Marian snorted. “You’ve got to do way more than mouth someone else’s words. You’ve got to do way more than make tepid suggestions about forming a committee—”
“Commission.”
“All right, a commission. That isn’t enough. You’re mad as hell about this. I can see it in your eyes. And you’ve every right to be. Children have died because of this outrageous neglect.” She threw her free arm out wide.
“We don’t know that for sure. We don’t know this is the cause.”
“Oh, come on,” Marian said, her voice full of anger.
Deuce examined the horizon. “No question that Jim’s got to shut this setup down immediately, fix the pipe, and scrub everything down. I’ll call Dr. Jack. We’ll convince Jim that it needs to be fixed.”
Marian impatiently flicked up stones with the tip of her cane. “How in hell do you think you and that doctor talking Mr. Sayre into doing what he should have done in the first place is enough? Someone should be held accountable.”
Deuce struggled to keep his voice under control. “Look, I want the same outcome as you. But you don’t know what small towns are like. Sometimes the way to get something done is doing it behind the scenes, instead of making demands and dragging everything out in public.”
Marian’s eyes narrowed. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s pussyfooting. There are times you have to speak up, no matter what the cost.”
She turned abruptly and stomped back up the slope. Deuce followed a few paces behind. When he picked her up at the barn ten minutes later, he made no attempt at subterfuge. Maybelle never showed her face. Deuce and Marian made their way in itchy silence back to town in the Model T. The trip seemed interminable.
The late-afternoon sun cast a tallowy haze over the cluster of shingled roofs, the green diadems of oaks and maples, the church steeples, and the courthouse dome. Deuce could hardly bear to think about being cast out from this place. But then he remembered his sisters, laid out in a single casket, their arms entwined, their closed eyes sunken into violet pools, their heads surrounded by dark mantillas of rippling hair.
Yanking on the brake in front of Tula’s, he turned to Marian. “You’re right. There has to be an editorial in tomorrow morning’s paper, and it’s got to be mine.”
Marian nodded grimly. “Go to it, man.”
After helping her to the door, Deuce drove straight back to the office, sat down at his typewriter, and tapped out what needed to be said.
CHAPTER NINE
HOUSE CALLS
FIVE SEWING NEEDLES TUCKED in an envelope of red foil. Two packets of headache tablets. A pouch of loose tobacco. A bar of soap. While Marian and Deuce were out at the Sayres’, Tula was circling the dining room table, dropping each into a drawstring ditty bag. Trailing behind was old Mrs. Sieve, filling one sack to Tula’s three. Tula tucked each filled bag, destined for an American doughboy, into the Red Cross box and picked up another.
Mrs. Sieve was a stout woman dressed in a shiny black taffeta and an ancient toque trimmed with jet-black beads that glittered moistly like compound eyes. She looped round and round the table, a bloated fly, gossiping about her husband’s parishioners, tossing out bits of advice. Her voice droned on.
Tula wondered what Deuce and Marian had found at the Sayre farm. It was late afternoon, sun poured into the stuffy dining room and they were still not back. A headache bloomed behind Tula’s eyes. She cast a half-filled ditty bag into the center of the table, suggesting it was time to call it a day. Mrs. Sieve quickly agreed but, instead of leaving, settled herself into a porch chair. Tula had no choice but to offer lemonade. As the women sipped, the pastor’s wife launched into a detailed account of a recipe for fruit punch that Mrs. Herbert Kline had brought back from a visit to Indianapolis. It had become so popular at the wedding receptions held in the parlor of United Methodist that Mrs. Kline was overwhelmed with requests for the list of ingredients.
Across the street, Mrs. Ellingford threw a pan of dirty dishwater into a bed of hollyhocks alongside the garage. An approaching automobile raised a cloud of dust down the block. But it wasn’t Deuce’s Model T, only Vera Mummert in her Olds, waving briskly as she passed.
Marian finally returned, dropped off by Deuce, who walked her carefully to the porch with concentrated attention. Too much attention, in Tula’s opinion. Even after Tula asked, Marian offered few details of the trip, only comments about how exhausted she was and was there any nerve tonic in the house.
