Placing her free hand on the young man’s shoulder, she softly encouraged him. “All will be well.”
“I feel so useless since I can’t actually go into Alma Lee’s room and tend to her, like Ruth Ann can, ’cause it wouldn’t be fittin’. And it just seems nothin’ I do for Ma or Ruth Ann works out well either,” he muttered into the palms of his hands. “For all the good I’m doin’, I might as well not even be here.”
“I know it’s all so frustrating, but I’m sure just having you in the house to protect everyone is extremely appreciated. And I will do my very best to help all of you find a way to aid Alma Lee,” she promised, silently praying she’d be able to keep what she vowed.
“Much obliged, ma’am,” he muttered.
Returning to Ruth Ann, who waited now for her at the foot of the stairs, she forced a smile. “Lead on, my friend.”
“Ma’s feeding Alma Lee now,” Ruth Ann offered. “We’ve been smashin’ and mushin’ up the food so’s she don’t choke.”
Holding tightly to the banister, as the steps were steep and narrow and her medical bag cumbersome, she followed Ruth Ann. “What has she been eating?”
“Mashed potatoes with butter. Ma makes them nice and creamy. As well as smashed up bananas, squash, peas, and carrots. For breakfast she’s fed oatmeal, a soft-boiled egg, applesauce, and pear puddin’. If ya put a cup between Alma Lee’s hands, she’ll raise it to her mouth and drink on her own. ’Course we’ve got to stay right with her so’s she don’t drop it when empty,” Ruth Ann added.
“And what sort of liquids has she been drinking?” she said.
“We’ve been givin’ her lots of orange juice, chicken broth, and water and at night an herbal tea to help her sleep.”
When Ruth Ann opened Alma Lee’s bedroom door, Cassia glanced around the tiny room. The cradle and shelves lined with baby items had been removed, and the rocking chair pushed to the side. It was then she spotted Trudy on her knees beside a pile of blankets and quilts. She was spoon-feeding Alma Lee what appeared to be applesauce. The younger woman’s long, beautiful, golden curls were chopped off, hanging in uneven strands to the middle of her neck. She was uncovered and staring straight ahead. Propped up with several pillows behind her head, she sat atop a few layers of towels. She had an apron tied around her neck like a bib, and beneath that she wore a shortened version of a nightgown coming only to the middle of her abdomen. One of the towel diapers covered her bottom, and socks were on her feet.
“I cut down a few nightgowns, ’cause she kept wettin’ the long ones,” Ruth Ann explained. “And I even sewed lace along the hem so’s she would look pretty.”
Ruth Ann’s last words caught Cassia’s heart. To think this young girl, in the midst of such trauma, still wanted her sister to look pretty. “You did a fine job, Ruth Ann.”
Trudy stood when Cassia entered the room, placing the bowl and spoon on the table beside the bed. “Much obliged you came, Nurse Holmes.”
“I’d like to examine Alma Lee now, if I could.” She knelt with her bag beside the pile of quilts. Alma Lee didn’t make a sound or blink an eye while the three of them removed her clothes. Cassia listened to her heart and checked her breasts, which had now returned to a normal state. Her stomach, once swollen with the appearance of pregnancy, was flat. She enlisted Trudy and Ruth Ann to hold Alma Lee’s thighs apart for the internal examine and was pleased to see there was no infection or abnormal swelling within. “I’d like to see if she’s running any sort of a fever, but I fear she’s incapable of holding the thermometer beneath her tongue.”
“I reckon yer right, Nurse Holmes,” Trudy agreed. “And should she bite down on it, she’d get glass in her mouth. We sure don’t need her doin’ that.”
“No, we sure don’t.” Cassia sighed. “It looks like I’ll need you two to help me roll her onto her side, so I can take her temperature the alternative way.”
It was at that point Alma Lee began to sob. Trudy reached over and caressed her oldest daughter’s face. “Ain’t no cause for them tears, my sweet girl. Only folks here are one’s tryin’ to help ya get well again.”
“I can’t blame her,” Ruth Ann chimed in. “I’d cry too if everyone was lookin’ at me, lying naked as a jay bird, and gettin’ a thee-mom-mee-ter shoved up my…”
“Hush now, child,” Trudy interrupted. “Ain’t no cause for ya to be speakin’ disrespectfully.”
