Sweet Everlasting

by Patricia Gaffney

  What in God’s name was she doing!

  Eppy thrust the door open, sidled inside, and closed it with a slam. Her face was as white as Carrie’s was flushed. She had her arms out and her hands pressed flat against the door behind her, as if something terrible was after her and she had to keep it out. “Carrie,” she said, breast heaving.

  “What? What is it?” She went toward her fearfully, feeling her own heart start to pound.

  “Dr. Stoneman’s here.”

  “Yes?” She spread her palms in confusion. “But what’s wrong?” A burst of angry male voices came through the closed door all at once. “Oh, no,” she guessed. “He’s drunk!”

  “No—maybe, I don’t know!”

  “Then what—”

  “Tyler Wilkes came with him.”

  Carrie’s hairbrush slipped out of her fingers and hit the floor with a clatter.

  “Frank told him to leave, but he won’t. He and Eugene are swearing at each other. Tyler and Eugene, I mean, not Frank. No, don’t go out there,” she cried, aghast, when Carrie tried to push past her. “Stay here till it gets sorted out. Frank’s talking to them.” A loud shout jolted her onto her toes. “Trying to,” she amended, wringing her hands. “No! Carrie, don’t—”

  But she had to go, she couldn’t cower in here for one more second. “Sorry,” she muttered to Eppy, and forcibly moved her out of the way.

  There were twelve people in the parlor, and four of them were yelling at each other. Mrs. Starkey and Ethel were the only ones still sitting down, Ethel on the piano stool, her mother on two chairs in the middle of the room, wrapped leg stretched out like a long, thin mummy. Silent and gaping, Charlotte, Emily, and Jane huddled in the corner by a bank of poinsettias Eppy had artfully arranged on tiers, while Fanny sat on the floor at their feet and bawled. Broom was everywhere, in constant motion, looking like the ragman in his long, dirty duster. Reverend Coughan was almost as animated, and he too was dancing around the four shouting men in the bay window alcove, trying to get their attention.

  Carrie got their attention. All the hollering stopped the second they saw her. Even Fanny quit crying—but that was because Eppy snatched her up off the floor. Carrie moved into the room by fits and starts, taking in random details like the telltale redness of Dr. Stoneman’s nose, Eugene’s new patent leather shoes, the white carnation in Frank’s buttonhole. And the black glower on Ty’s unshaven face. The glad, unspeakable tenderness it changed to when his eyes met hers. It pierced her heart like an arrow.

  “Please,” she said, holding out both hands, palms up and beseeching.

  Eugene whirled on her. His eyes had gone white around the edges, like a horse in a panic. “You gave your word!” he shouted at her, furious, already sensing disaster. “You belong to me, Carrie, and you tell him. Tell him to get out of here and leave us alone!”

  Nobody moved, nobody made a sound. Everybody looked at her, waiting for her answer. Cold, blinding, lemon-yellow sunshine streamed through the window and lit up a million dust motes around the faces and shoulders of the men in the alcove.

  “Well?” Eugene prodded. “Tell him to go back where he came from because it’s me you want.”

  Carrie watched the muscles in Ty’s jaw flex and relax, flex and relax, whitening the fine, taut skin over the bone. His voice when he spoke felt like a deep caress. “Marry the one you love, Carrie.” She opened her mouth to tell him it wasn’t that simple. He smiled. “The one who loves you. What else matters?”

  And finally she saw it in his face and in his beautiful eyes: all the love she’d been afraid to hope for. What his mother thought, where they went to live—none of it mattered. Her heart opened like a flower.

  She reached out a compassionate hand to her betrothed. The muscles jumping in his arm frightened her, but she said in a quiet voice, desperate not to hurt him, “Eugene—”

  “No!” Broom jumped between them, accidentally cuffing Carrie in the breast with a flying elbow. “Don’t marry Eugene, Carrie, marry me!”

  In a rage, snarling and snapping like a dog, Eugene came at Broom and shoved him against the window. “Lunatic! All of you—” He started to turn around, but stopped dead when he saw Broom jerk a shotgun up and out of the folds of his long coat. “Jesus!” he bellowed. Broom pointed the gun at his heart.

  Carrie felt Ty’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her out of the way. Every female in the room but her was screaming, and all the men were talking at once.

  “I’ll shoot him, I will,” Broom chattered. “I’m not afraid to because I done it before.” When he looked at Carrie, he unwittingly turned the gun on her. Ty swore. Eugene started to bolt, but Broom saw it and spun back to face him. The heavy shotgun wobbled, and Eugene turned bright-red, then paper-white.

  “I done it before,” Broom said again, only this time he kept the gun on his target. “I shot Artemis after he hurt you, Carrie, and I ain’t sorry. I didn’t set out to do it, but he was still drunk and he was gonna hit me too after I yelled at him. So I picked up this gun and blew him clean away!”

  Carrie flinched, but kept her voice as steady and calm as she could. “But you don’t want to shoot anybody now, do you, Broom? Put the gun down or somebody might get hurt.”

