by Devon, Gary;
She went outside and called the children. Then she gathered her supplies together—the red can of gasoline and the bag of groceries—cautioned the children not to play down there, and shut the slanted cellar door. Carrying the briefcase and the sack of Christmas presents, the children followed her to the pantry where she began putting her things away. “Just leave those there,” she told them.
The minutes passed quickly. Together they built a fire in the fireplace. She gave the children tasks to do—let them remove the dust covers from the furniture and take the sheets outside—while, with the mallet and the claw end of a hammer, she pulled the plywood panels from three of the windows, one in the living room and two in the kitchen. An hour had gone by. Quickly she got a pot of soup cooking on the stove for their supper. Letting the water run to clear the pipes, she peeled potatoes and carrots and let the kids cut them up, placating them in the meantime with graham crackers and peanut butter. The next time she looked up, she was surprised to see that it had started to snow again, flakes falling through the sunlight. It’s too cold to snow, she thought; it’s just a snow shower.
The day revolved around her and she worked joyfully, moved happily. What a luxury it was just to bang around as much as she wanted to. Here at last was the safe, hidden world where she could protect the children from the threat of violence. Filled with energy, she whirled through the house with a broom, dragging down cobwebs; then with a basin of pine-scented soapsuds, she began to wipe down the wooden furniture. There was so much to do—beds to be made, linens to wash, meals to prepare—and she addressed it willingly, vigorously, refreshed in mind and spirit. She would be tired from work. She wanted to be tired.
If no one came poking around, she was convinced they could live here safely into the new year, maybe longer. Plenty of time to decide what to do. Now and then, from one of the windows or turning in a doorway, she caught glimpses of Mamie. How remarkable it all seemed now, that she had actually made it here with these children—with Mamie. Leona watched her with the others, watched her dash about, huddle with them, whisper, every bit a little girl.
The children were in and out of the house. Once, when they had come in to ask for a drink of water, Mamie turned, holding her glass in both hands, and asked, “Is this where you live?”
“Yes, Mamie,” Leona answered, stooping to her. “But it’s where you live, too. You and me and Patsy and Walter. We’ll all live here together. Do you like it?”
Mamie held the glass very still and looked at the floor as if to decide. At last, without raising her head, she slowly nodded. “It’s a fairy-tale place,” she murmured, and stepped back toward the other children.
With its nooks and crannies and Victorian woodwork, the summer house must look like a fantasy to a child, Leona realized; like an elf’s cottage in a storybook.
By three o’clock that afternoon, the sun had slipped behind the towering river cliffs, casting the island in shadow as deep and blue as dusk. As she worked, Leona made a mental list of the things she would need eventually. Somehow she would have to secure another tank of bottled gas. And the makings for a cake—a tall chocolate layer cake, she thought. Except for the pie she’d made for Mark Hardesty, it had been years since she’d had a good reason to bake anything. The few times she’d made even a batch of muffins for Helen Merchassen, they had eaten only two or three and the rest had gone to waste. Then, in Graylie, Emma had done almost all the cooking. Emma! When Leona went to get supplies, she would try to call the hospital again. She had called two days ago and Emma was stable, still in the coma. She thought of Frank; she could hear his accusations ringing in her mind, but there was nothing she could say to him that would ease his suffering. To keep her grief at a distance, she forced her thoughts elsewhere—to her last few moments with Mark Hardesty. Don’t go, he had said; please don’t do this. She remembered the warmth of his arms around her and the way he had cupped her face in his hands; could almost feel the slow and unmistakable movements with which her body had responded to his. She let the fantasy linger as she drew clean water. How often she thought of him now, missed him, wanted to see his warm dark eyes crinkle with laughter, wanted that and so much more. I must write to him at once, Leona thought.
The children came upon her standing very still, her pale face turned toward the front window. “What’sa matter?” Walter said, and she turned, startled, and smiled. “Oh, I was just remembering your Aunt Vee. What a good time we had.”
With a few wooden poker chips and a saucer, she showed them how to play tiddlywinks. And when they had tired of that, she gave them a damp deck of playing cards and said she would play the first one who won three games of Crazy Eights.
“We played Crazy Eights at Funny Grandma’s house,” Mamie said, and Leona smiled. “Yes,” she replied. “I know you did. I remember.”
But before the card game was finished, Walter came to her. “Can we make a snowman?”
“You can try if you want to, but the snow’s too hard and dry. It won’t stick together.” Still relieved to be out of the car, they wanted to romp and play outside and Leona immediately chided herself for dampening their enthusiasm. “Why don’t you see if you can’t make that snowman?”
“You want a big one?” Walter said.
“Yes,” she said. “A very great big one.”
“O-kay.” And they put on their warm clothes and ran out.
The stairway to the balcony and second-floor bedrooms ran against the lower wall with a small landing halfway up. The balcony itself was bare except for the small Queen Anne table Helen Merchassen had insisted on bringing here, and two delicate, spindle-back chairs, so old the glue was loose in their joints. Leona ran up and down those stairs all afternoon. With the mallet, she knocked the plywood covers from two of the bedroom windows, but was unable to budge the third. Once, sitting on the side of her bed, she took from her purse the wooden flower Mark had carved for her and set it up against the vanity mirror. And it all came flooding back again—his laugh, his voice that strummed within her, the slow tilting nod when he first said hello to her, morning and evening, so careful and effortless at the same time. But now her memories stung her so deeply, she could hardly bear to look at the small carving.
