Soon after the police arrived on the scene. Mary had not been moved, except maybe for George lifting her slightly and holding her. A half an hour later, the small scene around young Mary McBride had barely changed.
Sonny moved a few feet away, hugging his knees and whimpering, George had moved Mary's upper body on to his lap, Emily still held her hand.
Eventually, they had to move and leave her. The other officers had cleared them away; many of them shocked to see the dead woman had been Inspector Calvert's fiancée. Sonny crawled out of the street and huddled next to a building, cursing his brother and crying.
Of the pair crouched around the body, George was the first to move. He put his hand on Emily's shoulder. "Come on." he whispered softly.
Emily looked up at him, her face had grown paler and her eyes seemed to have sunken into her head. "I can't." she said weakly. He gripped her shoulder tighter. "No, I can't free my hand." She lifted their hands imploringly. Mary's death grip had locked her best friend's hand to hers.
George contorted his face. "Just pull." He choked on the words. He knew that's what she had to do, but he still couldn't believe he was saying it. He had seen hundreds of bodies before, none of them had ever been pleasant, but none of them had ever been anybody he loved.
"I don't want to." Emily shook her head stubbornly. "I don't want to hurt her."
"Please."
Emily let out a sob for the first time that day. She held her friend's hand with her free hand, pushing her thumb between their palms and ripping herself free with a snap of Mary's fingers.
"I'm sorry." She said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" George lifted her up and walked her across to Sonny. Halfway there she stumbled. He picked her up in his arms like a child and carried her.
He took one last look at Mary's face. It didn't look like her. Her eyes were closed, her expression flat and empty and her face covered with bloody fingerprints. Her chest and stomach as well as the ground around her were soaked in dark blood. Her legs were twisted and her arms fell limply at her sides.
He set himself down next to Sonny and kept holding Emily in his arms.
A colleague of his came up to George. "Calvert-"
He flashed him an icy stare. "Go away." The man backed away and disappeared.
They hadn't found Carmine or the gunman yet. Sonny gripped his shirt tightly. *Cowards.*
One minute they had been walking, the next Mary was dead. She was dead. Dead. It happened to fast to comprehend. George looked to either side of him. They must have been a sight. Pale faced, grief-stricken, and covered in dried tears and blood. Sonny was still whimpering to himself.
"Shut up, knickerknots." Emily muttered. For a moment George was puzzled. He thought she was talking to Sonny, but she only used that name for Mary. He realized she had fallen asleep. He tried to fight off one last hot tear before closing his eyes, but he never quite fell asleep.
***
On the other side of town, Mr. and Mrs. Calvert, Danny McBride, and Joe Dawson were waiting outside of a nice café. It was sometime after noon and their lunch companions hadn't showed up yet.
"They're almost an hour late." Danny huffed.
"Maybe train is late. Trains are always late." Sophie though aloud.
"No, you always take the wrong trains, darling." Tevye corrected his wife.
"There's no such thing as wrong train!" Sophie snapped.
The Calverts were always fighting about the most trivial of things, but they seemed to enjoy it.
"I have a feeling whatever it is, it's my daughter's fault." Joe looked up toward the building across the street. He had come from a family a mischief-makers that seemed to get worse with every generation. Emily seemed to be the worst-case scenario, even his nephew seemed to practice a little caution here and there.
"Where's my sister?" Danny looked on last time at the clock outside.
***
By that night everyone knew. It was only a few short blocks to the Andolini's apartment, but it seemed to take hours. Sonny opened the door to an empty apartment. Carmine definitely wouldn't be home tonight. His mother, and his younger siblings Vinny and Angela were in Long Island visiting his uncle.
He turned to Emily. "Fuck it, I'll walk you home. You're dad's probably worried about you anyways."
She didn't say anything. She just threw her arms around him and began crying again.
"I'm sorry! It was my fault! I shouldn't a said nothin'!" Sonny sobbed into her shoulder.
Emily pulled away from him a few inches and looked over his face with her hands. It was something warm, hot with emotion and blood pumping through it, so unlike the cold hand that never seemed to let go of her own. She pushed him into the apartment and closed the door behind them. She grabbed him and kissed him fiercely. He kissed her back just as fiercely. She ripped off his jacket and began tearing at the buttons on his shirt.
He pulled away from her once he realized her intentions. "Come on, Em, we shouldn't do it like this."
"You were the one who said you didn't wanna wait anymore."
"Not like this. We don't wanna do it like this."
