Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

forced my great-grandparents to leave Ireland for Canada in 1847 with my grandmother and her five siblings. Such an awful story. Lots of them died during the sea voyage to Toronto, then more died of typhus after they arrived. We think we have it bad! My grandmother lost two of her sisters.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m talking too much.”

“No, I think it’s fascinating,” Max said, thinking about his own great-grandparents. They had immigrated to Canada to escape a different set of problems in Poland. “Really.”

“Seanmháthair always had great stories,” Jimmy said. “I wonder how our family would fare if we took that journey now. If the sea and the typhus didn’t get us, I bet we’d have killed each other anyway.”

“We wouldn’t. Just you and Dad,” Molly said, elbowing her brother.

Hannah looked at Max. “I told Molly she should write for a magazine or a newspaper.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. How many women do you know who are doing that?”

“Actually,” Max said, “I was just reading about a woman journalist named Rhea Clyman. She’s even Canadian. I’ll bring you something of hers,” he offered. “She’s really impressive.”

“You’d be good at writing for a paper,” Hannah said. “You’d tell all sides of the story.”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Molly replied. “Maybe someday I’ll go back to school and take writing classes.”

But from the soft sigh in her voice, Max could tell she didn’t quite believe it.

A memory drifted into his mind of her standing in his family’s kitchen years ago. Too small to reach the counter on her own, she’d dragged in a stool and climbed onto it, her short, twin braids falling forward as she watched his mother cook. Her eyes had darted between the pot and his mother as she asked endless questions clarifying what she was cooking, what was in it, why she was making it. That’s just how Molly was. All her life, she’d looked for answers.

She might not believe she could do it, but Max did. “The world needs honesty now more than ever,” he told her. “Don’t count yourself out, Moll. You might be exactly what we need.”

three MOLLY

I ducked under the low rafter just past the door of Palermo’s back room, hugging the crate of lettuce to my chest, then I set it on the counter so I could sort through it. The first head I grabbed was still solid and healthy, so I placed it in the “keep” crate, which would go out front when I was done. The second one I touched was slick and soft. I tossed it into the garbage and reached for the next.

I had worked at Palermo’s for so long, I could almost pinpoint which item was rotten from ten feet away, just by the smell. Lettuce wasn’t the worst-smelling vegetable, but anything spoiled was unpleasant to handle. I was used to the slippery leaves though, and I barely thought about them as I picked through, just like I barely noticed the uneven, wobbly floorboards by the tomato crates. The quirks of Palermo’s were just a part of who I had become.

I peeled off the outer leaves of the next head of lettuce, wondering if I could salvage any of it. By the time I was finished, it was about the size of a child’s fist, which wasn’t enough for anyone. Still, I set it aside.

Tomorrow was Tuesday, delivery day, when fresh stock came in, so today I sifted through the week-old fruits and vegetables. As repulsive as some of the produce could be, this was how I helped people the most. Mr. Palermo always kept a few crates of overripe apples, yellowing broccoli, soft potatoes, and things like that, stacked in the back. The food wasn’t rotten, only slightly past the time when most people would have eaten it. But these days, not too many people could still claim to be “most people.” The majority were one meal away from the soup kitchen—if they weren’t already there.

Palermo’s had gone through a lot since my first day four years ago. The store was quieter now, and desperately in need of paint. Warped wooden cartons piled high with fruit and vegetables no longer overflowed onto the sidewalk. Food was too dear to put on display, and too much of a temptation to many. Besides, stock was so low it all fit inside now.

I was grateful for my job. A lot of girls worked at the Eaton’s garment factory, and I’d heard rumblings of the strife they put up with—long hours, low pay. It was thankless work. Sure, I had long days, but my job wasn’t hard, and that meant my mind was free to wander.

Today my thoughts were on Sunday’s sermon. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” the minister had read, “and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

I’d heard it a thousand times, but yesterday the words had given me pause. There I sat with my family, in a beautiful church, surrounded by well-meaning, dutiful Protestants, when I spotted Phil Burke a couple pews ahead of me wearing a pressed brown shirt with a swastika pin on his chest. Last week, Hannah and I had seen him and his Swastika Club, wandering in and out of local shops and bullying Jewish customers.

I seemed to witness more prejudice by the day. Protestants against Catholics. Orangemen against immigrants. Employers against employees. Government against the people. Some of the people around me in church who were nodding in agreement with the idea that we should all “love thy neighbour” were the same ones banning Jews from their stores. The hypocrisy sickened me.

I threw a bunch of soft carrots into a crate with more force than necessary at the memory of Max’s expression when he’d seen that sign at the pawn shop.

“Molly?” Mr. Palermo’s lean,