Diary of a Wildflower (6 page)

“Oh,
God.  Do you think they’ll have more babies?”

“I
hope not,” Roxie says. “That’s all we need around here is more babies.”

Much
to our relief we don’t hear anything except some low talking and soft
laughter.  I look at the night sky and think of Mommie.  Maybe she
used to talk and laugh with Dad in the dark, but my memory does not go back
that far.

January, 1922

We
have about eight inches of snow on the ground, and today it has started up
again.  We’ve been out of school for three days.  I take care of
Clint and Daniel so Roxie can have a little break.  Bea does not volunteer
to do anything, but sometimes we draft her for this or that.  It’s getting
easier to do that now she’s been here for two months.

We
have learned more about her since she busted into our lives in November. 
She talks a lot.  Dad has gone back to his old grouchy self, and sometimes
he tells her to hush up for lord’s sake and give her mouth a rest.  It
does not seem to bother her when he speaks to her like that.

In
some of her ramblings she tells us she was married for twelve years to Jim Earl
Rollins from over near Skylark where they lived.  Then one day he left her
for another woman.  Not that she gave a dern.  She was tired of him
anyways.  By law he had to support her, but he lost his job, and you can’t
get blood out of a turnip.  So she moved in with her cousin, Buddy Ward
and his wife in Deep Bottom.  It was Buddy who sent word to Dad that Bea
might be willing to marry if Dad would come down there and court her for a few
days and see how they liked each other.

On
another day we find out why Bea’s husband left her.  She didn’t give him
any children.  She reckons she can’t have any.  Roxie and I are glad
to hear that.  We love Clint, but it’s a big relief to know that he will
be the last of Dad’s babies we will have to take care of.

Samuel
is home for the winter.  Today he’s out in the barn with Charles and
Daniel trying to make a sled.  He gave me two more dollars for
Christmas.  I have managed to hold on to the last two he gave me, and I
have hidden my four dollars away in a sock.  This time he gave Roxie two
dollars too, and he also gave Dad some money when Bea was not looking. 
I’m pretty sure he’s not going to give her anything.

Samuel
would never say or do mean things to anybody, but there is something about the
way he acts with Bea that says he does not like her.  Maybe it’s because
he loved Mommie so much, and he thinks Dad was too quick to re-marry.

Daniel
is taking a nap, and I try to get Clint to sleep too.  He is a sweet happy
baby.  I sit by the window with him on his belly across my knees.  I
bounce him easy and rub his back.  It’s a thing Trula used to do for Jewel
and Daniel.

It
seems the days have slowed down to a crawl, and the hours stand still.  I
look out at the patch of woods by Willy’s Road and think of the old, old thing
that hides there and cries.  It is sleeping today under mounds of snow,
its tears frozen to the earth.

Beyond
the road I see the mountain tops going on and on toward West Virginia.  I
imagine that people who live in cities would think me lucky to have such a view
as this.  And it really is pretty, but I don’t feel lucky.  I feel
isolated.  I think of the big round world out there with so much to see
and learn.  People with things to do and places to go in cars and
trains.  I am so far away I might as well be on another planet – a cold,
white planet.

I
wonder what Nell is doing today.  Even though she is almost a prisoner in
the sanitorium, she writes that she is glad now to be there.  She is
happy.  There is a patient who was a teacher before he got T.B., and he
helps her and Helen keep up with their school lessons.  Nell thinks if she
is at the sanitorium long enough, she can finish her highschool courses and
then train to be a nurse’s aide.  Imagine it.  She can have a job if
she wants it, and make her own money.  She does not mention coming home
anymore, and it’s a good thing, because it seems like Dad has forgotten her
existence.  He never writes to her and does not even ask me and Roxie what
she has to say in her letters to us.

I
think of Trula in her little house with her baby.  Is Mack with them today? 
Is she happy?  Does she ever think of me?  Is there still room in her
heart for Lorelei?

