Sweet Everlasting

by Patricia Gaffney

  Carrie wrote a new note—This is my hospital!—and now he could see that what he’d taken for a low stone wall was a line of handmade shelves; and under the cover of fresh pine boughs he’d thought belonged to a tree lay a rubber tarpaulin that sheltered half a dozen wooden boxes, elevated from the ground with piled stones. Beds for her patients?

  Yes. She slid the nearest box toward her and separated the two boards covering it far enough apart so he could see inside. A bird squawked and fluttered its wings—startling Ty and causing him to jump back. Carrie laughed her silent laugh. Grackle, she wrote. Broken beak.

  “What are you doing for it?” he asked, fascinated.

  Nothing—feeding him till he heals by himself.

  “Who’s in here?” He pointed to the next box.

  Her smile dissolved. Gray squirrel. Dying. Old age? Just keeping him comfortable.

  He felt like comforting her. “And this one?”

  She shook her head and gestured, indicating that the other boxes were empty—her hospital was sparsely populated today. She wrote, Sit down! and led him to a tree stump with a canvas-covered pillow on it—the seat of honor, he could tell, in her beautiful glade.

  Beside him on a wooden crate rested something small under a covering of gauze. Carrie peeped underneath the gauze, and Ty caught a glimpse of three sky-blue eggs in a nest of twigs. She shook her head and carried the nest to the limestone boulder, which still caught the full afternoon sun. Robins, she scrawled for his benefit. Orphans.

  “Will they hatch?”

  I don’t think so. Still—The note trailed off with a hopeful flourish.

  He watched as she rummaged among her shelves and drew out a cloth-covered object, which proved to be a heavy green glass. She disappeared with the glass in the direction of the splashing stream or brook, and returned with it full of water.

  He took it from her gratefully and drank it down without stopping. “That’s the best glass of water I’ve ever drunk in my life,” he told her, with perfect truth, and had the pleasure of watching her blush.

  She sat down on the wooden crate and folded her hands in her lap. Her cheeks were still flushed with excitement; she couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. She began to write something in her notebook, but he stopped her by saying, “Carrie, it’s beautiful. It’s perfect—exquisite. Heaven couldn’t be any more glorious than this place you’ve made. Thank you for showing it to me.”

  The last blush was nothing compared to this one—hot, crimson, disconcerting. She bent her head, and the message she wrote was even more disconcerting. No one has ever seen it before. You are the first—she crossed out “first”—the only one.

  Her lovely, guileless gray eyes gave too much away. What could he say to her? “Then I’m honored as well as grateful,” he managed lightly. Her brilliant smile took his breath away.

  She jumped up and went to her rock-shelves again. She brought him two composition books this time, holding them out diffidently.

  “What’s this?” He read aloud the title printed neatly on the cover of the first one—“Record of Specimens of the Wiggins Museum of Natural History”—and looked up at her in amazement. Pride and self-doubt warred in her face, stifling the laughter on his tongue. Opening the book, he saw that it was a naturalist’s sketchbook arranged according to the seasons, full of studies and field notes on birds and flowers and all manner of creatures—the original subjects for which were presumably stored away on her stone shelves.

  “Carrie, this is wonderful!” The pencil drawings were simple but sure-handed, careful but also spontaneous, revealing genuine talent as well as unmistakable love of her subjects—moles and turtles, caterpillars, frogs, butterflies and hornets, a bat, a chickadee, acorns and horse chestnuts, witch hazel, tansy, primrose, and cinquefoil—and snowflakes. All meticulously labeled, many by their Latin names, with a short text indicating where the specimen had been found and sometimes a note regarding its discovery—”Little hoary bat, Lasiurus cinereus. Flew into house at dusk. A. killed it before I cd. catch it in coffee can.”

