The New English Teacher Sucks (GxG)

Chapter Nine

April 21, 1920

"I'm finished washing and dressing your sister."

Victoria forced herself to look up from Silas' dull grey eyes and towards the sorrowful woman standing a few feet away with her tear-filled brown eyes glued to the floor. She wished there was something she could say or do to relieve the mournful mother of the heavy burden of her lost child now weighing on her heart, but she too was struggling with her loss and couldn't bring herself to do anything besides stare blankly at her.

"Was that the doctor I just heard leaving?" The woman asked, her eyes still trained sternly on the wooden floors as if she was upset at it.

The warm body beside Victoria removed itself and moved towards the woman standing still just at the edge of the hallway, half of her body hidden by the wall to show she had no desire to step out further.

"Mom," Thurlow called out to her warmly and her eyes slowly lifted from the floor, a stray tear escaping her eyes as she blinked. She regarded her son with a dissociated expression then glanced over his shoulder towards the crying woman sitting on her couch with an unmoving baby in her lap.

"Is that..." She trailed off and cautiously stepped around Thurlow to get a better look at the young woman. "Victoria? Is that you dear?"

The plywood licked the bottom of her feet with dread as she drew closer, her hands slightly outstretched towards the infant. Victoria felt as if she was observing the entire scene as it unfolded before her from outside of her body. She didn't speak or try to stop her aunt when she reached a hand out to flatten her palm against Silas' stiff cold forehead. She almost regrets looking at the woman's face as it slowly contorted into shock.

She wanted to tell her to leave and return to her room. There was no reason to have to feel this kind of pain twice. But yet, the woman fell on her knees at Victoria's feet and gently took the limp body of the infant into her arms.

"Your baby..." She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. She hugged Silas close to her chest for the first time and breathed him in. The blanket he was wrapped in remained sprawled out on his mother's lap and the dark-haired woman picked it up slowly before draping it over his shoulders. "I'm so sorry," Victoria's aunt cried as she cradled the corpse in her hand and gently rocked him back and forth.

Thurlow observed the two and tried to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest, wanting to be strong for the both of them. This was the last situation he expected himself to be in. His cousin arrived just yesterday and already, her baby that had been screaming with the vocal cords of a hundred men just hours prior was now laying lifeless in his mother's arm. He took a few steps towards them but stopped halfway. He didn't think there was anything he could do that could take so much of an ounce of their pain away. So instead he decided that he would go into town and check with a carpenter to organize two caskets for the grieving mothers. It was all he could think to do for them at the moment.

He excused himself from the darkly cold room and grabbed his jacket off the armrest of the couch before heading for the front door. He glanced over his shoulder first at his mom who was soaking Silas' blanket with her tears, then to his cousin who seemed too detached from this world to feel anything at all. Thurlow sighed and yanked the front door open as he stepped outside into the cold winter air. The door slammed shut behind him and he adjusted his jacket, glaring at the long stretch of deserted road he had to walk before making it into town.

As he set out onto the snowy path he kept his eyes lowered to the ground, too upset with the world and everything around him to pay his respects to mother nature. His family had already suffered so much. The loss of his father in the war; the same war that blew a hole in the middle of their ceiling. Then there was the untimely murder of his ten-year-old sister. And now within less than twenty-four hours... another tragedy. He almost didn't want to stick around for much longer to witness any more of it. But he couldn't leave his mother alone in this world to punish like that. It was a cruel thought to have, he quickly realized.