"I just wanna fell something else! I can't fell this way anymore, I'll go crazy! Please Sonny!" She pulled herself back to his body, hands moving up and down his chest.
He touched her cheek wiping away the muck on her face. They both looked and smelled awful, covered in tears, blood, dirt, and vomit. He pulled her to him once more, dragging her by the shirt into his bedroom.
***
They never found the gunman, Carmine spent a year in jail.
George went to stay at in his parents' house in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. His brothers as well as parents were there for him. Dave was sixteen and still lived at home and Rick came back from California with Ellen, they were married now.
Sonny's family came home early the following morning, but not early enough to find Emily in bed with him. He walked her home just after dawn and was back in his room ten minutes before they were home.
Emily was normally in trouble for getting home at all hours, and now, despite what happened, she thought she would be in more trouble because of the severe situation at hand. God knows what her father thought happened to her. She didn't care if she was in trouble, he could beat into a pulp if he wanted to; not that he'd ever done anything of the sort.
When she walked in Joe was awake and waiting for her.
She stood there limply, waiting for him to stay something. He studied her face. He had a feeling of where she'd been and what she'd been doing. He didn't move from the old rocking armchair. He simply stretched out his arms toward her. She ran to her father and hugged him.
"Oh button, I was so scared."
"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry!"
"It's alright."
He rocked her back and forth like he did when she was a child. She curled up in his lap sobbing.
***
They laid Mary to rest in a cemetery near the home she grew up in. Emily, although she rarely appeared so, was very eloquent. With this and her nine-year friendship with Mary, she gave the eulogy.
George went back to work two weeks later and everything carried on in some strange never-ending blur. He spent his would-be wedding day in bed by himself dreaming about Mary and looking at his draft notice.
Danny moved to Boston to live with his brother Jimmy who was a cab driver there. As for Mary's other brothers, Timmy, who was nearly Joe's age, was no where to be found, he had long since disappeared, Tommy and Mickey still lived in the city with their families and attended her funeral, Bobby lived in Chicago and wasn't able to come home until after, and Johnny and Billy were away at war.
Mary's parents, Minnie and Walt, much to Danny's anger refused to see George anymore, maybe because he was a reminder of Mary, or maybe still it was because they found out about his Jewish heritage.
They knew Bookie's new address in London and were able to inform him about what happened. The Sanchezes, Sammy, and I moved around a bit and they couldn't find all the new addresses and some none at all. After going through Mary's room they found her desk was more of a disaster area then previously thought. Mary's old fiancé, Jake Clancy did not respond.
Considerate sounds like the best word to describe her, if you can use one word to describe a whole human being. It doesn't stir too much emotion in the soul, "considerate," it's a word of politeness. But that was Mary. Never had I met a more concerned person, never could I find a purer conscious. Few people were so willing, and strong enough to do the right thing. She wasn't always nice, but she was never ashamed of not being so. She had the worst menstrual mood swings one would dare to fathom. She could be irritating at times, everyone is, her usual weapons were hard logic or her fierce loyalty to her hometown. She was a gentle soul, but possessed a quiet strength and understanding. Often maternal, sometimes stubborn, ever the voice of reason, ever the long name. Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride.
***
George had sat me down somewhere in the middle of the story and held my hand. It wasn't easy for him tell this story once, and this was not first time he had to tell it, but he had nearly a year to deal with it. Right now he was concerned about how I would take it.
I got up from the ground and freed my hand from his. "I'm so sorry, Rose." I tried to stand up straight, but the world seemed to blur. She looked so happy the last time I saw her, waving from the train laughing and crying, blonde hair whipping in her face.
I looked up to the sky, it was a perfect shade of blue like Mary's eyes, the sun was brilliant, almost resembling the color of Mary's hair. My had friend died. It was someone's fault, someone fired that gun with the intent of hitting something and he would not pay for what he did. He missed his target, but it hit Mary just the same.
I could feel the blood drain from my face. *You look like shit.* I could hear her saying. I fell over trying to walk back toward the rest of the camp. George came to help me up with his one good arm, the other hung useless in a sling.
"Will you be alright?"
*Mary's dead. Mary has been dead for eleven months. There is no more Mary.*
I nodded my head violently, trying to hold back the tears. If I spoke I knew I'd cry. It was times like these I needed someone like Mary. After we found out about Lusitania she was the one the take my hand and she had guessed I was hiding something after that incident, but she knew it was more important to be my friend then to go poking where she knew there was already a wound.
