Coal River by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Lizzie.
    “I don’t know what it is with your father and that camera,” Aunt Ida said to Percy. “I swear one of these days I’m going to sell it and buy myself something useful, like a bolt of satin or a new brooch.”
    “I heard he won it playing poker down at the Pennsylvania Hotel,” Percy said. “Sally Gable’s husband, Grover, had to ante it up when he ran out of cash.”
    “That wouldn’t surprise me,” Aunt Ida said. “Those two always had an old rivalry. Never understood that either.”
    “They say it’s because Grover proposed to Sally before Pa had the chance,” Percy said.
    Quicker than a whip, Aunt Ida spun around and slapped Percy across the face. “Don’t you ever talk about your father like that!” she shouted. “He wouldn’t be caught dead with that whore. And he never proposed to anybody but me!”
    “Sorry, Ma,” Percy said, rubbing his cheek.
    Now, up ahead on the village green, Uncle Otis waded through the crowd, waving and nodding as if he were royalty surrounded by his loyal subjects. Percy walked beside him, carrying picnic baskets filled with fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and Aunt Ida’s famous angel food cake with strawberries. Cook had made all the food, but Aunt Ida had instructed Emma ahead of time that if anyone asked, she’d been slaving over a hot stove since five that morning.
    As they headed toward the pavilion, Emma searched the gathering for familiar faces, hoping the boys who’d tormented her brother all those years ago had moved away. She couldn’t remember their names, but she could still see their curled lips and spiteful grins when they taunted Albert. She could still see their blanched cheeks and frightened eyes when he fell through the ice. Did any of them regret what they’d done? Did they ever give Albert a second thought? Or did they just go on with their lives, forgetting the innocent boy they killed? Over the years she’d pictured different reckonings for each bully. One grew up to be a sweaty drunk, living out his days in a saloon. One was a criminal, in jail for robbing a bank. A third was a panhandler living out on the streets, everything he owned lost in poker games. The worst scenario belonged to the boy who threw the locket out on the ice. She pictured him locked away in a state asylum, driven mad by nightmares and guilt.
    But now that she had seen Percy face-to-face and knew firsthand that there had been no repercussions for what he’d done, the thought of seeing his friends at the Fourth of July celebration filled her stomach with dread. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the boys responsible for Albert’s death playing croquet in cuffed trousers and panama hats. She didn’t want to see them escorting wives or girlfriends toward the picnic pavilion, or holding their children up so they could see the band in the gazebo. Albert never had the chance to do any of those things. And he never would. How in God’s universe would it be fair for the boys responsible for his death to be happily living out their lives? How would it be just that they never had to pay? She took a deep breath and pushed the thought away, wishing she’d brought the vial of laudanum with her instead of leaving it hidden beneath her bedroom mattress.
    They passed an open expanse of grass, where groups of breaker boys were playing football and tag. Other boys sat on the sidelines, cheering on the teams. Briefly, Emma wondered if the boy who looked like Albert’s twin was over there, observing her, hidden among the others. Then she noticed that the majority of the boys on the sidelines were either missing entire limbs, a hand, or part of an arm. A young boy with no legs and a scarred cheek sat on a wooden crate, watching the others run and play. His face was filled with misery. A lump formed in Emma’s throat, and she looked away. There are so many. Maybe, when it came to innocents dying and suffering, there was no such thing as fair or just.
    Blinking