“This wasn’t brave, or scared. This was . . . was . . .” she shuddered. “Something else, like taking hold. Inside.”
“They’re gone now. And they won’t be back.”
She leaned up on an elbow and looked at his eyes, shining in the faint light.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She lay back down and traced the lines of his cheek with her finger, trying hard to forget the terrible, terrible feeling.
CHAPTER 20
Harry limped in from the fields about ten o’clock one morning, his left arm hanging useless at his side. Fern took a look at his pale face and knew he was dying. Her healing powers had become so attuned to life that she could discern the least imbalance. Harry had been not well for about a week, and today he would die.
Oh God, she thought, where have our lives gone? She knew it was coming. They were not young anymore; Harry still drove himself too hard, he was never happy. God had not gifted Harry with laughter. Life was a serious business to him, not something to be joyous about.
She looked at his gray, worn face and flashes of their relationship flitted through her mind. The good times. The times when they had made love, when they were courting, the oftentimes humorous things he would say by mistake, his embarrassment at her laughter. She saw him as he used to be—young, virile, handsome, and muscled. Where did all the years go?
Now he was old and gray, skin matching closely the yellowed color of his hair. His face was wrinkled and marked with brown spots. We should have retired years ago, she thought.
She dried her hands on a kitchen towel and put her arm around him, helping him to the bedroom, where she undressed him and put him into bed. She sat on the edge, smoothing the hair away from his pale forehead. He’d had a stroke. His body was worn out. If she were to heal him now, there’d be another one tomorrow.
“There’s nothing I can do, Harry.”
His gaze wandered over the room, avoiding her face.
“We’ve had a good life together, you know.”
The breath caught in his throat. He closed his eyes, resting for a moment. Then he looked up at her, moistness collecting in the tanned wrinkles around his eyes. “How can you say that, Fern?” The words were slurred, his tongue thick.
“Because I’ve spent my life with the two people I love. That’s all.”
“It’s been hard. I’ve been . . .”
“It’s not been easy. But then . . . that’s how it is, sometimes.”
“You’ve been a good wife.” He reached for her hand and pressed it to him.
“Don’t be afraid, Harry.”
She reached down and kissed him slowly, tenderly, on the cheek. He closed his eyes and died.
She pulled the covers up to his chin, smoothing the quilt that had been his parents’, that had been on this bed when he was born. The empty ache inside her burned like a fire, from the pit of her stomach up through her throat. The tears were lumped behind her eyes, but they wouldn’t come. She wandered around the room for a moment, hanging up his work clothes, touching his things, then she went back to the kitchen to finish the breakfast dishes.
Martha, sensing a difference in the atmosphere of the house, came out of her room and sat quietly at the kitchen table, waiting. Fern poured a cup of coffee and sat down next to her, taking her hand. Martha’s hand was not young, and hers looked like a claw on top of it. She sipped.
“Your father died.”
Martha nodded.
“I loved him very much.”
Martha nodded again. Suddenly the flow of tears burst forth and Fern sobbed, her head on her arms, shaking uncontrollably. She cried for all the lost good times of their lives, for the retirement she had hoped to have. She cried for the shattered dreams they had once shared, of selling the farm and moving away, of having a houseful of children, of being a close family, full of joy and laughter and fun. And she cried for Harry, a worn-out man, unhappy with himself, bitter and mean in his way, so afraid, so afraid.
The tears ebbed; she caught her breath, blew her nose on the tissue Martha brought. She looked at their daughter and thought to cry again, but she’d chosen her path in life, with Harry and Martha, and there was no room for self-pity here. Not now. There was too much to do.
She sniffed, regaining control, smiling weakly. “I have to call Mr. Simmons.”
She dialed the black phone and counted the rings. Mr. Simmons answered.
“Fern Mannes, Mr. Simmons. Harry has died.”
She listened.
“That will be fine. Thank you.” She hung up and turned around. Martha was gone.
Fern walked into the bedroom, and found Martha sitting on the edge of the bed, just as she had moments ago. She was touching his face, his eyes, his nose, his lips. Fern just watched, leaning against the doorway. Is this the first time she’s ever touched him? This little girl who now had gray in her hair and wrinkles on her face? The tears pushed again, but she held them back.
“He’s quiet,” Martha said.
“Yes.”
Fern rode into town with Mr. Simmons and his aide, with Harry in the back and a metal box of papers on her lap. The black car paused at the curb outside the bank, and Fern got out, said a few words to Mr. Simmons. Then he drove off and she went inside. An hour and a half later, she came out and walked across the street to Dave McRae’s store, then to the post office, and the dress shop, and each store in turn. The more places she went, the faster she began to walk, the more intense was her mission. As she walked out of the last shop in Morgan, she was exhausted. She stood on the curb, perspiring, breathing heavily with the exertion of the emotional work she’d been doing.
She stood there for a moment, leaning against a street-lamp, looking down the street with its parking meters and cars, with the neon signs and fancy mannequins in the windows, and remembered how it was that one hot and dusty day forty-nine years ago when she walked through this street as Harry’s bride. She could feel the heat, smell the dust as it caked inside her clothes, in her throat. She was small then, thin, and carried two heavy black bags, and she was so in love with her man. What had happened to that love? Nothing, really, love was love.
Fern turned down the street and began the trek home. Her feet ached. A car pulled up next to her and Dave McRae looked out at her. “Give you a lift, Fern?”
“No thanks, Dave. I need to walk a little more.”
“Pretty hot day.”
“I’m all right.”
“Okay. Take it easy.” He drove off, leaving Fern standing there, sweltering in the heat, drowning in her memories.
She began walking again, mentally making a list of all the things she needed to teach Martha. With Harry gone, the reaper wouldn’t be wasting any time coming for her. Martha would be in good hands in Morgan, as long as she was meticulous as she laid all the groundwork.
Just as she turned down the drive, a pain erupted in her chest. It reached out her arm to the fingers, dragging with it a bale of barbed wire. She didn’t know whether to bring her hand to her chest or fling it away; it was just a foreign appendage, and it hurt like bloody hell. It was a terrible thing, the pain, and it brought not so much panic and fear as sorrow and a more urgent prayer that her time not be up yet. She clutched at her breast, then sat down heavily in the middle of the road, rubbing her hand, her arm, tears flowing silently, freely down her face. Not yet, please God, not yet. I have to take care of Martha first.
She lay down gently in the road. The pain subsided slowly. When it was gone, she got up and walked carefully to the house.
CHAPTER 21
Leon finished loading the truck with trash for the dump, then went into the kitchen to wash his hands. “I’m leaving now, Martha. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Her voice came from close behind, startling him. “I’m going with you.”
He looked her up and down. She looked terrific. Her gray hair was brushed up and held with a pin in the back. She had some makeup on, powder, lipstick, and what looked to be a new dress, belted in at the waist. “Are you sure?”