After the Rain

by Karen White

  “How much sugar goes into sweet tea anyway?”

  Lucinda tasted her own tea before answering, “About four cups. Why? Is there not enough in yours?”

  “Yes, um, it’s fine.”

  Miss Lena raised thin gray eyebrows. “You must not be from around here.” She looked at Suzanne expectantly.

  Almost recovered from Miss Lena’s broadside and glad for the switch in topic, Joe took the opportunity to leave without further embarrassment. Placing his empty glass on the tray, he said good-bye to the three women, avoiding Suzanne’s eyes, and went back outside to continue mowing. Maybe he could cut his foot off so that people would have something else besides his widowed status to remember him by. “Joe, the guy who cut off his foot” sounded much better than “Joe, the guy whose wife died.”

  Bracing his muscles, he gave the old mower a push and headed down yet another straight line of green grass. He inhaled deeply, smelling something else over the sweet scent of the cut grass. He paused, recognizing the smell of the season’s change hovering in the air.

  For a long time he had resisted any change, seeing it as moving him further from Harriet and the life they had shared together. But now, for the first time since her death, the thought of change no longer seemed to squeeze at his heart. He wasn’t sure what was different, but he almost felt he could face Maddie’s moving away, and Harry’s growing older, and even another Christmas without Harriet. It was as if even the changes had a rhythm to them, bringing you back to the place you started—only the second time around you were stronger and wiser.

  He pushed harder on the mower, turning his face toward the fresh fall breeze, and welcomed the change with an enthusiasm bordered by old grief and new hope.

  CHAPTER 14

  Suzanne lay in bed, listening to the incessant hammering downstairs. She was supposed to be at work, which was the only reason Sam was at the house working. But this morning she had awoken with a burning fever, and just getting out of bed to reach the phone had taken up her day’s energy.

  She had appreciated the concern in Lucinda’s voice but had assured her it was probably just a bug and she’d most likely be up and about the next day. But as the morning progressed, she felt worse and worse, and the hammering seemed to reverberate in her head until she thought her eyeballs would lose their grip in their sockets.

  Wearily she struggled to a sitting position and dragged on her bathrobe. Hauling herself across the bedroom and downstairs, she went in search of Sam and the torturing hammer.

  She found him in the dining room, hanging beadboard on the bottom half of the wall. He was in the middle of hammering a bottom panel in place when he must have spotted the flash of red from her robe and glanced up. He froze in place for a long moment, his hammer suspended in midair.

  “Suzanne. I’m sorry—I thought you were at work. Did I get the schedule wrong?”

  She shook her head, then wished she hadn’t, since it felt as if her brain were sloshing inside her skull. “No. I called in sick.” She leaned against the doorframe, not sure she had the energy to stand anymore.

  Sam dropped the hammer and stood at the same time a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Joe, who had apparently been sawing a piece of wood on the sawhorse, quickly approached her and placed his arm around her right before her knees buckled. His lips twitched in an effort not to smile. “Have you caught a glimpse of yourself in a mirror recently?”

  “No,” she croaked, her voice dry.

  “I’m going to carry you up to your bedroom now, all right? You’re sick, and that’s where you need to be.”

  “I can walk. Really.” She shrugged away from Joe and Sam and started for the stairs. After two steps, her knees buckled and Joe grabbed her again before she fell face-first on the sawdust-covered floor.

  Without asking this time, Joe grabbed her under her knees and carried her upstairs before laying her gently on the bed. Despite the crisp and clean linens, the pillowcase seemed made of itchy sandpaper, and she reached her hand up to claw at her cheek.

  Joe grabbed hold of her wrist while Sam felt her forehead. “Don’t scratch. Wait a minute.” Joe walked over to the bureau, where a small handheld mirror lay. He came back and sat on the edge of her bed. “Take a look.”

  She looked at her reflection and wasn’t sure whether she wanted to gasp in horror or laugh hysterically. Small red dots covered her face as if she’d been the victim of a horrible painting accident. “Oh” was all she managed.

