Carry the Light (8 page)

“That was easy enough, wasn't it?” her aunt asked as Charlene removed the needle. “Just drop the whole thing into that plastic bottle over there, and you're done until tomorrow.”

With her hands trembling, Charlene disposed of the needle. Assuming responsibility for this daily ritual had definitely not been part of her plans, but she clearly didn't have any other choice. In order to guarantee that her aunt injected the right amount of insulin every day, Charlene would have to fill the syringe for her.

“I've got some fresh tuna salad in the refrigerator for lunch. I shouldn't be home from church later than noon,” she informed her aunt as she split an English muffin and popped both halves into the toaster.

“It's Fellowship Sunday. Stay for coffee and donuts. And don't worry about me. Annie and Madeline are coming over to stay with me while you're at church. Annie is a volunteer for the Outreach Ministry and visits with folks too old or too sick to go to church on Sunday anyway, and since Madeline is thinking about joining as a volunteer, too, she said she wanted to come along and pray with us here. Then we'll just visit together until you get home.”

She pointed across the room toward the cabinets. “There should be a box of those small plastic baggies in that top drawer over there. Take one and stick it in your purse.”

Charlene cocked a brow.

Her aunt moistened her lips. “I'd dearly love to have one of McAllister's raspberry-jelly donuts drenched with granulated sugar, not that powdery stuff. Bring me one home from church, will you?”

“You can't eat one of those jelly donuts,” Charlene argued. “There's almost enough sugar in one of them to send me into diabetic shock, and I don't have diabetes! I thought you promised the doctors you wouldn't cheat on your diet.”

“I said I'd try not to cheat so much,” her aunt countered. She pouted for a moment, pulled a battered tissue from the pocket of her robe and wiped her nose. “Based on everything the doctors told me, I could die today or tomorrow or anytime in the next few months or so. Since the good Lord is really in charge, I've decided to accept the fact that He'll take me Home when He's good and ready, and not a moment before. So I'm going to use what time I have left enjoying things I like best. Today, I'm thinking that would be a raspberry-jelly donut from McAllister's.”

Charlene shook her head. She was tempted to refuse her aunt's request, but she found it difficult to argue with her reasoning or her right to make these kinds of decisions for herself.

Reminded once again of the thin line separating her duty to see that her aunt followed her doctors' instructions and her obligation to respect her aunt's right to decide how she wanted to live the rest of her days, Charlene recognized the dilemma. But in this case, she was very sure about one thing: she was not ready to start bringing home treats from various functions in little plastic baggies.

A
ttending Sunday services in a new church with an unfamiliar minister did not feel nearly as odd to Charlene as sitting in a pew without Daniel at her side. Favorite prayers and the verses of Scripture that she had loved all her life helped to ease her discomfort. The welcome she had received from members of the congregation, as well as Ellie's companionship, also made her feel at home.

During the services, Charlene prayed for the wisdom to give Aunt Dorothy the best care, the courage to face the difficulties in her marriage and the insight to resolve them. She was still humming the closing hymn when she and Ellie left the church by the side door, both agreeing not to attend the coffee clutch.

“You like to sing,” Ellie noted as they descended the steps.

Charlene felt a blush warm her cheeks and immediately stopped humming. “I hope I didn't get too carried away.”

“Not at all. I always feel timid about singing,” Ellie admitted.

“I think church is the one place I can sing my heart out. Since God gave me this pitiful voice, I figured He couldn't complain when I used it to praise Him,” Charlene said. “Back home, folks are used to me singing off-key. I hope I didn't upset anyone here today.”

Ellie laughed. “You weren't singing loud enough to drown out Mr. Owens. He almost barks his way through the hymns, and no one has the heart to complain,” she said, and pointed to her right. “We can cut through the parking lot at Whitman Commons, or we can take the other path back to your aunt's house. Either way, we can carry our lights with us,” she teased, referring to the closing hymn Charlene had been humming.

Charlene hesitated, trying to decide on a destination. “McAllister's would be in the other direction, right?”

Ellie nodded. “If you want something from the bakery, we should stay and join the others. They always have donuts from McAllister's on Fellowship Sunday here.”

“Except that I'm not ready to be a bag lady,” Charlene declared, and told Ellie about her aunt's request for a jelly donut in a plastic baggie. “Since you suggested walking together yesterday, I've thought about it, and hoped we could start today and walk to the bakeshop so I can buy some donuts for Aunt Dorothy and her friends. Unless you have to get right back to your mother.”

