by Ella Parks
“I’ll go check all the locks to make sure everything is clear.” Markus said. Doc walked me to the house through the dark shadows that had never held fear for me but now seemed threatening. He and Jenny stayed in the big house that night while Jenny looked after Belinda and Jimmy. None of us said anything about Megan, but I did wonder if she had gone before the shooting, because she had not come out to see what was happening.
I didn’t think sleep could find me but as soon as my head touched the pillow, I fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion, my last thought was one of wonder
We went on that way for almost two weeks, listening to each noise, watching with dread each movement in the darkness. After two weeks Doc felt Mark was well enough to be moved back into his room at home. We did not feel as fearful when he was in the house with us, but we still walked around listening to each sound the house made, terrified that the shooter would return. Belinda and Jimmy had always played undisturbed in the yard, but now one of us stayed with them while they played. There was a dark cloud of fear settled around all of us, knowing the shooter could still be out there somewhere, not knowing who we should fear. I wondered if it might be Ralph, I believed he was certainly capable of it, but after the treatment BJ received from the sheriff I hesitated to mention his name without proof, and the sheriff had not been helpful beyond bringing BJ’s name up each time we spoke with him about the shooting leaving me to believe he was not too concerned about looking for the shooter.
Doc and Jenny had stayed at the house with all of us the first few days after we brought Mark home, but soon went back to their house. I knew they were very tired, as we all were. Markus, Billy and Doc had taken turns sleeping in Mark’s room while he was in the hospital to protect him from whomever had shot him. Markus and Doc were carrying a full patient load and Billy was trying to get the crops out of the fields. Jenny was helping at the clinic, while we all kept close watch on Mark and the children.
I had not seen Megan since she left the house the day Mark was shot. Doc said she was still at the house she lived in at the far end of the hospital, but what she told me that day bit at me, worrying the heart of me as I wondered what her plans were. I knew Mark, Markus and I would have to talk soon but told myself I needed to give Mark a little more time. I didn’t think either one of them knew she was pregnant, but I knew, and I asked one of the workers to start carrying a basket of food, and milk. I told him not to go inside, just to knock on the door then leave it. I didn’t want any of them to be drawn into her web if they weren’t already.
23
I gave my boy three weeks of laying in the dim light of his room with the curtains drawn before I went to the windows putting them back allowing light to enter his room.
“No Mama I don’t want the curtains open. I like it dark in here.”
“Sorry Mark but it’s time we started work on your therapy.”
“I am still too sore to do any of that now. I need to sleep. Close the curtains again.”
“No,” I said.
“Mama,” he started, but looked at me realizing my mission. “It won’t work Mama, it won’t work!”
“I have to try!” I said as I pulled the cover away from his still legs, fighting for something that might be lost, but knowing as I knew the night, they were born that I had to fight. Giving up was not an option for me.
“Have I ever told you that you and your brother were born too soon? You were both too little. I was so young, and I was scared. Neither of you had much of a chance, but I couldn’t let you go. I forced milk into the both of you. I kept you warm and prayed, oh how I prayed. I was told neither of you would make it, but I wouldn’t give up the fight. I won’t give up the fight now, you may not ever walk again, but I will not give up without at least trying. I won’t give up!”
His eyes met mine, heavy with grief, but he said. “Alright Mama, if you feel that way, I’ll try to help you fight.”
Doc said there was some studies done on keeping the muscles strong by massage and moving his lifeless legs, so we spent many hours moving him in ways Doc had read might help him as we prayed for a miracle. Molly and I took turns working with him a couple of hours each day as it began a routine for us. We talked about moving his bed to the living room because we would all gather in his room, not wanting him to feel isolated but he said he would stay where he was, so we continued to go to his room, pulling chairs close while telling him all the events of the days.
We were in his room one afternoon when we heard Doc calling out as he walked down the hall toward us.
“In here Doc.” I answered him.
I noticed Doc looked stressed, his face strained as he walked in.
“What’s wrong Doc?” I asked before he even got into the room.
“I got some word from town today. The stock market has crashed! The bank has closed,
and everyone is all up in a roar, not knowing what they will do! Seems like lots of people have lost all their savings!”
“Oh no!” Mark gasped from his bed.
“Yes, word is the bank might not open back up for a while. I heard there is a line of people at the door of the bank demanding answers, but all they are saying is that the money is gone. Sheriff is over there now trying to get the crowd to leave. There are lots of folks that are threatening to go home to get their guns. Looks like there are some trouble times ahead.”
“All my money is in that bank!” Mark said.
“Mine too, what little I have. What about you Lucy? How bad is it going to be for you?” Doc asked me.
“Remember I moved most of the money I had a few months ago. Everyone wanted cash and it was taking too much of my time going in to town each week to get it. I didn’t have much in my account. Just enough to keep it open. Billy moved his money too, he said since we had the vault here it would save him some time too.”