Then
the brown-eyed peddler crosses my mind.  Where is he today?  Is it
snowing there?  Does he have somebody to keep him warm?  Is that old
horse still alive?

For
some silly reason I get tears in my eyes.

March, 1922

It’s
time for Samuel to go back to Richmond, and I dread it.

“I
know Lucille will be happy,” I say to him, “but I’m going to miss you.”

He
smiles at me, but says nothing.

He
has not mentioned her much this time, and he still has not told anybody else
about her.  My curiosity nearly kills me.  I’ve noticed that he does
not get letters from her either, and I have tried not to bring it up, but now I
can’t help myself.

“Have
you written to her?” I ask.

He
smiles again, pats my head and says, “You ask too many questions.”

“I’m
sorry, Samuel, but you did confide in me, and I’m nearly dying to know
more.  Are you still courting her, or did you bust up?”

“Don’t
worry, Lorelei honey, if I decide to marry, you will be the first to know.”

The
next day he’s on the train for Richmond.

********************

Charles
has a cough and a fever for several days before he wakes up with red spots all
over him.  Measles.  Luther remembers that he and Samuel had measles when
they were in school, but Nell and I caught it before we started school. 
He believes Roxie had it at the same time we did, but he can’t say for
sure.  Roxie says she does not remember, but the one thing we know for
sure is that Jewel, Daniel and Clint have never been sick with measles. 
Maybe it would be best it they caught it now, and got it over with.

Roxie
asks Luther to tack a blanket over the window in the boys’ sleeping loft to
keep the light out and protect Charles’s eyesight.  A few days later Jewel
throws up.  Her forehead is hot with fever, and soon she has spots all
over her too.  A blanket goes over our window.  I offer to stay home
from school to help Roxie, but she says no, that I should not get behind in my
lessons.

As
I walk to school by myself, it occurs to me that this is the first time I have
ever gone off the mountain without at least one other member of my family with
me.  That thought rattles me, and stays with me all day.  What if the
earth skips a beat in its rotation while I am in the valley, and when I return,
nothing is there – no log house, no family, no animals, no barn, no garden, no
springs, no graveyard?  Or what if it was all a dream I had?  I dwell
on this thought so hard, it begins to feel like a real strong
possibility.  And…if it was all a dream, what would I wake up to?

As
soon as the bell rings at three o’clock, I rush out of the school house and
walk up Gospel Road as fast as I can.  It seems such a long way
today.  The woods are dark, and there are

eyes watching me from behind every tree.  I am out of
breath when I reach Willy’s Road.  To my right is the graveyard on the
knob where all the Starrs are buried.  The stones are still there.  I
peek up over the rise and see that the house is there too just as I left
it.  Of course it is.

When
I go in, I find that Daniel is feverish now, and Roxie is weary to the
bone.  Dad and Luther are in the barn doing something, and Bea is sitting
in her favorite chair bouncing Clint on her lap.

“I’m
trying to keep Clint away from the others,” she says to me.  “He’s too
little for measles.”

I
could remind her that Clint has already been exposed to measles three times
over, but she is actually trying to be useful.  So I tell her that’s a
good idea.

Then
I go to see Jewel.  She’s sitting up in bed drawing a picture of a
unicorn, and it’s pretty good.  She smiles at me.  I touch her
forehead and it feels normal.  Maybe the worst is over for her.  I go
to the boys’ loft to look at Charles and Daniel.  Charles is doing better,
but little Daniel is feeling poorly.

At
supper I notice that Roxie’s eyes are bloodshot.  “Roxie!  You look a
sight!” I say.

She
does not answer.

“Are
you coming down with it too?” Bea asks.

“I’m
real tired,” Roxie says.  “That’s all.”

“Well,
your eyes are all red and bulging out of your head,” Luther says.

The
next morning Roxie is too sick to get out of bed.  When I ask her how she
feels, she gives me a weak smile.  Her face has large red blotches on it
instead of small spots like the others have.

“I
guess I’ve never had the measles after all,” she says.