*Then visit…or else.* Now I found out what the "or else" was. I could only visit her grave now. She had never fired a gun, not even when we were with the Villistas, yet she could just as easily be killed by one on the streets she grew up in. She was only twenty.
"Not Mary!" I cried.
He pulled me to my feet and held me up with his arm letting me bury his face in his chest. He walked me back to my tent and I cried into my pillow for an hour. Then it was time to go back to work. I got up and went back to work. People were dying left and right in this country, almost everyone there had lost someone they loved within the past year and a half. I had no excuse to stay in bed.
I worked straight through the end of my shift until dinner, barely speaking and doing my best to mask that anything had happened. I didn't eat dinner. I went back to my tent again. Ada and Chief Nurse Frost came in to see me. I told them what happened in short and told them I'd eat later. I didn't any intention of eating for a while. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and not trying to hold down food.
I went to bed early instead of hanging around with the other nurses and patients. I was alone for about an hour before I was interrupted. I thought might have been one of my tent mates, Ada, Carrie, or Amelia.
"Hey, can I come in?" It was George.
"How did you sneak out?"
"I'm not the only clever bastard around here. I came in to check on how you were doing."
"I'm managing."
"Got you some…well, whatever the hell this is." He handed me a plate of food and a glass of water.
"Oh, mashed potatoes." It took me a little while to get used to the food. Benny, the cook, made some pretty interesting courses.
"They sure they wanna keep us alive?" he said looking at the plate.
I laughed weakly. I grabbed my bathrobe from the end of the bed and wrapped it around me.
"You look like shit." he said smiling out of the corner of his mouth, almost like Mary, they must have been like two sides of a coin.
I tried to laugh, but it turned into a sob again. He put his arm around me. "I loved her so much." I cried into shirt, soaking his uniform again.
"I know. I did too." He started to cry too.
"I'm sorry." I said.
"Why?"
"I'm just rubbing it in on you."
"No, you go ahead. I'm not the only that lost her."
"It's a good thing I don't have the nightshift this week." I tried to smile.
He laughed distantly. "It's never goes away, does it?"
"No." I looked at him sorrowfully, and slowly shook my head. If anyone knew that it was me.
He stayed with me and tucked me into bed. "If you get hungry. There's that unidentified shit on the nightstand."
"Thanks. Goodnight George."
"Night Rose."
***
I wasn't the first person George had to break hard news too. He had to tell Tobey about his neighbors, the Dawsons. Obviously, he already knew about Hannah and Peter, he was there, but he hadn't known about Maggie's death or Jack's disappearance.
"I'm not sure if this is the worst or second worst summer of my life." Tobey sighed as I handed him a cup of tea while we chatting outside.
"What's the other one?"
"1908."
"What happened?"
"An entire family I grew up with was destroyed. The Dawsons. One half of them moved away to Manhattan, that was Maggie, Joe, and Emily, Hannah and Peter were killed in a fire then Jack ran away. Now Maggie's dead and nobody has any idea what happened old Jack. It's funny, the summer before was the best of our lives. It was one of the summer's that sounds like it's from a story. Damn, we just tore up the town; it was amazing. Except the very end, one my friends, a girl too, beat the living shit outta me. Not that I wasn't asking for it. I was kind of jerk as a kid."
I smiled. This man had known Jack. He was his friend. Oh why couldn't I tell him! George could sit down and calmly explain to everyone he knew about Mary, even though he saw the woman he loved shot through the chest and killed right in front of him. What was wrong with me?!
"Nope. This is the worst summer of my life." Holden sighed.
He hadn't spoken during the entire conversation. It had been mostly overrun by Tobey, George, and me.
"It speaks." George raised his hands up feigning shock. When I had first known him I noticed this quality. He was a man who often lived inside himself.
"Now it's going to shut up again." Holden frowned. The three of us made sad faces and pushed out our lower lips.
"We love you too, Holden." I said.
"Oh, I love you too, Rose. You're like a sister-in-law to me." I elbowed him hard in the arm. "OW!"
"Quiet Holden," I said, "I can't hit patients I'll get in trouble." I smiled.
Tobey and George exchanged glances and shrugged. They assumed they were missing something.
"What was that all about?" Tobey asked.
"Nothing." We both answered angelically.
At that moment some of the boys had found an old piano and had carried it part way to the center of the small open green.
"Have a little help here?!"
George and Tobey got up.
"And where do you think you're going?" I asked George.
"To help with the piano."
"I don't think so. Not with that arm."
"It's getting better. And besides I got this arm." He waved his good arm.