She went back to work. Mark would like it here, she thought. Although it was cold, she left the windows open for a while to air out the rooms. The beautiful blue afternoon light ebbed toward darkness. She was making the beds with fresh linen when Patsy called to her from downstairs. “Hey?”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
Leona gathered up an armful of musty bedclothes and stepped out to the balcony. “I’m up here,” she said, looking down on the living room. “Why?”
“I don’t think Walter feels very good,” Patsy said, gazing upward. “I think he’s sick.”
Carrying the wadded pile of sheets, Leona came downstairs. “He seemed all right a while ago.” She dropped the load in an armchair.
“Well, he’s not okay now.”
“Where is he? Still outside?”
“Uh-huh.”
Walter was flushed. He had vomited on his gloves and coat and was sobbing because of the mess. Leona brought him in by the fire. “What’s the matter, Walter?” she said. “Don’t you feel good?” The two girls stood behind the sofa, ceremoniously looking on.
“I don’t feel real good,” he said. “I’m fr-freezing.”
“Here, then, let’s have a look at you.” She pulled off his gloves and drew his coat off his shoulders; she would clean them later. Then she held her hand to his forehead. “Why don’t you climb up here on the couch and we’ll cover you up, see if we can’t get you warm?”
He lay with his head on the fringed sofa pillows and she tucked the afghan around him. “You girls go on and play,” she said. “I’ll look after Walter.” In the bathroom medicine cabinet she found a thermometer, wiped it with rubbing alcohol, and took his temperature. A hundred and three.
The girls had not strayed. Pats
y sat in a chair by the fire and Mamie lingered at the opposite edge of the fireplace. “If you’re going to stay indoors,” Leona told them, “you should take off your coats. You don’t want to turn up with whatever it is he’s got.”
A fever that high bothered Leona, even if it wasn’t so uncommon in a small child. She said to him, “Walter, where do you feel bad?” and he said, “My ear really hurts.”
She lifted him and turned his head. “Here, let me see it,” but she hardly had to look at it. On the pillow where his head had been, there was a trace of pus. His ear. His damaged ear. “I’ll need to clean it,” she told him. “I’ll be very gentle,” and with a damp cloth she washed the inside of his ear. It was infected, perhaps had been infecting for some time. And she had nothing to give him except the aspirin she kept in her purse. She gave him a tablet. Sitting beside him, she bathed his feverish face again and again.
The sun was going down. When he had gone to sleep, she motioned the girls to the kitchen and ladled the soup into bowls. She opened a tin of crackers and they ate their soup, dipping the crackers into the broth until it cooled. They were subdued now, no one saying much of anything, and Leona had little desire for the soup. “Come on, now, Patsy, eat your supper. We have to keep our strength up.”
The next time she looked in on Walter, he had kicked the cover off. He was sweating and he still complained that his ear hurt. Again she gently bathed his face. The aspirin had done him no good. If only she still had the medicine in her briefcase, if only … But she didn’t. When he woke, she would take his temperature again, but she needed something to give him. She knew that an ear infection could become serious, that without medicine and proper treatment it would only get worse. After all, they were all run down from their days and nights on the road.
At six-fifteen, she took his temperature again and it was unchanged. Still a hundred and three. Now she began to worry. She woke him and gave him another aspirin. “Walter, do you feel dizzy?”
“Nahh,” he said, “it just hurts.”
“Your ear hurts?”
And he nodded, rolling his head. “Way inside,” he told her.
If she let it go, it might … What if it turned into something dreadful like meningitis? She just couldn’t take that chance. If he was really run down, as he well might be … She sat staring at the dark window in the living room. Night. In fifteen minutes, she took his temperature a third time. Still a hundred and three. The aspirin wasn’t working. He was really sick; he needed something. His breath wheezed from his open mouth.
Throughout this part of the country, one drugstore in every town stayed open till eight. It was a law. And unless things had changed, there was only one drugstore in Brandenburg Station—Wetzel’s. It was dark; at least that would be to her advantage. She knew the risk she would be taking, perhaps being seen and identified. Even more, she hated to leave the children alone in this isolated place. But she had to do something to help Walter, and to carry him back across the ice would only expose him to the weather again. Impossible for a child in his condition. In the end, it was simple: she had a sick child who needed medication.
Dressed to go out, with the briefcase in her hand, she drew the girls aside. “Walter’s sick. He has an ear infection,” she said. “He needs medicine and I’ll have to try to get it. Understand? Mamie, do you understand me?” Mamie nodded. “I won’t be gone any longer than I have to. I’m sorry to leave you here, but I need you to stay with Walter. If he wakes up, give him some water and tell him I’ll be right back. Don’t worry. I’ll hurry. Okay?”
“I’m kinda scared,” Patsy said.
