Rebecca's Promise (31 page)

As she entered the kitchen, she said, “Go get Mrs. Spencer right away. We need a doctor. I think she may have the signs of blood clots in her leg.”

Rebecca quickly walked down to Mrs. Spencer’s and explained the situation. Mrs. Spencer willingly dropped what she was doing, drove the two of them back to the house, and carefully helped Leona, Jonathon, and the midwife into the car to take them to the doctor.

Rebecca stood in the silence of the driveway with Leroy and James beside her, struck once again by the stillness in the air. They watched Mrs. Spencer’s car speed up once it was on the blacktop, the sound fading as it moved farther down the road.

“Where is the doctor’s office?” James asked. “Is it someplace bad?”

“No,” Rebecca answered, assuring him, “it’s a good place. Your mom just needs to see him soon.”

“Is she coming back? And baby Jonathon?” he asked, wanting to know.

“Of course,” Rebecca told him, hoping she was right.
Surely there is nothing life threatening involved. The midwife had seemed worried, but not quite that worried.

“Let’s go play,” Leroy suggested, looking at his bigger brother, then pulling on his arm with both hands when he got no response.

“Yes, you can play,” Rebecca told him, thinking he might need to hear her say that. Apparently she was right. James then assented to leaving and followed Leroy across the yard.

Rebecca returned to the kitchen to wash the breakfast dishes and then started gathering the laundry. Leaving Jonathon’s diapers to soak in a bucket of water, she finished the other loads first, hanging them out on the line.

On the third trip back to the house, with her hamper now empty of the heaping wash, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. Quickening her step, she came around the corner of the house to find Leona climbing out of Mrs. Spencer’s car. There was no sign of the midwife. Apparently she had already been dropped off at her own place.

Mrs. Spencer waved as she left. It was a cheerful enough wave, Rebecca thought, so surely things must be under control.

“What was it?” she asked, coming up to Leona, who was still standing in the driveway and holding the sleeping Jonathon in her arms.

“It’s my leg,” Leona said, looking rather gloomily and reaching down to press the spot in question with her hand. “I’m on medication for a blood clot. Good thing the midwife sent me in. She’s good, I must say. Starts out with just a little swelling, but she caught it. The doctor said that the clot is above the knee and that it can be serious, of course, if it breaks loose.”

“Should you be resting?” Rebecca asked, the hamper still hanging in one hand.

“He said just the opposite. It’s not good for me to be lying around all the time. I’m supposed to stay active—as much as I can.”

“What’s the problem called?” Rebecca glanced at Leona’s leg.

“Deep vein thrombosis,” Leona said wearily, letting the words flow off her tongue easily enough as if she had said it several times before. “We’ll just call it
the blood clot.
”

“How long before you’re better?” Rebecca asked.

“Doctor wasn’t sure. He’ll check on me next week again.”

“Well, then I’m not going home yet,” Rebecca announced without reservation. “I’ll stay a while longer.”

“Yes, you are going home,” Leona said with equal conviction. “I can get Sarah if I need her. And, as the doctor said, I need to stay active anyway.”

“Mom would want me to stay, and I’m staying,” Rebecca said, thinking that might end the discussion.

“Sometimes your mom doesn’t have much sense,” Leona declared.

“She happens to think her sister is important,” Rebecca said. “And so do I.”

“I wonder sometimes just how important I am.” Leona’s face suddenly darkened. “Seems like all I do lately is inconvenience other people. Even the children wish their mother would be back for them.”

“But you
are.
” Rebecca looked at her with concern. “You’re here.”

“Not really. It’s hard to bounce back after a baby’s born. And now this time—I have to have this leg problem. And Stephen—poor fellow. He has to deal with a sick wife.”

“But he understands,” Rebecca insisted. “You’ve been working way too hard too soon.”

“No, I need to be there for them—all of them—not just the baby. Sometimes it’s just so hard,” Leona said weakly, her hand going to her leg, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Rebecca felt a wave of fear because of this unexpected change in her aunt.
Is Leona in worse condition than anyone knew? What if the blood clot is letting go?

“Well, you’re
not
doing anything more today,” she said sternly. “And your leg—let’s take a look at it.”

“It’s nothing really.” Leona didn’t sound convincing at all. “I just should be able to do more. I always could with the other children.”

“You’ve had eight children,” Rebecca said sharply now, surprised to hear herself speak to her aunt like this. “Let’s see the leg,” she repeated.

Rebecca gently took Leona’s hand and lifted it away, revealing a red and swollen section just above Leona’s knee. The sight caused Rebecca to catch her breath. Touching the area gently with her fingers, she could feel the heat. “No wonder the midwife took you in.” Rebecca was horrified. “Has Stephen seen this?”

“Not this morning.”

“Has it gotten worse today?” Rebecca asked.

“I don’t think so. Not by much.”

“You have to rest now,” Rebecca insisted, wondering where she was finding the strength to order her aunt around. She expected at any moment the old Leona would return, strong, wise, and untouched by her own pain.

“But there’s so much to do.”

“The recliner.” Rebecca took her arm, gently leading until Leona got going. She then took baby Jonathon from her aunt, leaving the hamper sitting on the porch.

“And the extra weight,” Leona moaned, “it’s not going anywhere. I know Stephen notices.”

