Believing the Dream (32 page)

“I am sorry to be such a bother.” Annabelle’s voice swelled no higher than a whisper, and Elizabeth had to lean close to hear.

“Oh, Mother, don’t fret. Just rest and get well again.” Elizabeth thought back to the night two days earlier. Barely out of bed herself, she had spent most of the hours at her mother’s bedside, praying for each rise of the covers, grateful for each new breath. At times like this she wished she knew nothing of medicine, nothing of how close to leaving her mother hovered. And there was nothing she could do but pray and keep sponging away the fever. She only knew her father had carried her away from her vigil because she woke up again in her own bed.

“Father God, please leave my mother here for me, for us.” That prayer turned into a litany as she sent her father to sleep in another room while she, feeling much stronger, took over sponging her mother’s hot skin and dripping cool water between her mother’s parched and cracked lips. “Please, God, we need her more than you do.” Somewhere in the darkest hours of morning, she sensed a change, minuscule at first, the faintest cooling of skin, a deepening of breath. Fear clutched her heart.
Is this the end? Do I call Father? Lord, what do I do?
She smoothed tendrils of her mother’s limp hair back from her brow, now definitely cooler. Was that color returning to her cheeks?

“Thank you, Lord God. Thank you. She has turned the corner, thank you.” Tears dripped as Elizabeth sponged her mother’s body once again and pulled the sheet back in place. She held a spoon of water to her mother’s lips, and this time, Annabelle swallowed immediately. Several spoonfuls later, she moved her head slightly to the side, signaling Elizabeth to stop. But it was a beginning.

“How long have I been ill?” More hours had passed, and with each wakening, her mother’s voice was stronger.

“I’m not sure. I got the measles first. Then when I started to get well, I . . .” She paused. There was no sense in telling her mother how close to death she had been.

Annabelle opened her eyes and glanced around the room. “So dark.”

“I know, but not for long.” Elizabeth folded the cloth and laid it over the edge of the basin. “Would you like me to read to you?”

“Yes, if you are sure your eyes are all right.” With each word, her mother’s voice grew more firm.

Elizabeth picked up the Bible that lay beside the lamp but found the light too dim to see the words. Were her eyes weaker, or was it the light? “I’m sorry, Mother, it is just too dark in here to read.” But when she looked up, she realized Annabelle was sound asleep again.

Earlier, in her own room, she’d tried to read one of her textbooks but had fallen asleep before finishing a page. She had no idea what she had read. Now, hesitant to leave her mother, she kept one finger between the pages and thought back to all the Bible passages she had memorized while attending Sunday school. Needing to hear the words out loud, she whispered, “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.’ ” She continued until “Yea, though I walk . . .” And her voice cracked. Tears burned the backs of her eyes and drained into her nose. So close, her mother had been so close. She tried to sniff them back without sounding like that was what she was doing, but when that failed, she dug a handkerchief from her apron pocket and blew her nose.

“I was in that valley.”

Elizabeth stared at her mother, then took the trembling hand that reached out to her. “I know.”

“And He was with me.” A pause stretched from then to the present. “I will never doubt again.” Annabelle kept her gaze on her daughter’s face. “I could feel your prayers, and your father’s. I heard him weeping one night, sitting right in that chair. I couldn’t even open my eyes or say a word, but . . .” A soft sigh escaped just as she slipped back into sleep.

Elizabeth now let the tears run. She stroked the leather cover of the book still clutched in her hands. “ ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’ ” She repeated the words again, savoring them like sips of the finest nectar. “Lord, oh Lord, thank you for your mercy to us, your gracious kindness.” She rose from the bedside to go telephone her father and, after giving him the good news, returned to her own bed for much needed restoration.

“ ‘Surely goodness and mercy’—Lord, a doctor needs those qualities in abundance.” Good wasn’t something Elizabeth was often described as being or even alluded to. Yes, she was good at her music and her studies, but this referred to something else, something that came from within. Good like Jesus was, not just a lack of bad or evil. She tried to keep grasp of the thoughts, positive they held a message of great importance. When they slipped away, she glanced at the pile of books on her nightstand. “I need to go back to school, and yet I am so tired.”

Mercy, how did one become full of mercy? She slipped into sleep, the last picture in her mind of standing drenched under a waterfall labeled Mercy.

The next morning Elizabeth served Dr. Gaskin coffee in the parlor. “Why is it taking me so long to get my strength back?” Elizabeth hated pleading almost worse than asking for forgiveness.

Dr. Gaskin shook his head as he placed his stethoscope back in his medical bag. “I told you to get plenty of rest.”

“I am.”

“You are taking care of your mother, who is still unable to get out of bed for any length of time. You are studying in spite of my recommendations, and—”

“If I don’t study, I may have to repeat this term, and that does not fit into my calendar.” She felt like stomping her foot and pounding her fists on the table but clamped them under her armpits instead.

“Elizabeth, I have no other advice for you. You should be eating more than usual, especially beef, to help rebuild your strength, not running up and down stairs—”

“I wasn’t running.”

“No? Perhaps not, but I could hear you struggling for breath from clear down the hall. Now, if you recall, I warned you that measles also puts a strain on the heart and lungs, even though for you, your lungs stayed relatively clear.”

“Relatively?” Her attention zeroed in on the word.

