The Truest Pleasure (25 page)

Florrie put a cool hand on my forehead. It was what Mama used to do when I was a girl. It's what I did for my younguns when they was sick. It was the only thing that made me feel better. Her hand on my forehead steadied me and quieted my heaving.

That's when I saw what I had throwed up. It wasn't just bile and juice, whiskey and lemon juice mixed with spit. There was clots and chunks of mucous, yellow and hard, throwed from my chest. There was strings, and big drops of congestion and corruption. Tom and Florrie took away the poultice and changed the sheets, but I was dropping into a cool dead sleep.

I don't recall much of the next few days. All my memories of the week are vague and out of order. But everything I do remember has to do with the light at the window. It come in and stood at the foot of the bed tall as a man. It stood there hours and went away. It was gone for a while and then returned and stood a long time in front of me. It was so close I could almost touch it with my foot, and then it backed to the window. I watched it by the window for hours, and then I saw it had slipped behind the snow drifted on the sash and the ferns of frost on the glass. The light was watching me, but further away. And I thought it was an angel guarding over me. It was a messenger from the Spirit telling me I would be well. The angel was looking right at me and I felt as though I was speaking in tongues. I knowed it would be there whether I saw it or not. And I felt guilty that I had not prayed once while I was sick. I had not called on the Lord even when I was out of my head. I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving.

One day I felt an itch all over. It was not like the itch when your foot is asleep and begins to wake, twinkling and seething.
It was more like the itch where a bee sting or cut begins to heal. My whole body had been sore with fever and was beginning to get well. Feeling was coming back and my skin was itching.

But there was a deep weakness in me too, like I had been froze and was thawing out. I was attracted to warmth, to the fit of quilts and blankets around me. The heat had gone out of me, and I was pulling together to recover what warmth was left. I thought if I had somebody to lay against maybe I would feel better. The warmth had seeped out of the world. There was just a tiny flame somewhere in me, like a candle that had not gone out.

One morning I saw the white at the window was ice, and I remembered the snow and extreme cold. I wondered about the washing, and about the cows in the pasture. What about the wood supply? And how had the chickens fared? I wondered, and yet it was no real concern to me. I was curious about what was happening outside, and I could feel the wind shove against the house from time to time. But I was too weak to worry, and too cold to care.

There was a smell about me of fever and sickness, a sweet smell of flesh slightly cooked and drying on the skin. I brought a hand to my nose and sniffed. It was the scent of dead skin. But I couldn't be sure I wasn't smelling my breath. For my lungs was full of loose matter that rattled around like dumplings floating and bumping when I breathed. I started to cough. My chest was still sore, but not tight as it was before.

Tom got a handkerchief and said, “Here, cough in this.” I spit clots and gobs in the cloth. Some was hard as crumbs of bread.

Jewel and Moody stood in the door watching.

“Jewel pushed me,” Moody said.

“I did not,” Jewel said.

I was going to speak to them, but I started coughing again. When I stopped they had gone.

You was in a fever five days,” Florrie said when I got my strength back a little. “It was only when you throwed up the bile and congestion that it broke.” She brought me warm broth.

“Where is Muir?” I said.

“That baby is fine,” Florrie said. “He's eating like a hog.”

“He ain't nursed,” I said. My breasts was sore and shrunk.

“He's been weaned since Thursday,” Florrie said. It seemed she was bragging, pleased that Muir had been weaned. I turned away on the pillow. I told myself I should be grateful for all her help.

“This is the coldest spell on record,” Pa said when he come in later. “This country has never seen such a winter.”

“How cold did it get?” I said.

“Twenty-two below for three mornings, below zero for a week.”

They had kept the fire going day and night, and put heated rocks in pans under my bed. It had been too cold to snow, but when it warmed up a little after a week it snowed again. The river had froze, and even the pools in the branch. The spring smoked like it was on fire, Pa said. Where snow melted a little the thaw turned to a sheet of ice and sealed the snow under it. Joe had walked across the hill twice to help bring in wood. Tom and the children had been sleeping in the living room by the fire, Jewel and Moody on a pallet, Muir in his cradle.

