“Time to get you into bed,” he said, sounding more like her father than the husband he wished he could be.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked, sensing that he was pulling away from her, that his plans did not include a consummation of their vows.
“Abby, I—” he started, but his voice caught in his throat when she untied the bow to her camisole and it fell open. She shrugged it off her shoulders and it fell to the floor and she was nearly naked and looking at him with a plea in her eyes that would be hard to ignore.
“I’m dying. You know it and I know it, and I’m sorry about it. But I won’t have another wedding night, and I won’t ever be better than I am now, and I—”
“Are you asking me to make love to you? Because I really think that you need rest more than you need—”
“I need to be with you, to feel you around me and inside me and I need to forget, just for tonight, or however long I have, that all of this is going to be taken away from me. Don’t take it away before I even—”
“Abby, you can’t know how much I want you, want to hold you and touch you and—jeez, Abby! Put the gown on, will you?” He held it out to her.
“After,” she said, coming closer and unfastening the buttons on his shirt, pushing the suspenders off his shoulders, pulling his shirttails out of his pants.
“Ab—” Her fingers touched his lips, silencing his words.
“Love me, Seth. Make me feel like a bride. Make me your wife.”
She’d been irresistible from the start. Now, naked, pleading with him to love her, he had no choice. He’d go slowly. He’d be careful. He’d pet her and kiss her and let her fall asleep in his arms. He didn’t have to exhaust her, exhaust himself. He could always stop if he thought he should.
And so he dropped his pants where he stood, pushed down his drawers and stood as naked as she, he with his socks, she with her stockings, and let her gaze at him the way he was gazing at her.
“You’re very handsome,” she said, running a hand down his chest, letting it fall away after it reached his waist.
“And you are even prettier than you were in your wedding gown, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
“I’m ready,” she said, filling her chest with a deep breath and then turning to pull the covers from the bed, giving him a view of her backside that fired his need nearly to bursting.
“Abby? You’re sure?” he asked, fearful now that once he touched her, once he tasted her skin and smelled her hair, he would be lost.
“You asked me for just one thing, remember?” she asked. “Now I’m asking you to return the favor. Pretend with me, Seth. Make me whole and real and perfect for just this one night.”
It was enough to break his heart, to take away his desire, but he fought the sadness, swam up from the despair and smiled. “My pleasure,” he said, easing her down onto the bed and crawling between the sheets beside her.
“I love you so much,” she said, obviously feeling the same way he did, that “love” was an inadequate word, that it was overused and tossed around and couldn’t mean to anyone else what it meant to them.
“You are my life,” he said, and since words weren’t enough, he captured her lips and silenced them with his own. He kissed her until she began to arch beneath him, needing more, wanting more, and he let his hand drift down over her silky skin until it found her breast. He teased the nipple until it hardened, and then he lowered his head until he could suckle there, drawing strength from her. He toyed with her other breast while he licked and kissed her nipple and caught it gently between his teeth.
Her hands were clutching his back, driving him faster. One hand moved between them and he drew his breath in sharply as she found his chest and ran a fingertip across his own nipple before pushing against him so that he was flat on his back at her silent command.
He thought that perhaps she had had enough, and began to resettle himself to an uncomfortable night when she turned on her side and ran her hand down his chest, across his waist, and finally, slowly, until she touched his arousal. He lay as still as he could while she explored, learned his size and shape and what made him gasp and groan and sigh.
And then she climbed up on him, lying fully upon him, his manhood trapped against the hollow of her belly. “Hold me tightly,” she told him and he put his arms around her and pressed her against the length of him.
He murmured something, not that he loved her, or wanted her, just sounds that spoke of now and forever, and she slid off him and pulled him toward her, spreading herself beneath him, guiding him home.
“This is madness,” he said, pulling himself away from her only to have her grab at him and reel him back.
“Then let it be madness,” she agreed. “Let me have this one night, Seth, this one night as your true wife, and I promise I’ll face the rest of it with a smile on my lips.”
How could he deny her what they both wanted so much? Reality dissolved in the warmth of her arms, and Seth basked in it, reveled in it, and acquiesced.
He tried to go slowly, gently, but she clutched at him, urging him on, matching him thrust for thrust, calling out his name and God’s, until finally they lay sated in each other’s arms.
“Thank you,” she said softly against his chest where he had cuddled her against him.
He wanted to ask her if she was all right, if she needed anything, if it had been worth it. But he had promised her that for tonight he would forget, and so he stroked her hair, and said, “Oh, no, ma’am—thank you.”
“I’m a ma’am, not a miss, anymore, aren’t I?” she asked sleepily.
“You’re a missus,” he said, tucking the covers up around her. “Mrs. Seth Hendon. Mine.”
“I wish there was a way that I could own you, too,” she said, snuggling down and breathing softly those first few breaths of sleep.
“You do own me,” he whispered at the air, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, the cold trek of a tear down the side of his face. “Heart and soul. Forever and ever.”
He awoke to the sound of Abby moaning. The sound cut through his sleep like a rusty knife, and he jerked awake and reached out to comfort her, but she wasn’t in the bed.
