Stephanie Mittman (35 page)

“You’re crazy! I could kill her. Do you understand that?” Seth shouted at him. “My wife, my life, and I could kill her with one tiny mistake.”

After what seemed like forever, the reverend spoke
in a small voice, as if he were giving away a confidence. “She got lost on the way to the kitchen this morning. Stood there in the hall with tears in her eyes waiting for someone to help her. You gotta be that help.”

“From her pain and from my examination, I’d say unequivocally that the tumor is in an operable location,” Ephraim said. “We’ve got that much going for us.”

“That much isn’t enough when it comes to Abby,” Seth said. No guarantee could be enough. A slight chance was hardly good enough to—

“Everything indicates that it’s prefrontal. The best location. She’s young—that’s in her favor.”

“You’re asking me to kill her, Merganser—you know that’s what you’re really asking.”

“You ever put a horse down, or a dog?”

“What?”

“Hurts you, but it don’t hurt the horse or the dog. They go on to a better place without pain and suffering and sadness.”

“I can’t have this discussion,” Seth said, barely able to breathe. Comparing Abby to some helpless creature turned his stomach, made the bile rise in his throat. “This is my wife we’re talking about.”

“Not yet,” the reverend said, crossing his arms over his chest and licking his lips as if just one glass of scotch was all he needed.

“What’s that supposed to mean? That you’ll oppose the marriage unless I agree to operate on my own wife and risk her life?”

“Her life’s already at risk,” Bartlett said. “It would be more like you were risking her death.”

“I
would
be risking her death,” Seth said. “I can’t do that. I couldn’t live with myself if—”

“Dr. Hendon,” the reverend said, “I never did care for you all that much, but my Abidance thinks the sun rises at your say-so, so I’ll remind you that this isn’t about you, it’s about her. She’d feel safe in your hands. You know that.”

Abby would trust him. She would lie beneath the knife in his hand and tell him to do what he had to do.

“Do you remember when I told you about how there was no place to operate safely in Eden’s Grove?” Seth demanded. “Did I not warn you that we could all be sorry if I had to do a surgery here?” He swept his arm to encompass the room with its debris, its years of germs.

“The church,” the reverend said. “It’s spotless for the Easter service.”

“It’s got lots of windows,” Bartlett said positively, as if all that were left to discuss were the details.

“You’re both crazy. I don’t know how to remove a brain tumor, and if I did, I’d be the last appropriate doctor for Abidance. I’d be too—”

“Involved?” Bartlett asked.

“Choked up?” the reverend said.

“
Could
I do it?” Seth asked Bartlett. “I mean really, man-to-man. Would she have even a chance of surviving?”

“A small chance,” Bartlett said softly.

“And of being herself again? Of having her mind intact?”

“Smaller still.”

“I can’t do it,” he said, the little he’d managed to eat
on the train rising up in his throat. “I couldn’t—” he started, before losing his dinner in the wastebasket beside his desk.

“And the chances of her getting better if he don’t do it?” the reverend asked the doctor when Seth had finished retching.

“None.”

“And of her knowing us, saying good-bye to us and all at the end—if he don’t pull himself together and operate?”

Bartlett shook his head. “None,” he said again.

“But if I operate on her, there’s a good chance that she could die,” Seth said. And then, just as if she were there, he heard her say that he’d gotten it wrong again. That it should be
She could die, but if I operate on her, at least she’s got a chance
.

T
HE GRANGE HALL WAS FILLED WITH CANDLES
. Abby didn’t know how they’d gotten there, nor how the chairs had come to be filled or how the flowers for her to carry had come to be waiting on the bench beside the door. It seemed like a dream, a miracle.

And at the front of the hall, waiting for her was the greatest miracle of all—Seth. Dressed in a dark suit that he had apparently borrowed from someone just a little shorter than he, he came with a smile on his lips, to take her arm and lead her down the aisle.

“Thank you,” he said softly as he placed her hand in the crook of his arm.

“For what?” she whispered as the wedding march rang out from the old organ that had been pulled from the fire, a little the worse for wear, some of the notes missing, though Abby didn’t care.

“For marrying me,” he said simply, as if she should have known. “For loving me,” he added, squeezing the hand that rested on his arm with his other hand.

She’d taken a good deal of the medicine that Dr.
Bartlett had given her to dull the pain that never left her head, and it had left her a little woozy and unsteady on her feet. Maybe it was the drugs that made the music sound so perfect. Maybe it was the candles that made Seth’s face so incredibly handsome. Maybe it was just something a mother said to all her daughters that made her feel like the most beautiful bride.

And maybe it was love.

“Dearly beloved,” her father said when she and Seth were finally standing in front of him. “It is late and nearly the saddest day of the year, since it’s just about Good Friday, and the truth is that Maundy Thursday’s no cause for hallelujah either, but wedging this ceremony in sort of between the two, well, I guess the Lord couldn’t have been too happy back then, but I know he’s happy now.

“That said, I won’t say anything else,” her father said.

“We are gathered here to witness the coming together of the flower of the flock, my sweetest, smartest—”

There was a slight gasp from the first row and Abby tried to keep the smirk off her face.

“Now, come on, Patience, everyone knows that Abidance could mop up the floor with you in any argument you two have had since you was old enough to talk. And since she never did, that just proves my point about her being the sweetest, don’t it?

“So as I was saying, we are gathered here to witness the coming together of my
sweetest, smartest
daughter, Abidance Faith Merganser and the doctor who delivered a good lot of you and treated the rest of us. And
actually cured a whole bunch of us, from time to time.” Her father winked at Seth, and he nodded back, but the smile left his face.

