Earth Angels

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Oh, Granny, I have to try and help him,” she whispered. He might reject her—he likely would—but at least she had to try and make the effort.

  As she ran down her back stairs, she heard someone pounding on the store’s front door, demanding service, but she ignored the summons. She hurried down the street and raced up the front steps of Joseph’s house to the office door that was always open.

  She turned the knob and then rattled it. The door was locked, although the sign, hanging lopsided, announced “The Doctor Is In.’

  She knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. She ran to the back and up the stairs to the porch. This door was locked, too, but she was certain she heard movement inside. She lifted her fist and banged until her knuckles were sore, but still there was no response.

  “Joseph, open this door, I know you’re in there,” she shouted. “I want to speak to you.” She waited, her temper fraying. “What on earth’s the matter with you?” She moved to the window. The curtains were drawn and she couldn’t see inside. She banged on the glass and called again and again, but there was no answer.

  At last she lost her temper and shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Damn you, Doctor Gillespie!” She stamped her foot on the wooden boards and rested her hands on her hips, panting with exertion, tears of frustration running down her face. She sniffed loudly and robbed her cheek. “So help me, this is the last time I come running after you, Joseph. Stay here and rot, if that’s what you want, you stubborn, egotistical---idiot!”

  Joseph heard her stomp down the stairs, the back gate squeak open and slam shut, and then silence. He climbed the staircase and went into his bedroom. He lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and seeing only a bright pool of blood. He couldn’t seem to get the sight and smell of Prudence’s blood out of his mind.

  Several times that day and the next, he heard patients mount the front stairs, try the office door, linger a few moments and then leave. He got up only to use the outhouse.

  When it got dark the second night, he roused himself to go down to the kitchen and eat some cheese and bread. Near midnight, he went out the back door and down the street, following the road that led out of town.

  He walked for miles in the darkness, knowing he had nowhere to go. The silence mocked him, reminding him that he was totally alone. He walked past the farm where he’d grown up. Its windows glowed with lamplight. Another family lived there now, and he had only memories of the happy years he’d spent with his mother and father in the small farmhouse.

  He’d cut himself off from people, pushing them away instead of making friends. The love he’d felt for Emma had given him direction in life, connected him with other people because of her friendly nature.

  He’d even begun to dare to dream of marriage, of a son, of a little daughter who looked like Emma. Now there was only an empty void where those dreams had once lived.

  Even medicine was lost to him now. The two women’s deaths had stripped away his self-confidence. He couldn’t treat anyone when he doubted himself this way. And he’d made certain he no longer had Nathanial’s guidance either.

  You have only yourself to blame, the darkness mocked. His feet kept time to the words that drummed endlessly in his head.

  Eventually he turned and retraced his steps, arriving home just as the first streaks of dawn lightened the eastern sky. He locked all the doors, washed himself and went up to his bedroom. He slept a few hours and then listened again to the footsteps that came and went, the buggies that passed on the street, the children’s voices as they played. When darkness fell, he got up and walked again, back to the farmhouse that had once been his home, and somehow the days and nights fell into a new routine.

  “Have you heard what they’re saying about Doctor Gillespie, Emma?”

  Emma ignored Belinda’s question, pretending to be engrossed in dusting the shelves behind the counter.

  “Its such a tragedy for a gifted doctor.”

  Belinda was obviously taking a great deal of pleasure in repeating what Emma had heard a dozen times already, in church last Sunday, on the street, and in her store. Her hand tightened around the duster and she vigorously attacked the stack of canned goods she’d already dusted twice today and three times yesterday.

  “Hardly a soul has seen him since the funerals’ two weeks ago, you know,” Belinda continued with relish. “He’s locked himself in that house. They say the only time he comes out is at night. Mr. Wellington saw him walking on the road, miles out of town. When he stopped his buggy and tried to give the doctor a ride, he just shook his head and went on walking.” Belinda’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Mr. Wellington said the doctor looked quite demented. He had no hat or coat and no necktie either, and you know how meticulous he always was about his dress.” Her voice dropped to a computational whisper. “They say Granny’s and Prudence’s deaths have quite unhinged his mind, and he’s given up doctoring.”

