The apartment complex was small and old.
Sarah Rogers looked from the rickety stairs to the boxes at her feet and felt the weight settle on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and took a moment, imagined Joseph's arm around her shoulder, his lips pressed into her hair. When she opened her eyes the boxes were still piled in the dirt, the rickety steps still looked like even her light weight would send them crashing down.
"Steve, stop bothering the cat and help me carry the bags – you'll set off your allergies. No, leave the trunks, I'll find someone to help with those. Second floor, last door on the right." She picked up her mother's worn carpet bag and slung Joseph's worn army canvas bag over her shoulder. Steve gave the cat one last, mournful look, but scurried his bag up the stares, one step at a time. The bag hit the edges of the stairs with a steady clump, clump, but Steve set his jaw and kept pulling.
The lock was sticky.
By the time she opened the door Steve pulled up next to her, his chest heaving. Sarah kept one eye on him but other than a flush across his cheeks he looked fine, his lip stuck out in stubborn pout. The apartment was small, one bedroom, with a kitchen connected to the dining and living area. She stood for a moment and took the empty space. She'd have to buy a table, at least, and some chairs but they could do without a couch for now. "Steve, darling, why don't you take these to the room? Then you can go look for some new friends, okay?"
"Where are you going?" Steve asked eyes on the bag at his feet. Sarah ran a hand through soft blonde hair and pushed him to the bedroom. She propped the door open with her bag and went downstairs to wrangle with the boxes. The lamp was easy to carry, if a little awkward. She opened one of the trunks and hauled out her dinnerware and napkins. On her third trip she caught the eye of a woman with brown hair and grey eyes peering from one of the nearby windows. Sarah nodded politely and waved. The woman frowned back and slipped inside.
Sarah's heart sank.
She'd heard rumors this neighborhood was harsher than her home, it's people prone to dismiss strangers, but she hoped the rumors were founded in suspicion and prejudice. Sarah swallowed against the tightness in her throat and reminded herself that she'd faced hostile neighbors before. As Catholic, Irish, and woman, she learned to weather the irrational way people treated each other.
Sarah shook it from her mind and dug deeper into her trunk and pulled out her books. She was trying to juggle the family Bible and her nursing manuals when a man with brown hair dressed in worn overalls approached her with hat in hand. "Ma'am," he said. "I'm sorry to bother you but my wife noticed you from the window. She wanted to know if you needed help or anything. I don't mean to impose, but I have a few strong boys who need something to do now that schools out and you seem like you could use the muscle."
Sarah felt her shoulders loosen in relief. "Thank you. I really appreciate the help." She looked down at her armload. "Let me just…"
"Sure!" The man blushed. "No problem, I need to call my boys. The name's George Barnes. That's my wife, Winifred." He pointed at the woman from the window. She was standing in an apartment doorway with a toddler on her hip and another clinging to her skirts. Up close Sarah could see the dark rings under her eyes and the tightness at the corners of her mouth.
The Barnes family had five children – three boys aged sixteen to seven, and two girls, both still toddlers. "Twins," Mr. Barnes said proudly. "Lord knows that was a shock. Never seen Winifred so silent as when the midwife told us we were getting two girls for the fun of one." Between Mr. Barnes and the oldest two boys, Michael and Benjamin, they had the rest of her things in the apartment in half an hour. The family was friendly; Mr. Barnes was cheerful and hardworking, even as he politely spoke around the missing Mr. Rogers. Sarah danced around the questions just as politely for a while, but she knew she was giving him the wrong impression.
Eventually, between directing his sons to set her wedding chest in the bedroom and holding the door open so Mr. Barnes could carry a trunk of linens, she said, "My husband passed away from complications with mustard gas three months ago." Complications was a polite way of saying Joseph wasted away, his body blistered and burned, lungs ripped apart by gas, his face melted, blind in one eye and angry, so angry he dove into the bottle until his body finally gave up like he wanted it to – poisoned by his own bitterness.
Mr. Barnes's face sobered. They worked in silence for a while, until the last of the trunks was carried in. Mr. Barnes took a look at the sparse room, the tiny kitchen and windows blackened by soot and dirt. "If you don't mind me saying, Mrs. Rogers, I know a place where we could get you a table and chairs real cheap. Henley's a good man; I fought with him in the trenches. It's the least he could do to help a war widow."
Sarah nodded and said, "Thank you, Mr. Barnes," though she had no intention of following up on his request.
A few days later, after she unpacked all her bags, hung her dresses on hooks in the bedroom, lined up her pots and pans by the stove, and arranged Steven's stuff so he had easy access to his books and toys, she answered the door and found Mrs. Barnes standing on her doorstep. "Oh," Sarah said. "Mrs. Barnes. Is everything okay?"
