When I get to the house Meg is sitting on the porch sniffing back a steady stream of tears. Her face is red and puffy like it always gets whenever she cries. She stayed home from school to help Mama with some canning. Otherwise she’d be at the high school.
“What happened, Meg?” I ask. Her sobbing commences and I know I won’t be getting any answers from her.
Crying is the last thing I feel like doing. I want to know what happened. It doesn’t make sense for Daddy to get into an accident at work. It isn’t like him to be careless. Once when I went over there he showed me all the machinery and blades not to get close to. If he did get hurt I am certain it can be fixed.
I find Mama in the house sitting at the kitchen table, her face as pale as the bag of White Lily flour on the counter. Daniel comes in behind me and she thanks him for getting me.
“Where’s Daddy?” I ask her.
“They’re bringing him from the mill,” she tells me. Then she looks at Daniel, “Why can’t I just go there?” she asks.
“It’s best you don’t,” he says. “They’ll bring him by truck until they reach the bottom of the hill.”
Daniel puts a hand on Mama’s shoulder and I wait for her to slap it away, but she just lets it sit there. In all my twelve years of life, I’ve never once seen Mama follow orders or sit still. I know at that moment that something is horribly wrong.
“Shouldn’t he be here by now?” she asks Daniel.
“Any minute,” he answers.
She wrings her hands like they are one of her old mops. Then she gets up and walks through the house to the front porch. We follow. Her eyes are trained down the hill toward the road, watching for Daddy to come home. Sometimes in the evenings she’ll watch for him, too, but with a different look on her face, like a schoolgirl waiting for a glimpse of her beau.
We wait, all of us looking down the hill, and I sit on the bottom porch step and kick at dirt clods with my shoe. A fly lights on my knee and walks around, tickling my leg. I catch it in my open fist and let it buzz against the inside of my palm before I set it free. At that moment I feel like that fly. Trapped, and waiting for something bigger to set me free.
We hear them before we see them. A scraping sound first, and then voices growing in volume as they approach. Men are talking to Daddy, encouraging him to hold on.
As they turn the corner we see an old mule pulling a wooden stretcher up the hill. It isn’t really a stretcher but something that farmers use to pull firewood or move harvested crops from one end of a field to another. I’ve never seen it used to pull a person and wonder who came up with the idea. Daddy is wrapped up in blankets like it’s the dead of winter, even though it is a warm day in October. Indian Summer, it’s called. I don’t know why. Next time I see Horatio Sector I’ll have to ask. If anybody knows, he will. The Indians have lived in these mountains longer than anybody.
Nailed to where I stand, I wait for Daddy to lift his head and catch my eye and smile at me to let me know everything is okay. But the bundle that is supposed to be my father doesn’t move.
The mule labors up the path, with the stretcher scraping the ground behind it. I’ve never heard that sound before—wood scraping against rock and dirt—and it strikes me that the men should be carrying him instead of dragging. The hill never seemed that steep to me before. I’ve run up and down it from the time I was knee high. But the mule struggles with Daddy’s weight and one of the men slaps its backside to keep it moving. The men and the stretcher look like they are coming up the hill in slow motion.
Meg cries harder the closer they get and the redness of her face has turned to splotches. Daniel holds onto her while Mama runs down the hill to meet the men. I’ve never seen Mama run like that. She has a quickness about her like someone younger. She calls Daddy’s name and the men part to let her join them. Daddy lies in the center like a king coming to a palace, except it is our house he is being taken to and there aren’t any servants except these men from the mill.
I break from my trance and run down the path to meet him, too, but one of the men grabs me before I get too close.
“Easy there,” he says. “Your daddy’s hurt real bad.”
I jerk my shoulder away. When I look down I see a piece of burlap wrapping Daddy soaked dark red. Blood. It is odd to see him lying there not moving. I don’t understand how a man that towers over most people can look so small on a stretcher. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus learned how to walk on water from him so it makes no sense that he might be drowning in his own blood. I’m not sure the stain on the cloth is his blood anyway. Somebody could have just put it there. It occurs to me that maybe this is a joke Daddy is playing on us and any minute he’ll hop up and laugh his hearty laugh that he’s pulled a prank and we fell for it.
