When Henry Came Home (26 page)

             
"What is it?" called Sarah, starting out after her sister more carefully.

             
Mary broke through the crowd of men. "Oh!" she gasped.

             
Frank Pall knelt next to Henry, on the stairs. "I'm—I'm awful sorry, Ma'am, awful—I jes' plum forgot, and he didn't say nothin'—Ma'am, if only he'd said somethin’, I'da helped him on down—"

             
One of the other men shushed Frank for the moment, and Mary knelt down next to Henry, opposite Frank. She ran a soft hand over his forehead and found the lump on his right temple.

             
"Musta slipped on the ice, I guess," offered someone.

             
Mary put a hand behind his head, lifting it away from the hard wood. He was still breathing evenly. She turned a little. "Sarah," she said calmly, "get the doctor."

             
"Already been done, Ma'am, we're all just waitin' on him now."

             
"Anythin' we can do in the meanwhile?"

             
Mary looked up at the expectant crowd and realized suddenly that they weren't just gawkers preying on a little excitement—they were looking to help out. "Thank you," she breathed. "Maybe we better get him inside." Frank Pall stood and another man moved forward. Mary stepped back, laying Henry's head down carefully, and the men lifted him and carried him up the stairs.

             
"Here," said another man, offering Henry's cane. "I reckon this got dropped in the shuffle."

             
"Thank you," said Mary again, ducking her head. "Thank you." She hurried up the stairs.

             
They took him into the general store, and, seeing them, the grocer hurried to put two of the armchairs by the fire together so that they faced each other. Frank and the other man laid Henry down, half sitting, and stepped back to let Mary in.

             
She touched his face with both hands, smoothing back his hair. He was pale. "Henry," she whispered, "wake up. Come on now—" she let a hand fall to his and squeezed it tightly. "Come on now, wake up."

             
The men retreated further back, feeling perhaps that this was a private matter. "I feel awful bad," said Frank Pall. "I didn't mean no harm to the boy—I just plum forget he's crippled, you know—"

             
"Ain't nobody gonna blame you for anything," the grocer told him quietly, interrupting. "It's just you're forgetful and the boy is a mite shy. Sometimes things just happen that way. In my thinkin’, he never shoulda been crippled in the first place, but I'm not gonna get into a mix with God's affairs. This is one of them things—ain't nobody at fault and maybe there's no reason for it we can see."

             
"I dunno," said the other man. "I never seen Frank here look so sorry. Mebbe this here's to change his disposition."

             
Frank looked irked and pinned his mouth shut.

             
"Here's Doc," said the grocer.

             
As he said it the stout man came through the door and went to his patient without even a glance towards the three men standing to the side.

             
Mary looked up. "He's coming around some," she said, backing out of Doc's way but still holding Henry's hand, reluctant to let go.

             
Doc bent over the chairs, examining the lump on Henry’s head and holding each eyelid open for a moment to look in. Henry moaned and put a hand to his brow, wincing and jerking it away again when he touched the bruised area. "Well," said Doc, "looks like you've got yourself quite a bump." He shrugged. "Few days and the swelling should go down."

             
"Thanks, Doc," said Mary as he moved towards the door.

             
"Where's the boy?" Mary's father burst through the shaded doors, making the wooden slats rattle against the glass. Sarah was on his heels.

             
"He'll be all right, Mr. Jacobs," assured Doc, and left.

             
"Well," said Pa. "Well." He looked relieved.

             
Henry pushed himself up to a sitting position and slid back down again, his head spinning. Mary leapt to his side. "Want me to get Doc back?" she asked, seeing the color drain from his face.

             
"N-no," he said. "Just a little—dizzy, is all." His head throbbed.

             
"Take some water," offered the grocer. "It'll clear your head."

             
"Thank you." He drank a little and sat up, slowly. The spinning was better; some, anyway.

             
Pa watched him closely and spoke when he put the glass aside. "You feel up to standin’, son?"

             
"Maybe." He swallowed and paled again, seeing the other men watching him. He took Pa's offered hand and raised up a little, but clung to the arm of the chair and at last sat back down. "No," he said, "no, I ain't got it in me yet." His head pounded.

             
"All right, son, all right," said Pa, and scooped Henry up.

             
"Sir—"

             
"Quiet, son. Come on, Mary darlin’." He went out the door, his girls following after him, Mary with the cane gripped tightly in her hands.

             
"I—I feel awful bad," said Frank again. "I hope he ain't mad at me—"

             
The grocer laughed. "The boy ain't mad, Frank, he's mortified. Plain mortified. Poor kid."

             
"Still—I feel awful bad."

              Pa set Henry in the back of the wagon amid a few old sacks and ropes. Mary took off her scarf and put it under his head to keep it from jostling. The farrier had shoed the horses and hitched them back up already.

             
"You gonna be all right, darlin'?" asked Pa.

             
"Sure Pa," said Mary, hugging him quickly. She got in the wagon and Pa slapped one of the horses on the rump.

             
"Bye, darlin’!" Pa called.

