TWO
Ella was out of her chair like a shot. “Excuse me.”
She ran from the parlor and down the hallway, bursting into the kitchen, where Solly was standing in the middle of the floor, screeching at the top of his voice and holding his left arm away from his body as stiff as a ramrod.
Hot starch had spattered his arm from wrist to shoulder. Some had splashed onto his chest, plastering his cotton shirt to his skin. The pan which had been on the stove was now lying overturned on the floor. The sticky blue stuff was oozing out of it, forming a wide puddle.
Heedless of the mess, Ella lifted her son and hugged him to her. “Oh no, oh, God. Solly, Solly, oh, sweetheart. Oh, Lord.”
“Cold water.” Dr. Kincaid had rushed into the kitchen practically on her heels and had immediately assessed the situation. He pushed her toward the sink and turned on the cold water spout, forcing Solly’s arm beneath the stream.
“Do you have ice?”
Mr. Rainwater addressed the question to Margaret, who’d come rushing in from the backyard, calling on Jesus for help even before determining the nature of the catastrophe.
Since Margaret seemed incapable of answering him, Ella shouted above Solly’s screams. “There’s ice in the box. A whole block delivered just this morning.”
She and Dr. Kincaid continued to struggle with the boy to keep his burned arm under the gush of cold water. Ella splashed handfuls of it onto his shirt, trying to neutralize the starch that was burning him through the thin fabric.
None of this was easily done. They had to battle Solly, whose right arm was flailing about, often connecting painfully with either Ella or the doctor. The boy was also trying to butt heads with them and kicking his feet. Several pieces of crockery and china were knocked off the drainboard and onto the floor, breaking in the widening puddle of starch.
“This will help.” Mr. Rainwater moved up beside Ella with a chunk of freshly chipped ice. While she and Dr. Kincaid held Solly’s arm as still as possible, Mr. Rainwater rubbed the ice up and down her child’s arm, which now bore ugly red splotches.
The ice cooled the burns, and eventually Solly stopped screaming, but he continued to bob his head rhythmically. The doctor turned off the tap. Ella noticed that the sleeves of his coat were wet to his elbows and realized that her apron and dress were drenched as well.
“Thank you.” She took what was left of the chunk of ice from Mr. Rainwater and continued to rub it up and down Solly’s arm as she carried him to a chair and sat down with him on her lap. She hugged him close and kissed the top of his head as she cradled him tightly against her chest. Even then it took several minutes before he stopped the rhythmic bobbing of his head.
From the open doorway, the two Dunne spinsters cooed commiseration and encouragement.
Margaret was holding the hem of her apron to her lips with one hand, the other pink palm was raised beseechingly toward the ceiling. She was crying loudly and praying plaintively, “Jesus, he’p this poor baby. Lord Jesus, he’p this child.”
Ella was grateful for Margaret’s prayers and hoped the Lord was listening, but the loud praying was adding to the confusion. “Margaret, please bring me one of his candy sticks,” she said.
Her quiet tone cut through Margaret’s fervent litany. She ceased praying, smoothed her apron back into place, and went into the pantry, where Ella kept a jar of candy sticks hidden behind canisters of flour and sugar. If Solly spotted the candy, he demanded it by lying on the floor and kicking until he either exhausted himself or exhausted Ella to the point of giving in just to restore the peace.
The candy sticks were reserved for times of crisis. Like now.
Margaret was choking back sobs. “It’s my fault. He was playin’ there in the dirt. You know how he likes to dig with that big wood spoon? I turned my back, couldn’t’ve been more’n half a minute, to throw that bedsheet over the clothesline. Next I know, he’s in the house a-screamin’. I’m sorry, Miss Ella. I—”
“It wasn’t your fault, Margaret. I know how quickly he can disappear.”
Margaret muttered on about how she was to blame as she brought the candy jar from the pantry, lifted off the metal lid, and extended it to Solly. “Margaret ain’t ever gonna forgive herself for this. No she ain’t. What flavor you want, baby doll?”
Solly remained unaware of Margaret, so Ella selected for him, a white stick with orange stripes. She didn’t hand it to him directly but laid it on the table. He picked it up and began to lick. Everyone in the kitchen sighed with relief.
“Let me take a look at the burns.”
“No.” Ella held up her hand to prevent the doctor from moving any closer and setting Solly off again. “The spots aren’t blistering, and the starch had been cooling for over two hours. It wasn’t that hot. When he pulled the pan off the stove and the starch splashed on him, I think it frightened him more than anything.”
“It’s a good thing it wasn’t—”
Miss Pearl’s comment was stopped abruptly, probably when she got an elbow in the ribs from her more tactful sister. But Ella knew what Miss Pearl was thinking, what everyone including herself was thinking: It was a good thing Solly hadn’t pulled the stewing greens off the stove and onto himself.