Mrs. Barnes looked at her for a long moment, keen eyes raking over her worn blue dress and hair. Sarah flushed. She told herself she was too busy to worry about make up, rolling and pinning her hair, or ironing her dress, but the truth was she had plenty of time. "You can call me Winifred," Mrs. Barnes said finally. "I think I'd like to come in if it's alright with you."
Grey eyes met cornflower blue, gentle despite the stern liens around her mouth and eyes. Mrs. Barnes smiled, a little awkwardly. "I brought a pie. Apple, if you want it."
"I love apple pie," Steven said. Sarah turned and saw him poking his head from the bedroom, blond hair ruffled and cheeks flushed from his nap. "Did you use cinnamon?"
Now she couldn't turn her away. Sarah widened the door and stepped aside. "Would you like to come in?" Winifred Barnes was a tall woman with a long roman nose and thick eyebrows. She made Sarah's slight frame seem waif-like in comparison. Mrs. Barnes took one look around the house, lips pressed thin. Sarah cut the pie and slid a thin slice onto a plate for Steve. She cut another slice for Mrs. Barnes, but none for herself.
"How old are you, Steven?" Mrs. Barnes asked.
"Six," Steve chirped. He sat on the kitchen counter, legs swinging freely, because Sarah didn't have a table or chairs yet. Mrs. Barnes accepted her slice of pie and leaned against the counter while she ate it. "But I'm going to be seven in June, and that's…" He looked at Sarah.
"Three months away," Sarah answered. She resisted the urge to curl her fists in her skirt. She had nothing to be embarrassed about, she told herself firmly. She hadn't had time to buy a table yet. Or chairs. She'd get around to it once she had the money. Until then, she spread a tablecloth over two of the trunks. Once Steven was finished with his pie, she sent him outside with instructions to make some friends.
"My son is at home right now," Mrs. Barnes said when Steven shrank back into himself. "I'm sure James would love to meet you." After the door closed the women stood in awkward silence.
"George meant well," Mrs. Barnes and met Sarah's gaze with a steady eyes. "But he doesn't always understand that pride is all a woman has left. Do you care if I sit down?" And to Sarah's horror, Mrs. Barnes turned and parked herself on the floor next to the wood stove. She curled her feet up under her and soothed out her skirt. She nodded at the hope chests in front of her. "I like what you did for a table. I did the same trick after George and I got married. My mother tried to give us this large round monstrosity. It had lion's paws, heavy boards in the middle, and it was hideous - even George hated it!" She shrugged her shoulders. "But she was his mother-in-law so what could we do? When the table got here the movers couldn't get it up the stairs. They tried everything, but the table was too heavy." Mrs. Barnes rolled her eyes and took a bite of pie. "Every Christmas I have to hear about that damn wooden monstrosity."
Sarah hovered for a moment. "I…" Damn, she thought. Sarah sat down across from Mrs. Barnes and laughed. "I suppose I have to call you Winifred now since we've sat together on my unswept floor."
"Given how much coal we burn I'd be just as dusty if you had chairs," Winifred replied. "My family is a merchant family; Great Grandfather Campbell established a grocery store when he immigrated from jolly old England – it's still downtown – so I never experienced coal dust until I married George. After the motorcars started taking over I almost gave up cleaning all together."
Sarah nodded. "I've tried everything to get it off the windows." She stood and grabbed her cleaning rag from the sink. "Look at this! Ten minutes of scrubbing and hour to soak and it still looks black."
"And the windows streak. It's horrible!" Winifred unpinned her hat. She flipped it over and pulled out a small white handkerchief. "I keep this around for when my family needs to go out. A little spit and shine and I can keep them from looking like they pressed their face into a coal stove. The hat keeps the coal dust from reaching it when we ride the trams."
Sarah learned Winifred was from good money, but her family was upset with her for marrying an Irish boy. "It's been hard. Everyone else got shares of the store, but not George. No, he is just the stocking boy, except they check his bag every time he leaves work. George used to love having a pint with the boys but now he won't touch the stuff. Says he won't give my father a reason to mumble. My father still checks his breath for liquor. And he's Catholic, of course. Oh, you should have heard the fuss about that one!"
In turn, Sarah told her about moving to America from Ireland, of aching seasickness and the loneliness of the ocean. "We rocked for hours, a hundred of us cramped into a cargo area the size of this apartment. They pinned my name on my collar, "Sarah Durnham, Age 8" in big, bold yellow. The sailors only let us out of the hold for an hour a day. I loved the breeze, but the ocean was so wide and long it felt like we were the only humans left on earth. Of course, when we got here we were all shoved into Hell's Kitchen and then I started to miss the open space of the sea."