  “Poppycock!” The word exploded from Emma’s mouth, and she turned and brandished the duster at Belinda so that the other woman leaped back and pressed a hand to her bodice.

  “That’s nothing but rubbish,” Emma exclaimed, smashing the duster down on the counter and glaring at Belinda. “You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading such idle gossip. I heard you myself not so long ago saying what excellent care he’d given your grandmother. Why, the poor man probably has the—the grippe. For all anyone cares, he could die all alone in that house.”

  “But—but why would he be wandering the back roads at night if he’s ill?” Belinda tried to sound chastened, but the effort failed.

  “I have no idea, but then, neither do you, Belinda.” Emma’s tone was scathing. “Do you?”

  Belinda’s face turned as red as her hair, and she hastily paid for her purchases and scurried out the door.

  Probably never to return, Emma fumed. She was losing customers at a rapid rate, and all because of Joseph. “This is ridiculous,” she said out loud.

  Olaf and Quincy were rooting through the nail barrels. She knew they’d been listening with avid interest to what she and Belinda had been saying.

  “I’m closing the store,” she announced.

  They both turned and stared at her.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come back another time,” she told them.

  “You can’t close the store in the middle of the day,” Olaf grumbled.

  She ignored him. “I have an errand to run.’

  It was time someone did something other than gossip about Joseph. Someone had to try and shake him out of his isolation and despair—and she was the one to do it, she decided with grim determination. She knew all about despair, thanks to him. She’d had more than her share since their breakup. And the days hadn’t grown any easier. If anything, she missed him more instead of less as time went by.

  “It’s fixin ta storm right smart out there, missy,” Quincy remarked, thumping his collection of nails down on the counter and reaching in his pants pocket for the dime to pay her. “Wind’s gettin’ up. It might hail. Seen ‘em come down the size of goose eggs when there’s clouds like those.”

  She ushered the muttering old men out the door and locked it. She turned her sign around. Rain was beginning to pelt against the windows by the time she threw her apron off and grabbed first the shawl that Joseph had given her, and then her sturdy woolen cape.

  The wind whirled her clothing around her when she dashed out the door, and the driving rain half-blinded her as she ran down the street, past the barbershop where Olaf and Quincy were watching from the window.

  Go ahead and stare, she raged silently. Go ahead and gossip, too. It’s going to take more than words or insults or hail or even a damned locked door to keep me out of Doctor Joseph Gillespie’s house this time.

  She was out of breath by the time she reached Joseph’s house. She ran up the front stairs. The wind had blown her hair loose from its knot and it hung around her shoulders, soaked from the rain. She thrust it back and hamm
ered on the door. All the shades were drawn and the house looked as if no one lived there.

  “Joseph,” she shouted. “I know you’re in there. Now open this door or so help me, I’ll break it down.”

  No answer.

  “Fine, then, I’ll break it down,” she muttered, going back down the steps.

  Around the corner of the house she found a long, stout stick. She picked it up in both hands and went back up the steps. Taking a deep breath, she lifted it high and smashed the window that formed the top half of the office door.

  The glass shattered, and with trembling hands she reached inside and undid the hook that secured the door.

  “Joseph?” The house had a stale, musty smell. She went through the office and down the hall to the kitchen, calling his name. The stove was unlit and a neat stack of dirty dishes stood on a counter. There was no sign of him, and the silence was so complete she became frightened.

  “Joseph.” Her voice echoed as she ran down the corridor and up the stairs. The bedroom doors were open except for one—his. She burst through, terrified now at what she would find.

  The room was dark and stuffy, the curtains drawn, the windows closed. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and at first all she could see was his form on the bed.