  Sam spoke from where he sat on the other side of the bed. “Have you not been feeling well lately?”

  “Um, not really. Not like today, but not myself.”

  “Well, it’s my guess that you have chicken pox. When did you babysit Joe’s kids?”

  She heard Joe groan as she closed her eyes, using all her concentration in the pounding of her head. “It was two weeks ago yesterday.”

  Sam slapped his thighs before standing. “Yep. That would be it. Okay. I’m going to go get my bag and check you out while Joe calls Lucinda. Somebody will need to come in and take care of you. Trust me—chicken pox as an adult is not something to mess with.”

  “Sam, really, I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine. There’s no need to bother anybody on my account.”

  Sam ducked his head for a moment, and she could see the creases of a smile. “Suzanne, let me try to make this as plain as I can. See those bumps on your face? You’re going to be crawling with them all over your body—both inside and out.” He paused as if to let the mental picture sink in. “You will be miserable wanting to scratch, and the fever will make it worse. Most important, I need to make sure that somebody’s here to make sure you’re keeping hydrated and eating—as well as to keep an eye on your fever.”

  Suzanne shook her head on the pillow, feeling again the sensation of her brain meeting the sides of her skull with each movement. “I don’t want anybody to take care of me. I’ve always—”

  With a stern look, Sam said, “No more arguing. You may be used to looking out for yourself, but we here in Walton are used to taking care of those who need it. You might as well just lie back and get used to it.”

  Sam left, and Joe sat and took her hand. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let you near Sarah Frances with you not knowing if you’d had chicken pox before.”

  She tried to squeeze his hand but found she didn’t have the strength. “It’s all right,” she mumbled, but wasn’t sure she’d been coherent enough for him to understand.

  Joe leaned forward, and she thought she felt a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m calling Lucinda now. Don’t worry—we’ll take good care of you.”

  Feeling like a wilting flower, Suzanne sank back on her pillow with a groan and accepted her fate. With reluctance, she allowed her eyelids to close and was drifting off to sleep by the time she heard Joe’s footsteps fading away down the stairs.

  She awoke to the scent of heavy perfume and a cool hand on her forehead. Her entire body felt as if it were on fire, and she pressed her forehead against the cool hand, trying to soothe the ache. The sensation of having one thousand ants crawling on her body flicked her eyes open, and she reached for her cheeks, ready to claw off the offending intruders, and found to her surprise that her hands had been covered in soft white gloves.

  Somebody leaned over into Suzanne’s field of vision, and she found herself staring into the concerned face of Lucinda Madison.

  “Don’t scratch, honey. You’ve got beautiful skin, and I don’t want you getting any scars.”

  The ants continued their march across her face, down her neck, and spread across her abdomen and down to her legs. “Please. I’ve got to scratch. I itch so bad. . . .”

  She found her arms restrained by a surprisingly strong Lucinda. “I’ve drawn you a warm milk bath that will help with the itching on the outside. Dr. Parker left me with an antihistamine to give you that will help with the itching on the inside.”

  As if on cue, her mouth,
nose, throat, and other internal areas of her body that she couldn’t imagine scratching in public became invaded by the marching ants, making her fidget.

  Lucinda pressed a pill to her lips. “Take this and you won’t itch so bad.”

  Suzanne resisted, rejecting her dependence even through her fever and itch-induced haze.

  Sweet, kind Lucinda forced open Suzanne’s mouth, then dumped the medicine on the back of her tongue, forcing her to swallow before she could spit it out.

  “Sugar, I’ve been tending children and sick folks all my life, so there’s no use in fighting me. While you’re sick, I’m stronger than you, and you’re going to have to do as I say.”

  Suzanne turned her head away to show her displeasure, but deep inside she felt a part of herself sigh with relief that she didn’t have to go through this alone.

  “Are you ready for that bath, or would you like to eat something first? I brought my own homemade chicken soup. Guaranteed to make you feel better. And I promise I won’t force-feed you.”

  Suzanne managed a smile. “This itching’s about to kill me. Can I do the bath first and then have the soup?”