  His eyes watered. “I love you, Carrie. I want to take care of you.”

  “I love you, too, and we’ll always—” She gasped when his teeth clenched and he slid the hammer back to cock the gun. He was really going to do it. Eugene’s bloodless lips moved, but no sound came out. Broom put the stock against his twitching shoulder and sighted down the barrel. Without thinking about it, Carrie slipped out of Ty’s grip and stepped in front of the shotgun.

  “Broom,” she pleaded, “you know you can’t shoot Eugene. Now, put—”

  Ty’s voice sliced across hers, “Damn it, Carrie, get out of the way!”

  She felt an arm snake around her waist and jerk her backward. Eugene’s whole body shook; she could feel the sweat that soaked his shirt through the back of her wedding gown. “You’ll have to shoot her first, you damn maniac. Shit, would somebody get him!”

  “Let ’er go!” Broom yelled. “Let her go!”

  “Starkey, you let her go or I’ll kill you myself,” Dr. Stoneman said in a deadly quiet voice.

  Eugene’s breath smelled like cloves. He kept backing up, backing up, trying to make Broom follow so somebody could get behind him and grab the gun. “Look here, Fireman, see this?” He spread one hand across Carrie’s stomach. “There’s a baby in here right now. You don’t want to shoot Carrie’s baby, do you?”

  “Carrie’s baby?” Confused, Broom took a slow step toward them, then another. When he took his left hand off the gun so he could wipe the tears out of his eyes with his coat sleeve, Ty tackled him. They fell back against the bay window and broke it. But before the glass shattered, Carrie heard the trigger click. On an empty chamber.

  Eugene’s hands fell away from her. She ran to Ty, who was gently untangling himself from all Broom’s skinny arms and legs and trying to pull him out of the glass under them before Broom could cut himself. Carrie knelt down between them and put her arms around Broom. “Shh, don’t cry, it’s all right now,” she soothed him. “Everything’s all right.”

  “Don’t marry Eugene, Carrie, please, please, don’t do it,” he hiccuped, shuddering and holding her tight.

  She looked up over his shoulder at Eugene, who hadn’t moved. He held up his hand, the index finger extended as if he had something to point out. But he couldn’t seem to say it, and presently his arm dropped

  “No,” Carrie told Broom softly. “No, I won’t.”

  She saw Eugene’s face go a mottled red. The muscles in his neck looked like thick cables ready to snap; his fists clenched and unclenched under the cuffs of his spiffy white shirt. She wanted to say something to him, too. Something gentle—or was it something bitter? It didn’t matter; he was leaving, walking out of the parlor without looking at anybody. His mother limped out after him, then his siste
r. They didn’t look at anybody either.

  Ty’s big hand opened on the nape of her neck, and she tilted her head back a little, letting him support it. She felt his cheek against hers and heard him murmur, “Are you all right?” She nodded. She wanted his arms around her, she wanted to kiss his lips. But she stayed still. Broom stopped crying after a minute and let go of her to look at her. Ty’s hand came around to stroke her cheek. She sighed, and couldn’t keep from turning her head to press a slow, deep kiss into his palm. When she looked back at Broom, his mouth was gaping open, and he was blinking at her as if she’d flashed a blinding light in his eyes.

  “I love you, Broom,” she whispered. One of his wrists shot up; she captured it in her hands and brought it to her lap, stroking the tension out of it.

  “I love you, Carrie.” Silent tears coursed down his cheeks. “You gonna marry the doc?”

  She nodded, and put her lips on his knuckles.

  His bony chest heaved. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his coat and tried to smile. “Okay,” he said.

  26

  COULD IT BE THIS HOT on Dreamy Mountain today? Not likely, thought Carrie, unfastening her navy-blue shirtwaist and white cambric chemise to uncover her left breast. “Indian summer” they called these lovely, surprise-present days in the middle of October; but she was pretty sure the gift was more extreme in Washington—the real summer had been, hadn’t it?—than it was on High Dreamer.

  “There, sweet, beautiful heart,” she murmured to Rachel, settling her more comfortably to nurse. “Were you hungry? Mama’s baby wanted her dinner, didn’t she?” Carrie rested her head on the white latticework side of the summerhouse and blinked sleepily up at the domed ceiling. The phoebes had gone, flown south, but she could see their tidy little nest up there in the rafters. Would they come back and use it again next year? On the whole, she rather hoped not; they were a noisy bunch and their shrill fee-bees had interrupted more than one of her and Rachel’s naps this summer. A nice family of wood thrushes, now, that would be ideal. They sang a beautiful song, she never tired of it, and a fat mother thrush brooding on a nest of eggs was so much more peaceful than a phoebe’s hectic comings and goings.

