by Ruth White
Roxie asks Luther to tack a blanket over the window in the boys’ sleeping loft to keep the light out and protect Charles’s eyesight. A few days later Jewel throws up. Her forehead is hot with fever, and soon she has spots all over her too. A blanket goes over our window. I offer to stay home from school to help Roxie, but she says no, that I should not get behind in my lessons.
As I walk to school by myself, it occurs to me that this is the first time I have ever gone off the mountain without at least one other member of my family with me. That thought rattles me, and stays with me all day. What if the earth skips a beat in its rotation while I am in the valley, and when I return, nothing is there – no log house, no family, no animals, no barn, no garden, no springs, no graveyard? Or what if it was all a dream I had? I dwell on this thought so hard, it begins to feel like a real strong possibility. And…if it was all a dream, what would I wake up to?
As soon as the bell rings at three o’clock, I rush out of the school house and walk up Gospel Road as fast as I can. It seems such a long way today. The woods are dark, and there are
eyes watching me from behind every tree. I am out of breath when I reach Willy’s Road. To my right is the graveyard on the knob where all the Starrs are buried. The stones are still there. I peek up over the rise and see that the house is there too just as I left it. Of course it is.
When I go in, I find that Daniel is feverish now, and Roxie is weary to the bone. Dad and Luther are in the barn doing something, and Bea is sitting in her favorite chair bouncing Clint on her lap.
“I’m trying to keep Clint away from the others,” she says to me. “He’s too little for measles.”
I could remind her that Clint has already been exposed to measles three times over, but she is actually trying to be useful. So I tell her that’s a good idea.
Then I go to see Jewel. She’s sitting up in bed drawing a picture of a unicorn, and it’s pretty good. She smiles at me. I touch her forehead and it feels normal. Maybe the worst is over for her. I go to the boys’ loft to look at Charles and Daniel. Charles is doing better, but little Daniel is feeling poorly.
At supper I notice that Roxie’s eyes are bloodshot. “Roxie! You look a sight!” I say.
She does not answer.
“Are you coming down with it too?” Bea asks.
“I’m real tired,” Roxie says. “That’s all.”
“Well, your eyes are all red and bulging out of your head,” Luther says.
The next morning Roxie is too sick to get out of bed. When I ask her how she feels, she gives me a weak smile. Her face has large red blotches on it instead of small spots like the others have.
“I guess I’ve never had the measles after all,” she says.
I fetch a pan of cool water, dip a rag in it, wring it out and lay it on Roxie’s hot forehead. I stay home from school. In the following days Roxie does not get any better. In fact, she seems to get worse. I tell Dad I think we should send for a doctor, but he thinks not. After all, it’s just measles, he says. He tells me to stay by her side and take care of her.
Bea takes charge of the little ones. She has taken a liking to Clint. She also does the cooking and other woman’s work without even being told.
I don’t know how many days go by. Roxie’s fever stays up there. She can’t keep anything in her stomach. Her chest hurts. She talks out of her head. She coughs deep rumbling coughs.
I look after her as best I can.
In the middle of a dark night she whispers to me, “I’m sorry, Lorie.”
I am in her bed with her, and I have kept the lantern burning low on my side so I can see to tend her during the night. Now I sit up and look at her flushed face.
“Sorry for what, Roxie?”
“I’m going to die and leave you alone.”
“No, Roxie! You don’t die of measles. You just feel like you’re going to.”
She starts to cough so hard and so deep that Jewel wakes up in the other bed and says something, but I can’t hear her above the noise. I try to help Roxie sit up to cough, but she is too weak, and I can’t lift her.
When Roxie’s coughing lets up, she closes her eyes and seems to rest, but her chest rattles, and her breathing is not regular. In fact, she is struggling for air. I am suddenly so awfully scared that my heart goes wild and begins to pound in my ears. I start to shake all over. In my petticoat and bloomers I creep out of bed. I forget the lantern and have to feel my way down the stairs to where Dad, Bea and Clint are in a deep sleep.
I find Dad’s shoulder in the dark and shake it. “Dad!” He does not wake, so I shake it again. “Dad! Wake up!”
He grumbles and mumbles and rolls over.
“Dad! It’s Roxie. She needs a doctor.”
“Hmmm?” Dad says.
“What’sa matter?” Bea says and sits up.
“Roxie needs a doctor. Dad has to send Luther for Dr. Wayne.”
“It’s just measles, Lorie,” Dad says in his grumpy voice. “She’ll be fine.”
I start screaming. I am so scared I can’t help it. “NO! NO! It’s not just measles. It’s something lots worse. And she needs a doctor NOW! She needs a doctor NOW!”
Clint wakes up and begins to cry. Bea tries to shush him. Dad swings his feet to the floor. Luther appears on the stairsteps with a lantern.
“I’ll fetch the doctor,” he says.
Dr. Wayne arrives just as daylight is creeping over the tops of the hills.
“Pneumonia,” he says when he examines Roxie. “A complication of measles.” He lifts her up and tucks some pillows behind her. “She is drowning in her own fluids.”
