Harry looked at her closely for a moment. Her bright eyes reflected little sparkles in the captured moonlight. He thought for a brief second about another baby. Thought about Fern’s birthing screams, thought about all the blood in the bed. Visions of that first look at his newborn daughter, the constant wishing that she would die. “Don’t be silly,” he said, and rolled over. It was at that exact moment that Fern realized she needed to resume her healing work in Morgan.
Martha was a joy to her, despite her appearance. It broke her heart to see the child examining herself in front of the mirror all the time, but when Harry was working, they played games, told stories, read, made cookies, and learned the ABCs.
When Martha was five, Fern was able to leave her home alone and go into town. She reestablished communication with the townsfolk, from whom she had, by necessity, retreated these past years. Martha understood everything, her soft little brown curls bouncing up and down as she nodded her head in response to Fern’s careful instructions.
Fern felt free as she walked into town for the first time by herself. She stopped and talked with everyone she met, joyous at her freedom. Soon she was going out almost every day.
From her window, Martha would watch her mother go then sit down and read, or play with her dolls, and pretend. But it was boring, and soon she was watching for her mother’s return, fantasizing about the things her mother was doing and seeing in town. Then she would see the familiar figure walking slowly down the dusty drive, and her heart would beat faster and she would count her mother’s footsteps until she came around the house.
On the hottest day of the year, a black car drove up. Visitors at the Mannes home were rare lately, and the three men who jumped out strode to the door with purpose. Martha hid in her room and listened at the door. They were all excited, talking very fast. There had been a terrible accident—two cars had collided head on just outside town. Both cars were full of drunken teenagers. Please, oh, please, could Fern come help?
Fern grabbed her shawl, spoke quickly and quietly to Martha. “Stay in your room, dear. Mommy’s going to go help some people who have been in an accident. I won’t be gone long. Please, Martha, don’t do anything to irritate your daddy, okay?” Martha nodded.
The four went out the door, and Fern looked toward the field where Harry was working. He didn’t see them, and judging by the looks on the faces of the men, there wasn’t time to go talk to him. They all got in the car and were off.
Eight kids, two dead by the time she got to the accident scene. She pushed up her sleeves and went to work as quickly as she could. It was agonizing. Delicate and intense. She worked nonstop, with only one brief pause for a cup of coffee. She stopped the bleeding where she could, but the damage to some of the young people was overwhelming.
They had evidently gotten boozed up and were playing chicken on the old road. The crash had broken them like china dolls. She worked on, trying to concentrate amid the din. She stopped the furious flow of blood from first one, then another, then went back to the first and tried to help with the more serious injuries. No sooner had she gotten started than another victim would take a turn for the worse, and she would have to tend to that emergency. She instructed the medics where to place splints and what dangers to watch for, advised them of internal injuries. Without Fern, all eight might have died.
When the sirens faded into the night, carrying their haphazardly patched cargo to the hospital, Fern thought she would faint from the exhaustion. Someone took her to Doc Pearson’s house where she had a cup of tea with Doc’s wife, and rested up a bit before going home. Then Dave McRae gave her a ride in his dad’s new car.
As they pulled up to the front, she sensed that something was wrong. The house was dark and quiet; the front door was open, and so was the barn door. Oh God, she thought. I can’t handle something here, too. Exhausted, she told Dave to go on home, and she went inside and turned on a light.
There was no sign of Harry, no note. Surely if there had been an accident, he would have left some kind of message. She called for Martha, but there was no answer. She looked in both bedrooms, under the beds, in the closets. She ran to the barn with a lamp. The animals were agitated, but okay. She soothed them with a brush of her hand as she passed, calling Martha’s name, then Harry’s. Nothing. She searched the barn for a sign of an accident, a missing animal or tool. Nothing. The barn was clean, as always. She sat on a bale of hay and sighed, worry weakening her to the point of vertigo. She tried to think calmly. Where would they go together, without the truck, without a horse? Why would they leave both doors open? Panic tasted sour in her mouth as her heart started to beat wildly. Something awful had happened between the two of them.
She stood up to go back to the house, and as she swung the lantern around, something smooth shone in the haystack. She approached gently, fearfully, afraid of what she might find, afraid of what she wouldn’t find. It was Martha’s foot. She dug frantically and found her little girl, staring blankly ahead, naked, eyes wide open but seeing nothing. Dried foam crusted the corners of her mouth; hay stuck to her tongue, hair, and clothes. She was empty.
Fern carried her to the house, quickly, adrenaline chasing the exhaustion away momentarily, and settled her on Harry’s side of the bed, dusting off the hay. Then she crawled in with her and tried to cuddle her wooden daughter, who kept staring, wide-eyed, at nothing.
CHAPTER 13
Leon looked at Martha across the table. She needed glasses. She was squinting at a book he had brought her from the library. Her lips moved slowly as her finger followed the line across the page. What is happening here? He sipped his beer and watched her.
“Leon?”
“Hmmm?”
“What’s this word?” She pushed the book around to him.
“Ramification. It means results, kind of, like one action has lots of different results in different areas. It has lots of ramifications.”
“Oh.” She took the book back and continued to read.
He’d been teaching her for two weeks now. In two weeks she was almost out of grammar-school and into high-school reading levels. She knew most of her multiplication tables, too, enough to get by on, anyway. Sometimes the full impact of what was going on in this house drove him to a chair; he had to sit down to think about it. There wasn’t anything to think about, really—one day Martha’s retarded, the next day she’s not. Could their sleeping together have made a difference? Must have been. This line of thinking made Leon nervous; he felt responsible. To be responsible for such a miracle is a wonderful thing, but if he leaves, will she revert to her old ways? He shuddered, feeling trapped, hemmed in, suffocated. He wanted to run, to desert her, to go drive real fast and get drunk with his friends and screw some skinny little whore he’d pick up at Mike’s.
And then he’d look at her, or talk to her, or she’d touch him, and his resolve softened and disappeared. He felt committed in a certain way, although she certainly made no demands on him. He’d look at her soft face with those loving eyes and he knew he would be here until she found her way.
Dr. Withins would help. He had stopped by while Martha was reading aloud, a simple book about three kittens. Leon had made sure Martha didn’t go into town . . . not yet. He wasn’t sure about all this. She saw words on the television and on the boxes and packages from the store and asked him to teach her to read, so he did. Beginning with Dick and Jane. She was very smart, picked it up right away, and when Dr. Withins came in, she was reading. Leon would never forget the look on his face. Thought he’d drop his black bag. But he was cool; he just examined her from head to toe and talked with both of them, a routine examination. Then he took Leon outside to have a quiet word.