The Forever Stone (30 page)

“Very well. She’s determined to make a full recovery and that makes a difference.”

“And you’re going to see her because . . . ?”

He glanced sideways. “She could use some encouragement—her son isn’t around much. She has a leg ulcer, and I want to keep an eye on it.”

Mrs. Bozarth must be a remarkable person, or he wouldn’t go to such trouble. A white-haired, sweet-faced saint, no doubt. She could use a dose of that herself.

Nathan knocked lightly at the door of a yellow clapboard house, walked inside, and called a greeting. The small room off the hall had wide windows, a pair of comfortable-looking blue chairs, and walls lined with books.

His patient lay on a hospital bed near a window. Black curly hair. Sparkling black eyes.

When she saw him, she slowly lifted a hand, and a lopsided smile crossed her face. “Doc-tor. I-am-so-glad.”

“Evelyn,” he said. “You’re looking well.”

She couldn’t be more than fifty. Even half-paralyzed, she radiated energy.

He introduced Madeleine, said that she was a teacher too, and pulled both chairs close to the bed. After he’d put on gloves and checked her blood pressure and pulse, he took Evelyn Bozarth’s right hand in his own. “Squeeze,” he said.

She did, and he smiled. “Now both hands.” She gave him the other hand and he nodded. “Not bad at all. You’re working hard. Let’s see how that sore is doing.”

He inspected the bandage on her shin. “I’m going to change this,” he said.

His hands were deft, and while he worked, he asked about her daughter in Michigan and her son’s new job in Atlantic City. Her speech was slurred, but her answers reflected a wise mother’s concern, and she watched Madeleine with the keen gaze of a teacher.

Finally he stripped off his gloves. “Tea time,” he said, and went off to the kitchen.

The woman looked at her, and one side of her mouth pulled up in a smile. “Mol-lee,” she said. “God-sent-you-to-day.” She paused. “Christ. He-was-wound-ed-for . . .” She looked anxious, as if she couldn’t remember the rest.

“He was wounded for our transgressions,” Madeleine said. “Is that the one?”

“Yes. Trans . . . Trans-gre-ssions.” Her face glowed. “I-love-the-way . . . He-loves-me.”

How could she say that, lying there with her life in ruins?

“Yes,” Madeleine said.

The woman seemed to read her thoughts. She reached out a bony hand, and Madeleine took it. “Do-not-forget,” Evelyn Bozarth said. “He-loves.”

Tara! She’d been so wrapped up in worrying about Tara, she’d forgotten that God loved the girl too. Immensely. More than she ever could. 

She bowed her head. “I do forget. Thank you.”

Slowly Evelyn Bozarth raised her other hand, moved it across the blankets as if it were a robotic accessory, and dropped it down to cover Madeleine’s. “Pray.” She smiled again. “Tell. What-school?” 

Madeleine shook her head. “Back in Virginia. What was your school?”

“Sandy-Bank. Gone.”

Nathan returned with a tea pot and cup. “Looks like they’re taking better care of you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you getting some good baths now?”

“Yes. Like-a-spa. You-cleaned-their-clock.”

He smiled. “Sometimes they need a little push.”

Evelyn Bozarth looked at him with affection, then at Madeleine. “He-takes . . . ex-tra-or-din-ar-y-care.”

He pulled her walker close to the bed. “Can you walk for me today?”

“Yes.”

And she did, slowly, but with a precision that made him nod. “Excellent. You’re not shuffling as much.”

She slumped over the walker, tired now, and he helped her back into bed.

“Don’t push yourself too hard.” He patted her hand.

She smiled her lopsided smile. “Yes-doc-tor.”

“I’ll try to get over on Monday,” he said.

At the doorway, Madeleine paused to give her a little wave. The woman on the bed raised a hand, slowly. “Mol-lee. Come-back.”

For most of the way back to the Manor, Nathan drove without speaking.

Finally he said, “One of my favorite people. She taught physics and chemistry, and now each word is a struggle.” He sighed. “She’s only forty-eight. Ten years older than I am. Makes me think.”

“Makes me ashamed,” Madeleine said. “There I was, angry at God and doubting His love. So upset about Tara.”

“His love is the only thing you can depend on,” he said quietly. “I’m learning that.”

She looked out of the window, still ashamed. If only she could learn that too, learn it once and for all, and never forget.

“Mollie, how long is it since you’ve cried?”

She closed her eyes, and then opened them slowly. “Not since the first week I was married.”

He didn’t ask any more questions. He looked straight ahead and told her about going to see the Liberty Bell, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

He cared.

Like he cared for Evelyn Bozarth? How kind he’d been with that poor woman, how gentle!

As he was with her. Maybe he was just being a good doctor. Kind, compassionate, and thorough. His question, for example. A clinical inquiry?

The thought nagged at her for the rest of the evening, while she and Aunt Lin talked, while she baked the walnut bread, and while she mixed up a bowl of cookie dough. Chocolate chip, with nuts.

Perhaps his interest was just sort of . . . professional. Except for the time he’d kissed her. She had managed to squelch that, hadn’t she?

It shouldn’t matter, anyway. A romantic attachment didn’t fit with independence, and that’s where she was headed.

Finally she had to leave the kitchen and pray over it. “
Do-not-forget
,” Evelyn Bozarth had said.
“He-loves.”

Thank you, Lord my Rock. Make me strong. I’ve got to let go of everything else.

She went back to finish the cookies, and a prayer sang through her mind.
You alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship You.

Sunday morning, Howard took charge, since Timothy was away for the weekend. He gave an encouraging message, everyone sang heartily, and Jude stood beside her the whole time with a brooding look on his face. She had told him about the social worker coming to get Tara, and he blamed himself.