"George, you don't touch that thing." I ordered.
"Tootles Nursie." He stuck out his tongue playfully.
"George!"
He and Tobey had already run off toward the piano.
"Why does no one listen to me!?"
"Because you're mean." answered Holden.
"You're a brat."
"You're brattier? You get an immense pleasure from being right, you're arrogant, you're over-confident, stubborn-no-completely obdurate, you think because you're clever you're on some different plane than the rest of the world. Did you know by the time we were both teenagers our fathers used us as another form of competition? They would compare how much we were excelling in school. You were usually ahead. I'm sure that delights beyond all human comprehension. What didn't you stay with Cal? You seemed perfect for each other!"
He got up ready to storm off, but I followed him to the far side of the green and grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Oh fuck you! Don't you dare assume anything about me! You have no idea who I am, who I was, or who I've become! You changed too Holden, you've gotten more ill tempered and bitter. Nice one. You're so repressed. You're the most scornful and shriveled up 26 year old I've ever seen. Poor you, the incompetent son of the prize wife."
"Don't you talk that way about my mother!"
"Don't you talk about mine!"
"At least I love my mother! And don't scream at me because I'm something that looks like Cal!"
"I love my mother! And fuck you Hockley. That's right you're not Cal. You're not the one who'll get the business or the one who's smart enough to handle it. Fuck you and your God damn family."
"Oh yes, Rose. You hate us, don't you? You were so absolutely forced into marriage with Cal. You were so helpless. I know you well enough to know this: that you wouldn't agree to anything if there wasn't something you wanted. You didn't know quite how desperate your financial situation was. You were attracted to him. He was a good looking older guy. I don't know how much or how little you were in love with him. But at some point you wanted him. You would have been happy to be with him if Hank and Ruth hadn't told you to be and you know it. You were going to fucking marry him yet you still didn't give the bastard a chance. That takes talent, Rose, real fucking talent, you know that? I don't know how you did it. You're angry because you know that you trapped because of a choice *you* made!"
I was livid. How dare he. How dare he be so…accurate. I couldn't speak for a moment. I looked around to make sure no one was watching. He began to limp away thinking he'd won.
"I'm not you're God damn sister-in-law, I never was. And at least I'm not some embittered cunt who bitches and moans because he doesn't have Daddy's company. The world just pisses on Holden Hockley, doesn't it? Go whine somewhere else. It's only been two days and already I'm so sick of you and you're shit."
"And you piss on the world Rose *Dawson*!" He spoke the last part of my name with a cynical edge.
"Who was Dawson anyway? He is the unlucky fuck you left Cal for? Dead did you say? I'd believe that. 'Cause I think I'd kill myself if I was with you!"
I slapped him hard across the face. His head flung to the side. He looked at me enraged, but still taken aback that I could hit him as hard as I did.
"Go to hell, Rose."
"See you there."
"Play dead you'll feel better!" He shouted after me as I walked away. I wasn't supposed to leave him there, but they could do anything they liked to me. I thought this was the one patient we could let die on good conscious. He didn't stay there alone for long. George found him right after. He was the only one who saw the fight. Holden let George berate him without putting up any offense. He had wasted all his anger on me and George was his senior officer.
I stopped where they couldn't see me before continuing back to my tent. I could hear them. "That stupid self-righteous spiteful bitch! I HATE HER!"
"She was friends with my fiancée, Holden. You know what happened to her. She just found out yesterday. She just found out her friend was shot to death. Show a little respect. Where in the hell is your head?!"
Holden blushed, embarrassed, but he didn't give in that easily. "You don't the rest, Calvert. You have no idea." He said minus the intensity he had given me before. "I'm sorry about Mary, George, but she's vile. Rose, I mean."
"She's tough as hell and you fucked with her. You got everything you deserved and should've expected. Now you get it together or I swear to God I'll fuck you up beyond repair. Understand?"
"Yes." He said in a low voice.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you."
"Yes!"
***
The three of us spent the rest of the day in a huff, much to the bewilderment of Tobey. Luckily, I didn't see any of them again that day after the early afternoon.
Before going to sleep I kicked my bed and beat up my pillow. I wasn't used to being angry like this. I was usually intimidating and controlled when I was mad, but this time I lost more temper than I thought I had and I was unforgivably cruel, not to say that he wasn't. So what if he attacked me first. I don't think I'd ever been more malicious. It had to be more than pain from losing Mary. Oh Jesus, Mary! Had I really turned into such a monster? What had I become? What would Jack think of me now? Did he die so I could become, as Holden put it, a stupid self-righteous spiteful bitch?
