The Stone Angel (31 page)

A soft cackle of laughter, and then she bursts into song.

She breaks off. “That’s just being smart-alecky. She gets my goat sometimes, that’s all. It’s seeing a person every day that does it. Tom used to sing that hymn to them words, only a whole lot worse, if you know what I mean. He was never much of a one for church. But to me it’s the everlasting breath, when all’s said and done. I took a Sunday school class for thirty years in Freehold.”

“Oh—you’re from Freehold?”

“Sure. You mean you ever heard of it?”

I warm toward her, despite myself.

“Well, certainly. I’m from Manawaka. That would only be about twenty-five miles from Freehold, wouldn’t it?”

“About that. Well, I never. You’re from Manawaka? I knew a lot of Manawaka people. Tom and me homesteaded at Freehold. You know the Pearls?”

“Of course. I went to school with Henry Pearl. I know them well.”

“Think of that! My sister’s eldest girl—Janice, that was—she married Bob Pearl. He’d be old Henry’s son?”

“He was the youngest boy, I think. Henry had three sons. Well, isn’t that strange. Whatever became of him—Bob?”

“He had his own store in Freehold, last I heard,” she says. “He done quite well, I believe. They had four youngsters. I don’t hear so much any more from Freehold. My sister died five years ago.”

“I knew the Pearls very well. A good hardworking family, they were.”

“Well, Bob sure was, I know that for a fact. My sister thought the world of him. Lots of people in Freehold used to say the Manawaka people acted snobby, but I never heard a soul say that of Bob. You couldn’t of met a nicer fellow. He never thought Freehold was anything of a comedown, for all it was so much smaller than Manawaka.”

“You farmed, you said?”

“Yeh. You lived in town?”

How stupid of me, to feel so pleased that she should think that, straightaway.

“Well, not exactly. I grew up in town. But my husband farmed.”

“Yeh? Has he been passed away long?”

“A long time, yes.”

“Must’ve been hard for you,” she says. “My mom was widowed at thirty. It’s no life.”

Our eyes meet. There’s an amiability about this woman.

“He was a big man, too,” I say. “Strong as a horse. He had a beard black as the ace of spades. He was a handsome man, a handsome man.”

“Sometimes it’s them that goes the first,” she says.
“Well, that’s life for you. We been lucky, Tom and me. We never been apart, till I come in here. He’s a terrible tight man with money, Tom is, that’s the only thing, but if he hadn’t been, the Lord knows where we’d of been right now.”

She bends and looks at me. “You’re looking kinda washed out. When your doctor comes tomorrow, you remember to ask him about having a hypo, see? You’ll not get a smell of one if you don’t, take it from me.”

I poke my hand out from the sheet and put it on her skinny hand.

“I’m obliged to you, Mrs. Jardine.”

“Think nothing of it. You try to get a good night’s sleep. If you need a nurse in the night, you waken me, see? Sometimes they don’t notice your light on. You just waken me and I’ll call her for you. I got a good carrying voice. I sung in the Freehold Baptist Choir for more years than I care to count.”

“You’re—” I don’t know what to say now, nor how to say it. “You’re really kind, Mrs. Jardine.”

“Well, we gotta stick together, us old prairie farmers, eh? Call me Elva, why doncha? I’m more accustomed to it.”

“My name is Hagar.”

“Okay, Hagar. See you in the morning.”

How long is it since anyone has called me by my name? She shuffles back to her bed.

“G’night, Mrs. Reilly,” she calls. “Sleep well, dear.”

“God rest you,” the mountain says through her sleep.

    But when the lights are out, the darkness swarms over us and talk between bed and bed is extinguished. Each of us lives in our own night, a drugged semi-sleep
in which we darkly swim, sometimes floating up to the surface where the voices are. If you shut your eyes after looking at a strong light, you see shreds of azure or scarlet across the black. The voices are like that, remembered fragments painted on shadow. I’m not as frightened by them as I was before. Now I know where they come from. The murmurs from further beds are too vague to be deciphered. But the nearby ones—I can put names to those. I go over and over the names in my mind, to see if I can remember. Mrs. Reilly, Mrs. Dobereiner, Mrs. Jardine. I can’t recall that woman’s Christian name. I’m sure she told me. Ida? Elvira? Her husband’s name is Tom, and they homesteaded at Freehold. I can’t sleep. I’m blurred, but the pain won’t let me sleep.

