All the Truth That's in Me (10 page)

XXXVIII.

Bliss and agony together. I steal my bliss from your agony. Every forest sound makes me nervous.
The passage of time reminds me of Mother.
Every moment I tell myself I don’t dare stay any longer.

Just this minute more, and then this, and then I must, must go. I’ll count to ten, and then I’ll leave. But when ten comes, the leaving is unbearable, the cold that flows into the gap when I move even an inch away from you is more than flesh can take.

And anyway, I must keep you warm.

More sounds. Small nocturnal hunters making noisy midnight steps. Even you stir. I panic. Now I truly must flee.
You fling your arm over me. It lies heavy on my side, dense with strength yet soft with sleep. Your arm is enough to arrest me. I reach slowly forward and curl my hand in yours.

XXXIX.

Is it minutes later? Or hours? I can’t say. You pull your arm back and roll over onto your other side, turning your back toward me. In your sleep you make little grunting noises as you search for a comfortable spot. Sweet sounds, like a baby’s.

Here is my chance to escape. Mother will be livid by now. And Darrel needing us both tomorrow . . .
I leave for him. Not for you, nor Mother, and certainly not for me.
I can’t walk home. I have to run, for if I slow down I’ll turn around and run back to my place beside you. I slow down when I see our house and frantically brush off the specks of dirt and contamination that could make Mother wonder. But all my worry is for nothing, for this time she has gone to bed without me. No doubt her fear for Darrel overshadows everything else tonight.

XL.

In bed I lie awake and listen to Darrel whimper. I marvel at my daring, and I curse myself for not considering how much more bitter I have made my future, now that I’ve sampled a syrup I will never taste again.

But even through my drunkenness and my worry for Darrel come unwelcome images of Abijah Pratt halting me in the street.

Darrel’s cries sound like a child’s. Mother doesn’t wake, so I go to his side.
We’re saturated in this, Mother and I. Darrel is not a patient who inspires pity. Only aggravation. I can’t blame her for not rising.
Tonight Darrel’s tears are not for pain. He knows what tomorrow brings.
I blot his eyes with a cloth.
“I’m frightened, Judy,” he says to me.
I wipe his face and hands.
“It’ll hurt ferocious.”
There is no denying it.
“I’m not brave.”
No one accused you of bravery, Goose.
Darrel’s face contorts. “It wasn’t even them that got me,” he says. “It was me. I made a mistake with the gun.”
He thinks this is a revelation; I pretend to receive the knowledge. I push his tangled hair back out of his eyes.
“Oh, Judy,” he cries, reaching for me. I gather him into my arms and press him to me.
He’s skinny, wasted away with days in bed. He stinks foully.
My heart is swollen with love for my baby brother, and with that love comes fear. Don’t die tomorrow; don’t leave me here alone with Mother. What kind of world would it be without your rascal face?
He relaxes his grip and we slide apart and look away.
“I smell bad,” he says. I nod, hard as I can. He grins. It feels good to laugh together, even if softly.
Our mirth passes quickly and I have an idea. I pull the tin washtub toward the fire as stealthily as I can. The kettle is hot in the coals, and the soup pot holds water for tomorrow’s wash. I pour them both into the washtub and refill them from the bucket. I add some wood to the fire, then tiptoe out to refill the bucket.
When I return, Darrel sits up and removes his shirt. He’s excited. A bath, in secret, without Mother’s approval!
Despite our efforts, of course the noise makes her stir. She rises up in her white nightshirt and cap, frowns at us both, and goes back to sleep.
Now we are less careful. I help him take his drawers off. It’s dark, and I look away for his privacy.
I help him into the tub. There are still only a few inches of water, but soon I have more to pour over his head. I hand him the dish of sticky soap and a cloth. He attacks his face, shoulders, arms, and body, and I give his back a scrub. While he soaks I change his bedding and drop the soiled linens in a heap. Even his puffy black foot we soak a bit. Why not? It doesn’t hurt him anymore.
“Let’s send it clean to hell,” he says, and I agree.
While he dries and dresses, I scrub his dirty bedding in the warm water and go outside to hang it on the line, shivering in the November cold. I look through the darkness toward where you were. Are you still asleep?
I go back in. Already the house feels lighter, and we can breathe more clearly. I help Darrel back into bed, smelling of wet hair and soap, his skin squeaky and red.
“Thank you, Worm,” he says, and gives my hand a squeeze.