  “Joseph, what on earth is the matter with you?” She moved to the window and drew the curtains aside, shoving the window up to let in fresh air. Rain came pelting in and the stormy light was faint, but it was enough so that she could see him clearly when she turned.

  She gasped. He lay on his back, wearing wrinkled trousers and what had once been a starched white dress shirt. His feet were bare. He turned to look at her but didn’t say anything, and for a moment she couldn’t speak, she was so shocked.

  He looked ravaged, his cheekbones standing out in stark relief. He hadn’t shaved in days and his eyes were sunken and haunted. His spectacles were on the bedside table, and he made no effort to put them on.

  His despair was obvious, like a thick cloud that almost crumbled her with its weight. She struggled for composure.

  “Joseph, you look terrible. Are you ill? Can I get you anything?” She moved closer to the bed, longing to throw herself down beside him, hold him in her arms, comfort him.

  He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He looked at her, his eyes flat and blank, as if she were a stranger. “What are you doing here?”

  There was no warmth, no recognition in his tone, and she fought against the pain his indifference caused her. She forced a light note to her voice, forced a smile. “I’m worried about you. No one’s seen you in weeks. Gossip has it you’ve become a ghost, haunting the country roads at night.”

  “Go home, Emma. I don’t need your pity.” His dejected tone told her that her effort to be upbeat had been futile.

  “Contrary to what you might think,” he went on, “I can manage quite well on my own. Unlike you, I don’t need crowds of people around me all the time.”

  Hurt to the depths of her being, she persisted anyway. Her voice quivered, but she maintained the light tone. “It looks as if you could use a cook, Joseph. You’ve lost weight, you can’t have eaten, I’ll go down and—“

  “Get out!” He rose, standing beside the bed, and his roar penetrated her very pores. “Get the hell out of my house, out of my life! I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Joseph saw the awful hurt on her face, but he was frozen inside: he couldn’t allow himself to feel. He heard the sound that came from her throat, the sound of a woman in mortal pain, but he couldn’t respond. He watched as she shuddered, her wonderful brown eyes wide, spilling over with anguish, her vivid features mirroring the new wound he’d made in her heart. But he was no longer a healer. He was poison, he couldn’t contaminate her.

  He watched as she whirled and ran, his mother’s shawl tight around her shoulders, her bright blue cape wet-stained, her golden curls damp and soft around her shoulders. Against his will, he remembered how soft those curls were to his touch, how they wound around his fingers the way her love had wound around his heart.

  He stood rooted as he listened to her feet pounding down the stairs. He heard the front door open and then slam behind her, and he knew it was the absolute end, the last time she would ever come to him.

  At that terrible realization, his despair and fear crumbled. Unless he went after her, he would surely die.

  “Emma!” The agonized cry tore from his throat. He moved, one step and then another, forgetting his spectacles and having to turn back and grope for them. Then he stumbled down the stairs, raced along the hall, heedless of broken glass under his bare feet. “Emma, come back!”

  When he went out the door and down the steps, the force of the storm took his breath away. The rain obscured his lenses and everything was a blur—puddles of water, a flash of blue cape, a small figure running into the field behind his house.

  “Emma!” He pounded after her, ignoring the stones that bruised his feet, the wind that tried to push him back.

  He finally caught her in the middle of the field.

  “Let-me-go-“

  She fought him like a wild thing with her fists and elbows and knees. Her face contorted, her sobs rattled in her throat, but he held on until at last she quieted in his embrace, her heart hammering against his chest like a trapped bird.

  “Emma, oh, Emma, my dearest love, please forgive me.”

  The rain poured down on them, a cloudburst now. He did his best to shield her from it, as he wondered how he could ever explain what he didn’t fully understand himself.

  Nathanial, please, help me this one last time. Please, please help me find the words.