“I want to see him,” I said. Tom come back with the baby and put him in my arms. Muir had been growing. He was heavier than I expected. Weaning hadn't made him lose weight, but he smelled different. I guess a baby that's not nursing does smell different. A mother smells her own milk on the baby's breath.

I held him to me and he went right for my breast. I guess he wasn't completely weaned. But there wasn't any milk for him and I pulled him up to my chin and he only whimpered a little.

Now while I was holding Muir I saw the strangest thing. I was thrilled and warmed to have his body against me. It was like a pleasure and a touch I had forgot in my fever. When you're sick you become a child again yourself. And now I felt like a mother again. Thankfulness flooded through me. I rubbed Muir's little bottom through his gown and it was round as two apples. I felt I was holding all of humanity and the world in his little form. I could feel his heart fluttering like a tiny animal, and his breath was sweet against my neck. He had been eating grits.

“Thank you, Jesus,” I said. And I thought again how in my fever I had not prayed, or if I did I couldn't remember it. But now that I was cool I felt gratefulness pour through me. Gratitude rose and brought tears to my eyes. “Thank you, Jesus,” I said again. It come to me that the light at the window while I had the fever, and at the foot of my bed, had indeed been the Spirit watching over me. I had never been deserted, however thoughtless and forgetful I had been. The love had been there, and the grace had been there, all the time. I held Muir closer to my chin.

While I was holding him I could see through the door down the hall to the living room and a little bit into the kitchen. Tom and Florrie stood talking. They was just out of sight of the fireplace where Pa set. What I noticed was how close they stood. Wasn't any need for grownup people to stand that close. There's a distance people keep when they are talking. But they looked just a few inches apart. They wasn't touching far as I could see, just standing close. And then I saw Florrie's hand come up and touch Tom on the arm. It lingered there for several seconds.

It don't mean a thing, I said to myself. They've worked hard together while I was sick. They've set up nights and Florrie has changed my bed. They've had a hard time looking after me.

I held the baby closer. I have always hated the sin of jealousy. I've seen it make people crazy. It will begin with a little hurt vanity, when somebody else gets more attention, or somebody is a little prettier, and next thing you know it turns to hate and sinful spite. I had always thought I would not be jealous. After the way Tom and me had quarreled it didn't seem possible I could be jealous of a look, a touch.

But the fact was I was suddenly stiff with anger. I couldn't help myself. Maybe I was too weak to get hold of myself. If I had been well I would have seen what to do. I think now I had always been jealous of Florrie, that she was prettier than me, and littler than me, that boys liked her more, and that she drunk a lot of liquor on the sly and got away with it.

I told myself again it didn't mean a thing. After all, two people working in the same house are bound to stand close and talk. But in my heart I felt Florrie was taking advantage. She
was profiting from my quarrel with Tom, from our differences over religion. While I was sick she had took charge of the children and the house.

It was twenty minutes later Florrie come busting into the bedroom. “Well, Mrs. Powell, are you feeling fit?” she said. She opened the curtains a little and sunlight leapt into the room. I did not answer, but kept playing with the baby.

“We thought you was going to leave us,” Florrie said, picking up cups and dishes on the nightstand. She stopped at the bed.

“I know what you're doing,” I said. It come out; it was too late to not say it.

“What do you mean?” she said. She cradled the dirty cups and saucers in her apron. She was always great at playing innocent.

“I've seen you buttering up Tom,” I said. She looked down at me like I was a little kid that needed a diaper changed.

“You are still sick,” she said. “You are out of your head.”

Just then Muir started to cry. I guess he felt the anger and it scared him. Babies can tell when their mothers get mad.

My throat was suddenly tight, and I started coughing. It was a cough that seemed to come from deep in a well. The rattle in my throat was way down and heavy.

Florrie took the cups and saucers out of her apron and put them back on the nightstand. “I'll take Muir,” she said.

