by Lisa Gregory
He sat down at the table without waiting to be asked this time, and Julia quickly set a mug in front of him and filled it with aromatic coffee.
"She couldn't be anything but weak, the way she eats," Julia told him. "I can hardly even get any soup down her."
"She should be eating more."
"It's the grief."
"I know. She obviously closes it up inside herself, and I think that makes it even harder on her."
"She doesn't want to talk."
"But it might help her. She needs—I don't know, to somehow be raised from this desolate lethargy. Right now she just doesn't care, and that could harm her recovery." James took a sip of his coffee and looked up at Julia. "Do you think you could encourage her to talk? Maybe persuade her that she has something to live for?"
"I'll try."
He smiled, and Julia's heart warmed within her. It was amazing what power his smile still held over her. She smiled back at him.
"Would you, uh, like something to eat? Supper's on the stove."
James hesitated. He was tempted. He was tempted every time she asked him. Sometimes he refused, but it seemed as if it was easier each time to say yes. It made no sense to stay. There was little ease between them. There was awkwardness and hesitation and too many memories. Yet, crazily, he wanted to linger. It was idiocy, he told himself. Sheer idiocy. He had been unsettled ever since he saw Julia in Harper's store two weeks ago. He kept remembering too much and too often he found her face in his mind. He hadn't needed to come out here to the Turner place practically every night, as he had. And there shouldn't be that swelling anticipation in his chest when he rode out to the Turner place.
He was a fool if he let himself get mixed up with Julia Turner again.
"I guess not." James made himself stand up. "I'd better get back into town. I have a lot of business on my desk to take care of."
"Of course. Thank you for coming by."
"It's no trouble."
Julia followed him to the door and watched him mount his horse. He lifted his hat to her and trotted down the drive. Julia closed the door. It wouldn't be right to stand at the door gazing after him. But she lifted the edge of the lace curtain on the front window and watched until he was out of sight.
Then, sighing, she went back into the kitchen and dished up a bowl of soup for Sarah. She set the bowl on a tray and added a thick slice of bread, warm from the oven this afternoon and slathered with pale yellow butter It smelled delicious and looked just as good, but she had little hope that Sarah would do any more than pick at it. She started to lift the tray, then stopped and went out the side door The first iris of the season bloomed a bright purple at the foot of the steps beside the house, and she bent and broke it off. She set it in a glass and put the glass on the tray as well,
Julia carried the tray upstairs to Sarah's room. Sarah lay propped up against her pillows, gazing out the window. Her face was pale, her hair tumbling around it in lank disorder. She glanced at Julia and the tray without interest.
"It's almost time for supper. I brought you some soup. Dr. Banks said you should start eating more, so I fixed beef and vegetables. Doesn't it smell good?" Julia set the tray down on the table beside the bed and fluffed up Sarah's pillows.
"I'm sorry, Julia. I don't really feel like eating."
"Of course not. Your stomach's all shrunk up. But you take a few bites anyway. It's the only way to get back on your feet." Julia ignored Sarah's indifference and set the tray down on her lap. "There now. Take a sniff. Doesn't that smell good?"
"I don't want it." Sarah's voice was mild, but utterly toneless.
Julia picked up the spoon and placed it in the bowl, lifting up a chunk of meat. "Just take a bite. As a personal favor for me."
Sarah glanced at her, then took the spoon and ate the chunk of meat. Slowly she ate another few spoonfuls.
"Good," Julia tore the piece of bread in half. "I made this loaf of bread this afternoon. It's still a little warm. The butter just melted on it."
Sarah took a bite of the bread and laid it aside. She pushed the tray down her legs away from her. "I'm full now."
With a sigh Julia picked up the tray. Sarah hadn't eaten enough of anything, and she hadn't even noticed the flower that Julia had hoped might cheer her up.
Julia understood how Sarah felt. No one could have understood better than she. Julia had felt exactly the same way when Pamela died. But Julia also knew that something had to change with Sarah.