“No fever,” she reported after reading the thermometer. “Has there been further vomiting or diarrhea?”
“No, Alma Lee’s stomach seems to be settled now,” Trudy said.
Cassia smiled and happily pronounced. “I believe physically Alma Lee’s on the mend.”
“Too bad her head ain’t matchin’ her body.” Ruth Ann looked down at her older sister with pitiful eyes. “Where do ya think her thoughts are at, anyway…with her husband, maybe? Or could she be thinkin’ she’s off somewhere takin’ care of her baby?”
Cassia sighed. “It’s hard to tell, as the brain is such a complicated part of the body, and many times it takes longer to heal when we’ve experienced so much hurt. I’ve cared for soldiers wounded in battle, and lots of them have a hard time forgetting all the horrors of war they experienced. They call what they have, shell ‘shock.”
“Do ya think Alma Lee has this shell shock?” Trudy inquired.
“Well, a form of it—yes,” she admitted. “Her brain is having a hard time processing the grief of all she’s lost. It’s just easier to retreat into a safe and private cocoon, block out the outside world, where she’s made to face and deal with reality and the sorrow, and instead dwell in a much happier world.”
For a few moments stillness enveloped the room while her words sank in.
Clearing her throat, Cassia broke the silence. “But I do know, I always feel better mentally when I’m washed and smell clean.” She directed her next words to Ruth Ann. “So, if you don’t mind fetching a basin of warm water, a bar of soap, clean towels, and a few washcloths, I’d like to bathe Alma Lee.”
“I’ll get right on that for ya, Nurse Holmes.” Ruth Ann stood and made her way out of the room.
Trudy, placing a hand on Cassia’s arm, whispered, “Do ya think my girl will ever come back to us?”
She placed her hand over Trudy’s. “I do, Trudy. I believe there’s always hope she’ll come through all of this, but it will take time. And I plan on being here to help her through the recovery.” She reached for her bag and pulled out a rubber sheet. “It will be easier on all of our knees and backs if Alma Lee is bathed upon the bed. This rubber sheet will protect the mattress.” Then an idea came to her. “In fact, I’ve three of them in my satchel, and I will leave them all for your use. If you line the bed each night with one, Alma Lee will sleep more comfortably. And it’s a proven fact, when rested we think and act clearly.”
“I thank ya so very much, Nurse Holmes.” Trudy helped her get the rubber sheet in place on the bed.
When Ruth Ann returned to the room, the three of them helped Alma Lee over to the bed and washed her. Cassia could feel the tension in her patient’s body fade as lotion was massaged on her back and buttocks, down her legs to the thighs, calves, and ankles. She then spotted a birthmark in the shape of the number eight just above Alma Lee’s left ankle bone. “My siblings all have birthmarks. They inherited theirs from their Apache father.”
Trudy chuckled lightly. “Same goes for my youngin’s. They got their birthmarks from my ma’s side of the family. I’ve one on my lower back, John Tyler has one on his forearm, and Ruth Ann has one on her belly.”
As Trudy and Ruth Ann were securing Alma Lee’s towel undies, Cassia had another idea. “Ruth Ann, do you think it would be possible for you to make several pairs of panties from one of the rubber sheets I’m leaving here?”
“I could try,” Ruth Ann said. Then frowning she added, “But they’d be awful uncomfortable to wear.”
“I was thinking they could be pulled up over the towel coverings, t
o keep leakage from soaking whatever Alma Lee wears or wherever she sits. In this way she won’t have to always stay up here in this tiny room, dressed only in a shortened nightie, but instead clothed as usual and able to come downstairs with the rest of the family. If she’s going to regain her senses, she needs to have her mind stimulated, seeing and hearing all of you talking and interacting with each other will encourage her to communicate again.”
Both Trudy and Ruth Ann smiled, their faces filled with new hope. “I can get on that after dinner.” Ruth Ann reached for one of the rubber sheets and hugged it to her chest. “I sewed all the towel undies in two days, probably won’t take me much longer to make the rubber panties.”
