Mattie

by Judy Alter

  “Got three sons to help him. And a wife who works. What have I got? A daughter, wild as a March hare because her mother is too busy taking care of other people. No, Gelson could have helped me.” He took a large drink from the glass in his hand, and I turned away in disgust.

  “Don’t turn your back on me. You’re just as bad as Gelson. Turned me down when I asked him a favor.”

  “You asked him a favor?” I whirled to face him.

  “Needed help,” Em muttered.

  “What kind of help, Em?”

  “What kind of help, Em?” he mimicked me. “What the hell kind of help do you think I needed? I needed some money, and I was damned if I was going to come to you again.”

  Em had gone to the Gelsons for money! “Em, you disgust me sometimes.” I turned to walk away.

  Drunk as he was, Em was fast. He grabbed me, both hands around my throat, and began shaking me so hard that for a moment, I was truly afraid for my life. Yelling, “Nobody looks down on me, nobody!” he held on to me for a moment, then seemed to come to his senses. Slowly he released his hold and stared at me.

  It was the next day before he apologized. I was wearing a shirt buttoned high at the neck, and my voice was hoarse.

  Such violence stands out in my mind, but it was rare. There were, however, lots of loud arguments and lots of long, stony silences. I never could predict Em’s reaction, whether it would be wild anger or childish pouting or, once in a while, rational discussion about what was happening to us, as though it were a phenomenon neither of us understood. I worried, of course, about the effect of all this on Nora, but she seemed unscathed. Surely she was aware, for I would see her creep into her room if we argued or become truly absorbed in a book to avoid our voices. But if Em went into a pout, Nora always went to his side and sat silently. When Em slapped me, she never came near me. I felt as though I was losing both a husband and a child.

  I needed an infirmary. Too often patients required more extended care, and my one room with its extra bed wasn’t enough. There was young Belinda Atkins, desperately ill with cholera. I recommended to the mother wrapping the girl in wet sheets to control the fever, and she took her home and, best as I know, followed the directions. But it was nip and tuck for several days, and there was more than once that I thought we’d lost that fifteen-year-old girl when we shouldn’t have. I’d run out to their house, about four miles out of town, two times a day, and it cut into my day. Wore me out, too. If I’d just been able to have the girl right under my eyes, it would have been better for her and easier on me. There were others, too, new mothers who couldn’t care for their infants at first, old people too weak to follow my directions, once in a while a widower who would have been all right if he’d had someone at home to look after him.

  I really thought the infirmary was what was wrong between Em and me, that and the whole idea of my practicing medicine. But none of that made sense to me, for Em knew I was a doctor when he started courting me, and he of all people should have known the importance of constant care of the sick. After all, as I’d thought a thousand times, if I hadn’t nursed him in my soddie, we probably never would have gotten acquainted. But he was outraged at the mention of an infirmary.

  “It’s bad enough you run all over, have all kinds of people bringing sickness into this house. I’m not going to spend a penny to build a pesthouse!”

  “Em, be reasonable. We’ll spend what I have earned.”

  “You haven’t earned that much!”

  “No,” I admitted, “I’ll have to borrow from the bank, but I truly think an infirmary would eventually pay for itself.”

  “With you taking chickens for pay instead of money?”

  “I won’t do that. The infirmary will be on a paying basis.”

  “If you do this, Mattie, I’ll walk out of this house forever.”

  I believed him and dropped the subject for the time being, but in my mind I began to build an infirmary. Not a hospital, nothing so grand, but a place where the sick could be cared for when need be. I could hire someone to help me, to tend to people during the day when I was busy and, of course, to do the cooking. Lord knows I didn’t want to have to cook and clean up for a bunch of sick people. I just wanted to make them healthy again.

  Life seemed to go on. Nora was twelve, in the fifth form at the little Benteen school and doing well. Already Em was talking about sending her east to school, and I was silently indignant. Omaha had been good enough for me, and it would be good enough for my daughter.