“Nurse—”

I call and call, and finally she comes. Oh, they take their time, these girls.

“Something—can’t you give me something? It hurts—right here—”

“Oh dear,” she says. “I can give you another two-ninety-two, but the doctor hasn’t left instructions for a hypo. I’m sorry.”

Sorry. I’ll bet she is. “If you knew—”

“I’m sorry, honestly,” she says. “But I’m not allowed—”

“Why should you care? It’s not you. Oh, what do you know about it?”

I hear my accusing voice and I’m ashamed. But it won’t stop.

“Fat lot you care—”

She brings a pill. I seize it from her as though she were trying to keep it from me. She gives me water, and
then she goes. After a while, when the pain subsides, I have the grace to call her back.

“Nurse—”

“Yes? What is it?”

“I’m sorry I spoke so—”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she says, unruffled. “Don’t you worry. I’m used to it. You try to sleep now.”

“All right, I will.” I want to please her now, to say something that will please her. “I’ll try. I promise.”

I drowse and waken. The voices stir like fretful leaves against a window.

Tom, don’t you worry none—

One voice has almost screeched. Some time elapses before I realize the voice was mine.

I’m—where? I have to get to the bathroom, that’s all I know. I can’t find the dratted light switch. I don’t know where Doris can have got to. I’ve called and called, but she won’t reply. You’d think she could at least answer. I’m standing by my bedside, and I hold onto it and feel my way along.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Whose is that high and fearful voice near me? “Come quickly! Mrs. Shipley’s gotten out of bed.”

I’m standing now in a long corridor, it seems, and all around I can hear the steady grinding of breath. In the distance is a light. I know I must steer toward it.

“You better hustle, nurse. She’s heading toward the hall—”

Nurse? Footsteps approach, clicking rapidly. And then I know.

“Come on, now, Mrs. Shipley, I’ll give you a hand back.”

“I—only wanted to go to the bathroom. That’s all. No harm in that, is there?”

“It’s all right. You just come along with me, and we’ll soon fix you up. Here, take my arm—”

“Oh, I hate being helped—” My voice is pettish and doesn’t resemble at all the fury inside me. “I’ve always done things for myself.”

“Haven’t you ever given a hand to anyone in your time? It’s your turn now. Try to look at it that way. It’s your due.”

She’s right. I needn’t feel beholden. I can’t think of many I’ve given a hand to, that’s the only trouble. I used to help Daniel with his spelling. I was much better at it than he was. Small thanks he ever gave me for it. He let on it was he who helped me and not the other way around. But Father believed me when I told him. He knew Daniel was a ninny. I’m sorry now that I told Father. But it made me wild—it’s unfair not to get the credit for what you’ve done.

I can’t do anything any more. She settles me into bed, pulls the sheets up around my chin. I he still and then I hear my neighbor’s voice.

“You okay now, Hagar?”

I turn on one side to face her, even though I can’t see her.

“Yes. Yes, Elva, I’m all right.”

“We’ll, I’ll remind you tomorrow, in case you forget,
to ask your doctor about the hypo. You’d sleep better if you had one.”

“Oh, would you remind me? My memory’s very good, usually, but sometimes a thing slips my mind—”

“Yeh. Same here. Well, let’s hit the hay, kiddo.”

I have to smile at that. And then I feel myself sliding into sleep.

    The next day the doctor comes to see me. What’s his name? I’ve forgotten, and won’t ask.

“Well, how are we today?” he inquires.

We indeed. “I don’t know how you are, but I’ve felt better, I must admit.”

“Not too bad, though, eh?”

“I guess not.” Why do I he? Suddenly I’m furious at my pride and pretense, at his obtuseness. “It hurts—here. At night, it hurts so much. Oh, you don’t know—”

Hating my whimpering voice, I turn my eyes from him, and see, on the next bed, Elva Jardine gesturing, jabbing a stuck-out forefinger at her upper arm, and then I recall.

“Can’t you give me anything?”

He nods, prods at me, then smiles, a faint and forced smile that makes me see his part isn’t so simple, either.

“Of course I can. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Shipley. I’ll leave instructions. You’ll be more comfortable.”

