by Lou Cadle
“Just get me through this,” Abigail said. She sounded afraid. “I don’t want to die too. I know that’s awful of me. I should want to die. But I want to live.” She began to cry again.
“Of course you do. And you will live,” said Coral.
The next two hours were not ones she ever wanted to repeat. Abigail’s bleeding quickly accelerated, and finally she passed a clot that Coral was pretty sure was the fetus. The blood seemed to thin out after that. Edith kept Abigail clean while Coral took the expelled tissue into the next room to try and figure out if she indeed had miscarried. She sluiced the clot in a bucket, and strings of blood came off, until she was left with something much tinier than she expected, smaller than the last joint of her little finger, pale, no formed head, and a tail. A little tadpole.
It was done.
“Poor thing,” said Coral. She wrapped the fetus in a cotton cloth, tied it up, and put it aside. Edith was religious. She thought she might want to pray over it before they got rid of it, or something. Maybe Abigail would care about that, too.
Coral was exhausted. She hadn’t done anything physical, but the emotion of the afternoon, of the past few days, and of the steady strain of working with other people had drained her. She checked on Edith and Abigail again. The bleeding seemed to be no worse, at least. The other two women seemed to be giving each other some comfort, and Coral felt like a third wheel. She said, “I’ll be outside,” and went back and cleaned up the other treatment room.
As she was finishing, a knock came at the front door. She really did not want to see another patient. It was late afternoon, still light, and when she went out into the reception area, she saw Benjamin through the door. She hurried to it and opened it, and threw herself into his arms. It felt good to be held. She misted up again but fought back the tears.
“Are you okay?” he asked, as she pulled away.
“Yeah. It’s a—a tough day.”
“We knew Doug probably wasn’t going to come back. I’m surprised Parnell made it.”
“Did he bring Doug? The body?”
Benjamin shook his head. “He was buried under rocks. But there’s talk of a memorial service for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Ah. Well.” She walked over and sank into one of the waiting room chairs. Benjamin sat next to her. “Abigail has miscarried,” she told him.
“Wow. Rough day for you both.”
“For her, mostly.” She leaned against him and he put an arm around her. “Abigail is devastated, of course. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”
“Survive.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“And I’d survive if I lost you.” But his arm tightening around her told her he felt no happier about the thought than she did.
“It’d be hard alone, either one of us. Pure logistics, I mean, putting aside the emotion of it. Chances of survival would be worse than cut in half.”
“So we’ll both work hard at not dying, right? We owe it to each other to live.”
“Yeah.” She grabbed his gloved hand, gave it a squeeze, dropped it, and stood. “I need to keep checking on Abigail.”
“Is Edith here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you can take a minute.”
“I guess,” she said, but she remained standing. “And they’re pretty bonded.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“I think so. I mean physically, it seemed like a pretty clean event. Over with in a couple hours. No hemorrhage. Not even terrible pain.”
“Mother Nature does it a lot, I guess. Knows what she’s doing.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You figured out the herb thing. You kept her secret as quiet as humanly possible. You stayed patient when she was yelling at you the other day. What else do you expect of yourself?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. It was a good question. She’d done what she could for these people. She didn’t owe them anything and never had. She’d paid her way for her days here, for her food, with work, and so had Benjamin. The entire situation at the clinic was hopeless, though. She’d been playing like a kid, with a kiddie doctor set, and doing hardly more good than that.
“Whatever you’re thinking right now, knock it off. You’re being too hard on yourself, Coral.” He hesitated, but then plowed on. “And you’re awfully attached to the people here. You’re not thinking of staying?”
That shook her out of her mood. “No. Not at all. I want to be with you, and I want us gone. I want to live, and I don’t know how long that will be possible here. It seems like the soup is thinner every night. I’m still hungry all the time. Aren’t you?”
“Except when we were out scavenging. I was pretty well-fed then.”
“Did Parnell bring back anything from scavenging? Food, medicine?”
“Not that I heard.”
“What did he say about how Doug died? Did you hear?”
“I heard it second hand only. I guess it was sort of like an avalanche. Rocks, snow. Buried Doug, and after a day of digging, Parnell gave up. Couldn’t find him, never heard a call for help, then he got hurt trying, finally gave up and came back.”
“Makes me wish I had been there.”
“Why? I’m not sure you or I could have found him either. And probably not soon enough.”
“We might have been more motivated. And if we did, maybe I could have done something….” She trailed off, realizing that once again she was expecting more of her doctor self than was rational. “I guess not.”
He stood and put his hand on her shoulder. “Dinnertime is almost here. Are you coming over?”
“I probably couldn’t eat.”
“I need you strong for—” he looked around to make sure they were alone “—you know. So you’ll eat, please, no matter if you feel like it or not.”
“You’re right. Do you think you could bring a bucket of stew to us here? There are three of us.”
“Will Abigail eat?”
“I’ll try to make her. She needs her strength to recover. Probably needs iron supplements or something, but I can’t help with that, either.”
