Chapter 59

Jack doesn't really remember his father's funeral. He knows that his father is buried somewhere, but he was buried wherever that somewhere is when Jack was eight and watching the whole proceeding through a haze of tears, so forgive him if he doesn't remember the exact location of the unmarked pauper's grave. It turns out that funerals aren't all that spectacular when you're a drunk good-for-nothing who nobody cares about. Mrs. Ellis from two apartments down had come along and held his hand, but it was just them and the priest. They had to rope in four men from the parish that neither Jack nor his father had ever met to carry the coffin. Mrs. Ellis had been nice to come with him. She kicked it from typhoid the year after and hers was the only other funeral that Jack has ever been to.

Why, then, he is the one expected to organise this one, is utterly beyond him. But Katherine is on strict bedrest, and if they don't have the funeral soon then the inevitable January snow will turn the ground to iron before they can bury her and nobody wants that. So here he is, in the funeral home.

It seems as though his life is rather more like that of Oliver Twist than he had realised. What was it that Dickens had written in the scene where Oliver gets handed over to the undertaker? The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. Jack's happy ending has never seemed further from his grasp.

The funeral home is truly as miserable a place as Dickens had suggested. It smells of damp, Jack decides, and leaking gas pipes. The undertaker, who introduces himself as Mr. Houghton and tells Jack that he's very sorry for his loss despite not looking very sorry at all, shows him through into a dingy little room with more coffins than Jack's ever seen in his life. The man explains about the range of children's coffins that they have, but all of the so-called coffins they have for stillbirths are less coffins and more boxes. No point making them a certain shape to fit a body that's only half-formed, right? Somehow these tiny coffins look so much heavier than the normal ones. Jack picks one at random when his head starts spinning.

He spends most of the tour of the funeral home in a bit of a daze, honestly, breathing musty air and trying not to be sick. Jack is proud of himself, though, for having the presence of mind to take the scrap of green knitting from his pocket and hold it out to the undertaker.

"My wife," he coughs, "she was makin' these little booties. She wants to keep one. Have our little one buried wi' the other. Would – wouldja put it in the coffin with her?" The undertaker nods and lays the half-finished piece to one side.

"Of course, Mr. Kelly. Now, as to the burial plot –"

"Oh, my wife used to be – 'fore she married me – a Pulitzer." Jack might as well have told the undertaker that his wife used to be a cat, for the look of disbelief on his face. "She was wantin' our little girl to go down in the Pulitzer plot. 'Side her sister, y'see."

"I'll need a written confirmation from Mr. Pulitzer for that, sir."

"Oh. Right." Jack rolls his shoulders back. "I'll, uh, get that for you, then."

The undertaker looks just as disbelieving at that statement, but ploughs on. "And you are happy for the funeral to happen on Sunday?"

"Yeah. Sooner the better, right?" Jack asks, scratching at the back of his neck. Dead bodies, he knows, go south pretty quick. He wants this over and done with quickly, so that Lucy gets some of the dignity she deserves.

The undertaker nods, charges Jack double what he was expecting, and sends him on his way. Which leaves him with something of a problem. A problem by the name of Joseph Pulitzer.

The last time Jack stepped into the offices of the New York World it hadn't gone overly well. Better, perhaps, than the time before, when Pulitzer had tried to have him thrown in the Refuge and then had him tortured on a printing press, but still not great. Attempted bribery and rejection by the in-laws don't make for a great lasting memory of the place. But. Katherine wants their Lucy to go down next to her Lucy, had specifically impressed upon him that she wants them to be next to one another, and so he's going to bloody well walk into Pulitzer's office and bully the man into compliance. He wouldn't put much past Joseph Pulitzer, but this? He doesn't think that even he is that vindictive.

Hannah's mouth drops open when Jack turns up at her desk with a face like thunder, but she doesn't hesitate to interrupt Mr. Pulitzer's very important meeting when he shoots her a glare. Less than a minute later, she escorts him into the office.

There are two men lounging in the lavishly upholstered chairs at the far side of the room, a whiskey decanter and a case of cigars on the mahogany table between them. Both turn to look at him, when he enters, one with sightless eyes. The other man, young, younger than Jack, perhaps, is the spitting image of his father. This, Jack determines, must be Joseph Jr., the only one of his wife's siblings he has yet to meet. The man wears wire-rimmed spectacles, less ostentatious than his father's gold ones, and has a moustache, bristly and toothbrush-like.

"Mr. Kelly." The older Pulitzer greets him. "This is quite the surprise."