Winifred didn't ask where Sarah lived before or why she was moving now and Sarah didn't offer. Instead, she mentioned St. Malachi's had a good Sunday school program. "Father Walters rambles a bit much when it comes to the sins of fornication, but Father Mackenzie is fantastic. Do you know what you're doing with Steven? For school I mean."
The hour drew late, and eventually Winifred pushed herself up to her feet. "It's lovely to meet you, Sarah."
"You too," Sarah took the brunette by the hand. "I feel I've made a friend."
"Likewise."
Of course, that was when Steve and James Barnes burst into the courtyard bellow yelling and hollering, fists and feet kicking up dirt. The two women rushed down the stairs in time to see Steve reel back and sink his teeth into James's upper arm. James howled and punched him in the eye. By the time the women dragged the boys apart, cuffed them and held them apart with firm grips on their ears, the entire neighborhood was leaning out their windows watching, dinner cups held in hand. Winifred and Sarah apologized to each other, promised to talk later, and marched their boys home.
James got the switch, Sarah wore out a shoe on Steve's behind, and both boys swore they'd be mortal enemies for life.
.
.
Despite Sarah and Winifred's best efforts, their sons remained bitter enemies throughout the summer. Winifred complained she wasted an entire bar of lye soap washing James's mouth and got a new switch every week.
Steve was a different creature all together. He had, thank God, Mary, and Jesus, inherited her temperament rather than his father's which meant he had an optimistic bend, slow to anger and quick to laugh. Steve had a very sensitive conscience; more than once Sarah caught him trying to release flies and spiders rather than squashing them. She rarely needed to spank him as a quiet word sent him into a flurry of tears faster than a stinging touch.
However no gentle reprimand, earnest plea, or quiet encouragement could convince Steven Grant Rogers to make friends with James Buchanan Barnes.
"He's a bully," Steve said. "A big, mean, stinking bully. I hate him."
"Steven Grant, God doesn't want us to hate anyone," Sarah said, pulling the covers up under his chin. There was a tub of bathwater cooling in the corner waiting for her once he fell asleep but today Steve bit James in the arm again and threw his ball on Mr. Bloodstone's roof. She could afford to skip a cold bath if a few words would stop the feud.
"Well, God never met James Barnes!" Steve replied. "And I hope no one ever introduces them because, because… because then God want to wipe us all out like Noah! And, and he wouldn't even give us a chance to build an Arc!"
Sarah coughed to hide her laugh and forced her lips into a downward slope. "Steven Grant Barnes, you take that back right now!" Instead Steve rolled over and pulled the covers over his head. Sarah tugged at it, but Steve squirmed and kicked.
"Steve, Steve. Steve!" She rolled him over, grabbed his shoulders and yanked him up. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, until she knew it had to hurt, but suddenly this wasn't funny anymore. "I don't want you to hate. My son is not going to be a bully – you are a good boy and I refuse to let hate poison you. Hate sinks in, infests and makes you bitter. It makes you cruel. It never stops at just one person because soon enough you hate everyone – you hate your enemy, you hate your friend, and you hate God. I'm not saying you have to be friends with James; if he is a bully I don't want you to be but you will not hate him. There are so many hurtful people in this world and if you start hating them all you will never stop." Steve stared at her, blue eyes wide. Sarah swallowed and forced her fingers to loosen. "Do you understand?"
Steve nodded, eyes wide and wet. "I'm sorry," he whispered, tears spilling over. "I'm sorry."
Sarah showered kissed over his forehead and face. She pulled him into her side and wrapped herself around him. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry too. It's okay."
Steve fell asleep with tear tracks along his cheeks. Sarah slipped out of bed and stood in her doorway. The lamplighters had come and gone so the street was lined by yellow halos. Sarah pressed her hand across her mouth and bent over her left arm wrapped around her ribs. She stood in the doorway of her small apartment until the workmen wandered home drunk and yelling. She slipped back inside and pushed her hope chest up so it bared the door.
Winifred was many things. She was a mother, wife, and grocery store teller, but above all else she was a taskmaster. Few people needed the window knockers; they woke up the moment Winifred Barnes started scolding her household into order. Her laughter was rare and sharp, her tongue sharper, and her heart kind. She stuffed sandwiches into her children's pockets and sent them off with stern instructions to "Share!" The smell of baked bread constantly drifted from her window. She set a platter of cookies outside her door so anyone could walk past and grab them.
When Jerry Irving punched Michael Davidson in the face so hard he lost his front tooth, everyone else looked the other way because Michael was a colored boy from Jersey. Winifred marched over, cleaned Michael up with impersonal hands and a clean white handkerchief, and marched Jerry over to his mother with a tight grip on his ear; all this despite her firm opinions of the separation of white and black folk. Mrs. Barnes's pinched mouth and bony fingers frightened everyone, even Officer Burke who checked everyone's papers once a week and Mrs. Haffstaff who peeked through people's windows and told everyone if their neighbors's floors weren't clean.
