Currents (27 page)
Authors: Jane Petrlik Smolik
Without a word, Mrs. Bennett and Ma rushed out the door, coatless into the frigid air, and knelt next to Mrs. Lowe, wrapping their arms around her. Mr. Bennett, Mary Margaret, and Da dashed out behind them.
“Tomas,” Mr. Bennett said. “Go fetch Doctor Wiggins. Tell him to come immediately. Oh my Lord, tell him Frances Lowe has lost her boy.”
Mary Margaret gently patted Mrs. Lowe's back, then dropped her head and sobbed into her hands.
For the next two days, the storm continued to pummel Boston and what was left of the
Liberty
. The tossing sea swallowed up most of the ship and its doomed passengers. On the third day, bodies and debris began to wash up around the city and near the docks. Mary Margaret heard her father tell Ma that three boats had sailed out to salvage what they could, plucking suitcases and floating bodies out of the water for most of the day. When they found Lucas Lowe, he was facedown, fully dressed with full pockets, but the water had pulled off his shoes, and his stocking feet had come up first when they fished his body out.
After being identified, his body was delivered to his mother. Ma told Mary Margaret that he would be laid out in Mrs. Lowe's parlor for two days before he was taken away to be buried next to his father in the springtime when the ground had thawed.
The Bennetts helped her with the burial arrangements. The Caseys didn't need to be told that it wouldn't be appropriate for Irish Catholics to attend the service. Ma baked tea breads and wrapped them in warm towels and had Mary Margaret deliver them to Mrs. Lowe's back door.
“In Ireland, laying out a corpse is woman's work,” Ma told Mary Margaret. “When someone passes, we open all the doors and windows to let out any lingering evil spirits and cover up the mirrors to hide the dead person's image.
“We scrub and tidy up the corpse for the wake, then be careful to tie together the departed's hands and their two big toes to keep them from returning as ghosts. And we all carry around a pinch of salt in our pocket to ward off any evil spirits that might be hanging about hoping to steal the dead person's soul.”
“Poor Lucas!” Mary Margaret cried. “Should we tell them they need to do all that for him? Mrs. Lowe surely wouldn't want any evil spirits hanging around her Lucas.”
“No, no. Don't say anything,” Ma said. “They have their own curious ways of doing things here. Not that I agree with them.” She sighed. “But still, they have their own ways.”
Da made sure Mrs. Lowe's walkway and steps were clear of snow and ice, and Mary Margaret took over a prayer card, and a little note written in her own hand, saying she was sorry for Mrs. Lowe's loss and that she would include Lucas in her prayers every night. She went back to work at Mr. Eaton's and made sure that she always greeted him with a cheery hello. But when she was alone, behind the velvet curtain, she couldn't help crying some days as she ironed. Louisa was so distraught to lose Lucas that she stayed home from school for two days. While Ma kept her thoughts to herself, Mary Margaret knew she was thinking of Lucas, too, since she found a few grains of salt sprinkled in her pocket every day.
L
ess than a week later, Mary Margaret was helping Ma clean up the Bennetts' first-floor rooms. As she gathered up a pile of newspapers next to Mr. Bennett's chair to discard them, she saw an article on the front page.
The Boston Examiner
December 30, 1856
This winter is turning out to be one of the most severe ever seen in Massachusetts. During the night of the twenty-third a particularly violent snowstorm extended over most of New England, sweeping through Massachusetts with fierce, piercing winds. A church steeple in New Bedford blew down, and there were reports of trees falling across houses. But the gale was particularly disastrous at sea. Several ships were grounded, driven into surrounding rocks and shores.
The schooner
Liberty
, so close to its destination, hung on through most of the night until the main sail, encased in ice, snapped in the wind and came crashing down, tearing the canvas sail to shreds. From then on it is assumed the hapless ship drifted across Massachusetts Bay and was tossed helplessly by the violent winds, finally driven into the shoal off the northwest end of Lovells Island, tearing out her bottom. Once grounded, the foaming sea must have rushed over the sinking ship, sweeping passengers overboard.
Any survivors would have drowned as the vessel smashed into pieces against the rocks. Any cries for help would have been lost in the howling gales, as the last of the passengers would have disappeared beneath the cold, black water.