Jack nods, curt, remaining several feet away and tucking his hands behind his back. "Katherine has a message for you."

"If she wants to speak to me, she may do it herself." The man retorts, his face contorting into something between derision and disappointment, beginning to turn away.

"She can't. She's on bedrest." Both men look back up at that. Jack sets his jaw. "She- she had a miscarriage. An' we needs your permission to bury the baby in the Pulitzer plot in the cemetery. Kath wants her to go down next to Lucy."

Pulitzer gazes at him with milky eyes for a long steady moment, then clicks his fingers. The younger Joseph Pulitzer scrambles, pressing a monogrammed stationery pad and a pen into his father's hands. The older man scribbles something on the top sheet, his pen flying across the paper in that same hurried manner that Katherine's does, and then rips it from the pad, holding it out to Jack. "You have my permission."

Jack must admit, he'd been expecting more of a fight, but he just nods, taking the paper from between the man's fingers and turning to leave. "Sir."

It's only once Jack walks out of the door that Joseph Pulitzer the elder realises that he neglected to ask when the funeral of his first grandchild is planned for.

…

The next week passes in a teary-eyed haze. Esther and Medda slip in and out of the house like ghosts, dropping off more food than they can bring themselves to eat. Katherine sleeps and cries. Jack breaks three more plates against the wall.

…

In his entire career as a minister, which comprises quite the number of years, at this stage, Reverend Bates does not think he has ever presided over a more well attended funeral. Which is strange, really, for the child of an orphan and a disgraced heiress who told only a few select people who happened by the house of the funeral date. God, Reverend Bates firmly believes, works in mysterious ways. He's seen little more mysterious that the motley crowd around this graveside.

Only a few wear mourning dress, most of them merely having turned up in dirty and torn everyday clothes. There's a crowd of grimy newsboys, all of the Manhattan lads, yes, but a few from over Brooklyn way too. There's a Jewish family, a group of women in the faux-fur coats and red lipstick of showgirls and whores, an older lady who touches Mr. Kelly's head like a benediction, calling him honey in a voice like hot lemon tea when he thanks her for coming. Three respectable looking gentlemen in the proper black suits and hats, with ink-stained fingers, and another similarly dressed man with clean hands who the reverend recognises as the son of Mr. Hearst. There's Mrs. Kelly's sister, little Edith Pulitzer, not so little anymore, her clothes black and her face grey. And then Mr. and Mrs. Kelly.

Jack has his arm around Katherine as if he's holding her up – he is, a little. She isn't supposed to be out of bed for this long, yet, not really; he knows she's in pain and it's killing him. Jack doesn't cry, at the funeral. It wouldn't be right, to be seen doing so. Not in front of his boys, not when Katherine needs him to be strong. She doesn't seem to know how to do much of anything other than cry these days. She hates herself for it. Still, she's grateful when Crutchie sidles over halfway through and presses his grubby handkerchief into her hand.

When the box goes in the ground and people have tossed handfuls of dirt onto it, they drift away on the cold winter breeze. Eventually, it's just Jack, Katherine, and Edith, stood by the graveside with the reverend. Edith says all the right things, doing everything that Katherine doesn't have the energy to and Jack doesn't know how to, thanking the reverend for a lovely service and commenting on weather.

And then Katherine asks the question that they've all been holding on to this entire time: "Why?" She looks at the reverend, her eyes glassy with tears. "Why did He do this?"

The reverend blinks his bulging eyes. Jack's expecting a lot of bullshit answers. He's expecting he needed more angels in heaven or your daughter is in a better place. He isn't expecting what the reverend says next.

"The consequence of sinful unrepentance is death. Be that sin disobedience, or sins of the fathers, or failing to comply with God's design. There is still hope, if you repent." The reverend nods, aiming for somewhere between wisdom and sympathy, patting Katherine's shoulder with pudgy fingers. "Perhaps you might start by not working through your next pregnancy. There are both medical and spiritual reasons for that, my child."

My child? My child? Jack seethes, feels rage bubbling red-hot in the pit of his stomach. What does this man know of children? He isn't the one who's just buried his. He has no right to call either of them that, but especially not Katherine, not his wife. Not a woman who never got chance to say that to her baby.

"Edith, take your sister to the carriage, please." Jack says, his voice a low growl, his eyes never leaving the reverend. Whilst this has the added benefit of making him look as intimidating as hell, it also means that he doesn't have to look at Katherine's face. He knows what the expression will be there – hurt, fear, self-hatred, her mouth making that little 'o' that it does – and he can't stand to see it. He'd snap. "Y'can go on home. I'll walk."