  The second book was entitled, Wildling Care Log, and it was nothing less than a detailed casebook record of every sick or injured bird, mammal, or reptile she’d ever treated in her hospital. “Incredible,” he marveled, skimming the lucid accounts of a barred owl’s BB shot wound, a baby skunk’s bout with pneumonia, a crow’s broken wing. Her last patient had been a sparrow hawk, he read; she’d put his fractured leg in a cardboard sling, fed him bugs and kept him quiet for two weeks, and set him free last Thursday, “good as new.”

  She was saving the best for last. I’m writing a book, she confided, shy, eyes shining; she’d retrieved it from a special place on the stone shelf, wrapped in double layers of canvas.

  “Another book?”

  She shook her head. A Real Book. Resuming her seat beside him on the wooden crate, she hugged the book to her chest briefly, then wrote in her dog-eared notebook, Would you care to see it?

  He almost laughed again. “Of course.”

  She placed it on his knees with great care. “ ‘The Summer Birds of the Appalachians in Franklin County, Pa.,’ ” Ty read aloud. “Well, well.” Her anxious face moved him in a strong, unexpected way. “This is quite an undertaking.” She nodded heartfelt agreement and began scribbling a long message while he leafed through the pages of her masterwork. Again he was impressed with her skill, and captivated by her unique style. The drawings were much more detailed than the ones in her specimen book, and so was the painstakingly printed text accompanying them. Under an astonishingly graceful portrait of a cardinal, she’d written, “The male cardinal [Richmondena cardinalis] glows like a live coal among the blossoms of a white dogwood [cornus florida L.].”

  She waited for him to turn the last page—she’d completed about thirty sketches so far; at least a dozen more were half-finished—and then handed him her notebook. I showed it to Mr. Odell, he’s the Editor of our paper, and he said he knew someone who might print it like a real book and even pay money for it!!! He’s also helping me with the writing, for I can’t spell, and sometimes my sentences get all TANGLED UP.

  “So many of the pictures are unfinished,” Tyler observed, leafing through the pages again. “Did they fly away?” He knew her too well to believe she’d kill the birds in order to study them—even though that was the common practice of most ornothologists, including the great Audubon.

  Yes, flew away, she wrote. Or else too far away to see.

  Too far away? “You have binoculars, don’t you?”

  She shook her head.

  He stared, dumbfounded. “You mean you draw them without field glasses, just—looking at them?”

  She nodded. Warblers are the hardest. They all look so much alike.

  He was speechless, and presently she penned another note.

  Do you know if Mr. Roosevelt is a bird-watcher? I read that in a magazine.

  “Yes, it’s true. He’s got a place in Virginia called Pine Knot where he goes to relax and look at birds. He’s a great conservationist, you know, always making speeches and writing papers about irrigation and reforestation and land reclamation.”

  Carrie’s awed face made him smile. Do you know him? Are you FRIENDS?

  “We’re acquainted, yes.”

  From the war?

  “That, and we share an alma mater.” When she looked blank, he explained, “We went to the same college. He was about ten years ahead of me, of course.”

  She took her bird book back, shaking her head, still impressed. After she’d stored the book away, she sat down beside him again, clutching her knees, smiling up at the sky. She hunched her shoulders in a beguiling gesture of wonder and contentment, then recommenced staring at him. He’d never known anyone whose emotions were so close to the surface, or so easily understood. Happiness transformed her, made her look truly beautiful. Her normally solemn eyes were dancing, and the straight, elegant mouth that rarely smiled was smiling now with sweet, fragile elation.

&n
bsp; What he had to tell her would break the mood, but that couldn’t be helped. It was important. The longer he knew her, the more important it became.

  “Do you remember the doctor in Baltimore I told you about, Carrie? The otorhinolaryngologist?” He couldn’t help smiling at her consternation. “A specialist in ailments of the throat.” Ignoring the flicker of alarm in her suddenly frozen face, he said quietly, “I want you to go with me to see him.” Predictably, she shook her head and kept shaking it. “Why not?” A premonition of failure caused him to say the words too sharply.

  She flinched at his tone and wrote in her notebook, $$.

