Mrs. Finney tried to laugh and ended up coughing.
Kate said, “Alex!” She said no more, but handed her mother her own handkerchief.
Alex wondered how many handkerchiefs Mrs. Finney went through on the average day. He suspected the one she’d carried outside was already damp and bloody. He took the stairs slowly, being careful not to jostle his cargo. She weighed nothing at all, and he recalled how little of her dinner she’d eaten. She’s pushed her food around and made a gallant effort, but he knew she hadn’t eaten much.
At the top of the stairs, Kate scooted past him and opened her mother’s door. “Here, Ma. Lie down, and I’ll open the curtains. You can watch the fireflies from the window, and I’ll sit next to you.”
After setting his cargo on the bed, Alex said, “I’ll get a couple of chairs, and we can join you.”
“You two are too good to me,” Mrs. Finney gasped.
A duet of voices responded to this declaration. “Nuts.” Alex and Kate glanced at each other, and Alex suspected they might have smiled if circumstances had been different. As it was, he could see tears standing in Kate’s eyes. He knew she’d never shed them. Not Kate. Not in front of her mother.
“I’ll get Ma ready for bed while you go get chairs,” Kate said after a moment of stillness, unbroken even by coughs. “Be sure to knock before you come in.”
As if he’d ever enter a woman’s bedroom without knocking first. Rather than tell Kate so, he said only, “Right,” and left the room in search of chairs.
The door closed behind Alex. Kate swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked back tears. Her mother was dying. She knew it. No matter how much she tried to deny it, her mother was dying. Sucking in a deep breath, she turned to the bed and proceeded to do her duty. “Here, Ma. Let me unbutton you. You don’t have to sit up or anything. Just roll over.”
“Ah, Katie, I hate being so helpless. I wish I could be strong for you.”
“Aw, heck, Ma, I’m strong enough for both of us.”
“I know it. That’s the truly sad part.”
Whatever that meant. Her mother struggled to sit upright, and Kate snapped, “Darn it, Ma. Don’t sit up.”
A spate of coughs greeted this admonition, and Mrs. Finney sank back onto the bed, defeated. “I’m sorry, Katie.”
“Nuts.”
By the time Alex’s knock came at the door, Kate had managed to get her mother’s daytime clothes off her and had slipped a flannel nightgown over her head. The nightie was one Kate had made with her own two hands, out of cheap white flannel, and it had little red rosebuds sewn around the neckline and hem. Chinese Charley had sold her about a million of the fabric rosebuds at a real bargain. Kate still had a ton of them. “Don’t move, Ma. It’s probably Alex.”
Her mother nodded without opening her eyes. Kate had to swallow more tears when she went to the door and opened it. “She’s really weak,” she whispered as a greeting.
Alex didn’t move to enter the room. Kate saw two comfortable-looking chairs behind him. “Do you think we ought to forget the chairs?”
Glancing over her shoulder, Kate took in the sight of her mother’s slight frame lying still under the covers. Her body was so wasted, it hardly made a lump, and she was so weak, she hadn’t made a wrinkle in the counterpane. She needed rest. More, she needed her family. Kate shook her head. “No. Bring them in. I think she needs companionship right now.”
With a nod, Alex turned and lifted both chairs. They looked heavy, and Kate made a move to help him with one, but his scowl stopped her. Pinching her lips, she decided to let him be a hero if he wanted.
What a nasty thought. Shoot, when had she become so unfair to everybody? Since forever, she guessed. And to Alex, of all people. The only man she’d ever met, aside from her own brothers and a couple of friends, who was worth more than a bucket of spit. And that was character-wise. Money-wise, he was worth God knew what. Thousands, certainly. Could she actually have met a millionaire? Kate supposed stranger things had happened in the world, but never to her.
“Why don’t you set them up over here?” she suggested, rushing past him to the window.
He set the chairs to one side of the window and gazed critically at the room. “I’m going to move the bed.”