Sonny moved a few feet away, hugging his knees and whimpering, George had moved Mary's upper body on to his lap, Emily still held her hand.
Eventually, they had to move and leave her. The other officers had cleared them away; many of them shocked to see the dead woman had been Inspector Calvert's fiancée. Sonny crawled out of the street and huddled next to a building, cursing his brother and crying.
Of the pair crouched around the body, George was the first to move. He put his hand on Emily's shoulder. "Come on." he whispered softly.
Emily looked up at him, her face had grown paler and her eyes seemed to have sunken into her head. "I can't." she said weakly. He gripped her shoulder tighter. "No, I can't free my hand." She lifted their hands imploringly. Mary's death grip had locked her best friend's hand to hers.
George contorted his face. "Just pull." He choked on the words. He knew that's what she had to do, but he still couldn't believe he was saying it. He had seen hundreds of bodies before, none of them had ever been pleasant, but none of them had ever been anybody he loved.
"I don't want to." Emily shook her head stubbornly. "I don't want to hurt her."
"Please."
Emily let out a sob for the first time that day. She held her friend's hand with her free hand, pushing her thumb between their palms and ripping herself free with a snap of Mary's fingers.
"I'm sorry." She said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" George lifted her up and walked her across to Sonny. Halfway there she stumbled. He picked her up in his arms like a child and carried her.
He took one last look at Mary's face. It didn't look like her. Her eyes were closed, her expression flat and empty and her face covered with bloody fingerprints. Her chest and stomach as well as the ground around her were soaked in dark blood. Her legs were twisted and her arms fell limply at her sides.
He set himself down next to Sonny and kept holding Emily in his arms.
A colleague of his came up to George. "Calvert-"
He flashed him an icy stare. "Go away." The man backed away and disappeared.
They hadn't found Carmine or the gunman yet. Sonny gripped his shirt tightly. *Cowards.*
One minute they had been walking, the next Mary was dead. She was dead. Dead. It happened to fast to comprehend. George looked to either side of him. They must have been a sight. Pale faced, grief-stricken, and covered in dried tears and blood. Sonny was still whimpering to himself.
"Shut up, knickerknots." Emily muttered. For a moment George was puzzled. He thought she was talking to Sonny, but she only used that name for Mary. He realized she had fallen asleep. He tried to fight off one last hot tear before closing his eyes, but he never quite fell asleep.
***
On the other side of town, Mr. and Mrs. Calvert, Danny McBride, and Joe Dawson were waiting outside of a nice café. It was sometime after noon and their lunch companions hadn't showed up yet.
"They're almost an hour late." Danny huffed.
"Maybe train is late. Trains are always late." Sophie though aloud.
"No, you always take the wrong trains, darling." Tevye corrected his wife.
"There's no such thing as wrong train!" Sophie snapped.
The Calverts were always fighting about the most trivial of things, but they seemed to enjoy it.
"I have a feeling whatever it is, it's my daughter's fault." Joe looked up toward the building across the street. He had come from a family a mischief-makers that seemed to get worse with every generation. Emily seemed to be the worst-case scenario, even his nephew seemed to practice a little caution here and there.
"Where's my sister?" Danny looked on last time at the clock outside.
***
By that night everyone knew. It was only a few short blocks to the Andolini's apartment, but it seemed to take hours. Sonny opened the door to an empty apartment. Carmine definitely wouldn't be home tonight. His mother, and his younger siblings Vinny and Angela were in Long Island visiting his uncle.
He turned to Emily. "Fuck it, I'll walk you home. You're dad's probably worried about you anyways."
She didn't say anything. She just threw her arms around him and began crying again.
"I'm sorry! It was my fault! I shouldn't a said nothin'!" Sonny sobbed into her shoulder.
Emily pulled away from him a few inches and looked over his face with her hands. It was something warm, hot with emotion and blood pumping through it, so unlike the cold hand that never seemed to let go of her own. She pushed him into the apartment and closed the door behind them. She grabbed him and kissed him fiercely. He kissed her back just as fiercely. She ripped off his jacket and began tearing at the buttons on his shirt.
He pulled away from her once he realized her intentions. "Come on, Em, we shouldn't do it like this."
"You were the one who said you didn't wanna wait anymore."
"Not like this. We don't wanna do it like this."
"I just wanna fell something else! I can't fell this way anymore, I'll go crazy! Please Sonny!" She pulled herself back to his body, hands moving up and down his chest.
