Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) (33 page)

“Fine,” Sean agreed. He was worried. “Might make things easier all around if Lorette could stay with him, keep him occupied. My brother’s got a pretty thick skull, if you’ll pardon the pun, and won’t let anyone dote on him ‘cept Lorette.”

The doctor nodded smartly and excused himself, leaving Sean to stand alone in the chilly waiting room. He stepped quietly down the corridor to his brother’s room and peeked around the doorframe. Lorette was holding his hand and tracing his face with the fingertips of her other hand. Will looked as happy as could be, and Sean would not have worried at all, were it not for his brother’s color. He was gray, and his lips were white.

Sean stepped into the room. “Uh, Will, the doctor thinks it would be best if you stayed here, just for tonight,” he added quickly.

Will started to object. Sean rushed on.

“I told him I wanted Lorette to stay with you. You’re not supposed to sleep with a concussion. It could be dangerous. I thought maybe Lorette, if she doesn’t mind, could stay and keep you occupied.”

“I certainly will. That is, if you want me, Will.” She batted her eyelashes for him.

“Oh, you bet I want you. I mean, that would be swell, Lorette.”

Sean finally got to sleep around midnight and rose at dawn to drive into Tillamook to see his brother. He took along fresh clothing for Will, in hopes that the doctor would let him return home that day. Then he stopped and bought a bouquet as a way of saying thank you to Lorette for all her help, though Sean was fairly sure she enjoyed being Will’s companion more than a little.

He stepped through the double doors into the foyer of the two-story hospital. There were large living/waiting room areas to either side of the foyer, both with their fireplaces burning to ward off the morning chill. He saw nurses in crisp white uniforms carrying trays of juice and medications. He saw elderly patients in bed robes hobbling along with the use of canes and crutches. He heard, rather than saw, a woman sobbing in the waiting room off to his right, and was saddened to think some poor woman had probably just learned she’d lost her loved one. He took a step into that dimly lit waiting room and looked around. On a cushion near a far window sat puffy and red-eyed Lorette. The doctor Sean had spoken with the day before towered over Lorette, offering her a tissue and something in a little white paper cup. Some inner voice told Sean to leave immediately. He didn’t want to investigate. He didn’t want to know why Lorette was crying. And yet, some invisible force pulled him toward the scene unfolding at the other end of the room.

The doctor heard Sean approach and looked up, suitably sorrowful. “Mr. Marshall, I’m so sorry. Your brother…passed in his sleep.”

Lorette wailed anew.

“In his sleep?” Sean asked, dumbfounded. “But”—he looked at Lorette with confusion—“he wasn’t supposed to be allowed to sleep.”

This made Lorette cry harder. She tried to explain to Sean as she sniffed and sobbed. “Will never closed his eyes, Mr. Marshall,” she wailed. “He never closed his eyes. I was reading him Sinclair Lewis. (sob, sob)
It Can’t Happen Here
,” she wailed.

The doctor patted her hand. “It happens everywhere, dear. Death is part of life. This was not your fault, dear girl.”

Lorette dabbed her eyes and nose and forced herself to meet Sean’s stare. “I was reading to him, Mr. Marshall. And I kept looking over at him every few paragraphs to make sure he didn’t try to sleep. Every time I looked, his eyes were open. And then…then I asked him if he liked the book so far, and he just kept staring away. So I…I…he…” She began crying uncontrollably.

Sean stood motionless.
Will is dead? He was only thirty-seven years old and he is dead. Why?
He looked at the doctor. “How?”

“A hematoma, Mr. Marshall. It was a danger we had hoped we could arrest with cold compresses and anti-inflammation drugs, but there was simply too much swelling. I’m so sorry. There was nothing more we could do. Your brother was made comfortable, and he died in his sleep. I hope that offers you solace.”

Sean nodded dumbly. His feet were set in concrete. A pixie had stolen his voice. His brother was dead. Sean would miss him so much. And he had never felt so alone.

Chapter 72

August 31, 1941

Cloverdale, Oregon

L
orette had panicked. She’d had to drive Sean’s car home, and then help Sean from the car, into his room, and even helped him change and get into his bed. That didn’t worry her, the man was plum tired after a long and emotional two days. What worried Lorette was Sean’s color. It was off. And he just seemed so…despondent. She phoned Rebecca to tell her the news about Will, breaking down when she had to tell the story again. But she regained her composure and told Rebecca her worries about Sean. Rebecca said she would come right over.

“Knock-knock,” Rebecca whispered as she opened his bedroom door just a crack. She could hear the rustle of bed sheets.

“Is that you, Beck-wheat? Come in,” he said hoarsely. He sat up higher and dabbed his eyes dry. Rebecca quietly opened the door just enough to slip through, and then closed it behind her.

“Lorette phoned me, Sean.” She removed her sweater. “Oh, Sean, I am so, so sorry,” she said as she approached the bed, kicking off her boots. “I just loved Will—he, he has always been like a big brother to me.” She unzipped her riding pants and began unbuttoning her blouse. “I am so sorry,” Rebecca cried openly.

Her pants fell to the floor, and she’d flung her blouse in the direction of the dresser. Sean found his voice as his childhood sweetheart stripped off the last of her clothing and stood before him in the late afternoon light. “Beck—” he croaked.

She wiped tears away from her eyes, then bent and pressed an index finger to his lips, drew back his bed sheets and climbed in beside him. “I don’t want to talk about how awful sad we are, and I’m not going away,” she told him. “I only want to give you comfort. I want to feel close to you, just…be with you. That’s all. It is only for tonight, Sean. I’m going to hold you and grieve with you, for Will. I will be marrying Evan in the spring, but I have not answered him yet. I want to love you this one time before I do.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I need this, Sean. So do you.”