  “Then you’ll have to let me help you. If you won’t take money, I’ll lend it to you. Dr. Peterson is a friend of mine; I’ve explained the circumstances to him, and I can promise you he won’t charge much.” Through all of this she continued to shake her head. She was as stubborn as her stepfather, and he’d had enough. “Why?” he demanded. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

  Her hand shook slightly when she wrote, No use.

  “Why is it no use?” More head shaking; she looked everywhere but at him.

  “Damn it, don’t you want to speak? What’s wrong with you, Carrie? Are you happy this way?”

  She bolted up, spilling notebook and pencil on the ground. He caught her before she could twist away and held onto her wrist. She was ashamed of her tears; she kept her body angled away from him so he couldn’t see her face.

  He was ashamed, too. “I’m sorry, that was an incredibly stupid thing to say. I was angry—I want to help you and you won’t let me. Don’t cry anymore.” He put his handkerchief in her hand. Her face in profile was tragic and forlorn; he silently called himself a number of vulgar names and touched his fingers to her damp cheek. “Just say you’ll think about it—seeing the doctor in Baltimore. Will you? Just consider it, and decide later. All right?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “It’s not for me,” he said inarticulately. “Do you think I don’t like you the way you are? Carrie—it doesn’t matter to me if you can speak or not. I can’t imagine liking you any more than I do now.”

  Fresh tears; her cheeks went bright pink with distress. When she made another move to escape, he put his arms around her and held her still. “Carrie, Carrie,” he murmured, “no more crying now. This is not such a tragedy. Don’t run away from me.”

  She stopped straining and let him hold her, but she kept her face hidden against his chest. “What is it about being with you that makes me say stupid things, do you think?” he wondered, feeling the tears and her warm breath through his shirt. She moved her head negatively. “No, I don’t know either,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her. She looked up, anxious to tell him he didn’t say stupid things, and he took the opportunity to stroke the wetness from her cheeks with his thumb. He recalled the stupidest thing he’d ever said to her, that he was sorry for kissing her, and thought about kissing her now. Not a good idea. Reckless and ill-advised. Why, though? The reason had been clear and immediate not long ago, but just now it seemed to have lost its urgency. Carrie’s lashes were dark and spiked from crying; beneath them her troubled eyes shone like wet silver. She had her hands on his shoulders, light and trusting. She sighed, and her soft breath fanned his throat like a caress.

  He put his lips on her forehead. A compromise kiss, brotherly, consoling. Except that a minute passed and neither of them moved; he didn’t think either of them was breathing. He kept his hands still, but under them he was acutely conscious of the bend of her waist and the long, sleek curve of her hip. She wore no corset, no stays—he knew that from the last time they’d done this. The same faint, flowery scent he’d noticed that night on the bridge came to him now. She wore it behind her ears, and he thought of putting his lips there again. But no—that wouldn’t be brotherly. His fingers flexed and spread across her back.

  She lifted her head. He made a mistake then: he looked at her mouth. Wide, generous, the top lip tipped up ever so slightly; a subtle architectural miracle of sweetness and proportion. He gave up. They both wanted it. He kissed her.

  Immediately all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea came back to him. How could he have forgotten how seductive her shy, tentative eagerness was? Her arms came around him; her lips moved, opened, as if she found his mouth delicious and she wanted more. He gave it to her, sliding his tongue slowly around the passionate oval her lips made, and the tasty wetness of her aroused a hard, aching need he had almost managed to convince himself wasn’t there.

  He moved one hand into her hair, the other between her shoulder blades, pressing her close so that he could feel her breasts. She seemed to melt, go liquid in his arms. He stopped kissing her long enough to look at her. Her mouth and the incredulous, undisguised pleasure in her eyes defeated him again. He whispered, “Carrie, I wasn’t going to do this.” And then, “I wish you could say my name.”