He touched her cheek wiping away the muck on her face. They both looked and smelled awful, covered in tears, blood, dirt, and vomit. He pulled her to him once more, dragging her by the shirt into his bedroom.
***
They never found the gunman, Carmine spent a year in jail.
George went to stay at in his parents' house in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. His brothers as well as parents were there for him. Dave was sixteen and still lived at home and Rick came back from California with Ellen, they were married now.
Sonny's family came home early the following morning, but not early enough to find Emily in bed with him. He walked her home just after dawn and was back in his room ten minutes before they were home.
Emily was normally in trouble for getting home at all hours, and now, despite what happened, she thought she would be in more trouble because of the severe situation at hand. God knows what her father thought happened to her. She didn't care if she was in trouble, he could beat into a pulp if he wanted to; not that he'd ever done anything of the sort.
When she walked in Joe was awake and waiting for her.
She stood there limply, waiting for him to stay something. He studied her face. He had a feeling of where she'd been and what she'd been doing. He didn't move from the old rocking armchair. He simply stretched out his arms toward her. She ran to her father and hugged him.
"Oh button, I was so scared."
"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry!"
"It's alright."
He rocked her back and forth like he did when she was a child. She curled up in his lap sobbing.
***
They laid Mary to rest in a cemetery near the home she grew up in. Emily, although she rarely appeared so, was very eloquent. With this and her nine-year friendship with Mary, she gave the eulogy.
George went back to work two weeks later and everything carried on in some strange never-ending blur. He spent his would-be wedding day in bed by himself dreaming about Mary and looking at his draft notice.
Danny moved to Boston to live with his brother Jimmy who was a cab driver there. As for Mary's other brothers, Timmy, who was nearly Joe's age, was no where to be found, he had long since disappeared, Tommy and Mickey still lived in the city with their families and attended her funeral, Bobby lived in Chicago and wasn't able to come home until after, and Johnny and Billy were away at war.
Mary's parents, Minnie and Walt, much to Danny's anger refused to see George anymore, maybe because he was a reminder of Mary, or maybe still it was because they found out about his Jewish heritage.
They knew Bookie's new address in London and were able to inform him about what happened. The Sanchezes, Sammy, and I moved around a bit and they couldn't find all the new addresses and some none at all. After going through Mary's room they found her desk was more of a disaster area then previously thought. Mary's old fiancé, Jake Clancy did not respond.
Considerate sounds like the best word to describe her, if you can use one word to describe a whole human being. It doesn't stir too much emotion in the soul, "considerate," it's a word of politeness. But that was Mary. Never had I met a more concerned person, never could I find a purer conscious. Few people were so willing, and strong enough to do the right thing. She wasn't always nice, but she was never ashamed of not being so. She had the worst menstrual mood swings one would dare to fathom. She could be irritating at times, everyone is, her usual weapons were hard logic or her fierce loyalty to her hometown. She was a gentle soul, but possessed a quiet strength and understanding. Often maternal, sometimes stubborn, ever the voice of reason, ever the long name. Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride.
***
George had sat me down somewhere in the middle of the story and held my hand. It wasn't easy for him tell this story once, and this was not first time he had to tell it, but he had nearly a year to deal with it. Right now he was concerned about how I would take it.
I got up from the ground and freed my hand from his. "I'm so sorry, Rose." I tried to stand up straight, but the world seemed to blur. She looked so happy the last time I saw her, waving from the train laughing and crying, blonde hair whipping in her face.
I looked up to the sky, it was a perfect shade of blue like Mary's eyes, the sun was brilliant, almost resembling the color of Mary's hair. My had friend died. It was someone's fault, someone fired that gun with the intent of hitting something and he would not pay for what he did. He missed his target, but it hit Mary just the same.
I could feel the blood drain from my face. *You look like shit.* I could hear her saying. I fell over trying to walk back toward the rest of the camp. George came to help me up with his one good arm, the other hung useless in a sling.
"Will you be alright?"
*Mary's dead. Mary has been dead for eleven months. There is no more Mary.*
I nodded my head violently, trying to hold back the tears. If I spoke I knew I'd cry. It was times like these I needed someone like Mary. After we found out about Lusitania she was the one the take my hand and she had guessed I was hiding something after that incident, but she knew it was more important to be my friend then to go poking where she knew there was already a wound.
*Then visit…or else.* Now I found out what the "or else" was. I could only visit her grave now. She had never fired a gun, not even when we were with the Villistas, yet she could just as easily be killed by one on the streets she grew up in. She was only twenty.