  She had grown into a lovely weed of a girl by then, tall for her age and slim but not skinny. Not for her those knobby knees and elbows most kids get at that age. She was graceful and proportioned, as though the Lord knew exactly what he was doing when he put her together. Em had taught her to ride, and she was as at home on the prairie as I was by then. Some days she’d just disappear for hours, and I rarely worried about her. She had that same unerring sense of direction and self-protection that came from living close to the land. But Nora could also sew a fine seam, more like Mama than me, and she was beginning to show an interest in the kitchen.

  We had a live-in housekeeper by then, for my practice kept me far too busy to take care of the house and meals. Em had reluctantly built a lean-to onto the house to provide a room for Margaret, a hearty Irish girl who had come off a farm some twenty miles away, where she’d been the oldest of eight children. When it became apparent that Margaret was grown and no husband was in sight for her, her family determined she needed to find work. Keeping house was all she knew, and they approached me. To me, the idea was a godsend, and Margaret was installed in our family as soon as I could arrange it.

  Margaret had red hair and the proverbial map of Ireland on her round cheerful face. Her conversation generally kept pace with her disposition, and she was prone to talk constantly. If no one was handy, she talked to herself or, sometimes, burst into song. It drove Em wild, but in another of those combinations that defied explanation, Nora took to Margaret as she did to few people.

  Under Margaret’s tutelage, Nora developed some very practical, womanly skills, like baking biscuits.

  “You like the biscuits, Papa?”

  “What? Oh, yes, Nora. They’re all right. Margaret is a good cook, even if she does talk all the time.”

  “I made them. Margaret taught me.”

  “You made them? My Nora? They’re wonderful, sweetheart, best biscuits I ever tasted. Did you hear that, Mattie? She made the biscuits!”

  That was how Em always was about Nora. Anything she did was the best, most remarkable, most wonderful ever, and Nora learned early to seek that praise. Em never disciplined but left it to me to scold about a messy bedroom or an uncared-for horse, a lesson undone or a sharp word spoken in anger. His responsibility in parenting seemed to be to provide the fun, and he was great at taking her for long rides, teaching her to judge cattle, throwing the ball so she wouldn’t catch like a girl. A lot of the time, I felt left out of their horseplay and laughter, and yet I was never sure how to join in.

  I tried to tell myself that life was good and going on as it should, and to some extent I accepted the level at which we were living. But inside, I knew it wasn’t what it should be, and I could see no way of changing it. I existed.

  That’s where we were when Lucinda Fisher finally came to town. Literally, she was dragged to town by Em, who pulled her into my office one day.

  “Mattie, this is Lucinda. She needs a tooth pulled.”

  I looked up to see him holding by the arm a large, tall woman of about my own age, but honestly, less attractive than I was. And you had to go some to beat me! She had dark hair, carelessly put up in a bun behind her head so that strings of hair escaped and hung around her face, which was round and of high color, like she worked in the sun all the time. Her clothes were clean, but I noticed a rip near the hem of her skirt and a button missing on one sleeve. Truthfully, I was disappointed. I’d built up a picture of this plucky widow who lived alone on the land, and
in my mind I’d made it a romantic picture. Reality was a disappointment.

  “How do you do, Lucinda? It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

  She murmured, “Thank you,” and tried to smile, but it was obvious she was in pain. I had her sit in the chair and got right to work looking at the tooth.

  Pulling teeth was not my specialty, but I had done it before. Once in a while a traveling dentist came through Benteen—the kind whose idea of dentistry was to pull teeth, not fix them like they do today—but most of the time I was the only dentist available, just as on occasions I was the preacher and nearly the undertaker.

  Once I pulled a tooth from a cowboy who was petrified. He grabbed the arms of the chair like it was going to take off with him and he had to hold on for dear life, and then he stiffened up like a board, absolutely motionless except for his feet, which were busy acting like they were spurring a horse. Every time I’d pull on that tooth, he’d drag his feet backward and rake a spur across my feet. He’d holler about the tooth, and I’d holler about my foot. The friend who had brought him in thought we had both gone crazy, and I thought we never would get that tooth out. Drew blood on my foot, he did.

