Decades Challenge TS4: The 1900s Chapter 4

Sorrow and Loss

Spring had arrived to the island, but even if the sun shone brightly, the McPherson household could not feel its warmth.

The worst part was the silence. The eerie silence that could be heard everywhere in the house.

Then, the empty spaces. The formerly crowded bathrooms, which were now too many.

  The empty beds that were not used any more.

 

The unthinkable had happened last Winter.

After his father's death, Vernon McPherson had traveled into town to talk to Vance's banker. It was a terrible time in the city because there was disease. Vernon got sick, and he brought the sickness home with him.

It all happened too fast. Verity did not have a moment's rest since she saw her eldest burning with fever. She tried her hardest to make him better, but the fever took hold, and Vernon weakened quickly. His mother called for the doctor, but he did not know what the boy had caught in town. Without the doctor having a clear thought of what was going on, four other children took ill. 

Within the following two weeks, Verity lost Vernon, Vaughn, twins Victor and Vincent, and precious little Velvet. 

Verity could not believe that such a thing could occur; that her beautiful children could be taken away as easily as that. But it was true. They were gone.

The woman had been distraught when her husband passed, but it was nothing compared to how she felt when she lost the children too.

And yet, she still had children to care for, to love.

Verity knew that the only reason why she was spared was to keep her surviving children alive. No one was unscathed by the terrible loss, though. The youngest of the children, twins Vivian and Van, were very sensitive to the sadness that ran through the house.

Valerie had been a rock to Verity. The girl had grown before her years. She had never expected to become the eldest sibling, but she was, and she helped her mother as best she could. She was barely thirteen.

Warm as Spring was, it never could make the family feel whole again. It was like the emptiness of the rooms constricted everyone's lungs with a burden beyond relief.