by K. L. Cook
“Please don’t leave,” Laura whispered.
Her mother simply shook her head.
“Please,” Laura said and began to weep.
“I’m sorry, honey. It’s nature’s way.”
Her mother reached down and gently brushed away Laura’s tears.
“Just nature’s way. That’s how it has to be, Laura.”
And then her mother leaned down and cupped her face and then kissed her on the mouth and held the kiss almost like a lover, her hair falling around both their faces so it seemed like they were in a cave. Then she pulled away and stared at Laura curiously.
“Please don’t disappear,” Laura pleaded.
Her mother just picked up her suitcase and walked through a series of cobwebs, and then she was gone, the webs tattered and dangling behind her.
Mrs. Ambling watched after her for a couple of days, soaking her in the bathtub with ice in it, changing her sheets. “Maybe she’s got pneumonia,” Laura heard her tell her father.
There was talk of the hospital.
“No,” Laura mumbled, frightened. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really, I am.”
But Dr. Phelps, who’d delivered all five of the kids, came to the house. He must have been in his sixties by now and had gotten fatter, a bullfrog gullet where his neck should have been. His long gray handlebar mustache hid his lips. He fingered her neck. He thumped her chest and back and felt under her armpits. He pried her eyes open and shone a penlight in them. He shoved a thermometer in her mouth. He asked questions.
“Is she vomiting?”
“Not anymore.”
“How long has she been like this?”
“Since Sunday,” her father said, his hands crossed tightly against his chest. “What is it? What do you think?”
“Well, it’s not pneumonia.”
“That’s good,” her father said, urging him on.
“Probably the flu. It’s going around now.”
“How long does it usually last?”
“Depends,” Dr. Phelps said. “A week, sometimes two.”
“What can we do?”
“Keep the boys away. Force liquids. Make her eat, if you can.”
He put his stethoscope and penlight back in his bag and then turned to her father and stroked one side of his long mustache and then the other.
“Zeeke, I don’t mean to pry, but do you have a sister…or aunt or somebody who could come help out around here?”
“Why?”
“It just might be good to have a woman in the house, to help you all out while Laura’s sick.”
Her father looked as if he’d been punched in the face, then scowled. “Sarah Ambling lives next door. She helps.”
“I apologize, Zeeke. I suppose it’s not my place. No offense—”
Her father cut him off. “None taken.”
“I just thought—”
“How much do I owe you, Doc?”
By Thursday evening, the fever had broken. She ate macaroni and cheese and applesauce and drank some milk, but she was exhausted. Finally she slept soundly, and the dreams didn’t wake her in alarm or confusion.
Friday she was better. She got up during the day, while her father and brothers were gone, and walked through the house. It was a wreck: Dirty socks and underwear and various undershirts and pants scattered about, Rich and Gene’s toys and her father’s newspapers littering the floor. Some greasy engine part propped by the front window. The dishes piled high in the kitchen, a loaf of bread untied, the bag wide open, growing stale. An open jar of plum jelly with a peanut-buttery knife stuck in it. No milk or eggs or butter in the icebox or much of anything in the pantry. She hoped that they would take care of this mess before she fully recovered. She hoped they weren’t just waiting for her to get well. Her spirits suddenly flagged. She was reminded of how much she did around here, how much they depended on her to keep things in order. Maybe this is what Dr. Phelps had been referring to. She wondered if this mess was her penance for all her deception. Perhaps it’s what she deserved.
She took a bath, changed her sheets, and fell back into bed. She’d missed a week of school, and she’d tried to catch up on the homework that Manny had gathered from her teachers. Exams would begin next week, and she was woefully behind.
When her father and the boys arrived home, around five-thirty, her father came in to check on her. “How ya doing?” he asked, a little edgy. She could tell that he was ready for this ordeal to be over.
“Better,” she said. “I think I should get up and do some cleaning.”