“No. She's got her best friend, Phyllis Kennedy, with her for the morning. Actually, I could use the walk. I got up at five o'clock to grade papers before church, and I've still got two more sets to go, plus lesson plans to write. A good walk would be a nice way to grab a little time for myself. I could also use the company,” she admitted as they headed off. “I don't know about you, but my light has gotten a whole lot dimmer lately.”

“Mine, too,” Charlene murmured, and increased her pace to keep up with Ellie.

“After spending so much time at the hospital, between trying to catch up on my schoolwork and taking care of my mother this weekend, I'm not sure if I'll have the energy to face eighty students tomorrow, although Monday is generally my easiest day. The kids are usually pretty sluggish on the first day of the week because they're recuperating from their busy weekends.” She stopped at the corner. “Do you want to walk the avenue or stay on the side streets?”

“The side streets,” Charlene replied. “I can get from my store to Aunt Dorothy's house, but I'm afraid I really don't know my way around Welleswood very well because I'm always in such a rush to get to work and home again. I should learn. Otherwise, if I do leave the avenue, I might walk in circles and never find my way.”

“We'll turn here, then.”

Side by side, they walked down Maple Avenue under a canopy of barren tree limbs, past stately homes much grander than Charlene's aunt's cottage or her own small house in Grand Mills, which sat on two isolated acres of wooded land.

“Did you ever think about taking care of your mother or father when they got old? I mean, before. When you were younger,” she asked.

“Not very often,” Ellie replied. “My mother and I are about as opposite as two people can be, and I spent most of my time growing up eager to be independent and move out. After my dad died awhile back, I did think about the possibility that I might need to care for my mother some day, but I usually set the idea aside, figuring I'd deal with it if and when I had to.” She let out a long sigh. “I guess that time is now.” She turned to Charlene. “What about you? Did you ever think you'd be caring for either of your parents one day?”

“I was only three when my father died,” Charlene replied. “My mother died not long after I got married, so I never really thought about it.”

They stopped at a cross street for a moment to let a Jeep filled with four teenagers go by. Charlene was also grateful for the chance to catch her breath before Ellie started them walking again.

“I got much closer to Aunt Dorothy once I opened the store here in Welleswood,” Charlene went on. “But I'm ashamed to admit I didn't realize how her health had deteriorated until she was hospitalized.”

“She's still incredibly active for a woman her age.”

“And you walk incredibly fast,” Charlene teased, struggling to keep up.

“Sorry. I forgot you're a newbie,” Ellie replied, and slowed her pace.

“Better,” Charlene said. “In the hospital, when the doctors told us Aunt Dorothy shouldn't live alone anymore, I couldn't bear the thought that she'd have to spend the rest of her days in a nursing home any more than she could. In a way, I think caring for her gives me the opportunity to do for her what I never had the chance to do for my mother because…because she didn't live long enough to get old.”

Ellie looked at her and shook her head. “You're amazing.”

“Not really,” Charlene murmured. If she were amazing, Daniel would not be relieved to be living apart from her, and she would have known how to keep her marriage a happy one. She just didn't feel comfortable discussing her failures with Ellie. Not yet. “What are you going to do about your mother tomorrow when you go back to work?” she asked as they entered Welleswood Park.

Instead of following the asphalt walkways, Ellie set off directly across the grass, and Charlene had to be careful not to step on any of the spring crocuses that splashed the landscape with varying colors of purple and yellow. “I intend to pray a lot,” Ellie said as they headed toward a gazebo facing the lake in the middle of the park. “After what happened yesterday with the alarm, I've also decided to take your advice and forget about using the security system while she's living with me.”

“Welleswood is such a sweet little town, I'm still surprised by the fact that you have an alarm system at all.”

“I had it installed after my husband died because I was scared to live alone. I never bothered to have it removed once I got more accustomed to being by myself. Anyway, I've got my home phone programmed so all my mother has to do is hit one button and she'll reach my cell phone, which is never, ever going to be out of my possession again,” she added.

Charlene winced. “I wish I'd noticed the cell phone before you left the store yesterday.”

“Forgetting my cell phone was my fault, not yours,” Ellie replied. “I have to make sure that I don't ever leave it anywhere again. We're not supposed to carry a cell phone in the classroom while teaching, but I don't think I have any other choice. I'll just make sure the ringer is off and it's set to Vibrate. In a real emergency, my mother will have to dial nine-one-one until the end of the week, when the Total Care system gets installed. Then she'll have an alert device to wear so that if she falls or is too sick to reach the phone when I'm not home, she can press a button to summon help.”

Panting, Charlene nodded toward the gazebo just ahead. “Let's sit. I need just a minute to catch my breath, otherwise you'll be calling nine-one-one for me, and it won't be a false alarm,” she teased.