Tula’s headache did not go away. She was up nursing it half the night and into the next morning.
* * *
Next door, Deuce did not sleep at all. After setting the type on the editorial himself and watching the first pages roll off the press, he’d driven home and flopped into bed fully clothed, where he lay staring at the ceiling, unable to close his eyes. At first light, he gave up and padded downstairs. He’d just flipped over two fried eggs when he noticed Helen standing in the doorway, dressed for work except for her stockings and shoes that were clutched to her chest in a tangled bundle.
“Want an egg?”
“No, thanks. I’m running late already.” She bowed her head with a small smile. “I didn’t know you were up. I was trying to, you know, sneak out quietly.”
Deuce cocked his head to one side. “Oversleep?”
“No, well, sort of. I need to talk to you.”
“Good, because I need to talk to you too. Let’s go sit out back.” He shoved the frying pan to a rear burner. “Come on.”
They settled on the back steps.
“You first,” Helen said.
Deuce inhaled. “Marian and I took a ride out to the Sayres’ dairy farm yesterday.” He went on to tell her about the hired hand, the outhouse, the filthy conditions, and how Marian had convinced him to write an editorial. “So, get ready for some fireworks in the office today. I expect Father Knapp will be first in line, but there will be others.”
As he talked, Helen’s eyes opened wide. When he finished, she squeezed his hand. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve done the right thing.”
Deuce smiled sadly. “I hope he doesn’t try to take you away from me.”
“Grandfather? I’m too old to be taken away. My mother married you, you raised me, he doesn’t have any say at all.”
Hugging her, he felt the wings of her shoulder blades, delicate yet wiry. “All right, your turn.”
Helen busily untangled the bundle in her lap and began pulling on her stockings. “It’s about Chicago. I really want to move there. As soon as possible.” She stilled her hands, looked him in the eye.
Deuce’s stomach knotted. “What brought this on all of a sudden?”
“It’s not all of a sudden.”
“I mean, I know we’d talked about it at graduation . . . Anything to do with that young man who’s escorting you around town?”
“His name is Louie Ivey. And no, it doesn’t. Well, sort of . . .” Her voice trailed off and she fiddled with the shoelaces for a moment before letting them drop. “Yes, he lives in Chicago. He’s an artist. A modern artist. And I guess hearing about all that’s going on in the city reminds me about what I’m missing. Talking with Mrs. Elliot Adams too. The whole world is moving ahead, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Deuce studied his fingers, permanently blackened with printer’s ink. “But you promised you’d wait a year.”
“But Grandfather is wrong. You know he is. I’m not my mother. I’m not going to be ‘defiled,’ if that’s what he’s afraid of. Do I have to live the rest of my life here, stunted and cramped because of what she did?”
“No, of course not. But there are real concerns. Chicago can be dangerous, especially for women on their own.”
“What about Mrs. Elliot Adams? She travels all over by herself.”
Deuce glanced over at Tula’s sleeping porch. “She’s older. Worldly.”
“How do you get worldly except by getting out into it?” Helen snapped.
This is like getting yo
ur fingers nibbled by guppies, he thought. She was staring at him the same way Marian had yesterday.
He threw up his hands. “Okay. Let me think it over.”
Smiling, Helen leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Papa.”
She ran inside, the screen door slamming behind her. Deuce winced, feeling as if he was caught in the middle of a walking bridge with slats too far apart. And now it had begun to sway.
* * *
Across the way, Tula rose to find Marian already up, dressed, and at the kitchen sink, filling the coffee pot.
“You’re up early,” Tula said.
“Usually I’m on the road before dawn, so this is late. Hope you like your coffee strong.”
“And you’re awfully chipper.”
Marian herself couldn’t completely explain her change of mood. “My ankle’s better. See? The swelling’s down by half.” She poured two cups of coffee and took the chair at the table where Tula usually sat. “And here. Take a look at the newspaper. Deuce has done the right thing. And in a big way.”