“She kept telling me not to say anything,” he said. “That’s why.”

“If it weren’t for you, Tara would be dead now, from blood poisoning or hypothermia.”

She wasn’t sure that he’d been convinced.

On the way back from church, they discussed where Tara’s branch of the Marrick family might live, and Jude said, “Why don’t we ask Gemma? She’s been hoping you’d come back.”

“I’ll do it,” Madeleine said. “How about this afternoon?”

In the kitchen, Aunt Lin was having a spirited phone conversation with someone, probably her partner, and waved at Madeleine when she walked in. While they ate lunch, she explained what they’d been discussing and Madeleine tried to follow the complicated threads of business politics, but Tara’s face kept reappearing in her mind.

Tara, ill. Tara, withdrawn. Tara, indignant. And at the last, Tara, haughty in defeat.

Her aunt finished another chapter in what seemed like an endless story, and Madeleine said, “I want to find out where Tara lives.”

“Going to visit her?”

“Yes,” Madeleine said. “It’s the right thing for me to do. By the way, what’s your plan for the Blue Room?”

The diversion succeeded. “Let’s go see,” her aunt said. “Bring a roll of masking tape.”

The lavishly appointed room seemed drab without Tara, but it certainly wasn’t empty.

“I’ll mark the things to get rid of.” Aunt Lin smacked a piece of tape onto each discard. “This chair, and this one too. The piano goes. And these lamps! Both of these chairs. Keep the willow ware if you think we should, but get all that stuff off the wall.”

She paused beside a brass table lamp. “This would look good on your desk.”

“I’d like it,” Madeleine said. “And this floor lamp would work for the library. I’ll put it by the couch.” She tapped the metal shade of a goose-necked lamp. “Jude’s grandmother likes to knit. She could use this. I’m going to see her later this afternoon.”

“She’s welcome to it. You’re full of good deeds today, aren’t you?” Aunt Lin began to laugh. “I forgot to tell you. Your mother phoned and gave me instructions to find you a man. How can I tell her you’re going to spend the afternoon with a kid and his grandmother?”

Madeleine tried to match her light-hearted tone. “We both know what we think of Mom’s instructions, don’t we? Besides, she’s busy these days with a new boyfriend.”

Her aunt raised a sympathetic eyebrow and tore off another piece of masking tape.

Jude arrived in the late afternoon as planned, and Madeleine met him with a smile, glad to be outside again. Thin sunlight filtered through the branches to warm her face, and Jude, carrying the gooseneck lamp, scanned the trees at the edge of the path.

“What have you discovered lately?” she asked.

“Green cullet.”

“Sounds like a fish. Wait, that’s mullet.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a rounded piece of dark green glass, large as a man’s thumb. “From one of those old glass furnaces. I like to look at it.” He rolled it in his palm, and it glowed like an emerald.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “And over by the Batona Trail I found a convertible full of pine needles. Someone stripped everything off it and left the body to rust.”

After a moment’s thought, he added, “Probably stolen.”

He swung the lamp as he walked. “Gemma will love this,” he said, and started whistling under his breath.

“I like your grandmother.”

“I’m glad you went up to see her. She gets lonely, especially since she broke her ankle. She likes visitors.”

“All except Kent? She doesn’t seem to think much of him.”

“Huh,” he said. “None of us do, except my mother. But Mom doesn’t live in the real world.”

“I noticed that Bria disappears when Kent is around. She doesn’t like him either?”

He squinted up into the trees, and after a while, he answered. “She hates him. He backed her into a corner and tried to kiss her.”

“I hope she slapped him good.”

“Yeah, she kneed him. He hasn’t bothered her since.”

Madeleine couldn’t think of anything to say. Gemma was right.

A smile blossomed over Gemma’s face when she saw them.

“Look what we brought you.” Jude set the lamp down beside her, plugged it in, adjusted the height, and turned it on. The light fell across the knitting in her lap, and her smile widened.

“Did this come from the Manor, then? Thank you very much,” she said in her soft English voice.

Jude moved his chair close to hers. “Gemma, we want to ask you something.”

Her fond gaze rested on him. “I thought you might.”

“There’s a family called Marrick. Do you know where they live?”

“What’s the father’s name?”

“Sid. Sid Marrick.”

“Huh,” she said. “I never did care much for those Marrick boys. Hung around in school with Kent—three of a kind. The old Sandy Bank School. Why do you ask?”

Madeleine leaned forward. “I made friends with Tara Marrick and I’d like to go visit her. She’s having a difficult time.”

“No wonder,” Gemma said. “Tara? I’ve never heard of her.”

“What about Sally?”

“Now Sally, that would be Sam’s girl. Sam was the worst of the lot.”

“So you know where they live?”

“I was coming to that. Up Mt. Misery way. Ask at the gas station in Four Mile. Mr. Bontray, he’ll know. Jude, you be careful if you go near there.”

“I will,” he said. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be lovely. And perhaps a few of those biscuits too.”

While they drank their tea, Gemma inquired about the Manor, and Madeleine described their progress in the Blue Room. Jude asked whether she could give them both a ride to church next week, and they left Gemma to her nap.

Jude walked out onto the porch with Madeleine. “What are you going to do about Tara?”

“I’d like to go see her tomorrow morning.”

“I can come to work after school,” he said. “Tell me everything that happens.”

That evening, she searched again for her paperweight, but it didn’t seem to be anywhere on the floor.

She meant to pray about the decoy scam and the Castell family, but she fell asleep wondering what Tara’s Aunt Dixie looked like.