Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (3 page)

The four children, three sandy-haired boys, each a year or so apart in age, and the youngest, a blond girl named Sally, had escaped the house soon after the fire had started. John, at ten the oldest boy, had followed his father back inside in a misguided attempt to fight the blaze and had suffered a touch of smoke inhalation for his troubles. Over and over he coughed up black phlegm, his eyes watering, his chest wheezing.

“Make sure he drinks plenty of water before you let him go running around too much,” Dr. Barlow instructed John’s mother. “He’s a strong boy. Give him a bit of time and he’ll be fine.”

“What about the rest of us?” his mother asked. “When are we gonna be all right?”

To both of her questions, Dr. Barlow had no answers.

While the struggle to save the Simmons home continued, Christina wandered over to where Sally stood beside the elm tree, her back turned to all of the commotion. Absently, the girl scuffed at the dirt. When she had been approached by Dr. Barlow, she’d allowed herself to be examined with as much indifference as her father, although she nodded and shook her head when spoken to. Christina had brought a cup of water from the well, wondering if the girl might be thirsty.

“Would you like something to drink, Sally?” she asked.

Sally again made no answer, but when she looked back over her shoulder Christina could see tiny tears running down the girl’s cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” Christina asked, alarmed. “Are you hurt?”

In answer, Sally turned to face her, shaking her head. In her hands, extended toward Christina, was a tattered doll. It looked to be much loved; it was hand-sewn, red yarn for hair, missing one button for an eye, with clothes that were ragged and worn. Christina knew that
this
was the one possession Sally had saved from the fire.

“No…nobody asked if Charlotte wa-wa-was hurt,” Sally sniffled.

“Your doll’s name is Charlotte?” Christina asked, kneeling in front of the girl and brushing a strand of loose hair from her teary eyes.

“Uh-huh.” Sally nodded.

“You sure picked a pretty name for her. Charlotte is my sister’s name.”

“Is…is my Charlotte burned?”

“Why don’t you let me take a look at her,” Christina said. Carefully, she took the doll out of the girl’s hands; for a second, Sally seemed reluctant to let her companion go, but she finally relented. Although stained with food, hardened with saliva, and probably never having gone through the wash, the doll showed no burn damage.

“She looks just fine, sweetheart.” Christina smiled.

“Are…are you sure?”

“Why don’t we put a bandage on her just to be safe?”

When Sally Simmons’s small face lit up brighter than the fire that was consuming her family’s home, Christina
knew
that this, caring for others in their time of need, was what she was truly meant to do.

F
ROM THE COUPE’S
passenger seat, Christina watched the smoldering remains of the Simmons home as they burned away to nothing. Firemen continued to pour buckets of water onto the black, skeletal scraps, though there was clearly little left to save. The smoke still rising from the collapsed structure had changed from an angry black to a dishwater gray, lazily drifting up into the sky.

Dr. Barlow continued to speak with Hugh and his wife. While the parents remained traumatized by what had happened, the Simmons children had reverted to the lives they had known before the fire, playing on the tree swing, chasing one another around the yard, their laughter filling the air. From time to time, Hugh reached for his breast pocket and the cigarettes the doctor had already confiscated; every time he did, his wife smacked his hand.

Thank heaven no one had been killed.

Sweat ran down Christina’s neck and soaked her clothes. The early summer sun, deepening an orange brighter than the fire’s embers, had begun swinging down to the west. Night was still several hours away. The day’s temperature only now was starting to cool, but Christina was exhausted, bone weary as much from travel as the stress of nursing. Nevertheless, she knew her job had been done well.

“Will they be all right?” she asked when Dr. Barlow slid behind the wheel, tossing his medical bag onto the backseat.

“About as well as can be expected, I imagine, given all that’s happened. What’ll eventually get them back on their feet is the realization that no one was killed. You can replace clothes and books, take new pictures and gather new mementos, but when life is gone, it stays that way forever.”

“All I can think about is how much they’ve lost,” Christina said, taking a long last look at the Simmons family. “What they once took for granted is all gone and will take years to replace. How will they care for their children? Where will they spend the night?”

“The church will provide for them as best they can. After that, it’ll be on Hugh and Violet.”

“I just wish we could do more.”

“One of the hardest truths I’ve ever had to learn is that sometimes folks’ lives get ruined, whether on account of their own selves or because of others,” he explained while he turned the car’s ignition key and the coupe’s engine rumbled to life. “As a doctor, all I can do is treat their wounds as best I can. Any injuries to their spiritual selves or minds are best left in other hands.”

“I still worry that it’s not enough.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he grumbled. “I didn’t say it sat well with me.”

Christina was pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Barlow’s driving better during the drive back into Longstock. Instead of his earlier reckless and terrifying madness, he now only
occasionally
drifted slightly over the centerline, and took curves at reasonable speeds.