Holy mother of God! Her hand was on the doorknob and she had just begun to open the door.
He leaped from the bed and shut it, pulling her away as he did. “Where are you going?” he asked, his hands on her thin shoulders.
“Just down the hall,” she said. “I have to—”
“Abby, honey, you’re not wearing anything,” he said, his eyes drifting down her naked body. “You have to put some clothing on.”
She looked down at herself and her lip trembled. She looked around the room as though she had never seen it before, hadn’t commented when they first came in how lovely the curtains were, how pretty the pale yellow walls looked in the gaslight.
“You’re at the Grand Hotel. Remember?” he prompted her.
“Of course I remember,” she snapped at him. “I’m not crazy, you know.”
He kept one hand on her and reached for her robe with the other. “Put this on. I’ll walk you down the hall as soon as I get some clothes on.”
“Why is it so dark in here?” she asked, looking toward the window. “Isn’t it morning yet?”
Brilliant light streamed in through the lace-covered panes, and Seth felt the air rush out of the balloon of hope that had held him aloft all through the night.
Her satchel was on the luggage stand beside the dresser and she began to rifle through it, making little perturbed noises and groans as she did.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, taking the bag from her. “Let me help you find it.”
“My medicine,” she said, sitting down in the big armchair and lowering her head until it was between her knees. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she pressed her knees together, her head held viselike between them.
He grabbed up the medicine that they had left on the night table and knelt beside her, trying to u
nwrap her hands and give her the bottle. She’d warned him that mornings were the worst, when the medicine she’d taken before bed had worn off, but he wasn’t prepared for this. He could never be prepared for this.
“It hurts,” she said, eyes so sad that he would have done anything to take away the pain, knew he would do anything to make her pain stop. “It hurts so much.”
“Take the medicine, Abby. It won’t hurt much longer. I promise.”
Poor Seth! Abby tried not to stare at his face, the creases that ravaged his handsome forehead, the tightness that twisted his beautiful lips. It didn’t help to look at her father or mother, or at Dr. Bartlett. How had she ever imagined that dying was only a personal thing?
“We could wait a while longer,” Seth was saying. “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, or next week, or—”
“Today,” she said, unwilling to make everyone live the nightmare longer still.
“Every day we wait, we run the risk of the optical neuritis leaving her blind. The sooner we operate, the better the chances she’ll make a full recovery,” Dr. Bartlett said. Abby didn’t miss the look that Seth shot him. She just couldn’t quite decide whether it was betrayal or pure hate. She tried to concentrate, but the medicine had made her dopey. The medicine or the tumor. Who could tell anymore what was causing what?
“Abby, you know that I—” Seth began, but her father interrupted him.
“Today is a good day for it,” he agreed. He didn’t bother saying that it was Good Friday and if the Lord was ever watching, this would be the day he just might grant a miracle.
“All your life I’ve let you make your own decisions, find your own way,” her mother said. Tears streamed freely down her face and she swiped at them but went on. “Are you so sure?”
“Yes,” she said, and felt a relief that had eluded her since she’d first found out. “Yes,” she said again with a rush of air and a smile for Seth.
“You can’t mean today,” Seth said, a plea in his voice that she disagree. “Surely not so soon. Next week, Abby. Please. Or the week after.”
“Today,” she said, pressing her palms against her temples. The medicine was wearing off already. “As soon as possible.”
“Have you eaten?” Dr. Bartlett asked. When she shook her head, he said, “Good. Today it is.”
“This is crazy,” Seth said. “I can’t—”
“You promised me you’d stop the pain, Seth,” she said. She wanted him to know that whatever happened he was fulfilling the promise he’d made her, that she’d demanded of him.
“Dr. Hendon,” he corrected her with a wink. “I’m your doctor now, so you have to do what I tell you.”
“I thought I had to do that when you became my husband,” she said, teasing him back. It felt wonderful to joke with him, to talk to him, to see him.
“As if I ever had a hope of you listening to me,” he said, ruffling her hair. “In any capacity.”
“They’re going to have to cut off some of that hair,” Dr. Bartlett said and Seth looked stricken.
“It’s only hair,” she said, burying the pain. “Bring on the barbers.”
“I’ll do it,” her mother said.
Her father looked at his watch.
“You better get over to the grange hall, Papa,” she said softly.
“But honey …” he started.
“Can you think of anyplace you could do me more good?”
He nodded, kissed her forehead, and then put his hand on the top of her head. “I’ll say a prayer,” he said, lifting her chin to look deeply into her eyes. “And He’ll hear.”
“Will I see you before? …” she started, then stopped herself. “I’ll see you later. Or tomorrow,” she added softly.
“You can use the patient room,” Dr. Bartlett told her mother. “I’ll show you where you’ll need to shave, and then, if we can see any protrusions, I’ll mark them with some nitrate of silver.
“We’ll make a sort of checkerboard on your head, Abby, honey, so that we can see the various fissures and—”
“Kind of like marking a dress pattern,” Abby said, trying to be game so that Seth wouldn’t decide not to do the operation.