“Quit that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m quitting it. I’m just sad, I guess, about Doug. Making me all emotional and weird and full of self-pity.”
“You’re about the least self-pitying person I’ve ever known.” He went for the door. “I’ll be back with food as soon as I can. I’ll bring mine and eat with you, if that’s okay.”
“I’d like that.”
Coral checked on Abigail again. She was lying down, a cloth over her eyes. Edith said, “I think she’s going to be fine—or as fine as she can be.”
“You did great, Edith. Thanks for taking over.”
“She seemed to want me.”
“Of course she did. You’re really good with patients. You have that healing touch. If I were sick, I’d want you, too.”
Edith looked surprised at the praise. “Thanks.”
“Haven’t I told you that enough? I’m sorry. You’re really good with people. You comfort them. It’s part of your nature, I think, and a very valuable part.” Coral thought of how she was leaving Edith in the lurch here in a few days. Now she wanted to say something Edith could hold on to when she discovered she would be running the clinic alone again. “There’s almost nothing my book-learning has done for anyone. Most of what gets done here is listening and comforting and common sense. You’re a pro at those.”
Edith was starting to look uncomfortable, probably not used to hearing that much praise at once. “Okay.”
Coral took the hint and changed the subject. But she hoped Edith would remember what she said. “Benjamin is getting us all dinner. I’m going to leave it to you to try and get Abigail to eat, okay?” She spied the anatomy book, face down on the floor and picked it up, smoothing a creased page of muscle diagrams before closing it and putting it up on the shelf where it belonged.
Chapter 29
The memorial service for Doug was held the next afternoon, before supper. They stood before the library, over a hundred people. Abigail stood among a small group of her friends. Coral and Benjamin were back in the crowd.
Levi officiated, and Coral found herself irked at him. He hadn’t liked Doug that well, his praise sounded false to her ears, and she hated when he said, “We all sacrifice for the community.”
It sounded like self-congratulations to her ears and, as she had seen, Levi sacrificed less than most.
“We all sacrifice and Douglas Arlin Simms made the supreme sacrifice. In the weeks to come, let us remember that, and remember him. Now Reverend Ackerman will offer a prayer.”
Around her, most people bowed their heads, and Coral watched Levi do so. Parnell was there, too, but his head wasn’t bowed. His eyes scanned the crowd and caught hers, holding them for a second before moving on. They looked empty to her, and she wondered what he was feeling about Doug. Grief? Guilt? Nothing?
The minister prayed, a few people crossed themselves at the end of the prayer, and most people began to drift away. Others formed a ragged line in front of the widow, waiting to say a few words of comfort to her.
Physically, Abigail was fine. Her post-miscarriage bleeding was down to almost nothing. Emotionally, she was not in great shape. She seemed dazed. Sometimes, she cried, tears running unchecked and unnoticed down her cheeks. She didn’t have on her mask, and her face was red and raw looking from being wet in this cold weather.
A few flakes of snow began to fall, tiny flakes that the wind tossed around. Coral thought it looked like rice or confetti being thrown at a wedding, creating a bracket of images for Abigail and Doug’s life together.
Parnell was making his way toward her. She straightened her back and tried to shake off her sad mood. “I heard you were hurt,” she said.
“I’m fine today. I wrenched my shoulder, digging.”
“Do you want me to look at it?”
“No. I iced it a couple times, and that seemed to do the trick. I can hardly feel anything today.” He turned to Benjamin. “I was hoping I could talk to you for a short while.”
He didn’t want Coral there—that much was clear. She thought about ignoring the hint, and then thought, why bother? “See you at supper,” she said to Benjamin.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said.
Coral joined the crowd moving toward the dining hall. Abigail did not show up at the table. For a minute, Coral thought about getting up and hunting for her, but Coral obviously wasn’t the person Abigail wanted to see right now. Friends and coworkers were there to help her. Come to think of it, maybe she was even changing her eating assignment. That would make sense, to not want to come back to a place she’d shared with Doug for so many months.
Soup had been served and she was nearly done with hers when Benjamin finally came in.
“What’s up?” she said.
“I’m going out tomorrow. On scavenge.”
“What? So soon?” What would this do to their plans to leave tomorrow night? The urge to leave this place sprung up stronger than ever. “For how long? With Kathy and them?”
“No with Parnell and two others, RJ and Mike.”
“I don’t know them.”
One of their table mates said, “Which direction you headed?”
“East, I think. Toward the Air Force base again, looking for food this time.”
The table fell to talking about scavenging while Coral fretted over Benjamin’s assignment. Why wasn’t he being sent out with his regular group? They didn’t send scavengers out twice in a row, usually, so why was Parnell—who had also injured himself—going so soon? Maybe it was because of the food crisis. But then, why not send out four groups at once, have people out there hunting all the time?
Something didn’t feel right to Coral. She finished her soup and watched Benjamin talk, hardly listening to his answers, trying to read how he was feeling from his posture.
He seemed unperturbed—or he was doing a good job of faking it.