“You'll be keeping up with me in no time,” Ellie assured her as they walked straight to one of the benches built inside the gazebo. Honeysuckle vines and rhododendron bushes were just turning green, and although the fountain in the middle of the lake was still shut down, the springtime view was lovely. “We can sit, but just for a minute,” she warned.

Charlene plopped down, opened her purse to get a tissue and wiped the sweat from her face. She looked around, did not see a trash can and stuck the rumpled tissue back into her purse. “I'm seriously thinking about buying a few shares in a company that makes tissues.”

“Why tissues?”

“Now that old age is just around the corner for us baby boomers, the demand for tissues should absolutely skyrocket, if Aunt Dorothy is an example. She's gone through an entire box of tissues in two days. She keeps them in her pockets day and night and never remembers to throw them away. I did a load of laundry for her yesterday and made the mistake of not checking the pockets. I wound up with a tub full of wet clothes completely covered with itsy-bitsy, teeny pieces of tissue.”

“Yuck!”

Charlene chuckled. “I thought for a minute they were tiny bugs gobbling up all the clothes. Unfortunately, I realized the pieces were pink and blue, and not brown, only
after
I'd sprayed the whole mess with an entire can of insect killer.”

Ellie started giggling. “You did not.”

Charlene grinned. “No, I didn't, but I made you laugh and I managed to keep us both sitting down for more than a minute.”

“Let's go. Story time's over,” Ellie announced, and slapped her knees. “McAllister's closes early on Sundays, so unless you intend to disappoint your aunt, we'd better get started again.”

“How much farther?” Charlene asked.

“If we use the footbridge to cross the lake and take a shortcut, we have about a quarter mile. Ten minutes. Tops.”

“And if we don't?”

“Maybe twice that.”

Charlene raised her arm and pointed skyward. “To the footbridge!”

“Stop! I can't walk and laugh at the same time,” Ellie protested.

Charlene smiled. “But you can talk and walk at the same time. While we're walking, I need you to tell me how to program my aunt's phone. Tomorrow when we meet again to walk, you can tell me how to get in touch with someone at that Total Care system.”

 

Charlene returned to Aunt Dorothy's house with three small boxes the salesgirl at McAllister's had put into three plastic bags. After hanging up her coat, she stood in the living room for a moment and shook her head.

If she didn't know better, she would have guessed that the laughter in the kitchen was coming from a group of teenage girls rather than Aunt Dorothy and her elderly friends.

Invigorated by the fellowship she had found at church, as well as the friendship she was developing with Ellie Waters, Charlene carried her treats through the living and dining rooms with her light burning just a little brighter than it had been when she'd left the house this morning.

At the doorway to the kitchen, she ground to a halt. The laughter died instantly, and the three women seated at the chrome table stared back at her with their mouths agape and their eyes wide with guilt.

Annie Parker, her aunt's best friend, was sitting at one end of the table. With her sugar-white hair and her white polyester pantsuit, she looked like a plump marshmallow, and she was just as sweet. She blinked at Charlene with the innocence one might expect from someone eight years old, not eighty-one.

At the other end of the table, Madeline O'Rourke, at eighty, was the youngest of the trio. Her bright orange fingernails flashed as she toyed with her necklace of chartreuse beads. Her cheeks were covered with rouge, so Charlene couldn't tell if she was blushing or not.

Aunt Dorothy, on the other hand, was most definitely blushing, which added color to her pale features, but didn't hide her weariness.

The main focus of Charlene's interest, however, sat square in the middle of the table. Next to an open Bible, there was a large white cardboard box, with a logo identical to the one on the three boxes she was carrying.

“I didn't hear you come in,” Aunt Dorothy said. She dabbed at her mouth with a tissue, but it was too late. Charlene had seen the raspberry jelly in the corner of her lips.

Madeline laughed nervously. “When the three of us get together, we're just a bunch of chatterboxes. We probably wouldn't hear Big Foot stomping through the house.”

“That's not true, you know,” Aunt Dorothy countered.

Madeline pouted. “Well, I wouldn't hear it, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.”

“No, I wouldn't, either, but I meant Big Foot. It's not real. It's a myth or a legend or something.”

Annie blinked her eyes hard, and frowned. “Are you sure, Dorothy? I always believed it was real, and I always felt sorry for the poor creature.”

“What's real are those scrumptious donuts on the table,” Charlene said as she walked closer and peeked into the box. “Let's see what's left. A couple of chocolate iced spinners, a cream donut and three sugar twists, but not a single jelly donut anywhere,” she teased.