When Marvin comes to see me, Doris is with him. They’ve brought me flowers. Wonders will never cease. They’re not the ordinary garden flowers, either. They’re roses from a florist’s, pale buds just beginning to open, and all arranged in a green glass vase with sprigs of asparagus fern.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have—”

“We thought you’d like them,” Doris says. “There’s nothing like a few flowers to cheer a person up. Here’s your nighties—the pink and the blue, is that what you wanted? And your
eau de Cologne
and hairnets. I’ll do your hair for you now if you like.”

“Yes, do. I’m fed up with it drooping around my shoulders like this. I can’t abide it when it’s not neat.”

“How are you, Mother?” Marvin asks.

What a stupid question. But I say what he expects, for it’s easier.

“Oh, I’m fine, I guess.”

“We heard from Tina yesterday,” Doris says.

“How is she?”

Doris sighs, puts the last pin in my hair, plonks herself down on the chair by my bed. She’s wearing her gray silk suit. She looks very warm in it, and it’s rather crumpled. How like her, to get dolled up just to visit a hospital. The bouquet on her hat nods foolishly. She’s got terrible taste in hats, that woman. They’re always loaded with artificial flowers. Her head looks like a greenhouse full of tuberous-rooted begonias, petals of all rosy shades, flesh and blush and blood. Now I see she’s looking anxious,

“What’s the matter Doris, for goodness’ sake? Is Tina not well?”

“She’s going to get married,” Doris says.

I laugh aloud with relief. “I thought she’d broken a leg, at the very least. What’s so awful about her getting married? Who’s the man?”

“A young lawyer she met a few months back. Oh, I’m sure he’s a nice enough fellow and all that, and Tina says he has a good practice. But she’s known him such a short time.”

“Bosh. She’s not a child. She’s twenty-five, isn’t she?”

“Twenty-seven last September,” Doris says.

“Well, you’d feel the same if she was sixty.”

“I would not,” Doris says, tight-lipped. “I think that’s—”

“Okay, okay,” Marvin butts in. “Let’s not get all worked up about it. Like I told you, Doris, Tina’s old enough to know her own mind.”

“I suppose so. But I can’t help wishing it was someone we knew.”

“She’s a sensible girl, is Tina,” I say. “Tell her—”

What could I possibly tell her, I wonder, that could do her any good? She knows a lot more than I did when I married. Or maybe she doesn’t, really, but who’s to tell her? I haven’t a word to send her, my granddaughter. Instead, I tug at my right hand, pull and shake, and finally wrench off the ring.

“Send her this, Doris, will you? It was my mother’s sapphire. I’d like Tina to have it.”

Doris gasps. “Are you—are you sure you really want to, Mother?”

Something in her eyes saddens me, makes me want to turn away.

“Of course I’m sure. What use is it to me? I should’ve given it to you, I suppose, years ago. I could never bear to part with it. Stupid. Too bad you never had it. I don’t want it now. Send it to Tina.”

“Mother—” Marvin has a very loud voice sometimes. “Are you sure?”

Speechlessly I nod. Why all this fuss? In another moment I’ll take the wretched thing back, to shut them up. Doris pops it in her purse, as if she’s been thinking the same thing. Marvin scrapes his feet and clears his throat.

“Gee, I nearly forgot to tell you. It’s all fixed about
the room. They’ll move you tonight to a semi-private.”

I feel a quick sense of loss, as though I’d been cast out. I can’t explain. I should be grateful to him. I can’t say a word. I look at him, and feel the betraying tears. In shame I blink them away, but he’s seen.

“What’s the matter? You said you wanted a semi-private, didn’t you? You said you couldn’t sleep.”

“Yes, yes I know. I’ve got more used to it, that’s all. It wasn’t necessary to change.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he says, depressed. “I just don’t know what to say. There’s no keeping up with you. All the arrangements have been made. You’ll have to move. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

I know it can’t be avoided. It’s not his fault. I did tell him I wanted to move. Yet I can’t help feeling an impatience with him. He couldn’t see that a person might grow accustomed to a place. He’d never think a person might change their mind. Oh no—that would never do. He hasn’t a scrap of imagination. I wish I hadn’t given them the sapphire ring. They’ll not appreciate it, anyway. Just a chunk of junk jewelry, that’s all it is to them.

“Don’t keep on so, Marvin. Just don’t keep on about it. I’ll move all right. Do what you like with me. What does it matter where I’m put?”