“Sorry, Polly. I’m outta soda,” Frank said, stacking empty glasses into the washbasin behind the counter.
“That’s okay. I just wanted to take a look at the Sears and Roebuck catalog.”
He fetched the catalog from a shelf beneath the counter and poured her a glass of water. “A lagniappe for our champion frog hunter.”
“Lagniappe?”
“A li’l something extra.”
“A glass of water? That’s your idea of a little something extra?”
“This ain’t the Ritz, chère.” He winked and went back to his washing.
Mirielle opened the thick catalog. She missed the creams and tonics she’d ordered from Paris. Cold cream, whitening cream, vanishing cream, eyebrow cream; talcum powder and toilet water; perfume and hair-curling fluid. Cheaper versions of these products were sold in the catalog, but they wouldn’t feel and smell the same.
She pulled her wages from her pocket. What from her old life would this buy? A pot of cream? A few cakes of lavender-scented soap? She closed the Sears and Roebuck catalog and pushed it away. Neither a fine perfume nor a cheap imitation would make her feel better. Here she was bemoaning bath products when Hector’s family mightn’t eat this month. And who knew how long until he’d be well enough to work again.
“Where’s that can you put out?” she said to Frank. The What Cheer Club had an old coffee can it occasionally set out for donations. Sometimes the money went to practical concerns like replacement batteries for the radio or new netting for the tennis court. Sometimes the money went to the blind residents or to help fix up someone’s wheelchair. She didn’t know whether money had ever been raised to send to someone’s family, but it seemed just as worthy a cause.
Frank finished drying the glass in his hand, then set it beside the soda fountain and looked at her.
“Hector’s been in the infirmary two weeks now,” she said. “But he’s got a family he supports on the outside. Maybe we could put the can out for him. For his family.”
Frank gave a low whistle. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that sounded like altruism.”
“Oh, phooey. It’s just . . . we Californians got to stick together.”
“Usually, the club gotta decide about the can together.”
“If you wait, people will burn through their pay, and there won’t be any money to be had.”
He nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, then withdrew the can from beneath the counter. “Suppose we could make an exception.”
Mirielle finished her water and dropped her thirty dollars in the can. She was just about to leave when church bells rang out. Her body stiffened. The sound roiled her stomach more than the god-awful chaulmoogra pills. The bells at Union Chapel and Sacred Heart tolled once on the hour from dawn to dusk. They tolled for mass and Sunday service. When they tolled like this, though, several slow strokes in the middle of the morning, it was a death knell.
CHAPTER 32
Two days later, Mirielle shuffled into one of the back pews of Sacred Heart. Incense stung her eyes, or at least that’s what she told herself when they began to water. The priest wore a white tunic and embroidered stole over his black robes. Hector’s coffin, a simple affair of unpolished wood, lay on trestles in front of the dais.
What had possessed her to come? Were she not already squeezed into the middle of the pew, Jean and Madge on one side of her and Irene on the other, Mirielle would have fled. As it was, she could barely keep herself from hyperventilating.
She tried to focus on the little things. The stained glass. The flickering candle flames. The notes of the reed organ Sister Katherine played in the corner. The rest of the sisters and several staff members filled a bank of pews separate from those the residents occupied. None of Hector’s family was there. Though surely they’d been notified. But even if they’d had the money to come, they never would have made it in time. Hector’s body could have been shipped back to California, if his family could afford the expense, including the cost of a sealed metal casket.
Most everyone in the chapel lined up for their wine and wafers, while Mirielle, Irene, and the rest of the Protestants remained seated. The sisters and staff drank from a different chalice than the patients. Even in God’s house, the disease separated them.
After the service, the priest led the procession from the chapel to the cemetery on the far side of the colony. Six orderlies dressed in black coats and white trousers carried the coffin. Next walked the sisters, followed by several dozen of the residents.
