The Lovesick Cure

by Pamela Morsi

She awakened about an hour later to ask for more water. But then she slept again. Jesse went through the kitchen larder in the hopes to find some interesting foodstuff that would tempt her to eat. She was holding up a turnip for consideration when she heard a croaking sound from the bedroom.

  Jesse hurried inside to see Aunt Will wide-eyed and looking frightened.

  “What is it?”

  “Water,” she croaked out.

  Jesse hurried to the sink, filled a glass. She helped Aunt Will to a sitting position. The frail older woman gulped down half without even taking a breath.

  “I’m so thirsty,” she said.

  When she’d swallowed every drop, Jesse refilled the glass and set it at the bedside.

  “Is that better?” Jesse asked. “You looked so scared when I came in.”

  Aunt Will heaved a heavy sigh and shook her head. “You don’t know where I’ve been today,” she said. “Is Mama coming tonight?”

  Jesse hesitated to answer. And the half minute gave Aunt Will the opportunity to correct herself.

  “Mama’s been dead forty years,” she said, as if to remind both of them. Aunt Will chuckled humorlessly. “It’s this cabin. I keep thinking that I’m a teenager stuck here, seeing no one but Maudine all day and waiting for my mother to visit. Plumb scared every minute.”

  “No,” Jesse told her tenderly. “You’re safe here with me. And I’m going to fix you something to eat. Anything you want.”

  Aunt Will relaxed into her pillow. “I’m not peckish nary a mite,” she said. “My dad-gummed belly’s so big, it’s a struggle to breathe.”

  It did appear that the amount of fluid in her abdomen was expanding significantly. Jesse propped extra pillows and a blanket behind her back to elevate her into an easier breathing position. Almost immediately she fell asleep again and Jesse decided to hold off supper until she rested.

  With sunset nearing, Jesse went out to catch the cow. Cussy was already on her way back to the barn. Jesse got her fed and secured in the barn. She gave only a couple of inches in the bottom of the milk bucket, but Jesse dutifully carried it back to the cabin. She was about halfway there when she heard Aunt Will scream. Lilly June began to howl. Jesse dropped the bucket and ran.

  By the time she reached the porch, Aunt Will was calling, “Maudine! Maudine!”

  Jesse tore into the bedroom to find her aunt covered in blood. Her expression was more incredulous than scared.

  “Maudine, I’ve puked up a bellyful of slugs.”

  Jesse tamped down her gag reflex. The “slugs” were actually great gobs of clotted blood. Disgust was a mild word for the revulsion she felt. From somewhere in the recesses of her brain she heard Piney’s very calming, very matter-of-fact voice, “I’m a medical professional.”

  Jesse was not a medical professional, but she could play one in this cabin.

  “My goodness, Aunt Will. Let me clean up this mess for you.”

  She kept her tone light and her conversation casual as she stripped the bloody covers from her aunt’s bed. The mess had soaked through the sheets and her nightgown in a couple of places and Jesse decided that she’d have to bathe.

  During the clean-up process, her aunt vomited again. This time Jesse caught it in a basin. Bright red blood interspersed with dark black clots.

  By the time Aunt Will was clean and dry and tucked up again, she was exhausted.

  “Maudine,” she said. “You’re too good to me.”

  “I’m going to be right here,” Jesse told her. “You don’t have to be afraid of anything.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “It’s nature’s way. No call to be wary.”

  As she drifted off, Jesse backed into the main room of the cabin and called Piney’s number. It rang twice, then clicked and rang twice again before it was picked up.

  “Dr. Mohammed.”

  “Oh…uh, hi. This is Jesse, Jesse Winsloe. Aunt Will’s niece.”

  “Yes, of course, Miss Winsloe. How may I help you?”

  Jesse described as accurately as she could Aunt Will’s status, beginning with the worst and going backward.

  “I’m not so far away on another call,” he told her. “I’ll be there to see her shortly.”

  That was the best news Jesse had all day. She would do anything to help her aunt, but she was out of her depth. She had no idea what to expect.