But really everyone on the block was scared of Mrs. George Barnes because she didn't just interfere with you; she recruited you.
Heavy banging on the door jolted Sarah awake. Steve gasped beside her, his small hand wrapped around her arm. "Shh, it's fine." She pulled a thin blue robe over her nightdress and stepped up to the door. "Who is it?"
"It's me," Winifred said. "I need your help."
Sarah threw the bolt and pulled the chest away so she could swing the door open. Winifred stood against the doorjamb, one arm wrapped around a plump woman with fizzy blond hair. They were both in their nightgowns. The fizzy haired woman had a bruise across her nose, jaw, and mouth. A man stood on the other side, the muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching. Sarah read the situation in a glance. She pulled the door wider. "Put him in the kitchen. I'll need my bag."
"Sorry to bother you," Winifred said as she ushered the woman into the kitchen. "We just need a quiet touch up." It was only after they lowered Minnie onto the hope chest Sarah noticed she was pregnant. The man was bleeding through his shirt, his suspenders tied like a tourniquet around his arm. Sarah pulled a heavy box of medical supplies out of her cabinet and pulled out a needle and thread.
"Heat that over a match." She set a pot of water on the stove and set it to boil. "Boil the thread when the water's hot."
She didn't have a spare sheet, so she made her way into the bedroom and she pushed past her pale-faced son to strip the bed in a single, rough sweep. "Mom, what's going on?" Steve asked. His thin shoulders were pulled up to his ears, but his jaw was set. "Are you okay? Who's here?" Sarah wondered if it was possible for a heart to warm and break at the same time. She pushed him toward the bed and grabbed her coat to wrap around his shoulders.
"Winifred needs some help. I need you to stay here, Steve."
"But—" Steve protested, mulish.
"Stay here. I won't be long." She tugged the coat tight around him and pressed her palm to his cheek. "Everything's okay, I promise." She closed the door behind her and hauled her sheets into the kitchen. Winifred's eyes fell on the sheets. She winced, as well she should. Sarah's sheets were a wedding gift from her cousin and if things kept as they were she'd planned on hocking them for enough money to pay a month's rent. She spread the fabric across her hope chest, cooled the water until it was just cool enough not to burn and sterilized her hands. "What's your name, sweetheart?" she asked as she pulled the woman onto the hope chest and began to check her with a firm touch.
"Marjorie Burns," she said. Her hands pressed tight across her distended belly. "Is… is the baby?"
Sarah didn't answer. She focused on making sure Marjorie's jaw wasn't cracked, that the swelling around her eye wasn't indicative of a concussion. "You're nose is broken, but it's straight. I don't have any tape here so I can't…" She leaned back. "Do you have any unusual pain in your lower back or stomach? Where? Did he… were you hit anywhere else?"
Marjorie caught her sideways glance toward the man in the corner. She wrapped her hand around Sarah's elbow. "I…Jack didn't do it, Doc. I swear he didn't."
"Marjorie," the man said, hoarse. He curled in to himself, arms pressed across his front as if to hold himself back.
"—No, you didn't." Marjorie snapped. "You didn't touch me, Jack. I swear."
Sarah shoulders straightened, her stomach cold and cramped. She wanted to tell Marjorie covering for him wouldn't do any good. Sure, it sealed the hurt for now, but what about when the nightmares got worse? What about when he couldn't snap out of it in time? She placed a hand over Marjorie's grip on her elbow. "Marjorie, no one thinks your husband's a brute."
Marjorie's face crumpled, eyes flying from Sarah's to her husband's. Sarah stood and walked over to the man hunched in the corner. "Mr. Burns, I think it would be best if you stepped out now," she said softly. Jack stared at her through bloodshot eyes.
"You'll tell me if I… She never tells me. I… I thought I was…" He ran a rough hand through thinning red hair. "I didn't drink, I swear I didn't. I haven't touched a drop since the war."
Sarah met Winifred's eyes. "Where's George?"
"Late night at the store," Winifred said as she walked forward and tugged Jack to the door, calm as you please. "One of my boys already ran to get him. I'll keep Jack company outside while we wait."
Sarah waited until the door closed behind them before crouched in front of Marjorie, pulled plump hands between hers and bent her head until Marjorie met her eyes. Gently but firmly, she said, "Marjoire, I need you to think of your child and answer everything I need to know."
Tears trickled across the bruise. "He doesn't know what he's doing," Marjorie said, her voice firm against the tightness in her throat. "He wakes up and thinks he's still in Spain. Oh God, Doc. He already hates himself because of what he's done in the War. If he thinks he hit me it'll kill him; I swear to God it'll kill him."
