The story she told sounded good enough, Akers decided, but when it got out in Jericho that Ben had arrived home from his trip to Boston in the company of a pretty woman and a boy carrying his name, there would still be talk. People would make something of it, more than it deserved.
Still, it couldn’t be helped, he reasoned. He would be careful to set the story straight when the talk reached him. He would say he was there to help Ben from the train, and that a preacher was there, and that he was the first to talk to the woman, and he believed her. Besides, the boy she held looked frail, and probably did need to see the doctor. Ben did. No doubt about it.
“All right,” he said at last. “I got my motorcar here. Let’s get everybody up to Ben’s house and call for the doctor.”
“I don’t want to be trouble,” Lottie said.
“Trouble’s something that nobody can handle,” Akers said. “We can handle this. And I know the boy’s mama. She’ll probably adopt you and your boy before the day’s over.”
SIXTEEN
LOTTIE SAT ERECT in the chair at the dining-room table, her hands in her lap, her chin level, her gaze given to the three people also at the table. She heard their words, but their words were hollow. She concentrated only on breathing—inhale, hold, exhale, pause. Inhale, hold, exhale, pause. It was a trick her sister had taught her. “Don’t think about nothing but breathing,” her sister had said. “Sooner or later, whatever’s going on, it’ll be over, and if you still breathing, you know you still alive, and that’s the only thing that matters.”
It had been a good trick to follow, and Lottie had used it thousands of times, it seemed. Enduring the rooting passion of men pressing against her, their wadded money on a nearby table or cot. Loneliness in a Kentucky cabin on a Kentucky mountain during a Kentucky winter. Caring for Foster and Little Ben. Waking from night dreams of her mother and her father and her sister. She thought of her breathing, counted the evenness of the inhales and exhales, imagined the air being the size of a half-cup, and the breathing calmed her.
She looked only onto the eyes of the people speaking, yet she wanted to let her gaze wander over the room. The room was large and comfortable, and like the rest of the house, furnished with imposing furniture darkly polished, furniture made for men of breeding and substance. Still, it was the touch of Margaret Phelps that gave the house its warmth. Paintings decorated the walls, ornately framed. Embroidered pillows leaned against chairbacks. Delicate, slender flower vases with threads of color stood on tables beside settings of teacups as thin as paper, the handles and rims fired in gold. Everywhere there was something, almost hidden, that announced Margaret Phelps. Glassware of crystal. Porcelain candlesticks holding candles with wax bubbled over the sides, like drippings of frosting on a cake. Lace handkerchiefs. Photographs in silver stands.
Her memory of Ben’s home was more pleasant than any memory she had, she believed, and only her breathing prevented Lottie from bolting from the chair to touch all that her eyes had seen.
The doctor, who had been introduced as Oscar Morgan, was speaking: “As I said, I’m only guessing, but I’m going to start off treating them for rheumatic fever. Ben’s worse off than the boy, no doubt about it, but it’s hard to tell with little ones sometimes, and to be truthful, they may not have the same problem at all. I’m guessing rheumatic fever with Ben because he had that bad throat two or three weeks ago, but that’s just a guess. I’ll know more about that later. Main thing is to give them lots to drink—water, preferably. I’ve left some sulfur tablets in Ben’s room. Just follow the directions. Now, can I answer any questions?”
“How long until they get better?” asked Margaret Phelps.
“Depends on what it is,” the doctor said. “Honestly, Margaret, I don’t know. We’ll just have to keep watch over them.” He looked at Lottie, then took his eyes from her gaze. Her eyes were mesmerizing. “I know you want to get home, but I’d rather you stay in Jericho for a few days to give the boy time to get back some strength, since he’s such a little tyke. There’s a boardinghouse not far from here, and I—”
“I’ll not hear of it,” Margaret said firmly. “They’ll stay with us, as our guests. We’ve got plenty of room and I could never pay Lottie back for taking care of my son the way she did.”
Lottie saw a cloud sweep over Sally Ledford’s face. “I don’t want to trouble anybody,” she said quietly.
“It’s no trouble,” Margaret insisted. She turned to Sally. “Sally and I both want to thank you, don’t we, Sally?”