Bea and Dad are standing beside the doctor holding a light for him. I am on the other side of Roxie’s bed. She opens her bloodshot eyes and looks at us, but I don’t think she actually sees anything. Deep, awful rumblings rack her small body again. From her bed Jewel lets out a whimper.
“Get these kids out of here,” the doctor orders.
Kids? Jewel is the only kid in the room. Or does he think I’m a kid?
“Take a sheet and dip it in cold water,” he orders Bea.
Bea just stands there looking at him with her mouth hanging open.
“Do it!” he says more sternly. “We have to get her temperature down.”
Bea and Dad both spring into action. I take Jewel down the stairs and we curl up with Clint in Dad and Bea’s bed. Jewel goes back to sleep, but I lie there with my hands over my heart trying to keep it still. I stare at the beams in the ceiling and listen to the doctor moving around in the loft, giving urgent orders to Dad and Bea. I hear Roxie groaning like she’s in awful pain, and that’s when I go into a strange kind of dream state.
At some point Luther comes back and goes up to the boys’ loft. Clint wakes up and cries, and Bea comes for him. She changes him, then takes him into the kitchen to feed him. Dad comes downstairs, and when I peep out, I see that he is kneeling in the middle of the room. He prays out loud.
“Lord, why does it have to be her? Why couldn’t you take Nell or Lorie or Jewel? Why don’t you take Trula? Yes! Take Trula, Lord, but please, not Roxie!”
Later I hear Dad upstairs again, moaning and hollering, “No! Jesus, no! Why did you take my sweet Rox?”
I clap my hands over my ears.
Still later I hear the doctor speaking to Dad and his voice is hard. “Mr. Starr, I feel it my duty to tell you that you must take better care of your family. I could have saved the girl if only…”
He does not go on. Dad is bawling like a baby.
The clock in the corner strikes nine times. I slip from the bed without a sound and go out the front door. I go to the drinking spring and cup my hands in the cold water. I drink from my hands, then splash water on my face. Wake up. Bad dream.
I go down Willy’s Road to where it meets up with Gospel Road. I sit on a stump. I will sit here for awhile. Then I will walk back up the road and the house will not be there and nobody and nothing will be there and I will know then for sure
that it’s all a bad dream, and I will wake up to something else. I don’t know what. Just something else.
I hear a noise. I look up Willy’s Road and see a large black horse bursting out of the center of the sun. He is strong and powerful with huge muscles bulging in his neck and chest. He is ten times bigger and more wonderful than all the horses in all the fairy tales.
And he is coming for me!
“Hello there!”
It’s the doctor. He has stopped and now sits in his saddle on Raven looking down at me. I can’t see his face for the dazzling sun directly behind him.
“What are you doing here, child?”
I say nothing.
“What’s your name?”
“Lorelei.”
“Pretty name. You’re a pretty girl. Your hair is quite…extraordinary.”
“Take me with you,” I say.
“What?”
“Take me with you. Take me away from here.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Yes you can. Take me with you, please!”
I cup one hand above my eyes to shield them so that I can see him better. We stare at each other for a moment.
“You must be cold, Lorelei.”
“I am not cold.”
“But you are out here in your petticoat, and it’s not even spring yet.”
“I am not cold.”
He is silent for a few moments.
“I’m very sorry about your sister,” he says after awhile.
“Sorry for what? Roxie has the measles. That’s all! You don’t die of measles!”
I start to shiver.
“Let me take you back to your house, child,” the doctor says. “You have had a bad shock.”
“No! I’ll go by myself.”
I jump to my feet and rush past him up Willy’s Road. I can feel his eyes on me till I am up over the rise and out of his sight. But the house is still there. Of course it’s still there. It will always be there.
********************
Somehow I lose the rest of the day and all of the next day. At some point Samuel comes home. The day after that is cool and sunny. We bury the sleeping beauty on the knob beside Mommie. She looks pretty and peaceful in her coffin, waiting for the prince to come and kiss her and wake her up. Sweet Rox. The fairest of them all.
I go home and climb up to the loft and into my bed. Jewel tiptoes in and curls up by my side. I hold her close to me and we sleep into the evening. Then Samuel is nudging us, saying
that our aunts have brought good things to eat. Pies and cakes. Wouldn’t we like to come downstairs and have something? No, I would not. I could not eat a bite, thank you.
Jewel goes downstairs with him and I go into my head.
She is whispering in my ear. Wake up it’s Christmas.
Thank you, God, for Roxie.
I will not leave sissy to find her way home all alone. It is too hard a thing for a little girl on such a hot day.
Later Samuel comes again and brings me a plate with ham and peas, fresh bread and butter. On another plate there is apple pie and vanilla cake. I sit up and begin to nibble at the food. It tastes like nothing, the way things taste in dreams.
“Won’t you come downstairs now and tell your kin goodnight?” Samuel says.
“No, I’m too tired.”
“But you’ve slept most of the day.”
After a while he leaves me alone, and I go into my head again.
Roxie says sissy, poor sissy, and a tear rolls down her rosy cheek.
April, 1922
It’s a week into April and Samuel has not returned to Richmond. I don’t know why. Today he is sitting at the kitchen table watching me churn butter.
