Read Online A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) by Terence M. Green - Free Book Online
Authors: Terence M. Green
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distance. But it is not the same. In '04, the city, in '10, the Island. The Figure-8, the Scenic Railway, the old Mill, enveloped in flame. The House of Fun, the Penny Arcade, all there when Maggie and I watched diving horses, all gone, replaced by something new, something I can only see while standing here at a distance, something I do not know.
The Trillium, white, cuts the blue water.
Flowers. Dreams.
Flames in the city. Flames on a birthday cake. Blue water. A blue candle, burning slowly.
"Listen to this," Maggie says. She folds over the copy of The Toronto Star newspaper as she reads. "The life expectancy for a woman is fifty-three years. For a man, fifty-two."
I have heard numbers like these before, but have forgotten them.
"It used to be fifty-one for a woman, forty-eight for a man," she says.
"We're gaining."
"We're not." The newspaper is folded again. "And it says here that the number of children that a healthy woman living in wedlock should have is ten."
"Who says?"
"The Vice Commission of Chicago."
"What is that?"
"I don't know. Some fool commission of men who have no idea what it is to be a woman." She looks at me. "Don't you think two children is enough?"
I think of my father, of thirteen children. "I don't know," I say.
I see her face, the new lines.
She folds the paper, says nothing, breathes rhythmically.
2
The topic changes at work. Just before midnight on Sunday, April 14, 1912, the world's largest floating vessel, the White Star liner R.M.S. Titanic , strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic and sinks within three hours. Of her 2,206 passengers, 1,503 drown. The list of names of those dead does not sound like anyone I know: a colonel, a novelist, an artist, an editor, a millionaire book collector.
In the days that follow, we discover that of the 703 who are picked up by the Carpathia, several are from Toronto. A fellow named Arthur Peuchon from the Island's Royal Canadian Yacht Club, the RCYC, is soundly criticized by the local press upon his arrival home for not adhering to the time-honored code of women and children first. We talk of little else for weeks.
I think of Maggie, of Margaret, of Jack. I think of drowning so that they may live, of the honorable thing to do.
On a Saturday morning in July, Maggie and I are standing in the summer sun outside the new Woolworth's store at the northwest comer of Queen and Yonge, Jack in her arms, Margaret clinging to my hand, as the city's only motorized fire truck howls by us, bells clanging. Jack's attention is complete, Margaret is enraptured.
I pick small, dark-haired Margaret up in my arms so that she can see better, watch her face as her neck cranes, as the truck disappears, her eyes beautiful, big. Jack is so excited small bubbles sprout on his lips as he tries to sputter his enthusiasm.
I smile, holding her, watching him, seeing Maggie wipe his mouth, his chin. Seeing my family.
August swelters. In our new three-room flat on Lansdowne Avenue we lie awake nights, bathed in sweat, the air still.
Jack cries. Margaret crawls in with us. We wait for morning.
The Toronto Star responds to the summer's heat and humidity by announcing a "swat the fly" contest, with cash prizes for the most dead flies produced. On August 19, two days before Margaret's third birthday, more than three million flies are turned in to the newspaper. A neighbor, Beatrice White, wins fifty dollars for producing 543,360 flies, weighing more than two hundred pounds.
On Saturday evening, the street throws a party for Beatrice, who shows everyone the dozen wire-mesh traps in her yard that she used to catch the flies. Molasses, she explains. That's the key. Beatrice is a celebrity. We delight in having her among us, previously unaware of her ingenuity. Maggie and I drink beer, wander from porch to porch, exchanging pleasantries, complaining about the heat wave, Margaret and Jack in tow. When they finally fall asleep on Mrs. White's unpainted wicker
The Trillium, white, cuts the blue water.
Flowers. Dreams.
Flames in the city. Flames on a birthday cake. Blue water. A blue candle, burning slowly.
"Listen to this," Maggie says. She folds over the copy of The Toronto Star newspaper as she reads. "The life expectancy for a woman is fifty-three years. For a man, fifty-two."
I have heard numbers like these before, but have forgotten them.
"It used to be fifty-one for a woman, forty-eight for a man," she says.
"We're gaining."
"We're not." The newspaper is folded again. "And it says here that the number of children that a healthy woman living in wedlock should have is ten."
"Who says?"
"The Vice Commission of Chicago."
"What is that?"
"I don't know. Some fool commission of men who have no idea what it is to be a woman." She looks at me. "Don't you think two children is enough?"
I think of my father, of thirteen children. "I don't know," I say.
I see her face, the new lines.
She folds the paper, says nothing, breathes rhythmically.
2
The topic changes at work. Just before midnight on Sunday, April 14, 1912, the world's largest floating vessel, the White Star liner R.M.S. Titanic , strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic and sinks within three hours. Of her 2,206 passengers, 1,503 drown. The list of names of those dead does not sound like anyone I know: a colonel, a novelist, an artist, an editor, a millionaire book collector.
In the days that follow, we discover that of the 703 who are picked up by the Carpathia, several are from Toronto. A fellow named Arthur Peuchon from the Island's Royal Canadian Yacht Club, the RCYC, is soundly criticized by the local press upon his arrival home for not adhering to the time-honored code of women and children first. We talk of little else for weeks.
I think of Maggie, of Margaret, of Jack. I think of drowning so that they may live, of the honorable thing to do.
On a Saturday morning in July, Maggie and I are standing in the summer sun outside the new Woolworth's store at the northwest comer of Queen and Yonge, Jack in her arms, Margaret clinging to my hand, as the city's only motorized fire truck howls by us, bells clanging. Jack's attention is complete, Margaret is enraptured.
I pick small, dark-haired Margaret up in my arms so that she can see better, watch her face as her neck cranes, as the truck disappears, her eyes beautiful, big. Jack is so excited small bubbles sprout on his lips as he tries to sputter his enthusiasm.
I smile, holding her, watching him, seeing Maggie wipe his mouth, his chin. Seeing my family.
August swelters. In our new three-room flat on Lansdowne Avenue we lie awake nights, bathed in sweat, the air still.
Jack cries. Margaret crawls in with us. We wait for morning.
The Toronto Star responds to the summer's heat and humidity by announcing a "swat the fly" contest, with cash prizes for the most dead flies produced. On August 19, two days before Margaret's third birthday, more than three million flies are turned in to the newspaper. A neighbor, Beatrice White, wins fifty dollars for producing 543,360 flies, weighing more than two hundred pounds.
On Saturday evening, the street throws a party for Beatrice, who shows everyone the dozen wire-mesh traps in her yard that she used to catch the flies. Molasses, she explains. That's the key. Beatrice is a celebrity. We delight in having her among us, previously unaware of her ingenuity. Maggie and I drink beer, wander from porch to porch, exchanging pleasantries, complaining about the heat wave, Margaret and Jack in tow. When they finally fall asleep on Mrs. White's unpainted wicker
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