A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) by Terence M. Green

Yanks too will be going abroad for this bloody war so these things visit us alt.
    I have some news of my own. Cora is now pregnant and we are expecting the baby in November. But here's the other news, by November we'll be back in Toronto as Ford is opening a plant there at the corner of Dupont and Christie and I applied for a promotion there and got it! I start in September. It didn't hurt any that I was born and raised in the city and knew important people like you! I'll sure miss some of the folks at the plant, like Walter as we go back a long way, and Cora and his wife Mary Alice have become quite good friends. There's something about going home though that I find irresistible and Cora remembers her trip to your wedding so fondly that she didn't take much convincing. The only one she is close to in her family is her brother Morris and I already told you about him.
    Say, are you interested in seeing if you can get on at the plant toot J can look into it if you'd like, just let me know.
    Tootin my horn,
    Jock
     
    * * *
     
    410 Lansdowne Ave.
    Toronto, Ont.
    June 11, 1916
     
    151 McDougall Ave.
    Detroit, Mich.
     
    Dear Jock,
    Great news on both counts—that you will be a daddy and that you and Cora will be coming to Toronto. Congratulations twice! (And a promotion, what a big shot.) I look forward to getting together again often.
    My news is that I've got a new job. I'm working in the Receiving Department on the 7th floor of Simpson's. Yes Simpson's. Maggie worked at Simpson's, as you know, and Mike has always worked for them, so they found out about the opening and put in the word for me. If they hadn't done so, I trust that I might be working for you underneath a flivver at Dupont and Christie pretty soon. By the way—they are selling Model Ts here for $360 now. Can you believe it? But my chances of ever getting one are still slim and none. Oh well.
    But the real sad news is that you cannot get a beer anywhere decent. There are bootleggers everywhere, but the bottled stuff that's been hoarded is worth a king's ransom. It's the story of my life that I didn't even think about putting away my own stash the way so many others did. The rumor is that it's just a matter of time before the temperance ladies get organized south of the border and it hits you there too, especially if your boys all leave for the fighting in Europe, so tell Cora to have her family stock up. It could be the door to a wonderful opportunity.
    See you in September, old man. And as for the blessing of the baby, get ready to never sleep in again. And remember, the only way we'll get to have a beer together is if you bring lots with you, and pack it so deep under your belongings that the customs boys will collapse of exhaustion and boredom rather than keep digging.
     
    Yours, with a dry throat,
    Martin
     
     
    3
     
    Gramma has a terrible cough, harsh, a feeble bark. Her nose is running. She is pale, her hair uncombed. Today, she does not drink the tea I offer her in the thermos lid, has no interest in it. Her head sinks into the white pillow, her mouth open, her eyes glazed. Unmoving, her hands lie like bleached driftwood at her sides, palms down. The bottle of Lourdes water sits on the bedside table.
    It is February 4, 1917, and the cold of winter seeps beneath every baseboard, pours silently through the panes of every window, penetrates to the bone. It is impossible to be warm, even with the coals glowing in the stove nearby.
    I touch the skin on the back of her hand, as cold as the room, and wonder again how old she is. Eighty-five? Ninety? And then I wonder about a life that stopped in 1845, that has atrophied in shock ever since, letting the world swirl around it.
    She coughs, sudden, hoarse, rasping, gasps air back into liquid lungs, and I know, without knowing how, that I am fortunate to be here with her now, at this moment, in this brittle room, where there are only the two of us.
    "Margaret," I say. "Margaret Loy."
    The eyes, milky, perhaps