Marian slid the paper across the table. It was folded over to page four, where an editorial ran down the left-hand side. Dairy Farm Conditions Deplorable; Underscore Need for Sanitary Commission, ran the headline.
“The Sayre farm?”
Marian nodded.
“He’ll catch hell for this.”
“Maybe so, but it had to be done! You would not believe what we found there.”
The women sipped their coffee in silence.
After a time, Tula rose and pulled out the frying pan. “Scrambled?”
“No. Nothing, thanks.” Marian gazed across her cup. “I’ve been thinking that I should visit that girl with tuberculosis.”
“Jeannette?”
“I think I should offer some words of encouragement. I’m going to call Emmett right now and see if he can’t drive me over.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Maybe you should wait until she’s stronger. I don’t even know if visitors—”
Marian shook her head, raised her hands. “You people are not direct enough. I can help this young woman now, not when she’s recovered. What’s the number for that garage?”
* * *
It was midmorning when Emmett pulled the Packard under a tree in the Bellmans’ side yard. He scooted around to the passenger side and helped Marian out. She made slowly for the house, leaning hard on her cane.
He started to put his hand under her arm for support but she shook him off. “Thank you, I can manage.”
Emmett shrugged and stretched out under the tree, tenting a newspaper over his face to keep off the sun. Marian stumped up the steep porch steps, pausing at the top to survey the bustle across the pasture. A band of men in short coats and braid-trimmed trousers were marching toward the Chautauqua tent. The Imperial Ringers had arrived. She’d spent the night with one of them a couple of seasons back. Squinting, she couldn’t tell from this distance which one it was. They all looked alike.
“Yes?”
Marian, turning with a pleasant expression, took in the downturned mouth of a middle-aged woman filtered through the screen door.
“It’s you,” the woman said, taking a step back.
“Mrs. Bellman? I’m hoping to have a little chat with your daughter.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I’d be glad to wait.”
Hazel Bellman’s face was a stiff mask. In Emporia strong emotions were usually muffled by polite small talk, a holdover from the frontier days when survival depended on getting along. “Come in, then.”
Marian limped through the narrow hallway and, following Mrs. Bellman’s rigid gesture, into a small front room lined with furniture upholstered in cracked leather.
“Have a seat.”
“How lovely,” Marian said, taking in the floral wallpaper, the lace-draped mantelpiece cluttered with china dogs. “Might I trouble you for a glass of water?”
Mrs. Bellman disappeared into the kitchen. The house had a sweetish smell. From directly overhead came a hacking cough. Marian examined a needlepoint pillow on the sofa beside her. Mrs. Bellman reappeared bearing a tray when a fresh fit of coughing erupted. She set the pitcher and glasses on a side table with a clatter.
“I’m needed upstairs.”
“I’ll come with you,” Marian said, levering herself from the sofa.
Mrs. Bellman, already in the hall, offered no encouragement.
There really was no second floor to the house. It was simply a space opened up under the eaves and partitioned into two rooms between a narrow hall. Stooping, Marian trailed behind Mrs. Bellman into a bedroom blooming with dry heat. The sweetish smell was stronger here, the cough louder. Most of the small space was taken up by a bed. Mrs. Bellman was bending over the patient, so that Marian’s first glimpse was of coltish legs entwined in rumpled sheets. Then the mother turned away to dip a compress into a pan of water, and the girl’s full form was revealed.
The flesh was wasted, the joints bulbous. Two sets of unnaturally long fingers plucked fitfully at the sheets. But it was the girl’s face that weakened Marian’s knees. Jeannette’s nose was a sharp ridge of cartilage covered with translucent skin. Her crusted lips had sores at the corners. Within deeply sunken sockets, her pooled eyes glistened under thickened lids. A hectic excitement skimmed their surface.
She turned away, shocked by the sight of the sick child, ashamed that she’d pushed her way into the house. For what? she thought. I don’t belong here. I never should have come. She stepped into the hall, intending to leave quietly, but Jeannette saw the tall figure and cried out in a weak voice.
“Mrs. Elliot Adams?”
Marian flushed, as if caught in a lie, but forced herself to answer brightly, “In the flesh.”
