Frowning, I followed her pointed finger and found Johnnie sitting on the stool he’d occupied the morning before. His brown eyes were troubled as he stared at me, but he did not move or speak.
Daylight seeped through the canvas walls, telling me it was morning. But where was Bess? Yesterday, she’d already been in the kitchen working on breakfast when I woke up.
“Is something wrong, Johnnie?”
He didn’t respond but kept looking at me with those terrified eyes.
I rose off the pallet and walked to him. “Where is your mother?”
His lips began to quiver, but that was the only reply he gave.
The door to the front room opened, and Paddy appeared. Half of his face was lifted in a smile that slowly faded as he lookedaround the kitchen. When his gaze rested on me, he asked, “B-B-Bess?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up, and Johnnie was sitting here, but I haven’t seen her.”
He looked at the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, but fear seemed to keep him in his place.
Had Bess snuck out after I fell asleep? I had probably only been sleeping in this path for thirty minutes or so.
The back door opened like it had yesterday, and Sam appeared. He paused and looked at each of us, then at the cold cookstove and the empty worktable. “Where is Bess?”
Neither Paddy nor Johnnie answered, so I finally said, “We don’t know.”
Sam stepped into the kitchen and walked over the pallet that Hazel and I had slept on. He pushed open the bedroom door and entered Bess’s room.
“Bess?” he asked, his voice filtering through the canvas wall. “Are you feeling poorly?”
There was no answer as he moved away from the door and farther into the room. All I could see from my vantage point was the end of the large bed.
“Bess?” he asked again, a little louder.
Again—there was only silence.
“Paddy!” Sam yelled.
Paddy ran into the bedroom, and I followed.
Bess was lying on the bed, unresponsive.
Sam knelt beside her, his hand on her cheek. “Bess, wake up.”
Paddy was on the other side of the bed as he stared in shock. “She-she-she dead?”
“Wake up,” Sam said again, his voice tight with emotion and panic. “You can’t leave us here without you, Bess.”
My eyes were wide as I put my hand over my mouth. “Is she dead?” I whispered.
He slowly pulled his hand away and lowered his head, the answer written in the slope of his shoulders and the grief on his face.
Bess was dead.
“Doc-c-ctor.” Paddy pushed me to get out of the bedroom, frantic and desperate.
“It’s too late,” Sam said halfheartedly. “She’s been dead for hours.”
Paddy either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He ran out of the building without closing the back door.
I stood where Paddy had pushed me, shaky and uncertain.