"Not Mary!" I cried.
He pulled me to my feet and held me up with his arm letting me bury his face in his chest. He walked me back to my tent and I cried into my pillow for an hour. Then it was time to go back to work. I got up and went back to work. People were dying left and right in this country, almost everyone there had lost someone they loved within the past year and a half. I had no excuse to stay in bed.
I worked straight through the end of my shift until dinner, barely speaking and doing my best to mask that anything had happened. I didn't eat dinner. I went back to my tent again. Ada and Chief Nurse Frost came in to see me. I told them what happened in short and told them I'd eat later. I didn't any intention of eating for a while. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and not trying to hold down food.
I went to bed early instead of hanging around with the other nurses and patients. I was alone for about an hour before I was interrupted. I thought might have been one of my tent mates, Ada, Carrie, or Amelia.
"Hey, can I come in?" It was George.
"How did you sneak out?"
"I'm not the only clever bastard around here. I came in to check on how you were doing."
"I'm managing."
"Got you some…well, whatever the hell this is." He handed me a plate of food and a glass of water.
"Oh, mashed potatoes." It took me a little while to get used to the food. Benny, the cook, made some pretty interesting courses.
"They sure they wanna keep us alive?" he said looking at the plate.
I laughed weakly. I grabbed my bathrobe from the end of the bed and wrapped it around me.
"You look like shit." he said smiling out of the corner of his mouth, almost like Mary, they must have been like two sides of a coin.
I tried to laugh, but it turned into a sob again. He put his arm around me. "I loved her so much." I cried into shirt, soaking his uniform again.
"I know. I did too." He started to cry too.
"I'm sorry." I said.
"Why?"
"I'm just rubbing it in on you."
"No, you go ahead. I'm not the only that lost her."
"It's a good thing I don't have the nightshift this week." I tried to smile.
He laughed distantly. "It's never goes away, does it?"
"No." I looked at him sorrowfully, and slowly shook my head. If anyone knew that it was me.
He stayed with me and tucked me into bed. "If you get hungry. There's that unidentified shit on the nightstand."
"Thanks. Goodnight George."
"Night Rose."
***
I wasn't the first person George had to break hard news too. He had to tell Tobey about his neighbors, the Dawsons. Obviously, he already knew about Hannah and Peter, he was there, but he hadn't known about Maggie's death or Jack's disappearance.
"I'm not sure if this is the worst or second worst summer of my life." Tobey sighed as I handed him a cup of tea while we chatting outside.
"What's the other one?"
"1908."
"What happened?"
"An entire family I grew up with was destroyed. The Dawsons. One half of them moved away to Manhattan, that was Maggie, Joe, and Emily, Hannah and Peter were killed in a fire then Jack ran away. Now Maggie's dead and nobody has any idea what happened old Jack. It's funny, the summer before was the best of our lives. It was one of the summer's that sounds like it's from a story. Damn, we just tore up the town; it was amazing. Except the very end, one my friends, a girl too, beat the living shit outta me. Not that I wasn't asking for it. I was kind of jerk as a kid."
I smiled. This man had known Jack. He was his friend. Oh why couldn't I tell him! George could sit down and calmly explain to everyone he knew about Mary, even though he saw the woman he loved shot through the chest and killed right in front of him. What was wrong with me?!
"Nope. This is the worst summer of my life." Holden sighed.
He hadn't spoken during the entire conversation. It had been mostly overrun by Tobey, George, and me.
"It speaks." George raised his hands up feigning shock. When I had first known him I noticed this quality. He was a man who often lived inside himself.
"Now it's going to shut up again." Holden frowned. The three of us made sad faces and pushed out our lower lips.
"We love you too, Holden." I said.
"Oh, I love you too, Rose. You're like a sister-in-law to me." I elbowed him hard in the arm. "OW!"
"Quiet Holden," I said, "I can't hit patients I'll get in trouble." I smiled.
Tobey and George exchanged glances and shrugged. They assumed they were missing something.
"What was that all about?" Tobey asked.
"Nothing." We both answered angelically.
At that moment some of the boys had found an old piano and had carried it part way to the center of the small open green.
"Have a little help here?!"
George and Tobey got up.
"And where do you think you're going?" I asked George.
"To help with the piano."
"I don't think so. Not with that arm."
"It's getting better. And besides I got this arm." He waved his good arm.
"George, you don't touch that thing." I ordered.
"Tootles Nursie." He stuck out his tongue playfully.