             
Both Henry and Mary were silent on the ride home. Mary struggled to keep the horses slowed and kept her head forward, stiffly. Hot, angry tears spilled down her face. The wind picked up, blowing remains of snow from tree boughs above like a light blizzard. Mary brushed her tears and felt them come again, felt the wetness chill on her fingertips and ignored it. The countryside glistened with frost.

             
"Damn your pride, Henry Jacobs," she said, fervently. "Damn it to hell!"

             
It wasn't long until they arrived home. Mary hopped off of the wagon and went around to the back to help Henry down. He stood now, although a little uncertainly, and she let him put an arm around her to get up into the house.

             
"Go on to bed," she said inside, and disappeared into the kitchen. He followed her.

             
"Mary," he said softly. "Mary, I—" he looked, pained, at her back and her shoulders, as her small body heaved with angry tears. After a moment, he turned and went out into the hall and to the bedroom. He sat down on the bed and stared down at his feet, feeling his face flush white. He jerked when the cane slipped through his fingers and clattered to the hardwood floor, his heart racing. He stared at it for a moment, then lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

              Mary stayed away until it was time for bed. No matter how she tried to calm herself, to tell herself that it was unreasonable and stupid, she could not get rid of the anger, the hurt inside. She was angry because she felt he at least owed her a little caution, for all that they had made with each other. Her heart was invested in him, and she was furied by his lack of consideration. What if it had not been only a little bump? What if he had ended up dead? She put her face into a pillow and screamed. She didn't want to stop being angry. It wasn't because she hated him—it was because that's how anger is—building and building inside a person until that's all they want to feed on.

             
But when it was time for bed, she still loved him (she always would) and so she stirred the fire once more and opened the door slowly, quietly. And (because she loved him) the sight of him, asleep on the bed, broke her heart. The fire flickered light dimly into the room from behind her, illuminating his still, pale face, his brow still half-creased with a kind of contemplative agony. One hand hung a little off the side of the bed, and the cane lying on the floor reflected firelight from its sheen. She could not be angry.

             
She wanted to touch his face, to wake him gently and kiss him, but instead she went to the end of the bed and tugged off one boot, then the other. After the second one he let out a deep sigh, turning slightly. Mary slipped out of her petticoat and climbed onto the bed from the opposite side. He coughed softly and sighed again.

             
Mary smiled and put a hand on his face. He turned his head towards her and moaned quietly. "Does your head hurt?" she whispered.

             
He opened his eyes, and looked suddenly pained. "Mary—I'm sorry," he said.

             
She unbuttoned his collar, and then his shirt, exposing the pallid, painfully thin body beneath. He closed his eyes, paling, feeling at once a kind of intense shame and wishing that the fire had gone out. It was like that—at any moment, it seemed, he might be struck suddenly with reality, with who—what—he had become. Mary let out a soft "oh," and her hands leapt to his body, caressing and tender. "I was wrong," she whispered. "You don't have any pride. But I've got you figgered, Henry Jacobs. What you want is not to be a bother to anyone, no matter what."

             
He tried to turn away, but she put her weight on her hands, pressing his chest, and held him there.

             
"You," she said, "think so little of yourself that you don't want nobody to be bothered, just for your sake." She let up on his chest. "Well," she said. "You bother me, Henry. In fact, you bother me so much I had to marry you because I couldn't get you out of my mind."

             
Slowly, she rubbed his chest until his breathing became smooth and even.

              Mary would not go to Sarah's wedding.

             
"Go," Henry pleaded. "Please, Mary."

             
"No," she said, passing him on the way to the kitchen.

             
Henry reached for the windowsill and pulled himself up, then followed her into the kitchen. "Mary, you've got to." He coughed roughly and leaned against the doorframe.

             
"You go sit down like I said," she told him. "Sarah, I'm sure, will have a grand time without me."

             
He braced himself in the frame. "I'm—I'm only thinking..." he began, "if—it were John getting married, wild horses couldn't stop me from—"

             
She looked up from her cooking and smiled. "Wild horses maybe," she said. "But what if I was sick? Would you go?"

             
He was silent.

             
She laughed and shooed him away. "Go on, I'll be out in a minute."

             
"You're the maid of honor," he continued when she came in with the tea.

             
She gave him a playful slap across the face. "I sent Ian over with my note. She'll understand. A bride's maid is out of place, anyway, as far as I'm concerned. We didn't have one, did we?"

             
"Sarah's having a dignified wedding, in the church--"

             
"And ours wasn't dignified?"

             
"We didn't care."

             
She laughed. "You're right. Drink your tea."

             
"Mary—"

             
"Hen, if Sarah's gonna be a married woman, she's gotta be able to do for herself, and if she can't get through a wedding without me by her side—well, she's beyond hope."

             
Henry looked frustrated. "It's not Sarah I'm worrying over."

             
Mary feigned naiveté. "Well, then, there's nothing to argue about then, is there?" She flounced out of the room.

             
Henry sipped at the hot tea, his eyes intense and inward.

             
Mary stepped out from behind the corner she had been hiding behind. "Oh, Hen," she said. "Come on, laugh! Or smile, at least. My sister's getting married, and I'm happy. I don't need to be there to be happy for her. I'm not sad, Hen—why should you be? Come on." She pulled a chair from the center of the room to the wall. "We'll have a picnic in the parlor."