“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Rebecca said, slightly embarrassed.

“Here I am embarrassing you,” Leona said, as she settled into the recliner. “And now you think you need to stay longer.” Leona moaned again. “And Jonathon’s been crying all morning at the doctor’s office…”

“Well, he’s asleep now. And I’m going to make you something to eat,” Rebecca said. She then took the sleeping Jonathon to the bedroom, easing him gently onto the mattress, her heart glad that she seemed to know just what to do. It was what her mother would do, she was sure.

“I’m so fat,” Leona said, as Rebecca returned on her way to the kitchen. “I shouldn’t eat anything at all.”

“Vegetable soup.” Rebecca ignored Leona’s remark.

“I have to stay away from food.”

Leona’s voice wasn’t too firm, Rebecca noticed. “You’d like that?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Leona’s face.

Her answer was a slight nod, followed quickly by, “But not too much.”

“You’ll feel better after you eat something, I’m sure.”

“I don’t think I’ll
ever
feel better,” Leona said.

“I’ll be right back.” Rebecca felt the need to ignore the remark. Her nurturing instincts, honed from years of taking care of her younger siblings, had proven her mettle, but now she became acutely aware that this was Leona—her aunt—and not a sibling.

She went to the garage and retrieved the can of vegetable soup. Stepping back into the kitchen, she turned the gas burner on high.

A quick glance into the living room satisfied her that Leona was okay. She was leaning back, her feet elevated on the recliner.

With the soup warm, she transferred some to a bowl with a dipper, took a package of soda crackers from a lower cupboard along with her, and arrived at the recliner just as Leona noticed her.

“I almost fell asleep,” she whispered.

“That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Rebecca said.

Leona’s eyes lighted up at the sight of the bowl of steaming soup and the package of crackers in Rebecca’s hands. “I feel like such a baby,” she whispered again.

“How many do you want?” Rebecca asked, tearing the top of the cracker package carefully.

“Four, I think.” Leona brought the recliner forward and reached for the bowl of soup. Rebecca gave her the four crackers, quickly handing her two more when the crumbled pieces of the four proved—by the look on Leona’s face—to be insufficient.

Returning the package of crackers to the kitchen, Rebecca glanced back into the living room and said, “I’m starting on the wash.”

“Oh, the wash. There’s so much to do around here, and we should be thinking of you packing for the trip home, not doing the wash.”

“No, this is why I came,” Rebecca told her firmly. “You stay right there while I tackle the job.”

She began by filling the washing machine. While the water filled, she turned her attention to the piles of wash, particularly aware of Jonathon’s dirty diapers in the bucket because those were of primary concern.

No wonder women are exhausted,
Rebecca thought, as she pulled the first diaper from the bucket of water. The fumes assaulted her nose again, and she unexpectedly gagged. Having grown up with small children in the house, she should be used to the smell, but it had been a while since any of her siblings had been in diapers. She turned her face away to lessen the effect, washed the diaper off in the bucket, and then reached for another. By the time a dozen were done, she no longer had to hold her face at a distance.

Funny what you get used to,
she thought.
Such a sweet baby and yet also responsible for such a mess. Sort of like big boys are.

Lifting the rinsed diapers into the washer, she started the motor with a roar. She hoped its sound was a comfort to Leona instead of cause to wake up from a much-needed rest. Pulling out the plunger on the side, the agitator began rotating, first left then right, swishing the wash around in the water.

While the load was washing, she prepared another pile of diapers. She had to step into the house momentarily to empty the bucket in the bathroom, and on the way, she took a peek in on Leona. Leona seemed to be sleeping, her chest rising and falling in even motions. And from the back bedroom, Jonathon was quiet too.

Back in the garage, Rebecca ran the load of wash through the wringer. She hung it on the line after that. The bright white diapers flapped in the morning breeze and started to dry.

Rebecca was already weary, and it was not yet noon.

Is it worth it?
she wondered.
Boyfriends, then husbands, followed by babies and buckets of messy diapers.
She wasn’t sure, but with this coming so soon after her experience at the bridge, Emma’s single life was looking better all the time.

R
ebecca watched the rows of wash flap in the breeze. The pieces blew sideways with the movement of the air. When one would fall back faster than the other, it created a break in the rhythm.

So much like the ebb and flow of life,
she thought.
Like clothing in the wind, that’s how we all are. Washed out some days, bright with hope on others, and then dirty again the next. Used and then clean; used and then clean. That’s how it is.

At least she felt like that now. The memory of her time at the bridge was still fresh in her mind. How could she have been so stupid, so carried away with her hopes from the past, thinking it even possible that Atlee would remember her after all these years. Still,
she
had remembered, so why hadn’t he?

Her heart ached with the pain of it, yet she had done the right thing in going to the bridge. If she had not gone, she would never have known if he had come. But maybe men were different in that way. They said things they did not mean. Promises they would not keep.
Love,
she pondered the matter,
the love of a man, so alluring, so full of promise, and so empty when it came down to it. That’s what it was. On the one hand, they forgot you when it suited their purposes, and on the other hand, they clutched you so hard you couldn’t breathe.
It would be so much simpler to stay as she was.

She would make the same choice Emma had. She might even teach and, thus, influence other young lives…again as Emma had.