“I’d like to fix Alma Lee’s hair,” she offered next, nearing the rocking chair and pulling it to the center of the room. Taking the other rubber sheet, she folded it thrice and placed it upon the rocker’s seat. Then she helped Alma Lee over to the chair and sat her down. As she placed a towel around Alma Lee’s shoulders, Trudy went to fetch her sewing shears. And in no time Alma Lee looked as fashionable as the girls in a magazine. Her golden curls were shaped into a short bob that framed her face.
“Why, she could be yer kin, Nurse Holmes,” Ruth Ann commented. “The both of ya have the same color eyes and hair. And now ya both are wearin’ the same style.”
Cassia giggled. “Yes, we could almost be sisters.”
“If ya cut my hair too, we’d all be like sisters,” Ruth Ann pointed out.
Trudy arched a brow. “If ya take my scissors to yer hair, I’ll be takin’ the wooden spoon to yer bottom…reddenin’ it so’s ya won’t be able to sit properly for a week.” Moving closer to her younger daughter, Trudy added, “Do ya hear me, child?”
Ruth Ann scowled. “I hear ya, Mama.”
Cassia couldn’t help but pity Ruth Ann. She tried so hard and yet continued to come up against so many obstacles along the way. “Ruth Ann, while I was in England I admired and became dear friends with my Aunt Marrietta’s cook, Inez. She is a wonderful woman from Algeria who made the most delicious meat pies. For thousands of years, Inez’s people wore their hair plaited into a most unusual looking weave, whereby three strands are gathered and intermingled with other side sections of hair as the braid continues. Before I decided to cut my own hair, Inez taught me how to become accomplished in doing this fancy braid. Would you like, after I’m finished tending to your sister, for me to fix your hair in such a fashion?”
The younger girl’s face brightened. “I’d be much obliged, Nurse Holmes.”
It was then that Alma Lee, her arms crossed over her breasts, began rocking in the chair.
“She looks like she’s rockin’ a baby,” Ruth Ann commented.
“I bet that’s just what she’s thinkin’ she’s doin’.” Trudy sighed. “My poor girl, both of her arms and heart are empty.”
“Maybe they don’t have to be—at least for a while—until Alma Lee regains her senses,” she said.
Ruth Ann frowned. “But none of us here has a baby to give her.”
“Where’s that teddy bear I saw the last time I was in this room?”
Trudy bent and pulled a small wooden storage chest from beneath the bed. “I packed all the baby things Alma Lee collected in here and took the cradle to the barn. I figured it might help her to get past her grief faster with everythin’ out of sight. My husband, Howard made the cradle after he found out I was carryin’ Alma Lee. Then we used it for John Tyler and Ruth Ann when they were born. It seemed only right for my grandbaby to sleep in it as well.” She wiped a tear from her eye and opened the chest’s lid. “Here’s the teddy bear. I wrapped it in this yellow blanket Alma Lee knitted.”
“Perfect.” She took the white stuffed bear and placed it into Alma Lee’s arms.
To everyone’s pleasant surprise, Alma Lee broke from her starring-state and looked down at the blanket wrapped bear. Then she smiled.
“Well, I’ll be,” Trudy said, her own lips spreading into a smile.
“She looks right happy and content rockin’ that bear,” Ruth Ann marveled.
“And I believe that happiness and contentment can play a part in Alma Lee’s healing,” she admitted.
As she turned to sit on the edge of the bed, Cassia’s foot hit a pan. It must have been pushed out from beneath the bed when Trudy pulled out the wooden chest. When she reached down to push it aside, she recognized it as a chamber pot. Folks in homes without indoor toilets keep a chamber pot beneath the bed for those middle-of-the-night emergencies. Sometimes it’s just too cold or dark to trudge all the way to the outhouse to do your business. Looking at the pot gave her an idea. “Trudy, when your children were small, did you have a certain plan or schedule that you used for potty-training?”
Trudy sat beside her on the edge of the bed, the two of them watching Alma Lee rock the teddy bear in her arms. Finally Trudy said, “I reckon I did, since I knew their habits well enough.” She scratched her head as she recalled those days. “Alma Lee always did her messy business in the afternoon, so I put her on the pot right after lunch and kept her there a spell by givin’ her picture books to look at.” She chuckled lightly. “In no time she was leaving me a surprise in the pot. John Tyler was harder to keep still, and Ruth Ann was my easiest. I had her out of diapers at only two years old. I guess seein’ the others makin’ their way to the outhouse helped her in learnin’.”
