Hidden Places (5 page)

‘‘I needed—’’

‘‘If you couldn’t manage the stairs, you could have found what you needed under the bed.’’

‘‘I have no right to ask that of you, ma’am. I’m a stranger to you. I don’t have a dime to my name and no way to repay you for what you’ve already done.’’ His voice was soft, his face very pale. His teeth chattered in spite of the heavy wool coat he wore. He looked so pitiful I quickly swallowed all the harsh words I wanted to shout at him.

‘‘You need to get back inside. Put your arm around my neck and I’ll help you.’’

‘‘Thanks. I’m feeling...a little...dizzy.’’ He closed his eyes and slowly slid toward the ground, leaning against the doorframe. ‘‘I’m...sorry...’’ he mumbled.

‘‘Stay put. I’ll get the boys to fetch the sled.’’

It seemed to take forever to load him onto the sled again and haul him the short distance to the house; longer still to wrestle him up the porch steps, through the kitchen, and back into bed. All the while, my anger kept swelling inside me like yeast in a batch of dough. I didn’t know why, exactly. I wasn’t angry at Gabriel Harper—he hadn’t done any harm to me or my kids, only to himself. Why, then, did I feel like throwing things or breaking something? I would have worked out my rage on the woodpile if Mr. Harper hadn’t chopped so much wood already.

Instead, I fixed fried potatoes and scrambled eggs for breakfast, then bundled the kids up once they had eaten and sent them outside to play in the snow, since the storm had finally stopped. I wanted to tend to the stranger’s leg by myself. While I waited for the water to get hot for a fresh compress, I did something I hadn’t done since my husband died—I prayed. Except you couldn’t really call it a prayer, I don’t think, since most of it was just me yelling at God inside my head.

I had asked for an angel, I told Him, and instead He sent me a dying man! Couldn’t He see how upset my kids were by all this dying? It was bad enough that God had taken my husband from me—although I admit I probably deserved to be punished for all the lying I’d done. But what on earth had Jimmy and Luke and Becky Jean ever done to deserve losing their daddy? Or their grandfather? Didn’t God care that Jimmy had to do a man’s share of the work now, or that little Luke barely said two words anymore, or that Becky didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive? Maybe I deserved to be punished, but my three children sure didn’t. This farm was their home, and how in heaven’s name did God expect me to keep it running until they were old enough to run it themselves if He didn’t send me any help?

‘‘And speaking of help,’’ I told God, muttering the words out loud, ‘‘you’d better make up your mind to help that poor, raggedy man laid up in that bedroom because I won’t have him dying on us! I won’t stand for it, I tell you! I’m all through begging and pleading for things because you don’t seem to hear me when I ask nice. You’ve got to make him better, you hear? And if he’s your idea of an angel, then you’d better send somebody else, mighty quick!’’

I’d been making quite a racket, slamming pots and kettles around as I fixed the poultice and cooked some porridge. And I must have still had an angry look on my face when I carried it all into the stranger’s room because he was wide awake and gaping at me as if he was afraid I was going to start throwing things at him.

‘‘I’m so sorry for troubling you, ma’am,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m not vexed with you,’’ I replied, trying to smooth the frown off my face. ‘‘But you’ve got to do your level best to get better, you hear me? That means no more running around outside. Now, I’ve brought you some food and you’re going to eat it whether you want it or not, because you can’t get better unless you eat. Then I’m going to dab some iodine on that cut of yours and it’s going to hurt like the dickens, but you’re going to grit your teeth and take it because it’s the only way that cut will ever heal, understand?’’

He smiled faintly. ‘‘Yes, ma’am.’’

‘‘Don’t call me that. You make me feel like a schoolmarm.’’ I felt a smile tugging at my mouth, too. ‘‘Now, do you think you can eat this porridge by yourself or shall I feed you?’’

‘‘Let me try.’’ He reached to take the spoon from me, and his hand felt hot as it brushed against mine. Drops of sweat glistened on his forehead as he struggled to sit up in bed. When he was ready, I laid the tray with the porridge bowl on his lap and turned my attention to doctoring his leg. From the corner of my eye I could see oatmeal dripping as he tried to feed himself with shaking hands, but I knew enough about men and their stubborn pride to leave him alone.

‘‘Ready for the iodine?’’ I asked when he’d spooned the last of the porridge down. He nodded and reached behind his head to grip the brass headboard. I tipped the bottle and, as quickly as I could, poured a thin stream of it down the length of the wound. His body went stiff as he stifled a moan.

‘‘You can yell if you want to, mister.’’