I
fetch a pan of cool water, dip a rag in it, wring it out and lay it on Roxie’s
hot forehead.  I stay home from school.  In the following days Roxie
does not get any better.  In fact, she seems to get worse.  I tell
Dad I think we should send for a doctor, but he thinks not.  After all,
it’s just measles, he says.  He tells me to stay by her side and take care
of her.

Bea
takes charge of the little ones.  She has taken a liking to Clint. 
She also does the cooking and other woman’s work without even being told.

I
don’t know how many days go by.  Roxie’s fever stays up there.  She
can’t keep anything in her stomach.  Her chest hurts.  She talks out
of her head.  She coughs deep rumbling coughs.

I look after her as best I can.  

In
the middle of a dark night she whispers to me, “I’m sorry, Lorie.”

I
am in her bed with her, and I have kept the lantern burning low on my side so I
can see to tend her during the night.  Now I sit up and look at her
flushed face.

“Sorry
for what, Roxie?”

“I’m
going to die and leave you alone.”

“No,
Roxie!  You don’t die of measles.  You just
feel
like you’re
going to.”

She
starts to cough so hard and so deep that Jewel wakes up in the other bed and
says something, but I can’t hear her above the noise.  I try to help Roxie
sit up to cough, but she is too weak, and I can’t lift her.

When
Roxie’s coughing lets up, she closes her eyes and seems to rest, but her chest
rattles, and her breathing is not regular.  In fact, she is struggling for
air.  I am suddenly so awfully scared that my heart goes wild and begins
to pound in my ears.  I start to shake all over.  In my petticoat and
bloomers I creep out of bed.  I forget the lantern and have to feel my way
down the stairs to where Dad, Bea and Clint are in a deep sleep.

I
find Dad’s shoulder in the dark and shake it.  “Dad!”  He does not
wake, so I shake it again.  “Dad!  Wake up!”

He
grumbles and mumbles and rolls over.

“Dad! 
It’s Roxie.  She needs a doctor.”

“Hmmm?”
Dad says.

“What’sa
matter?” Bea says and sits up.

“Roxie
needs a doctor.  Dad has to send Luther for Dr. Wayne.”

“It’s
just measles, Lorie,” Dad says in his grumpy voice.  “She’ll be fine.”

I
start screaming.  I am so scared I can’t help it.  “NO! 
NO!  It’s not just measles.  It’s something lots worse.  And she
needs a doctor NOW!  She needs a doctor NOW!”

Clint
wakes up and begins to cry.  Bea tries to shush him.  Dad swings his
feet to the floor.  Luther appears on the stairsteps with a lantern.

“I’ll
fetch the doctor,” he says.

Dr.
Wayne arrives just as daylight is creeping over the tops of the hills.

“Pneumonia,”
he says when he examines Roxie.  “A complication of measles.”  He
lifts her up and tucks some pillows behind her.  “She is drowning in her
own fluids.”

Bea
and Dad are standing beside the doctor holding a light for him.  I am on
the other side of Roxie’s bed.  She opens her bloodshot eyes and looks at
us, but I don’t think she actually sees anything.  Deep, awful rumblings
rack her small body again.  From her bed Jewel lets out a whimper.

“Get
these kids out of here,” the doctor orders.

Kids? 
Jewel is the only kid in the room.  Or does he think
I’m
a kid?

“Take
a sheet and dip it in cold water,” he orders Bea.

Bea
just stands there looking at him with her mouth hanging
open.                  

“Do
it!” he says more sternly.  “We have to get her temperature down.”

Bea
and Dad both spring into action.  I take Jewel down the stairs and we curl
up with Clint in Dad and Bea’s bed.  Jewel goes back to sleep, but I lie
there with my hands over my heart trying to keep it still.  I stare at the
beams in the ceiling and listen to the doctor moving around in the loft, giving
urgent orders to Dad and Bea.  I hear Roxie groaning like she’s in awful
pain, and that’s when I go into a strange kind of dream state.

