A Timely Concerto (17 page)

A tentative tap on the closed bedroom door became a staccato knock as Shugie entered, bearing a tray balanced on one hip so she could open the door.

“Miss Lillian, I brought up some nice cold water for Mister Howard and some tea too,” she said, bringing the tray to the nightstand beside the bed. “I heard him coughing so I fixed up some honey and lemon to ease him.”

“Thank you, Shugie.” Lillian was glad to see her, pleased that she had taken control with her capable hands.

“You’re welcome. I have breakfast on the table, Missus Speakman so you all can go eat. You goin’ to need your strength so I made oatmeal, bacon, and some biscuits. It’s all nice and hot.”

Maggie stood up.

“We shouldn’t all leave Howard. I will stay until everyone else can breakfast.”

“I want to stay with him,” Lillian protested. This would give her a chance to administer the antibiotic unobserved. “Please, Maggie, go with Mama and when you return, I will go down to eat.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t feel right. You need sustenance more than I do, in your condition,” Maggie replied. “Please go ahead, Lillian.”

She glanced at Howard and he offered a weak nod.

“Go ahead and have your breakfast, darling.”

That boxed her into place and she had no hope of remaining, alone, without a scene. With a great sigh, she untangled her hand from Howard’s and followed the others downstairs. Lillian had little appetite but she nibbled at a biscuit and some bacon and then excused herself to the kitchen so she could talk to Shugie.

“There you are,” Shugie said, sounding cross. “When you going to give him the pills you talked about?”

“I will as soon as I can,” Lillian told her. “I thought it would be better if I am alone with him or they will wonder what I’m giving him.”

The other woman cocked her head and studied her for a moment.

“I guess they would. They might call you witch or worse,” Shugie said. “Well, he looks pretty sick to me and what the ladies said is right – pneumonia can kill fast, so don’t wait too long.”

“I won’t.”

Howard’s eyes looked shut when she entered the room and Maggie put a finger to her lips. Lillian sat down in her rocking chair, looking at her husband. His breathing sounded ragged and she could hear a crinkling, rattling sound in his chest that she did not like at all. Her experience with anyone who was very ill had been in a hospital setting but Howard looked worse than almost anyone she had ever seen.

“His fever seems higher,” Maggie whispered. “But he went to sleep for now.”

She nodded, weary although the day had just begun.

“Did he drink any water?”

“He hasn’t yet,” Maggie said. “I am not sure how much he should have, anyway. You know that old adage, feed a cold, and starve a fever.”

Lillian knew it and had debunked it long ago. She did remember from preparing history lessons that in the past that many people took it so literally that patients sometimes weakened and succumbed to starvation, not fever. That wasn’t going to happen here; she would not allow it.

“I’ve heard it, Maggie,” she said. “But he’s thirsty and needs a little water.”

They sat, speaking little, and as the day passed, their ranks increased until Lillian felt surrounded and claustrophobic. With additional people in the room, she couldn’t begin giving him the Keflex and she worried that he might succumb to pneumonia after all.

The Speakmans had no telephone - she thought there might be three in town - but despite no phone calls, word of Howard’s illness spread through the small town with speed. By noon, Miss Julia had joined them in the sickroom so that the four of them – Lillian, Maggie, Mama, and Miss Julia – sat ringed around the bed as if they were at a play. Shugie came in and out at will. When the shadows shifted and the late afternoon sun poured through the landing window into the hall, their ranks increased again with Mrs. Arthur, one of Mama’s dearest friends and Mrs. Clara, another spinster who helped tend the sick around town. Some of the farm hands gathered outside the back door, out toward the stables where they waited for word of their boss man’s condition.

No one had yet called Dr. Lamson and with so many women filling the room, Lillian had not yet been able to get Howard to take a single Keflex capsule. Even after she reclaimed her place beside him, too many eyes watched for her to get out the drug. Their hushed chatter added to her anxiety as they compared his illness to others they had observed. A perpetual wad of unshed tears lodged in her throat and she wanted to cry but couldn’t. If she did not give him the antibiotic soon, he might worsen and he could die. That was her greatest fear of all - that despite her preparations and their hopes, that fate might take an ugly twist and revert to the original.

She ate no lunch but Shugie brought her a supper tray and insisted that she retreat to one of the back bedrooms to eat it in peace. Lillian didn’t want to but Shugie stared her down and she caved. Although she entered the smallest bedroom of all, it felt huge after the crowded front bedroom and it was quiet. She wasn’t hungry but she managed to eat the bread-and-butter and sliced cold chicken that Shugie brought her. Shugie watched her eat, hand on one hip leaning against the door.

“You look almost as bad as he does,” she said, in her deep brown sugar voice. “Maybe you ought to rest awhile.”