  “But what will be will be,” she told Rachel philosophically, stroking her pert little nose with one fingertip. She was five months old today, and for nearly five months everybody had been saying she looked exactly like Carrie. “Oh no, she’s got Ty’s chin, look,” she’d always object. But just lately she was starting to see what they meant. Rachel did have Ty’s chin—truth to tell, she had Carolivia’s chin even more than Ty’s, which was probably even better considering she was a girl—but she definitely had Carrie’s gray eyes, too, and her light-red hair, and especially her long, long, skinny body. “Slender,” Ty called it, which had a nicer ring. And he was always quick to assure her that Rachel was in perfect health even if she wasn’t fat and chubby and roly-poly like most babies. But Carrie already knew she was perfect. “Aren’t you, pudding?” she cooed, wiping a tiny dribble of milk from her silky cheek.

  She leaned her head back again. Through half-closed lids, she watched the afternoon sun glimmer behind the hemlock branches between her and her beautiful house, a hundred yards away in the mellow distance. She lived in a stone house in Rock Creek Park. It had four chimneys, a slate roof, a porch that looked right out over the creek, and best of all, a new addition on the southwest corner that she couldn’t even see from here because it was hidden by a curtain of laurel, willow, and holly trees.

  The addition was a bedroom, a late wedding gift from Ty to Carrie. They’d occupied it for only a month because it had taken the workmen all summer to build it. Carrie hadn’t been allowed to go near it during June, July, and August, and toward the end the workmen had even put up a big yellow tarpaulin on the north side so she couldn’t see it from the summerhouse. Now it was her favorite room in a house full of beautiful rooms, and not just because it was Ty’s present to her or because he’d designed it himself. It was her favorite room because it was magic.

  She lifted her head to see Louie loping up the leafy path and over the step into the summerhouse, tongue lolling and tail spinning, thrilled to see her. “Who let you out?” she wondered, putting a hand down to rub his nose. Rachel eyed him with interest but kept nursing. Louie was a sober, responsible one-year-old dog now; he’d all but stopped chasing birds, although chipmunks and squirrels still defeated him. Fortunately, he never caught anything. He was a good dog, and Carrie never doubted he was going to get even better. Ty said there must be retriever in him, and probably spaniel too because of the way he liked to lie with his chin on your foot, trapping you in your chair, out of charity, for an average of ten minutes a day longer than you’d otherwise sit in it. Ty said—

  “I knew I’d find you two out here.”

  Carrie started grinning before she looked up and saw him. “You’re early!” she called softly, so she wouldn’t disturb Rachel. He came up the step with that long, athletic stride of his that made it hard to remember a time when he’d ever limped or looked gaunt or been sickly. He had on his brown tweed suit with a light blue shirt, and he’d loosened his tie and taken off his stiff white collar. Even when he had his reading glasses on, he didn’t look much like Carrie’s idea of an assistant professor of bacteriology and clinical microscopy. He was just too handsome and dashing and … well, beautiful. She didn’t know any other word for it. She only knew one person who was more beautiful than he was, and that was his daughter.

  “How are my two ladies today?” he asked, settling himself on the bench beside them. He gave Rachel’s forehead a soft kiss, which pleased but didn’t distract her from her purpose, and then he kissed Carrie on the mouth. Sometimes their welcome-home kisses were short, busy little pecks, and sometimes they weren’t. This one wasn’t. The sensation of Rachel’s lips pulling on Carrie’s breast became pleasurable in a slightly different way. Still kissing her, Ty slipped his hand inside her clothes and fondled her other breast until the nipple stiffened. She closed her eyes and sighed against his mouth, thinking this much contentment inside one woman must surely be a terrible, terrible sin.

  “You’re home early,” she finally got up enough energy to say.

  “Mmm.”

  She remembered he’d had to give a speech today to the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. “How did your talk go?”

  He put his arm on the bench behind her, resting his hand on her far shoulder. “Very well. Nobody threw any fruit at me.”

  “Were you brilliant?”

  “Naturally. They wanted to argue, they were itching to show me up, but they couldn’t get past that one little hurdle.”

  “What hurdle?”

  “That since the army began fumigating for mosquitoes in Havana in the spring, the city’s been free of yellow fever for the first time in a hundred and fifty years. That little hurdle. Dr. James Addison finally stood up and said the Reed commission’s findings were more important than anything since the discovery of anesthesia.”

  She put her hand on his hard thigh and squeezed. The satisfaction and rightful pride in his voice filled her with pride, too. He never took credit, always claimed he hadn’t done anything but follow orders and try to be a careful scientific observer. But Carrie knew better, and nothing would ever shake her certain knowledge that her husband was a genius.

  “Mail came,” he mentioned. He drew some letters out of his breast pocket, thumbed through them, and put one back.

  “What’s that?” she asked, curious about the one he’d stuck back in his pocket.

  “That’s for later,” he said mysteriously. “Look, here’s one from Stoneman.”

  “Oh, what does it say?” She wrote to Dr. Stoneman about twice a month, but letters in return were much rarer.

  Ty opened the envelope and scanned the letter inside. He chuckled.

  “What?” Carrie wondered.

  “Oh, it’s just the usual curmudgeonly carping. Poor Dr. Perry is ‘an egomaniac wi
th a roomful of shiny, utterly useless equipment that would put Dr. