The English Descendants

11

Thomas watches from a distance. He watches as Edith repeatedly picks up his diary, opens it, and sets it aside, unread. He watches the children grow and bloom. Charlotte takes an interest in engineering and fights her way into a university. Eliot studies medicine and enlists, preparing for a career as a military surgeon. They both marry in 1927 in a joint wedding full of laughter and friendship. Eliot's wife, Maria Lee, is a bubbly young woman, the daughter of German immigrants. Her parents own a bakery and make the wedding cake. Charlotte marries Harold Walter Strong, a quiet man who works at the soaring Michigan Central Depot.

Their first children are born days apart. Anne Victoria Strong and May Ellen McMichael cuddle together in their cradle when they first meet at their grandmother's house. When they wake, Edith has Alan place the children both on her chest and they nestle against her, bobbing their tiny heads, nuzzling each other. She wonders if Thomas is watching and she hopes he is. He has helped her to create something beautiful in Charlotte and now in Anne.

Thomas wants to make himself known to the children, but does not wish to risk Charlotte's anger. While they visit Edith and Alan's home, he appears beside the cradle. May Ellen is asleep. Anne, with eyes bright and dark curls framing her tiny face, reaches for him and gurgles. He lets her grasp his finger, bends to kiss her and her cousin, and then steps back. When he leaves, she cries. He wishes he could stay, but her mother is coming.

"Annie, I'm right here, little love...what frightened you? Were you startled that your mum wasn't in sight?" Anne coos and nestles into her chest as she sits in Edith's rocking chair, "Don't you worry, little one, I'm not going very far without you."

Edith tiptoes into the room as Charlotte nurses Anne. She sits beside the cradle and watches May Ellen.

She only speaks when Anne has fallen asleep, "I remember when you were this small. Your father had to leave to treat a patient in Ann Arbor. We had a visitor. A ghostly one."

"I don't want to talk about him right now."

"But he was so kind...so in love with you. Some days I wish he would have survived, even if I never trusted him the same way, so that you children could know him. He was brilliant. I see sparks of him in you and it delights me. Such wonder at mechanical things...and such an aptitude for invention. An intense, consuming curiosity. Traits you also share with Alan. I am, it seems, attracted to highly intelligent men."

"Mother, I think you forget the darker side of his nature."

"No. I can never forget what happened. I yet limp from it and I see her in my nightmares. But those few moments he had with you when you were so tiny...they changed things."

"I still don't know if I want to see him."

"You don't have to know. Just accept that he is here, and that somehow, the dead sometimes still feel great love for those they have left behind."

"Does he know what love is?"

"Of course. I think we all do, somehow, even if we never receive it."

Charlotte rocks Anne and stares at her mop of dark hair, "Is that why you cried? Because you saw a ghost?" But Anne has fallen asleep and says nothing.

Two years pass and two more babies arrive- this time, the boys. Dixon Martin Strong and Alan Bartholomew McMichael. Once again, they meet at Edith and Alan's house. This time, Alan gets to hold them both first, curious little bundles laying on his broad chest while the girls run wild through Edith's dining room. She doesn't care. Their laughter is light itself to her.

Thomas cannot help but want to see Charlotte's children and for them to see him at least once. While he would like to meet Eliot's family as well, he honours his request to stay unseen. While Charlotte washes the dishes, he appears to Dixon. The child cries. He still kisses him, fading quickly so he will calm. Dixon quiets as soon as Thomas has vanished. Anne toddles over and plops down on the floor beside the cradle. She stuffs a tiny plush horse through the bars and into his flailing little fists. He pulls it to his mouth and sucks on its nose. She giggles.

Charlotte returns to the children and smiles, "Thank you, Annie, for keeping your brother happy." She returns to the kitchen.

Anne looks, very serious, at her brother's face, trying to make eye contact, "Baby see him, too. He nice. Plays tea. No tell."

Dixon sucks on the horse. She shrugs. He doesn't know words, so she thinks her secret friend is safe.