Hers the Kingdom (44 page)

     "Dear God, baby," I managed to whisper. "Did you eat any?"

     She looked up at me, and I could see that she had.

I know every detail of the ensuing hours, every moment is burned as if by acid into my memory. No detail of that day has faded, I shall take it to the grave with me as if it happened yesterday. If I close my eyes I can see the face, the tiny ringlets of hair dark with
sweat, the small facial muscles twitching uncontrollably. And then, the breath that would not come, the small, dear body hot to the touch, the eyes, blue and wide and afraid, trusting me . . . the agonies as the small body tensed and throbbed, convulsed with pain, grotesquely arching, arching, as if some demon had taken possession and was ripping from within.

     I held her hard to me and prayed that I could pull the pain from her body to mine. I tried to breathe into her mouth, to give her the air she so desperately needed. Willa watched in horror, her fist in her mouth. Owen twisted his hands and held them out to help, but there was no way, nothing to be done. And then he cried out in misery, saying over and over that he had not meant for this to happen, until Willa took him away.

     The doctor came, too late. She had flailed and throbbed and twisted and turned, and struggled for breath. And then she had exhaled and, with one small release, died. She died in my arms. I pressed my lips to hers and tasted the faint, bitter taste of her mouth. I sat with her until they took her out of my arms.

THERE WAS MEDICINE to help me sleep, medicine to take away the pain, medicine to see me through the day. I have no clear memory of the weeks and months that followed Rose's death; only the events of that one day are sharp. It is as if I were walking through the kind of thick sea fog that rolls onto the beach in such a way that you can walk into it and out of it, appearing and disappearing at will. I made no entries in my daybook; Mondays passed in a blur of days. What I know of that time I know from others and, out of kindness, they have never told me all.

     I know I said things that should have gone unsaid. I was full of rage and fury and pain, and lashed out without mercy. I became Owen's accuser. And Willa's. The baby was buried but I was not present. And then Willa and Owen and the boys were gone, but their leavetaking did not disturb my oblivion. I did know, I was told, that they had gone to Illinois, that Pa lay ill and near death, and that he had sent for us, for Willa and me. And Willa had gone.

     Sara came to comfort me and found me beyond comforting, yet she stayed on. Sara and Trinidad and Wing Soong watched
over me. They nursed me, they became my caretakers. I fought them all (Sara would tell me that much). I was wild, I did not want to live and I fought them for making me. I do not remember how I learned, or when, but I knew Pa was dead, had died before Willa could get there. In my daybook, on the blank pages of that unspeakable time, I have taped a letter I received from my brother Val.

     "Dear sister Lena," he wrote in a hand that was surprisingly delicate for a farm boy, "I am writing to say how sad it is to know that you are not well. Willa has told me how you grieve for the baby Rose. I have but to look at Willa's face to see how all of you have suffered. I wish I could have news that would cheer you, but I fear I have only more sorrow to add to your burden.

     "Pa died peacefully, in his sleep. He has been ailing for such a long time, as you know, so that it was with great sadness that we accepted his leaving, but we were prepared as much as it is possible to be prepared.

     "We were not prepared for what happened only two days later, the same day as Willa and Owen's arrival. Mama had spent much of that afternoon sitting on the porch in her favorite chair—you will remember the one. She was reading one of her almanacs. I passed by, and she looked up at me and smiled a little, the first I had seen on her face since Pa's death. I remember thinking, 'She is able to read again, and smile a little. That is a good sign.'

     "An hour later, Servia came to tell me he had wanted to tell Mama that he and Bernie were going to the station to meet Willa, but that she was sleeping so peacefully he didn't want to wake her. I told him to go ahead, that I would call her in half an hour to give her time to prepare for the visitors. I did as I said I would, but Lena, I could not wake Mama. She sat there, as if asleep . . . but she was gone. Mama died only two days after Pa. The doctor says it was her heart, and maybe it was. But I cannot help but think she didn't want to go on without Pa. They were caring of each other in ways that couldn't easily be seen.

     "I am ever so sorry to be the one who brings this sad news. Willa thought it would be best for us to write you, rather than send a wire, so that you might have some more details—and not be so alarmed. It is a terrible time for us all. I cannot think how it will be at Porter Farm now, without them.

     "Bernie's marriage, to Martha Langley, will be delayed until after a period of mourning. We are turning the old music room into an apartment for the newlyweds, so that they can have some privacy.

     "Willa and Owen will be with us for another week, then they will proceed East where they plan to put the boys into school, as you know. Willa asks that I tell you she will write to you one day soon, and that she thinks of you often. We all of us send our love. Your faithful brother, Val."

I did not weep for my parents. There were no tears in me, I was barren of all feeling, my mind and my body were numb. Sara stayed with me. She abided my crazed fits of wrath and the longer periods of silence that followed. She sketched, talked to Wing Soong, and stayed until one day she, too, received a message of death. Charles wrote that Phineas Emory lay dying and that Sara should proceed directly to San Francisco where he would meet her.

