Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman

exterior was of wood carved with bas relief columns alternating with archangels, heads bowed and leaning on their swords. Statues of kneeling seraphim sprang from its roof. There were large side windows, but these were draped in a heavy gold cloth hung to shield the dead and their loved ones from the turmoil of the living world. Aurora Mae and Horace could not see who drove the bus, except that a stooped creature was hunched over the cab’s wheel. Then it hit them both.
    Lord, Cousin Mags and the baby are in there, ain’t they, Horace said to his sister.
    Yes, Magnus Bailey said, they are.
    Aurora Mae ran down the steps and to the car, her long legs closing the distance between in remarkable time. The car stopped or it would have run into her. She leaned over on the passenger’s side seeking with little hope a breathing Cousin Mags, but the mother was in the back nursing her child. All her gaze met was the perpetually despondent expression of Mr. Fishbein. They’d not got up that close at the wedding. Aurora Mae could not recall sharing more than a word or two with him. She remembered him the way she might a brown wren in a flock of bluebirds. Now she saw the pain in his eyes, which sent a shock through her chest—a small one, but sharp. Terrible things flew to her mind. Her fists pounded against the window.
    Where are they? What have you done with them?
    By now she was certain Cousin Mags and the baby were laid out in there. The Spanish fever was all over East St. Louis, folk said. In the next moment, Mags reached forward from the back to give Sara Kate to Mr. Fishbein so she could come out and embrace her cousin. The sight of the saddest man in all the world holding the squirming child struck Aurora Mae dumb, which was not a common occurrence. Then Mags’s arms were around her. They held on as tightly to each other as they had the day Mags left home two years before.
    Miss Minnie had already entered the house to look it over without so much as a by-your-leave, but the scene on the lawn held the attention of the others, and no one noticed. From the porch where he stood with Horace, Bailey said, Well, that’s a picture, ain’t it?
    Horace shook his head. It was true. Delicate, brown Mags looked like a child pressed against the bosom of a deity. Aurora Mae was a woman tall as their warrior ancestors. Her glorious, impossible hair was loose. It sprang out all around her and to the backs of her knees. Her limbs were lean and fierce, her face a queen’s image carved from obsidian, harmonious and severe. Her eyes were laced in happy tears that caught the light to grace them with sparks of fire.
    Watching her, Bailey thought, Someday, I will have me some of that.
    Horace caught the scent of his ambitions and did what he could to break the mood. ’Rora Mae finds most of her love with family women, he said, as if his sister’s emotional life was a common subject. Big as she is, she’s young yet. I believe she would break in two the man who tried to take her afore she’s ready.
    Aurora Mae and Mags got to fixing a supper together of pole beans and rice cooked with onion, peppers, and chicken livers, as Mags said Mr. Fishbein would not eat the pork. While they washed beans and chopped peppers, they talked old times and caught up with the new. More than a few times, they spoke of George McCallum, and stopped to weep awhile in each other’s arms.
    Meanwhile, Minerva Fishbein took a nap with the baby in Aurora Mae’s bed, and the men sat on the porch. Bailey let Horace in on all their plans, all the war news, and the state of the city since the riots, confirming that yes, the Spanish fever had arrived, which made Horace wonder why Mr. Fishbein would choose to leave town just when business should be hopping good. Horace was an uncomplicated man with the good manners of country folk, unaccustomed to the company of white men of substance. He worried if he did not do or say the correct thing that things could turn ugly on a