“You’re what?” Glancing from him to the bed, Kate doubted it. That thing was heavy.
But Alex had already moved to Mrs. Finney’s side. “Would you like to see out the window, ma’am?” He winked down at her.
“I’d love it,” Mrs. Finney whispered.
“But you can’t . . .”
Alex interrupted Kate’s protest. “I’ll just slide the bed over so you can see outdoors.”
“Thank you, Alex.” It looked to Kate as if her mother would have liked to say more, but she shut her mouth fast, undoubtedly to stop coughs from leaking out.
“But . . .”
Again, Kate didn’t get her protest out.
“I’ll just have to move it a little bit,” Alex said, and proceeded to do it.
Kate was impressed. Not only was he nice, but he was strong as an ox, too. Maybe that’s what farming did for a man. Kate approved, if so.
After he’d positioned the bed so that Mrs. Finney could look out the window if she only turned her head, Alex set the chairs beside the bed. He gestured to one of them. “Kate?”
She hesitated for a moment, then gave up. She didn’t even know why she’d been going to fight. Habit, most likely. A bad one, in this case. Generally, Kate needed to keep her wits sharp and the ability and readiness to fight for what she needed was an admirable attribute. In this place, this farm that had belonged to Alex English’s family for more than a hundred years, she didn’t need it. Shoot, if this kept up, she’d lose her edge.
Vowing not to let that happen, Kate sat. It might get complicated, but if she were only pugnacious in Chicago and remembered that she didn’t have to be when she went places with Alex, things might go easier for her. After thinking about it for a moment, she snorted softly and decided she was being stupid. Again. There was little possibility that she’d be going very darned many places with Alex.
“What is it, Kate?”
Alex’s soft question jerked her attention back to the bedroom. “Nothing. I was just thinking how—how pretty everything is.”
“Beautiful,” Mrs. Finney murmured.
Kate peeked at her mother and found her gazing out the window. When Kate did likewise she, too, she saw only night, and would have said something to that effect only she stopped herself. Because she realized she was probably being unnecessarily hostile out of habit—again—she looked harder into the darkness.
After a moment, she came to the conclusion that, even though night had fallen and the gorgeous greens and flower colors of the countryside could no longer be discerned, the scene held great beauty and serenity, two commodities unavailable to Hazel Finney on a regular basis. Small wonder she liked this view. It was pretty, all right. The sun had set, and the moon hung in the sky like a silver dollar. It tipped the trees with silver and dimmed the stars twinkling against the blackness of the sky. You could never see the stars in Chicago, although they were as clear as anything out here.
Kate heaved a deep sigh of . . . Good Lord, could it be contentment? Searching her innards for answers, Kate decided that, by gum, it was contentment. How unusual. Not to mention unsettling.
“It’s pretty here, isn’t it?” Alex asked. She heard contentment in his voice, too, but his didn’t surprise her. He deserved it, because he lived here.
“Beautiful,” whispered Mrs. Finney once more.
“Amen,” agreed Kate.
They sat in silence for a long time. Kate didn’t know how long, and she didn’t care. Every now and then she’d glance at her mother’s face, pale and drawn in the moonlight, and found her gazing out the window as if she couldn’t soak up enough of this precious peace. Made sense to Kate, who made a quick swipe under her eyes to catch stray tears. She’d never been weepy be
fore; couldn’t afford to be. It annoyed her that tears seemed so close to the surface now, of all inconvenient times.
She needed to be tough. She needed to be strong for her mother. And herself. And her brothers. Kate was the rock and the mainstay of her family; she couldn’t fall apart now. Not now, when her mother was dying.
Oh, God.
The next time she glanced at her mother, Mrs. Finney’s eyes were closed. Kate stared hard, unable to discern a rise and fall of her chest. Rising slowly, she reached out to her mother, in a panic for fear she’d died. Alex caught her hand before she could touch her mother’s cheek.
“Just a minute, Kate. We don’t want to disturb her rest.”
She hadn’t realized he’d already arisen from his own chair. “But . . .”