  She retrieved her bucket, though the pigs had lapped up the spilled milk. She washed it up and put it away. Then she decided to make leek soup. If Aunt Will had to avoid meat proteins, Jesse was sure that leek soup was the closest vegetarian thing to healing consommé.

  But mostly what she did was pace the floor. Jesse thought about calling her mother. A friendly voice could go far. But her mother would only worry about her and that didn’t help anybody.

  Aunt Will stirred and asked for water. Jesse helped her to drink another glass.

  Finally Doc Mo arrived. Jesse was so grateful to see him. He looked over the bloody vomit still in the washtub, but made no comment.

  In the bedroom, he took her vital signs, examined her belly, her feet and her neck and listened to her breathing before trying to wake her. He put a cold compress on her face and spoke to her loudly, as if she were deaf.

  She opened her eyes and then glared at him. “Who the devil are you? And why are you yelling at me?”

  “I’m your doctor,” he said calmly, unoffended. “Can you sit up a bit for me?”

  With help, she managed. He asked her perhaps a dozen questions. Jesse was grateful to hear reasonable answers to all of them.

  “I’m going to tap your belly, draw some of this fluid off, as we’ve done before. It should make you more comfortable.”

  “If this baby doesn’t come soon, I’m going to go out of my mind,” Aunt Will told him.

  The doctor smiled at her. “It will be soon,” he said.

  Jesse assumed that he hadn’t understood her.

  Doc Mo laid out tubing and needles, washed up and gloved before aspirating the fluid. He numbed the area and either did an excellent job, or Aunt Will was really out of it. She didn’t even wake up as, slowly, two large containers were drawn off.

  Afterward the doctor put a small bandage on the site.

  “She shouldn’t be up and moving around for several hours,” he said. “But I doubt she will be.”

  They stepped out of the bedroom. “Is this going to make her better?” Jesse asked.

  Doc Mo shook his head. “I hope it will make her more comfortable. The old woman is coming to the end. She’s bleeding internally. It will go better for her if it’s the stomach rather than the lungs. She might survive another day or so, but it’s not likely.”

  A wave of fear washed over Jesse. It was not that she was afraid of death as much as she was afraid of her own inadequacy.

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Exactly what you’ve been doing,” Doc Mo answered. “She needs to have you close. She needs to know you care. Beyond that, it will be what it will be.”

  Jesse went back to pacing. Lilly June scratched to get inside. But instead of inhabiting her usual place by the fire, she went directly to the bedroom and lay down on the floor beneath Aunt Will’s bed. Jesse tried ineffectively to get her to move. But she would not. Finally Jesse decided she should not.

  A half an hour later, her aunt awakened again.

  “Maudine!”

  Jesse hurried to her side and helped her drink more water.

  “The pains have eased off a lot, like you said. Thank you for staying, Maudine.”

  Jesse stroked her aunt’s brow. “It’s DuJess,” she said.

  “DuJess,” Aunt Will repeated. “She’s a nice girl. Don’t you think she’s turned out well?”

  Jesse had no answer for that.

  “I wish I could be there,” Aunt Will said. “I wish I could see her face when she finds out.”

  “Finds out what?” Jesse asked.

  “Why, who she’s turned out to be, of course.”


  It was nearly midnight when Piney finally got to the cabin. Jesse let him hold her tightly for a long moment. It felt so good to be in his arms. He went in and looked at Aunt Will. She told him what the doctor had said.

  “I made leek soup, but I didn’t know if I should feed her,” Jesse said. “About the only thing she’s had today is water.”

  He nodded. “She’s dehydrated from blood loss,” he said. “If she’ll take some soup, it might feel good on her empty stomach.”

  Jesse warmed the soup and Piney held Aunt Will up as she tried to feed her. She did manage to slurp down several spoonfuls.

  “No more,” she said, finally. “But thank you much, Maudine. I am feeling so poorly.”

  As soon as her head touched the pillow she was asleep again.

  “She doesn’t even know me,” Jesse whispered to Piney. “She thinks I’m this Maudine person.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes that happens. With all that’s going on, the toxins, the blood loss, it’s probably to be expected.”

  Jesse sighed.

