Mercy Train by Rae Meadows Page A

sizzled. She spread a man’s white shirt on the bed, and placed the iron on it, but when she moved it up the front panel it left a scorched yellow trail. The smell of hot cotton filled the room. She touched the spot and burned her finger. She tried to stand the iron up on the bed but it rolled off onto the floor, and then she gave up, shoving the shirt to the bottom of the pile.
    When Lilibeth appeared, she was pale and drawn.
    â€œI’m going for coal,” Violet said curtly. “And bread.”
    â€œYes, yes,” Lilibeth exhaled, crawling onto the bed. “Get me some remedy? I don’t feel well. Money’s up in the tin.”
    â€œWhen do I get to meet your Mr. Lewis?” Violet asked.
    Her mother knit her brows. “Oh, soon, Vi. Real soon. You’re going to like him a whole lot.”
    â€œOkay,” Violet said, resolving not to ask about him again.
    â€œI brought you something.”
    Violet turned to her, easily warmed.
    Lilibeth reached into her drawstring pouch and pulled out a pink rose blossom, its petals bruised in transit.
    â€œI thought we could pin it in your hair.” She patted the bed for Violet to sit and reached for her hairbrush on the windowsill.
    Violet closed her eyes as her mother pulled the brush through her hair. Lilibeth pulled two pins from her own hair and fastened the flower behind Violet’s ear.
    â€œLook at you,” she said. “Stay still for a second. I’m going to remember you just like this. There.” She pulled a small mirror from her purse and held it up. “A real young lady.”
    Violet blushed when she saw herself; the frilliness of the flower in her chopped hair embarrassed her. But her mother looked pleased, momentarily relieved of the groove between her eyes, and Violet was happy for that.
    â€œYou know he had a photograph taken of me at a portrait studio uptown?” Lilibeth said.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œI never had my photograph taken before. Bluford thought it was a waste of money whenever the traveling man brought his camera to Aberdeen. He didn’t even want a wedding picture.” She smiled. “I always wanted to have my photograph taken. To see what I really look like.”
    â€œYou see yourself in mirrors,” Violet said.
    â€œWell, yes.” Lilibeth tucked her hands under the pillow. “But you know how you can catch a glimpse of yourself in a shiny window before you know it’s you?”
    â€œI suppose,” Violet said, not really understanding.
    â€œIn a photograph you can see how other people see you,” she said, angling her face to look at the window.
    â€œYou always look pretty, Mama.”
    Lilibeth held out her hand for Violet to hold. “You are dear to me. Go on, now. My head hurts something awful.”
    â€œWill you be here when I get back?”
    Lilibeth nodded. “We’ll eat our breakfast together.”
    Outside it smelled of acrid chemical smoke from a fire at the soap factory. Violet’s eyes burned. At the market, she bought bread, apples, and a slab of butter, and lifted a handful of caramels and a sack of dried apricots. She walked all over looking for Pardee’s for her mother, but everywhere was out. She took the long way, swinging by the Mission, to see if the Aid Society ladies were out again, looking for kids. Maybe someone she knew was going to get on a train. But no one was there except a drunk who looked already dead.
    On her way home, Violet found Nino hustling papers on Cherry Street.
    â€œNews of the world, one penny only! Three hundred twenty-six people dead in New Jersey steamship fire! Read all about it!”
    Two men shoved coins in Nino’s hand and took papers. When they were gone, Violet skipped across the street.
    â€œHere,” she said, handing him the apricots.
    â€œYou musta heard my belly grumbling. What’s the flower for?”
    She quickly pulled the rose from her hair and tossed it.