“Daddy, open your eyes. Look at me,” I say. “It’s Wildflower.”
I wish so hard that he open his eyes that he actually does. But he opens them like they weigh a ton.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” I say.
He turns to look at me, and I see in his eyes more than I want to. He is hurt bad. In an instant his look tells me how sorry he is that he won’t get to see me grow up. This truth makes my knees buckle underneath me and one of the men catches me right as I am falling and holds onto me until I can stand upright again. This is the closest I’ve ever come to fainting and it takes me several steps to get the ground solid underneath me again.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” I say, walking alongside him up the hill. His eyes open and close every few seconds like he is the sleepiest he has ever been. I want to be strong so he won’t feel so bad, and it looks like Mama is doing the same. She holds onto his hand as they make the rest of the way up the hill.
“I love you, Joseph,” she keeps saying, strong and solid. “Now, don’t you go leaving me. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I feel like I am hearing things I shouldn’t be hearing—things that Mama and Daddy don’t say in front of anybody else. I am embarrassed that all of Daddy’s men heard it, too. To hide my embarrassment, I watch the mule’s tail swish back and forth as it hauls the stretcher up the hill. I recognize the mule to be Simon Hatcher’s, a man who owns a farm over near the mill.
When the mule stops in front of the porch, Mama says to the men, “Let’s get him to the bed.”
The four men carefully lift Daddy and carry him up the front porch steps and into their bedroom. He looks the color of the ashes in the wood stove.
Mama leaves to go into the kitchen and comes back with a cloth to wipe Daddy’s face. If one of us kids gets sick she always wipes our foreheads with a cold cloth.
Just about the time the men get Daddy situated on the bed, Doc Lester shows up. Every time I see Doc Lester I think of weasels because of the shape of his face. His chin juts out to a point; plus his eyes are beady and too close together. The men step back into the corners of the room, leaving Mama standing at the head of the bed next to Daddy.
Doc Lester places his small black bag on the foot of the bed and peels back the layers of what Daddy is wrapped in. He blocks my view and the only thing I can see is Doc Lester’s weasel-like head shake back and forth.
“Poor devil,” he mutters. “He’s lost a lot of blood.” His voice sounds about as grim as a person can sound.
Somebody nudges me on the shoulder and it is Daniel McBride. “Why don’t we go outside?” he says, looking out toward the porch.
“But I want to see,” I say.
“Best to leave this to the grown-ups,” Daniel says. He takes me gently by the arm and leads me toward the front door.
“But I just turned twelve,” I say, as if this constitutes being grown up. But I let him lead me out of the room anyway.
As I leave the house, I hear Mama gasp when she sees what is underneath the wrappings. An uneasy feeling settles into the pit of my stomach.
A dazed Meg sits on the porch, her face streaked with tears and crimson, as if the color lost in Mama and Daddy faces has become
hers.
“Oh my God, Louisa May, we’ve lost Daddy!” Meg says. Her voice cracks under the weight of the words. I don’t like that she’s given up on him so easily.
“Where’s Jo and Amy?” I ask.
“When Mama got word they were bringing Daddy home, she sent Jo to pick up Amy at the high school.”
“I need to go back,” I say to Daniel. “He would want me there.” I jerk away from Daniel’s grip.
Inside, Doc Lester covers Daddy up and closes his little black bag. “Somebody get Preacher. I’ve done all I can do here.”
“He’s on his way,” a voice says from the back.
Doc Lester is the only doctor in Katy’s Ridge, although it is a stretch of the imagination to call him that. He is also the person who signs the death certificates. Preacher being there is merely a courtesy. I push Doc Lester aside and take my place next to Daddy. His eyes are closed and his mouth, stretched tight in pain, is absent the smile he usually wears.
“Hey, Daddy. It’s Louisa May.”
