Free The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

panic,’ do they mean they panicked or we did, about them?”
    “I liked Mrs. W.,” Tilly said abruptly. “She smelled like lavender.”
    Everyone stared. Then a neighbor, Mrs. Chase, knelt down. “That’s nice.”
    Tilly looked at Mrs. Chase, unblinking. She had seen Mrs. Chase make faces many times behind Mrs. W.’s back.
    “I didn’t mind when she picked out her own vegetables,” Tilly said. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we were too busy to help her?”
    Mrs. Chase turned to Robby. “Tilly has such beautiful skin,” she said.
    The men had brought pints from the local, and Robby’s empty was being swapped for a fresh one. “Takes after her mother,” he said.
    Mrs. Chase saw no resemblance whatsoever but continued to smile agreeably. She turned back to Tilly and, suddenly inspired, attempted to match her demeanor. She dropped her smile.
    “How brave you were, Tilly.”
    “We weren’t brave. We—”
    “Tilly,” her mother interrupted from the kitchen. “Come here.”
    Mrs. Chase struggled to her feet while Tilly turned away.
    “I heard Max Keeler was carried right along, his feet off the ground, his arms raised,” one of the men said.
    “Remind Keeler when he’s out of hospital,” said Robby. “Might inspire him to raise his wallet more often!” A burst of laughter filled the room.
    In the kitchen, Ada pressed Tilly into a hug. Tilly tried to resist but couldn’t. She sank to the floor with a sob, her head in her mother’s lap. “I want Emma,” she said.
    Ada didn’t speak but smoothed Tilly’s hair with her palms.
    Someone in the kitchen sloshed soapy water on the floor. Someone else threw a sponge at the back of a man who came in for more glasses. Tilly closed her eyes and pushed her forehead hard into her mother’s leg, hard enough that Ada shifted. “Ouch. Tilly, stop now.”
    Tilly looked up.
    Ada held her daughter’s cheeks and wiped her tears with her thumbs. “What happened?” Tilly asked. Ada shook her head.
    That afternoon Robby joined the mourners at St. John’s. Many of his friends were there: Burnley, who’d lost both his children; Hunt, who’d lost his wife, sister, and brother-in-law. Part of the group was talking about starting a petition for a public inquiry. Everyone was angry about the government’s assumption that they’d accept a mass funeral. Thinking of that, Robby’s knees nearly buckled. He swayed on the front steps, his cheeks streaked with tears the beer had released. The porch was fairly clean, given the constant gathering of people since March 3. Someone had collected some fish and chip wrappers and stacked them in a corner beneath a stone. A dozen small bouquets lay soaked in the rain.
    Some were saying that Max Keeler hadn’t just raised his arms but had been passed over the heads of the crowd in the stairway so that he might help remove people from the bottom of the accident. His strength was legendary on the docks. Others said someone had climbed over the pile, but it wasn’t Keeler; it was an off-duty police officer who’d done nothing to get the people out. The question rose again of a land mine, the sound that night, the missing bulb.
    “Was it missing?”
    “Yeah!”
    “Burned out and never replaced!”
    “What about a center handrail? They’ve got them at Kensington.”
    “Bloody iron ones!”
    Would a center rail have helped? It didn’t matter. It was compelling enough that the West End had them and the East End didn’t.
    “Where were the bloody wardens?”
    “And the police? There was no constable at the entrance!”
    Then someone mentioned the Gowers report, which had come hand in hand with the mass-funeral offer, and that was it. The crowd sparked. People jumped to their feet, swearing.
    “They hushed up the inquiry!”
    “The shelter’s shit!”
    “Why’d they tell us to bring the children home!”
    “Emma!” Robby yelled. “Emma!”
    His posture, slightly pitched forward, elbows out for balance, suggested