"George!"
He and Tobey had already run off toward the piano.
"Why does no one listen to me!?"
"Because you're mean." answered Holden.
"You're a brat."
"You're brattier? You get an immense pleasure from being right, you're arrogant, you're over-confident, stubborn-no-completely obdurate, you think because you're clever you're on some different plane than the rest of the world. Did you know by the time we were both teenagers our fathers used us as another form of competition? They would compare how much we were excelling in school. You were usually ahead. I'm sure that delights beyond all human comprehension. What didn't you stay with Cal? You seemed perfect for each other!"
He got up ready to storm off, but I followed him to the far side of the green and grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Oh fuck you! Don't you dare assume anything about me! You have no idea who I am, who I was, or who I've become! You changed too Holden, you've gotten more ill tempered and bitter. Nice one. You're so repressed. You're the most scornful and shriveled up 26 year old I've ever seen. Poor you, the incompetent son of the prize wife."
"Don't you talk that way about my mother!"
"Don't you talk about mine!"
"At least I love my mother! And don't scream at me because I'm something that looks like Cal!"
"I love my mother! And fuck you Hockley. That's right you're not Cal. You're not the one who'll get the business or the one who's smart enough to handle it. Fuck you and your God damn family."
"Oh yes, Rose. You hate us, don't you? You were so absolutely forced into marriage with Cal. You were so helpless. I know you well enough to know this: that you wouldn't agree to anything if there wasn't something you wanted. You didn't know quite how desperate your financial situation was. You were attracted to him. He was a good looking older guy. I don't know how much or how little you were in love with him. But at some point you wanted him. You would have been happy to be with him if Hank and Ruth hadn't told you to be and you know it. You were going to fucking marry him yet you still didn't give the bastard a chance. That takes talent, Rose, real fucking talent, you know that? I don't know how you did it. You're angry because you know that you trapped because of a choice *you* made!"
I was livid. How dare he. How dare he be so…accurate. I couldn't speak for a moment. I looked around to make sure no one was watching. He began to limp away thinking he'd won.
"I'm not you're God damn sister-in-law, I never was. And at least I'm not some embittered cunt who bitches and moans because he doesn't have Daddy's company. The world just pisses on Holden Hockley, doesn't it? Go whine somewhere else. It's only been two days and already I'm so sick of you and you're shit."
"And you piss on the world Rose *Dawson*!" He spoke the last part of my name with a cynical edge.
"Who was Dawson anyway? He is the unlucky fuck you left Cal for? Dead did you say? I'd believe that. 'Cause I think I'd kill myself if I was with you!"
I slapped him hard across the face. His head flung to the side. He looked at me enraged, but still taken aback that I could hit him as hard as I did.
"Go to hell, Rose."
"See you there."
"Play dead you'll feel better!" He shouted after me as I walked away. I wasn't supposed to leave him there, but they could do anything they liked to me. I thought this was the one patient we could let die on good conscious. He didn't stay there alone for long. George found him right after. He was the only one who saw the fight. Holden let George berate him without putting up any offense. He had wasted all his anger on me and George was his senior officer.
I stopped where they couldn't see me before continuing back to my tent. I could hear them. "That stupid self-righteous spiteful bitch! I HATE HER!"
"She was friends with my fiancée, Holden. You know what happened to her. She just found out yesterday. She just found out her friend was shot to death. Show a little respect. Where in the hell is your head?!"
Holden blushed, embarrassed, but he didn't give in that easily. "You don't the rest, Calvert. You have no idea." He said minus the intensity he had given me before. "I'm sorry about Mary, George, but she's vile. Rose, I mean."
"She's tough as hell and you fucked with her. You got everything you deserved and should've expected. Now you get it together or I swear to God I'll fuck you up beyond repair. Understand?"
"Yes." He said in a low voice.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you."
"Yes!"
***
The three of us spent the rest of the day in a huff, much to the bewilderment of Tobey. Luckily, I didn't see any of them again that day after the early afternoon.
Before going to sleep I kicked my bed and beat up my pillow. I wasn't used to being angry like this. I was usually intimidating and controlled when I was mad, but this time I lost more temper than I thought I had and I was unforgivably cruel, not to say that he wasn't. So what if he attacked me first. I don't think I'd ever been more malicious. It had to be more than pain from losing Mary. Oh Jesus, Mary! Had I really turned into such a monster? What had I become? What would Jack think of me now? Did he die so I could become, as Holden put it, a stupid self-righteous spiteful bitch?