The Widow's Ferry

by Dorothy A. Bell

  Aloud Hank said, “It’s almost nine, I suppose we’ll have company soon.”

  “Yes, well, I’ll go down and get ready.” Looking Hank boldly in the eye, Paxton reported, “I couldn’t change her mind, Lydia’s that is.”

  “I’ll go see what I can do,” Mr. Reason said; mumbling to himself, he exited the room.

  Anora exhaled, relieved to have them gone.

  Shortly, Isabell returned, eyes red, lips puffy, Anora guessed she’d been crying. Seated in the rocking chair, she held out her arms, and the child crawled onto her lap. Over the sound of her humming, she heard Mr. Reason’s low, resonant voice coming through the wall. And Mrs. Reason’s voice, hysterically wailing over and over, “I want my baby, I want him in my arms. My breasts ache for him. See. See the milk, wasted. So empty, empty.” Her final outburst echoed throughout the house. “Leave me alone. Go away, you don’t understand.”

  Quietly, Anora heard their bedroom door close and Mr. Reason’s footsteps coming down the hall. The sound of harness and wagon wheels alerted her that the callers were coming. The doorknocker sounded, and Mr. Reason, standing in his daughter’s doorway, slump-shouldered, pale and drawn, opened his mouth to say something, then turned away to go downstairs.

  Anora sat in the rocking chair until Isabell grew calmer. With the door open, she could hear Lydia weeping. When it stopped, she told Isabell, “I think we should have some tea. I’ll go ask your mama if she’d like some too.”

  “Charity wants some bread and jam,” Isabell said, sniffing back leftover tears.

  “Good idea, Charity. I’ll bring enough so we can all have some.” Isabell smiled an impish smile. The little girl took up the dolly in her arms and got up into the rocking chair and began to hum and rock. Anora slipped away, going down to the bedroom at the front of the house. She knocked softly before opening the door to see Lydia leaning over the side of the bed, about to put the bottle of laudanum to her lips.

  Anora quickly crossed the room. Upon seeing her approach, Lydia, through swollen, sore eyes, hesitated, then snarled like a woman possessed. “You can’t stop me. Oh, maybe this time, but I’ll find a way.”

  “Yes, I know,” Anora said, standing by the nightstand, looking down at her miserable, tear-stained face.

  “I want to sleep. I want to sleep forever. I feel so empty. Useless and empty,” Lydia said, then started to tip the little blue bottle up to drink.

  “Cold and empty,” Anora said, and sat on the edge of the bed, no intention of interfering.

  Lydia stopped, put down the bottle, and lay her arm across her face to hide her eyes. “This awful pain, it won’t ever go away.”

  “No, no, I suppose it won’t. It’s up to you, I guess,” Anora said. “You have Mr. Reason…Hank, and Isabell, but the empty place in your heart will always be there. You could put little scraps of memories there. It would take a very strong person to do that. You could enlarge the memories you have of Hank, and Isabell, crowd out the empty space.” On that note, she got up to leave.

  Almost to the door, behind her Lydia said, “I have to be with him. I have to go with him today. You would go, wouldn’t you? You would go up the hill with him to put him in his final resting place?”

  Anora stopped, her hand on the doorknob, and looked back, meeting Lydia’s gaze, and answered the only way she could. “I would go or die trying,” she said honestly, quietly, without hesitation.

  “Go where?” Tamara Gregson asked, pushing her way past Anora without ceremony. “You’re in no fit state to be thinking of…going…anywhere.

  “And shame on you,” she said, wagging a finger in Anora’s face. “Encouraging her. Dying, indeed. You stay to your bed, Mrs. Reason.”

  To Anora she said, “I’m sure you were on your way somewhere.”

  Lydia closed her eyes and sank her head deep into her feather pillows, her jaw tight.

  Anora thought it best to retreat, to try to explain would only heap more coals upon her head. “I’ll be back with tea. Would you care for some, Mrs. Gregson?”

  “None for me; I’ll only be a moment, but on second thought, you stay a moment, I need to show you how to change dear Mrs. Reason’s bindings.”

  Bobbing across the room like a spring robin, Mrs. Gregson said to Lydia, “I can see you’ve been fretting. You’ll be more comfortable once these bindings on your poor swollen breasts are changed. This, this young woman can help you this evening. Your milk should be pretty well dried up by the end of the week.”

