The Way of Women

by Lauraine Snelling

  Lissa writhed on the bed. Weeping now, a heart-wrenching cry that rose to a scream again as soon as the nurse touched her arm.

  “We’re going to have to restrain her.”

  But even with leg and arm restraints, Lissa bucked and fought.

  “How can one little girl who has been too weak to walk be this strong?” Katheryn stood on the other side of the bed, stroking Lissa’s leg.

  Two tries and the nurse couldn’t get a vein, even when they were able to hold Lissa still.

  “Okay, let’s try again.”

  “No.” Katheryn took charge. “This is ridiculous. You bring in someone else, or we sedate her or something.”

  Mellie stared at Katheryn, blinking in disbelief. How did she dare speak like that to a nurse?

  “Well!” The nurse left the room without a backward glance.

  “Good for you.” Jenn joined them at the bedside. “Hey there, little trouper, how about I go get you an ice cream.”

  Lissa opened her eyes—and nodded.

  When Jenn left, Katheryn asked, “Is it always this bad?”

  Mellie shook her head. “Been getting worse. Harv has always been there, and he can make Lissa laugh and get through it better.” Her eyes widened and she clamped her jaw. Harv would never again make his daughter giggle, tease her into enduring the endless pokes and needles, read to her in the voice of the cat in The Cat in the Hat. Fire flickered.

  “I hear we’re having a spot of trouble in here.” A young doctor with brushy hair stopped at the side of the bed.

  Lissa’s eyes widened. “You got a red nose.”

  “Really.” He put a hand to his face and felt the foam rubber ball. “Well, how did that happen?” He leaned closer. “Did you give me a red nose?”

  “No.” Her giggle made two of the three hovering women smile.

  “I wonder where it came from?” While he was talking, he opened a butterfly pack. “Now, I heard that a little girl in here was in need of some good red stuff to make her feel better. I think she needs a red nose, just like mine.” He shook his head and made a funny brr noise, all the while snapping a blue stretchy tourniquet in place on her upper arm. “Don’t you want a nose like mine?”

  “Does it squish?”

  He leaned closer. “Squeeze it and see.”

  Lisa reached out and squeezed the ball.

  The doctor jumped back. “Ouch, did you have to squeeze so hard?” He pretended to cry big tears.

  Lissa giggled again.

  “You think you can hold real still for me so I can give you a big red nose?”

  She nodded. “Is it gonna hurt?”

  “I’ll be as fast as I can. Here”—he handed her a red ball—“you put this on with your other hand and …” All the while he talked, he tapped her skin and slid the tiny needle into a vein while she giggled at her mother for trying to put the nose in place.

  “Ta-da.” He finished taping the IV hookup. “Now, I suppose you want a red sucker to go with your red nose?” He whipped two red suckers out of his pocket. “One for you and one for me.” Unwrapping them, he handed her one and popped the other in his mouth. He hummed while he set up the IV pole and hung the bag of life-giving blood. “Now, isn’t that a pretty color? And you, my little red-nosed kitten, will feel a whole lot better real soon.” He leaned over and touched his red nose to hers. “Bye.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Mellie forced the words through her tears. “You were wonderful.”

  “You have a mighty special little daughter there. I’m sorry for your loss. Can I get you anything? Sleeping pills tonight might help.”

  “I need to be here with Lissa.”

  “I’ll stay too.” Jenn stepped forward. “Lissa and I have some more books to read, and I think we might have to dress some paper dolls. Huh, kiddo?”

  Lissa smiled up at her new friend. “I guess. Can I have my rabbit now?”

  Jenn tucked the lanky bunny under the little girl’s arm. “You get a nap, and I’ll go find us some paper dolls. Okay?”

  “ ’Kay.”

  “Can I get you something?” The doctor looked directly into Mellie’s eyes. “You’ve had an awful lot on your plate. This could help.”

  Mellie shook her head. She’d had pills before. Never again. Especially now, when everything depended on her.

  “I’ll check back in a bit later. I’m here if you need anything.”