She set the tray down on the table and walked over to the window, staring out of it at the big oak on the hill, with the sad dark patch of newly turned earth beneath it.
"This is no good for any of you, you know," she said quietly. "You're going to wind up sicker. And Luke and Emily are going to be even more unhappy."
She turned to look at Sarah. Sarah stared at her, surprised.
"I know. It's not my place to tell you what to do. But Luke and Emily are my family, and I love them. I can't bear to see that misery in their eyes all the time. You've got to come back to them."
"Come back? I don't understand."
"You're as far away from them as if you lived in another county, Emily keeps asking about you. I've tried to keep her out of here and to explain to her that you're sick. But she's scared and lonely. She doesn't understand why you just lie there."
Tears welled in Sarah's eyes. "I'm sorry. But I'm—I can't—"
"Yes. You can." Julia clasped her hands in front of her, struggling for the courage of say what she needed to. "I understand how you feel."
"You couldn't."
"No. I could. And I do. I had a little girl about a year and a half older than Vance."
"What?"
"She died."
"Oh, Julia, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Pity touched Sarah's face and voice.
"I wanted to lay there and die, too. It didn't seem like life was worth anything without Pammy."
"How did you—" Sarah's voice broke, and she started again. "How did you ever manage?"
Julia shrugged. "I had to, that's all. I had a baby to take care of. I had to live for him. I had to feed and bathe and clothe him. I had to rock him to sleep. So I couldn't give way. I had to live for somebody else. And, finally, it got easier . Then I began to want to keep on living. You've got people to live for, too."
"I guess I have." Sarah's eyes were huge green pools of sorrow, "But I don't know how I will."
"The strength will come to you. You'll see." She picked up the tray and set it back on Sarah's lap. "And you can start by eating a little more. You have to work to get well."
Sarah looked down at the soup with distaste but she picked up the spoon and grimly ate several more bites.
❧
That evening when Julia called the children in to supper, Emily came in the door with tears in her eyes. She carried her rag doll under one arm, and in the other hand she carried the doll's arm, stuffing trailing from it.
"Aunt Zulie," she wailed, holding out the doll and its dismembered arm. "Vance bwoke."
"Vance!" Julia cast a fulminating glance at her son, who was loitering uncertainly in the doorway. "How could you!"
"I didn't mean to. It was an accident,"
"Fix. Pwease?"
Julia looked down at the little tearstained face, her heart pulled by Emily's innocent sadness. She reached out for the doll, then stopped. "Honey. I have a better idea. Why don't you ran upstairs and see if your mommy can put it back together. All right? Here, I'll give you the sewing basket."
Emily's face brightened instantly. "Mommy fix," she agreed.
Julia gave her the sewing case, and Emily ran up the stairs with doll and basket as fast as she could. "Mommy, Mommy, dolly's bwoke!"
She burst into Sarah's room and stopped. Her mother looked so pale and different that it scared her. She swallowed and backed up a step. She thought of her aunt and the warm kitchen below, and she started to run back to that safety.
But Sarah's voice stopped her. "Emily." Sarah g
azed at the small figure with its tearstained face and grubby hands, her dress torn around the hem. Sarah's eyes flooded with tears, but she smiled. "Sweetheart. Come here, and I'll fix it."
Emily came over to the bed, and Sarah took the doll. She leaned out of bed and pulled her daughter into her arms and held her close. Tears coursed down her cheeks. "I love you. Oh, sweetie, I love you."
Chapter 8
Sarah's health began to improve steadily. She forced down the food Julia brought her no matter how uninterested she was in eating, knowing that she couldn't regain her strength unless she did. She had to regain her strength. She had to go on. She realized that now. Emily needed her. Luke needed her. She had duties and responsibilities. And she had never been the kind to just lie down and die.