XLI.

I wake before sunrise and lie in bed wondering how much of the night before was only the substance of dreams. Then I remember what day it is, and I rise and dress quickly, my stomach a stone.

Darrel lies so still in bed, I fear we may be too late. I run all the way to town and reach the blacksmith shop before the fires are lit. I find Horace talking with some other men, Melvin Brands and Alderman Brown. I step back and wait in the doorway.

Alderman Brown, with his long gray beard, is venerable enough to risk talking to me.
“Fares your brother well, Miss Finch?” he says, coming out onto the porch with the others trailing after.
I shake my head. No.
“Is that why you have come?”
Yes.
“Horace,” he says, not turning his face away from me, “Miss Finch has come to seek your help with her brother’s foot.”
“I’ll go,” says Melvin Brands, the doctor.
I make a gesture toward my empty pocket and shake my head sadly.
He waves my protest away.
“I’ll go,” he says, “and Horace will come with me.”

XLII.

We march in silence out of town, pausing only for the doctor to fetch his bag. Horace’s mighty cleaver is slung over his shoulder and he whistles as he walks. I believe he thinks it will cheer me.

I don’t need cheering. I just want this to be over. We pass by your house and see you coming out of the woods, your blankets over one arm. You have bits of leaves and twigs stuck in your hair and clothes, and your ax lying over your shoulder. Seeing us three, you halt, embarrassed.
The stone in my stomach becomes a jackrabbit. Thank heaven, the men’s eyes are on you, not me, for I fear I’m turning scarlet.
“Morning, Lucas,” Horace calls. “Gone camping?”
Bless Horace Bron. There’s too much earth and iron in him to be swayed by idle gossip. But Dr. Brands, I see, doesn’t greet you.
I look back to see how you take his coldness, but you haven’t seemed to notice. Your eyes insist that I look back at you. You indicate your blankets with a small gesture, and wordlessly demand to know: Did you do this?
My face can be as mute as my voice. But it is hard to hide anything from you. I look away and hurry on.
I feel your eyes burning the back of my head until the path bends out of sight.

XLIII.

Mother has Darrel whiskeyed up and the fire roaring. Every pot we own sits full of simmering water in its coals.

“Excellent,” Dr. Brands says, surveying the chopping block and bucket she’s hauled indoors and placed at the foot of Darrel’s bed.

A ruthless competence, my mother has.

There’s a knock, and then you appear. For once, Jip isn’t with you.
Must I forevermore turn hot and red the moment that I see you? Sin brings its own punishments, it seems. No matter. It was worth it.
You’re combed and dressed and wide awake.
“Looked like you might need help,” you say to Horace and Dr. Brands.
“Good of you,” the blacksmith says. Still the doctor doesn’t answer. Your eyes are like a child’s, one eager to prove he can be helpful to win a parent’s favor.
You look about the room, and when your eyes rest on me, they stare for a moment, bewildered. I’m seized by an unbearable urge to laugh. How disloyal to my brother, to laugh this morning!
Dr. Brands looks away from you and opens his bag. It is all the notice he’ll grant you, and apparently all you require.
Darrel, praise Mother, is far gone from this world. The doctor fusses with his bag of tools, with much examining and sharpening of cruel, curved blades. Horace thrusts his cleaver into the flames and turns it slowly like it’s a roasting pheasant. You take off your leather belt and offer it to Melvin, who cinches it tightly, impossibly tightly, around Darrel’s thigh at the groin, then forces a block of wood over Darrel’s tongue and makes him champ his teeth down upon it.
At last, when all is ready, Dr. Brands looks at Mother and me.
“You women had best wait outside, preferably far from the house where you can’t hear.”
“I can bear it,” Mother says, holding herself erect. She is regal and still has a young woman’s figure. “I need to be here for my son.”
She’s magnificent. Melvin Brands looks away. I gather it’s the thought of Mrs. Brands that turns the doctor’s head.
“I’m here as a volunteer, Mrs. Finch,” he tells the wall. “I will not charge you for my time. Therefore I insist you honor my conditions. The last thing any of us needs is for you to faint or become hysterical.”
Mother draws in her breath, but our poverty weighs heavier than her pride. She turns and marches outside, and I am quick to follow.

X LIV.

It’s a gray day, the clouds thick and low. Wind chases the last dead leaves around the pasture.