A bright smile popped onto Sally’s face. “Of course,” she said. “Ben said he didn’t know what would have happened to him if it wasn’t for you.” The smile dimmed.
“Thank you,” Lottie said in a voice almost too soft to hear. She twisted her hands in her lap.
“Where did you say you came from?” asked Oscar Morgan.
“Kentucky,” Lottie told him. “A little town called Beimer.”
“You know of anybody being sick up there before you left? Like Ben and your son, I mean.”
“No sir. But we lived up in the hills. That’s where my husband died.”
“Did he have this sickness?”
Lottie did not move her eyes from the doctor. “No sir. Not like—like Mr. Phelps.”
“Call him Ben, please,” Margaret said. “He told me that he called your son Little Ben.”
Lottie nodded slightly. “Yes ma’am. That’s what he—what Ben—said to do, so as to keep the names straight.”
Margaret smiled at the strange speech pattern. The girl was from the country, yes, but there was also something refined about her. Something in her face, her eyes. She was poorly dressed, but unusually pretty, the kind of woman who caught the attention of men by no greater effort than a look. She wondered if Ben had seen the look, and if that was why he had helped her with her son. No, she thought. Ben would not turn from Sally, not for a woman on a train. Ben had merely offered to help someone who needed help. He was that way. Like his father.
“So, your husband wasn’t sick like Ben?” the doctor said.
“No sir. He’d been sick a long time. He just kind of wasted away.”
The doctor frowned and rubbed his chin with his fingers. “Well,” he said after a moment, “whatever it is, it could be catching, but I don’t see how Ben could have come down with rheumatic fever if he’d just been around your boy for a short time. Those kind of things usually take days. More I think about it, the more I’m starting to doubt if they’ve got the same ailment.”
Lottie did not reply. Her eyes stayed on the doctor.
Oscar Morgan pushed himself wearily from his chair. He smiled at the three women watching him. “One thing about it, I won’t have to worry about him being looked after—him or the boy, either one. I’d say I’m standing in the middle of enough looking-after power to run a hospital.” He dipped his head in a bow toward Margaret and Sally. “Margaret, Sally, it’s nice to see you.” He turned to Lottie. “Mrs. Lanier, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. You’ve got a fine-looking boy.”
Lottie smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “He favors his daddy.”
Margaret stood. “We’ll take good care of them, Oscar,” she promised. “I feel better now that you’ve seen them.”
“Me, too,” Sally said quickly.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Margaret said.
“It’s all right,” the doctor told her, but Margaret was already leaving the room. He shrugged, nodded again to Sally and Lottie, and followed.
Lottie could feel her body tense. Her palms were perspiring in her lap. She was alone with Sally Ledford, and she did not know what to say, or do. It was a moment she had known would happen, yet one she dreaded. Sally Ledford was young and pretty and childlike, her body only beginning to take a woman’s shape. Yet she behaved in a woman’s way. A town woman’s way. Mannerly. Well-dressed. Well-spoken. She was a woman by mimicry, not by instinct or practice.
Still, Sally Ledford made her
more uncomfortable than anyone she had ever met.
EARLIER, SHORTLY AFTER sunrise, she had overheard Ben’s mother on the telephone, talking quietly to Sally, telling Sally of Ben’s return and of his illness: “There’s a young woman here, with her little boy. He’s sick, too. Ben met them on the train and was helping her with him when he got sick himself…. A very nice young lady. Her husband died a few days ago in Kentucky, and she was going back to live with her people in Augusta…. I just wanted you to know, just so you wouldn’t be surprised.”
Sally had arrived at the Phelps home an hour later, anxious and confused.
“Sally, this is Lottie Lanier,” Margaret had said graciously. “And Lottie, this is Sally Ledford, Ben’s—special lady.”
She had felt Sally’s eyes explore her, saw shock in them. Sally had stammered a greeting, then had turned to Ben’s mother. “May I see him?” she had asked in a small, frightened voice.
“Of course,” Margaret had answered. “I’ll go with you.”
And they had rushed away, leaving Lottie alone.
SALLY FLICKED A smile at Lottie. She moved nervously in her chair and played her hands on the table. Her hands were small, the nails of her fingers manicured perfectly. “It’s funny about Ben and your little boy having the same name,” she said.