“Well I thank God for that Lucy, at least you won’t be ruined like so many will be, myself included.”
“You won’t be ruined Doc, and neither will you be,” I said as I looked at Mark. “We are all family, we are all in it together.”
“Lucy it’s not right that you should have to worry about me losing money.”
“I told you Doc, we are family!”
“I didn’t have much money there anyway. It has never been about money for me. If it had been, I would have quit medicine a long time ago.”
“I don’t see anything changing Doc. You and Jenny will still be paid as long as there is any money. Things will go on the way they have been until the money is gone, and then we will figure out what we need to do then, but until that time, I don’t want you to worry. We have always tried to keep the expenses down, because so few can afford to pay. That is why we have the garden and the livestock to feed the patients and us. We have the hospital, that is paid for, and we have the land. It might not be easy, but we can pull though. We will all be fine. We have seen harder times Doc…you know we have.
What about you Molly? Did you lose your money too?” I asked her but without waiting for her to answer, I said.
“It will be the same for you too. You will continue to get paid. You are family too.”
“I didn’t lose anything. I have saved a little, but it is stuck in the toe of my good shoes. I just felt better knowing it was close to me.”
“Smart girl.” Doc said.
“Well now I am not only crippled, I am a broke cripple!” Mark said.
“Mark, hush now, you still have a chance to walk again, but even if you don’t; you are alive, and that is what is important! You have your education and when you feel up to it you can work again. We are all together! That is the important thing. We are all together! I was raised poor, but I didn’t know it. What we had was all I knew, until later, but we have the hospital, we have the land.” Billy and Doc both looked at me, while I caught my breath, remembering what I had sacrificed to save my Papa’s
land and here I was talking about land again.
We put Mark in his wheel chair and all of us came together for our evening meal, the talk about the bank filled our conversation, with each of us considering how we would all work together to keep the hospital running and I gave silent thanks for moving the money into the vault. After we finished the meal, Jenny, Molly and I cleared the table and washed the dishes, leaving the men to visit with Mark.
“Has either of you heard from Megan?” I asked as we worked. It seemed to me I sensed Molly stiffen at the mention of Meagan’s name.
“I think she is still in the house she has been living in. I saw her from a distance a few days ago.” Jenny answered.
“Has anyone talked to her?”
“I don’t know if Markus has or not, but I don’t think Doc has, but.” She stopped in mid -sentence, making me realize she had planned to say more.
“But what Jenny? What did you start to say?”
“We have seen men going in to see her, at least three. We never see a car or anything, just men going in, very quietly, going in fast, then the door closes.”
“Do you know who the men are?”
“Doc does. I believe he knew all of them.”
“Is it men from here?” I asked, scared to hear the answer.
“No, Doc knows them from town.”
“If you see her, please tell her I want to talk to her.”
“I will but I doubt I will see her, she has not been back to the hospital since the day Mark was shot.”
It had been a stressed filled day, but I decided to stop putting off talking to Markus, and I was waiting for him when he left Mark’s room.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I know, I have been waiting for you to bring it up. I’ll meet you on the porch.” He spoke low, so Mark couldn’t hear what we were saying.
Billy caught my eye, trying with a look to give me some encouragement, knowing what we were going to talk about.
When we got to the porch, I didn’t spend much time with small talk.
“Have you talked to Megan?”
“No, I haven’t talked to her.”
“Jenny said she thought she was still in the house she has lived in since she came here.”
“Yes, I think she is.
“Have you talked to her?”
“No, and to tell you the truth I don’t want to.”
“I am afraid that choice has been taken away from us.”
“What do you mean?”
“When BJ was sick, I was so busy with everything I didn’t notice how you and your brother were behaving toward each other. When I noticed, I asked Doc how long it had been going on. He told me it seemed to start at the very beginning when she was hired. I sent word to her that I wanted to talk to her. She came to the house and I fired her. I told her to leave and never come back. I did not want her to destroy the two of you. She assured me that neither of you would like me interfering. I knew that but felt I had to. It was then she told me she was in love. When I asked her which one of you, she was in love with, she said she didn’t know, she couldn’t tell the different in the two of you. She admitted to sleeping with the both of you, and she told me she was pregnant and didn’t know which one of you was the Father.”
“Oh God no, no….no …no!” He reached for the porch rail as to steady himself.
“Oh Lord, no, not that! Please not that!”
“That is what she told me.”
“What have I done? Oh Lord, what have I done? I am not sure I can even stand to look at her anymore. She used us, pitting us against each other. She almost cost me my brother, and I won’t ever forget that. No, I don’t think I can even look at her now.”
“If she is pregnant none of us will have that choice. It is not the baby’s fault.”
“I think I am going to be sick! What have I done? We will never know who the baby belongs to!”