Ella smoothed her hand over her son’s head, but he dodged the caress. The rejection pierced her heart, but she looked at the others and smiled bravely. “I think the crisis has passed.”
“I have some salve at the clinic,” the doctor said. “Even though the skin’s not blistered, it wouldn’t hurt to keep it lubricated for a day or two.”
Ella nodded and looked over at Mr. Rainwater, who was hovering near the stove, as though guarding against another accident. “The ice helped. Thank you.”
He nodded.
She said, “About the room—”
“See, I told you he was to be a new boarder.” Miss Pearl spoke to her sister in a whisper which everyone heard.
“We’ll excuse ourselves until lunch.” Miss Violet grasped her sister’s arm with enough pressure to make her wince and practically dragged her toward the staircase. Miss Pearl was still whispering excitedly as they made their way up. “He seems awfully nice, don’t you think, Sister? Very clean fingernails. I wonder who his people are.”
Ella eased Solly off her lap and into the chair in which she was seated. She made a futile attempt to smooth back strands of hair that had shaken loose from her bun. Responding to the humidity created by the cooking pot of greens, her hair had formed unruly spirals on both sides of her face.
“As I was saying, Mr. Rainwater, I haven’t had time to give the room a thorough cleaning. If you’re wanting to move in immediately—”
“I am.”
“You can’t.”
“Then when?”
“When the room meets my standards.”
The statement seemed to amuse him, and she wondered if his quick grin was mocking her standards or her pride in them.
In either case, she resented it. “In light of what the last quarter hour has been like, I’m surprised you’re still interested in securing a room in my house, especially if it’s peace and quiet you’re after. You haven’t even seen the room yet.”
“Then let’s take a look,” Dr. Kincaid said. “But I really must get back to the clinic soon.”
Mr. Rainwater said, “You don’t have to stay, Murdy.”
Dr. Kincaid’s first name was Murdock, but Ella had never heard him addressed as Murdy, not even by close acquaintances.
“No, no, I want to help any way I can.” The doctor turned to her. “Mrs. Barron?”
She glanced down at Solly, who had eaten half his candy stick. Margaret, sensing her hesitation, said, “You go on with the gentlemen. I’ll keep an eagle eye on this boy. I swear I won’t take my eyes off him.”
Reluctantly Ella led the two men from the kitchen and up the stairs, then down the hallway to the room at the end of it. Opening the door, she said, “It’s got a nice southern exposure. You can catch the breeze.”
The sheer curtains now catching the breeze were ruffled. The wallpaper had a yellow cabbage rose pattern, and the iron bed looked too short for Mr. Rainwater. In fact, even though he was slender, the room looked smaller with him standing in its center, much smaller than when Mrs. Morton had occupied it.
But he seemed either not to notice or not to care about the feminine decor or the limited size of the bed, the room, or the narrow closet. He looked out the window, nodded, then turned back to her and the doctor. “This will do.”
“You would share a bathroom with Mr. Hastings.”
“Chester Hastings,” Dr. Kincaid supplied. “Extremely nice man. He’s not in town much. Notions salesman. Travels all over.”
“I don’t have a problem with sharing a bathroom,” Mr. Rainwater said.
On the way downstairs, Ella told him the cost for room and board, and by the time they reached the ground floor he had agreed to it.
“Splendid,” Dr. Kincaid said. “I’ll let the two of you work out the particulars about moving in and so forth.”
Ella hesitated and glanced toward the kitchen. Margaret was softly humming a hymn, which usually soothed Solly. Comforting him would also help alleviate Margaret’s guilt, so Ella decided she could spare another few minutes.
“I’ll see you out.” She led the way to the front door, but when she got there, she discovered that only Dr. Kincaid had followed her. Behind them the hallway was empty. Presumably Mr. Rainwater had ducked into the parlor, waiting there to discuss the details of his occupancy.
“Can I have a word, Mrs. Barron?” the doctor asked. Only moments ago, he had seemed in such a hurry to leave that she looked at him curiously as he pushed open the screened door and ushered her out onto the porch.
The overhang formed by the second story of the house had trapped the heat as well as the heady fragrance of gardenia. The shrub, laden with creamy white blossoms, grew in a pot she kept at the end of the porch.
Two summers ago she’d had a boarder who complained of the fragrance being cloying and giving him headaches. Ella attributed his headaches less to the aromatic blossoms and more to the corn liquor he sipped from a silver flask when he thought no one was looking. When she reminded him that she didn’t allow spirits in the house, he’d been affronted.
“Are you referring to my cough remedy, Mrs. Barron?”