The landscape that had been a blur a few hours earlier now readily revealed itself to Christina’s eyes. Purple and white bellflowers flourished in the setting sunlight, billowing into the underbrush at the edge of the tall trees. A sudden, large break in the tree line revealed a broad river of fast, blue water rushing over smooth rocks. Just off the gravel road, two young deer raised their heads from where they had been eating berries to watch the coupe as it passed. It was all so similar to Minnesota that it was easy to imagine she was home.

“So I reckon this is the moment you tell me the reason why,” Dr. Barlow said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Why…why what?” Christina asked, concerned that she had made some unknown mistake back at the Simmons home.

“Why you came to Longstock,” he explained.

“Oh, well,” Christina began, relieved, “there was a nurse back in Michigan who—”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I’m talking about. I already know those particulars,” he cut her off. “I may be getting on up there in years, but I’m not so far gone I can’t recall letters and conversations from a few months back. What I’m asking is why you chose to become a nurse.”

“Because it seemed natural for me to help people who needed it,” she answered truthfully.

“There are lots of ways to do that.” Dr. Barlow shrugged. “Like becoming a teacher or working through a church. That’s providing for those in need. There are some folks who’d argue that standing behind the counter of a diner is the same, if those they’re serving are hungry enough. So how is being a nurse better?”

“I’m not saying that it’s better,” Christina explained, “just different. When people are sick, injured, or suffering a pain they cannot bear, that’s when they need someone who is trained to care for them. Being a nurse is the greatest career I could ever ask for.” Catching herself, she added, “I suppose that sounds selfish.”

“Not to these ears,” he answered with a snort. “But if what satisfies you most is caring for those in need, medically speaking, why did you leave the Army? The way wars are always coming and going, there never will be a shortage of soldiers requiring care.”

“That’s why I left. Seeing all that carnage became too much to bear. Spending every day, without end, caring for men whose lives I know would never be the same became a constant that I couldn’t ever completely let go. It was overwhelming and somehow futile. I know what I was doing was important, that I was serving my country, but…,” she faltered, remembering the difficult choice she had made to leave the Army Nurse Corps and return to chasing the dream of a life she had temporarily left behind. “But when I knew that I could no longer stay, it didn’t mean that I wanted to stop being a nurse, only that I needed to do it somewhere else. Explaining it like this, I still wonder if I…”

“Made the right choice?” Dr. Barlow finished.

Christina nodded.

“You did. If there’s anyone who knows, it’s me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I understand your troubles because of the fact that, a long time ago, I was just where you are now,” he explained. “There was a time when I had to make the same choice you did.”

“You were in the Army?”

He nodded. “When I first got out of medical school, way back in ’17, it was about the time the United States finally decided to get involved in the Great War. Everyone was so happy about it, all the parades and such, well, I got wrapped up along with the rest, and before I knew it I was on a steamer headed for France. I spent the next year up to my elbows in wrecked bodies and blood. I saw more devastation in that year than I reckon the Good Lord would’ve wanted me to see in my lifetime. I never could’ve imagined it. Still, like you, I knew I provided comfort and care, best I could. But when the time came to walk away, for me it wasn’t much of a choice to make.”

“You served in France?”

“Somme River valley…some of the worst fighting of the lot.”

“My father fought there,” Christina said grimly. “He was badly burned by a shell that exploded close to him and had to spend months in a hospital. He bears the scars to this day. Who knows…you might have cared for him.”

“I just might’ve. Seems like thousands of faces lay there beneath me on blood-soaked beds and tables. For a long while, after I’d come back home to Longstock, whenever I’d close my eyes to sleep, some of those boys would visit me. Chased me toward the bottle more than once, but it got easier to bear, day by day, till they were finally gone, back in the past where they belong and are resting in their graves.”

“I’ll never know how my father was able to go on.” In Christina’s view, Mason Tucker had succeeded in leaving his past behind to build a new, better life in the war’s aftermath; she could only hope that every wounded soldier could do the same, though she knew it was wishful thinking.

“Seems like the battlefields of France have a way of ruining men, not just in my and your father’s war, but in this last one, too,” Dr. Barlow said. “The same thing happened to me—,” he began, but stopped, suddenly.

“What did you say?”

The doctor’s jaw flexed, his eyes blinking behind his glasses, before he answered, “Nothing…nothing at all. Now let’s see about introducing you to your new home.”

Longstock was visible to Christina from far to the north of the town; as the coupe sped down a decline, the thick canopy of elm trees parted and the valley below revealed itself. Houses were clustered around a curve in the Carville River, spreading outward for a bit until only a building or two dotted the few fields that led up to the woods. It looked quiet and quaint; except for the faint tendrils of wood smoke that rose from the occasional roof, it looked to Christina as if the town were sleeping.