Mirielle and her housemates trailed at the end. It took conscious effort for her to put one foot in front of the other. Never mind the humid air and buzzing insects, the boggy soil and overabundant green. With each step, she had to remind herself where she was, that this wasn’t his funeral.
The cemetery lay behind a tidy row of pecan trees. Dozens of squat white gravestones sprouted amid the grass. Irrational as it was, Mirielle avoided reading the stones’ simple inscriptions for fear Felix’s name would be among them.
The priest sprinkled holy water on the ground where the coffin was to be interred. Two residents waited nearby in the shade of the pecan trees, shovels in hand. After the priest’s final benediction, Mirielle and the others took their leave. At the sound of the shovel blades striking dirt, her step faltered. Before she could make it but a few steps beyond the cemetery, she doubled over and dry heaved.
* * *
Later that evening, Mirielle made her way to where Frank lived, beyond the walkways and patient houses in a cabin he’d built himself. It was one of half a dozen detached cabins collectively called Cottage Grove. With the help of Mr. Li and Irene, Frank had organized a small remembrance supper for Hector and taken up a collection for his family. Music played on the phonograph, and the smell of frying fish wafted from inside. Mirielle hadn’t eaten all day—a smart choice, considering how her stomach had turned inside out at the graveyard. It grumbled now, but Mirielle didn’t trust it. She hadn’t come to eat anyway.
Mr. Hatch, Madge, and a few others sat on the cottage’s wide front porch. Inside, Frank stood by the stove, flipping the fish while Irene cut watermelon at the table. The cabin was tidy—for a bachelor—with a bed, sofa, and mismatched dinette.
“Oh good, Polly, you’re here,” Irene said, wiping her hands on a brightly colored apron tied over her black dress. “Just in time for supper.”
“I’m not staying. I just came to drop off a few things for the collection.”
On the small table beside the sofa, a collection of odds and ends had amassed. Mirielle set a gold brooch down beside the packets of buttons, hand-knit hats, seed packets, a jar of honey, and a small envelope of bills addressed to Hector’s family.
“ ’Course you stayin’,” Irene said before Mirielle could sneak out. “Get them tin plates from the cupboard and set ’em by the greens.”
Mirielle didn’t have the energy to argue. She set out the plates just as Frank hollered to those on the porch. “Eatin’s on.”
When she turned to leave, Irene was standing between her and the door, a heaping plate of food in hand. “Eat.”
“I don’t think I could.”
Irene thrust the plate into her hand anyway and shooed her out to the porch. Mirielle sat on the steps and stared out at the lawn. She moved the food around on her plate a while before finally taking a bite. The fish was flaky and well seasoned. She waited for her stomach’s reaction before taking another bite. When it didn’t flip or tighten, she forked up some greens.
She’d eaten most everything on her plate when Mr. Hatch sat down beside her. She’d seen him a few times on the walkways and standing in line in the dining hall but hadn’t exchanged more than a nod with him since their conversation in the tea garden all those months ago.
“Your supposed hole in the fence wasn’t there when I went looking.”
He took a bite of watermelon, spitting the seeds onto the porch. Juice dribbled down his chin. “They close it up from time to time.”
/> “I broke my arm trying to climb over.”
“Heard about that.” He took another bite, continuing to talk as he chewed. “Shoulda been more careful.”
His clothes smelled of must and perspiration. Crescents of dirt showed beneath his ragged fingernails. She knew now from Irene that Mr. Hatch was somewhat of a celebrity around the colony. A consummate malcontent who could always be counted on to raise sand when the high muck-a-mucks instituted a new rule or policy he didn’t like. Many of the residents revered him. Others thought him a fanatic and self-serving exhibitionist.
Mirielle wasn’t sure what to make of Mr. Hatch, but she didn’t want her calfskin shoes to be a casualty of the watermelon seeds rocketing from his mouth. “Can you spit those seeds somewhere else?”
He chewed his next bite of watermelon very slowly, then plucked the seeds from his mouth with his dirty fingers and flicked them one by one onto the lawn. “Better?”
“Marginally.”