  Lucinda was a more tractable patient, stoic almost. I did the best job of it I could, but pulling a tooth without anesthesia is never easy for the doctor nor the patient. I tried to give her a sip of whisky but she refused, and we just went ahead. Em left the room, claiming he had business outside, and didn’t come back until Lucinda’s tooth was out, her jaw packed with wet cloths.

  “She’ll need to stay here a while, Em. I wouldn’t want that socket to start bleeding.”

  “Stay here?” He looked almost alarmed for a moment, then he relaxed. “Where can she stay?”

  “Well, for the time being, she can sit right there. If I had an infirmary, with a bed for her to lie down . . .” I let my voice trail off.

  “She’ll be fine, Mattie. I’ve got to get her back out to her place and still have time to come home, you know.”

  Lucinda sat silently while Em and I wrangled over her immediate future.

  “Em, I cannot let you take her anywhere for a couple of hours.”

  In the end, Lucinda stayed silently in that chair for an hour or more, and then I sent them on their way with instructions for her care. Em seemed less concerned now about her welfare than annoyed with both Lucinda and me. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering him, but I guess I was too dumb to see the handwriting on the wall. Or recognize a guilty conscience when it presented itself to me.

  He did not come home that night, of course, but I was used to his absences now and barely thought to question him. I did ask, though, about his continued relationship with Lucinda, but I asked out of curiosity rather than jealousy.

  “Why, Mattie, my love, are you jealous?”

  I laughed. “No, Em, curious as to why you would keep up a friendship with someone like that. She . . . she’s not your style.”

  It was his turn to laugh. “You’re right. She’s not. If I ever cheat on you, Mattie, it won’t be with someone like Lucinda Fisher.”

  I believed him.

  In the end, I sent Em away. Or at least, I forced him to make the decision. I guess I stopped fooling myself that life was going on normally. Things had deteriorated to the point that Em barely talked to me, and flinched if I touched him. My efforts to get him to discuss our situation were futile. One day I surprised myself by saying, “Em, within one week, I want you to decide either to do something about our relationship or leave. I won’t live this way.”

  He looked long and hard at me and then nodded his head, but he said nothing.

  Two days later he left, saying little except that this was what he had to do and that he really didn’t blame me. I blamed him, though, with a rage that frightened me with its intensity. After the first shock and numbness wore off, I would spend hours wondering how this had happened to me, how someone I had loved so much had separated himself from me, how Em who had loved me had become Em who despised me.

  If I was distraught, Nora was destroyed by his leaving. Em had gone to her and told her he had to leave, that Mommy and Daddy could not live together anymore, that he still loved her and all those trite things. But to Nora, the bottom line was that her beloved father had walked out of her life.

  She never mentioned it to me. Instead, she went on with her life just as it had always been, pretending there was not a great empty space there.

  “Nora, have you heard from your father?”

  “No. He’s probably busy. Where’s the book I was reading?”

  “I don’t know. Nora, don’t you want to talk about your father?”

  “No.” And she was gone.

  It was fall when Em left, and Nora was busy with school and piano lessons she took from Sally Whittaker. At dinner, she was generally her same self, prattling endlessly about the small nothings of her day while I pretended great interest. I was too lost in my own despair to realize that at night, alone, she cried into her pillow. In some ways, Em’s leaving set the course for Nora’s selfish and destructive life, but that’s another story.

  Two weeks after Em left, I found out that he had gone straight to Lucinda Fisher. Lucy Gelson told me, and she did it kindly, a gesture meant to help a friend, because she knew I wouldn’t want to be the only one who didn’t know.

  “Mattie, did you ever think there was anything between Em and that Fisher woman?”

  I shook my head easily, not a doubt flitting through my mind. “No. Em told me once if he ever left me, it wouldn’t be for someone like that. She’s . . . well, Lucy, she’s so unattractive, and she doesn’t care for herself.”