“Meaning I heard only minor wheezing instead of a surfeit of fluid.”

“So will my lungs be weakened permanently because of this?”

Dr. Gaskin shrugged. “I don’t know.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word, the look on his face warning her that further interrogation would be unwise.

Elizabeth sank into a chair, nibbling on her bottom lip. “And Mother is far worse off than I am.” She studied her hands clasped in her lap, one thumb smoothing the skin of the other. Sometimes her eyes burned, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to tears or overuse. But how to get anything done without using her eyes? And what made them hurt anyway? Granted they felt better in a dim room, but then she always fell asleep in a dim room, so of course they felt better when closed. Perhaps she could do an experiment on what soothed her eyes. The thought made her want to leap to her feet, but she knew Dr. Gaskin well enough that he would see through her and demand her strict obedience to his regimen. Not that he really had a regimen for her but to rest, eat well, and let time take its course.

“Do you mind if I play the piano?” At the lift of his right eyebrow, she knew she’d failed in keeping any trace of sarcasm out of her voice.

“Not at all, as long as you play from memory.” Dr. Gaskin winked at her as he hefted his bag and headed for the front door. “I’ll show myself out.” He stopped under the arch and looked back over his shoulder. “And keep the sheers drawn, at least. It will be easier on the eyes.”

“Yes, sir!” But she refrained from saluting, confining her ready-to-offend hand with the other. Wandering over to the piano, she sat down on the bench and let her fingers trail over the keys, searching out chords and melodies to match her mood. But melancholy didn’t satisfy, so she segued to a march, then drifted into hymns, which she played for half an hour before her back complained to her that it was tired and she ought to lie down. On the way to her room, she peeked in to check on her mother.

“Thank you, dear. Those old hymns were just what I needed.”

“You are most welcome. Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m just floating on the music, wishing I had the strength to get up and do something, but it looks like I must be satisfied to think or sleep instead.”

“I know what you mean. I’ll be lying down if you need anything.” Elizabeth blew her mother a kiss and left the door half open so she could hear a call if need be. Floating indeed. If that was what her mother needed, she would play again before supper. Strange how weary even playing the piano made her feel. Usually she gained strength at the keyboard, and that’s what she’d been hoping for, not the need for another nap. At the very least she should go help Cook in the kitchen. Sighing, she lay down and fell asleep like a candle being puffed out.

Wrestling her way out of a nightmare left her dripping sweat. Elizabeth leaped to her feet, swayed while she waited for the room to cease spinning, and made her way to her mother’s room. Annabelle lay sleeping, her breath coming in short puffs but evenly and with little wheezing. In the dream, she’d closed her mother’s eyes in death, and her father had not been far behind.

Sucking in a deep breath made her throat itch to cough, so she left the room and darted back to her own bedroom to cough until her chest ached and her throat burned with a scratching fire. She leaned against the wall, shivering in her damp clothing and from the aftermath of the coughing fit. Was she getting worse? Right now, that’s what she felt beyond certainty. She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the faucets to fill the tub. Soaking, breathing deeply of the steam, would surely help.

Her father found her back in bed, alternately shivering and sweating.

“Ah, did too much, eh?” He laid the back of his hand on her forehead.

“No, I did not do too much. I have done nothing of any worth for almost two weeks now, and here this confounded illness is back again. I thought to go up to school tomorrow, and look at me.”

“No need to bite the hand that will feed you tonight.”

“I don’t need feeding.” She sounded like a cranky child and castigated herself for that too. “If I miss any more school, they are going to say I have to take this term over, and—” She exploded in another coughing spell and tried to catch her breath.

“I’m calling the doctor.”

“There’s nothing he can do. He’ll just say bed rest, and drink lots of beef or chicken broth, and use the cough syrup he already left.” She fought to catch her breath between phrases.
How had this come spinning back so quickly?
“I even played the piano for mother today and thought I was so much better.” Tears wanted to leak from her eyes, so she rubbed them with her fists.

“Thorliff sent his greetings, and Thornton dropped by the office to see how you were. He was just released from quarantine at his uncle’s house. The children all had the measles too.”

“And he didn’t get them?”

“No, he took care of everyone else. He offered to come read some of your textbooks to you if Doctor will let him.”

“Has he had the measles?”

“Must have, or he’d have them by now.” Phillip leaned against the carved post at the end of her bed, his fingers absently stroking the pineapple carved at the top of the cherrywood post. “I’ll send Cook up to bathe you.”

“I just got out of the tub an hour or so ago.”

“I meant to cool you off.”

“Just open the window, and I’ll throw back the covers and let the wind take care of me.”

Phillip chuckled. “You must not be terribly sick. Your tongue is sharp as a needle.”

She sighed. “Sorry. Please hand me that cough medicine. It will put me to sleep, and perhaps I will wake feeling better again.”

Phillip did as she asked. “I’ll fetch a spoon.”

“No need.” She raised the brown bottle to her lips and took two serious glugs, the medicine burning clear to her belly. When she could talk again, she rolled her eyes. “Must be enough whiskey or brandy in that to drop a horse.” Handing back the bottle, she rolled over on her side. “Thank you.”

Phillip stoppered the bottle with the cork and set it back on the stand. “Ring your bell if I can get you anything.”

“I will.”