She waited until he had finished eating—though his soup must have been cold by the time he got to it—and then hurried him out the door. They were caught up by Martin and he walked part way with them, making real talk impossible. She waited until she and Benjamin were back at the apartment and alone.
Abigail wasn’t there.
“Probably she’s still with those women at the funeral,” Benjamin said.
“I’m worried.”
“She’ll be fine, in time.”
“No, about you. Did you get any sort of sense that anything odd was happening with Parnell? I mean—why you, why now? It’s not your turn, is it? Why is he going? Why isn’t Kathy going?”
“I thought you were jealous of Kathy.”
“If she’s got a thing for you, at least she’ll watch your back better.”
“Everyone watches each other’s back out there. It’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“He even said it probably wouldn’t take long. We’ll leave tomorrow, and I’ll be back in three nights.”
“If something doesn’t happen.”
“Nothing will happen.”
“It did to Doug.”
He grabbed her by her jacket, pulled her in, and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be fine.”
She bit her lip to keep herself from repeating that she was worried. “And we’ll leave when you get back, right?”
“Yeah. Give me one good night’s sleep, and I’ll be ready to go the next evening. I’ll be well-fed too, with the MREs. So maybe it’s for the best, letting me get fueled up.”
Coral began to pace the room. “If you’re hurt, though, we’ll have to delay. I have a bad feeling about putting off our leaving any longer.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Something.” Maybe it was Doug’s death, reminding her that life was fragile. She stopped her pacing. “I’m sorry. I’m sounding like some middle age neurotic.”
“You’re sounding like you care about me. And I like that.”
“Well that’s good. Because you are well and truly stuck with it.”
He smiled. “Come upstairs?”
“It isn’t dark yet.”
“But we’re alone. And light might be nice for a change.”
“Ha! Like I’d expose any bit of my body to the air in this kind of weather.”
He reached out, and she gave him her hand, and they went upstairs to bed.
As she finally drifted off in the dark, she realized that she had never heard Abigail come home. She was probably staying with friends. Coral hoped she was feeling comforted by that. And a small part of her hoped that Abigail wouldn’t come back for many days. It might make leaving this place easier.
The next morning, Benjamin left at dawn. She crawled back in bed after he left and tried to catch another few minutes of sleep but failed.
Later, she wolfed down breakfast before hunting through the dining hall rooms to find Kathy. She was sitting at a table with one of Coral’s regular patients, and with the perimeter guard Coral had spoken with that one day out on patrol, Blake. There was a table of children at one side of the room, too, a kids’ table, like there used to be on extended family holidays. They must belong to the various adults in this room.
“Can I have a minute?” she asked Kathy.
“Sure, I’m almost done.” Kathy finished her porridge and asked Blake if he’d mind carrying her bowl to the kitchen with his own. She had a rifle slung over the back of her chair and grabbed that. “Let’s go.”
Coral went with her outside.
“Am I being paranoid to be worried about Benjamin being sent to scavenge again?”
“Probably.”
“I mean, it seems soon. And why didn’t you go along?”
“I have other work assignments.” But there was a note in her voice, too, of uncertainty.
“I thought they would keep you all together, to ge
t used to each other, be more efficient.”
“That’d make sense. But you’ve had bosses before, right? You’re not that young. Sometimes they do stuff just because they can. It doesn’t need to make sense.”
“Yeah, I guess. Sorry to bother you. It was that Doug’s….” She gave an apologetic shrug.
Kathy seemed to soften at that. “I know. I liked him, too.” She shifted her rifle. “Benjamin can take care of himself out there. You can trust him.”
“I know I can.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized there might have been a double meaning intended.
Blake came out of the dining room and made his way over to them.
“I am sorry to bug you about this. And thanks for the reassurance.” Coral didn’t feel particularly reassured, and she felt less so when she noticed Blake’s worried expression. Of course he wasn’t worried about Benjamin, but it looked like something was troubling him.
She made a mental note to try and find him out on patrol later, alone, and see what he thought. Right now, it was time to go to the clinic and open up.
She had the clinic key for a change. She unlocked the door, went in, and took the moment while alone to go back and check her pilfered items hidden in the back room. She’d take that home tonight, be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Or maybe she should bring her big bag here to they could leave from here? She checked the window to make sure it was still unlocked.
Maybe she was being irrational, or maybe she was more disturbed by Doug’s death than she had been admitting to herself, but something was telling her it was past time to leave. She should have insisted they do it last night.
She stoked the stove with the last of the fuel wood, lit it, and put on water to warm. Edith came in a few minutes later and the two of them made sure the exam rooms were clean.
“It could use a good mopping,” said Edith, in the room where Abigail had miscarried.
“Is there a mop anywhere?”
“I’ve been scrubbing it with rags once a week.”
Coral felt bad—she hadn’t even noticed, nor offered to help with the chore. “It always looks good,” she said. “I’m not seeing any blood.”
“No, luckily Abigail didn’t bleed that much.”