Edith shoots him a wary look, but she does as she's told, letting a still pained Katherine lean on her as they make their way back towards where the carriages are parked outside of the cemetery. As they retreat, leaving the two men alone, the reverend has at least the good grace to look nervous, the folds of fat at his neck jiggling as his swallows heavily.

"Mr. Kelly, I understand that you may find my spiritual guidance hard to swallow –"

"'F you weren't a minister, you'd be swallowin' your own teeth right now." Jack growls, stepping right up to the other man. They're about the same height, but Jack knows that he can throw a far better punch. He wonders whether Katherine would tell him off for punching a minister and decides she probably would. Threats it is, then. "You ain't goin' to speak to my wife like that ever again. Your 'spiritual guidance', 's bullshit. I don' ever wanta see you speakin' to my family again. Now get the fuck away from my daughter's grave."

Jack waits until the reverend has walked away before he slumps down. He doesn't know quite how long he sits there, the cold from the ground seeping up and into his flesh.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Jack's head snaps up. Stood over him is a man dressed all in black, the only clue to his identity the square of white which peeks out beneath his collar. He makes to get up. "Sorry, I-"

"I'm not here to kick you out." The man frowns, then holds out a mug, the steam coming off it clouding the frigid air. Dragon's breath, they used to call it, to get the younger newsies to drink the bitter coffee that would warm them, at least for a little while. "I thought you might want a hot drink."

"Oh." Jack blinks, settling himself back on the cold ground and wrapping his hands around the proffered mug. "Uh, thanks, I guess."

"May I?" The man asks, gesturing at the ground beside Jack.

Jack squints up at him, silhouetted against the bright, cold sunlight, then shrugs, unsure. "Seats ain't ticketed."

The man takes this as permission enough and settles himself down beside Jack, cupping a second mug of coffee in his own hands. "A relative?" He asks, jerking his chin towards the fresh grave.

"My daughter."

He sees the man's face change out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't say any of those stupid stock phrases like she's in a better place or I'm sorry for your loss. What the fuck business does anybody else have being sorry? They didn't kill her. Jack's sin did, apparently. Him being the child of a dockyard worker and a whore. Him being a juvenile delinquent. Him being him. Instead, the man just asks: "How old was she?"

"Miscarriage. 'Bout fifteen or sixteen weeks. Give or take."

The man's eyebrows raise. "Your wife?"

"Alive. Fuckin' wrecked by it, though." Jack looks over at him and frowns. "You some sorta priest?"

He must be, Jack figures, but this man doesn't look like any kind of clergyman that he's ever seen. He's too young, for one thing, probably only in his thirties, and looks too happy for somebody who spends their days talking about hell and delivering food to sick old ladies.

"Baptist minister." The man smiles, gesturing to his clerical collar. "Do you think I'd be wearing this if I wasn't?"

"Fair 'nough." Jack nods, turning back to stare at the fresh mound of earth that's supposed to give him somewhere to direct his grief towards. He hopes it'll start doing its job soon, because it sure as hell isn't working yet. He just stares straight ahead, as if there might be an answer under the loose soil and not just his daughter's dead body. "'F you's here to tell me that 's our fault she's dead, we's already heard it."

"It's not your fault." The man says. It isn't sappy or sympathetic either. Just like it's a fact.

"Yeah?" Jack laughs, humourless. "That ain't what the reverend said."

"Then the reverend is wrong."

"He reckons it's 'cos I ain't a believer an' my wife kept workin' through the pregnancy. I know… I know it ain't Kath's fault, plenty o' women keep workin' an' they's jus' fine." Jack sighs, scrubbing the hand that isn't holding the coffee mug over his face. Finally, he turns his head to look at the man. "D'you think 's mine?"

"No," the man shakes his head, staring Jack right back in the eyes, "I don't think it's your fault."

"Then whose fault is it?" It's not angry. Jack doesn't think that he has the strength to be angry.

"I don't know. We live in a broken world, but sometimes I'm amazed by its brokenness."

"Ain't that the truth." He pauses. "I ain't bothered 'bout no God. I dunno if he's there, but if he is then he don't care 'bout me. I jus'… her faith makes Kath so strong, y'know? I don' want her to lose that. Think it might break her."

The man frowns a moment in concentration. "There's a lady in my congregation – we meet at that church, right over there," he points at a red-and-white painted church, the spire of which is visible over the top of a few rows of houses at the far side of the cemetery, "at eleven on a Sunday – who lost three children to miscarriages. Perhaps your wife might like to talk with her? It might be helpful for her to have another woman in her life who understands the pain of losing a child."

