“Don’t worry,” Julia interrupted. She looked down at Mary Ann’s bowl and gesturing for her to keep eating. “You’ll learn my brother’s ways quickly, I’m sure, even if only by way of his stipulations and demands. In the meantime, the Clarks and I will take turns sitting with you while you care for Jack this first week—and, we’ll help ease you into your job.”
Julia took a deep breath and looked away while grimacing. “Unfortunately, our rouse was discovered even before we could put it into place. He knows the real reason you are here. That you are not a nanny come to take care of my son Simon and he is none the happy for it.”
“How unfortunate, this will make our interactions hard, already from the very beginning.”
“I know Mary Ann. I am sorry. I should have known better than to try and pull such a silly ruse on my brother. He is far too sharp. The minute I claimed you would be a nanny to Simon and at the same time attending to his needs during the day, he saw it for what it was. A lie.”
“Well what it done is done. There is nothing for it. Tell me more about my patient.”
Mary Ann smiled before sliding her spoon into her mouth again, and Julia started giving her the vital details she needed to deal with Jack Montgomery as she ate. She went on to explain some of her brother’s habits and preferences and reiterated his impairments and symptoms, noting the treatments, medicines, and other remedies that did and did not work on him. Mary Ann listened attentively and kept track of all that Julia said, and she felt herself becoming strengthened by both the information and food.
Meanwhile, as the woman talked, unbeknownst to them, Jack Montgomery sat on the floor of his bedroom with his ear pressed against the door. He’d feigned sleep when his sister last checked in on him prior to Mary Ann’s arrival, and, once he knew that his nurse was there, he hurried out of bed to eavesdrop on her as she settled in.
Jack heard each and every word that his sister said about him, from her childish comment about how he was spoiled by his grandmother’s biscuits to her thorough description of his condition and beyond. He didn’t like some of the things she said about him, and, in another place and time, he would have stormed out of the room and defended himself against her verbal assault.
But, this wasn’t another place and time. This was now. And, now, Jack did not have the will to storm out of the room and defend himself. In fact, he didn’t have the will to do much at all.
True, the accident he’d suffered several months earlier had debilitated him in a few ways, but he was already weakened before that, and all the accident did was push him over the edge. He’d already been having nightmares, headaches, and fits since his return home from the war; he’d already been sensitive to sights and sounds before he fell off of his horse and hit his head; and, long before this day, he’d already lost his will to do much of anything… including live.
SIX
Mary Ann sat quietly in the chair in the front room, while Mrs. Clark sat snoring in another chair a few feet away. Julia had gone to town to run some errands and left the older woman to help Mary Ann as she acclimated to caring for Jack.
But, in the hours since Julia left, Mary Ann hadn’t done anything to care for Jack. To the best of her knowledge, he remained fast asleep in his room, and she busied herself with other things to bide her time. She tidied up around the house, swept off the front porch, and did some other chores, then she sat down and read several passages from the Bible she’d found on the shelf.
At some point during Mary Ann’s labors and prayers, Mrs. Clark had fallen asleep, and, as Mary Ann examined the matron, she considered doing the same. But just as she closed her eyes to invite sleep, Mary Ann heard a loud pounding noise.
She jumped up from her chair, startled, and, within seconds, she realized whence the noise came.
“I’m hungry,” she heard a man shout from behind a far door. “Fetch me something to eat, nurse.” The man pounded on the door again, and Mary Ann walked toward it, glancing back at Mrs. Clark as she did. The old woman was still sleeping and hadn’t been the least bit disturbed.
“My name is Mary Ann,” Mary Ann said in a loud, but friendly voice as she approached the door.
“I don’t want to know your name, nurse,” the man shouted back. “I want food.”
“Very well,” Mary Ann replied, still trying to be kind. “I’ll get you some stew.” She walked over to the cupboard and stove and promptly prepared a bowl of stew for her patient just as Julia had done for her earlier.