“Let’s just do a little test.” He pressed two fingers lightly against the side of Mrs. Finney’s neck. Kate knew from experience that he was searching for her mother’s pulse, and that the skin was dry and brittle and felt like old leaves. When he smiled, Kate released a gust of breath. “She’s asleep.” He kept his voice quiet.
Kate allowed her head to droop for a second as relief swept through her. She knew that one day, and probably soon, she wouldn’t hear such good news, but she was grateful for it now. “Thanks, Alex.”
He stood beside the bed, gazing down at Kate. “Come with me, Kate. I have a question for you.”
“Yeah?” She stepped away from the bed, only then realizing how exhausted she was. In Chicago, she never seemed to get tired because she needed her strength to carry her from hospital to job to job to hospital to home every day. Now that the tension had drained from her during this fresh-air-and-country-filled day, her knees wobbled when they tried to support her.
Alex’s hand darted out, he put his arm around her, and she didn’t withdraw from his embrace. With another sigh, she murmured, “Thanks. Guess I’m all in.”
“I guess so.”
He sounded stern. Under Chicago circumstances, his tone of voice would have provoked Kate into a full-fledged rebellion. Since she’d come to the country, she’d figured out that his stern voice was the one he used when he was trying to get a point across to a recalcitrant female. Kate imagined he’d honed that tone of voice on Mary Jo, and she laughed softly.
“What’s so funny?” He still sounded stern.
“Nothing.” She allowed him to lead her into the hallway outside her mother’s door. “Thanks for being so nice to Ma, Alex. I really appreciate it, and so does she. I’m afraid . . .” But she couldn’t voice her fears. It was now possible for her to acknowledge her mother’s impending death to herself, but she couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. Not now. Not here.
“I have a question for you, Kate.” He didn’t sound so stern now.
“Oh?” She yawned and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Beg pardon.”
“Don’t be silly. You have every right to be totally exhausted. But I’d still like to ask you something tonight. Before you go to bed. That way you can think about it and give me an answer tomorrow.”
All of Kate’s protective barriers went up and quivered, on the alert. “Yeah? What kind of question?”
“Not that kind.”
Oh, good, now she’d offended him. With a sigh, she said, “I beg your pardon. As you must know by now, I’m not used to people doing nice things for my family. And I’m not used to entertaining questions of a polite nature from men.”
“For God’s sake, Kate! What do you take me for? I’m not that kind of man. As you ought to know by now!”
She held up a hand to stop his outraged spiel. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not that type. What do you want to ask me?”
“Let’s go downstairs.”
She hung back. “I don’t like to leave Ma alone. Can’t you ask me here?”
He frowned. “No. This might take a while. You’re probably going to protest, and I’m going to have to explain my reasons, and then you’ll argue about it, and it will doubtless take a while for you to understand and agree to my point of view.”
Was she that bad? Probably. “Well, come into my room, then.”
Now it was he who looked shocked. Kate sighed. “I’m not going to seduce you, Alex. I just want to be here if Ma has a coughing fit or something.”
“Of course.” He still sounded shocked, but Kate didn’t care. She opened the door and led the way into her room. Someone had turned the counterpane back and plumped up the two feathery pillows. Kate supposed it had been Louise, since it was the maid’s job was to do stuff like that.
Although it still boggled her mind to know that people could afford to hire other people to do such things, she thought it was nice to walk into a bedroom and have everything already prepared for her. She considered the possibility of getting a job like Louise’s, here, in the country. She probably wouldn’t make as much money as she did dancing and telling fortunes, but the air was better, and the working conditions were superb. And she wouldn’t have to fend off the advances of disgusting men, who thought she was easy.
After Ma died, Kate would have only herself to support, so she wouldn’t need to earn as much money. She almost sobbed aloud, and covered this uncustomary lapse into emotionalism with a show of opening the curtain covering her window.
When she turned around, Alex had drawn two chairs over so that they could peer outside. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing.