At
some point Luther comes back and goes up to the boys’ loft.  Clint wakes
up and cries, and Bea comes for him.  She changes him, then takes him into
the kitchen to feed him.  Dad comes downstairs, and when I peep out, I see
that he is kneeling in the middle of the room.  He prays out loud.

“Lord,
why does it have to be her?  Why couldn’t you take Nell or Lorie or
Jewel?  Why don’t you take Trula?  Yes!  Take Trula, Lord, but
please, not Roxie!”

Later
I hear Dad upstairs again, moaning and hollering, “No!  Jesus, no! 
Why did you take my sweet Rox?”

I
clap my hands over my ears.

Still
later I hear the doctor speaking to Dad and his voice is hard.  “Mr. Starr,
I feel it my duty to tell you that you must take better care of your
family.  I could have saved the girl if only…”

He
does not go on.  Dad is bawling like a baby.

The
clock in the corner strikes nine times.  I slip from the bed without a
sound and go out the front door.  I go to the drinking spring and cup my
hands in the cold water.  I drink from my hands, then splash water on my
face.  Wake up.  Bad dream.

I
go down Willy’s Road to where it meets up with Gospel Road.  I sit on a
stump.  I will sit here for awhile.  Then I will walk back up the
road and the house will not be there and nobody and nothing will be there and I
will know then for sure that it’s all a bad dream, and I will wake up to
something else.  I don’t know what.  Just something else.

I
hear a noise.  I look up Willy’s Road and see a large black horse bursting
out of the center of the sun.  He is strong and powerful with huge muscles
bulging in his neck and chest.  He is ten times bigger and more wonderful
than all the horses in all the fairy tales.

And
he is coming for me!

“Hello
there!”

It’s
the doctor.  He has stopped and now sits in his saddle on Raven looking
down at me.  I can’t see his face for the dazzling sun directly behind
him.

“What
are you doing here, child?”

I
say nothing.

“What’s
your name?”

“Lorelei.”

“Pretty
name.  You’re a pretty girl.  Your hair is quite…extraordinary.”

“Take
me with you,” I say.

“What?”

“Take
me with you.  Take me away from here.”

“You
know I can’t do that.”

“Yes
you can.  Take me with you, please!”

I
cup one hand above my eyes to shield them so that I can see him better. 
We stare at each other for a moment.

“You
must be cold, Lorelei.”

“I
am not cold.”

“But
you are out here in your petticoat, and it’s not even spring yet.”

“I
am not cold.”

He
is silent for a few moments.

“I’m
very sorry about your sister,” he says after awhile.

“Sorry
for what?  Roxie has the measles.  That’s all!  You don’t die of
measles!”

I
start to shiver.

“Let
me take you back to your house, child,” the doctor says.  “You have had a
bad shock.”

“No! 
I’ll go by myself.”

I
jump to my feet and rush past him up Willy’s Road.  I can feel his eyes on
me till I am up over the rise and out of his sight.  But the house is
still there.  Of course it’s still there.  It will always be there.

********************

Somehow
I lose the rest of the day and all of the next day.  At some point Samuel
comes home.  The day after that is cool and sunny.  We bury the
sleeping beauty on the knob beside Mommie.  She looks pretty and peaceful
in her coffin, waiting for the prince to come and kiss her and wake her
up.  Sweet Rox.  The fairest of them all.

I
go home and climb up to the loft and into my bed.  Jewel tiptoes in and
curls up by my side.  I hold her close to me and we sleep into the evening. 
Then Samuel is nudging us, saying

 that our aunts have brought good things to eat. 
Pies and cakes.  Wouldn’t we like to come downstairs and have
something?  No, I would not.  I could not eat a bite, thank you.

Jewel
goes downstairs with him and I go into my head.

She
is whispering in my ear.  Wake up it’s Christmas.

Thank
you, God, for Roxie.

I
will not leave sissy to find her way home all alone.  It is too hard a
thing for a little girl on such a hot day.