“I have no answers to that son, all I know is what is done is done, now we have to make the best of it. I haven’t talked to Mark yet, I wanted to tell you first, but there will be decisions to be made and responsibilities to be kept. I am not making a judgement of either yours or Mark’s action. I am only saying there is a price to be paid if there is a child involved. There is no walking away from the child but this I will say and believe me I say it with love, along with great sadness, but the both of you willingly played her game. You two are not alone in this, your family supports the both of you, but not doing the right thing is not an option. I am not saying either of you has to marry her, but the baby has to be taken care of and we will not deny it. We will love it in the way all babies deserve to be loved. It may not even belong to either of you. Jenny told me today that men are visiting her. She said they had seen at least three going in her house, but Markus we still have to make sure the baby is taken care of, no matter who the father is. Maybe the two of you were the only ones she was sleeping with when she got pregnant, maybe not, we will never know, but this is not about Megan, it is about a baby, an innocent baby that has never done anything wrong. It has to be protected.
“I can’t put this on Mark right now. He has been through enough. I can’t stand the thoughts of telling him.”
“I will talk to him if you want me too.”
“No, I will Mama. It’s a hard thing to have to hear from your Mama that you might be either an uncle or a Father. It’s a hard thing. It will be better coming from me, but Mama it won’t end here. I know we will do the right thing for the baby, but one of us will have to claim it, one of us will have to, otherwise how can we explain when it gets old enough to ask questions. No, it won’t end here.”
“I know son. I have already thought about that. There are no easy answers now, none at all.”
“What do you think she will want from us? What do you think she will ask us to do? Do you think she will insist on marriage? I don’t know how either of us can live that kind of life when each time we look at her we remember our sin.”
“I don’t know, the both of you have to accept responsibly for the child but I wouldn’t ask you to marry her, that would be too hard, much too hard. We will see what she wants.” He looked beaten down, as he went into Mark’s room, shoulders down, slumped in sorrow. I ached for the both of them as I watched him close the door. Billy came outside, pulling me into his arms holding me tight against his shoulder. I leaned into him whispering.
“I wish I could make it better for them. How it hurts to see them both like this.”
“I know my love. It is a hard lesson for them to learn. She turned them against each other, now they see her for what she is and neither of them wants her. Do you think one of them will marry her?”
“No, I don’t think so, I couldn’t even ask that of them, she has too much bad in her, but both of them will have to take care of the baby.”
“Come on to bed my love,” he said as he led me to our bedroom. He held me until sleep claimed me, my eyes still wet with tears over the pain my boys were going through.
Breakfast was quiet the next morning, all of us absorbed in our thoughts, but I did notice Molly’s eyes were as swollen as mine were. She loved Mark. I had known it for a while, maybe before she realized it. I had watched him looking at her and I believed he loved her too, but the ring she wore had stopped him for telling her. There had been times I had wanted to tell him the truth of the ring, but I had promised Molly I would never tell, so I silently watched until Megan came into our lives, then it was too late, but I saw she was not wearing the ring anymore.
“Has anyone seen Megan?” I asked again, but everyone just shook their heads, before busying themselves with eating.
“I am going to check on her today. It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, but it needs to be done.”
I noticed Markus hands shaking as he put his coffee cup back down causing it
to spill in the saucer. Doc looked up and said. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, Doc I am just going to see if she needs anything. No one seems to have seen her. It is the right thing to do.”
No one said anything else, all of us having our reason for silence. After breakfast I walked back behind the hospital to the row of small houses, I had built for whoever might need to live in them. There was seven of them with five of them empty. Doc and Jenny lived in the one closest to the hospital and Megan lived in the last one farther away from the hospital. I think I realized why she wanted that one, so she could have more privacy to what she wanted to do at night.
I stepped on the porch and knocked at her door. It was silent inside. I knocked a long time and was ready to give up when I heard her walking toward the door. I was shocked by her appearance. Her hair was down, hanging tangled, and unwashed, her face was pale with dark circles under her eyes.
“What do you want?” She said as she opened the door.
“I wanted to see if you are alright, if you need anything.”
“What do you care?” She said, her voice sharp and harsh, so harsh I was tempted to turn and walk away, but I didn’t.
“Can I come inside?” I asked.
“I guess you can. You own everything anyway.” She said as she opened the door wider stepping back away from me. The room was dim, even though it was morning all her window shades were pulled down, and it took me a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. She was wearing a thin cotton gown, and I could see the rounding of her stomach as she sat down, looking at me.
“Well what do you want? Do you just want to stare at me or what?” Her voice was vicious and cold.
“I told you, I just wanted to see if you needed anything. Do you need anything other than what I am sending in the baskets of food?”
“I heard about the stock market crashing.” She said without answering my question about what she might need.
“Yes, I think everyone has heard it by now. It is a hard thing and will be hard to overcome.”