“Your teacher is worried about you, Lorelei,” he says.
“Miss Mays is worried about me? Why?”
“For the same reason I am worried. You seem to be absent from your own body.”
“That’s silly, Samuel. I’m in here like I’ve always been.”
“Yes, but you’re not acting right.”
“How am I acting?”
“Like it never happened.”
I concentrate on my churning. The butter will come soon.
“Miss Mays says you have done no school work at all. Your mind seems to be somewhere else.”
Yes, my mind is somewhere else. But it’s not something I can explain.
“I went to see Dr. Wayne,” he says.
“Why? Are you sick?”
“No. I asked his advice about what to do for you.”
I have a vision of sitting there on a stump in my petticoat in the chill of March begging Dr. Wayne to take me with him. Did that really happen? If it did, would he tell Samuel? I don’t want him to tell that to anybody.
“And what did Dr. Wayne say?” I ask.
“He said first of all that it was wrong to make you take care of Roxie when she was that sick. You do so many things for us, we forget that you are only a little girl.”
“You are saying it was my fault.”
“No! Absolutely not. It was not your fault.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that nobody was looking after you, sweet girl. You need looking after too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Samuel.”
“But you sleep and sleep. Sometimes we can’t wake you up.”
“It’s just that I’m wore out. I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“That’s what I mean. You are using all of your energy fighting the pain.”
“What pain?”
“Dr. Wayne says you need to grieve. You need to spill it all out. You need to cry.”
“I don’t feel like crying.”
********************
I am in my bed in the loft at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning.
“Lorelei, I have a surprise for you,” Samuel says.
“I don’t want a surprise.”
“Do you remember when you were a very little girl and the two of us would walk together down to the creek on Gospel Road?”
The creek that runs sparkling over the rocks. Nearby the high tree branches break the sun into pieces and spills them on the floor of the woods.
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I would like you to walk down there with me today.”
“I don’t want to. I’m too tired.”
“Please come with me. I promise you will not be sorry.”
“I can’t, Samuel. I need to sleep some more.”
“We’ll take Jewel with us. She needs this. Think of Jewel.”
“Is something wrong with Jewel?”
“She misses you.”
“But I’m right here. How can she miss me?”
“Please, Lorelei. Do it for Jewel if not for yourself.”
So I roll over and place my feet on the floor. “I’ll get dressed.”
The three of us walk down Willy’s Road. The bright sunlight hurts my eyes. I’m not at all curious about Samuel’s surprise. It does not much matter what it is. But Jewel is excited. She holds Samuel’s hand on one side and mine on the other. She is dressed in a little boy’s sailor suit today. She found it in the charity bag. She looks cute.
We come to Gospel Road and walk down over the side of the hill to the creek. There is a fresh spread of new grass on the bank, and buttercups blooming all over the place. It’s real pretty. We walk to the edge of the creek. There are wide flat rocks here where the boys come sometimes to fish. We have had a hard rain, and the creek runs fast over the rocks.
“Ready for your surprise?” Samuel asks me.
I nod my head without much interest. That’s when Trula steps out of the woods, holding her little boy in her arms. She is smiling at me. Jewel starts to run to her, but Samuel holds her back.
“Wait a minute, little Jewel,” he says. “Let Lorie have her first.”
I fall to my knees. “Trula!”
She hands the baby to Samuel and walks to me. She lifts me to my f
eet and takes me into her arms. My chest opens up and my broken heart spills out of me.
“Oh, Trula! Our Roxie is dead!”
She holds me close as I cry. She rocks me in her arms, and cries with me.
“I couldn’t keep her alive, Trula! I tried, but I couldn’t.”
“Shh…shh,” she hushes me. “You did everything you could.”
We cling to each other. We sob out loud. But a million tears cannot wash away the pain. Not even a billion. In awhile I become aware that Jewel and Samuel with the baby have come into our hug, and I don’t know how long we all stand there in this bittersweet reunion, comforting and healing each other.
********************
More time has passed when I feel little Ford playing with my hair. I look at him and smile through my tears. He gives me a big toothy grin, and I can see Mack Call all over him, but he has the square chin and blue eyes of the Starrs. He is chubby and has dimples.
“Ford, this is your Aunt Lorelei,” Trula says, “and your Aunt Jewel.”
Ford is only nine months old and does not understand a bit of this. I take him from Samuel and sit on the grass.
“Come, Jewel,” Trula says, “let’s spread our picnic on this rock.”
“A picnic!” Jewel says, and claps her hands together.
I watch Trula as she tosses a cloth over one of the rocks, and starts unpacking food from a box. She looks good. She has on a dress that I’m sure is not homemade, and did not come out of a charity bag. It has long, flowing sleeves. The hem hits her legs about the middle of her calves, and it is long-waisted. It’s stylish. I’ve seen ones like it in a magazine. She’s got on new shoes too, and thin spring stockings. I know it can’t be so, but she looks younger than she did when I saw her last.
“Are you happy, Trula?” I ask her.
She turns and gives me a sad kind of smile. “Yes, Lorie. I’m happy.”
“And does Mack take good care of you?”