‘‘It’s Gabe,’’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘‘My name is Gabe.’’

‘‘Well, no one will hear you, Gabe. My kids are outside playing in the snow, and my closest neighbor is Aunt Batty, who lives way down by the pond. I’m going to put on a fresh compress now, then I promise I’ll leave you alone.’’

I tried to be gentle, but I could tell by the funny way he was breathing that his leg pained him a lot. Maybe talking would help take his mind off it.

‘‘Care to tell me how you did this?’’ I asked.

He drew a ragged breath. ‘‘I was running to catch a slowmoving flatcar. I’ve done it a hundred times before, but the railroad guards were after me and I didn’t want to end up in jail for vagrancy. I ripped my leg open on a jagged piece of the undercarriage as I jumped. It was dark and I didn’t see it sticking out.’’

‘‘How long ago did it happen?’’

‘‘I don’t know...how long have I been here?’’

‘‘You spent a night in my barn and a night in this bed.’’

He exhaled. ‘‘It must have been two or three days before that...I’m not sure. I lose all track of time being on the road without a calendar or a clock.’’

He had a smooth, deep voice that rumbled like the low notes on a church organ. Yet his words seemed to settle in the room as softly as snowflakes falling. I glanced at him, longing to ask why someone who spoke as fine as he did and who could make words come alive when he wrote them down on paper had to ride the rails like a worthless tramp. He was still gripping the headboard, his eyes closed. I quickly finished wrapping his leg.

‘‘There. All done.’’

When he opened his eyes I handed him a towel so he could wipe off the sweat that ran down his face. He looked as white as flour.

‘‘Need anything else?’’ I asked as I gathered up my things.

‘‘Yes...Ineed to thank you, Mrs. Wyatt.’’

‘‘Well, then, you can thank me by getting better.’’

I was almost through the door when the thought struck me. For the life of me, I couldn’t recall telling him my married name. I slowly turned to face him. ‘‘How did you know my last name?’’

His gaze shifted away and for a split second he wore the same look Jimmy gets when I catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. Then the moment passed and he smiled weakly. ‘‘I read the sign outside and I just assumed...’’

‘‘Oh. Of course.’’

I knew the sign he meant. A long time ago, in better, happier days, my father-in-law had painted on the side of the barn:
Wyatt Orchards—Frank Wyatt & Sons, Proprietors
. I shuddered to think that Frank Wyatt and his sons were all gone.

‘‘It is Mrs. Wyatt...Isn’t it?’’ he asked shyly.

‘‘Yes, but you can call me Eliza.’’

I had just put away the iodine and things, when all of a sudden my three kids came thundering through the back door with their boots on, scattering clumps of snow everywhere.

‘‘Mama! Mama! Come quick! You gotta come!’’ They all tugged on my skirt and jabbered at me at the same time.

‘‘Stop it! You’re getting my floor all wet! Look at this mess!’’ I tried to herd them back out onto the porch, but they weren’t listening to me. From the way they carried on, I began to think something terrible must have happened. ‘‘Slow down, one at a time. Let Jimmy tell me what’s wrong.’’

He was breathless from running. ‘‘We were sliding down the hill behind Aunt Batty’s house when she came outside and asked us to help her shovel snow. She said she would pay us and everything. So we followed her over to her house and she kept calling me Matthew even though I told her my name was Jimmy—’’

‘‘Is she a witch?’’ Becky asked suddenly.

‘‘No, of course not,’’ I said. ‘‘Who told you that?’’

She looked up at Jimmy.

‘‘It was a joke,’’ he said, giving Becky a shove. ‘‘Anyway, I thought she wanted us to shovel a path to her outhouse or something, but she said no, we had to shovel out the snow that was
inside
her house.’’

I remembered how my father-in-law used to insist that Aunt Batty was crazy, warning us to stay away from her, and I groped for a way to explain her to my kids. ‘‘Listen, you need to understand that Aunt Batty is—’’

‘‘But, Mama, she was right! The snow
is
inside her house!’’

‘‘
Inside!
How on earth did it get there?’’

‘‘I don’t know, but you gotta come. There’s way too much for me and Luke and Becky to shovel out by ourselves.’’

As I pulled on my coat and an old pair of Sam’s boots, I decided that maybe Aunt Batty’s door had blown open during the storm and the snow had drifted inside. But as soon as I reached the top of the rise behind her house I saw that it wasn’t the case at all. The entire roof of her kitchen had fallen in from the weight of the snow like the top of an undercooked cake. The kitchen looked like it had been added some years after the original stone cottage was built, and its roof was not as steeply pitched—or as well-made.