  Lydia turned her head aside and mewed a little protest. Mrs. Gregson folded back the sheets and pulled up Lydia’s nightgown. “Let me see. Do you have much bleeding?” Giving her thigh a pat, she said, “No, good, good. Are you in a lot of pain, my dear?” With tears streaming down her cheeks, Lydia shook her head.

  “You’re tired,” Mrs. Gregson said, her hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “I’m sure you think it the end of the world now, but in a year or two I’ll wager you’ll be thinking of babies again. I have no doubt, a healthy young woman like you could bear a half dozen children. Someday, you mark my words, this country will be full of Reasons, cousins, uncles, aunts…a whole tribe.”

  Waving Anora aside, Mrs. Gregson said, “Now, I’ll not bother you anymore. Sleep is the best medicine. Promise me you’ll go to sleep. And no more talk of going anywhere today. Tomorrow, possibly, that might not be a bad thing. Sit up in a chair, but no, no stairs.”

  Lydia, her lips pressed tightly together, nodded in agreement. Anora thought probably complying to be rid of the woman.

  Shooing Anora ahead of her, Lydia’s door closed behind them, Mrs. Gregson turned her around, grabbing her by the arm. “Now you leave her be. Do as I’ve shown you, and all will be right as rain in a trice of Sundays.”

  »»•««

  Anora led Isabell from the room, and Hank sat on the bed and put his arm around Lydia’s shoulders. Closing her eyes, she collapsed there in his arms and said, “I’ll rest for a while. But I’m going this afternoon, I’ll not stay behind.”

  “Please don’t, Lydia. I’ll bring our son up here, and you and I can say a private good-bye. There’s no need for you to exert yourself this way. We all know you want to, need too, but you’re too weak, sweetheart. Let Paxton and I do the labor. When you’re well, in a few days, we’ll go together, you, me, and Isabell.”

  Lydia visibly bristled, shoving herself out of his arms, pushing him off the bed. “Don’t tell me what to do. Poking me, wrapping me, and unwrapping me, treating me like…like a thing, an invalid. I’m tired of being told what to do. My baby’s dead. There’s nothing to take his place. What good is it to save my strength, why should I? I want my baby.”

  He could find nothing to say to help her. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. And in his heart, he didn’t blame her for being cross.

  “Mr. Reason, Hank,” Tamara Gregson said, beckoning him to join her in the alcove at the bottom of the stairs, appearing tightlipped and disapproving, her gaze set on Anora, who’d emerged from the kitchen with teakettle, bread, and jam on a tray, headed for the stairs.

  Mrs. Gregson put a finger to her lips to shush him, her hand on his arm. Anora, head down, went up the stairs before Mrs. Gregson broke her silence. “I think Lydia’s planning on getting out of her bed today.” she said, whispering loudly. “I think that young woman is encouraging her.”

  Hank followed Anora’s lavender skirt as she passed by the upstairs banister. He waited until he heard her go into his bedroom before saying, “I don’t think my wife could be persuaded to do something she didn’t already have in mind to do. She’d be sitting down here in the parlor if she could, but she decided to save her strength for this afternoon.

  “We’ve tried to reason with her. But how can we reason when we all would feel the same if we were in her place? She’s lost a child, Mrs. Gregson. She had milk for that child. He’s lying cold and lifeless in there, and we are helpless to change that. She needs to be with him today, I understand. Paxton and I will
do everything we can to spare her. I’ll make a bed in the back of the wagon. I’ll carry her down the stairs. She’s set the bit in her teeth.

  “As for Anora encouraging her, I doubt it. Perhaps she could see that to argue with, or order Lydia about today, would only upset her more.”

  In an attempt to put a halt to this conversation, he said, “You’ve been kind, and I don’t know what we would’ve done without your help.”

  “Tut, tut, but if Lydia don’t come down with a fever after this day’s work, I’ll eat my hat. Now if that should come to pass, I’ve made up a tincture. I’ve written the instructions on the bottle. You give it to her at the first sign of trouble. And if she starts bleeding, you come get me.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you again.”

  “Well, Theodore,” Tamara said to her spouse, righting her bonnet of black velvet, then adjusting her cape of dark otter skin closer about her plump shoulders, “we should be gone.”

