By the Rivers of Brooklyn by Trudy Morgan-Cole Page A

nervous little laugh as the hymn finished. “Look at us, making a holy show of ourselves,” he said. A wagon rumbled past on the road; the driver lifted his hat and nodded.
    â€œSure, nobody would mind someone singing a hymn on the way home from meeting,” Annie said. “There’s no harm in that.”
    â€œI s’pose not,” Bill said.
    She looked up at him sideways, seeing what she had always seen: his fine fair hair, his blue eyes, his strong jaw, but seeing him as if he were a stranger. She felt suddenly distant from him and at the same time quite close, and that strange double vision made her say, “Mom had a letter from Rose this week.”
    It made her heart fall, to see how quickly the light leapt to his eyes, how quickly their little moment of laughter and music faded compared to a half-dozen words if Rose’s name was among them. “Is there any news, then?”
    Annie shrugged. “Rose never has much in the way of news. She’s still as foolish as the odd sock, writes about going to movies and dancing, just because she knows it will drive Mom to her knees in prayer. She’s left off the last job she was at, the laundry, and she’s working in a shop.”
    â€œAnd she’s…is she…I mean…”
    Annie took pity, although she was sorely tempted to let him flounder like a cod on the wharf. “Ah, no, she never talks about her fellows, so I suppose that means there’s no-one serious. Although Rose is so close with her news, she could turn up on our doorstep married with four children one day, and never a word said.” She glanced at Bill again before going on. “But Ethel now, she writes regular. She says that Rose has been going out with some fellow, some Italian man, for awhile now, but Ethel don’t know how serious it is.”
    They walked along for awhile in silence out Freshwater Road, past the farms and open fields, falling into step together without trying to. “I suppose Rose got to live her own life,” Bill said at last, in a voice like you’d hear at a wake.
    Annie nodded. “All of us at home figured that out a long time ago, Bill. It’s…it’s time you did too. You can’t go on through your whole life waiting and hoping, you know.”
    But am I any different? she asked herself later that night, leaning close to the watery green mirror, one foot square, that hung over her dresser. Her face hung in the greenish gloom like a sickly phantom. She thought again of Bill, of his quiet humour and quick eye. No, she told herself very firmly. No, Annie. Don’t waste your time waiting and hoping for Bill Winsor, who is in love with your sister and always has been. She turned away from the mirror, then turned back for one last savage glance.
    You don’t want Rose’s leavings anyway, do you?

ETHEL   BROOKLYN, JULY 1928
    â€œD ID YOU PACK ANY more of Mom’s cake? We got to give Rose some of that cake!” Jim called from the bedroom, where he was looking for his old bathing suit to loan to Harold. Ever since Jim and Rose had cooked up this scheme to take their brother Harold out to Coney Island to celebrate his arrival in New York, Jim had been giddy, like Ralphie with a new toy, insisting on new bathing suits, new hats, the best of everything.
    Ethel cut another big slice off Mom Evans’ cake, wrapped it in a napkin and stuck it in the basket. Harold had brought the cake with him on the boat, on top of his trunk, and the first night he arrived he and Ethel and Jim had sat down around the table with a cup of tea and sliced into the cake and it was just like being home.
    â€œAm I supposed to go out in public in this, Jim, my son?” Harold’s voice came booming out of the bedroom. He had a big voice for a small fellow. “Sure, I’d be stoned to death if I went down Water Street dressed like that! Things must be some different in Brooklyn!”
    â€œOnly