Sweet Everlasting (18 page)

B
UT AT SEVEN-THIRTY
the next evening, he was still vaccinating children, and by eight-fifteen he was too tired to do anything but fall into a chair in front of the cold coal stove and try to work up an interest in a leathery chicken pie Mrs. Quick had left for him in the icebox.

He was twenty-eight years old, in the prime of his manhood; all he’d done today was stick needles in the arms and buttocks of people under four feet tall. It infuriated him that he was exhausted from his so-called labors, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t shake off the pitiful last vestiges of his disease once and for all. Even his damn leg ached—because it was raining. He felt like an old man with “the rheumatiz.” When would he be whole again? The fact that he
was
improving, that every day he got infinitesimally stronger, brought him no consolation at all in his present mood. Each time he thought he was finally well, some petty setback inevitably occurred, proving he’d been deluding himself. He was sicker than ever of being sick, and “physician, heal thyself” was a gibe of Stoneman’s with too much ironic significance to be amusing anymore.

Stoneman’s sense of humor must have been at work when he’d told Tyler that Mrs. Quick was a good cook. He poked at the gluey, tasteless piece of pie for a few more minutes, then put his fork down and stood up—stiff-legged—to carry his plate back to the kitchen. Halfway there, he heard a knock at the back porch door.
No,
he vowed, grinding his teeth,
not tonight.
If that was Stoneman, he’d tell him he couldn’t come in. Enough was enough. If it was a patient—

But the willowy, long-legged figure under the disreputable-looking umbrella wasn’t Stoneman or a patient; it was Carrie.

“Come in,” he urged when she hesitated, even though he was holding the door open for her. She wore the same plain blue frock he’d seen her in many times, but tonight she’d fastened a bouquet of wildflowers to the cheap lace collar. Her unruly hair, misted from the rain, stood out around her head like a springy halo. For all that she made a damp and impoverished-looking angel, the sight of her filled him with pleasure and a vast relief. “Carrie?”

Still she hesitated. She stood on her toes to look over his shoulder. “Are you alone?” she asked in a raspy whisper.

“Yes, it’s all right. Come in, I’m very glad to see you. If you hadn’t come tonight, I’d have gone to see you tomorrow.”

“Really?” Disbelief changed slowly to delight. She sent him one of her blinding smiles, closed her umbrella, and stepped over the threshold.

“What’s this?” he asked when she handed him a small package wrapped in coarse paper and tied with a sprig of wilted honeysuckle.

“Nothing,” she demurred, still whispering. “Something for you.”

Under the paper he found a corked glass bottle full of an amber-colored liquid. “Mint vinegar” read the carefully printed label. “Thank you very much. Did you make it yourself?”

She nodded. A few seconds passed before she seemed to remember that she could talk now. She cleared her throat self-consciously. “Yes, I made it. It’s spearmint and sugar in cider vinegar. You put it in iced tea.”

“Do you?” He was intrigued by her voice, which was low and unexpectedly husky. “Shall we try it? Mrs. Quick left me some tea in the icebox, I think. Will you have a glass with me?”

The gladness in her expressive face almost undid him. “Yes, thank you,” she acquiesced with grave politeness. “Shall I get it?”

“No, you sit down.”

She obeyed, taking the same chair at his kitchen table she’d taken on that long-ago day in February, when they’d buried her dog together. She folded her hands demurely, the perfect guest, and watched as he got glasses out of the cupboard and filled them with cold tea. He sat across from her, and she added the mint vinegar to their glasses herself. “Delicious,” he pronounced, and she beamed.

“Are you busy right now?” she asked, still shy. “Were you doing something?”

“No, nothing at all.”

“Is it all right if we talk?”

“Yes, of course.”

She sat back a little in her chair. Her eyes shown; her cheeks were flushed, but not from exercise. He sensed the same diffident excitement in her as on the day she’d first shown him her hospital in the woods. She wet her lips, fixing him with a purposeful look, and cleared her throat again. He readied himself for a revelation.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this rain kept up all night.”

He blinked. Shifting in his chair, rearranging his expectations, he remarked, “Yes, and we can certainly use it.”

“Yes, we certainly can. It’s been dry for June.”