“Just like that,” Dr. Bartlett agreed. “But first, just like when you were a little girl, your mama will scrub your head and wrap it up in a bandage to keep it nice and clean.”
Seth followed them into the small room, looming over them, fussing, listening as Dr. Bartlett told her mother where the hair had to be removed, and that it had to be shaved right to the scalp. He handed her a bottle of alcohol and said that it might sting the freshly shaved skin, and Abby decided that she would stop listening and put herself in the doctors’ hands. And God’s.
“You’ll need to get some things set up over at the church,” Bartlett said to Seth, who looked as if he’d watched a train wreck and knew he had to help but didn’t know where to start.
He left Abby with her mother and put an arm around Seth, leading him out of the office, telling him there was nothing he could do there.
Nothing except lend her his strength, his surety. Except he didn’t seem to have those to give.
The cemetery was only a few yards beyond the new church, which stood clean and bright and ready for Easter. Women were removing the flowers that had already been placed there and carrying them to the grange hall when Seth went by.
He found Sarrie’s grave easily and was surprised to see a ring of pansies planted just in front of the headstone like a wreath for his sister’s hair. He had no doubt who had planted them despite her pain.
He stood reading the words on Sarrie’s marker that said she was a beloved daughter and sister, and his heart went out to Ansel, who had been forced to let her go, exert no claim, retain no hold.
“So I suppose you’ve been watching us all make fools of ourselves down here,” he said aloud, brushing a fallen leaf from the pansy ring. “Me running to St. Louis to call out my rival before settling down to lick my wounds, Abby making a wedding gown she never expected to wear.”
He supposed that what she had expected was that she would be buried in it, and the thought made it hard for him to swallow.
“There’s a good chance,” he choked out, “that by tonight she’ll be in your care, Sarrie. I’d make her wait, but it would be for my sake, not hers, and I’d be making her wait in pain, and I can’t do that. Bartlett thinks there really is a chance. There’s a technique they didn’t want him to try at the hospital that he thinks might work. It’s complicated, but it’s something.
“And I’ve got to do something,” he said, turning to go into the church and see to what needed doing. He needed to get the dental drill from Dr. Thayer and sterilize it. He needed to bring in sterile sheets and dressings. He needed to be sure they had everything on hand because they would not want to bring in anything contaminated from outside.
Just before he took off he turned and looked over his shoulder again at the pansy ring. “If it comes to it, Sarrie, you’ll look after her till I get there, right?”
FOUR HOURS OF SURGERY. TWO HOURS OF checking vitals and ensuring circulation. Ten hours of changing drains and doing little more than watching for a movement behind Abby’s eyelids, or a twitch of her fingers or a sign that his wife would ever return to him.
Nothing. Had she died on the table and did her body not know it? Her heart continued to beat as strongly as ever. Her color was good. And yet she was as unresponsive to his pokes and prods as she was to his words of love and encouragement.
“Any change?” Bartlett asked, standing now at the door of the church where he made certain that no one came close enough to Abby to give her weakened system any more to fight.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Bartlett told him. “Not yet.”
“When do we know the results of what I’ve done?” Seth asked.
“I tell you,” Bartlett said, “all brain surgeries should be done by the husband of the patient. If any one of my pat
ients trusted me the way that woman trusts you—”
Her last words—before the ether had put her under—were Don’t look so worried. I’m not. And then she’d asked him to come closer, and she’d kissed him. Till later, she’d said.
Till after, he’d agreed.
Well, it was damn long “after” and he was losing his mind. A million times he told himself that their wedding night had made her worse. That they’d have had more time if he’d never left Eden’s Grove. That he should have married her years ago. Everything but that he never should have operated.
She had been in pain. What choice had there been?
Yet another of the Mergansers came to the door. Pru, her children in tow, from what Seth could see from his vantage point at Abby’s side.
He couldn’t make out Ephraim’s words, but he knew well enough what the man was saying—Too soon to know anything. Vitals good. Reason to hope, blah, blah, blah.
All day they came, and all day Ephraim gave out the same information. Seth sent him home at dinnertime, and after leaving a note on the door for well-wishers Ephraim finally left him alone with his wife.
“You deserved better than this,” he told her, taking her limp hand within his own. “You deserved the sun and the moon and all those other trite things that men promise women if only they’ll marry them.
“I wish I knew what to promise you to make you wake up,” he said, checking the bandages on her head and changing them yet again for the sterilized ones that Bartlett had brought with him from Boston, more a souvenir of another life than something he had ever really expected to make use of again.
“Abby?” He could have sworn she flinched slightly when he touched the mixture of carbolic acid, vaselini, and wax to her incision to stop the oozing. “Abby! Blink, wiggle a finger, swallow! Do something so I know you hear me, so I know you’re still here!”
In the empty church his voice echoed, mocking him, as Abby lay still as a corpse.
He lit the lamps that they had hung from the rafters so that it shone in the church as if it were the middle of the day, and as he turned each one up he talked to her, nonsense at this point, but his need to hold on to her was greater than his fear of being ridiculous.
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