“Nonsense!” he said, shaking his head. “It ain’t your fault you’re sick.” He kissed her forehead. “Need anything?”
“No, sir.”
A few minutes later she heard him call her brothers together in the living room and quietly scold them for the mess, tell them it was inexcusable. He gave orders.
“It ain’t my job,” Manny said.
“I don’t give a damn whose job it is!” her father whispered fiercely. “You’re going to do those dishes.”
“Ain’t it about time she was well?” Manny muttered.
“She’ll be well when she’s good and ready,” her father said definitively.
Then the house vibrated and jangled noisily from their work. She felt guilty, though also relieved, and she returned to her geometry problems, hoping that her brothers would not hold her sickness against her too much.
About seven-thirty, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Then she heard the Letigs in the living room, her father and John exchanging hellos, Mrs. Letig saying they’d heard she was sick, wanted to bring something over for her and the family. Laura felt panicked.
“Anne,” Laura’s father said, clearly pleased, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“I don’t want you all to go hungry. Laura’s the only one who cooks around here, I bet.”
“Smells good. What is it?”
“Enchiladas. Half chicken, half beef.”
“Oh, my goodness. Mmmm, smells good. Thank you.”
“Is it all right to see her?” Mrs. Letig asked.
Why does she want to see me? She’d discovered the truth. Maybe she found some article of clothing that John had failed to put back in her satchel. There would have been an argument, bitter words, tears, accusations, John breaking down, confessing. And the Letigs were here now to tell her father. Her forehead felt suddenly clammy again, her stomach knotted.
No, the woman had brought food. Laura was just delirious—this was foolish panic. She listened as Mrs. Letig gave her father instructions for reheating the enchiladas. She didn’t sound anxious or distressed.
No, of course not. She wouldn’t know. John would never have confessed, even if Mrs. Letig did find something. They were just here to be nice.
Laura reached down to the end of her bed and grabbed her housecoat, slipped it on. She looked in the mirror. Her hair was a rat’s nest. She seemed sallow-faced, with dark circles under her eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair, but they caught the tangles, so she just patted it down. She licked her lips to cover up the cracks. Her mouth felt filmy. The room still smelled sweaty. Her brothers had moved out to her father’s room and the living room, so she could have her privacy and so they wouldn’t catch whatever she had. She crawled back under the covers.
Her father poked his head in the room. “Laura, you have visitors.”
“Who?” What a liar she was.
“The Letigs. They want to see you how you’re doing. They brought us some dinner. And they’ve brought you something.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, frowning.
“Just wanted to say hello, Laura,” Mrs. Letig called from the hallway. “We won’t be long.”
“I guess,” Laura said and tried to smile.
Her father winked and nodded with an expression that said, Atta girl.
“You go on, Zeeke. Let me talk to Laura for a minute.” He left, and she felt nervous again. “How you feeling, sweetie?” Mrs.
Letig said. She handed Laura a copy of the Hollywood Star Gazette. “I know you like these,” she said.
“Thank you.” Laura took the magazine and then began moving some of her books and papers.
“Oh, I can do that,” Mrs. Letig said and neatly stacked the books on the end of the bed and sat beside Laura. She wore a sky-blue cotton dress and a matching scarf in her hair. She smiled. “There’s a good article about Deborah Kerr in there, and another one about Desi and Lucy.”
“I appreciate it.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
Mrs. Letig reached over and put her hand on Laura’s forehead. It was strange when you were sick, Laura thought. Everybody seemed to think they could put their hands on your body.
“You don’t have a fever anymore. That’s good. But you still look pale.”
Laura nodded.
“Are you going back to school next week?”
“Yes, ma’am. I hope so.”
Laura heard her father and John talking in the next room. She tried to make out what they were saying, but their voices seemed muffled, and it was difficult paying attention to both them and Mrs. Letig. At full strength, she would have had less trouble, she believed. She was getting good at doing more than one thing at a time. Lying kept you alert. You could never let your guard down. But the sickness had taken away her powers of concentration.