  “On some level, she knows you’re here,” Piney assured her.

  “She thinks I’ve turned out well,” Jesse told him.

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “It’s what she told Maudine.”

  Piney managed a smile at that.

  “Do you know any Maudine?” Jesse asked.

  “Maybe,” he answered. “There was a midwife way, way back. I’ve heard a few stories about her. She was half Osage or something. I guess it’s possible that Aunt Will could have known her.”

  Jesse nodded. “That probably makes sense in her mind. Who would the healer expect to take care of her, except another healer?”

  The two of them stayed near the bedside as the night wore on. About 3:00 a.m. she woke up and reached for Jesse.

  “Hold my hand,” she said.

  Jesse clutched those long bony fingers in her own for nearly an hour, before Piney spelled her.

  “I’ll take her hand. You go to the bathroom, get yourself something to drink, walk around the room a couple of times.”

  Her aunt was sound asleep, for sure she wouldn’t notice. But Piney was only in Jesse’s place for a moment when Aunt Will’s eyes opened. She was wide awake.

  “Hi, Aunt Will,” he said to her.

  She squinted at him. “Remind me who you are again.”

  “Piney,” he answered. “Piney Baxley.”

  Aunt Will looked momentarily confused and then she laughed. It was a strange sound in the desperation of the sickroom.

  “I fixed your wagon, didn’t I?” she said.

  Piney glanced over at Jesse.

  “I…yeah, I guess.”

  “I thought what in the world can I do to get that evil woman out of his head forever,” Aunt Will said. “And the answer was nothing. There’s no cure for a broken heart. But I couldn’t have her crawling back again. So I put the awfulest smell on you that ever was. I knew you were still thinking of her and I thought, ‘Let every time she comes to mind this stink be in his memory.’”

  “It worked.”

  “I know it did,” she said. “I know it did. Now tell me honest, do you love my DuJess?”

  Piney didn’t look in her direction, but Jesse heard him answer without hesitation. “Yes, I do, Aunt Will. I love her.”

  “Then promise me you’ll marry up,” she said. “Don’t make me come back from the grave to get my shotgun.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Jesse moved up to be next to her. “I’m here, Aunt Will,” she said.

  Aunt Will smiled at her. “I think this is about the end for me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for my mama all day. But it looks like she’s not coming to me, I’m going to her.”

  “I love you, Aunt Will,” Jesse said.

  “I’m glad of it,” she answered. “You’re my girl, all mine, and I mean to claim you. And I’m going to tell your daddy all that he missed.”

  Jesse sat on Piney’s lap and together they held Aunt Will’s hand until dawn. She drank water twice more, but she never spoke again. They were both seated there, both watching her sleep, when suddenly she was gone. No cry of pain, no movement, no death rattle, nothing. One moment she was there and the next she was not. In complete silence, the difference was indefinable, but as clear as night and day.

  Lilly June scrambled out from beneath the bed and walked into the other room.

  43

  The days immediately following Aunt Will’s death were strangely quiet yet incredibly chaotic. As the old woman had predicted, both the local funeral director and Brother Chet insisted that despite Aunt Will’s explicit instructions, a proper burial was only possible by having the body prepared by a mortician and eulogized at the church.

  Piney stepped into this argument on Jesse’s behalf. He wasted little time trying to be diplomatic.

  “This is what Aunt Will wanted,” he told the pastor. “And this is what we’re going to do. If you want to be a part of it, there’s a place for you. If you don’t, then feel free to stay away.”

  He knew Brother Chet would not be able to resist the crowd of locals sure to show up for Aunt Will’s last goodbye.

  Floyd and Alice Fay brought over the finished coffin. It was a beautiful piece of woodworking. The pinewood sides interlocked with walnut on the ends to showcase the perfectly hand-chiseled dovetails. It was exquisite work, but completely simple and unadorned. Exactly what Aunt Will had requested.