Short of calling him a liar, she couldn’t challenge him further, but he also never again complained about the gardenias. She’d been relieved when he’d moved out and the more genial Mr. Hastings had moved in.
Again the doctor dabbed his bald head with his handkerchief. “I wanted to speak to you in private.”
“About Solly?”
“Well, that, yes.”
They’d had this discussion many times before. Bracing for an argument, she clasped her hands at her waist. “I refuse to place him in an institution, Dr. Kincaid.”
“I haven’t suggested—”
“I also refuse to keep him medicated.”
“So you’ve told me. Many times.”
“Then please stop trying to persuade me otherwise.”
“What happened just now—”
“Could have happened to any child,” she said. “Remember when the Hinnegar boy turned that kerosene lamp over on himself last winter?”
“That boy is two years old, Mrs. Barron. Solly is ten.”
“His birthday is still months away.”
“Close enough.” Softening his tone, the doctor continued. “I’m well aware of the perils inherent to childhood. Based on what I’ve seen during my years of general practice, it’s amazing to me that any of us reaches adulthood.”
He paused, took a breath, then looked at her kindly. “But your boy is particularly susceptible to mishaps. Even at his age, Solly can’t understand the dangers associated with something like pulling a pan of hot starch off the stove. And then when there is an accident, his reaction is a violent outburst. As it was today.”
“He was burned, he was screaming in pain. Anyone would scream.”
“By my speaking to you plainly, please don’t think I’m being insensitive or unnecessarily cruel. It’s your situation that’s cruel. The fact is, without medication to suppress your son’s… impulses, he could harm himself and others, especially when he’s in the throes of one of his fits.”
“I keep careful watch over him to prevent that.”
“I don’t question how dutiful—”
“It’s not my duty, it’s my privilege. Only the running of this house prevents me from devoting every waking moment to Solly. This morning was an exception, not the rule. I was unexpectedly called away.”
That was a subtle reminder that he was responsible for her distraction, but the doctor ignored the rebuke.
“You bring me to the next point, Mrs. Barron. This constant vigilance is also detrimental to your health. How long can you keep it up?”
“For as long as Solly needs supervision.”
“Which in all likelihood will be for the rest of his life. What happens when he outgrows you and you can no longer physically restrain him?”
She forced herself to unclench her hands. In a slow and deliberate voice she said, “The medications you’re suggesting to suppress his impulses would also inhibit his ability to learn.”
Her saying that caused the doctor’s eyes to become even kinder, sadder, more pitying.
She took umbrage. “I know you doubt Solly’s capacity to learn, Dr. Kincaid. I do not. I won’t rob him of the opportunity just because it would make my life easier. I won’t have him drugged into a stupor, where he would be breathing but little else. What kind of life would he have?”
“What kind of life do you have?” he asked gently.
She drew herself up to her full height. Her face was hot with indignation. “I appreciate your professional opinion, Dr. Kincaid. But that’s all it is, an opinion. No one really knows what Solly is or isn’t capable of understanding and retaining. But as his mother, I have a better perception of his abilities than anyone. So I must do what I think is best for him.”
Yielding the battle if not the war, the doctor glanced away from her toward the clump of larkspur growing at the edge of her yard. Their blue spikes were wilting in the noon heat. “Send Margaret ’round for that salve,” he finally said.
“Thank you.”
“No charge.”
“Thank you.”
The street was deserted except for a spotted brown and white dog that was trotting alongside a wagon driven by an elderly black man and pulled by a pair of plodding mules. The man tipped his hat to them as the wagon rolled past. They waved back at him. Ella didn’t know him, but the doctor addressed him by name and called out a greeting.
“If that’s all, Dr. Kincaid, I need to set out lunch.”
He turned back to her. “Actually, there is something else, Mrs. Barron. About Mr. Rainwater.”
Other than his name, and his willingness to pay her fee for room and board, she knew nothing about the man. She was taking him in as a boarder based solely upon Dr. Kincaid’s implied recommendation. “Is he a man of good character?”
“Impeccable character.”
“You’ve known him for a long time?”
“He’s my wife’s late cousin’s boy. I guess that makes him some sort of a second or third cousin by marriage.”
“I guessed he might be an old friend or family member. He called you Murdy.”
Absently he nodded. “Family nickname.”
“Is he in the medical profession, too?”
“No. He was a cotton broker.”
“Was?” Was Mr. Rainwater a victim of the Depression, one of the thousands of men in the nation who were out of work? “If he’s unemployed, how does he plan to pay his rent? I can’t afford—”
“He’s not without funds. He’s…” The doctor looked toward the retreating wagon and continued watching it as it rounded the corner. Coming back to her, he said, “The fact is, he won’t be needing the room in your house for long.”
She stared at him, waiting.
Softly he said, “He’s dying.”