She let Sarah pull up her nightdress and press against her back and kidneys. She pressed a hand across ribs and belly, but didn't feel anything alarming. "Marjorie, I think we need to be prepared in case you go into an early labor. I don't think the baby is hurt, but with things we don't know until later. Do you have a midwife ready?"
"No," Marjorie replied. She calmed down during the exam and was now calm if pale. "We can't afford one right now, but my mother is coming down next week. She delivered the three of us on her own."
Sarah nodded. "I want you to send someone over when it's time. If I'm here I'll come, and if I'm not Steve will come get me. I'm going to stitch your husband's arm now."
By the time she opened the door, George and his eldest were back and sitting with Jack on the stairs. Winifred stood next to the railing, a smoke held to her lips by her middle and pointer finger. "She's okay?"
"I'll see to Jack now. I don't imagine Marjorie wants to go home – do you mind putting her up a few days. I'd offer but…"
Winifred blew out smoke around her teeth. "No problem. I'll have my boys bunk together tonight. Lord knows, cold as it is they'd do it soon enough anyways."
Sarah blinked. "It's in the middle of May." And hot enough to make the ocean sweat.
"Is it?" Winifred's stern smile remained undimmed. "I have a spare bed, that's all I'm saying."
It took a short amount of time to stitch Jack up. George hovered over his shoulder, speaking to him in a low voice as Sarah pulled the thread through his skin. Occasionally Jack's twitch would gain a little more purpose. Sarah lifted her hands from his body and stood back, calm and steady. She dabbed iodine over the slices in his knuckles. He only spoke once, a plaintive, "Did I do it, Doc?"
George cuffed him before Sarah pulled an answer together and drew him to his feet. "Come on, friend. I have a glass of whisky and an apple with your name on it. Let the Mrs. Rogers get some sleep."
After George corralled Mr. Burns and his son out, politely closing the door behind them, Sarah sat down on her floor and tried to find the strength to stand. Her hands shook with tremors that spread to her shoulders and chin. She pressed her hands tightly together and bowed over her knees. "Our Father…" she choked out. "Who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." She finished the Lord's Prayer and moved on to the Hail Mary and the Psalms her father made her memorize on her knees beside bed.
Her legs were still trembling when someone knocked on the door, soft and gentle. Sarah sucked in a breath. She wanted nothing more than to turn to her bedroom, curl around her son and pretend the world disappeared. She brushed away the wetness from her cheeks, cleared her throat and stood. Winifred stood on the other side of the door, still in her nightdress and curls. "Sarah." She didn't wait for an invitation. Winifred stepped through the door and wrapped a thin strong arm around Sarah's shoulders. "Why don't I put on a pot of tea and we can talk about your day."
The two women sat in silence, hands wrapped around cooling tea as the clock ticked on toward sunrise. Winifred shoulder stayed pressed against Sarah's. "When George came back he was a wreck." She said, as if commenting on the price of corn. "Couldn't sleep through the night, crying at odd times. Always checking the windows, asking where I was going, who I'd seen. Accused me of cheating on him with the butcher, of all people. Asked if James was really his son. I thought…did I really get my George back? Or is this a stranger wearing his skin."
Sarah pulled her arms tight around her and looked at the bedroom door where Steve was hopefully still sleeping. Winifred lifted a cigarette in a silent question. This was before Steve's asthma, before his lungs were bad enough coal smoke could stop his breathing, so Sarah nodded and Winifred fit it between her lips and lit it with a match. The brief yellow light lit the edges and corners of her face. She pulled in deep and exhaled a stream of blue smoke. "I must have packed my bags five times, but I couldn't leave him. If he had been all bad, all the time, I might have, but that was the worst part." She looked at Sarah, calm and steady, lines of stress around her lips and eyes, premature wrinkles between her eyebrows. "That was the worst part. That's my secret – I didn't hate him for the bad days, nightmares, accusations and fits. I hated the good man shining through reminding me of everything I lost."
"But he got better," Sarah said.
"I learned to love him anyways," Winifred corrected. "And we are learning to keep it together, George and I. We fight every day to make sure we get better at loving each other and every day I fall more in love with a good man who is not the same man I married." She chewed on her cigarette. "I got lucky."
"Yes," Sarah said after a long moment of silence. She lifted her tea up to her lips. She thought about Joseph, about a hair trigger cut shorter by a rain of bullets thousands of miles away, of bruises across her wrists and hips, about kisses that bruised her mouth. She thought about Steven, all skin and bones and still coughing from his seasonal pneumonia standing in front of her, chest thrust forward, screaming at Joseph as a blood blossomed into a bruise across Steve's cheek. "You did."
