Sweet Everlasting

by Patricia Gaffney

  “Hey, Carrie,” he greeted her, hands in his pockets, swaggering only a little. “How you been? Heard about your pa and all. Guess he finally got what he deserved.”

  He couldn’t seem to look at her directly. When she’d look at him, he’d look away; but when she’d look away, she could feel him staring hard at her, almost as though he’d never seen her before. She didn’t know exactly how to respond to his remark about Artemis, so she just said, “How’ve you been, Eugene?”

  “Fine,” he answered automatically, but now he really couldn’t take his eyes off her. “God damn, Carrie,” he whispered. “I heard you could talk now, but I couldn’t hardly believe it. God damn.”

  His swearing had always made her cringe a little. “Yes, I can talk now,” she said with a small smile. “But people get used to it fast, I’ve found out. Eppy and Frank, and especially the children—everybody just takes it for granted now.”

  “How come you can do it all of a sudden? Must’ve been the shock, huh? Of finding your pa shot and everything. That’s what folks are saying, anyway.”

  “I expect that’s what it must’ve been,” she said, running her work gloves through her hands. Strangely enough, nobody had asked her the question straight out yet, not even Eppy; everybody just assumed it was “the shock,” whatever that meant, so she hadn’t even had to try to make up a story.

  “So.” Eugene rocked up and down on his toes, one hand in his belt, the other smoothing his mustache. “So they buried Artemis yesterday, I heard. Must’ve been a pretty small funeral.”

  Very small, she thought, nodding. Just her and Reverend Coughan, who’d had a hard time finding nice things to say about the deceased. Eppy had been planning to come, just for the company, but the baby’s croup got worse the night before, and she didn’t want to take her outside. All through the short ceremony, Carrie had wondered if Ty would come. But he never had.

  “Did your pa hurt you bad, Carrie?”

  She looked up in surprise at the genuine concern in Eugene’s tone. “No, not very. He hit me,” she touched her temple unconsciously, “but I’m fine now. Thank you for asking.”

  “Damn son of a bitch. I’m not sorry he’s dead. I’m sorry for what he done to you, Carrie.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, startled by his vehemence.

  “So. What’re you gonna do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t quite decided.” Now there, as Ty would say, was an understatement.

  “Heard the doc’s leaving.”

  She kept her eyes on her gloves, twisting them in her hands. “Yes.”

  “First I heard that you and him were getting together, but I guess that was just a rumor.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Reckon our little town’s not good enough for the great doctor after all.”

  Her head jerked up. “He’s going to Cuba to help find out what causes yellow fever, Eugene. The surgeon general himself invited him to go.”

  His eyes finally got the dark, hard look she was used to. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. It’s an honor.”

  “It is.”

  “Yeah, well, any way you look at it he’s still leaving, though, ain’t he?”

  After a long minute, she had to admit it. “Yes, he’s still leaving.”

  They stared at each other, and Carrie had a feeling that something was being communicated between them without any words. Then Eugene’s voice went soft again. “Well, I’m staying right here. So if you need any help, anything you need a man to do for you, you can always ask me. Because I’m not going anywhere. Understand, Carrie?”

  She nodded, and murmured, “Thank you, Eugene. I appreciate that.” But she didn’t really know how she felt about it.

  “Except to work,” he cracked suddenly. “Can’t stand around jawing all day, can I?” He looked cocky and sure of himself once more, and she couldn’t help feeling relieved—that other Eugene confused her. “You take care now, and I’ll see you soon. So long, Carrie.”

  “So long,” she echoed, watching him saunter back to the street and walk off west toward the Wayne Tool & Die. She thought about him, off and on, for the rest of the day.

  Ty came to see her that evening. It was the third time he’d come since she’d been with the Odells. Eppy never left them alone together until the very end, and then only for a few minutes so they could say goodbye on the front porch. Each time, he asked her again to marry him, and each time she politely refused. Tonight it was the same, except that this time he took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket after her polite refusal and pressed it into her hand.