  And like a benediction, he felt his friend’s calm, loving energy, and somehow the words he needed were there. “Emma, I’ve been alone too long. I’m such a fool, I’ve made so many mistakes.” He squinted down at her, the rain making it impossible to see through his spectacles, but it was as if a light had gone on inside him, and all at once he saw clearly what had made him the way he was.

  “I was an only child, Emma. My mother had lost three babies before me, and she and my father doted on me. I had the best parents a boy could have, the happiest of childhoods. As I grew older, I fell in love with the girl on the next farm, Ruth Montgomery. I planned to wed her, live here and farm and raise a family. My life stretched before me, full of promise. But my mother and father died of typhoid, they were sick for only two days. And within a week, so did Ruth. She was only eighteen. Losing all of them like that, so quickly, changed me. It hurt so much I vowed never again to love anyone that deeply.”

  She was quiet in his arms, and he knew she was listening. He wrapped her still closer, locking his arms around her.

  “I became a doctor to fight death. And most of the time, I managed to help people, to heal them. Not by myself, Emma. See, I had a special gift, a—a friend—“

  But Nathanial was so much more than a friend. If he and Emma had a chance together, it had to be rooted in absolute honesty this time. He drew in a breath and silently asked for courage. “His name is Nathanial. He’s—well, he’s an angel who comes—came—to assist me with patients whenever I needed him. He would appear whenever I called, he helped me save so many lives. He was there the night I visited Elmer, he’s the one I was talking to. I always felt like a charlatan, taking credit for things when it was really Nathanial who told me what to do. He was even the one who told me I needed you in my life.”

  He expected Emma to pull away, to laugh at him and tell him he was loony. He’d only ever spoken of Nathanial to Granny, because he knew the old woman believed in such things. He waited, certain that Emma would leave him now, that she’d see him as a crazy person, a lunatic.

  “You should have talked to me about him, Joseph.” There was only sadness in her voice. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand? I’ve always known there were angels; I’ve always known my mother was one of mine. I know she watches over me. Just because I
can’t see her doesn’t mean I don’t know she’s there. You are so fortunate, being able to actually see your guardian angel.”

  “But I drove him away, just as I did you.” He was so ashamed to admit it. “I’ve destroyed all the things I most love. I’m so terribly sorry for the abominable things I said to you, Emma, and for the terrible way I’ve acted. I was stupid and foolish, and I thought that when you saw what a bumbling idiot I really was, you’d leave me. And I was so afraid you’d leave me that I drove you away, to get the pain over with.” He used his thumb to swab at her wet cheeks. “Except it didn’t work. Every day without you is a fresh agony.” He faltered, because what he had to ask her would determine the rest of his life. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced out the words. “Can—could you find it in your heart—Emma, do you think you could ever forgive me?”

  “Oh, Joseph.” She touched his cheek and he opened his eyes.

  Hers were filled with compassion and glistening with unshed tears. “There’s one important thing you haven’t said. You used to tell me that you loved me. Do you still?”

  He cupped her chin and shoved his smudged glasses up to rest on his tousled hair. He looked into her eyes for a long moment, feeling everything shift and melt and

  inside him.

  “I love you, Emma,” he said simply, from the depths of his being. “I’ll love you until I die, and even after that, I’ll go right on loving you. You are my earthly angel.”

  She sighed, a huge, satisfied sigh. “And you’re mine, and nothing else matters, does it?”

  He bent and kissed her, deep and long and passionate, and wondrous joy filled his heart. “You’ll marry me, then? Please say you’ll marry me.”

  She giggled, and the happy sound began to heal the wounds in his heart. “Of course I’ll marry you, silly. I thought you’d never get around to asking.”

  When he lifted his head after kissing and kissing her, Joseph peered around in nearsighted awe. The rain had stopped, and the sun blazed in the sky. At the edge of the field, he thought he saw Nathanial smiling at them. And was that Granny beside him? Behind them both, a radiant rainbow cast a spectrum of breathtaking unearthly light.