.
.
Sarah found a nursing job in the local clinic that paid her three dollars and fifteen cents a day. As the time stretched on after the Great War, the military men with amputated limbs and melted skin faded into worried mothers holding coughing children and men with cuts from machinery accidents. Polio swept through the neighborhoods, along with typhoid fever, diphtheria and the mumps. Every night she scrubbed her hands raw before she went home, boiled her dresses and left her shoes at the door. Despite all her caution, Steve caught the fever just before the end of May.
She had to choose between earning the rent and dumping Steve into a tub of cold water every time his fever made him delirious. If it hadn't been for Winifred coming over every day, little James Barnes sulky and scowling at her side, Sarah would have been out on the street and Steve would be dead. Winifred cooked lunch and dinner and made Sarah take her leftovers. She spoon-fed Steve hot chicken soup, rubbed mustard wraps over his chest and back, fed him ipecac so he threw up the phlegm in his lungs.
More than once Sarah came home to find Winifred passed out beside Steve on the bed with Robinson Crusoe in her lap and Steve curled under one arm and James curled under the other.
"Aren't you worried about James getting sick," Sarah asked once.
Winifred sniffed. "God protects fools and idiots and there's never been a greater fool than that boy." Winifred claimed not to have a favorite, but she doted on James as much as she thrashed him.
Though James and Steve still insisted they were mortal enemies separated by immutable lines of honor and truth (Steve's words exactly, though he mispronounced "immutable" as "im-moot-ti-ta-ble" and didn't actually know what it meant when she asked him), Winifred told her James always met her at her door with the book in hand and lingered when it was time to go home. On Steve's part, her son brightened when someone knocked (and slumped in crushed despair when it was the Doc or Mrs. Burns with a casserole, or even Winifred by herself) but feigned disinterest when James entered the room. Winifred and Sarah exchanged amused glances but didn't say anything for fear of shattering the fragile truce between self-declared archenemies.
Winifred, James and Steve worked their way through Robinson Crusoe, the Scarlett Pimpernel, Anne of Green Gables, and were halfway through The Call of the Wild before Steve took a turn for the worst.
Sarah took him to the clinic and discovered what the doctors originally ruled as influenza had developed into diphtheria. Winifred stopped bringing James and changed into different clothes between entering and exiting the sickroom. She only made the trip to the hospital once a week, but she always came with gifts in the form of scraps of brown paper from the meat-shop and a sharpened pencil.
"Idle hands are for the devil's work," she said sternly, pressing the pencil into Steve's limp fingers. "Besides, a bright child like yourself must be going crazy stuck in here with nothing to tease your mind."
The fever settled into his ears and eyes. His cough echoed wet and hollow. He only breathed when propped up against someone's chest, each breath a rattle between his ribs. Sarah took a day off work to stay in bed with him. She ran her fingers through his sweat soaked hair and hummed a lullaby. When she tried to sing, her voice shook so she said the Lord's Prayer over and over until Steve fell asleep. She refused to recite Psalm 23 except for inside her own head as she lay with her nose buried in his hair.
In the end, Steve lost half his hearing in his left ear and a third in his right. His lungs, always weak, were now susceptible to every dust particle and bacteria. He may have developed asthma either way but Sarah blamed that miserable summer for ruining her boy's lungs forever. He dropped to thirty-two pounds and Sarah carried him home from the hospital because his muscles atrophied. The damage to his bones condemned his already slight figure to a birdlike frame that haunted him until he was twenty-two and chosen for Project Rebirth.
He was released a week before his seventh birthday.
When Sarah and Winifred discussed the Ongoing and Ever Tempestuous Relationship between Steve Rogers and James Barnes, they inevitably spoke in terms of Before and After. Before the Great Illness of 1924 and After Steve Came home. Before the Baseball Team of 1928 and After James-Decided-to-Wage-War-on-the-Baseball-League-for-Never-Choosing-Steve-and-Telling-Him-to-Go-Home. Before the Steve Chose the Dodgers and Before James chose the Yankees and Before they sorted it out and After the Baseball Debacle of 1928.
Before Steve Roger's Seventh Birthday and After Steve and James resolved their differences.
When George Barnes carried Steve home from the hospital, Sarah Rogers hovering at his shoulder, Winifred and James met them on the stoop of the apartment building. James's face was pink from a harsh scrubbing, his collar starched until it stood on it's own. He ran an uncomfortable finger around it, yanking it away from his skin. George was half way up the stairs before Steve squirmed in protest and demanded to be put down. The two boys met and stared at each other for a long moment. Sarah held her breath.
"Look, you're still a doofus," James said. "But you're alright for a shrimp."