“That’s good,” Mrs. Letig said. Laura forgot what she was referring to, so she just smiled. “Your father said the doctor never could quite figure out what was wrong with you.”
“Flu, he thinks.”
“Well, we won’t keep you. Is it okay if John comes in for a minute? He wanted to give you something that he and the boys made. I told him that a young lady doesn’t like to have her privacy invaded, especially when she’s sick.”
She didn’t know if she wanted him to see her like this. But he’d seen her worse, hadn’t he?
“I guess,” she said.
“He won’t stay long. Men don’t really like sickness, honey,” Mrs. Letig said. “They think they can handle it, but they can’t. That’s why they don’t let them in when we have babies. They can’t stand to see women in pain. It scares them. They like to think of us in a purer form.”
Mrs. Letig turned and smiled sadly and then looked back at Laura.
“I remember your mother used to say that.”
“What?”
“Oh, the ‘purer form’ thing.”
They exchanged glances, a question in Mrs. Letig’s face, wondering if she should bring up this subject. The woman turned her head toward the door and listened for a second. John and Laura’s father were talking about Charnelle Steel.
Mrs. Letig turned back to her and smiled again, wistfully. “I really liked your mother, Laura. Is it okay for me to speak of her?”
“Yes.”
“I know it can be a sensitive subject.” She glanced again at the door and then said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “And your father never talks about her.”
Laura nodded but felt a confused sense of betrayal for doing so.
“Have you ever heard from her?” Mrs. Letig asked.
“No,” Laura said nervously.
Mrs. Letig shook her head. “That’s too bad. I guess we’ll never know why she left. It’s a terrible thing. But I want you to know that she was a…” She hesitated. “She is a good woman. It’s important for you to know that, Laura. She loved…she loves you kids.”
Laura didn’t know if she really believed that, but she felt there was something mysterious and goodhearted about Mrs. Letig’s intentions. She nodded.
“Well, we never got to have that little talk. We’ll have to have it when you feel better. I want you to feel free to talk to me about whatever you want.” She placed her hands on Laura’s and leaned toward her earnestly. “Okay?”
Laura was disoriented for a moment, not sure what Mrs. Letig was talking about, but then remembered that before spring break she’d offered to answer Laura’s questions, help her out since Gloria and her mother were no longer around.
“Yes, ma’am,” Laura said.
She found it too strange to have her mother returning through the memory of this woman. She tried not to think about her mother much, but in her dreams this week she had come, and even when Laura felt better, when she was more lucid after the fever broke, she had thought of her, remembered when her mother had been there to take care of her when she was sick. And there had been that feeling, during the worst part of the fever, of passing through a membrane to an invisible other world of memory or spirit or something else, a place where her mother seemed to be. Coming out of the fever was sometimes like passing through a dark web to the world of the living. In fact, in her dream, her mother had left those tattered webs behind her. And now there were these…these what? These emissaries from that other world. That’s what Aunt Velma called them. These snatches of memory from the mouths of other people. “God’s little signals,” Velma had said the Christmas after Uncle Unser killed himself. It made the world seem mysteriously connected, vibrating, and sometimes in weakness, in sickness, was the only time you were vulnerable enough to hear the signals, to dimly recognize the emissaries.
When Mrs. Letig spoke of her, Laura’s mother seemed for a second to appear. It was both spooky and reassuring, and Laura found herself wanting to draw close to this woman. She had the crazy urge to tell Mrs. Letig about Lake Meredith, about John. She wanted to be forgiven. She closed her eyes, and the woman reached over and kissed her forehead, and Laura could smell something so familiar that it comforted her until she suddenly realized why it was so familiar. It was the smell of the Letigs’ bedroom closet, the hatboxes and dresses and powder and perfume.
This was foolish thinking, absolutely crazy, to believe that she could confide in this woman. She bit her lip.
