Shadows May Fall

Chapter Twenty

"I don't know where I'm going, yet, or if I'm going," Dorothy said, and offered her name.

The other woman set aside the potato she was slicing and wiped her hand, then offered it. "Angie MacCarron. Where do you live?"

"Just below Citadel Hill. It's gone now."

"My house, too. "

"Were you home?"

"No, thank goodness. I was on my way back from taking my older ones to school. I had that one on my hip," she gestured to the toddler sitting at her feet playing with a doll fashioned out of a dish-towel and twine, "and I stopped at the grocer. That's where I was when it happened. Knocked me out for a few minutes and I came to with this one screaming blooding murder, the both of us covered in flour. We walked out of there looking like ghosts. I went for my children at school, and when I got home all that was left was a pile of sticks. We didn't own it and we didn't have much, so it will be no great loss. I suppose we could get another place here, but I don't want to. My man will have to just go back to fishing when he comes home instead of getting a job in a factory. He won't like that, but I won't live here any longer than I have to."

Blowing on the surface of her tea, Dorothy took the chair opposite the woman. "I don't think there's any shame in that, and if you have somewhere better to go, you should go."

Advice she could have used ages ago. In fact, advice she had gotten a handful of times. If she'd taken it back when things started to get lean, she might not be in the fix she's in.

And she wouldn't be left wondering if the man she loved was dead, because they would never have met.

She took a scalding sip of tea as penance for the thought. It would be too easy to wish she had never met Robbie, to find a way to hate him so she wouldn't miss him so much. Dead or alive, it wouldn't be fair to him.

She remained in the kitchen and made small talk with Angie until Charlie appeared. Helena took one look at him, still in Robbie's pyjamas with his hair sticking straight up and his feet bare, and she laughed loud enough to wake up the entire house.

"Charlie, couldn't you have gotten dressed before you came downstairs?" Dorothy admonished him, but laughed nonetheless, especially given how embarrassed he looked now.

"I didn't think about it." He came closer to Dorothy and whispered, "where can I use the toilet?"

Helena had ears like a hawk and quickly answered. "The electricity is out, so there's no running water. You'll have to take a bucket with you."

Charlie looked perplexed enough that Dorothy's funny bone was struck again. "She doesn't want to go in the bucket, you fool. She means take some water and pour it into the toilet when you're done."

Helena gestured to three buckets by the door. "There's more than enough of that if we melt it. If you can hold it, go fill one of those up and I'll melt it on the stove. If you can't, then you can go to the other side of the bird coop or the shed."

Mortified over the conversation, Charlie went to the door, stuffed his feet in the boots found there, and took his bucket outside. He returned, shivering and shaking off the snow not even a minute later.

"Once you're dressed and gotten something to eat, we might as well go on back to the flat and see what's there," Dorothy said.

"Nothing," he murmured grumpily, took his full bucket from Helena, and headed in search of the toilet.

Dorothy looked to Helena. "And he's the one who wanted to go. Is Mrs. Monroe still in bed?"

Helena shook her head. "She was off first thing in the morning to start looking in hospitals."