Mary Ann carried the bowl of soup back to Jack’s door. “I’m here with your stew,” she said, waiting for the door to open.
“Set it down,” Jack instructed. “Set it down, then step away from the door. I don’t want to see you—or be seen.”
Mary Ann was shocked, and took slight offense, at her patient’s words. But, nonetheless, she did as he’d said. She set the bowl down on the floor, then turned to take leave.
“I’ve set it on the floor,” she called out, “and now I’m returning to the front room.”
As Mary Ann walked slowly back to the front room, she heard Jacks door creak open and cocked her head to the side to try and get a glimpse of the man. But, alas, all she saw was his arm reach out and his hand take hold of the bowl. Then she heard the door slam shut.
No sooner than Mary Ann got back to her chair, however, she heard the door creak open again.
“Nurse!” Jack called out.
“Yes?” Mary Ann inquired as she rose to her feet. As she approached his room, she saw that he’d placed the bowl outside of his door again. It was full and appeared untouched.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, perplexed.
“There’s too much broth,” Jack replied from behind his door. “I don’t like a lot of broth. Drain it, and bring it back.”
“Very well,” Mary Ann answered, bending down to pick up the bowl. Again, she tried her best to sound kind.
Mary Ann took the bowl back to the stove and held the ladle to it, pouring the broth back into the pot. A moment later, she returned to Jack’s door and set the bowl down on the floor once more.
“It’s on the floor,” she said, making her way back to the front room. This time, when she heard the door creak open, she didn’t even attempt to spy her patient and, instead, walked swiftly toward her chair.
As soon as she was settled in her chair, however, she heard an all too familiar sound. The door creaked open and Jack shouted for her again.
“Nurse!” he called out.
“Yes?” Mary Ann replied, sighing quietly under her breath and rolling her eyes.
“Now there’s barely any broth in it at all,” he complained through the wall. “I said I don’t like a lot of broth, but I like some broth—so, take this back and add some broth to it.”
Mary Ann bent down and picked up the bowl. She was rather frustrated by Jack’s picky demands, but she held her tongue and said nothing as she made her way back to the stove.
Meanwhile, in his room, Jack snickered as he leaned his head against the door. He may have had no will to defend himself—or live—and he may have vowed against allowing Mary Ann to serve as his nurse, but he still had some of his spirit about him, and he took great pleasure at toying with Mary Ann the way that he did.
He also had a purpose for treating her as he did, mind you. After his argument with Julia, Jack realized that there was nothing he could do to stop Mary Ann from coming—but, there was plenty he could do to make her leave. He determined himself to give Mary Ann a “hard time” and frustrate her, so that she’d eventually—hopefully quickly—quit and abandon her post as his nurse.
But, as it turns out, Jack knew very little about Mary Ann, and he was rather surprised by what happened next.
“I’ve set it down,” Mary Ann said from the other side of the door. Jack grinned and impish grin and counted to 20 before opening the door again.
As he crouched down to pick up the bowl, Jack stared at what was in front of him curiously.
“What’s this?” he asked, looking at not one, but two, bowls.
“One bowl has nothing but broth in it,” Mary Ann replied from several feet away, “and the other has nothing but tubers and meat.”
Jack examined the bowls more closely and confirmed that this was the case. He smiled and laughed quietly, though his smile and laugh were quite different than they were before.
“You can add as much—or as little—broth as you like,” Mary Ann explained.
Jack picked up the two bowls and shut the door to his room, and Mary Ann sat down in her chair. A few seconds passed, then a few seconds more—then minutes.
It wasn’t until nearly an hour later that Jack opened the door again. And, when he did, he did so without saying a word. He just quietly cracked it open and reached out to set the two empty bowls down on the floor.
SEVEN
“I can’t!” Jack screamed at the top of his voice. “I won’t!”
Another man was tugging at his arm, pulling him in one direction, though he longed to go the other way.