  Lucinda’s red-painted lips broadened into a wide smile. “That sounds like a good idea to me. I’ll help you into the bath, and while you’re soaking I’ll do a load of laundry and throw in your sleep shirt, all right?”

  Suzanne nodded and, for the first time in a very long while, allowed herself to be taken care of.

  When she next awoke, after having been bathed and fed and put back to bed, she was surprised to find Sarah Frances sitting in a chair by the bed, reading from a math textbook and writing numbers in a notebook. She glanced up without a smile.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Terrible.”

  Sarah Frances moved her homework to the floor and stood. “I need to take your temperature.”

  “Why are you here?” Suzanne’s voice croaked, and Sarah Frances poured her a fresh glass of water from a pitcher on her nightstand and handed it to her before sticking the thermometer under her tongue.

  “It was Aunt Cassie’s turn to come sit with you, but Uncle Sam didn’t think it was a good idea—with the baby and all. So I said I would.” She looked down, her cheeks flushed.

  “Thanks,” Suzanne mumbled through the thermometer.

  The girl shrugged. “Well, I felt bad since I gave it to you.”

  Suzanne tried to struggle to a sitting position but gave up when her head threatened to explode. “It’s not your fault. I had no idea that I’d never had chicken pox as a kid.”

  Sarah Frances shrugged again. “Well, I still felt bad. And stop talking or you’ll mess up the reading.” She turned and walked toward the bureau, where she pulled something off it and returned to the bedside to show Suzanne. “Aunt Cassie sent some of her flannel nightgowns. Lucinda told her that you only had the one T-shirt, and Aunt Cassie thought that with so many visitors you might want something else to change into.”

  “So many visitors . . . ?”

  There was a tap on the bedroom door, and the flowered top of a hat entered first before the face beneath it. It was one of the Sedgewick twins. “Can we come in?”

  Not convinced that what she answered would matter, Suzanne said, “Yes.”

  Sarah Frances took the thermometer out of her mouth, looked at it, and jotted something down on a piece of paper by the bed.

  The two women, dressed in matching yellow pantsuits, hats, and yellow patent leather sandals, entered the room with identical cloth bags tucked under their arms. “We’re here to relieve Sarah Frances and to ask you what color you want your afghan to be.”

  Suzanne squinted, afraid that the fever was making her see double, but when the women came and sat on either side of her, she knew they were for real. Knowing better than to send the room spinning by trying to sit up, she stayed where she was on the pillow. “Afghan?”

  “Yes, dear,” said the twin on her right, the flower on top of her head bobbing in rhythm with the woman’s cheeks. “Nothing warms a sickbed better than a nice afghan in a favorite color. We figured while we were sitting here during our shift, we could start making your afghan.”

  Sarah Frances began gathering up her things. “She’ll need the ibuprofen and Benadryl in another hour or so. She hasn’t had dinner yet, either.” She pointed to the piece of paper she had written on earlier. “Here’s her schedule—just make sure you mark down anything you give her.”

  The twins pulled up chairs, one on each side of the bed, and extracted fuzzy white slippers from their bags. “All right, and we brought our special vegetable soup—the one that almost won the Good Housekeeping contest three years ago.”

  Sarah Frances stood by the side of the bed and spoke, her eyes not meeting Suzanne’s. “Aunt Cassie said to call if you need anything. And I left her nightgowns on the dresser.”

  Suzanne raised her hand to scratch her neck and noticed that the white gloves were back on.

  The young girl addressed the twins. “And make sure she keeps those gloves on. I safety-pinned them to the long sleeves of her T-shirt, so make sure you take them off her before she goes to the bathroom or something.”

  The ladies nodded solemnly as Sarah Frances turned back to Suzanne. “It’ll be pretty bad for the first five days, but you’ll get used to it. And I took Aunt Lu’s milk baths at least twice a day and that really helped.”

  “Thanks, Sarah Frances. I appreciate it. And thanks again for your help today.”

  The girl shrugged. “Yeah, well. I’m sorry about all this.” With a small wave, she walked away with a muffled good-bye.