With a disapproving glance, Mrs. Bellman drew back as Marian approached. Taking Jeannette’s hand, as fragile as a bird’s wing, Marian unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “I heard you were ill and wanted to offer comfort. I see, though, that your mother is doing a wonderful job with that. I’m not needed at all.”
Jeannette smiled weakly. “Oh, no. I’m glad you’re here. I’m getting better because of you. I listened to your every . . .” A fit of coughing erupted.
Mrs. Bellman rushed over, murmuring, “You mustn’t talk,” and held a glass to the girl’s lips.
Jeannette pushed it away. The hacking continued, relentless as a metronome, but more nuanced, each phlegmy exhalation followed by a rough gasping inhalation.
Marian turned away, her vision blurred. Jeannette didn’t have to finish the sentence. She’d heard the lecture; she’d followed Marian’s prescriptions for sleeping outdoors. Marian’s gut turned to stone.
Blotting her eyes on a sleeve, Marian forced herself to turn back to Jeannette. The coughing spell wound down. Mrs. Bellman dabbed ointment on the cracked lips.
“Your mother is right. You shouldn’t be talking. How about I sit here with you until you fall back asleep? If it’s all right with your mother, that is.”
Jeannette’s eyes momentarily shed their feverish glitter and danced playfully. She drew her finger across her mouth in a zipping motion, looking hopefully at her mother. A sinewy strength, Marian saw, still burned within the wasted body.
Mrs. Bellman pushed a damp strand of hair from her daughter’s brow. “All right. If you promise to rest.”
A few minutes after her mother retreated downstairs, Jeannette’s lids fluttered, then closed. Marian stood slowly, pausing at each creak of the chair, but the girl didn’t waken. School pennants were tacked above a small desk near the door. Marian peered at the Brownie snapshot of a basketball team, the girls all dressed in bloomers. A fuller-faced Jeannette stood at the center, gripping the ball, determined eyes meeting the camera. As Marian made her way downstairs, the heat from the roof formed a solid mass pressing down on her shoulders.
She climbed into the Packard, staring numbly through the windscreen. The newspaper rose and
fell over Emmett’s face and chest as he dozed under the tree. Across the grounds, groups of two and three sauntered into the tent. Marian thought of all the towns she’d passed through, all the lectures she’d given. How many other Jeannettes had been out there?
Shoes crunched on the gravel drive behind her. Dr. Jack, bag in hand, stopped beside the car.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Marian said quickly. “I mean, I came to see Jeannette. I’d heard she was sick.”
“You shouldn’t have come. You’ve done enough damage as it is.”
I deserve that, she thought.
He turned away. She grabbed his sleeve. “But she’s going to pull out of this, right?”
“I can’t say.”
“But surely—”
“Mrs. Elliot Adams, I’m needed inside. Just do me a favor, go back to Tula’s. And don’t come back here.”
He strode off, taking the porch steps two at a time, and entered without knocking. Marian wearily called for Emmett to crank up the Packard. The heaviness yoked to her shoulders spread to her chest and stomach, down her legs and into her feet, until she felt as if she was made of stone. Like that famous hoax, the Cardiff Giant. A ten-foot-tall prehistoric man, his huge limbs and torso petrified into gypsum—in reality nothing more than a concrete statue buried in a field by a farmer looking to bring in some extra income by exhibiting it at local carnivals.
As Emmett drove her away from the Bellmans’, Marian thought she felt the sharp crack of a stone hitting her spine.
CHAPTER TEN
ADVANCING ALLIES
“JUST WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU trying to do, ruin this paper?” Father Knapp shook with rage, standing on the other side of Deuce’s desk, crushing the rolled newspaper in his hand. As Deuce had predicted, that morning his father-in-law was the first to push his way into the office.
Deuce sighed. “Sit down and let’s talk this out.”
“I’m not sitting until I get an explanation. It’s not just your reputation at stake here. I’ve got a lot of money sunk in this paper. And what about Helen? You’ve put her in a pretty uncomfortable position in this town!” Father Knapp’s dark brows drew together as he shouted, his features constricting like a fist.
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