Cassia reached for the pot and analyzed its size and shape.
“That pot ain’t getting’ any use now,” Ruth Ann said sadly, joining them on the bed.
“Trudy, do you think you can retrain Alma Lee to use the chamber pot by using your old system?”
Trudy frowned. “Ain’t no way Alma Lee, in her present state of mind, is gonna be able to squat properly over that pot.”
“What if she could sit again on a potty-chair?” she said.
“And where we gonna get a potty-chair for a grown-up?” Ruth Ann chimed in.
“Do you have an old wooden chair somewhere that you’re not using?” Cassia inquired.
Trudy’s frown deepened. “I reckon there’s one or two in the barn.”
Cassia stood with the pot in hand and made her way out onto the landing. “John Tyler,” she called out. When he appeared at the foot of the staircase, she held up the chamber pot. “Your mother said there’s an old wooden chair in the barn.”
He gazed at the pot in her hand and frowned. “I reckon there’s a few, some with arms and some without. But why would…?”
“Can you find one with arms,” she interrupted, “and cut a hole in the seat, exactly as big around as the opening of this pot?”
He made his way half-way up the stairs. “I reckon that wouldn’t be hard to do, but why?”
“I’ve found a way for you to help Alma Lee,” she said smiling. “You’re going to make her a private toilet for her bedroom.”
Chapter Twenty
John Tyler cut a perfect hole in the seat of an old wooden arm chair, then sanded and smoothed the edges so splinters of any sort wouldn’t be a problem.
“You did a perfect job,” she praised him, “and this will be essential in helping Alma Lee regain her dignity and her life back.”
The young man beamed as the three of them sat down to a lunch of homemade stew and bread. They talked a bit about Howard Boyd, the good and kind man that he was and the years he worked as a logger.
“In fact, it was how Alma Lee met her husband,” Trudy said. “One Christmas, Howard brought Vincent home, ’cause he had no family, and my husband could never stand a person bein’ alone on Christmas. They hit it off right from the start. Of course,” she added, “Vincent was ten years older than my girl and had already been widowed five years at that time. Seems his wife died in childbirth.”
“Poor guy,” John Tyler chimed in. “Just wasn’t his fate to ever have a child to carry on his name.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” Trudy agreed.
“And so they married, and Alma Lee we
nt to live up north to be with her husband?” Cassia inquired.
“Yup, that’s how it went, ’til Howard got sick with the cancer,” Trudy said. “Alma Lee came home for a spell to help care for her Pa. Stayed a bit after he passed, but then Vincent came for her…missed his wife, I reckon. It was time for her to be with her husband anyway, since all she did was sulk for him. So the two of them left, returned up north, but not more than a year later, Vincent died in a loggin’ accident. That’s when Alma Lee came home to Eagle’s Landing for good. It was about a month later that she found out she was expectin’ a baby or believed she was havin’ a baby,” Trudy corrected. “And now she don’t know nothin’ herself.”
“She will again, Trudy,” Cassia encouraged. “It will just take time before Alma Lee’s fully healed.”
After they had finished eating, Trudy prepared a bowl of mashed potatoes and carrots covered with gravy for Alma Lee. Before making her way upstairs she said, “I’m gonna sit Alma Lee on the pot after I feed her, so I’ll be in her room a spell. In case ya leave before I’m through, I want to take this time to thank ya kindly for all ya done for my girl. By the grace of God ya stepped in to answer my prayers.”
The extension of grace, like Papa said.
Ruth Ann grabbed her by the hand. “Come, braid my hair.” She led her to the back of the home where two rooms were housed.
“That room there,” Ruth Ann began, pointing to her left, “is where my brother sleeps. Ma keeps the door shut most times ’cause John Tyler’s messy.” She curled her nose. “And his room stinks too.”
Cassia bit back a smile, as there was no doubt in her mind, having a room directly across from Ruth Ann, was the reason John Tyler knew she sucked her thumb and feared sleeping in the dark.
“And this room is mine,” the younger girl concluded, leading Cassia to the right of the small hallway.
The Last Bloom Page 16