“I know,” Leona said. “But just lock the door after I leave. Nobody’ll come. You’ll be all right. And I’ll come right back, I promise.”
Quickly she made her way across the bumpy ice and started the car. Again, fleetingly, she worried about the Browning, but she had resigned herself to its absence. She had to drive in reverse for nearly a quarter of a mile before the road widened beside the fishing huts and she could turn the car around. She had thought she might be able to drive to town with her running lights off, but the moon had slipped behind clouds. It was impossible, though when she saw the streetlights of Brandenburg Station strung out down the steep hill, she lowered her speed and put out the car lights, and darkness fell against the windshield like a curtain. Even after the road had straightened, she drove slowly, picking her way across the thin drifts of snow. The Pontiac slipped past the barricades and idled to the curb beside the Paragon Theater. From there she could see up the long hill street; across it and two doors up was Wetzel’s Drugstore, ablaze with light.
As she tried to decide how to proceed, she thought she saw something move on the other side of the road. She looked over and saw a boy standing motionless at the edge of the waterfront park, his breath clouding the air. He must have been there all along, she thought; I just didn’t see him. Even at that distance, she thought she could tell that he was shivering; with the wind, it would feel like ten below zero out there. He stood hunched inside his jacket—just a kid, a young kid. Poor devil, she thought, and her heart went out to him. She turned on her headlights, pulled across the intersection, and parked. Then she took a few bills from the briefcase and slipped it under the front seat where it would be safe. She locked the car. A few minutes later Leona was entering the drugstore.
Pretending to look at a circular rack of greeting cards, she waited for two women to conclude their business at the pharmacist’s counter. Somewhere above her head a fluorescent light buzzed. She stood very still near the center of the store, able to scan it thoroughly every few seconds. No one else had come in. One of the two customers went out carrying a paper bag; as the woman passed, Leona reached low on the rack to hide her face. The bell jingled on the door. When she looked toward the door the next time, she noticed that the boy she’d seen standing outside had come up to the display window. She could see that he was shabbily and poorly dressed, especially for this weather. He wore a scuffed old jacket that was too big for him. But there was nothing she could do for him, not now. She had her own troubles to deal with.
Come on, she thought. What’s taking so long? Come on, come on! In her mind, she could picture the children alone out on the island. Completely alone. When she heard the second customer walking toward her, she quickly turned her back and bent down to one of the low shelves. The clicking high heels passed her. The doorbell jingled.
As she approached the high pharmacist’s counter, Charlie Wetzel glanced up at her, then quickly lowered his head and went on working. Leona cleared her throat. “Don’t you remember me?” she said.
“Of course I remember you,” he said, sorting pills, his eyes still averted. “Leona, what the hell you doin’ here?”
“I need a favor.”
“You probably need more than one.”
The doorbell chimed.
“Could you possibly help me?”
“Go back to my office,” the druggist said. “I’ll get back there as soon as I can. Go. Go right now.”
Leona turned down the hallway next to the counter and opened the door marked “Private.” She waited there, restlessly paging through magazines that had been left lying on the coffee table of his cluttered living room. If he calls the police, she thought, I’m finished. When the door opened, she stood straight up.
Charlie Wetzel removed his rimless glasses and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Leona explained the circumstances: she needed penicillin. Slowly his hand came down his face and pinched his lower lip. “Leona,” he said, and looked away, “if I hear what you’re saying—” He stopped in midsentence, ran his hand through his thin hair, and scratched the back of his head. “You’ve put me in a helluva spot. You know I’m supposed to turn you in if you show up here,” he said. “I believe you know that.”
Leona noticed that her fingernails were rattling on the back of a chair and took her hand away. “I’ve got a really sick little boy on my hands, Charlie. It’s
getting worse and worse and all I have is aspirin. I remembered Doc Merchassen said you sometimes helped people without prescriptions. I have some money,” and she held out the folded bills from her pocket. “Charlie, I really need some penicillin.”
“Put that away,” he said. “Don’t insult me flashing money around. Don’t you know what you’re asking for is against the law?”
“Yes, I know,” she said, and closed her eyes on a moment of vertigo, “but—”
“Whatever happened before was between Doc and me.”
“I’m not trying to trade on his good name.”
“I don’t know what you’d call it, then, because you damn well are.”
He took his glasses off and wiped them on the bottom of his white coat, then put them back on. His face was without expression. “And I’ll never—Don’t ever ask me again,” he said. He peered over the tops of his glasses at her. “Well, wait here. I may have to wait on customers. Don’t come out. Stay here.”
It was ten minutes before he returned. He handed her a white paper envelope containing a tube of ointment and the penicillin tablets in a plain unmarked bottle—he told her the dosage and the frequency. Then he gave her another envelope.
“What’s in this?” she asked.
“Just a sedative. You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”
She offered to pay him, but again he refused. “Let’s just chalk this one up to the Doc. If you get caught with this stuff, I’ll swear to God I’ve never seen it before.”
“One last thing, Charlie,” she said. “I want that sled you’ve got in your window.”
“Leona, that’s not for sale. That’s my display, goddammit.”