chapterNINETEEN
Granny is sleeping when I creep past her bed. I fear she’ll wake and see me with a cloth tied over my face. If she does, she’ll panic. Everyone knows what that cloth means. Right now, she’s quiet, though her breathing is a little rackety. She coughs once but keeps on sleeping.
I walk to Da’s bed rather than mine, since it’s the farthest from Granny. He isn’t here to use it anyhow. I crawl under Da’s blanket, but sleep won’t come. I stare at the ceiling, at the beams black with mold. They’ve always been black. I can’t tell if there’s more now than when I was little.
Tomorrow I will wipe down all the counters and chairs in the guest rooms. I’ll do it twice. Silly as it sounds, I don’t know if rich people catch tuberculosis. If they do, I won’t be the one to give it to them. Unless ’tis Mr. Carboni. God forgive me, but I wouldn’t shed a tear over him catching it. I try to picture everyone I know, wondering if anyone else is gone. I can only remember Mrs. Cleary and Mrs. Lionel, thank the Lord. Sure, and they were old. They both smoked like chimneys. Maybe Granny will be spared.
But come morning, there’s blood on her pillow. I barely slept a wink because she got coughing in the middle of the night, and the terrible noise went on and on, ragged and cruel. I tie the cloth around my face, then useanother to touch hers. Her skin is hot. Her lids crack open, but it seems a massive effort. Blood has dried around her mouth.
“Oh, Granny,” I say, sinking onto Martin’s bed.
She says nothing, only coughs, hacking so long and hard she has to gasp for air. She stops, and I pour water through her cracked lips. She falls back to sleep.
In my life, I’ve known loads of people. They go in and out of my days. Some, like Bianca, have grown up under me. Others, like Da, move away. He still isn’t home, and he hasn’t written. There’s a weight on my heart over that, but I’ll get over it. Then there’s Damien. He waltzed into my life unexpected, but I’d never want him to leave.
Granny is the only person who has always been with me. She helped my mother bring me into the world, and after Ma died, Granny took over my care. I can’t say she’s a contented person, but in truth, I can’t say she isn’t. She seems happiest when she’s grumpy, and if I’m right about that, then she’s always happy. She was raised strict, she always says, and that’s how she raised me. Granny is the cop, judge, and jury of my life. My brothers get away with thieving in the streets only because they avoid her. When they come home after their mischief, she can smell the guilt on them. She never spares the rod when ’tis called for, and I don’t blame her for using it. I haven’t seen either of them in months, not since before Da left for Montreal. I wonder if any of them are ever coming back.
Granny, even in her fragile state, always makes me feel safe. When thunderstorms or blizzards attack the city, Granny is unflinching, and she always makes sure we’re warm and dry. Until recently, she’s been rocking quiet in her chair, knitting despite the knots in her old fingers and the pains in her legs, all the time clucking her tongue over this and that.
She’s shrunken as an old apple on her stained pillow now. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to be alone.
Granny loves me in her own way. She cannot read, but she is glad to be read to. She sits back and listens, and she asks questions about the stories. She teaches me right from wrong. All the skills I have now, like sewing andcleaning and cooking, they come from her. If I’ve turned out all right, ’tis thanks to Granny. She’s gotten used to my working at the Dominion, despite her tirade that the hotel’s extravagance is for a den of fiends. She lets me go on about the hotel and all its glory, and I believe it cheers her to scold about its richness. She can see I’m happy, and she’s relieved to see more money coming in than when I was running errands for The Ward folks.
But when it comes to my future, she’s very clear: she wants me married rather than working.
“You’ll have no need for money if you marry a good man,” she told me. Just one of her many lessons. “It’s your duty to keep him well, so you must learn. A handful of skill is worth a bagful of gold.”
We haven’t really spoken about Damien since the night I showed her the locket. I fear what she might say. I do think she would adore him and his charming way, but she might not like that I am with him. She dreams of a wealthy man for me.
A dog barks, breaking my daze. This is a workday like every other. I reluctantly leave Granny, then I go to the door to find Damien. He sees my troubled face and right away dons his own.
“How are you keeping?” he asks.
Bianca joins us outside, sees our expressions. “What’s going on?”
“My granny,” I reply. “She’s in a bad way.”
Bianca tilts her head with sympathy. “Poor Granny.”
“Can you leave her?” Damien asks.
There’s the question. I know the answer, and I cannot see how to change it. I shake my head.
“What’ll you do?” Bianca asks, but I don’t know. My head’s not on straight. “It’s all right, Rosie,” she says. “You stay with Granny. I’ll tell Mrs. Evans for you.”
I watch them leave, filled with sadness. What will Mrs. Evans say? Then Granny’s cough cuts through the window, long and tortured, and it hurts my own chest to hear it. I tie the cloth back over my face and go inside to start some water boiling. Once that’s done, I go to her bedside.
“Would you have oatmeal if I made it?” I ask.
She stares at my cloth-covered face with horror, then she presses her bluish fingertips to her lips. She is shocked to see blood on them. For a blink, she doesn’t move. I dab her face with a cloth and wipe the blood away for now. Sorrow settles into us both as she realizes what is happening.
“This is how I die,” she rasps. The first words she’s spoken in days.
“Come now, Granny. You’ll not die.”
“I will. I see it. Your eye is a fine mirror for me. Sure, we all lie down in the clay one day, and I’ll not dodge my turn forever. Death’s the one guest never turned away at the door. Fetch my rosary.”
A fit of coughing explodes from her chest, and I jerk reflexively out of the way. She jams the cloth against her mouth, and when she can finally breathe again, she stares at all the blood she has put on it. ’Tis like she is asking the cloth a question and waiting for an answer. It keeps quiet, so she questions me instead.