  »»•««

  The effort of dressing sapped a good deal of Lydia’s strength, she’d gone pale as a ghost. The clock below stairs struck three-quarter past the hour. “You have a few minutes, Lydia,” Anora said, “you should put your feet up, close your eyes, and rest.”

  Without argument, Lydia leaned back and closed her eyes. Anora took Isabell by the hand and they left the room, leaving the door ajar.

  Mr. Reason waited, standing in the doorway to Isabell’s room. “Is she awake?”

  “Awake, dressed, and ready to go, but resting. Is there anything I can do? She’s putting up a very good front.”

  “Damn, I’d hoped she’d sleep through it and miss it. I hate this,” he said, going to the stair railing, head bowed, looking down into the entryway. “Paxton and I put the cushion from the sofa in the bed of the wagon, and some pillows, and a quilt, more than that I just can’t think.”

  Anora put her hand on his arm. “She knows what she’s doing, she knows the risk. You could refuse her, but she’d never forgive you. She’d never forgive herself if she missed it. Mr. Reason, Hank…are you listening to me?”

  Turning to face her, he touched a finger to her cheek. Without saying a word, he left her for the bedroom at the front of the house.

  »»•««

  Bundled up in the back of the wagon, wearing a black shako hat with a sheer, black veil covering her face, Lydia reached out with her black gloved hand and pulled the small wooden coffin closer to her side. They bumped along through town, Hank driving the team of mules, his white shirt showing beneath his plaid wool coat, his best leather hat pulled down over his eyes. Paxton, astride Big-Red, dressed in his brown suit-coat, sat straight and sober in the saddle. Folks on the street stopped to watch them pass, the men tipping their hats in deference.

  Hank knew Paxton had sent word to Comstock to have the ferry on the Takenah side by four o’clock. With the sun directly west, resting on the crest of the Coast Range Mountains, Hank guessed they were right on time. He’d learned the breeze, coming directly from the ocean, picked up right before sunset. He figured they had an hour or hour-and-a-half of daylight left.

  He leaned over the side of the wagon to put two-bits into Comstock’s hand. The man shook his head, tipped his hat to Lydia. “My condolences, ma’am.”

  Hank got down off the wagon to hold Lydia’s hand as the ferry moved over the water. On the far side, reins in hand, Hank cursed the ruts and chuckholes in the lane. The distance between home and the hill hadn’t seemed that far, nor did it take long to traverse, but today it stretched out for miles and miles, a rough, narrow, dirty track that jarred the kidneys and rattled the teeth.

  In the stand of oaks near the building site, Hank maneuvered the team and wagon to the spot beneath a big oak where Lydia had lain and taken a nap the day they’d planted the trees. In that very spot, a fresh, open grave, small and deep, overlooking the valley, the town of Takenah, the river, and the orchard, would forever remind them of their sorrow.

  When Hank reached over the side of the wagon to take the coffin away, Lydia folded herself over it, refusing to let it go.

  A small wooden cross slipped to the wagon bed. Hank saw the inscription Mr. Gregson had burned into the wood, Carter Boyd Reason, born March 10th, 1848, died March 10th, 1848.

  To get her attention, Hank tapped Lydia on the wrist to show her the cross. She placed a kiss on the top of the coffin and whispered, “Sleep, little angel, you are loved well.”

  Without saying a word, Hank reached for the cross. Lydia kissed it and let him take the coffin. He walked it to the head of the site and stepped back.

  Falling back in time, he stood there, not a full-grown man but a traumatized little boy with Julie’s hand on his shoulder.

  He removed his hat, placed it over his heart, and began to sing, “Shadows of the Evening.”

  Paxton shoveled dirt into the grave.

  Daylight faded fast and a brisk wind kicked up. Hank made quick work of turning the team around, heading for home. On the way back down the hill, Lydia started to talk to herself. Hank could hear her every word. “I must get busy and put this behind me. If I keep busy, then I won’t have to think. I won’t have to wonder why. How I failed. I murdered my child. He died inside me.”

  “You didn’t murder your child, Lydie,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Nothing you did or didn’t do would have changed what happened. We couldn’t possibly have known his life was in jeopardy. And even if we had, I don’t think there would’ve been anything we could’ve done to save him. Guilt won’t bring him back. Punishing yourself won’t do a bit of good. We’ll never forget him.” His voice cracked, his tears blurring the road, river, ferry, and town.

