Passage

“Rule Number One of Dish Night,” Kit said. “No discussion of work. It was all right. One of the things that was so terrible was the way everybody tiptoed around me. Still tiptoes around me.” She smiled wryly. “My cousin got married last summer, and nobody told me. I found out by accident. Which, I suppose, is how you found out.”

Joanna nodded. “Betty Peterson told me. The one who found out the title of the book. Her little sister told her.”

“And I should have told you,” Kit said. “It was just so nice having somebody treat me like a person instead of a…”

Disaster victim, Joanna thought, and realized why Kit had reminded her so much of Maisie.

“You have no idea the things people do to you trying to comfort you,” Kit said. “They say, ‘You’ll fall in love again,’ and, ‘At least he didn’t suffer.’ How do you know? I wanted to ask them. How do you know he didn’t suffer?”

I told her I saw the Titanic, Joanna thought, feeling sick. I introduced the possibility that Kevin didn’t die instantly, that he experienced something terrible, something terrifying.

“My aunt Julia kept saying, ‘God never sends us more than we can bear,’ ” Kit was saying, “and, ‘You need to be thankful it was quick.’ Well, it was. So quick I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

And so you get to say good-bye to Mr. Briarley instead, Joanna thought. An endless, agonizing good-bye.

“The only one who didn’t say any of those things was Uncle Pat. He was wonderful. He didn’t try to tell me it was going to be all right or that Kevin was in a better place or that I’d get over it. He didn’t tell me any lies at all. He took me in, talked to me about Coleridge and Kevin and Shakespeare, made me tea, made me finish college. He saved my life,” she said, staring blindly toward the library, “and then when he got sick… My mother thinks I’m in denial, that I believe I can save him, or that I’m punishing myself somehow… He doesn’t say those things on purpose, you know. He… I think he has a fragmented memory of Kevin and something bad happening and a wedding, and he keeps trying to put it together in his mind, even though most of the pieces are missing.”

Like me, Joanna thought, trying to remember what Mr. Briarley said, trying to piece together the connection.

“I know I can’t save him,” Kit said. “I know he’ll have to go into a nursing facility eventually, but—”

“You have to try,” Joanna said, and Kit smiled suddenly at her.

“I have to try. He saved my life. I want to stay with him as long as I can.” And keep the lights on, Joanna thought, so the passengers don’t panic.

“And I want to help you,” Kit said. “I still haven’t been able to find anything about a post office, but—”

“No,” Joanna said. “Absolutely not. I’ve already made you watch Runaway Bride. I’m not going to force you to do research on a disaster.”

“I want to,” Kit said. “I love the idea of actually being able to help someone for a change. And it’s an appropriate disaster.”

“Appropriate?”

She nodded. “There were eight honeymoon couples on the Titanic. Most of them didn’t get a chance to say good-bye either.” She smiled sadly. “They didn’t realize they were never going to see each other again. Some of the men even made jokes as the boats were lowered. They laughed and said, ‘Put the brides and grooms in first,’ and, ‘We won’t let you back on the ship without a pass.’ ”

“And did they? Let the brides and grooms get in the boats first?”

“Two of them,” Kit said. She stood up abruptly, got several typed sheets out of a drawer, and handed them to Joanna. “Here’s everything I could find on the engines stopping and what various passengers and crew heard when the iceberg hit.”

Joanna paged through it. “It sounded like a wave striking the ship.”

“…a little jar…”

“It was as if the ship had rolled over a thousand marbles.” That sounded familiar. Had Mr. Briarley mentioned it?

“I thought, We’re landing. How funny!”

“Now, about this post office,” Kit said, all business. “I haven’t been able to find anything except the mail room down on G Deck. Are you sure there was a post office? Any letters the passengers wrote wouldn’t have been delivered till the ship reached New York, anyway, so wouldn’t they just have waited till they docked to mail them? Did you see a post office?”

“No,” Joanna said and started to add, “Mr. Briarley said he was going there,” but stopped herself. She’d inflicted enough pain on Kit without telling her she’d seen her uncle just like he used to be.

“Well, I’ll keep looking. Anything else?” Kit asked, and her expression made it a plea.

“Yes,” Joanna said, and Kit flashed her that sudden smile again. So much like Maisie. “I need…” What? “I need to know if there was anyone on board named Edith.”

“Edith Evans,” Kit said. “I remember Uncle Pat talking about her. She gave up her place in the boat to the mother of two children.”