“Let go of me!” he shouted at the man, batting at him with his other arm.
Jack broke free of the other man and started to run away. But, just as he was making progress, something crashed down in front of him.
“NO!!!!” Jack exclaimed, yelling in a voice so loud that it could have raised the dead. He saw warm colors dancing around him, and he felt their heat.
“NO!!!!” he exclaimed again. Again, his voice was loud enough that it could have raised the dead. But, rather than raising the dead, it roused him.
Jack jolted and sprung up in his bed. The sound of his own voice had woken him from his dream. It was a dream he’d had countless times since coming home from the war, and, each time he had it, it left him sweating and brought him great heartache, guilt, and pain.
The “dream” that Jack repeatedly had wasn’t so much a dream as it was a memory of something that had actually occurred. It—like the woman’s voice and face Jack experienced in his mind—was based on real, horrible events that Jack had experienced just over a year ago.
Jack wept uncontrollably as he recalled those events. The fire, the face of the dying woman begging for help, the memories were so powerful—the images, so clear—it was as if Jack was living them all over again.
Jacked slid out of his bed and made his way to the window. It was the middle of the night, and there was nothing to see outside of it, but, still, he gazed out. Only a few hours earlier, he’d gazed out of that same window, inconspicuously, as Mary Ann left with Mrs. Clark. He’d tried to get a glimpse of his nurse as she parted, but all he saw in the distance was the mop of dark hair that encircled her head.
As he looked at the window and examined the still of the night, Jack concluded that it was likely Mary Ann’s mop of dark hair that triggered him to have the dream. Her hair was much the same color as that woman’s, and it must have stirred the memories that surfaced once he went to bed.
Jack’s body was soaked in sweat, and his face was drenched in tears. He was shaking and shivering, even though he was not at all cold. Over the past several months, he’d tried every treatment, tonic, and elixir his sister had offered him to deal with these symptoms—but, none of them had worked, and would bring him no relief now. So, Jack did the only thing that ever calmed him when his suffering reached such an unbearable point. He dropped to his knees—right there in front of the window—and prayed to God.
“Please, My Father, forgive me,” he whispered aloud. “And, please, help me find peace. I can’t go on living this way, burdened by such awful memories and dreams. I am truly sorry for my weaknesses, and I pray you help me find redemption, whether here on this earth or in your Holy Kingdom.”
Just as Jack’s dream was a recurrent one, so, too, was his prayer, or slight variations thereof. It helped calm his symptoms like no medicine ever could and gave him just enough strength to carry on.
It did not, however, chase the memories from his head, at least not completely. It only distracted him and pushed the memories to some other part of his mind, where they’d stew idly until they inevitably came to the forefront again. Jack knew that there was only one way that these memories would ever be quieted, and he knew that it was not something that would happen on God’s green earth.
After Jack was done with his routine prayer, he spent a few moments in silent reflection, then rose to his feet. He paced back and forth across his room for a while before finally getting back into bed. The sun wouldn’t rise for at least two more hours, and he wanted more than anything to go back to sleep until then. But, despite his desire, he knew that sleep would not find him again this night. His head was filled with too many thoughts that he could not rest.
Jack laid down on his bed, with his back against the mattress, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to focus his eyes on the grain of the wood beams above him, rather than on the subject of his dream.
But, at some point, his eyes grew weary, and the colors in the wood danced together in a frightful way. Again, Jack saw images of fire, and of the woman’s face. Her blue eyes, her, her rosy cheeks, and pink lips twisted and contorted as orange flames took to her brown hair. Her voice cried out, begging, pleading, screaming in pain.
“I’m sorry,” Jack whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his fingers, hard, against the bridge of his nose. “I’m so sorry.”
Jack rolled over, buried his face in his pillow, and beat his fist against the mattress. In his mind, he saw the woman reach out for him, keel over, and collapse in a fiery mess. He beat his fists harder against the mattress and made a sound that cannot be described in words.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated woozily a few moments later, after his aggressions had worn him out a bit. “It was my fault.”