“I don’t want to rest; I want to be with Howard.”

Shugie clicked in tongue in disapproval. “You ain’t going to be much help to him if you get down sick or if you cause that baby to come early. I’ll keep an eye on him because I’m staying here tonight case anyone needs me. I’ll come get you if he needs you or if the crowd clears out. We got to find a way to get that medicine down him.”

“I know,” Lillian said, wavering. She was tired and her head ached. With so many people in one room, it was hot and the air fetid. “I want to go tell Howard and then I will go rest if you promise to get me up if he needs me.”

“You know I will.”

Lillian slipped back into the bedroom. Maggie had taken over her seat but yielded it when she saw Lillian moving through the crowd. There were several men here now as well, she noticed, One managed the farm under Howard, two were from the City Council, and another was Thomas Reilly, the man she met at the train station on her first day. Reverend Millibanks stood by the window, his face sober and stern.

“He asked for you,” Maggie said, as they switched positions.

“Howard, I am back,” Lillian said, grasping his hand. It blazed against her cool skin, hotter than before.

“Dear heart,” Howard said, his voice very low. He sounded weaker to her. “Are you well?”

Tears flooded her eyes but she kept her voice even.

“I’m fine, Howard. I’m just worried about you. Would you like a drink?”

He nodded so she raised a cup to his lips and let him sip water. The effort he expended to drink shocked her; he was weaker than she had imagined. After he drank, he coughed hard and long, his body racked by each paroxysm. Lillian soaked a clean cloth and dabbed his face with it.

“Did anyone give him some aspirin?” she asked.

“Maggie did,” Mama said from the corner of the room. “It has not seemed to help yet.”

The Keflex would if she could just administer it but she couldn’t with so many watchers.

Now that she was back beside him, she had no desire to leave but Shugie appeared at the foot of the bed.

“Miss Lillian needs to go rest awhile now,” she announced both to Howard and to the crowd. “She’ll be back later.”

Murmurs sprouted like crabgrass after a good spring rain but Lillian wasn’t listening. Her gaze was on Howard’s face, watching for any indication that he approved. If he wanted her to stay, she would, no matter how tired she became.

“Go rest,” he said as he coughed again. “I promise to be here when you return.”

She kissed his fevered forehead, his lips, and then his right hand.

“Good. I love you.”

He nodded, closing his eyes so she exited it, the bulk of her body ponderous as she made her way to the hallway. In the rear bedroom, she took off her shoes and lay down on the bed, fully dressed, without bothering to cover up. Shugie arrived and fussed, pulling the blankets over her and then closed the door so that no one would disturb her rest. Lillian knew she would never relax enough to sleep but she did, sinking into a deep, thick unconsciousness without dreams.

She might have slept until morning but an insistent voice roused her with volume and alarm. Lillian stirred, hearing the voice but not understanding the words, grasping nothing but a sense of urgency until someone grasped her shoulder and shook it, urgent.

“Wake up, Lillian! You got to wake up now.”

She recognized the voice now as Shugie’s and forced her eyes open.

“Come on, wake up. You have to get up. Mister Howard’s took a bad turn and you need to be in there,” Shugie said, her voice loud with panic. “You got to give him those pills before it’s too late.”

Lillian heard and sat straight up so fast that the room whirled around her.

“What happened?”

Shugie’s face was a grim mask carved from ebony.

“His fever shot up, real high, and he’s delirious now. I’m going to get all the people out of them long enough for you to give him that pill, you hear?”

Lillian did. She bolted from the bed without stopping to put on her shoes and hurried as fast as she could down the hallway to the bedroom. Before she opened the door, she could hear weeping and her heart froze, iced like a pond in deep winter. She took a long, slow breath and stepped in, moving through the press of people, which had doubled in number, to reach the bed. Her electric lamp was the sole illumination in the otherwise dim room.

“Child, Howard is much worse,” Mama Speakman said, her eyes worn red from crying. Her flat tone matched the way she drooped, hopeless in the chair Lillian occupied earlier. She remained there, without offering the seat to Lillian so she moved around her and sat on the bed, facing Howard.

His open eyes glittered with fever, glazed. If he had looked sick before, he was seriously ill now. Lillian didn’t like the pinched look to his face or the loud sound his lungs made as they struggled to breathe through congestion. Someone had put him on his back and she struggled to raise him up against the pillows where he could breathe easier. In her arms, he was heavy, his weight unsupported by anything else but she managed to shift him. She cupped her hands over his cheeks and gasped at radiating heat. If the high fever didn’t moderate soon, he might suffer brain damage, she thought and despite how hot he felt, they had piled on the blankets high in her absence.

“I need to be alone with my husband,” Lillian said, with a shrill echo. No one moved but all the eyes stared at her. Irritated, she tried again. “Please leave, all of you. I need to be with Howard.”