“It’s somethin’ to look at from here, isn’t it?” Dr. Barlow remarked.

“It certainly is.”

“Just wait till you see it up close. It’s not much in size, but it was the right place for me to put down my surgical bag and hang out a sign.”

“I liked what I saw from the station.” She smiled.

“The way we had to hurry out of town, you couldn’t have seen much. Let’s go down and give you a proper introduction.”

As quickly as Longstock had appeared, it vanished, swallowed up by the woods. Having talked up the town, Dr. Barlow eased up on the accelerator, dropping the car to a lower speed. Winding steadily back and forth, the road dropped gradually before finally settling to run along the Carville River’s banks.

As they approached town, Christina took a closer look at the fields outside of Longstock. Row after row of trees, all equally spaced from one another, dotted the land. Regimented like soldiers, they marched across flat ground, descended into shallow depressions, and rose up small hills. Some were large, with thick trunks, while others were little more than saplings, their small size supported by boards driven into the ground and tied straight with string. From each of the trees’ branches hung apples, thousands of the fruit, meager for such an early time of season, their skins a soft shade of red.

“Look at all the trees!” she exclaimed.

“Tending to orchards is how most people in this area make a living,” Dr. Barlow explained. “The land’s too hilly and the soil too rocky to persuade another crop to sprout, and it’s been more than twenty years since the last sawmill closed up and moved to more profitable grounds. Because of all that and the desire to make ends meet, the first apple tree was planted. Back then, no one knew they’d be so darn delicious. Just wait until you taste one. Come harvesttime, with practically everyone in town working in the orchards, there’ll be more cider and apple pies than you could shake a stick at.”

Between the rows of trees, Christina saw men walking back and forth, staring up into the trees’ branches, pointing, and taking notes. Others pruned back wayward branches using long-bladed saws attached to long poles, while their companions picked up the refuse and tossed it in the back of a large truck. The whole operation seemed well practiced.

“Longstock is more than it looks at first glance,” Dr. Barlow remarked. “Give it time and this town might become a place you won’t ever want to leave; that’s how it was with me.”

“This was where you grew up?” Christina asked.

“All my life, until I went off to medical school.” He smiled. “Before the war, I spent all of my time dreaming about getting away, about going to a big city full of skyscrapers and people packed together shoulder-to-shoulder. But after the fighting ended, after seeing nothing but death and destruction, the only thing I wanted was to get back to what I knew, back to a way of life that was simple and innocent, even if I no longer was.”

“And you haven’t regretted your decision?”

“Not a day, well, maybe once or twice over the years.” Dr. Barlow chuckled. “But there’s life and culture here, the sort you might not expect. Even in a town small as Longstock, people know about theater, music, politics, and there’s even a passing knowledge of the game of baseball, though no one has a better grasp than myself, that’s for certain.”

“I’ve never liked it much myself.” Christina frowned.

“And I guarantee you are a lesser person for it. Wait until I tell you about the time I got to meet Babe Ruth!”

Longstock’s main street was nearly identical to the one on which Christina had grown up: dusty, dented cars and trucks parked outside of storefronts; a pair of older men sitting in front of the barbershop waiting their turn in the chair, gossiping beside the signature red, white, and blue pole. The small theater’s marquee advertised a new film starring John Wayne; a woman hurried from the grocer’s, a sack of items balanced precariously in her arms as she tried to corral the two young boys who darted back and forth just out of reach.

Even now, almost a year after the war’s end, American flags flew proudly from in front of nearly every door, crisp in the breeze, while bunting colored windowsills. A banner welcoming the return of Longstock’s soldiers still flapped, hung across the street between two buildings.

Cheerful, friendly voices called back and forth, hailing neighbors. Dr. Barlow joined in the greeting, acknowledging people he met with a wave, a nod, and a good word.

“People here in Longstock are mostly the same as a doctor would find anywhere else,” he explained. “Babies are born and old people die. They catch cold when winter arrives and break out in hives come spring. There are drunken brawls and accidents, fires and frostbite, drownings and car crashes, and there’ve even been a couple of murders in the twenty-five years I’ve been doctoring here. I’ve seen them at their worst and their best, changing from one day to the next, it seems, but all in all, it’s home.”

The doctor pulled the coupe into an empty space in front of the bakery. As she stepped from the car, Christina breathed in the sweet, savory aroma of fresh bread, cookies, and cakes that rolled out of the open front door; it made her stomach grumble loudly.

Wrestling her trunk free from the coupe’s rear, they each grabbed a handle, and Dr. Barlow led the way up a flight of steps attached to the side of the bakery building. At the top, a landing led to the rooms Christina would be renting. Stopping to wipe the sweat from his brow, the doctor pointed to a building visible farther up Main Street and immediately around the nearest corner.