Three Rivers Rising (10 page)

But I know I am flesh
because a shiver passes through.
My sodden dress
is dripping
on the floor of the train car.
A tiny rivulet
runs across the aisle
and a dry lady there
scowls at me
and lifts her feet.
Her shoes are immaculate.

The train creeps over a viaduct,
high over the roiling water below.
We pass the rows of white houses
on the flats of Mineral Point,
then on to East Conemaugh.
There I see a girl my age
sweeping the threshold of her house
across from the train yard.

She looks serene,
resting her chin on her broom handle.
Perhaps all her questions are answered already.

A toddler pushes past her,
then another,
then another,
upending a pot of red geraniums.
They chase rings around her
and stretch arms up.
She leans down
and hugs and teases,
then shepherds them back into the house.

Her face looks older to me now
as she scans the sky
and the hills
before closing the door.

My stomach is fairly insistent
that I stop for refreshment.
The bit of bread is gone
and I forgo the apple—
an apple on an empty stomach
only aggravates one’s hunger.

The tendrils of smoke appear on the horizon,
then the smokestacks
and taller buildings.
Johnstown is all before us.
Mills,
factories,
churches,
offices,
stores,
homes,
not altogether different from Pittsburgh.
Industry,
progress,
and, I hope, a good strong cup of tea.

Johnstown

Celestia

The waiter girl
brings scones and cream
and a second cup of tea.
I hand her the envelope
from one of Peter’s letters
and she points the way to his street.

I give her the coins for my meal
and an extra for herself.
She looks pleased
and pockets her gratuity.

How will I survive if I stay in Johnstown?
Will I have the price of a cup of tea in my purse?
Will
I
be the waiter girl next time?

I picture Estrella in the cheap muslin apron,
pouring tea for strangers
in a foreign land.
Or serving as companion and assistant
to an old widow
low on the social scale
who takes her in
in lieu of a salary.
Or maybe using her sewing skill
to make hats for a milliner.
She might glean some small joy from that.

These are the fates
of disowned daughters—
you hear of them
in only the faintest whispers—
the most they can hope for.
These are my fates now.

Finally I stand before Peter’s house:
a small
white
square
frame house,
a bit of fence in front.
Perhaps I stand too long.
A door slams
and a neighbor woman glares. “You have business here?”
Her hair is crinkly gray
and her skin is grayer.
“I am a friend …” I nod toward Peter’s home.
“Well, a friend is what they’re needing, that’s for sure.”
“Oh?”
“Hard times”—she nods her gray head—
“I been helping what I could,
but I got my own houseful.”
“I am sure they are grateful,” I say, not sure at all.
Not sure of anything.
“Well, you best get to it, then.” The woman jabs a thumb
in the direction of Peter’s house,
and I take those last steps
into my new life.

A garden grew here once,
a tiny parterre
in the square that would be a yard.
The center has something
that was once a sundial,
stone
and iron.

Flower boxes overflow with weeds.
A woman lived here once,
but a long time ago.

I knock. Knock again.
The only answer is coughing.

Fear of imposing
is overtaken by concern
and I try the door.

My eyes adjust to the dimness.
The air is damp
and smells of sickness.
Coughing
and moaning
come from the bedroom straight ahead,
punctuated by dripping
in the open doorway.
Someone in the bed.

“Peter?”
It takes an eternity
to cross the main room.
“Peter?”
The face is not his.
An older man,
subtly familiar.
Peter’s father.

He squints at me. “Anna?”
He becomes agitated.
“You’ve come for me at last.
Where have you been so long?”
Ashen,
eyes enormous,
he tries to raise himself,
tangling in the bedding.

“Please, sir…I am Peter’s friend …”
Too frightened to finish,
I back away
and run aground
something,
ricochet into the doorjamb.
“Peter!”

How glad I am to see him!
Even slouching
under a blanket,
red-eyed,
unshaven.
He wavers.
I reach out to steady him.

He looks at me blankly
at first,
perhaps not understanding
how I had come to be there,
then raises his arms.
The blanket becomes wings.
He is broader
but thinner.
My arms go round
ribs.
My head does not rest
on the smooth rise of his chest
as it once did,
but on collarbones.

His woolen embrace
envelopes me, though,
and I feel warm for the first time today.

He leans on me,
too hard.
His eyes wander to the ceiling.
“Peter, what is wrong?”
I help him to a plank chair
near the potbelly stove, expecting heat
but finding the metal grate cold.
“So tired,” he sighs. “I’m just so tired.”

Once the stove is going,
I rearrange the blankets
and tuck him into a cot by the door.

The rocker in the corner
yields a cushion
and I stuff it under his head.
At last, the dark chill
is off the room.

I search for food
in the cupboard,
anything to give them
before I go.

I count the coins in my purse,
cover my head with Peter’s coat,
and run for the shops,
hoping for a baker,
some soup vegetables,
and strong coffee.

Bread,
broth,
and kindness,
a cool hand on the brow,
this is all I know to do.
I stoke the fire,
rock in the chair
under Peter’s coat,
and listen to the rain
and the rivers.

I recall the sound of
South Fork Creek cascading
from the spillway
higher up on the mountain,
and imagine that same water
rushing by me now in Johnstown
by way of the Little Conemaugh.
Then that river joins the Stony Creek
roaring into Johnstown from the south.
Three rivers …
all overflowing their banks,
creeping up like a tide …

Sleep slips over me like a veil.
I dream a woman is watching me,
eyes earnest,
a sympathetic turn to her mouth,
but
I must be awake
and it is only a portrait of Peter’s mother
above the stove.
This must be Anna
,
I hear my own thought
as I give in to sleep.

Peter

Gone down under the waves now.
Exhaustion’s claimed me.
I dreamed of Celestia,
that she was
right here in the house,
tending Papa and me
like an angel.

I had no choice
but to quit
the vigil
I’ve been keeping
at his bedside;
sleep crushed me.

I wish so bad
she was really here.

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

Lake Conemaugh

Whitcomb

Making headway on a stack of contracts,
I notice
unease
tugging at my sleeve.
I neaten up the papers,
open my ledger,
close it again.
What is this irritation
at the edge of my thoughts?
Damn these intrusions!
Time wasters!

I have no choice
but to push my work away
for the moment
and clear my head.

It is Celestia.
She did not appear for breakfast—
not unusual—
a busy man such as myself
often begins his workday
before other members of the household
are even awake.
But now it is well past eleven
and I have not yet heard her stirring
or seen her traipsing
down the stairs with a book in hand.

Perhaps the trip exhausted her.
I head upstairs and knock on her door.
No answer.
A quick look in her room
reveals she must be up and about.

Not in the clubhouse.
I look out the windows
to see rain pelting the boardwalks
and whipping the lake.
She could not be out there …
could she?

I grab a mackintosh to hold over my head
and go out
toward the stables.
I am forced to yell over the sound of the rain:
“Has anybody seen my daughter today?”
Givens shakes his head. “Sorry, Mr. Whitcomb.”
“Off somewhere with her nose in a book, no doubt,” I say.
No need to raise suspicions
among the staff …
though I cannot help but glance toward the dam
and the valley below.