A poached egg, cooked for exactly two minutes. Any more and the yolk gets hard; any less, the whites get runny. A little salt on the egg, a dash of pepper. A piece of dry toast to put it on. Before the war, he liked it buttered. A cup of coffee, black.
This was Ian Collins’s breakfast routine.
The only variety was the occasional glass of fresh tomato juice presented by Mrs. Fortini, a widow who lived next door, from tomatoes picked from her Victory Garden out back. Hadn’t seen much of that since winter began, but what she used to bring over was generally quite good. Then again, she was Italian; her people were good with tomatoes.
The sun wasn’t up yet. Out toward the street he heard the usual commotion that occurred every weekday about this time. A steady stream of strangers making their way down the road toward the bus stop. In fifteen minutes a bus would haul them off to the Carlyle tank-manufacturing plant at the edge of town. Young women and elderly men, for the most part. Collins could have joined them if he had a mind to, but he didn’t need the money and sure didn’t prefer the company.
Before the war he had owned a small machine shop and dabbled in a little engineering on the side. Got a couple of patents for this widget and that, mostly tank parts he sold to Carlyle. When Ida had taken ill, he decided to sell the shop off, since Shawn was too foolish to see its potential.
At the time, Carlyle Manufacturing had just gotten a handful of contracts from England to build assemblies for a new breed of tanks for the Brits. Carlyle needed all the machining equipment they could find, but they had a cashflow problem. Collins settled the deal by accepting a cash down payment for the shop and a small percentage of their business for the balance. Best decision he’d ever made. With the escalation of hostilities, Carlyle’s business had grown tenfold since then and was still climbing. Collins had made so much cash, he finally had to break down and deposit most of it in the bank.
Except for his lawyer and banker, no one knew anything had changed. Not even Shawn. The only luxury the elder Collins indulged was upgrading to Cuban cigars.
He sat at the kitchen table and ate his first bite of his egg-on-toast when he heard a loud noise out by the street. Sounded like someone colliding with a trash can. Somebody else laughed followed by someone else telling them to be quiet. They had better not wake up the boy, Collins thought. This was the only peace and quiet he expected to get this day. He grabbed his cup of coffee and made his way through the living room.
He set his coffee on the sill, put on his coat and fur-lined cap, still wearing his pajamas. He would just stand on the porch a few moments, glaring at the workers as they passed by. That would usually quiet them down.
This, too, had become part of his morning routine.
Patrick awoke confused. An unsettling dream had placed him back in time with his mom, standing outside Sanders Grocery at the end of their block on Clark Street. She had just gone in to pick up a string of breakfast sausages. He stood outside, watching as the street and sidewalk filled with shoppers going about their day, trying to sidestep puddles left from a morning rain. A poster hung in the front window of Sanders’s store, urging everyone to buy more war bonds. Some older boys had just passed by escorting a pony straining under the weight of a teetering cart full of scrap paper and metal.
As Patrick waited outside, it dawned on him that she was taking too long. Something was wrong. His mom had said to wait right there, but he couldn’t wait anymore.
He walked into the store, expecting to find Mr. Sanders behind the counter helping a row of customers, but the store was empty. Patrick walked past each of the four narrow rows of canned goods. They were empty too.
“Mom?” he cried out. “Mr. Sanders? You in here?” He stood still, listening. No one answered. He walked behind the counter, forbidden territory, hoping to find someone stocking the lower shelves, but the counter aisle was empty too. “Mom?” he yelled, panic rising in his voice. His face felt hot. He walked through a doorway leading to the back room and peeked inside.
No one there.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He ran through the store again, hoping somehow he’d missed her on the first pass. But there wasn’t a soul inside. “Mom?” he cried again as he ran out the front door. “Where are you?”
He froze. Now the entire street was empty. No people or cars, horses or trolleys. “Mom!” he screamed. “Where are you?” He put his hands to the sides of his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs: “Where is everybody!”
Then he woke up.
The sick, scary feeling still hung in the darkened room for several moments as his eyes adjusted to the morning light. Then he remembered where he was.
Reality brought no comfort.
He sat up slowly, trying to focus on his mom and dad’s picture. This morning, they seemed stuck inside the frame, unable to speak. He grabbed his pillow and gave it a tight squeeze. Sometimes when he did, he could imagine it was his mom; sometimes she even hugged back. This morning it was just a pillow.
He really was all alone.