We walked around to the front door and Aunt Batty let us in. I had never been inside her cottage in all the years I’d lived up in the big farmhouse, and I stood in her front parlor and stared. It was neat and cozy, with the ruffled curtains and crocheted afghans you’d expect in an old spinster’s house. But every inch of wall space in the entire cottage was lined with shelves—and every inch of shelf space was crammed with books. It looked to me like Aunt Batty owned more books than the Deer Springs Library. I even saw a long row of thin yellow spines on a bottom shelf that had to be National Geographic magazines. A rocking chair stood beside the coal stove along with a big console radio with a plant perched on top.

What looked to have once been the dining area now held an enormous wooden desk, the kind you’d see in a fancy bank or a lawyer’s office. It even had one of those swivel chairs beside it with a black leather seat. The typewriter sitting on top of the desk was much bigger and fancier than the one in Mr. Harper’s burlap sack.

The house was freezing inside, and tiny little Aunt Batty looked as though she had on every sweater and coat she owned. ‘‘Did you bring the matches, Toots?’’ she asked.

I frowned. ‘‘Matches...?’’

‘‘Yes, I asked young Matthew there to bring me some. I keep mine in the kitchen and I won’t be able to get to them until we finish the shoveling. My fire went out, you see, and Winky and the girls don’t like it when the house gets this cold.’’

I figured Winky must be the disagreeable little dog that had been yapping and snarling at us ever since we arrived, scaring poor Becky half to death and making her cling to my leg like a monkey. But I didn’t see any ‘‘girls.’’ From where I stood, though, I could see into the demolished kitchen and I realized right away that there was no way Aunt Batty could close off that part of the house and keep the heat in the parlor and bedroom. And she certainly wouldn’t be able to fix any meals in that kitchen. The plain truth was that her house was uninhabitable.

I knew what had I had to do, and it made me feel as though the roof had just caved in on me. I drew a deep breath and rested my hand on her arm, speaking as slowly and carefully as I could. ‘‘Aunt Batty, shoveling out all that snow isn’t going to help. Neither are matches. You still won’t be able to stay warm or cook your food. Your kitchen roof has caved in. Do you understand that? You can’t live in this house until the roof gets fixed.’’

‘‘The roof? Oh my! I don’t believe I own a ladder that’ll reach to the roof! I’ll have to borrow one—’’

‘‘No, listen. You’ll have to
hire
someone to repair your roof. It’s a huge job, Aunt Batty. I can’t do it and neither can you. In the meantime, until it’s fixed...’’ I paused, wishing that I wasn’t Aunt Batty’s closest kin, wishing that I didn’t already have an invalid to take care of, wishing I had never asked God to send me another angel. ‘‘In the meantime, you can come and live in the farmhouse with the kids and me.’’

‘‘My sister Lydia’s house?’’

‘‘Yes.’’ I lacked the energy to explain to her that Lydia, my mother-in-law, had died like all the rest of them. Besides, Aunt Batty would probably just forget all over again. Added to my worries about Mr. Harper dying, I felt like I had more troubles than Job’s wife.

‘‘Oh dear,’’ she moaned. ‘‘I can’t leave Winky and the girls here all alone.’’

I gritted my teeth. ‘‘Winky can come, too.’’

‘‘But Frank Wyatt hates dogs. He won’t allow one in his house.’’

‘‘Frank Wyatt is dead. It’s my house now.’’ Aunt Batty stared at me as if she had just heard the shocking news for the first time, as if she had never even been to his funeral three months ago. What was the Good Lord trying to do to me?

‘‘Can I help you pack a few things to bring along?’’ I asked gently.

She smiled. ‘‘Why, yes. Thank you, Toots.’’

We went into her tiny bedroom and I helped her toss some clothes and underthings and toiletries into a scruffy carpetbag that was probably last used during the War Between the States. Aunt Batty added her knitting and an old photograph in a brass frame, then glanced around the room.

‘‘There, now. I guess that’s all I need. And you’re sure that Winky and the girls are welcome, too?’’

I nodded grimly.

‘‘I’ll have to wake the girls up. They won’t like having their nap disturbed, but it can’t be helped.’’

I still saw no sign of any ‘‘girls.’’ I wondered if Aunt Batty had imaginary friends like my Becky Jean did. But then she pulled back the quilt on her bed and I saw that what I had mistaken for lumps in an old feather bed were really two enormous cats that had burrowed down like moles beneath the quilts.