Her father rambled on some more, in the way that only her father could, and that his congregation had come to love, or at least tolerate.

Finally he got to the I-do’s, which it seemed to Abby, who was more than ready, took forever.

“Do you, Seth Henry Hendon, take this woman, Abidance Faith Merganser, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to cherish her, honor her, obey her, and hold yourself only unto her through sickness and health, for richer for poorer, until death do you part?”

Seth said nothing at first, just looked down at her through eyes so heavy with tears that it took all she had not to look away. Her hands in his, he softly said, “Even death won’t part us.”

“Well, I guess I can take that as an
I do
,” her father said.

“And I promise never to leave you,” she said, not caring how the real words went, not believing they could have more meaning for her and Seth than the vows of their hearts.

“Don’t go putting the horse before the cart,” her father said. “You have the ring?”

Ansel took a step up and handed the ring to Seth, who took the fine gold band with intricate markings on it and slipped it back on Abby’s finger. “My mother loved flowers,” he said, as if they were the only two people in the hall, as if whether she liked it mattered.

“It’s perfect,” she said, putting out her hand and smiling through tears as the candlelight gleamed off it.

“With this ring,” he said without prompting, “I thee wed, and endow thee with all I possess, including any skill I might have.”

It was an odd thing to add, but she knew he would explain it to her later, and she would know it had been just the right thing with which to bind her to him.

And he took her into his arms and kissed her, and people were cheering and crying and her father was shouting that he could kiss the bride. And could he ever!

“
You
were supposed to come to
my
wedding,” Anna Lisa said, coming up to hug her along with her sisters and her mother. “And you went and did it first!”

As she was passed around for hugs and kisses, she could see Seth talking with Dr. Bartlett and her father. Several other men and some of the women seemed to join the group, and heads nodded and hands were shaken. After a short time she felt breathless and Emily came to her rescue, saying that she herself needed to sit, and suggesting that Abby keep her company.

“What are they planning?” Abby asked her.

“I heard them talking about the church,” Emily said. “Maybe your father is getting Seth to agree to marry you again in the new church on Easter!”

“I’ll worry about Sunday on Sunday,” Abby said as Seth came to claim her.

“You be careful of my little girl,” Abby’s mother warned Seth, shaking a fist at him. “You take your time and you be gentle, or she won’t be the only one complaining of a headache.”

“Mother!” Abby said, knowing her cheeks were flaming.

“Maybe you shouldn’t—”

“Mother!”

“I’ll take good care of her, Clarice,” Seth said.

“Well, she’s not all that well and I think—”

“He’s a doctor!” Abby said with a humph, a chorus behind her echoing the same words.

“He knows what’s best.”

“He’ll take care of your little girl.”

“Mother, you are embarrassing her to death!”

That last comment caused a momentary silence, which was lightened when Patience asked Abby to take good care of the dress because she wanted to wear it next.

It took forever to get Abby out of the grange hall, and, once they got to the hotel, even longer to unfasten the row of buttons that went down the back of her dress. Seth supposed that it was a good thing he had to take his time so that he could get hold of himself and remember Abby was frail and not up to what he wished he could do.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her after he’d managed the last button and before he slipped the sleeves down her arms.

“Like a bride,” she said, with a little nervous titter that hardly suited his Abby. He supposed, considering, he was lucky she was herself at all.

“Well, let’s get you out of this,” he said with a sigh, trying to tamp down lusty feelings that he didn’t dare act upon.

She let him undress her, her eyes never straying
from his, hopeful, warm, expectant. On the bench at the foot of the bed lay a nightgown that he suspected had been her mother’s, or Pru’s from some other wedding night. When he had her down to her chemise and stockings, he reached for the gown.

“Time to get you into bed,” he said, sounding more like her father than the husband he wished he could be.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked, sensing that he was pulling away from her, that his plans did not include a consummation of their vows.

“Abby, I—” he started, but his voice caught in his throat when she untied the bow to her camisole and it fell open. She shrugged it off her shoulders and it fell to the floor and she was nearly naked and looking at him with a plea in her eyes that would be hard to ignore.

“I’m dying. You know it and I know it, and I’m sorry about it. But I won’t have another wedding night, and I won’t ever be better than I am now, and I—”

“Are you asking me to make love to you? Because I really think that you need rest more than you need—”

“I need to be with you, to feel you around me and inside me and I need to forget, just for tonight, or however long I have, that all of this is going to be taken away from me. Don’t take it away before I even—”

“Abby, you can’t know how much I want you, want to hold you and touch you and—jeez, Abby! Put the gown on, will you?” He held it out to her.

“After,” she said, coming closer and unfastening the buttons on his shirt, pushing the suspenders off his shoulders, pulling his shirttails out of his pants.

“Ab—” Her fingers touched his lips, silencing his words.

“Love me, Seth. Make me feel like a bride. Make me your wife.”

She’d been irresistible from the start. Now, naked, pleading with him to love her, he had no choice. He’d go slowly. He’d be careful. He’d pet her and kiss her and let her fall asleep in his arms. He didn’t have to exhaust her, exhaust himself. He could always stop if he thought he should.

And so he dropped his pants where he stood, pushed down his drawers and stood as naked as she, he with his socks, she with her stockings, and let her gaze at him the way he was gazing at her.

“You’re very handsome,” she said, running a hand down his chest, letting it fall away after it reached his waist.

“And you are even prettier than you were in your wedding gown, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I’m ready,” she said, filling her chest with a deep breath and then turning to pull the covers from the bed, giving him a view of her backside that fired his need nearly to bursting.