  The filter had dropped back between Mellie and the rest. She tried to answer with some kind of assurance, but from the look on his face, she’d most likely failed. Like she did everything. How would she ever make it in this world without Harv? Her eyes burned, but her throat was dry as tumbleweeds that rolled in the winter. Big weeds ripped out by the wind and sent bouncing across a barren landscape.

  Sleep, would sleep help? Perhaps, she should call him back and be assured of blessed hours of forgetfulness.

  “Mellie, is there anyone else we need to notify?”

  “Notify?”

  “What about Mr. Johnson? Do you have a pastor?”

  “Yes.” Mellie sank down in the chair that faced the bed, seeing Jenn making Lissa laugh, but not even sure who she was.

  Katheryn knelt in front of her. She spoke slowly or Mellie heard slowly; she wasn’t sure which. “I am going to visit Mr. Johnson and tell him what has happened.”

  Mellie nodded.

  A nurse stepped into the room. “There are some reporters out here who would like to talk with Mrs. Sedor.”

  Jenn stood. “I don’t think so, not tonight.”

  “But they …”

  “I said, not tonight. If you want, I’ll handle them.”

  “Good.” She checked the blood flow, the IV site, and asked Lissa, “You want some Jell-O, sweetie? Bet someone here could feed it to you.”

  “Ice cream?”

  “You betcha.”

  Katheryn followed the nurse out. “I’ll be back in a bit. Jenn, how about waiting to leave until I return?”

  “Sure. I’ll just take care of those news hounds first.”

  “Mommy?” Lissa raised up, searching the room.

  Mellie heard her call and forced herself to sit straight. “Mommy’s here.”

  “Daddy coming home?”

  Daddy’s already gone home, but how do I tell you? I can’t. Not tonight.

  Jenn shut the door behind herself. “Rather persistent they are.” She picked up a book. “Okay, how about I read this one now?” She’d just settled down when the nurse came in with the ice cream.

  Mellie watched as Lissa and Jenn grinned at each other ever each bite. When had Lissa ever taken to someone like that? Of course, she used to, before the disease ate her up.

  Mellie leaned back against the chair. Her mind blank, as though she’d walked away and slammed the door shut on her memories. Especially that room, the horrible stench of that room.

  “Can I get you two something to eat?” Jenn asked when Katheryn returned.

  Mellie shook her head. Even the thought of food made her stomach coil in a knot.

  “I’ll get something on my way back to the shelter.” Katheryn crossed to the side of the bed. “How you doing, sweetie?”

  “Tired.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  “I want to go home and see my daddy.”

  “Right.” Katheryn glanced at Jenn, who shook her head just enough for her to see.

  “I’m going to stay the night with them, but I’ll go find paper dolls first. Can you stay until I get back?”

  Katheryn nodded. “You going to take that pack outside the door with you?”

  “I wish. I tried to appeal to their compassion for a sick little girl who lost her daddy, but you can guess how far that got me.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Promised them a story tomorrow. Perhaps we can scuttle out the back way in the morning.”

  “I take it you’ve handled reporters in the past.”

  “Once or twice.”

 
; Katheryn studied the woman beside her. “You look so familiar. What did you say your last name was?”

  Jenn heaved a sigh. “Stockton.” Her voice took on a chill, and she pulled slightly away.

  “Jenn Stockton?”

  “Yes.”

  “The model Jennifer Stockton?”

  “Not for some time. I’m a photographer now.”

  “I wondered what happened to you. My daughter thought you were the most perfect woman on earth.”

  “Little did she know.”

  “You came from around here, right?”

  “Yeah, innocent young girl from podunk county makes good in the Big Apple.” Jenn shifted so she could see Lissa. “But no more.”

  “Someday if you’d like to tell me the full story, I’m known as a good listener.”

  “Thanks.” Jenn headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  Katheryn glanced from sleeping girl to her mother, who was either sleeping or suffering in silence. When she saw the tear slip down Mellie’s cheek, she knew it was the latter.

  “Mellie, how about I turn that chair into a bed for you?”

