedroom. Evie trails behind them, crying into a handkerchief.
I get up off the sofa and lay Alex in the drawer and tuck the blanket in around him. He is so little and helpless.
My feet feel leaden as I climb the stairs. Evie and Uncle Fred with Willa in his arms are already just inside the bedroom when I get to the second floor. A single table lamp is on and its faint light throws tall shadows over the room. “We’re here, Mama. We’re all here,” Evie is saying.
As my eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, I can see that Papa is at Mama’s bedside, his mask over his face. He’s still in his uniform, like he only just got here. He is leaning forward in his chair as he holds one of Mama’s hands. The breath in Mama’s lungs doesn’t sound like air but rather sloshing water. She is so pale she looks like a ghost.
Willa, in Uncle Fred’s arms, can’t seem to believe the figure on the bed is Mama. I can scarcely believe it. Willa stares at the bed and Mama, frowning. After a second or two she lays her head against Uncle Fred’s chest. “I want to go back downstairs,” she murmurs.
As Uncle Fred and Willa leave, Evie takes another step into the room, filling the empty space. Tears are running down her face. “We love you, Mama,” she says. “You can go. We’ll be all right. We’ll always remember you. You were so good to us.”
If there is a word of farewell I am supposed to add to this, I can’t find it. I can’t think of one thing I want to say. Mama turns her head slightly toward Evie and me, and she raises a finger on the hand my father isn’t holding. But that’s all she does. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t raise her head. Doesn’t do anything but hold up that one finger. Maybe she is saying “Hello” with it. Maybe she is saying “Good-bye.” Maybe she is just pointing to the ceiling, where on the other side of the roof is the starry October sky and beyond.
Or maybe she is saying, “Just one second there! Uncle Fred is wrong. I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe this is what she is saying. I think about all the kind words she has spoken to me over the years of my life, all the motherly touches, the gentle corrections. I think of how she said I could have the room in the attic when we moved to Philadelphia, how she let me join her in the embalming room so that I could help give back to all those poor dead souls the look of life, and how she allowed me to go with her to South Street, where I found and saved Baby Alex and brought him home to us.
I think of all these things and I choose to believe she is telling us Uncle Fred is mistaken. He is mistaken.
I raise my hand in return. I think she sees it. She lowers the finger lifted off her coverlet, and every part of her save her lungs goes still again.
Evie is weeping.
I turn from the room without saying anything.
