Leave a Candle Burning (8 page)

“I’m feeling terrible,” Scottie told Eli from where she was sitting on the bed beside him. “Just awful.”

“I don’t think you need to,” Eli said honestly. “You don’t smile like Dannan did when you’re upset.”

Scottie’s brow furrowed. “So you think he’s all right?”

“Yes,” Eli answered her kindly. But he also thought,
A bit taken with you, but physically all right.

Scottie studied her husband, wondering if something more might be on his mind, but before she could ask, he reached up to rub her forehead in an attempt to erase her troubled expression. It worked, as it usually did, and Scottie relaxed.

“I’m glad you didn’t really need him.”

“I am too. It’s not much fun when I get sick.”

“You haven’t been for a while, have you?” Scottie suddenly realized.

“Not for at least two years.”

A contented silence fell over both of them. Scottie was the one to break it.

“How about an early tea tonight?”

“How early?” Eli asked.

“Now?” Scottie suggested—the visit from the doctor and Eli’s trouble breathing had made her hungry.

“Can we wait an hour?”

“Yes,” Scottie agreed, but she didn’t linger long in the bedroom, needing to find something to do. She went to the kitchen and spent more time than she needed preparing the tray. But it did the trick: The hour seemed to pass at a rapid pace.

“Well, Hillary,” her mother said after tea that evening, finding her daughter sitting on the back porch stoop. “I didn’t know you were out here.”

“I was hot in the kitchen and looking for air,” the younger woman explained.

“It’s a nice evening,” her mother agreed, sitting beside her.

“Is Jeff sleeping?” Hillary wished to know.

“Yes. He cried when your father left to see the Petersons and didn’t take him, and because he didn’t get a nap, he fell asleep on my shoulder. I changed him and put him to bed.”

The women fell quiet then, both deep in their own thoughts. Hillary was thinking about dinner that afternoon and the fascinating mix of people around the dining room table. Alison’s mind was on her three absent sons and hoping they were having a wonderful time with her mother.

Hillary glanced at her mother, whose face was a bit wistful, and guessed her thoughts. “Thinking about the boys?”

“I am,” Alison admitted. “Part of me wonders if they might not be a little homesick.”

“I suspect Grandma will keep them very busy.”

Alison heard a note in her daughter’s voice. “Do you wish you could have gone, Hillary?”

Hillary’s smile was just a bit wicked before she answered. “No. Next time it will be my turn, and I’ll get Grandma all to myself.”

Alison loved this and continued to chuckle about it until they went back inside.

“Well, Douglas,” Eli spoke with pleasure when his pastor was shown into the room. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

“And I didn’t expect you to need the doctor.”

Eli smiled. “Heard about that, did you?”

Douglas smiled back. “I hear everything. Eventually.”

Eli laughed, and Douglas pulled up the chair he used each Monday to give Eli an abbreviated version of the sermon.

“So how are you?”

“I’m well. A bit of breathing trouble earlier, but it seems to have mended itself.”

“What do you say to yourself during those times, Eli? What does peace look like?”

Eli thought about this for a moment. He’d not thought about it in those terms.

“I try to remember, long before my breath shortens, that each breath is from God. That way I can trust Him for the next one, or even if there isn’t a next one.”

“Do you fear at times?”

“It’s not fear, but this time the problem came on swiftly, and I was startled. I was suddenly gasping, and I had no idea why. It took a moment to figure out that I hadn’t done anything to cause it, and I was going to have to work through it.”

“So you weren’t eating? You hadn’t started to choke?”

“No, nothing like that. That’s why it came as such a surprise. I just suddenly couldn’t draw a deep breath.”

“What if you had died? Any concerns or regrets there?”

“Only for Scottie. She’ll do fine, but she’s never been completely in charge here, and I hurt when I think about her trying to adjust.”

“Not to mention the way she would miss you,” Douglas added with quiet sincerity.

“Yes,” Eli agreed, knowing how true it was.

With plans to return on his regular afternoon, Douglas didn’t stay overly long, but the men had a good visit. When Douglas took his leave, glad to know his friend was faring well, Eli and Scottie had their nightly ritual, the one where Scottie read to her husband from one of the many books on his shelves.

On Monday morning, Eli talked Scottie into going back to Doyle’s store to look at dress fabric. She still wasn’t sure she should agree, but she did as he asked, thinking at the very least she would bring home a swatch or two. Something in green or yellow. He liked those colors.

Iris had given her a short list of pantry needs, and Scottie exited the house just minutes before Dannan left his own abode, the Peterson house his destination.

Dannan felt his footsteps slow as he neared the Peterson home. At some point after he’d left the day before, he remembered this man was his landlord, but that wasn’t what made him dread this return trip.

He did not want to have thoughts of interest toward another man’s wife; it was all wrong. But since seeing Scottie Peterson outside the mercantile that first time, she had lingered at the back of his mind.

Dannan shook his head a little and had a little talk with himself as the house came into view.
You live in the same town, you attend services at the same meetinghouse, and now her husband is a patient. You’re going to have to make this work.

Even having said this, Dannan knocked on the front door, not sure he was ready.

“How is Cathy doing?” Scottie asked of Doyle before she headed toward the bolts of fabric.

“Coming along,” he answered. “She’d like to be doing more, but that’ll have to wait.”

“It must help to have the baby to play with.”

“I suspect,” Doyle’s eyes twinkled, “that Val might be the only reason Maddie is not losing her mind.”

Scottie laughed at his mischievous face more than his words. She was still chuckling when Doyle asked what she needed. Scottie stalled and started with Iris’ list but before too long had no choice but to ask about the fabric.

“I just got some new pieces in. I think you’ll like what you see.”

Scottie didn’t comment about her reluctance to do this but followed Doyle to the wall with fabrics and watched as he took down some lovely prints and calicos. Unable to help herself, she was taken with several, her hand going out to finger them.

Doyle watched her face and smiled a little, knowing that she would be pleased with the colors and subtle prints.

“I might need to get some swatches, Doyle,” Scottie finally said.

“I’ll get a pair of scissors.”

“This is an amazing collection,” Dannan said to Eli, surprised at the turn of the conversation in the last several minutes.

“My mother indulged me,” Eli admitted, “or I should say spoiled. And Finn took up where she left off.”

Dannan had seen in an instant that his landlord was feeling just fine, and almost at the same moment noticed the bookshelves he’d missed the day before. There were four of them, tall and filled from side to side with volumes that could not have been easy to come by. Some authors Dannan did not recognize, but others were like old friends. James Fenimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott jumped out, as did Johann Wyss, author of the
Swiss Family Robinson
.

“You’re welcome to borrow whatever you like,” Eli offered. Not many folks had access to these shelves, but he liked Dannan MacKay and felt confident that a book loaned to him would be returned in good shape.

Without moving his body, Dannan swung his head around and looked at his host.

“Have you been in that bed long?”

“Since I was ten,” Eli had no trouble admitting.

“What happened?”

“I was born with a crooked spine. Walking was always an effort, it took me years to learn, and when it became too awkward and painful, I was forced to stop.”

“And your mother took care of you,” Dannan put the pieces together.