Jack blinks. This minister wants them in his church? That's a new one on Jack. The people at Katherine's church – because it is hers, it's not his – look at him like he's some dog shit they're going to have get their maid to clean off the bottom of their shoes. They've started looking at Katherine like that, too, since she married him, and somehow that's worse. "You… you wouldn't mind us comin' along?"

"I'll introduce you." The man tells him. "There are some men your age as well, married, who you might enjoy chatting with. Just while your wife talks to Margery."

"Yeah." Jack nods slowly. "Thanks." They sit, side by side, in silence for a long time before Jack turns to the other man again, a rueful smile on his lips. "Please don' tell me you's some sorta angel in disguise right now. I don' think I can take no miracles at the minute." Not unless they're going to bring Lucy back.

"I'm certainly no angel." The man laughs. "God puts people in the right place at the right time. We might not understand it right now, but he works through people, not angels."

…

When Jack gets home, Katherine is back in bed. It's been days, but she's still in pain, still weak from the blood loss, especially after a day like today.

He always thinks that Katherine looks like an angel, but most of all when she sleeps. His fingers itch to draw her when she's like this, all white cotton in the hazy afternoon sunlight; soft, pale skin; her hair, a halo, spread aflame across the pillows. He works through people, not angels. Jack thinks that Katherine might be the closest he's ever going to get to them being one and the same.

There's a book abandoned in her hand, half-slipped from her fingers. When he picks it up to put it on the bedside table, the pages are damp. Her tears have smudged the ink of the tiny print, and Jack has to squint and shift the words around to make them make sense. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; But Jehovah delivereth him out of them all. He wonders whether it's possible for Reverend Bates to count as another affliction on top of everything they're already going through.

"Jack?" There's a rustle of sheets as she stirs behind him. "You're here?"

"What?" Jacks asks, turning round and dropping to his knees beside the bed, brushing her hair out of her face with gentle fingers. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because it was my fault." She whispers. "Reverend Bates said so. I kept working, I kept sinning –"

I should have punched him. I knew I should have punched him. Put that bastard in a fucking grave instead. "Reverend Bates is wrong, y'hear me?" His tone makes Katherine jump and he feels her flinch under his hand at the way he snarls. He can't help it though, because she needs to hear it, to know that it isn't her fault. "I ain't sittin' here an' listenin' to you say it's your fault, 'cos it ain't. This ain't no consequence o' sin, this ain't nothin' to do wi' you workin'. 'S awful, but 's done, an' you tearin' yourself up 'bout it ain't goin' to make it no better."

Katherine just looks at him for one, long, terrible moment. And then she leans forward and kisses him. It's an awkward position, her laid out on the bed and him knelt beside it, but they manage it.

"Please tell me you didn't hurt him." Katherine pulls away and she smiles at him. She actually smiles at him. It's not a big wide show-your-teeth smile, not by any means, but it's a smile all the same. It's the first time he's seen her smile since it happened. "You looked like you were ready to punch him."

He can't help but smile back, echoing her glimmer of amusement. "I didn't punch him. I had some… strong words."

"Jack." It's more perfunctory than anything else, said in the knowledge that she ought to admonish him rather than actively feeling as though he deserves it.

"We ain't goin' to that church no more." He sets his jaw, unrepentant. "I's found us a new one."

"What?"

Jack? Volunteering to go to church? Unheard of. Sure, he's been letting her drag him out of bed and to service each Sunday quite amiably (which, for Jack, involves many… distraction attempts to try and get her to stay in bed, at least a few of which always work before she manages to get them both out of the door looking vaguely respectable), but she was expecting him to use this as the last straw for them to stop going. She wouldn't blame him. Everything about her faith that has before seemed so unshakable seems to be crumbling around her. Of course Jack would choose this time to ground himself, rock solid, and hold her up. He's always been there, when she's needed him.

"There was this bloke – a minister – who came an' sat wi' me. At the grave." Jack tells her. "He's invited us to go to their church. They's got other ladies there, like you, who's lost kids an' can't have them. An' he said it ain't your fault, or mine."

"And… you want to go."

"'F you'll come wi' me." He shrugs, reaching across to twine his fingers with hers. "We's gotta do this together, remember? You an' me."

She smiles at him again. It feels strange, like her facial muscles have forgotten how to do it, but it's a good kind of strange. A really good kind of strange. A bit like them, really. "Okay. You and me."