“Mr. Phelps thought so, too,” Lottie said.
“No, call him Ben,” urged Sally. “Like Mrs. Phelps said.”
Lottie dipped her head and let her gaze float to an arrangement of flowers in the middle of the table. Sometimes she had picked wildflowers and put them in a glass in her cabin in Kentucky. She liked flowers in a home. Daisies. Daisies were her favorite. And roses. She liked roses. She thought of rose petals popped against her forehead.
“Ben was in Boston,” Sally said. “Did he tell you?”
Lottie thought of breathing. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Pause. “Yes,” she said at last.
“I can’t wait for him to get well enough to tell me all about it,” Sally said enthusiastically. “I’d love to see a place like Boston. Wouldn’t you?”
Lottie remembered the cities she had seen with the carnival—Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville, Lexington, Louisville, Birmingham, Memphis. So many cities. Not Boston. Still, cities. She said, “I guess so. But it’s a long way off.”
“Someday, I’m going to make Ben take me,” Sally cooed. She sounded giddy.
“That’d be nice,” Lottie said.
“Well, he really hasn’t asked me to marry him yet, but he’s going to. He’s as much as said so, but I know I shouldn’t be making plans before there’s a real reason to. I guess I just can’t help it. But you know what I mean, don’t you? You were married. I’m sure you felt the same way I do.”
A flash-memory of Foster’s face, his half-grin, made Lottie blink. She had never thought of making plans with Foster. Things happened, and that was all. Things happened. “It’s been so long ago since I got married, I can’t hardly remember what it was like,” she said simply.
Sally leaned forward at the table, made an instinctive gesture toward Lottie, then withdrew her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently. “I’m being rude, talking about getting married when you’ve just lost your husband.”
Lottie tilted her head to accept the apology.
“How long were you married?” asked Sally.
“Five years. Almost six,” answered Lottie.
“Where did you meet him?”
Lottie was surprised at the wiggle of a smile she felt on her lips. She said, “On a train.”
“Oh—”
“I was going to Knoxville with—my uncle,” Lottie said. “He knew Foster.”
“Foster? That was your husband’s name?”
“Yes,” Lottie said.
Sally smiled awkwardly, then slipped from her chair and stood. “I know Daddy must wonder why I’m staying so late, when there’s so much to do down at the store,” she chattered. “I think we’ve both learned a big lesson about how much work Ben does, but that’s the way it is, I suppose. You never know how much you miss somebody—or need them—until they’re gone. Anyway, Daddy must be wondering. I told him I’d be there as soon as I could.” She paused, glanced toward the front of the house, wondered why Margaret Phelps was so long in returning. “I think I’ll just run up and check on Ben before I go.”
Lottie moved her hands to the table, made a gesture to stand.
“Oh, no, don’t get up,” Sally urged. “I know you must be worn out. You need to get some sleep. I’m sure I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“All right,” Lottie said.
“I’m glad to meet you,” Sally told her. “And I do thank you for taking care of Ben.”
“Least I could do,” Lottie said. “He took care of my Ben.”
WHEN SHE AWOKE, late in the afternoon, Lottie knew instantly that Little Ben was not in bed with her. The door to the bedroom was closed, yet the room was pleasantly cool. She turned her face to the window and saw that it was open. A breeze fluttered against the net of a curtain that had been slightly parted. She sat up in the bed, then slumped back against the pillow. She had never slept so peacefully, she thought. The bed mattress was cushion-soft, the pillow as puffed as a cloud.
She did not worry about Little Ben. She knew that he was with Margaret Phelps and that he must have trusted her intuitively. Or maybe he thought that Margaret Phelps was his grandmother. She had talked to him about going away to meet his grandmother and his grandfather, and had tried to teach him to say Grandma and Grandpa, but he had chopped the words in his hearing and had repeated, “Gra-Ma” and “Gra-Pa.”
She did not know if Little Ben’s grandmother and grandfather still lived.
Home was still a place she had not seen in many years.