Mother heads first for the garden. There are only withered stalks now, and the root vegetables for spring. She strips seeds off of cabbage and carrot plants that have grown tall and woody. The seeds she puts in her pocket, then she starts pulling up dead plants and throwing them down, hoeing them into the soil with leaves. I join her.

A cry from Darrel stops us both. Mother grips the hoe handle with white knuckles.
We both retreat to the edge of our land, where forest and field share a troubled border. Without a word, we gather sticks for tinder, filling our aprons.
Darrel’s cry is a constant whine, but far enough away that only a sliver of the sound reaches us over the wind. We can almost pretend he’s a babe again, whimpering for a slice of bread. So easy to ignore.
I concentrate on sticks, on gray-brown grasses, stiff and brittle, quick to snap. Little knobbly pine twigs, their fingers barely more than needles, the best for starting fires.
Our aprons filled, we look at each other, Mother and I. We wait to see who will go to the woodpile first. Neither one of us wants to venture near the house just yet. If she’s to be banished, her exile she’ll keep.
Then we hear the thunk of a blade buried deep into wood, and a garbled scream, worse than any he’s uttered this side of the womb.
Mother’s kindling tumbles down and she runs for the house, trailing apron strings.
The screaming doesn’t stop.
I follow after, but I keep my load of wood.
You meet my mother at the door and try to prevent her coming in. Your face is pink with heat, and there are bloodstains on your shirt.
She pushes at you, but you’re a wall. She pummels you, but you don’t flinch.
Anger rises in my belly.
Anger at you.
Darrel’s screams collapse into piteous sobs.
This feeling doesn’t know where to go. Who are you to bar her entry into her own house to comfort her own son? I reach the house and fling down my heap of twigs.
“It’s horrible, Mrs. Finch.”
There’s no need to raise your voice to her.
“Brands is working to close the wound. There’s nothing for it but for Darrel to endure it. It just has to be done.”
Mother’s weeping now, so loudly it frightens me. I’ve never heard this. I can’t even understand her words. Your face is red with pity.
“I should be inside helping to restrain him,” you say. “You must wait outside until we’re done. Then he’ll need you.”
I reach my mother’s side and put a protective arm around her. She twists and buries her face in my neck. I feel the wetness of her tears slide down my breast. I am made timid by my own mother’s embrace. I don’t want to move, lest I draw her attention to what she is doing.
Your eyes meet mine. They’re full of relief. You think I came to help you. You reach out and grip my arm, squeeze your thanks. Before your fingers have withdrawn, you realize what you’ve done again: you’ve touched me. You squeeze once more—your apology—then your eyes widen with embarrassment. You flee indoors, preferring to face a footless patient than a pair of distraught, accusing women.

X LV.

I am sitting by the stream, some hours later, when Mother comes and stands beside me.

“He’s resting,” she says. I rise up and look at her. I would embrace her if I thought I could.
Her face looks swollen and tired. “It was his only hope,” she says. She watches the stream where bits of bracken glide and collide. “The purulence was killing him.”
I remember the thick, foul discharge she would lance from his heel. What I can’t remember is the last time Mother spoke to me this way.
“If it hasn’t already.”
I reach for her hand and hold it tight. So familiar, Mother’s hand, but I haven’t felt it in years. She shows no sign of revulsion.
The paler spot behind the clouds passes its highest point and begins to fall. My stomach groans for its dinner.
A fat raindrop splashes on her cheek, and we both look up. I feel another on my face. Mother holds out both her hands.
The clouds that were brooding all morning erupt, dropping a curtain of rain. The stream drinks it eagerly.
“It will be what it is,” Mother says.
She looks at me, then looks away.

XLVI.

Brands cauterized the stump.

Horace Bron, his face dripping with sweat, accepted our offering of eggs and bread and an apple tart in return for the wielding of his blade. Small payment, even if Mother’s baking is legend. Melvin Brands took bread, and the foot, wrapped in camphored cloth.

He said he would bury it. There was no need for us to know where.
I wonder if he really will. I once heard it whispered, years ago, that he secretly studied the bodies of the dead to see how they were put together.
Now he can examine a foot of the living.
You took nothing, but later on you brought a fresh-killed hen.

XLVII.

I spend the afternoon capturing rain in buckets. There will be no end to washing for some time to come. Mother orders me about, but it’s different now, and I’m happy to do her bidding. We have gotten through the worst, and now there’s work to do, which we tackle gladly.