“Very.”

She took a small sip of tea. “I saw trout lilies beside the bridge over South Creek tonight.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Did you know they’re also called dogtooth violet?”

“No, I didn’t.” He folded his arms, smiling. She didn’t have anything specific to tell him, he realized, charmed. She just wanted to
talk.

“Yesterday,” she said deliberately, “I saw a possum drop dead.”

He registered a suitable amount of amazement.

“I caught him trying to pull down a suet bag I’d hung up for the birds behind the springhouse. He dropped eight feet to the ground and fell flat on his back, dead as a doornail. I couldn’t revive him, he was gone. So I got out the shovel, to carry him into the woods and bury him. And guess what.”

“What?”

“While I was carrying him, one of his eyes popped open!”

“No!”

“Just for a second, and then he went back to playing possum. I put him down on the moss under some laurel trees, and when I went back a little later to look, he was gone.”

Ty grinned appreciatively, enjoying himself. Her new voice was raspy, sultry, seductive, completely at odds with everything he knew about her, and the incongruity fascinated him.

“Did you read the
Clarion
yesterday?” she inquired next.

“No, I missed it. Didn’t have time.”

“There was an interesting article about death.”

“About death?” He stroked his chin.

“It said that sometimes when a husband or a wife dies, the spouse dies, too, not long after. From a broken heart. Do you think it’s true?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, sometimes.” She looked at him expectantly, and he saw that now it was his turn to talk. “I treated an elderly couple for pneumonia,” he offered. “They were both very ill; there was never much hope. The old woman went first. ‘Is Mother gone?’ the husband asked me. But he already knew, I think. A few minutes later he closed his eyes and let go, too.”

Carrie sighed, and stared into her glass.

“But it doesn’t always happen that way. I lost a woman not long ago—abdominal tumor, too far gone for surgery—and I was offering condolences to her husband. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Letty was a good wife, she kept a clean house, and she took good care of the children. But I never liked her.’ “

To his delight, a tickled laugh burst from Carrie before she thought to clap her hand over her mouth—and now he understood the motive behind a gesture that had once puzzled and depressed him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh,” he chuckled.

“Sometimes I came close, with you,” she admitted, “when you’d say funny things.” But then her smile faded. “I—I—” She stopped, and visibly gathered herself together. “I apologize for what I did, Dr. Wilkes. For fooling you, I mean. It wasn’t right.”

“No, Carrie, I’m the one who should apologize—and stop calling me Dr. Wilkes. I shouldn’t have been angry, I should’ve been nothing but happy for you.”

She waved a hand in the air, absolving him. “No, it was
my
fault. At first I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, because I couldn’t really believe we would be friends. Then when we were, I was too happy and I didn’t want anything to change. I might have told you—no, I
would’ve
told you, soon probably, if you hadn’t found out for yourself. Yes, I would have, I’m sure I would, but just not so early. It was such a big secret, you see, and I wasn’t brave enough yet to tell you. But I would have. And I had to come here tonight and tell you that, and just—talk to you. I had to.” She ran out of breath.

“I’m glad to know you’d have trusted me enough to tell me eventually.” He reached across the table and took one of her slim hands. “Do you trust me now?” She nodded without a second’s hesitation. “Then tell me why you did it, Carrie. Why you’ve been pretending for so long.”

Her gray eyes darkened with distress. She looked down and whispered, “Please.”

“Carrie—”

“Please,” she repeated, urgent, her hand in his suddenly stiff with tension. “I want to tell you, truly I do. If I could tell anyone, it would be you. But I
can’t.
Tyler—” She said his name experimentally, and something jolted between their hands when she uttered it. “If you would be my friend and not ask me that question, then I would have everything. It would be—a matter of trust.”

A matter of trust. He owed her that. He remembered how she’d seized on his suggestion that she’d feigned muteness so that people would notice her. It was all that had made sense to him at the time, but now he saw how much his hasty, ungenerous conclusion had hurt her.

“All right,” he agreed softly. “I won’t ask you.” She closed her eyes in relief, then snapped them open when he added, “On one condition.”

“What?” She was wary again.

“That you tell me what you’re afraid of.”