He’d had no intention of sending her away—not this time. He wasn’t a saint; he was only a man. “Beck, I am so alone. In a month of Sundays, I never would have believed Will would go before me. I’m not prepared. I, I just wasn’t prepared for that. I don’t know what to do.”

She answered him by initiating the sweetest and most emotional lovemaking she had ever known. Their merciful suffering of time had a healing effect. She’d given him strength.

Afternoon had drained into night. Rebecca was dressing, and a dark rain was beginning to threaten inside Sean’s heart. He could feel anxiety rising. He did not know how to ask Rebecca to stay with him. She’d already given him so much of herself, he could not ask for her reputation, too. He could not ask Rebecca, someone he loved and respected so deeply, to stay with him—but only for one night.

It was soon enough a moot worry. She rose from the side of the bed where she had been pulling on her boots and, as if sensing his anxiety, told him, “I am going to get a tray of food for us. Leftovers, nothing fancy. You know I can’t cook, and poor Lorette was so broken up about Will, I told her to go on and take the night. I will be staying with you.” She noted his struggling smile and was relieved. “I am going to pull those parlor doors closed, and then you and I are going to sit and play Mah Jongg or cards or something while we eat, and we are going to honor Will, and grieve our deep distress. Tomorrow, the sun shining on a brand new day will begin to blunt our keen despair.”

Chapter 73

T
here was indeed a new day and the sun was shining on it, this first of September in the year 1941. It was Blair’s thirtieth birthday.

It was an Indian Summer in Oregon, and the Pacific coast boasted beautiful, sunny weather with temperatures in the upper 70s. The moment Blair stepped off the train in Tillamook, she knew she was home. This was the place she was meant to wind up. Poor Wendell. She really did love him. The man was her dearest friend, and he had saved her life. He was the only one to reach her when she was lost in the darkest recesses of her own tortured mind.

Blair collected her bags and motioned to an attendant. She withdrew a ten dollar bill and folded it neatly, twice. When the attendant approached, she pressed the bill into his hand with a handshake, Chicago-style, and said, “You look like the capable sort of fellow who could find me a car and driver to rent for the day. I wish to go to the coast. To Cloverdale, specifically.”

The young man opened his gloved hand and saw the number 10 plainly printed in the corner. He snapped to attention with a tremendous smile. “Yes, ma’am!” He took off like a forest fire in July.

Chapter 74

September 1, 1941

Cloverdale, Oregon

T
hey held each other in the late morning silence. Slivers of intense orange sunlight stabbed around the edges of the bedroom window’s shade, leaving sword-like lengths of shadow intersecting across the double-wedding-ring quilt. Sean’s life was suddenly wildly different from his life of two days earlier, he was starkly aware. There were no farm machinery noises, no upstairs boots against soft fir floor boards. No sounds of Will.

But there was the smell of strong coffee and the sweet scent of something baked. He didn’t want to think about eating. But as sad and as spent as the two lovers were, they were both powerfully hungry. It got them up and going.

Sean knew he needed to make some arrangements for Will, and it was going to be hard. He was doubly-glad Rebecca was there to help. He went ahead to the kitchen while Rebecca readied herself at the vanity. He peeked around the doorframe and saw Lorette’s backside as she worked busily at the sink.

“Lorette?” He called to her softly. When she turned it was clear to Sean she had been crying, hard. Her eyes were swollen from it. “Aw, Lorette.” Sean opened his arms and stepped toward her. She cried against his shoulder for a spell as he stroked her long blond hair, and he murmured, “There, there. It’s going to be all right. We’ll all be sad for awhile, but it’s going to be all right.”

She sniffed and withdrew from his embrace, then dabbed at her eyes with her apron. “I, I had a touch of sleeplessness and thought I would bake for us and prepare a stew for our supper later.” She wrung her hands in her apron. “I, I don’t even suppose you have an appetite, but we must all keep our strength up. I have fixed up some thick French toast and banger sausages. I made apple juice and coffee, too. I have eggs if you think we need them, and I, I…” She looked down and her shoulders began to sag and then shake. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Marshall. It’s all my fault.”

Sean gave her a squeeze. “It was an accident, Lorette, and not of your doing at all. The doctor told me there was nothing you could have done to change the ultimate outcome. But you were there with my brother at his end. I know that made him happy. He had taken a real shine to you, and it was my fault he never acted on it.
I’m
sorry, Lorette. Will had his hands full with an invalid brother and a 160-acre farm and mill to run, almost by himself.”

She sniffed. “Well, sir—”

Sean interrupted, “Please, Lorette, call me Sean. It is just the two of us. There’s no need to be so formal.”

She nodded. “I was going to say that I, I had feelings for him, too.” She began sobbing anew, “but I never told him.”

“I’m sure he knew. Will’s a pretty…he was a smart guy.” Upon uttering Will’s name and having to refer to Will in the past tense, Sean could feel anxiety rise anew, like cold steel bearings pinging around his stomach and chest. He would need to push his sadness aside for awhile or he would not be able to function, and there was much to do. “Say, I could probably eat about a dozen of those pieces of French toast you got baking there,” he lied. “Do I smell vanilla?” He aimed to change the subject.

“Yes, sir—Sean. And tarragon, too. It’s my own recipe. I hope you like it. I seemed to have whipped up a good deal of food for just us and Mrs.—Rebecca.” At the stumble, Lorette’s cheeks reddened. She hastened to add, “I was so heartened Rebecca was able to stay and keep you company, Sean. She’s a treasured friend to have, Bless her.” Lorette lifted her apron and wiped it across her face. Dabbing was daintier, but it wasn’t getting the job done. She forced a smile and a more erect posture. “But, Lord, look at all of this food. I wanted to keep busy and I …”