EIGHT
“He’s sleeping,” Julia yelled out from the porch as Mary Ann approached the Montgomery homestead on foot.
Mary Ann raised her eyebrow as her friend greeted her in the same matter-of-fact manner she’d done the day before.
It was only Mary Ann’s second day as Jack’s nurse, and, again, for the second time, he was sleeping and unavailable when she came round. This frustrated Mary Ann, to say the least, but she ignored her frustration in favor of her manners.
“It’s nearly noon, by my guess,” she said, taking a seat beside Julia on the porch bench. “Does he often sleep this late?”
“Well, it’s not that he sleeps late,” Julia answered, setting down a sock she’d been mending. “He sometimes has trouble sleeping at night, so he ends up catching up on his sleep during odd daytime hours.”
Mary Ann nodded her head. “Have you tried the usual remedies?” she asked.
“Of course,” Julia replied. “But, he hasn’t taken to any of them.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Mary Ann remarked, bowing her head. “Perhaps I know of something you haven’t tried. Tell me, have you used—”
“I don’t think any treatment will help with Jack’s sleep problems,” Julia said, interrupting her friend. “He is not kept awake by physical problems but, rather, by his mind.”
Mary Ann looked up at Julia curiously.
“I believe he suffers from nightmares and bad memories,” Julia went on. “On occasion, I’ve heard him screaming and crying in his sleep, and the heard him pacing and acting out his aggressions thereafter.
“I tried talking to him about these behaviors, but he won’t have it. So, I have no way of knowing the particulars about the thoughts that plague him. But, from what I’ve heard him mutter in his sleep, I’m pretty sure it has to do with something awful he experienced during the war. I’ve heard him cry out about a fire and a woman, and have heard him shout commands to other soldiers.”
Mary Ann felt genuine empathy for her patient, even though she’d never met him or seen him face to face. But that empathy, although genuine, was only part of what she felt.
“So what am I to do while he sleeps?” Mary Ann asked Julia. “How can I
serve as nurse to a man who lies sleeping behind a locked door in the middle of the day?”
“There are plenty of chores to be done around the house,” Julia answered optimistically. “There are socks and other garments in need of mending and pots that need to be scrubbed, and the animal pens could use a good—”
It was Mary Ann who now interrupted her friend.
“Chores?” she asked in a displeased tone. “You want me to med socks, scrub pots, and tend to the animal pens?”
“Well, those are all things that need to be done,” Julia replied.
“But, they don’t need to be done by a nurse, now do they?” Mary Ann asked. Her words were sharp, and she did not bite her tongue.
“You called me out here to serve as your brother’s nurse,” Mary Ann went on. “But, it seems to me that he is in greater need of a maid than a nurse. All I did yesterday was fix him his stew, and, today, you’ve told me to do chores. Those things, alone, are not a nurse’s tasks. You could have hired anyone to do them—so, why hire me? I feel as though my skills are being wasted here and could be put to better use elsewhere.”
Meanwhile, inside the house, Jack Montgomery stood by his window, listening. He’d awoken just minutes before Mary Ann arrived and took post by the window when he heard Julia greet her from the porch.
Jack felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment as he eavesdropped on the women’s conversation. Only yesterday, he’d determined himself to frustrate Mary Ann and scare her off, and, according to her own words, his efforts had already caused an effect in her. She sounded very dissatisfied with her duties, and he was sure it would only be a matter of time before she gave in and quit. Then he’d have one less person to deal with and could wallow in his despair uninterrupted and alone.
Jack continued to listen as the women carried their conversation inside and took to some of those chores to which Mary Ann seemed so adamantly opposed. As he listened to their chatter, he entertained a variety of different scenarios in his head, playing out the different ways he would taunt Mary Ann today, when given the chance.
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