Read A Death-Struck Year for Free Online Page B

Before they disappeared, I caught a final glimpse of green: green hat, green coat. And a rare wide smile. I dropped my hand and hurried down the path.
    I never saw them again.

Chapter Six
    Friday, October 11, 1918
     
    “O
regonian
! Get your paper here! ‘Influenza Hits Portland! Mayor Shuts Down City!’ Paper, paper! Paper, mister?”
    I flipped a nickel toward the newsboy standing on the street corner. He was about ten, with a blue cap pulled over scruffy hair. The child caught the coin and thrust a newspaper my way, then pirouetted neatly and palmed a second nickel tossed from the opposite direction. With the paper tucked in my satchel, I made my way down Thirteenth Street.
    Portland was a city of more than two hundred thousand residents, with a long, meandering river, the Willamette, bisecting it into east and west. St. Helen’s Hall was located on the southwestern edge of the city; my house was north on King Street. I avoided a baby carriage. Dodged a delivery boy on a bicycle. And I felt as though I’d stepped into another world entirely.
    It was the masks.
    On the corner of Thirteenth and Jefferson, at the florist, Mr. Pressman held the door open for two elderly matrons. A red carnation was pinned to his lapel, as usual. But a white gauze mask covered his thin mustache and cheery smile. Startled, my gaze roamed over the crowd. I saw another one. And another. And there, the man with the cane. Another.
    All around me, automobiles clamored for a share of the road alongside lumbering trucks, wooden carts, and the occasional horse-drawn buggy. A streetcar driver bore down upon unsuspecting pedestrians, oblivious to the indignant cries and raised fists left in his wake. I stared after the car, perplexed, until I realized it was a summer trolley put back into service. Unlike the cold-weather cars, summer trolleys had no doors, windows, aisles, or sides. Affixed to the rear of the streetcar was a sign that read, simply, SPIT SPREADS DEATH .
    There was a new placard in the window of Hammond’s Drug Store: SPANISH INFLUENZA REMEDIES. TRIED-AND-TRUE CURES, COMPLETELY EFFECTIVE . Directly below were displays of mustard tins, quinine jars, onion crates, and baskets filled with Vicks VapoRub. Customers rushed in and out, and I could see Mr. and Mrs. Hammond through the window, frantically trying to fulfill orders. The druggist and his wife, too, were masked.
    I passed a small stone church, chains wrapped around its front doors. By then panic had set in, hard and sharp.
    I turned left, on Salmon Street, and quickly headed for home.
     
    King Street was in a neighborhood set high in the west hills. Home to judges and lawyers, hoteliers and publishers, and one architect: Jack. My father had built our home, a mix of pale sandstone and English Tudor, when my brother was a baby. The house was big and rambling, with enough room for five children. I wondered sometimes if my parents had dreamed of a larger family.
    I dashed up the front steps and let myself in. I dropped my satchel beside the umbrella stand and tugged my gloves free, setting them on the entryway table. The air smelled faintly of cigar smoke and furniture polish.
    I looked about. To the right was the parlor with its grand piano and fireplace. To the left, a closed door led to Jack’s study. Directly ahead, up a short flight of steps, was the formal dining room. Unlike the world outside, everything was in its place.
    I stood in the center of the foyer, listening to a sound I’d been desperate to hear for weeks. Silence. Yet it did not thrill me the way I thought it would.
    It was the sound of being completely and utterly alone.
     
    That night a storm raged. The rain and wind rattled the windowpanes. The house creaked and moaned, like an old man rising from a chair. I lay in bed with the covers tight over my head. In total darkness, I regretted every Poe story ever read. Was sorry for every minute spent with Shelley’s
Frankenstein.
    I pulled the covers down and sat