  He and Floyd left the washing and dressing of the body to Jesse and Alice, but they were the ones to lift her into the coffin, where she lay on the piece quilt that she’d made herself. They moved Lilly June’s armchair to the backside of the cabin, still beneath the overhang but out of sight. They put the kitchen table outside and placed the coffin up on it. Because of the danger of curious wild animals, someone had to sit with the body 24/7. Piney feared that task might place a burden on Jesse, but he need not have worried. Spiny, difficult, opinionated Madge Weston set up a schedule with two mourners on each two-hour shift.

  “I am family—double family of a sort,” she explained. “My great-grandpa on my mother’s side took Aunt Will as his second wife. They say he was past eighty at the time, but he thought her cures would keep him alive forever. More fool him. He hardly lived no time after they’d wed. Then when I was in high school, maybe 1963 or ’64, she married one of my daddy’s brothers on the Weston side. So for blood, I’m not much, but in heart we always thought of her as family.”

  Piney had been vaguely aware of a connection. Jesse, of course, had not. Piney quickly began to realize that was a big advantage to the flood of visitors and the twenty-four-hour watch. People came and they told their stories. Day after day, more of Aunt Will’s life, her deeds, miracles and foibles were revealed, reported and recounted with great relish. Everyone, including Jesse, shared a good laugh, a good cry and a grateful prayer.

  The visitors worked in the yard until it had been cleaned to spick-and-span. The bathtub water trough was removed to an antique store and the hogs to the high school FFA barn. Marcy Broody had walked old Cussy down to her place, allowing Tree and Camryn to catch all the chickens in sacks and transport them in the Jeep. The Onery Cabin home place quickly became neat as a pin, spiffed up to the nth degree and ready for company.

  Everyone knew company was on the way.

  The entire four days of visitation, there wasn’t a drop of rain or a flake of snow. The ground dried out nicely to support the crowd that gathered for the funeral in bright sunshine.

  Folks began arriving early. When Walter Lou showed up, she had work for everybody.

  “The cars on the slope are already packed in tighter than the girdle on a deacon’s wife. We’d best start calling people to tell them to park down and walk up.”

  And walk up they did, leaving the limited vehicle space for out-of-towners.

  Jesse’s parents and brothers arrived. She was very glad to see them, giving and getting hugs
all around. Piney introduced himself to both her mother and stepfather and got the distinct impression that they had never heard his name mentioned. He was simply one more stranger.

  The two young boys were a bit overwhelmed by the loud, noisy crowd. Piney signaled to Tree who came over and met them.

  “My team’s here,” his very empathetic son said to them. “Why don’t you guys hang out with us?”

  The oldest visitor arrived in a handicap van. Her family half rolled, half carried her wheelchair up the slope, through the throng to the gathering on the porch.

  “My grandma was a schoolgirl with Aunt Will,” the man said to Jesse by way of introduction. “She’s been in the nursing home for nearly a decade, but she threw a fit to be at this funeral today.”

  Jesse smiled down at the old lady. “Thank you for coming.”

  “To see Willie in that casket ’bout breaks my heart,” the woman said. “I’m the last one now. Last of my whole generation.” She tutted loudly as she gazed at the body. “Willie never was a pretty girl. There were those that said she was handsome, but I never saw it. Truth is, I never liked her myself. She acted like she had the world on a string. Not so much now.”

  The man who’d pushed the wheelchair, coughed uncomfortably at the unkind words. “Granny, let’s move off now that you’ve said your goodbyes.”

  The old woman wasn’t quite ready.

  “Willie! Willie Winsloe!” she called out loudly as if Aunt Will were sleeping rather than deceased. “It’s me, Lilly June Deavers. I’ve come to your funeral, just like I said I would.”

  At the sound of her name, the old hound came bounding up on the porch, scaring the old lady and creating a bit of havoc.

  Once the dog was back in her place and the old lady joined into the throng, Piney spoke up.

  “Jesse, are you ready to start?”

  She nodded.

  “Judge Gluck,” Piney said to the man and with a nod, he stepped down from the porch to stand next to Tree and the boys.

  The man’s booming voice was easily heard throughout the clearing.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he said. “This funeral may be a bit different than some you’ve seen, but we’re honoring the wishes of our dear Aunt Will who has meant so much to the people of this community for so many years.”