Where the Wild Rose Blooms (34 page)

Clayton had never heard it put that way before. He was thinking on the subject when Jackie started to talk about Robert and Eddie. The young couple visited for another half hour in the kitchen and then joined the rest of the family in the living room.

Clayton left three days later, but there was no grief on Jackie's part this time. He loved her, and if he was hired somewhere to teach, then in the spring they could be married. God had taken care of every other need, and Jackie knew He would bring them together. She also knew that nothing in the world could dim the happiness she felt right now. God had been so good, and she was walking on a cloud.

Clayton loves me, Eddie. I didn't think I would ever be able to say those words, but he does.
It had taken Jackie a few weeks to come back to earth, but now she had to write and let her sister know that she was in love with a man who loved her in return.

I
never completely understood the way you floated around after Robert had been here, but I do now. I'm 171/2 and I'm in love, I can't believe it. It feels so good to write to you about this.

When Eddie received the letter, she could only shake her head. She read it to Robert, and they both laughed. Every paragraph was about Clayton or his time with Jackie. She had written about everything they'd done and talked about.

"And how long does it say they'll need to wait?"

"Next spring," Eddie told her husband.

He now shook his head as well. "Its going to be a long winter."

Jackie began school with much the same feeling as ever. Danny, Lexa, and Sammy were all glad to be back, but Jackie's heart was not in it. Her mother had had a talk with her about attitude, and although she was still struggling, she was working on it.

"I don't feel like a schoolgirl anymore, Mother. I'm contemplating marriage, and I just don't want to study math."

Addy stroked her hair. "I can see that it's going to be hard, dear; indeed, it's going to take a real step of maturity to deal with this."

Addy inadvertently challenged Jackie with those words. More than anything else, Jackie wanted Clayton to see her as a mature woman. She thought about the letter she'd already started, the one that did nothing but complain about returning to school. She decided then and there to tear it up and start another one.

It took a few weeks, but by the end of September she was doing well. Her father had cut her hours in the store, but she still worked all day Saturday and two afternoons during the week. She really did enjoy it, especially when she could rearrange the stock room.

"I can put this heavy stuff at the top," Morgan told her when she arrived one Tuesday after school, "but please work on these lower shelves."

"All right. Call me if you need me out front."

Morgan suddenly hugged hen

"What was that for?" Jackie was very pleased.

"I don't know. You're so cheerful and helpful these days. I think being in love suits you very well."

The young woman beamed at him and went to work. She was fast and efficient, and because her father didn't call her to the front at all, she was finished with the low shelves very swiftly. Morgan had said he would do the top shelves, but Jackie saw no need. She positioned the ladder and climbed up with the heavy tins of syrup and pails of river salmon. She was getting tired after two or three trips, but she had only two to go and stuck with it. Jackie had not faltered a single step in the last two hours, but suddenly, before she could put the tin in place, she was falling from more than six feet in the air, the tin coming down on top of her.

Morgan heard the crash from the front and walked
swiftly away from the customer he was serving. Seeing Jackie unconscious on her back was nearly enough to make his heart stop. He ran to the front long enough to send the customer for the doctor and then back to his daughter's side. Bile rose in his throat as he saw that her nose and mouth were both bleeding. He couldn't stand the thought that she would be in pain, so he didn't try to wake her. He left her lying flat, praying for the doctor to arrive soon.

He wished he could have warned Addy before they arrived, but Jackie never awakened, not even when, accompanied by young Doc Edwardson, they took her home in the back of the wagon and carried her to her room.

An hour later, the screams that came from Jackie's room so terrified Sammy that Addy took her downstairs. Lexa and Danny stood huddled in the hallway while the doctor and their father remained inside.

"Try to keep her still," Doc Edwardson gasped as he grabbed for Jackie's flailing arms. Morgan would have been better at that position, but he'd grabbed her legs and still tried to reason with her from further down the bed.

"Jackie, it's all right," he called to her. "I'm right here."

"
Help me!"she
replied hysterically.

