The Last Time We Met

7

"Can't you stay here with me?" I begged Henrietta, but she rose up out of bed anyway.

"What a layabout I've married," she complained. "I have to go out and earn for both of us, and make breakfast besides."

I sat up. "I can make breakfast."

She pulled her corset on over her chemise, lacing it up the front, then turned to me with a hand on her hip. "I'd like to be able to eat it, thank you."

"I only burn the toast," I protested. Then I got up, so I could embrace her before she put on her starched white dress. "Please, allow me to cook for you."

Pursing her lips, she sighed and rested her head against my chest. "I suppose. I do love the way you cook bacon."

I kissed her with a grin and padded downstairs, still in my pajamas and woolen socks. Jocky's dog tags jingled as he shook off sleep and waddled after me.

The honeysuckle on the table made the whole first floor smell lovely, and I hummed as I lit the stove and heated the frying pan. When Henry came down, her powder and perfume added to the bouquet. "I must say, I do not miss the smells of the warfront," I told her. "This is perfection. I could die happily."

"I wish I could stuff these flowers up my nose," Henry said, falling into her chair. "I can't quite get the astringent stink of the infirmary out of my nose."

The smell of bacon filled the air now, and we both sighed in contentment. While it fried, I kneaded the muscles of Henry's shoulders. "I'm going to go down to the newspaper offices today," I told her. "Get my adverts running again."

"My photographer." She tilted her head back, and I leaned down to kiss her, our upside-down lips making the familiar new again. "Theo, the bacon!"

I hurried to the stove and rescued it before it became inedible.

"It's about time," Henry said, digging into her eggs. "I was beginning to think you'd never take another photograph again."

It had been too long. Months. I'd taken a few odd jobs here and there, for old clients who had heard about my return – a wedding for one, and new grandchildren for another, and some freelance work for the newspaper. I had anticipated being called back into service for the army, but it had been months and I had received my army pay without any demands for my time.

I waved Henry off and headed to the backyard shed I had converted into a small studio and darkroom. The day of cleaning and tidying my workspace flew by, and soon I realized I would have to walk downtown to place my advert if I wanted to get there before they closed for the evening. I put on my hat, clipped a leash to Jocky's collar, and set out.

The Model T was parked in the driveway when I returned. It was later than I had intended, having stopped in a café for a cold glass of beer on my home. According to the newspaper agent I'd spoken to, the drys had been pushing for an amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit alcohol. "What if that Spanish flu comes back?" the editor had complained as he peered down at my advert through his thick glasses. "The only thing that helps when I get the flu is a nice hot toddy. Imagine, if you couldn't even have a medicinal drink."

Not even the heat could keep my mood down. Henrietta home early meant we could go out dancing tonight. I burst into the kitchen, released Jocky from his leash (he promptly lay down on the cold tile floor, panting), and kicked off my shoes. "Henry?" I called out.

Without an answer, I headed up to our bedroom. I expected to see her changing out of her uniform. Instead, she was at the wash basin in only her undergarments, scrubbing her hands up to her elbows.

"Did something happen?" I asked from the doorway.

She looked at me, her face troubled. "We had our first case of influenza today."

I knew she wasn't talking about the usual winter flu. I stepped into the room and sat down on the bed. Her uniform lay crumpled on the floor like a discarded snakeskin, the white marred by red of blood and some sickly yellow substance that might have been mucus.

"And the doctors are certain it's the Spanish flu?"

"At first they thought it was the normal flu. The guy has been in the infirmary for three days with the usual, fever, chills. Last night he started having respiratory problems. He couldn't breathe. Dr. Davids asked me to assist him, and he coughed up all over me." She gestured to the uniform.

"Oh," I said.

"He died," Henry said flatly, rinsing off her hands. "We had tubes down his throat to try to clear his lungs, but he died."

A moment of silence fell between us before I could conjure up words. "Are you okay?"

"He died, Theo." Henry turned to me. "He was young and healthy, and he got the flu and died."

I nodded. That had been the case when I had been overseas, but everyone was young and healthy until they were dying.

She sighed. "It was alarming, is all."

I held open my arms.  She sighed again, and curled into them. "I thought the flu was disappearing," I said into her hair. "They said the danger was over, in the papers."

"Dr. Davids said there would be another wave." Henry shrugged. "I just hope he's wrong. That was awful, today. It must have been some kind of fluke. Perhaps the man had some underlying illness, undiagnosed."

"Yes, that's most likely."

But in the following weeks, as autumn crept in, we began to see signs. Literal signs in the window of the theater's box office warning those with a cold or cough to go home and remain there until they were well. In October, after the number of cases multiplied at an alarming rate, the mayor ordered "all places of public amusement" shut down, and shortly after that came the mask ordinance. On the radio, during the commercial breaks, a jingle began to play: "Obey the laws, and wear the gauze."

Henry brought home plenty of gauze masks for me to wear, but I had stopped going out much. No one wanted my services as a photographer. There was little for me to do but sit home and worry. I read the newspaper religiously, and listened to the news with growing horror.

I had not forgotten all those visions of a past life in which Henrietta died. And now, it seemed inevitable.

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It really is eerie how COVID has echoed the path of the Spanish Influenza...