“No!” I said. But my voice turned into another cough. I was too weak to cough and yet I had to. The cough come from deep in my guts and heaved through me in a wave. I was so weak I couldn't hold on to Muir, and Florrie lifted him out of my hands.

After I had coughed a few minutes I spit up more hard clots on the handkerchief. It was like everything I spit up left holes in my chest. When I stopped coughing I felt emptied out and ready to sink back into myself.

“Here, drink this,” Florrie said. She held a cup to my chin.

“No!” I said. It was the same concoction of whiskey and lemon juice and warm honey they had give me before. The spirits smelled up the room and spread right into my chest.

“You need this,” Florrie said.

I took a sip and it felt as if a hot wire run across my tongue and down my throat. But the warmth soaked out in my belly and chest and made me feel a little stronger. I took another sip.

“You always was a fool, Ginny,” Florrie said.

I didn't say anything else. I didn't want to talk anymore until I had time to think. I drunk all the whiskey and honey. It seemed to loosen up my chest more than anything else had. Nothing else made as much sense as the whiskey, and I drunk it all.

“Do you want some mush sweetened with sugar?” Florrie said when the cup was empty.

“No,” I said, and turned my face away on the pillow.

Late that night after the house was quiet Tom come into the bedroom carrying a lamp. “It's snowing again,” he said. “I seen the snowlight this morning and Pa said it was coming again.”

I listened and could hear the tinkle of flakes on the window. It sounded like somebody was throwing fine sand at the glass. Tom stood by the bed holding the lamp, as though waiting for something. He had brought the heated rocks in earlier and put them in pans under the bed. The room was warming up a little. “Are you warm enough?” he said. He had his red plaid shirt on, the one I had ordered from St. Louis. It was open at the throat and his flannel underwear looked orange in the lamplight.

“Is Florrie gone?” I said.

“Florrie went a long time ago, before dark,” he said.

I had forgot how strong his neck was. His shoulders looked wider than before. He had been using the ax a lot lately and pulling the crosscut saw with Joe. In the lamplight he stood thick and powerful. The lamp throwed shadows behind him. The flame stroked like a tongue in the glass chimney.

“Close the door,” I said. “Don't want to wake the house.” Tom shut the door slowly. He looked at the floor solemn as somebody does at a funeral.

There was a spark in me. I had been cold so long it didn't seem like there could be any life in my body. I had forgot what it felt like to be warm. It was like a match struck somewhere far inside me. “Are we out of wood?” I said.

“We cut a tree today,” Tom said, “on the pasture hill.”

Snow tinkled and brushed on the window. I couldn't see anything there but blackness and the reflection of the lamp. The house was so quiet I heard the fire snap in the next room.

“Is the baby asleep?” I said.

“He's been asleep since supper,” Tom said.

“Then you might as well come to bed yourself,” I said.

He stood like he was trying to make up his mind. Tom was never one to do anything in a rush.

“Are you well enough?” he said.

“I'm almost well,” I said.

Tom put the lamp down on the stand. Then he cupped his hand over the top of the chimney and blowed it out.

The spark that had been lit in me traveled along my bones and veins. It was a little flame that tried to search every corner of my fingers and elbows, toes and knees. The light worked its way closer, up my legs and through my arms. It was as if I was waking from a deep cold sleep in joints and places I had forgot about.

When Tom laid down the bed tilted and quaked. I had been sleeping by myself since before Muir was born. The bed trembled and shook on its springs like we was sliding out on a current.

“What are we going to do if it keeps snowing?” I said.

“Keep cutting more wood, I guess,” Tom said.

“A fireplace takes a lot of wood,” I said.

Snow sprinkled on the window like little feet running in the dark. The snow sounded blue to me, the blue of a star. I was so weak I couldn't hardly move, and at the same time it felt like I was waking up from a long dream and seeing it was just a dream. There was voices in my toes and hands and echoes running back and forth through me. One part of me was speaking to another.

“Is the branch froze over?” I said.