     Strangely, the fog that blurred my mind lifted for Sara's departure. I stood by the carriage that was to take her away, clutching at her until Trinidad called Wing Soong from the garden.

     "I can't leave her," Sara had cried with anguish in her voice.

     Wing Soong had pulled me away, had pinned my arms to my sides. "I will see that she is cared for," he said. "Go." His voice was low, but there was no mistaking the command. Sara reluctantly closed the carriage door and the driver snapped his whip to send the horses away at a quick trot. Sara looked back, feeling miserable and at the same time relieved. There was something about Wing Soong that inspired confidence. She trusted him.

     If Soong had been loath to make suggestions to Sara, he was not to Trinidad. The two had daily dealings. She recognized his expertise in the matter of the garden, she consulted him often and had come to look on Soong as a font of practical information. He had seldom been wrong; he knew about certain cures; he was, Trinidad had said often enough, a wise one. Which was why she agreed to refuse me all medicines, and to take away the supply of patent tonics that I kept in the cupboard in my room. Wing Soong convinced her that it must be done. No matter how I harangued her, ordering her to bring them back, to give me my medicines, her face was set, impassive. She would not.

     The days that followed Sara's departure were torture. My body was filled with pain that brought me to the surface of consciousness and held me there, where I could but remember what I wanted to forget. I hated Soong. I screamed at him. I pummeled Trinidad and threatened her for listening to him. In desperation, I appealed to Ignacio to control his wife. "I will see that Owen throws you out, both of you, for doing this to me. I can do it and I will, I will," I screamed. I would see them all in hell, I said.

     In the weeks past I had stored several partially filled bottles of my medicine in various places about the ranch. As soon as I could manage, I slipped out of the house to retrieve them. I went into the tack room first, to an old wooden box that had been leaning in one corner for as long as I could remember. I reached into the cobwebby recesses. It was gone.

     I hurried to my next cache, worried. As casually as I could, I meandered over to the arbor and stooped by the play box where we kept old toys. I lifted the lid, looked. The bottle was there, but it was empty. Empty! I felt like howling with rage. I picked up the bottle and made to fling it, only to have Soong clamp my arm in mid-air.

     "You are a monster," I shrieked at him.

     "Then that is what you need, a monster."

     "I am sick, I've always been sick. Can't you see that? My back, the pain . . . Soong, have you no pity?" I was pleading.

     "Pity?" he said sternly. "If I pitied you I couldn't do this. I know you have pain, Lena. The pain is in your heart and you've only managed to transfer it to your body because it is more easily endured there. But it must end, and it will. Now, Lena. Now it is time to end the pain." These last words were soft, tender. I didn't feel the tenderness, not then. All I felt was resignation. He was too strong; I couldn't fight him.

     Little by little, the awful pain did go away. In its place settled a lethargy, a feeling of perfect exhaustion, a dull heaviness that lay in the center of me so that it was difficult to breathe. But the pain had passed; Soong had been right about that.

     I told him that he had won, that he should go away and leave me in peace. I said to him that he had saved my life, I knew it, but I did not think it was such a very great accomplishment. Trinidad's face had changed from the worried, set scowl to the soft, loving mother. She treated me like one of her children who was ailing. Trinidad fixed a chaise in the garden and Soong carried me there when I had not the strength to walk. He talked to me then—for the first time, Soong spoke freely, for hours on end, it seemed. He spoke of all that he was doing in the cause of his country. He told me things that would, at any other time, have amazed and frightened and excited me. He talked and he talked in the long afternoons, as he worked in the garden.

     And one day I interrupted him to ask, "Where is her daisy bush? What have you done with it?"

     He had been working sand into the soil of the vegetable garden, but my question made him sit back on his heels and look at me steadily, as if to measure the question. "I put it at the foot of her grave," he said.

     I wanted to ask where that was, my baby's grave, but I could not, the words would not form.

     "It is up there," he said, pointing to Peregrino Hill. "You wanted it there."

     "I did?" I asked, surprised.

     "Yes. You insisted."

     "I see," I said, drily, though in fact I didn't see, and his saying that I had done something I had no memory of angered me. "How do you happen to know all of this?" I added, with sarcasm.

     "Because Mr. Reade asked me to prepare the grave, and to tend it," he answered, carefully.

     My hands were shaking. I could not seem to lift my eyes to his, I could not seem to think. Soong saw and he said, "Not yet, you are not yet ready to go. But one day you will be." The sobs started then, great and wrenching and painful, they seemed to come from some dark place so far inside of me that I could not fathom it. My body heaved and coughed and convulsed. My nose ran and I could not catch my breath. I cried and I cried. When at last I could cry no more, but lay back spent, Soong said in a voice that was more than a caress, "My dear friend, you have returned."