  “What is it?” she whispered, feeling guilty already.

  “Your duena won’t give me a chance to say anything to you,” he whispered back, with a smile that broke her heart, “so I’m reduced to this. Furtive love letters to plead my case. And I thought it was the twentieth century.” His blue eyes turned somber. “Read it, Carrie, and give me your answer quickly.”

  “But I’ve already—”

  “It’s time to be practical.”

  “Oh. Practical,” she repeated, forlorn.

  “I leave on Thursday.”

  She looked down at the letter to hide her face. Today was Monday. She couldn’t speak a word.

  “I’ll come again tomorrow, and we’ll talk. But time’s running out, you’ve got to—” He broke off, muttering, when the porch light flicked off and on—Eppy’s unsubtle way of saying their time was up.

  “Ty,” Carrie said quickly, “I’ve already given you my answer. Please, it would be so much—easier for me if you’d accept it.”

  He reached for one of her cold hands and squeezed it. “Carrie, the last, the very last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  “I know, I do know that. So isn’t it better if we just say good-bye?”

  The humid air had curled the tips of his dark brown hair; it looked soft, in contrast to the hard, handsome bones in his face and the straight lines of his firm mouth. “Read the letter. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” Dropping her hand, he murmured, “I wish I could kiss you.”

  She put her cold hands over her hot cheeks. “Good-bye, Ty.”

  “Good night, Carrie.”

  A “love letter,” he called it. For a little while—before she read it—the possibility lifted her, made her feel like she was floating. But they must have different ideas about what went into love letters, because Ty’s didn’t have any words in it about love. It was all about her honor and his duty, and the responsibility he felt to protect her. She answered it in a letter of her own, trying to use the same tone he had, although it sounded stiff and unnatural to her. So this was how educated people’s letters sounded. She thought of all the notes she’d written to Ty in the past—silly, half-literate jottings that must’ve amused him no end. She tingled with embarrassment.

  Later in the evening, she told Eppy and Frank she was going home. Their opposition took her by surprise; they were violently against it. It almost came to a quarrel, but Carrie held out and finally they gave up trying to talk her out of it. Frank made her take a gun, though—a gun, a Colt something or other he had to go down in the basement to find—and she had to act like she was paying attention when he took her out in the backyard and taught her, by moonlight, how to load it and pretend to shoot it. But the thought of pulling the trigger and actually shooting somebody seemed so ridiculous to her, she felt like giggling the whole time.

  Jiggling Fanny on her hip, Eppy followed her out onto the front porch the next day to say good-bye. The other girls were playing upstairs, and for that Carrie was thankful. Poor Charlotte had taken it the hardest, yelling at first and then turning sullen when she heard the news that Carrie was leaving. Emily and Jane had both cried. Now Eppy scowled at her and said, sour-voiced, “This is stupid, anything could happen to you up there. I can’t understand why you’re doing it.”

  “Because I’m homesick,” Carrie explained, as she’d tried to last night for an hour and a half. “I just want to g
o home.”

  “Because it’s noisy and crazy in this house, that’s the real reason.”

  “That’s not—”

  “It’s chaos here, don’t you think I know it? And when this baby comes, it’ll get even worse.” She rubbed her hand over the seven-month bulge of her stomach, and shut her eyes for a second. It was only eleven in the morning, but already she looked worn-out.

  “I’ll come help you every chance I get,” Carrie said quickly, “every day if you want me to. But there isn’t room for me to stay, and it was just pure kindness in you to squeeze me in as long as you did. I’ll never forget it, and I thank you for it.”

  “Oh, hush, Carrie,” Eppy said, half-embarrassed, not looking at her. “Listen. I …” She stopped, and took a long time wiping the sticky remains of breakfast off Fanny’s face with a cloth. Carrie waited, struck by her uncertainty, which was rare. “I, um … I haven’t been much of a friend to you the last few days.”

  “You have, too.”