She couldn't bring herself to throw it out. Instead, she carefully folded it, and when she went back home, she tucked it into one of her old journals.
Mary Margaret appeared from the apartment carefully carrying a steaming cup of tea and waited on the sidewalk while her Da sipped it. She looked up at Mrs. Lowe in her window watching Da bent over, working. She had lost track of how many times he had quietly gone in the early morning to remove the snow from Mrs. Lowe's walk.
Mrs. Lowe came outside carrying the red mittens with the white stars around the cuffs that she had told Mary Margaret and Louisa she had knit for her Lucas. She put them in Da's hands.
I knew she had good in her
, Mary Margaret thought.
“Aw, Mrs. Lowe,” he protested. “I don't expect anything. Sure I can't.”
“You can. Please, Mr. Casey. My Lucas would want his gloves keeping a good man's hands warm, not sitting useless in the parlor.” She turned and disappeared back into her home. Mary Margaret was sure that somehow, Lucas knew his mother was “being good for something, while it was in her power.”
T
he first week in January, early in the morning, Mary Margaret found an envelope addressed to her on the floor just inside the door to the Caseys' apartment. Inside was a letter.
Dear Mary Margaret,
Please accept the enclosed silver dollar that Papa gave to me for having a story published in
Merry's Museum Magazine
. I have no right to it, and it is burning a hole in my conscience as surely as if it were a hot coal. It is your story of the day we spent with Lucas and his brave defense of you. He was a fine boy, and I know your heart aches as mine does at the thought of never seeing him again. It is your story, as is the splendid talent you have for telling a tale that spellbinds the reader. If you don't mind, I would like to keep your journal for a few more days. I am almost finished reading it, and it has given me more pleasure than I can say.
Please forgive me for what I did. I have learned my lesson from this unfortunate event that I brought upon myself. I have confessed to my parents who are woefully disappointed in me. They agree that this silver dollar belongs to you.
| Â | Sincerely, Louisa |
P. S. If you can come for tea someday soon, I'll show you all the latest things I have learned at school. I hope you'll come.
Mary Margaret had already forgiven Louisa. After Lucas Lowe was killed, one magazine article didn't seem so important anymore. Although she did want her journal back, her parents had forbidden her from mentioning so much as one word about it.
When Mary Margaret showed the letter and silver dollar to her parents, her father said, “'Tis good to forgive your enemies, and even better to forgive your friends.”
Her mother agreed, butâalways the practical oneâadded, “Good to know we have a spare dollar. We might be needing it.”
“What will we use it for, Ma?” Bridget asked.
“I don't know yet. But there is always something that we need. The money we got for the cross won't last forever. When it runs out, this will buy more medicine for you, if you still need it. But both Da and I think you already seem quite a bit better,” Ma replied hopefully. “Don't you agree?”
“Yes, Ma,” Bridget said, exasperated. “I keep telling you and Da that I feel better every day but you still keep asking me.”
Her mother laughed. “I guess Da and I just can't hear it enough, that's all.” She fluffed the back of Bridget's hair and made a funny face at her.
“Help me start supper, Mary Margaret,” her mother said.
Ma cut turnips and potatoes into chunks and slid them into a big pot while Mary Margaret peeled carrots.
“Mary Margaret!” Ma cried. “You're going to peel those carrots down to nothing. What's wrong with you?”
She stopped peeling and began instead to chop them.
“I said, what's wrong with you?” Ma put her knife down and turned to her daughter.
“It just doesn't seem fair,” Mary Margaret finally said.
“What are you talkin' about?” Ma asked.
“For the price of a doctor's visit and some pills, Bridget could have been better a long time ago. If Louisa had been sick, don't you know the Bennetts would have had her at the finest doctor in Boston straight off. It's wrong, Ma. And what about people who don't happen to find a gold cross floating by the docks?” she said mockingly. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Well, I guess they just won't get well, aye? It just doesn't seem fair, that's all.”
“Oh, I see,” Da piped up from the table. “It's fair you want. Well, life is not fair. No one ever told you it would be.”
“Quickest way to break your heart,” Ma said quietly, wiping her daughter's tears with the edge of her apron, “is to think life is going to be fair. Don't waste your time complaining about it. Take my word for it, it won't change a thing.”