He doesn’t say anything back. Mama sits on the bed putting a cool rag on his head and I wonder if she realizes that he has more than a fever. Next she’ll be breaking out the castor oil and the wooden spoon.
“Daddy?” I whisper, leaning next to him. “It’s Wildflower.”
“Don’t bother him, honey,” Mama says, as if I’m trying to ask him a question while he’s reading. My face burns. I want to shake some sense into her. Does she not see what is happening?
Daddy’s eyes open. They used to be as brown as rich shoe leather, but now are black and dull.
“What happened, Daddy?” I ask.
He looks up at me like he has a lifetime of things to tell me. I know he loves me. But what I see in his eyes is more than love. He is telling me that he will miss me. A lump of sorrow lodges in my throat. I swallow so I won’t cry.
“Take care of your mama,” he says, his beautiful baritone voice now raspy.
This isn’t what I want to hear. I want him to tell me that everything is going to be all right, and that he’ll be better soon. Instead, he is letting me know that nothing is ever going to be all right again.
“Promise me,” he says.
“I will,” I say, not even knowing what I’m promising to do. As far as I’m concerned, it is Mama’s job to take care of me, not the other way around. But I will agree to anything at that moment if it will take that look from his eyes. I silently beg God to make him better and promise all sorts of things in return. If God wants me to, I will even stop thinking that Preacher and Doc Lester are idiots every time I see them.
Daddy turns his eyes toward Mama. She strokes his cheek with such tenderness I can’t bear to watch. I look out the window at a squirrel burying an acorn under the pine tree and wonder how squirrels remember where they’ve buried things. Do they make little treasure maps in the tops of trees? When I turn back, Daddy’s eyes are closed forever.
Dying seems like such a private thing, even with a dozen people in the room. I want to shield him from the watchers, but it is too late. Doc Lester picks up Daddy’s wrist searching for a pulse.
“He’s gone,” he says, opening his silver pocket watch to note the time.
“Gone where?” I ask.
Doc Lester ignores my question and puts an arm on Mama’s shoulder. Mama stares down at Daddy, her eyes vacant, like she’s gone, too.
“Somebody tell me what’s going on,” I say too loud.
Nobody answers. Daddy is the one who always answers my questions, and in the next instant, I realize that I will miss this fiercely. At the same time I keep expecting him to open his eyes and smile and ask, “How’s my Wildflower?” Then he’ll sit up and say he feels much better now and I’ll tell him how he gave us all quite a scare.
Miracles have been known to happen in Katy’s Ridge. Little Wiley Johnson almost drowned last summer. Everybody was crying over him, too, when all of a sudden he spit out a gallon of the lake and choked air back into his lungs. His parents gave Preacher a big offering the next Sunday on account of God giving back their little boy. Afterwards, Preacher said Wiley was destined to do Jesus’ work and spread his gospel. Wiley didn’t look too thrilled about that. I don’t think he has anything against Jesus, but he is still just a kid.
Seconds later, Aunt Sadie arrives breathless at the door. The men part to let her pass. The noise she makes when she sees Daddy is the most lonesome wail I’ve ever heard and it sends ripples through me because it is the sound my heart is making, too.
“Everybody out!” Sadie says, and all the men from the mill obey, until there is just me and Sadie and Mama in the room.
“What’s happening, Aunt Sadie? What’s going on?” I whisper, like my regular voice might wake Daddy up.
“The world just became a much sadder place,” Sadie says.
I step closer and touch Daddy’s fingers and wait for them to close around mine and for his lungs to fill deep and wide like whenever he takes in a big breath of fresh mountain air first thing in the mornings.
“Breathe, Daddy,” I whisper, praying for a Wiley Johnson sized miracle. I take a big breath myself to show him how it’s done.
“It won’t do any good, sweetheart,” Aunt Sadie says. “It’s too late.”
I hear the words but refuse to believe them. I tell Mama that Aunt Sadie is wrong. But Mama won’t stop staring at Daddy. It’s as if somebody yelled “freeze” and she got stuck like a statue.
