Jerusha

Jerusha sat in the wooden, straight-backed chair with her skinny legs dangling. She fought the urge to swing them back and forth. It was not lady like, and she knew her Da wanted her to be a lady. Her denims were crisp and new, as was her pullover. Her Da had bought them for her, along with a canvas bag and a few supplies and toiletries he thought his daughter would need for the trip to Cicada.

Corrigan did not have much to offer his daughter, but he gave what he could. Her Ma’s family would be able to provide more opportunity than he ever would. They had left Center City, seeking an easier life in a friendlier environment. Corrigan did not want Jershua to see him work himself to death at the mill; he could no longer stand seeing his child barely survivng in poverty. That was why he was sending her to live with them.

Hadaria’s death three years before had been sudden, and they had not been at all prepared for it. Life in the wastelands was often cut short, but Jerusha’s Ma had been younger than anyone else they had ever heard of having the skin sickness. There was not a doctor in Center City. There was one midwife and a barber who pulled teeth on occasion. Neither knew how to treat skin sickness. A month after Hadaria noticed the first skin-spots, she was dead. The diesase had worked quickly, but Corrigan would swear it had taken forever as he watched his wife writhe in pain during the last week and a half of her life.

It pained Jerusha to see the look of anguish on her Da’s face. She took hold of his large, calloused hand and squeezed it.