  “Do you need to go use the lavatory, dear?”

  Suzanne brought her attention back to the featherless canary at her bed and wondered which one had spoken. “The lavatory?”

  The other twin leaned over the other side of the bed. “Powder your nose.”

  Suzanne thought hard for a moment before she figured it out. “No, I’m fine for now.” She raised her hand again to scratch her chest and stared at the gloves in frustration. “But you could help me unpin these things. They’re driving me crazy.”

  The two women stared down at her, their mouths drawn in matching frowns of disapproval. The one on the right said, “I don’t think so, dear. We wouldn’t want you marring your beautiful complexion. Why don’t I have Selma draw you another milk bath while I entertain you? We could play ‘I Spy’!”

  Suzanne forced a smile as she sank lower into the bed. Using a toenail, she began to scratch mercilessly at the bumps on her other foot. The eagle eye of her current warden saw the movement under her blanket.

  With a loud exhalation, Thelma stood, towering over Suzanne like a yellow apparition. “Tell me where you keep your socks, dear, and I won’t have to get nasty.”

  Blinking rapidly, Suzanne indicated the dresser across the room, then sank farther down in her bed, pulling the blanket over her face.

  The misery of the next few days passed in a blur as a stream of caretakers took their places in the armchairs across from her bed. Brunelle Thompkins brought a pecan pie from the Dixie Diner for when she was feeling better. Mrs. Crandall brought a small portable TV with a DVD player and a few of her own favorite movies. Suzanne had never heard of most of them, never having been a fan of Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable, but she found them a welcome relief to the boredom of being bedridden.

  The purple-and-pink afghan the Sedgewick twins had made lay at the foot of the bed and had come in handy in the new, chilly fall nights. Mrs. Parker, Sam’s mother, had come by several times and had sat in the chair knitting while Suzanne slept and then had helped her apply bright pink calamine lotion to the itchiest spots.

  She had been pleased to see Miss Lena stop by, too. Ed had hung back in the doorway, but Miss Lena had come and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at Suzanne with worried concern.

  “Is Dr. Parker taking good care of you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Suzanne said, surprised to hear the wo
rd “ma’am” coming out of her own mouth.

  A soft, warm hand touched her forehead. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you? Your mama had it bad, too.”

  Suzanne glanced over at Ed for assistance, but he was busy cleaning his nails with a pocketknife.

  “My Ed didn’t have such a rough time with it, though. He was living with his other family then, so I guess it’s a good thing. But I would have taken good care of him. I would have.”

  Maddie had told Suzanne about Ed’s being adopted as an infant, and she knew Miss Lena was referring to Ed’s adopted family. The story of them finding each other after all those years had touched Suzanne and somehow satisfied her to know that neither one of them had to be alone anymore. She glanced up at Miss Lena, and the elderly woman’s eyes appeared clouded as she peered through the pages of years in her broken memory.

  Miss Lena sat back and folded her hands in front of her with a wide grin. “I brought something for you.” Reaching into her oversized black purse, she pulled out two dog-eared paperback books. The first, with a near-naked man and woman riding a horse on the cover, was entitled Heaven’s Passion. With a wiggle of her eyebrows, Miss Lena pressed it into Suzanne’s gloved hands.

  The second book, to Suzanne’s surprise, was an ancient copy of Little Women. “I want the other one back, but you can keep this one. I hope you enjoy it as much as your mama did. She read it three times back to back, starting page one as soon as she finished the last page.”

  This time Ed must have heard his mother, because he advanced into the room. “Mama, did you take your pills this morning?”

  Miss Lena rolled her eyes, and Suzanne would have laughed if her skin didn’t itch so much and if she didn’t feel a pang of sadness for Miss Lena.

  Miss Lena pressed Suzanne’s hand before she stood to leave. She allowed Ed to guide her out of the room, seeming much frailer than she had when she had spoken with animation about her beloved books.

  Suzanne had then gone to sleep, her dreams chasing her from yellowed pages of books to a scene in a meadow with her and Joe on horseback. She had the distinct impression that they were naked.