He laughed. “I like you, Polly. Most women woulda turned their noses up and walked away. You’re like me. We ain’t afraid to tell it like it is.”
Mirielle wasn’t sure whether that was much of a compliment.
“Next time you wanna escape, come find me, and we’ll go together,” he said.
“To the cathouse? No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He jabbed a thumb toward her plate. “You gonna finish that?”
“It’s all yours.”
Irene came by with jars of sweet tea as Mr. Hatch swallowed down the last of her fish. Everyone had gathered on the porch. Mirielle and Mr. Hatch stood and joined them.
“To Hector,” Frank said, raising his glass.
“To Hector.” Mirielle and the others drank their tea.
Louisiana could have its shrimp and gumbo, but the tea she’d be taking back to California with her. Mirielle polished off her glass and went inside for more. Irene stood by the sink, mixing sugar into a fresh pitcher. Frank had come in behind her and sat on the sofa, flipping through his box of records.
“You seemed mighty shaken today,” Irene said.
“I . . . it’s been a while since I was at a funeral.”
“Best get used to it, baby.” Irene refilled Mirielle’s glass. “We hardly go a month around here without one.”
“Don’t make it any easier,” Frank said without looking up.
“No, I suppose not.” Irene wrapped an arm around Mirielle’s waist and squeezed. “When I lost my first husband in the Spanish War, I—”
“The Spanish War?” Frank interrupted. “Way I heard tell, it was the War between the States.”
Irene let go of Mirielle’s waist and threw a dishtowel at him. “You know I ain’t half as old as all that.” They both laughed. Mirielle tried to join in but found herself on the verge of tears instead.
“I killed my son.”
Frank and Irene stopped laughing.
“He drowned. In a swimming pool.”
Irene pulled over a chair from the dinette and ushered Mirielle into it. “Baby, that don’t mean you killed him.”
“I should have been watching him. He was a good swimmer, and I thought the nanny . . .” She shook her head and cradled her midsection.
“Still don’t make it your fault.” Irene squatted down and handed her a hankie. But even though Mirielle’s voice trembled, her eyes were dry. She took the hankie anyway and wrapped it like a tourniquet around her palm.
Frank cleared his throat. “What was his name, your boy?”
Mirielle turned toward the sofa where he sat. She’d almost forgotten he was here but somehow was glad he now knew the truth of it. “Felix Jeremiah West. He was seven and a half years old.”
It felt good to say his name, to acknowledge him among the others they mourned. She loosened the hankie and handed it back to Irene. Her fingertips prickled with the return of blood.
Irene swatted Mirielle’s knee and stood. “Baby, you can’t move on and live your life with all them should’ves hanging over your head.”
“Amen to that,” Frank said.
“You got any bootleg up in here?” Irene asked him.
He jutted his chin toward the cupboard. Irene poked around the shelves, then pulled out a jar from the very back. Brown liquid sloshed inside. She poured some into Mirielle’s tea. “Days like this call for a little somethin’ extra.” Irene held the jar up to Frank, but he shook his head. She added some to her own glass then stowed it back in the cupboard. “Let’s join the rest of them outside where it’s cooler.”
Mirielle let herself be shepherded back to the porch. The rotgut soured the tea, and Mirielle set it aside, wary of the once-familiar numbness it promised.
“His family will be fine,” Mr. Hatch was saying to Madge and Mr. Li as Mirielle pulled up a chair beside them. “Get along better now without him.”
She flinched at his words. But by the way Hector had described the strain his illness had placed on his family, Mr. Hatch was right.
“Hell, all our families would be better off if we were dead,” he continued. “This disease, it marks us. Follows us wherever we go. Once a leper always a leper. Only chance our families have is without us.”
“That’s a load of baloney,” Irene said.
“Doc Jack says once it’s arrested, the disease isn’t contagious,” Mirielle said weakly.
Mr. Hatch looked her square in the eyes. “If you think they give two licks about that on the outside, you ain’t half as smart as I thought you was.”