Before long she began to get out of bed with Julia's help and sit for a few minutes in the chair. The times she sat up grew longer and more often. Then she started walking around the room and out into the upstairs hall, at first with Julia's supporting hand under her arm, and later on her own. Gradually her strength returned.
In less than two weeks she was able to come down the stairs to supper with Julia's help. When Luke walked in that evening and saw her sitting at the table, a smile of pure, surprised joy spread across his face. "Sarah!"
He started toward her, his hands going out automatically, his eyes alight. "Sarah!"
For a moment Julia thought that everything was suddenly working out, that Sarah and Luke would now be as they had once been to each other. But before Luke reached Sarah, he stopped abruptly, as if remembering the situation between them, and the blazing smile on his face subsided into something far fainter and more polite. "I—you must be feeling better."
Sarah had looked up at his entrance, and as he walked toward her, her eyes had softened, the corners of her mouth curling up, but when he stopped, the small signs of life drained from her face. "Yes. Thank you."
She laced her fingers together in her lap. She didn't know what to say to Luke. She never did anymore. He came to her room every morning and evening, but the rest of the time she rarely saw him. When they were together, they said little, talking stiffly and awkwardly, as if they were strangers. Their sorrow lay like a wall between them.
For just a moment, Sarah had known a spurt of feeling when he smiled, a funny tightening in her stomach and a lightness around her heart. Once, she knew, she had felt that every time she saw Luke, only more so. But the last few weeks there had been nothing in her except an absence of feeling. Apparently Luke was the same. He avoided her except for those brief, almost formal visits. He slept in another room.
Sarah had been relieved when Luke stayed away. She hadn't wanted to talk to or be close to anyone. It hadn't occurred to her to wonder why Luke avoided her so assiduously or why he was so still when he was around her. But now, suddenly, she did. Was it that his grief, like hers, cut him off from the world? Or was it that he blamed her for their baby's death?
Luke stood awkwardly in front of Sarah. When he saw her, it had been such a surprise that he had almost run to her and taken her in his arms. He had almost babbled out his relief and happiness at seeing her downstairs and dressed, obviously feeling better. It was only just in time that he remembered that Sarah didn't want hugs and kisses or congratulations from him. She wouldn't want anything from the man who had put her in this condition.
But oh, she looked pretty and sweet in that pink and white striped shirtwaist. It was one of his favorites. Her hair hung over one shoulder in a braid as if she were a girl, and there was a faint brush of pink back in her cheeks for the first time since she lost the baby. Luke wanted to squeeze her to him tightly and tell her how much he'd missed the sight of her in their kitchen, waiting for him to return from the fields. He wanted—how he wanted!—for things to be as they had been.
But they weren't. They could never be.
Supper was quiet. Luke said little and Sarah said even less, so that only Julia and the children carried the burden of the conversation. Their efforts soon lagged. When the meal was over, Sarah stood up to go back to her room.
"I better carry you," Luke offered. "That's too hard for you."
"No. I should do it myself. It's the only way I'll get stronger."
"All right." Luke linked his hands behind his back, restraining himself from reaching out to help her She was so frail it hurt his heart to look at her. She wasn't strong enough to climb the stairs. But he knew why she had refused his help. She didn't want him to touch her.
Many times over the past two weeks, Luke had hoped that Sarah would reach out a hand to him or tell him of her sorrow and hurt. If only she would look at him with even a hint of love in her face! He had wanted desperately to believe that she might love him despite it all, that she needed him, no matter what. But every day it was harder to keep such dreams alive. It was clear that Sarah didn't want him around.
He didn't blame her. She couldn't dislike him any more than he disliked himself.
❧
James trotted down the stairs from Sarah's room, a smile on his face. Julia, watching him, smiled back. She knew that only part of her smile was for Sarah's improved health. The rest was simply for the man coming down the stairs. It was wrong that James could still call forth such a response from her. But he did.
"She's doing much better than when I was here a week ago."