“Hey, there,” John said.
Laura and Mrs. Letig both turned to him in what seemed like a synchronized motion. He was smiling, but there were anxious wrinkles around his eyes and lips. His hair was slicked back, and he wore a nice western shirt and black slacks, as if they had been out somewhere or were going somewhere after this visit, this courtesy. She suddenly resented them, resented them both for being here, for intruding upon her.
“Hello,” Laura said.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Okay,” she answered.
“Heard you’ve been out of it for a while.”
He stayed on the other side of the doorway. Her father stood behind him. John was nervous. This was hard for him. She could see that. But shouldn’t it be hard? Her resentment passed. She felt sorry for him. Squirming there. Poor man, caught between his wife and his lover. In her mind, that word, “lover,” seemed foreign and tender and somehow pleasantly deceptive. Did he feel that what happened to her—her sickness—was his fault? That he was being punished? Maybe it was his fault. Probably not, but she was no longer sure. She’d not felt good before they went to Lake Meredith, but perhaps he’d brought it on or made it worse. Had he been squirming in his own house, guilty, feeling terrible? But she found herself hoping that he’d still want to see her, that he wouldn’t be scared off. She wished she could reach out and touch him, but she knew that was impossible.
“Here,” he said and pulled a small box from behind his back and handed it to his wife, who handed it to Laura, and again she had the sensation that Mrs. Letig was an emissary, through whom gifts were being passed. Inside the box was a metal sculpture of flowers with a hummingbird at the center, its bill the only thing connecting the bird to the bouquet. The flowers were blue, red, and yellow. The bird multicolored—green, orange, yellow, purple.
She didn’t know what to say.
“John made it,” Mrs. Letig said.
“The boys helped me. They said you liked hummingbirds.”
Her father looked surprised. “I didn’t know you did that sort of thing, Letig.”
“Every once in a while,” he s
aid.
“Not in a long while,” Mrs. Letig said. “Not since I was pregnant with Jack.”
“It’s good,” her father said. “Isn’t it, Laura?”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” He nodded. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, and then he looked down shyly. “Where are Jack and Willie?” she asked.
“They wanted to come, but we left them with our neighbors,” Mrs. Letig said. “We figured there’s only so much company you could take. Besides, we’re heading over to the Brewers for some pinochle.”
“Tell them I said thanks.”
Mrs. Letig patted the blanket covering Laura’s legs. “You’re special to us, honey.”
She looked up at John. His face seemed to redden before her eyes. “Get better,” he said.
“I will. It’s really beautiful.”
“Oh, now look what we’ve done,” Mrs. Letig said. “We’ve gone and made you weepy.” She pulled out a tissue from her purse and reached over and wiped the tears from beneath Laura’s eyes. “You’re just tired. You get some rest.”
Laura nodded.
“Good-bye, honey.” Mrs. Letig rose and straightened her dress, then reached for her husband’s hand. “Come on, John,” she said. “We should go.”
He quickly glanced at Laura. She couldn’t quite interpret his expression. Regret? Embarrassment? Guilt? Love? She didn’t know. Just an inexplicable flicker across his face. They said good-bye again, but their voices seemed far away now. Laura could only see the Letigs’ hands together, his wife leading him, like a child, away from her room.
PART THREE
Careful
March–May 1958
Nature’s Way
Their family had two dogs back then, mongrel collie mixes—Fay Wray, the older female, and Greta, the only pup from Fay’s last litter that they hadn’t been able to give away. She had some breed mixed in that made her jumpy and snappy around anybody but the family. Laura’s father had named her after Greta Garbo, who he thought was the best-looking woman he’d ever seen until he met Laura’s mother. He’d always wink and smile when he said that. Mrs. Tate wouldn’t look at him. She’d just knead the bread dough or fold the laundry or read Rich and Gene a story, but Laura could see her lips turn upward in the slightest smile and a pink flush spread over her neck.