Winifred gasped, "James Buchannan Barnes!" as Steve puffed up like a tomcat, red faced and angry enough to spit. "Apologize right now."
"Why?" James said. "He is a shrimp. Heck, I think he'd lose a fight against a tom cat!"
Winifred spun and glared at her husband. "George! Talk to him."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Winnie." George replied, laughing. "'cept maybe these boys need a good fistfight before they sort themselves out." Winifred sputtered. George took her by the shoulder, grabbed James round the collar and turned them toward home. "G'day, Mrs. Rogers."
"Mr. Barnes," Sarah said faintly as they walked past. Steve turned and marched up the stairs. "Steve. Steve! Let me help you—"
"I'm fine!" Steve yelled back. He reached the door of the apartment and kicked it open. "I'm more than healthy. I'm as healthy as a horse and James Barnes can suck it!"
Sarah gaped. "Steven Grant Rogers, watch your mouth!"
Steven ignored her. He stomped to his room, grabbed the door, and yelled "And I'm not a doofus!" at the top of his lungs before slamming the door shut. Through the wood Sarah heard him erupt into angry little boy tears. She looked around her apartment – at the table she just bought from a yard sale, at the three chairs scrounged from Old Erwin's thrift store, and the chocolate cake sitting untouched in the middle of her checkered red and white table cloth. "Well," she said to herself. "He's got a temper like his father, doesn't he."
"I don't think James meant it the way it sounded," Winifred said later while they took their afternoon coffee on the porch. "I genuinely think he meant it as a compliment. That boy doesn't have half the common sense God gave a mule."
Sarah sighed and dunked her cookie. "Well, however he meant it, he managed to hit every insecurity Steve's ever had. I think it hit him worse because he wants to impress James so much. I really thought they'd be friends after all the time they spent together."
"James hasn't let me so much as open Call of the Wild since Steve went to the hospital though I told him Steve wouldn't remember where we left off anyhow. Give it a few days and they'll work things out."
"It would be one thing if they had other boys to play with," Sarah said. "But Steve shows no interest in the Browder boys, and no one else wants to play with him thought that's plain stupid. I know he looks frail but Steve has the heart of a lion."
"He doesn't want to play with the Browder boys because he has good sense. Mark my words, if those two ruffians aren't in prison by the time they turn eighteen you can color me surprised. Those boys overgrew their britches when they were still crawling at their mother's knee and Mrs. Browder never had the will to beat them. If they were my boys I can assure you that nonsense with the Irving's window would never have happened." Winifred clicked her tongue. "Don't tell me they didn't mean to break the storefront window. If I were Mr. Irving, I'd've made those boys work off every bit of the stolen candy and the glass instead of running to their Daddy's wallet."
"Hmm," Sarah said. She personally thought the glass was an expensive but ultimately harmless mistake but Winifred shared her son's temper and strong opinion. Once she set her mind to something she set her teeth like a bulldog. Instead, she said, "I'm thinking of inviting the Irvings to Steve's birthday party; since sugar is no longer rationed and we're not living on stamps I thought it was time Steve had a real party."
Winifred hummed thoughtfully. "What does Steve say?"
"Steve believes this party is going to turn him into David Copperfield and make him more friends than he can fit on his dance card."
"He's an assured little thing, isn't he?"
"Heart of a lion," Sarah agreed.
.
.
There was quite the turnout for the party though most of the kids came because Sarah promised chocolate cake and their mothers were hungry for gossip. Soon enough everyone was loitering around in the front courtyard. After a rousing game of Cops and Robbers, the boys organized a game of stickball while the girls played dolls in the porch shade. While James Barnes already showed signs of being a gifted athlete, her son sat on the edge of the road, small shoulders bent and his cheek rested on a curled fist. He poked at the dirt with a long stick.
Her heart sank as she realized he'd once again been picked last and left on the corner. She was debating the merits of leaving him verses the risk of turning him into a mommy's boy in front of the whole neighborhood when Winifred grabbed her elbow and drew her into a conversation about the Immigration Act meant to close Ellis Island. As an immigrant herself, Sarah had a great many opinions on the matter.
Later she swore she only looked away from Steve for a second – just long enough to correct Mrs. Irving's grievous claims that immigration was throwing this country to the dogs ("No offense, Mrs. Rogers, but all your kind brought us is an increase of crime and violence." "No offense, Mrs. Irving, but if your kind treated us with little common decency there wouldn't need be any violence." Winifred sat back and smiled into her tea while Mrs. Halfstaff practically took notes in glee).
Down bellow, someone bellowed, "You're a lying, cheating son of a gun!" and someone let out a mighty howl. Sarah looked down in time to see James reel back, hand clamped around a gushing bloody nose, eyes wide in shock. Jerry Irving was still mid-swing when his brother Gabe leapt onto James's back. Winifred let out an unladylike curse and hurried to the stairs, hooting and hollering, with Mrs. Irving hot on her heels. Before they made the landing, a yellow streak tore across the street and jumped Jerry as he aimed a kick at James' unprotected side.