  “Mattie, he’s living out there with her.”

  “Lucy, you must be mistaken. I don’t know where he’s living, but I’m sure you’re wrong.”

  “Ask him.”

  I did, the next time Em came to see Nora and to gather up a few of his belongings. He had developed the irritating habit of dropping by whenever he wanted, usually once a day, so that I never knew when I would look up and see him. It made my days difficult, and I suggested he call before he came. We had one of the few phones in Benteen.

  “Call from where, Mattie? There aren’t that many phones, and I don’t generally have a chance to use one.”

  “Doesn’t Lucinda have a phone?” I said it nastily.

  “What does that have to do with it? And no, she doesn’t.”

  I watched his face for signs of guilt but saw none. “Em, are you living with her?”

  He turned and stared at me, but finally had the grace not to lie. “Yes, Mattie, I am.”

  It was worse than his leaving. I felt betrayed, the dishonesty of it turning me dirty. I kept my calm until he left, but for days afterward I cried. Then I decided I didn’t want to live my life in tears and bitterness, and I started out to build a new life. I never cried for Em Jones again.

  Chapter Five

  I awoke each morning, alone in my bed, with a great lump of dread in my throat. Having decided that you won’t live your life in unhappiness is a clear and simple intellectual decision. Translating it into emotional terms is something else, and I seemed incapable of it, slipping instead into a depression where my work, the prairie I loved, even my willful daughter became my enemies.

  I went through the days mechanically. “Yes, Mrs. Jones, this cathartic will help you. If it doesn’t bring results, see me again in three days.”

  “No, it’s not cholera. The child just has a simple cold. Keep him warm and give him lots of fluids. No, he doesn’t need any medicines.”

  It all seemed trivial to me. I was batting my head against the small problems of others while my own life was one huge, insurmountable problem. I could not see ahead enough to give imaginative shape to that bold new future I wanted to build.

  Will Henry and Jim were kind, caring and helpless. I had to stop Will Henry from going out to Lucinda Fisher’s to thrash Em.

  “Will Henry, you know th
at won’t do any good and isn’t the right thing to do.”

  “I don’t care,” he muttered, clenching a fist even as he sat at my kitchen table. “Nobody treats my sister like that and gets away with it.”

  Jim was made of more patient stuff. “Son, he won’t get away with it. People earn what they get, and someday, someway, he’ll get just what he deserves. But you don’t have to be the instrument of that. I’ve taught you better than that, and you know your ma wouldn’t like it.”

  Big as he was, Will Henry was always silenced by a mention of Mama and what she would or wouldn’t like, and it worked again this time. He couldn’t let it go, though, without muttering, “I better not meet him in town.”

  “Like as not, he’ll start avoiding Benteen,” Jim said mildly. “He ain’t made himself none too popular around these parts. Mattie, what’s happening to the claim? I didn’t see any cattle out there.”

  “Jim, they must be there. What could he have done with our herd?” I tried to say it lightly, dismissing the flash of fear that went through me. Em wouldn’t dare sell the cattle—or would he?

  “I’ll go check around again. Must be these old eyes. Come on, Will Henry, this lady’s got a garden we got to see to today.”

  “With protectors like the two of you, how can I go wrong?” I tried to laugh, but as always, I was close to tears. This time, my tears sprang from gratitude rather than despair.

  I never did cry over Em again, but I cried buckets over lost dreams and my fear of the future. I hated myself for being weak and giving in, but I guess it was that future looming large in front of me that created the lump of dread. All my life, someone else had been responsible for me, even if they hadn’t always done that good a job. There was Mama, then Dr. Dinsmore, then when I came to Benteen, Will Henry and Jim, and then, of course, Em. But I couldn’t go back to being dependent on Will Henry and Jim at this point. I had to go forward, and the only way I could do it was by myself. Me and that willful, stubborn child of mine.