“That’s enough, Samuel.”
Mirielle hadn’t heard Frank come outside and startled at the sharpness in his voice.
“This day’s about Hector,” Irene said, then patted Mirielle’s shoulder. “And all those we’ve lost. Not an excuse for more of your bellyachin’.”
Mr. Hatch spat and stomped away.
The rest of them sat a moment in silence, the humid air thick between them. Then Irene said, “I remember, this one time, Hector come to the pharmacy to get the chaulmoogra capsules, but when he . . .”
Mirielle stared beyond the lawn at the distant forest. The sun glowed orange over the treetops. She tried to listen to stories about Hector, but all she could hear were Mr. Hatch’s words. Only chance our families have is without us.
CHAPTER 33
“Ahem. We’re almost out of needles and syringes, Mrs. Marvin.”
Mirielle turned from the window and caught Sister Verena’s stern gaze. “Hmm?”
“Needles and syringes.”
“Oh.” She rattled her head and looked down at the empty supply table. “Right.”
The pan of boiling water they used to disinfect the equipment hissed behind her. Beside it on the counter was a towel where Mirielle placed the sterilized needles and syringes to dry. It was an onerous task, keeping the flow of equipment steady, one that required constant attention and careful timing. If they ran out, Sister Verena would scowl, and the residents in line for their chaulmoogra shots would grumble.
Over the past months, Mirielle had become skilled at managing the tempo, moving the used pieces aside, restocking the supply table once the latest batch had cooled, fishing the slender needles and delicate glass syringes from the water, setting them on the towel to dry, boiling away the sticky chaulmoogra oil and blood from a new set.
But today, she couldn’t seem to corral her thoughts and tame her attention. She hurried to the back of the room and gathered up the supplies on the towel. All were cool to the touch and had likely been dry for several minutes.
“Here you go,” Mirielle said, arranging the sterilized supplies on the table and grabbing the tray of used ones.
She expected Sister Verena to sigh or glower in response. Instead, the woman looked at her with a level expression and said, “My dear, you cannot let Mr. Sanchez’s death sadden you to distraction. You must trust he’s in the arms of the Lord now, free from pain and suffering.”
“Free of this disease, you mean.”
Sister Vere
na nodded.
“Is death our only hope then?”
“You should not fear death, Mrs. Marvin.”
Mirielle touched her silver bracelet. She didn’t fear death, or hadn’t anyway. But now, she wanted to live.
“But no,” Sister Verena continued. “I do not believe death is the only hope.” She gestured at the room around them—the large bottles of chaulmoogra oil, the X-ray equipment pushed to the side, the privacy screen behind which Doc Jack sat, ready to inject another patient. “It’s why we’re here, after all. God helps those who help themselves.”
“The Bible says that?”
Sister Verena’s lips twitched in what might be a smile. “No. Benjamin Franklin, I believe.”
Mirielle gave an almost-smile in return and got back to work. She didn’t understand why Hector’s death had affected her so deeply. It was as if he’d been a tether to her life before, her life in California, and now that tether was broken. She managed to keep up an ample supply of clean needles and syringes as the morning dragged on, but her almost-smile quickly faded and didn’t return.
With only a dozen patients remaining in line, Frank shuffled forward for his shot. While Sister Verena’s attention was diverted drawing up his dose of oil, he leaned across the supply table and whispered to Mirielle, “Saturday night, hurry up with supper, then meet me under the oaks. Five thirty sharp.”
What the devil? Before she could speak, he put a crooked finger to his lips and disappeared behind the screen.
* * *
Mirielle wondered over Frank’s cryptic words all the next day.
“He knows I’m married, right?” she asked Irene as they sorted pills in the pharmacy. Even if his intentions weren’t romantic, if anyone saw them alone together under the oaks, the Rocking Chair Brigade would be spitting gossip for days.
“Hard to miss that shiny gold ring on your finger.”
The Second Life of Mirielle West Page 18