  “No, I haven’t and you know it. Before you go, we might as well get it out in the open.”

  Now it was Carrie’s turn to look away.

  “I can’t say I approve of what you did, and I won’t say there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to keep you away from my girls when I first heard about it.”

  That hurt; oh Lord, that cut deep as a knife. “Because I’m a bad influence,” Carrie said miserably.

  “Well, there you are,” Eppy said in her practical voice. “Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it? Think this one’s ruined for life because you fed her her pears this morning?” She gave Fanny a bounce, and they all three laughed—two of them with tears in their eyes.

  “I know what I did was wrong—” Carrie started.

  “Wait now, hold on, I haven’t finished. What I’m trying to say is, friends don’t always do exactly what we’d like them to do. I guess if they did, they’d be us instead of themselves, which wouldn’t be very interesting. But I know you, Carrie. If you did anything wrong, I know you did it out of love and nothing else, because that’s the kind of person you are. And if that’s a sin, it’s the easiest one to forgive that I can think of. I should’ve done it much sooner.”

  “Oh, Eppy.” Carrie set her old cardboard traveling bag down and put her arms around her friend, and Fanny, too. They stood that way, snuffling and squeezing each other, until the fidgeting baby let out a squall in Carrie’s ear.

  “Well,” said Eppy, blotting her nose with the baby’s towel, “what do you plan to do now? Keep on telling him no? He leaves the day after tomorrow.” She shrugged at Carrie’s look. “Shoot, what’d you think I was doing in here while you talked to him, sticking wax in my ears?”

  With a wan smile, Carrie reached into her skirt pocket. “Give him this note for me, will you? He said he’d come by tonight. For my answer.”

  “Your answer? This is it?”

  She nodded. “I better go now.”

  “Well, if you’re going, I guess your answer’s no.

  Just be sure, Carrie. Have you thought about it long enough? If you want to talk to me, I know I’m offering late-”

  “I’ve thought about it, and I’m sure.”

  “But you love him, don’t you?” Eppy asked gently.

  She swallowed. “But it’s—” What was that word Ty used? “Irrelevant. It’s neither here nor there.” She bent down for her bag. “I better go,” she said again.

  Eppy shook her head at her, kept shaking it and didn’t answer. Finally Carrie gave her a quick kiss and went down the steps.

  “I’ll come see you soon,” she called from the walk. “Tell the girls I love them!”

  Eppy waved back, and kept on shaking her head.

  Five Cooper’s hawks soared in lazy circles high up in the sky. Watching them from her hammock, her sketchbook on her knees, Carrie tried to capture the feel, just the feel of their slow, gliding, effortless flight. So beautiful. After a few minutes, she put her pencil down and just looked. They were what they were; no matter how carefully or how deeply she tried to see them, she could never get inside and be them. She thought of a time, before Ty knew she could speak, when he’d asked her why she kept logs and journals, constantly recording and sketching birds and animals and the changing of the seasons. She’d never really thought about it before. To hold it? she’d written. Stop it. Keep it. She remembered that he’d smiled, and said, “Ah, so you’re trying for a form of immortality, I see. Freezing things in time.” Was that it? She still didn’t know. She thought it might be as simple as the fact that she loved the hawks—or the dew on a flower, or ice on a bare oak branch.

  It felt good to be home. Last night it had finally rained, after a week of drought, and now the dripping forest looked shiny and fresh and clean. The sphagnum moss was a bright green, and the droopy ferns stood upright and shaggy, bursting with health. A robin chanted, “Clear up, clear up!” and the late-afternoon sky was just starting to obey. Soothing the soul could take a long time, and Carrie allowed that she might’ve been hasty in thinking just being in her hospital again could soothe hers, in only one afternoon. But it was starting. The air smelled like perfume. The clouds were stretching and blowing away beyond the five beautiful hawks, and from somewhere she could hear the sweet, jubilant gibberish of a mockingbird. It was starting.

