Chicago, 1917

“Jack! Jack, damn it, we’re going to be late!”

You would think that hurried footsteps, opening cupboards and grumbled cursing would appear less rude, but I felt a twinge of irritation as I tapped the face of my wristwatch and glared at the ceiling.

“Calm down, Eddie.” His grinning face appeared, peering down from the rail of the stairs. A comb dangled from one of his hands, one of his father’s cigars from the other. “What are you so tense about? You don’t even like Lucy. Or Ella. Or Carmen. Or—”

“Don’t call me Eddie.” I said calmly. I scrutinized his smirk, torn between my pride and the logic of his argument. “Look, I just don’t like to be late.”

His face disappeared, only to reappear around the banister, with the rest of his body. He was sporting a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, dress pants and shoes, a jacket draped over his arm, and car keys in his hand.

“Alright, Edward, let’s go then.”

Feeling slightly outdone, I sneaked a quick look in the mirror by the door as I followed him out of the house. If my stature didn’t emanate as much exaggerated confidence and swaggering charm, Jack didn’t really harm my self-esteem. He was only a little taller than me, and of the same build, and unlike his brown hair, mine was of a coppery, rusty hue. I too wore a button-up shirt and dress-pants.

The only feature I one-upped my best friend on was the eyes, perhaps the only physical feature I truly liked about myself. They were my mother’s eyes, that distinct, very unusual shade of dark emerald, not the bright leafy green, but by no means dull either. I never quite knew how to reply when girls complimented them, but I felt a strange sense of both satisfaction and ire every time. Lucy, Ella, Carmen, Delia, Kate - in short, the whole posse that flocked to Jack like bees to flowers in late spring - were the epitome of airheaded females, and they never failed to make some absurd comment about my eyes. Absurd, though never negative…

“Eddie, come on!”

I jumped, torn out of my contemplations of the mirror, and then quickly followed Jack out, not bothering to reply to his ridiculous nickname for me.

“Oh, wasn’t that just beeaautiful!” Lucy cooed, hanging onto my arm. I tried a sort of half-smile and ended up with a noncommittal half-grimace. I couldn’t believe I had let Jack talk me into this. What an utter waste of my time. My hands hadn’t left my pockets the entire night for fear that Lucy or Kate, who were sitting on either side of me, would make a desperate grab for one.

“Yes, it certainly was,” I responded to Lucy’s comment without looking at her. Honestly, it occurred to me, maybe I shouldn’t be so miserable. Any boy my age would be ecstatic to have Lucy Darren hanging on his arm, batting her eyelashes at him. And really, the movie wasn’t so bad. And women having conversations across you about the characters’ fashion choice, or the dashing qualities of the male lead isn’t as bad as it could be. I mean, all girls do it, don’t they?

I sighed and tried to make my half-smile a slight bit more genuine, by actually directing my gaze at Lucy. The expression on her face froze as she looked at me, her eyes glazing over, her lips opened in a small oval. She was a medium-height, but petite-looking red-head. Not a red-head in my sense, but an honest-to-god cream-skinned, freckled, red-head. She was remarkably pretty, really, but the beauty must have cost her in the brains department. Why was she staring at me like that? Was the half-smile really that off? I either had to work more on my acting or find different ways to occupy my time than going to the movies with the likes of Jack’s ladies.

“Lucy, Eddie, let’s go eat.” Jack caught up with us, Kate and Jacqueline hooked on his arms on either side of him, and Sylvia, Kate’s best friend, attached to Jacqueline. It vaguely occurred to me why Jack and I were somewhat disliked at school amongst our male classmates; any one of them would have died to be in our position right now; five girls (especially these girls) for two boys.

For the fifty-seventh time that night, I wished I was at home sitting in front of my piano, or listening to a Nocturne instead of Lucy’s voice, which was starting to grate on my eardrums. Mother had just bought me a set of Irving Berlin scores, now that I’d entirely exhausted my pile of Chopin. She was under the impression that I needed to take myself less seriously as a pianist. I was under the impression that my mother didn’t take me seriously.

“Oh, don’t start, Edward.” Jack fell back and leaned down to whisper in my ear so the girls wouldn’t hear. “I know what you want when you get that look on your face. Try to have a little fun for once.”

I erased all expression from my face, and then raised a cynical eyebrow at him.

~*~

Jack’s house was probably the largest in the vicinity of Chicago. In the dark of this time of night, it stood eerily large and white under the moon. Jack’s father’s car stood in the driveway, and I made sure to give it a wide berth as I approached the front door. Leaving the dinner party hadn’t been all that difficult. I had finally had enough and simply excused myself with a headache, which wasn’t even a lie, took Jack’s keys so I could pick up some baseball gear I’d left at his house, and go home.

I found the gear upstairs in his room, and left the house with an uneasy feeling. Jack’s father was away on a business trip, and his mother was falling ill. I felt guilty for walking into her house like that, and even guiltier for not reproving her son. He should have stayed at home tonight and taken care of her…

Then again, not all boys loved their mothers.

When I reached my own house a quarter of an hour later, light shone out of the parlor window. I opened the door, not bothering to be quiet and smiled at my mother who was reading by the dining table in the faint light of a small, antique, and doubtlessly priceless oil lamp.

“Good evening, darling,” she marked her page, set the book down and smiled at me. The shadows of night coalesced around her cheekbones, making her face appear gaunt. “How was your date?”

I sighed, finally disposing of the frozen politesse in my features.

“Not much of a date. How are you feeling?” I eyed her weary expression with concern. “Where’s dad?”

I glanced around and noticed that his coat wasn’t on the hanger.

“I’m alright.” She cleared her throat. “Better than this morning. Your father was held up at work. He’ll be home later.” Her voice wavered a little. Either she was suppressing a cough, or there was something wrong with my father. I reckoned it was the first.

“Alright. Goodnight.” I kissed her cheek and then made my way upstairs, worry eating at me. My mother was a statuesque, tall and proud woman, with dark hair, strong bones, and a resilient spirit. I hadn’t witnessed a moment of illness in her in seventeen years of being her son, but it occurred to me now that the moment to pay her dues had come. The thought nagged at my mind as I changed out of my evening clothes and went to bed.

That night, I dreamed of shadow-cloaked figures looking at me from beneath drawn hoods, and then turning around and disappearing into darkness.

~*~

The clashing of a major second that wasn’t supposed to be there tore me out of the deluge of perfect harmony swamping my senses. My hand stumbled on the wrong key, missed the next, and the line driveled off in a pathetic shambles of supposed genius.

For a moment, fury twitched in my fingers urging them to crash down on every which key in defiance. Why couldn’t it work?! How could this exquisite sound come from these fingers so seamlessly, peal in the air and ring on ears in incandescent harmony, and then be ruined by my technical mistake? My mother had been right to give me Irving Berlin; clearly Beethoven’s second movement of the Mondschein Sonate was too much to ask.

I glared down at my fingers in disgust with my own incompetence, and shoved away from the piano to go vent my fury, preferably somewhere in a baseball field with someone to hit things at.

My mother stood in the doorway, her emerald gaze halting me in my footsteps. Her remarkable eyes scrutinized me carefully, innocently, and in stark contrast to her face, which looked both whiter than even last night, and yet unhealthily flushed.

“Where are you going?” she demanded quietly, her voice raspy. I suddenly felt ashamed.

“Nowhere,” I muttered and returned to the piano stool. “Where’s dad? I didn’t hear him come in last night?”

“I don’t know,” she remarked plainly, but the worry was written in her brow.

I stared at her and opened my mouth to inquire further when the doorbell rang. I followed her down the hallway as she went to answer.

“Mrs. Mason?” The man standing on the porch was barely older than me and dressed like a messenger. My mother affirmed his query with a nod. “I am to tell you from Dr. Asquith of the Michael Reese Hospital that your husband checked in last night...”

~*~

I don’t recall my father ever being anything but a perfectly poised man of society. If not exactly the main focus of a dinner party, he never failed to draw attention at one. He had a high-ranking position in the Folton Car Company, which was owned by Jack’s father, and was the second richest man in Chicago (after Jack’s father). Of course, considering his profession, he was also one of the very few men who owned a car. Matthew Folton owned two, one of which he gave Jack as a seventeenth birthday gift. Regarding my father, I knew from Mother’s friends that he was admired for his excellent taste, manners, and an unfailing charm in both matters of social and business persuasion. He never entered a room in an inconspicuous manner, nor did he ever hover at the edge of a party. I had inherited his sense of pride, which led him to keep the best relations and public image possible. It wasn’t that he was a remarkably social man, but rather that he was acquainted with simply anyone worthy of being acquainted to, and thus it was rather impossible for my father to be anything but the most statuesque of figures in Chicago society.

Thus, seeing him lying in a hospital bed, with a bandage wrapped around his head and his eyelids heavy and blue, was shocking. How does a son respond to the unfailing father figure when he lies fragile and weak in bed of white linen, his head too heavy to rise from the pillow?

Any words of greeting were choked off in my throat as my mother rushed to his side, taking his limp hand in both of hers and staring down at him with concern.

“Dearest, what happened?” Her tone was almost an accusation, as if he was to be held responsible for worrying her so.

My father smiled wanly up at her and then at me.

“I was leaving work and fell down the stairs. Nothing too terrible. I hit my head a few times. The doctor says nothing is fractured or broken.”

But his statement made no sense. He lay upon the bed as if the damage was lasting.

“But, dear…” my mother said hesitantly, “Why are you still here?”

“I’m not feeling very well. The doctor said I might have the influenza.”

For a moment, none of us said anything. The amount of fatal cases of the Spanish influenza – as they’d come to call it – were rising alarmingly, and although the virus wasn’t generally accepted as a serious threat yet, I think neither mother nor I could fully stifle the dread rising in our throats, threatening to turn into gasps.

My father chuckled at our strangled silence, a kind gesture to dispel our fears, and it may have worked if the chuckle had not rasped through his throat and turned into a hacking cough. My mother twitched at the sound, her frame cringing from the blow of each of the ragged coughs. I didn’t know what to do. Had the illness hit him only yesterday? No, that wasn’t possible, considering the state he was in. I remembered him looking a bit wearied in the last few days, but I had attributed the symptoms to working late nights.

“Oh love,” my mother could only whisper, lay her hand against his forehead only to yank it back at the heat of his skin. She looked close to tears.

“Oh, go on,” he grasped her hands firmly in his and gave us both a stern look. “I’ll be fine. Go on home. They’ll let me go in a few days when the virus abates. Go!”

But that’s the thing about growing out of childhood. I might have once been comforted by his assurances, but I was old enough to doubt the stubbornness in his voice. And the doubt remained, only to grow when my mother grew sicker yet and three days later was hospitalized as well.