Part 10 (2/2)
”Ivey,” she whispered, ”I'm just burning up!”
Ivey turned to the others and said, ”She got a bad 126.
fever. She ought to be at home in bed right this very minute. Y'all back off some.” She took a kerchief from her pocketbook and handed it to Miriam. ”Go get this wet.”
Miriam hurried off to the ladies' room. The rest of them talked in low voices, glancing at Mary-Love. Her head lolled on her shoulders as Ivey sat beside her, unb.u.t.toning her blouse, and wiping the perspiration from her forehead.
”She's real sick,” said Florida. As the wife of a doctor, her opinion carried some weight.
”I know,” said James, ”but will she be all right?”
”Once she gets home, probably,” replied Florida. ”Leo ought to look at her. I never saw anybody get so sick so fast.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Sister's teeth went clack-clack and she said, ”All right, then, I'll say it.”
”Say what?” asked James weakly.
”What are we gone do? Are we gone go back to Perdido and sit around for five more years before we ever get out of town again?”
”Mary-Love looks so bad!” said James.
”Florida and I will take care of Mama,” said Oscar. ”The rest of y'all ought to get on that train. We got to think of the children. They'll be so disappointed if y'all turned around now.”
”I know,” sighed James. ”But it just doesn't seem right to leave like this.”
”Probably she would want you all to go on and have a good time,” suggested Florida. ”I don't think she would want to ruin everything for everybody.”
Sister laughed. ”Florida, don't you know Mama better than that? Nothing would make her well sooner than to know that we had canceled the entire trip because of her.”
”Sister!” cried James.
”Well, I'm sorry, but that's the truth,” said Sister, ”but we have been planning this for months, and it's 127.
the first real chance I've had to go anywhere or do anything since I got married. I don't intend to give it all up just because Mama comes down with a summer cold.”
”It looks worse than that,” Queenie said. ”But I agree with Sister, James. The children are excited- we're all excited. The tickets are paid for, the hotel reservations have all been made. And what would we say in Perdido, that all ten of us turned right around and came back when we weren't fifty miles out of town, just because Mary-Love came down with a little headache and temperature?”
”I suppose you're right,” said James.
”Of course they're right,” said Oscar energetically. ”We'll put Mama in the back seat of the Packard and have her home in bed before y'all get to Greenville. As soon as she's well, we'll pack her up and send her on to meet you.”
”Then it's settled,” said Sister quickly. This seemed the solution that would do the least damage to their original plans, and she wanted to make it firm before James, in his charity to Mary-Love, could change anyone's mind. ”Somebody should go speak to the children and tell them what's been decided.”
Mary-Love Caskey sat and moaned and sweated profusely on the hard wooden bench in the stifling Atmore station. She could not speak an articulate word. Beside her, Ivey Sapp mopped her brow, squeezed her hands, and whispered, ”Miss Mary-Love, Miss Mary-Love, what you been eating? What you been drinking? D'you get hold of something that wasn't good for you? You been drinking down some bad water?”
CHAPTER 39.
The Closet Door Opens
Elinor was sitting on her front porch when Bray drove up. As if she had known that Mary-Love lay feverish across the back seat of the car, she stood up and walked out to the street and peered in. ”Bray,” she said, ”I've got the front room all ready for her.”
”Miss El'nor,” said Bray, puzzled, ”did Mr. Oscar call you on the telephone to say we was coming?”
Elinor, appearing preoccupied, did not answer.
Oscar had driven up right behind Bray and had heard what his wife had said. ”Elinor,” he said, ”you sure you want this responsibility? I was thinking we maybe should put her in the hospital.”
”Did Ivey look at her?”
Bray nodded. ”Ivey say she ought to be at home in her own bed.”
”That's not the hospital,” Elinor pointed out. ”Zad-die and I will take perfectly good care of her.”
Bray lifted Mary-Love out of the car and quickly carried her into Elinor's house, up the stairs and 129.
down the corridor, placing her on the bed in the front room.
Elinor followed them in, calling Zaddie up.
”All of you go away, now,” said Elinor, closing the door of the room against them. ”Zaddie and I are going to change her clothes and give her a sponge bath. She'll be cooler and more comfortable then. Oscar, you better call Leo Benquith and get him over here.”
Everyone did as they were told. Dr. Benquith arrived to find Mary-Love looking very weak and very ill, propped up on the pillows in the front room. She appeared now, however, to have some awareness of where she was. She was so little her old self that she did not even object to being placed in the care of her daughter-in-law. Elinor and Zaddie stood at the foot of the bed as Leo Benquith examined her.
”It's a fever,” he said with a shrug. ”Just what everybody said it was. And, Elinor, you did exactly the right thing. Miz Caskey,” he said, addressing Mary-Love-rather loudly, as if deafness were also her infirmity, ”Elinor's gone take good care of you till you get well.”
Mary-Love's eyes closed and she sighed heavily.
That evening at supper, Oscar said to Elinor, ”You sure we shouldn't put Mama in the hospital?”
”You heard what Leo Benquith said,” replied Elinor. ”I know what to do-and Leo will drop by every afternoon. Miss Mary-Love would hate the hospital-all those strangers. And, Oscar, when they start calling from Chicago, you tell them she's doing just fine, but doesn't want to talk on the telephone. If they think she's still sick, they'll all pack up and head right back. Your Mama has this family trained.”
”Don't you think people should be here?”
”I do not. I think they'd only disturb her. I'm going to shoo away all her visitors until she can get well. By the time they all get back, your mama will be up 130.
and complaining how they all left her high and dry. She's never going to let them hear the end of it.”
Mary-Love was nursed by her daughter-in-law. Elinor sat with her in the front room all day long. All visitors were stopped at the door downstairs by an unbribable, unmovable Zaddie. Only Leo Ben-quith was allowed inside the house, and he came once a day, right after the noontime meal. He examined Mary-Love in Elinor's presence, went downstairs, and always accepted a gla.s.s of iced tea from Zaddie who was waiting for him with it. He sat out on the front porch and told Oscar what he thought.
What he thought was not very encouraging.
”Oscar,” said Leo, ”I don't know what's wrong with your mama. She has some sort of fever, and she cain't seem to get rid of it. She's gone have to lie real still up there for some time to come.”
”Maybe we should take her to Pensacola to Sacred Heart...” Oscar suggested tentatively.
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