"Jackie," he tried again, but at that moment, she swung her own arm against her head and went completely still.

Both men froze, Morgan's pale face going even whiter. He looked at his daughters still form, and then his eyes flew to the young doctor.

"What happened?" He demanded, his voice hushed.

"She's fainted," the doctor told him. Both men were panting.

Morgan's tortured eyes went back to Jackie and then to the doctor once again. "Please tell me it isn't so."

"I cant." The younger man rose slowly, his voice hushed as he gently put Jackie's arms at her side. "I saw this just recently, I'm sorry to say. There's not a thing that can be done." He looked at Morgan.

"I'll sit with her, Morgan. Go and see your family. They need to know, and you need each other right now."

"You're sure?" Morgan asked, tears filling his eyes, and the doctor knew to what he referred.

"I'm sorry, Morgan," he said resignedly. "I haven't seen much of this, but enough to know. The way she fell and then woke up—it can't be anything else."

Morgan stumbled to the door and then out into the hall. Danny's and Lexa's soft cries met his ears, and he went to them. He held them close for a moment.

"Where's your mother?"

"She took Sammy to the kitchen."

Help

"Come on. I've got to see her."

It was a pitiful group that huddled close and descended the stairs. Addy came to her feet as soon as she saw them, her hand going instinctively to Sammy's shoulder.

"Oh, no, Morgan," Addy gasped when she saw his face. "She's not dead. Please don't tell me she's dead."

"No, she's not." He looked at Addy, but didn't really focus. "But she's blind, Addy. Completely blind. She'll never see again."

Dark spots danced before Addy's eyes. One minute she was standing and the next she was crumpled into a heap on the floor.

"Mother! Mother!" the terrified voice called, and Addy rushed to her daughters side.

"I'm here, Jackie. It's all right. I'm right here."

Jackie clung to her mother, trembling from head to foot. Jackie's fear of the dark had begun during childhood. Now she'd been plunged into a sea of blackness, and the slightest change set her off. Just now the wind had kicked up outside, and she'd heard a strange noise. It had been happening off" and on for days. Addy's face was drawn with exhaustion, but Jackie couldn't see this.

"Here," Addy suggested, "the sun is shining right through this window. Move to the sofa now, and you'll be able to feel it."

"Help me," Jackie whimpered.

"I'm here. Take my hand."

They made the move with Jackie clutching at her mothers arm. Addy's skin was already bruised and scratched from Jackie's clasping hands, and she winced when Jackie hit a sore spot.

When Jackie was settled, Addy sank into a chair of her own and just stared into space. She wasn't certain how much longer she could do this. It was three weeks to the day since Jackie had fallen in the store, and although her headaches had abated, Jackie was terrified most of the time. The rest of the household had finally learned to sleep through her cries in the night, but Addy went to her every time. She never calmed down in less than two hours, and the days were not much better.

One afternoon just that week after a particularly difficult night, Addy fell into such a hard sleep in a living room chair that by the time she heard Jackie's cries the younger woman was inconsolable. Jackie had been almost impossible to live with since, terrified that she was being left alone in her blackness. Attempts to comfort her with Scripture, Gods promises to never leave His children, fell on deaf ears. Jackie had nearly reverted to infancy.

Addy had thought it hard to have little ones under foot, but nothing could have prepared her for having a 17-year-old baby. She was dressing Jackie, giving her baths, and helping her eat. Addy didn't know how much more she could take.

From where she sat in the chair, she now rocked her head and looked at Jackie. The blind girl just sat there. Addy tried to understand but couldn't. Jackie didn't talk anymore or ask questions. Her world had shrunk until she was the only one who existed.

Its too soon,
Addy told herself, but then an unfair thought came to mind. Jackie had always been more self-centered than any of the other children. Blind or not, Addy didn't believe she herself would be so unreasonable. A minute later guilt poured over her. She felt terrible for thinking this way. She was praying, trying to explain her weary heart to God, when she heard someone knock at the front door.

"What was that?" Jackie was instantly afraid.

"Just someone at the door." Addy rose to answer it.