Mrs Jackson stared out at the road ahead of her, her hands gripping the steering wheel tight. ‘I’ve got a niece who lives in Maryland. I’ll give you her name and such, in case you find yourself in need of a place to stay for a little while.’

‘That’s kind of you; I might look her up,’ I lied.

She smiled with thin lips, proud of her Christian charity.

The rest of the trip to Roanoke and the train station passed in silence. Out the window the ridges of the mountains shadowed one another. I was certain that if I reached out a hand I could feel their bluish softness. The engine strained as we climbed between the granite-sided slopes, then flew downhill past pine and sugar maple into the valley. The windows were wound up but there was still the smell of manure from chicken and pig farms, strong enough I could taste it in the back of my throat. I wanted to wail for the chance I had lost: for babies, a cheque-book with his name and mine, arguing about the children, ironing his shirts. I was leaving behind everything I’d imagined for us, only it didn’t exist; it had never existed outside my head. It was in the trenches of New Guinea, maybe, the jungle prison, the rotting wounds of men. In my mother’s ear pressed to the radio, my father’s gaze as his empty glass was refilled with beer. Roy in the dark park, kneeling before me in the damp grass. Useless hope, chances we’d never have. Instead it was the flies on the filmy-eyed horses, the knowledge that life would never seem so full of possibility again.

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 28

Alex visits me on my second day in the infirmary. I know it is the opposite end of the ship from where he works. He is in his uniform, and he takes off his cap and places it in his lap when he sits, pulling up a chair. I have been either curled up in pain or sleeping, my body trying to adjust to the quantity of calories. They will let me go back to the cabin I share with Grandma tomorrow, as long as I keep returning to be weighed and checked, as long as I am showing progress.

I can tell that Alex doesn’t know what to say, and he smiles at me, his eyes jumping towards the door. I pretend that things are normal. I know that he has been told otherwise. He isn’t going to mention it directly though, and instead our words dance around the truth.

He says I’m missing the worst weather of the trip. That it is rainy and cold, that all the passengers are at the slots or playing bridge, and one of the engines flooded and failed. He talks about engine repairs and I clench my fists under the cotton blanket.