  She wished it, too, she told him with her tremulous smile. His fingers played over the silk of her cheekbone, her jaw, her parted lips. He toyed with the redgold wisps of hair at the side of her face and traced the shape of her ear, intimately aware of the soft tremor that quivered through her with his touch. She stood on her toes to brush her mouth to his in a thankful, reciprocal kiss, her eyes open and alive. In return, he skimmed his lips across hers, back and forth, varying the pressure and the friction until she gave a breathy gasp and pushed her fingers into his hair. Holding his head in a gentle vice, she kissed him with all her new knowledge, tenderly, greedily, unreservedly. Blind need had him sliding his hands down her back to her buttocks. She didn’t resist; she strained against him when he pulled her up, in instant sympathy with his craving to be closer.

  Through the heat, he had a glimmer of an insight that what had begun with pleasure was going to have to end in torture, and the longer he kept this up, the harder it would be to stop. But that was later—a minute later, maybe; all that mattered now was pressing his palm against the fullness of Carrie’s breast, her soft, perfect breast, and watching the flutter of her eyelashes and the faintly agonized pout of her lips. He traced ardent circles around the hard little point her nipple made through her cotton dress, murmuring her name, layering warm, openmouthed kisses against her lips.

  Why wasn’t she helping him? Why did he have to end this lovely torment all by himself? It was supposed to be—always had been, for him—the other way around. But she was shaking, she was lost, she was taking soft, hungry bites of his lips and kneading his shoulders with her clenching hands.

  It hurt, physically hurt, to pull away and take his hands off her. And she was literally coming up for air, drowned-looking, her wet mouth bruised, round with surprise. “I won’t say I’m sorry this time,” he got out hoarsely. “I wasn’t the last time either—that was all rot. But, Carrie—can’t you see we have to stop?”

  He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t a simple nod and a huge, blinding smile. He brought his hand to her cheek, unable to help himself, and she closed her eyes, still smiling; after a moment she turned her lips into his open palm.

  Then she stepped away and looked at him expectantly. “Yes, I’d better go,” he thought to say. “I—don’t like to be away from the office too long unless I’m on a call.” Funny he was just remembering it, though.

  She’d recovered much faster than he; he still felt like a starving man chained inches out of reach of a banquet. Was it possible she didn’t know what they’d just barely avoided? It would explain her unnerving composure.

  “You’ll have to show me the way back,” he told her. She nodded readily and reached for his hand. “Thank you for bringing me here. It was a beautiful gift. I’ll think of you in this magical place you’ve made, Carrie, and it’ll make me smile.”

  Her eyes misted. She touched her lips to his fingers in the lightest, swiftest kiss, then pulled him out of paradise and into the darkening woods.

  9

  HE OUGHT TO HAVE waited for Carrie to come home. Pu
lled that cane chair with the broken bottom into the shade on her slanting front porch, sat down, and waited for her. If he had, he’d be cool and comfortable now, feet propped up on the peeling porch rail, sipping from a glass of cold well water. Not panting for breath, using a beech sapling to help haul himself up another steep, slippery, rock-mined ridge, at the top of which he would look around and see nothing, absolutely nothing, that looked familiar. That was the worst—not the bugs or the sweat or even the dull throbbing in his thigh. The worst was the sneaking, gathering suspicion that he was lost.

  Wouldn’t Frank Odell love this? If he didn’t print it in the Clarion, he’d threaten to print it, and Tyler could already picture the headlines he’d think up to torture him with: “Doctor Caught Dreaming on Dreamy”; “Jungle War Hero at Sea in Woods of Pa.”

  He muttered an earthy cavalryman’s curse as his toe snagged in a low-growing vine and he came close to pitching face first onto the nonexistent path. His shirt was sticking to him and he was ready to murder everyone, including Carrie, who had ever told him it was always ten degrees cooler on the mountain than it was in the valley. It might be a little cooler, he’d concede that, but the bug quotient was about ten times higher. On a steamy June afternoon, there really wasn’t all that much difference, he decided sourly, between getting lost on High Dreamer and getting lost in the Cuban jungle.