Little Steve Rogers tore into Jerry like a hellcat fed on the Devil's brimstone. Jerry's eyes flew wide as Steve threw a roundhouse punch like they were going out of style and broke his drawing stick over his head. What Steve didn't have in muscle he made up by sheer cunning – and he fought dirty; when Jerry knocked him to the ground Steve came up with a handful of dirt. The shock allowed James to get his feet under him and begin laying some haymakers of his own. By the time Sarah reached him, Jerry was crying though a bloody nose and a split lip though he'd managed to get the upper hand. Even pinned on the dirt, Steve kept biting, clawing and scratching until he was forcibly yanked away by Mr. Irving and Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns dropped Steve into Sarah's arms before turning wading back in to grab James and toss him to his mother.
"He didn't," Steve hollered as Sarah dragged him kicking and screaming from the dog pile. "He's not a cheat, you yellow-livered liar! You're the cheat! I saw you, I saw you! James Barnes doesn't cheat. He's not a sissy coward like you!"
James shot Steve a startled and pleased look before his mother dragged him away by his ear.
After that little fiasco Steve couldn't sit down for a week and Sarah reevaluated if she really wanted that Barnes boy being such a bad influence on her little angel. She soon lost any illusion of control, however, because if James wasn't sneaking in to see Steve, Steve was slipping through the window to see Barnes. By Wednesday it was obvious the boys were joined at the hip. Winifred met her to commiserate. "This is what we wanted, remember?"
"Strange, but when I pictured it I imagined there being a lot less fodder for gossip."
"He's a Barnes," Winifred said. "If he wasn't provoking gossip, I'd worry George's accusations weren't unfounded."
Sarah sniffed. "You're son might be ripe for all sorts of tittle-tattle but my son's never been any sort of mischief maker."
"Funny," Winifred said, dry as dust. "I don't remember James being the one to throw the first punch."
Sarah turned up her nose and sipped her coffee.
..
.
Notes:
Concerning Mustard Gas: according to the CDC, Mustard Gas killed less than 5% of the people exposed. More people died from the side effects or complications in recovery. Mustard Gas is, in my humble opinion, one of the worst forms of weaponized gas: why? Because it doesn't incapacitate instantly but sinks into the tissue and chemically melts or – as Howstuffworks said it - liquefies the flesh over a period of two or more days. According to the CDC, it's second only to the gas used by the Nazi's in their death chambers.
Given these numbers, I find it unlikely Joseph Rogers was killed instantly by mustard gas. It's true, he could have been one of the lucky (or unlucky) few to die quickly, but given that Steve's birthday was July 4th, 1918 (the year the Great War ended), Joseph should have been in Europe during Steve's conception unless he was home for medical leave. Secondly, in the comics, Joseph is portrayed as an abusive father and husband. His treatment of Steve and Steve's mother is a drives Steve to become the strong, upstanding man who became Captain America.
Concerning PTSD: I love a good recovery fic as much as anyone else. However, in this story I did not want to focus on it, or study how people deal with it. I wanted to treat it as many military spouses do – as another reality of war. This is tricky, because in the WWI era, PTSD was not considered a normal reaction and was often treated as cowardice. "Shell Shock," as it was later called, was only really acknowledged during WWII. For good information on PTSD, both for those suffering from it and for those who love and live with someone with PTSD, I recommend , a website created by military spouses for military spouses to help live with a loved one suffering from trauma and PTSD. This site deals with a lot of stuff and is not for the faint hearted.
WARNING: Because of the subject matter and who it is written for, this site deals with a lot of heavy topics such as "What is Second-Hand PTSD" and when does reactionary violence cross the line into abuse, how to handle paranoia, and how do you deal with nosy neighbors who come by to check out the screaming? Please be very respectful to those who have written about their experiences. If you have a loved one who suffers from Trauma and PTSD, please check it out.
To clear up any questions – Mr. Burns's trauma manifested in a nightmare and a flashback. He attacked his wife in confusion. Mr. Barnes's trauma manifested in paranoia, sleep deprivation, and heightened emotions. Joseph Rogers suffered from depression, flashbacks, heightened anger and a physical disability.
For data on life in the 1920's-1940's including historical events, clothing and household prices, pay rate and much, much, much more, go here: (x)
Quick note on grammar – so apparently, according to my grammar books, you're supposed to mark possessives with ('s) even if the word ends in (s). Huh. Who knew? All other grammar mistakes (especially those concerning darn blasted it to heck commas) are mine.