With a deep sigh, she took his suggestion. No fight about that. Truth to tell, Kate didn’t feel up to fighting about anything at all. She kept her gaze on Alex as he sat down, too. She realized he was bracing himself for battle. She felt bad about that, since he didn’t deserve all the hardness she’d flung at him since they’d met. Not all of it; only a little bit. She didn’t want to lose her edge, which was important to her everyday life, so she didn’t say anything by way of apology.
“Now,” he said, his voice firm, “we need to talk about your mother.”
“We do?”
“Yes. I think she’d be better off here in the country than in the hospital in Chicago.”
Kate stiffened. “She wouldn’t have to stay at the hospital. She could stay—”
Alex forestalled her. “At your place?”
“Well . . . Yes.” Bristling, Kate said, “It’s not that bad, Alex. It’s clean and warm.”
“It’s a room above a butcher’s shop!”
“It may be a room above a butcher’s shop, but it’s home! Not everybody can have a grand palace like this!” The gesture she made with her was about as choppy as the commotion in her heart. “She needs to be with her family!”
“She wouldn’t be with her family! She’d be alone all day, every day. If she stays here, she’ll have people with her constantly.”
“But it wouldn’t be her family.” The words came out taut since she had to squeeze them past the ache in her throat.
Alex’s gaze was intense. “You can stay with her, Kate.”
Shocked, Kate stared at Alex, her open mouth spewing no words.
“I know you need to earn a living. I can pay whatever you earn at your two jobs at the fair.”
“But—but that’s not possible.”
“It is, too, possible. Listen, I want to help you. Neither of us knows how much longer your mother can last, Kate. You must know that.”
“No! I don’t know that.” She was lying through her teeth.
Plainly exasperated, Alex barked, “For God’s sake, Kate, you claim to want the best for your mother, but you reject offers of help at every turning of the road.”
“Darn it, Alex, I don’t need your charity!”
“The hell you don’t!”
Kate was so shocked by this slip into profanity that she could only stare at him for several seconds. She noticed that he appeared rather shocked himself.
He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to swear.”
She waved her hand. She heard worse than that tiny little “hell” every day of her life.
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br /> “And I know you don’t need my charity. I like your mother, Kate, and I know she’s had a hard and sometimes brutal life. I’d like to make her last days on earth a little easier on her and on you, too. The doctor only lives about a mile down the road, and I can see that he checks on her every day.”
“She’ll miss her family,” Kate muttered, wondering even as she spoke if Walter, Bill, and Kate herself were worth dying in Chicago for. Kate didn’t think so. She’d rather breathe her last out here in the open, with fresh air and flowers blooming. On the other hand, she knew Ma would want her children around her at the end. And Alex had offered to pay her her regular salary and let her stay here with her mother.
“Oh, God!” Unable to control her emotions, she buried her face in her cupped hands.
“Kate!” In an instant, Alex had her in his arms. “Don’t cry, darling. I know how hard all this is for you. And I don’t want to take your mother away from you. But she’s so ill. And she seems to enjoy the country so much.”
“I know she does.” Kate tried and failed to control her tears. Her heart was breaking, and she couldn’t help it. “Oh, Alex, she’s dying.” There. She’d spoken the truth out loud. It made her cry harder.
“There, Kate, I know, I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know anything.” Her words were so thick, she could scarcely understand herself. “She’s had such a hard life, and she’s such a saint. It’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not,” Alex soothed, not bothering to contradict her statement about his not knowing anything.
Kate knew it was because that, by this time, he knew better than argue with her when she was being irrational. She even admitted—to herself—that she was being irrational. How she’d changed since she’d first met Alex English!
His big hand stroking her from her head to her waist felt good. Kate had developed a lot of respect for Alex’s hands. They were capable hands, and Alex used them for good. He was about as unlike her father as a human male could get, and she loved him.
“I don’t want to go back to Chicago and leave her here,” she said when she could push the words past the ache in her throat.
Bicycle Built for Two Page 22