She pressed her lips together and preserved a stony silence.

He squeezed her hand hard, until her eyes widened and she had to look at him. “Tell me this, then, or we have no bargain: Does your stepfather hurt you?”

“No.”

“In any way?”

“No.”

Her answers were immediate and uncalculated—he had no choice but to believe her. He was relieved, of course; but somewhere in the back of his mind a prickly unease lingered.

“So, will you?” she urged in a shy murmur when a long minute passed and he didn’t speak.

“Will I what?”

“Be friends.” She kept her hopeful gaze on their clasped hands, waiting.

He wanted very much to kiss her. “I’m honored to be your friend. I’ll keep your secret, and I promise not to press you to tell me anything else until you’re ready.”

Her smile reminded him of sunlight breaking through clouds on a dark day. “Thank you,” she breathed, brushing a single glad tear away. Then she let go of his hand, sat back in her chair, and inquired, “Did you know I was born in North Carolina?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“A little tiny town called Walnut Cove. I don’t remember it at all. But we didn’t live there for long; we left when I was only six months old.”

He rested his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, and asked, “Do you remember your parents?”

“Oh, yes. My father’s name was John Hamilton, my mother was Rachel. We traveled all over—Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia—because he was a photographer and he went from town to town, taking people’s pictures. My mother was beautiful, she had light-brown hair and the kindest blue eyes, and she could sing like an angel. And my father was tall and handsome, with a big, dark mustache and black hair. I still have pictures of them both—would you like to see them sometime?”

“Very much. Whom did you lose first, your mother or your father?”

“My father, when I was ten years old. He was only thirty-four.”

“How did he die?”

“He was struck by lightning.” She looked down at her hands, and for some reason he thought of the brave little note she’d written Stoneman after his daughter died. “We were living in Spaulding that summer—that’s in West Virginia—and Papa had set up a little studio right off the main street. One day some people hired him to make a picture of their whole family, for a reunion out on their farm. Almost as soon as he drove out of town, the sky started to change. I remember Mama and me looking at it through the screen door after he left, shaking our heads and worrying that he’d get drenched before he even got there, and then all for nothing when they couldn’t go outside to make the picture anyway on account of the storm. But the rain held off and held off, and we began to think it wasn’t going to come after all.” Her eyes filled with unself-conscious tears. “Some men brought him home at nightfall in a wagon. They’d found the horse first, lathered and frightened, the harness all broken. Then they found Papa, lying beside the wagon in some weeds by the road.”

“Ah, Carrie.”

“They said he must’ve died instantly, and that that should comfort us because he didn’t suffer. So.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “So then my mother and I stayed on in Spaulding. But we were poor, so about two years after that she got married to my stepfather. And then she died, too, and then Artemis and I moved to Dreamy Mountain.”

“How did you lose your mother?” he interjected, aware that she’d coasted over the last eight years of her life in two bald sentences.

“She had appendicitis, and then she got blood poisoning.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, no one ever told me.”

“How long did you and Artemis—”

“Guess who was the first person I met when we moved here,” she rushed on, cutting him off—and he understood that speaking of her stepfather, before or after her mother’s death, was going to be out of bounds.

He leaned back in his chair. “Who?”

“Broom. That’s not his real name, of course; people just call him that because of his hair, and because he’s so skinny. He scared me when I first saw him—I was only thirteen, and he was already tall as a tree. But he liked me right away, and it never mattered to him that I couldn’t talk. We had in common that we were both different from other people, so it was easy to be friends. He’s been my friend even longer than Eppy or Doc Stoneman.

“Did you know he lives by himself in his own house? Outside of town on the Chambersburg Road. It’s not much of a house, but it’s his. He used to live there with his mother—she wasn’t quite right in the head; she took in people’s washing for a living—until one day she disappeared. Nobody knew what happened to her, and then finally somebody thought to ask Broom. Why, she died, he told them. He found her dead and cold in the bed one morning. So he buried her in the backyard, and kept on as if nothing had happened. They dug her up, of course, and found out she’d had a heart attack. Everybody thought it was silly and wrong, but they went ahead and reburied her anyway in the indigents’ graveyard outside of town, because of the law against burying kin in your own yard.”