Just then I remember the little package I received when my grandmother McAllister died. Inside was a small, gold medallion of Jesus as a baby in his mother’s lap. People all over the world and especially in Ireland, where our people are from, believe that Mary can grant miracles and they pray to her all the time.
I run into my bedroom and take the medallion out of my dresser drawer. It is still in the box, wrapped in white tissue paper, along with a card with a prayer written on it. I read the words on the card and repeat them over and over again, trying to pray up a miracle. At our church in Katy’s Ridge, Jesus’ mother isn’t talked about much. The only time Preacher mentions her is on Christmas day when we hear the story about her giving birth to Jesus in a stable when there was no room at the inn.
I pray so hard that Mary’s face is imprinted on my hand. In the meantime, I wait for the miracle. I bite my bottom lip hard enough that it starts to bleed and taste the salty sweetness of my own blood. As far as I can tell, Mama doesn’t even realize I am there. She just keeps rubbing Daddy’s forehead with the cool rag. It makes me angry, how useless she is. But I am useless, too. Death makes everybody useless. The pain in my lip takes my mind away from the pain that starts to creep in around my heart. I go outside to continue my praying there.
A bunch of men from the mill stand under the pine trees, smoking cigarettes, with their heads bowed and voices low. Daniel sits on the top step of the porch and I go to sit next to him, still clutching the medallion.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel says softly.
“Sorry for what?” I ask. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry that your daddy’s passed on,” Daniel says.
“Passed on to what?” I ask, genuinely curious what he means. “Is he in heaven now? Just like that? One minute you’re here and the next minute you’re sitting around with angels?”
Daniel looks over at me like he isn’t sure how to answer.
“Well, if anybody gets to sit with the angels, it would be your father,” he says.
“But what if there’s been a mistake and it isn’t his time yet? Does God take it back?” The questions whirl around in my mind so fast they make me feel dizzy.
“I don’t think there’s been a mistake,” Daniel says. “I think it was just a horrible accident.”
Seconds later, Jo and Amy run up the hill. “What’s happened?” Jo asks, out of breath. The men under the pines are a chorus of muteness.
Daniel stands as if he is going to break the news to her but I blurt it out before he has a ch
ance.
“Daddy’s had a horrible accident, Jo. He’s dead.”
Jo and Amy look at me like I’ve just said the worst stream of bad words imaginable. Jo doesn’t believe me at first and asks Daniel what I am talking about.
“It’s true,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
Amy’s eyes are like full moons. She isn’t the type to cry but tears fill her eyes and spill over onto her cheeks. Jo and Amy collapse into each others’ arms and then Meg joins them from the porch and then I follow and it is the four of us sisters holding onto each other for dear life like we’ve just been thrown into a lifeboat together on the Titanic.
Things like this aren’t supposed to happen to my family. Daddy is supposed to live to be a hundred, setting a record for Katy’s Ridge. Outdoing Cecil Ludlow by one year, who died in his sleep at ninety-nine, after having just rocked one of his great-great granddaughters.
Later that afternoon, Mama breaks from her trance and lays Daddy’s hand down like it is a robin’s egg she is returning to a nest. Then she goes into the kitchen, puts on her apron and gets busy. From the empty look in her eyes, I know that I have lost Mama, too. In a matter of hours it feels like I have gone from having two, full-fledged parents to being an orphan.
I run out the front door, jumping from the porch to the ground without touching a step like I used to when I was younger. Then I run down the hill, not knowing where I am going, I just have to run. If I don’t I might suffocate from the sadness that threatens to drown me.
I jump over deep ruts made by the stretcher and reach the dirt road at the bottom of the hill in no time at all. Still running, I turn onto the river road. My shoes rub at my heels and I stop my flight long enough to toss them into the bushes. Mama will have a fit if she finds out, but I don’t care. I run barefoot toward the river. With each stride I try to forget seeing Daddy being pulled up the hill by Simon Hatcher’s mule and all the men he worked with. The same men who visited our house last Christmas and who today carried him so carefully from the stretcher to the bed.
The Secret Sense of Wildflower Page 8