  Mellie shrugged, an insignificant motion that barely raised her shoulders.

  “You’ll have to move to the other chair, then.” Katheryn brought a regular straight-backed chair closer to the crib where Lissa slept, bunny under her arm, one long leg flopped across her waist.

  “I’m going to get some linens from the nurse.”

  A minute nod.

  In a few minutes, Katheryn returned with sheet, blanket, and pillow in her arms. She took Mellie’s hand to help her move, released the chair so it lay flat, and made up a bed, turning the cover back at an angle. “Here you go.” She knelt down and removed Mellie’s shoes, tucking them under the chair bed so they were out of the way.

  “I need to watch Lissa.”

  “No, Jenn and I will do that. You sleep.” Once Mellie lay tucked in bed, Katheryn crossed to look out the window. To think, working here with Jennifer Stockton. Life sure could be strange at times.

  When Jenn returned they changed places, and Katheryn headed out the door.

  “Mommy?”

  Jenn leaned over the half-raised rail. “She’s sleeping. I’m here, sweetie.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “You want water or 7 UP?”

  “Juice.”

  “I’ll be right back. Don’t you go moving around now, hear?”

  “I won’t.”

  Jenn returned in less than a minute. “They’ll bring some.” But Lissa had slipped back into sleep.

  A couple hours later, Mellie sat straight up. “Harvey?”

  Jenn came to sit beside her. “Mellie, you need to wake up.”

  “Who are you? Oh … oh … Jenn. Harvey, he’s gone.” Tears coursed down her cheeks, and Jenn wrapped her strong arms around the sobbing woman.

  “Go ahead and cry. It’ll help in the long run.” So often I wished for someone to hold me when I cried. Thank God, at least I can do this for someone else.

  “I can’t do this all alone.”

  Hardly able to understand the words, Jenn answered. “You don’t have to. I’m here.”

  MAY 20, 1980

  That poor baby. Maybe I should have stayed with Mellie.” Katheryn stared at the lights in the school parking lot. “I could go back.” Here I am, talking to myself, in a parking lot of a school, planning to spend another night in this uncomfortable shelter, when I could head on home to my own comfortable bed.

  She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. “My bed, David’s bed, our bed. God, where are You? Did You take them? I need to at least have some idea if they are alive or not. How can hope continue?”

  He is my hope and my salvation, my very present help in time of trouble. Where had that verse come from? She didn’t even remember memorizing it.

  I don’t want to be a widow! She felt like she was screaming the words, when she’d not even spoken them aloud. And my son, my dearest son. I want to hear him laugh again, to see his face. Lord God, I want my family back. Pressure, like that of a giant vise being turned by some fiend, clamped her chest, her throat, her head. She tried taking a deep breath, thinking, Hope, hope in Christ, but nothing helped.

  “Focus on something else,” she ordered herself, not even recognizing her fractured voice. “Think of Lissa. Mellie. They are far worse off than you are.”

  “You are the God of miracles. All I want is a miracle.” She dug in her pocket for a tissue, but even that was denied her. “I’ve gone to church all my life, and now when I really need You …”

  She shook her head. “What’s the use.” Taking her briefcase from the backseat, she exited the car, locked the doors, and lifted her suitcase from the trunk. A hot shower would indeed be welcome. Maybe she could drown her sorrows.

  She dropped her things and clutched her middle. Drown. Her mind leaped back to the morgue and the ghastly sight she’d seen there. Oh, God, not drowning. What a horrible way to die. Please not drowning.

  She sucked in a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and entered the gymnasium. From across the room, a salty voice announced her arrival, peppering it with several profanities.

  “Why, I never—” Katheryn wheeled around, ready to lambaste such rudeness. And swearing like that—there were children here.

  “Gimme a kiss, baby.”

  She glanced around to see half the people at the tables looking her way, most of them chuckling or at least grinning.

  She plunked her suitcase by the door, setting her briefcase atop it.

  “Don’t be such a sourpuss. C’mon and gimme a kiss.”