She arose from the bed and bathed her face in the water basin on the dresser, and then she dressed and stood at the mirror, gazing at herself. The dress she wore was the best she owned, and it was old and faded. She had the money left that she had put away years earlier, money she did not want to spend, but now she would use it to buy a new dress. Two would be better. And some clothes for Little Ben. Her train ticket to Augusta had been purchased by Ben. She had objected, but he had insisted.
“It’s my promise,” Ben had said. “I owe it to Foster to keep it, and this is part of it. Besides that, it’s what I want to do.”
He had sounded as proud as some of the boys she had known at the carnival stops before her marriage to Foster—boys with their first woman, boys who fell in love with her and moaned their pledges to show up again and take her away from the carnival and marry her and share their riches. But the boys never returned, and the trains pulling the carnival cars always left with her aboard.
She turned from the mirror, made the bed, and then eased from the room, closing the door behind her. Across the hallway was Ben’s room. She moved cautiously to the door, paused to listen. No voices. She tapped lightly at the door. Still no voices. She looked toward the staircase, heard Margaret’s laughter from downstairs, and then she slowly turned the knob and slightly opened the door. Ben was in bed, his head elevated on a pillow, his eyes closed. She stepped inside the room and crossed quietly to the bed and stood gazing at him. He looked as young as the first time she saw him. She leaned to him, kissed him gently on the cheek, and then left the room.
Little Ben was sitting at the dining-room table, tiny in the largeness of the chair, and Margaret Phelps was in a chair pulled up close to him. A plate of food was on the table and a glass of milk. Little Ben was smiling shyly, and Margaret was beaming.
“You’re awake,” Margaret said brightly as Lottie entered the room. “I hope you rested well.”
“Yes ma’am,” Lottie said. She smiled at Little Ben. He grinned and tucked his head.
“Well, I stole this young fellow right off the bed,” Margaret said. “I peeked in to check on you and he was sitting up beside you, looking around.”
Lottie moved to Little Ben and knelt beside hi
m and touched his face with her hand. She could not feel fever. “I hope he’s been behaving,” she said.
“Oh, my goodness, he’s the sweetest child I think I’ve ever seen, and that includes my own,” Margaret enthused. “But he’s not much of a talker, is he?”
“No. Not much,” Lottie replied.
“He’s feeling better, I think,” Margaret said. “I’ve managed to get a little food in him.” She glanced up at Lottie. “And you’ve got to get some food in you, so help yourself. It’s all in the kitchen. Some chicken and beans and creamed potatoes and biscuits in the warmer oven. And, oh, you’ll need tea. You’ll find the glasses in the cabinet over the sink, and there’s ice in the icebox, already chipped, and the tea’s on the counter.”
Margaret Phelps continued to talk as Lottie got the food and tea and returned to the table and sat across from Little Ben. Margaret’s voice was song-happy, a sound of chirping, like a bird in spring, glad for sun and greenery. She talked of how many people had called concerning Ben, of how Ben seemed to have improved with rest, of fussing with him over taking water and soup broth.
She told Lottie that Ben had asked about her and about Little Ben, and was relieved to know they were still there, and the asking had made her proud. Ben was like his father, she declared. Always caring about other people. It was the strength of his character. Everyone said so, and nothing could please a mother more than having people say that her child was a caring person.
“And you’re the same way,” Margaret crooned. “You have to be, the way you put aside your own plans, so soon after your husband’s death, and helped Ben when he needed help.”
“He was the one helping us,” Lottie said.
“Maybe so, but you were there when he needed somebody, and I can tell you, not everybody’s that way,” Margaret said. “Not today. The world’s changing, and I don’t know if it’s for the better.” She sighed, urged Little Ben to take another bite of creamed potatoes, then added, “But none of us should complain, not really. Ben’s always telling me that, always telling me we’re in the twentieth century. Of course, I remember how it was growing up, right after the war. I was born the year that it ended and was just a baby, but I still remember how hard it was for everybody. I wouldn’t want to go back to those days for anything. Not at all. Not at all. I’m the most grateful person on earth for all the things we’ve got now—electricity, running water, the indoor bathroom, the telephone, my electric iron.” She laughed easily. “Even motorcars, although I’m scared to death of them.” She paused again, reached to smooth back Little Ben’s hair. “It just sometimes seems that the more you have of things, the more you lose yourself.”