"I'm glad to hear you say it. I thought she was. Would you—"
"Yes." His smile broadened, and there were light and laughter in his eyes that Julia hadn't seen there since she'd come back to Willow Springs. "Yes, I'd like a cup of coffee, and yes, I'd love something to eat. I've been running since sunup, and I haven't had dinner,"
"All right. Good." Julia was unaware of the way her smile lit her face, tinting her cheeks with pink and adding sparkle to her eyes. "I mean—" She stopped, flustered, "Well, not good that you didn't have anything to eat. It's good that you have time to eat now, I mean,"
She turned away to hide her embarrassment and began dishing up food onto a plate for James, "Is roast pork all right?"
"Perfect."
Julia added a steaming hot sweet potato and a large spoonful of black-eyed peas to the plate and set it down on the table. She added a dish of butter, a bottle of hot pepper sauce, and a plate of cornbread, hot from the oven.
"Mmm. It smells delicious." James sat down quickly. He really was hungry, though he knew he would have stayed even if he hadn't been, "Aren't you going to join me?"
"Yes, if you'd like," Normally Julia would have waited for Luke and the children, but she couldn't resist the opportunity to sit down at the table and eat with James. She was glad that the others wouldn't come in to eat for another hour.
She dished up a much smaller plate of food for herself and sat down across from James. The flutter of excitement and anticipation in her stomach that she always felt around him made it difficult to eat. She pushed the food around on her plate, taking a few bites, and watched him eat.
His hands on the fork were long and slender, capable, agile. Masculine, She remembered them curled around Sarah's wrist, taking her pulse, and working over the poor, dead infant. His fingers had been quick and efficient, yet tender as well. Julia remembered their tenderness on her own flesh years ago.
Julia shook the image from her mind. It was foolish to think of such things, "Will Sarah be all right now?"
"She's doing very well. You've taken good care of her, and she's young and healthy. Barring something unexpected, she should recover."
"That's good,"
"I'll check on her again in a couple of weeks, just to make sure she's all right." There probably wasn't any reason to, really, but he wanted to.
"Thank you." It lifted Julia's spirits to think that he would be back in two weeks. She had assumed that she wouldn't see him again.
"I guess you and the children will be living here now," James commented. Until she met a man, of course; until she married again. A woman as pretty as Julia was bound to marry aga
in.
"Oh, no, only until Sarah's feeling better. As soon as she's strong again, the children and I will move." When Sarah was well, she wouldn't need Julia's help anymore, and Julia knew that then her family would become a burden. Besides, perhaps Luke and Sarah would work out this trouble between them if they were alone. Julia suspected that she and the children acted as a buffer between Luke and Sarah. Without Julia there, they would come up against each other more. They would have to talk. They would have to deal with each other.
James looked surprised. "Really? Why?"
"I can't continue to live on Luke's and Sarah's charity."
"But they're your family."
"I have to make a life for myself and my children. I don't want to be a burden to Luke, and, well... I want my own home. I want Bonnie and Vance to have their own place, to not be dependent on their uncle. I'm able to stand on my own two feet."
James didn't understand. It was in the nature of things for a woman to depend on male relatives in her time of need, just as it was the man's duty to care for his sister or mother. Never having known the sting of poverty, he couldn't comprehend Julia's pride and dislike of charity. "But what will you do?"
"I'll move into town and rent a room, I can get work cooking and cleaning, or maybe I'll take in laundry."
James stopped in mid-motion and set down his fork. "You can't do that."
"Why not?" Julia smiled. "It's what I've done ever since I can remember."
The idea of Julia cooking and cleaning for someone appalled him. James thought of her on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors for someone like Mrs. Whitfield, who had a tongue like vinegar and no hesitation about using it. Even if she worked for a kind woman, it was backbreaking work. A woman like Julia should have her own home and a maid to help her, not be staving away in another woman's house. It was too hard, too humiliating. He couldn't let her do it.