  After pulling the wagon up to the back porch, Hank leaped down and hurriedly wrapped Lydia in the quilt before carefully lifting her out of the wagon. Paxton had dismounted and stood aside, watching. They both saw the blood on the cushion.

  A dark cloud moved in over the valley obscuring the beauty of the sunset. A cold dart of air shot down the back of his neck. Hank shivered, hunching up his shoulders. He braced himself for the oncoming storm.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Anora, help,” Hank shouted. No hands free, he kicked the door from the porch to the kitchen. Finding no one in the kitchen, he called out again when he reached the stairs.

  “I’m all right,” Lydia said, head lolling to the side, eyes rolling back in her head.

  The heat of her body radiated through the quilt, perspiration glistened on her forehead. “Anora, help.”

  “Hank, what is it?” Anora asked, calling down over the banister. “Oh, Lord, no.”

  Sweeping by her, over his shoulder, huffing and puffing, he said, “The tincture. Mrs. Gregson made a tincture for a fever. It’s on my side of the bed by the laudanum.”

  Anora rushed down the hall ahead of him to open the bedroom door. Behind him, Isabell barreled out of her room. “Mommy. Mommy.”

  Pausing at the bedroom door to look back, Hank told her, “Be a good girl, go down and ask Uncle Paxton to get some hot water, and bring some towels?”

  “Mommy?” Isabell said, unmoving.

  “Isabell, please,” Hank said, turning sideways, getting his wife through the doorway, arms shaking with fatigue.

  Anora reached the bed before him. She spread out a spare sheet to protect the bed from the blood.

  “Lydia, are you in pain?” he asked.

  Eyes closed, rolling her head back and forth, she asked, “Water, please. I’d like a drink.”

  Anora, hovering near, pointed at the label on the bottle. “The directions say no water for fifteen minutes before and after.”

  Adjusting Lydia’s pillow, Hank asked, “What? No water, why?”

  Anora shrugged.

  Hank sat on the edge of the bed, arms straight, and straddled Lydia’s torso to see directly into her eyes. “No water, Lydia. Mrs. Gregson left a tincture for your fever.”

  Twisting from side to side, she begged, “Water, I need water.
Please. All I’m asking for is a drink, just a little. My tongue, my lips…so dry. Everything taken from me, my baby, and now this.”

  “Shhh, now,” Anora said to her. “You’ll have your drink of water in a few minutes.” Hands shaking, she filled the dropper with the secret liquid in the little amber bottle. “Ten drops under the tongue. Open your mouth, Lydia.”

  Lydia turned her head away, refusing. “Please, sweetheart,” Hank begged her, holding her hand.

  Lydia grew calm, she opened her eyes, and held his gaze. “Nothing will help. I’ll take the stuff, but it won’t do any good. There’s no tincture to mend a broken heart.”

  Looking at the bottle, Anora said, “This one might not cure a broken heart, but I’m certain it’ll take care of your fever.” Surprised at her confidence, Anora said, “One thing at a time—time, Lydia, one thing at a time. Next thing, you’ll have your glass of water. After that, you’ll rest and have a little food. You’ll be set to rights in no time.”

  , Anora took charge. “Mr. Reason, if you would find her night clothes, I’ll start to get her out of this dress. We’ll put a fresh binding on. Then see to the bleeding. Now, you’re not to worry, either of you,” Anora said to them both.

  Hank wanted very much to believe her.

  »»•««

  Finally, Lydia had her drink of water. Mr. Reason left the room, and Anora gave Lydia her sponge bath. “If you lie still here, your feet up, like so,” Anora said, placing two pillows under Lydia’s knees, and three beneath her ankles, “we’ll slow down the flow. In a half-hour you’ll have another ten drops of the tincture, and then one more. Is there anything you would like, maybe some clear broth?”

  “I was right,” Lydia said, staring into the darkest corner of the room.

  “You’re always right,” Mr. Reason said from the doorway.

  Anora hadn’t realized he hadn’t left.

  “What were you right about this time?” he asked, sliding up to lie beside Lydia on the bed. Tenderly, he ran his finger down the curve of his wife’s cheek.