  “Adolf, stop that.” An elderly woman stood up, and at that moment Katheryn saw the bird cage. A cage not half big enough for the brilliant red Macaw parrot that was shifting from one foot to another.

  “A bird, it’s a bird.” She clapped one hand to her chest and shook her head. “I thought …” No wonder everyone’s laughing.

  “Sorry, when he’s upset, he reverts back to what his previous owners taught him. If I’d known he had such a foul vocabulary, I’d not have taken him in.” The woman threw a sheet over the cage. “And this is just too small for him. Perhaps tomorrow I can locate a larger cage.”

  Katheryn joined her at the cage. “Is he mean, too?”

  “No, just sounds like it. He loves to cuddle and have someone stroke under his wings. If you like, I’ll bring him out later.”

  “I’d love that. I’ve always wanted an African Gray parrot. Ever since I read an article in Reader’s Digest called ‘I love you, Mrs. Pat.’ ”

  “I read that too. People think birds are just dumb animals, but these guys can really think. He never asks for a kiss except when he sees a woman.”

  “He’s sure beautiful.”

  “There’s a place over by me. Get your tray and come sit down.”

  Katheryn had just seated herself when the two children from the night before came over.

  “Did Lissa go home?” the boy asked.

  “No, she’s in the hospital.”

  “Is she dying?” His little sister’s eyes saucered.

  “No. They gave her a transfusion.” At their questioning eyes, she added, “Some new blood. She has a disease called leukemia.”

  “Poor little thing.” The parrot lady laid her hands in her lap. “I had a cousin died of leukemia. Hear they’ve learned lots of ways to help folks get well again since then.”

  “Yes, we’re hoping and praying that happens for Lissa.”

  “Bye.” The two ran off.

  “Cute kids. But I’ll let you eat in peace.”

  “No, I need … ah … I’m Katheryn Sommers.”

  “Attie Hartwell. I used to live up in Toutle, but I saw my house go floating down the river on the television, so who knows where I live now. Got me and Adolf out, the rescuers did. I’ll thank God for them the rest of my life. Came right in the second-story window and took me and Adolf right out. Good thing his
wings were clipped, or he’d a been lost for good. He clamped his claws into my shoulder all right, made ’em bleed, but I lost my husband two years ago in a logging accident, and Adolf is the only family around here I got left.”

  “No children?”

  “One on the East Coast, one in Atlanta. They want me to come live with them, but this area’s been my home all my life. Why would I want to go traipsing off across the country? The land will still be there. I can always build a new house.”

  Katheryn propped her elbows on the table and her cup in both hands. “You are very brave.”

  “No, not brave, about the biggest coward you ever did see, but God has taken care of me all my life. Why would He stop now?”

  “You think losing all you owned and your husband dying was God taking care of you?”

  “Ah, honey, those kinds of things happen to all of us at one time or another. People die when it’s their time, and my Bill, I know he’s lots happier where he is now. Why, if he still walked this earth, he’d be fussin’ and stewin’ ’cause his tractor was gone. He worked on restoring that tractor ten years or more. His baby …” She shrugged, her faded eyes lit with something Katheryn could not identify. “And he’s so busy up there, that tractor don’t mean nothin’ to him now.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Why would anyone worry about an old tractor when he’s living in the light of heaven? He’s probably took Jesus fishin’ by now.” Attie patted Katheryn’s arm. “Sorry, here I go on about me, and you’ve not told me nothin’ about yourself, except for your name.”

  “I live in Seattle, I have—had—have two sons and a daughter. Susan is pregnant with our first grandchild. My husband, David, is a professor at the University of Washington.”

  “And who did you come down here to wait for?”

  “David and our younger son, Brian. They went camping.”

  “Near the mountain?”

  “Yes.” On the mountain, near the mountain, what difference did it make? “So far, no one has seen them.”

  “They are still finding survivors.”

  “I know.”

  “Not knowing has to be the hardest part.”

  All the noises of families and children and babies, old men, old women and those in between, most displaced from their homes, with staggering losses, facing the unknown, just like her, receded as she stared into Attie’s sweet face.