  She got up and put her sketchbook and journal away among her rock shelves, because it was time to go. And then, with a start, she remembered: she didn’t have to go home, not if she didn’t want to. Artemis wouldn’t be there! He wouldn’t be waiting for his supper, moody and impatient, and asking what godless, time-wasting foolishness she’d been up to while he’d been working to put food on the table. But with a little laugh, she realized she wanted to go home anyway, because she was tired after a day of cleaning and washing inside, clearing and weeding outside. It was a good kind of tired, though, better than the kind she’d felt after a long day at the Odells’. Not that she’d ever admit it to Eppy, but it was chaos there, and she wasn’t used to that. She thought maybe she needed peace and quiet more than most people. How interesting it was going to be, though, finding out what changes were in store for her life now that Artemis was gone. She couldn’t imagine missing him—but wouldn’t it be funny if it turned out she didn’t do much of anything different? Wouldn’t that be a laugh on her, considering how many times she’d dreamed of being free of him?

  She was still smiling to herself when she saw Ty. Standing beside the fallen pine log she used for a bench, and watching her with a kind of startled sadness that she’d never seen on his face before.

  “I was trying not to hope you’d come,” she said before she could think, not quite realizing it was true until she said it. They came to each other and touched hands.

  “I remember the first time you brought me here, Carrie. I thought it was paradise.”

  “It was May then. There aren’t as many flowers now.”

  “Tell me what they all are,” he said softly. “I like to hear you say the names.”

  She wanted to put her arms around him and just lean against him, feel his flesh and bones and the beat of his heart. They turned together as she pointed, naming her flowers: twayblade orchids and blue lettuce, touch-me-not, wild sweet William, lady’s thumb, ox-eye daisy and wild chamomile, jewelweed and goldenrod and the last of the pink dame’s rocket. “I didn’t have to water them after all, and I’d been worrying all week. Because of the drought. Oh, Ty—look what I found.”

  She let go of his hand to get the little box off the chestnut stump and open it. “Look,” she said, carrying it to him. He looked inside and jumped. “It’s dead,” she said hastily, remembering that some people didn’t like bats. “I found it on the steep path, coming up the last rise.” He made a polite humming sound. “It’s a brown bat,” she explained, “just a baby. Myotis lucifugus. You know, bats are me only mammals that can fly. Don’t you think he’s pretty? Look at his wings, like crepe paper.” Why was she talking so much?

  “He
’s very nice.”

  “I’m taking him home to sketch him. Artemis would never let me before.”

  “Wouldn’t let you what?”

  “Bring anything home. Now I can.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Oh, he hated my wildlings. Once he—well.” That memory wasn’t pleasant. “Let’s not talk about him.”

  “No.”

  He’d put his hands in his pockets, and was standing tall and straight, watching her. In the softening twilight, he was as beautiful to her as a picture of a saint. “Did you get my letter?” she finally had to ask, because looking at him had become too hurtful. “I left it with Eppy to give to you.”

  “I got it. It sounded … final.”

  “Yes,” she agreed softly. “It is. So—if you’ve come—”

  “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “Oh.” She nodded, dry-eyed, not looking away. “I was just about to go home, but if you’re tired or you’d like to rest first—”

  “No, let’s walk,” he said, and she thought he sounded relieved. “Besides, I left Louie in your house. I hope you don’t mind. And I hope he doesn’t disgrace himself.”

  They both smiled, and set off together along the path he knew almost as well as she did by now, Carrie carrying the box with her little brown bat inside. The cicadas were deafening, taking turns trading their coarse, scratchy messages from tree to tree. When they came to Wet Weather Stream, she stopped to point out a bright island of goldenrod close to the far bank—so pretty, and sometimes Ty missed things like that. On the spiky ridge top, while a family of rusty crows scolded and complained, she showed him the small cleared spaces in the dead leaves, eight or nine of them, where a herd of deer must’ve slept last night. All together in a group, except for two spots a little ways away, next to each other. “Lovers?” she guessed, and Ty smiled back at her.