Their rustling stirred the thick air in the room but no one rose, just shifted position. Irritated and anxious, Lillian bit her lip and unleashed her ire.

“Leave! I want to spend some time alone with Howard. Go on, go home, or go wait downstairs.”

Maggie gasped and put her hand to her heart. Mama sobbed aloud but came to her feet, allowing Maggie to walk her towards the hall. One by one all the onlookers exited, some mumbling beneath their breath, until no one remained except Shugie, who shut the door behind them.

“Where’s this medicine?”

“It’s in that top bureau drawer, way in the back,” Lillian said. “The bottle is wrapped in a handkerchief. When you find it, bring me one of them. They are green and white capsules.”

“I’m lookin’,” Shugie said. “He cain’t drink when he’s like that, can he?”

“No.”

Lillian snapped her fingers in his face and talked to him.

“Howard! Howard, can you hear me? You have to take the Keflex now.”

Just when she thought he would not respond, he stirred and stared at her, recognition reflected in his eyes.

“Lillian, what is it?”

She was crying now, big tears running down her cheeks like rainwater into the gutters.

“You have to swallow the pill now. Get ready.”

When Shugie handed her the capsule, she put it in his mouth, then raised the cup.

“Now drink and swallow, sweetheart.”

He did; she watched as he swallowed and the pill went down his throat. He gagged, once, but she willed him to stop and he did. He hacked, spitting up some nasty yellow mucous streaked with blood and she put her hand against his back to steady him. Through his nightshirt, his skin flamed hot and on impulse, she stripped the nightshirt from him. Beneath it, he wore a pair of his heaviest long underwear and she removed them as well, leaving him naked.

“What are you doing, Miss Lillian?” Shugie asked, eyes round and wide as the Willow Ware plates downstairs.

“We have to bring his temperature down. He’s so wrapped up that he must be roasting,”
Lillian said as she pushed back the covers and drew just the sheet over him. “Go raise the window an inch or so and let fresh air into the room. It stinks in here.”

There was a foul stench in the room, air tainted with too many bodies as well as an underlying odor of sickness. The antibiotic might cause diarrhea, she remember, and made a mental note to position the chamber pot in preparation.

“Are you sure?” Shugie stared at her as if she were a lunatic. “It’s very cold outside.”

“I’m sure. It won’t need to be open long, just enough to clear the air,” Lillian said. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost midnight, Miss Lillian.”

“We have to give him a pill again at four, then,” she said. “Do you think you could do it if I can’t?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Shugie said. “I ain’t crazy about giving it to him with a room full of people, though. They’ll be back before long – you won’t run them off. How long does that stuff take to make him better?”

Lillian sighed, hard. “I’m not sure. Maybe a day, maybe more to have any effect, week or ten days to heal him. He is really sick but it should work. He needs the aspirin too. It will help keep the fever down.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Bathe him from head to toe with cool water to bring down his temperature. If you will bring me a clean nightshirt, I’ll put it on him afterward but he doesn’t need all these clothes. He’ll smother.”

Relying on intuition as much if not more than her limited nursing knowledge, Lillian bathed him, talking to him as she worked. It did not take long but he began to shiver before she finished so she hurried, then dressed him and tucked him beneath the covers. After her success with the Keflex, she coaxed him to take four aspirin as well, then a spoonful of Shugie’s honey lemon mixture to ease the cough. He looked no better but he was less restless, at least for now, as she settled down in her rocker, now at the side of his bed.

She tucked the antibiotics into her dress pocket, concealed but convenient. Shugie watched with something like awe but said little until Howard settled.

“He’s resting better. What do you want me to tell all those people to keep them out of here?”

“I don’t care,” Lillian said. “But I don’t want them all back in here. Tell them whatever you want. Can you close the window now, too?”

“Yes, Lillian. I don’t know what I’ll say but I hope I think of something before I get downstairs.”

“Shugie?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

As she watched over Howard, the night edged by, one slow sliver at a time. .Sometimes he mumbled words she could not distinguish and more than once he called out her name. He talked aloud about the farm, delegating tasks and urging pickers to work faster. Howard’s confusion scared her; delirium was not something she had ever experienced but she did not quail but remained beside him, offering what comfort she could.

If she had a thermometer, she could gauge his temperature and know how high it ran. One Keflex was not enough to bring it down much and she could not tell much difference, if any, with her hand. She bathed his face and neck with cool water, put compresses on his forehead, and coaxed the honey lemon mixture down his throat. It didn’t cure the disease but it seemed to ease the symptoms because he coughed less.

Just after four in the morning, Shugie slipped into the room.

“It’s time for his pill again,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Lillian said, so tired that she had to make a conscious effort to think. “What is everyone doing?”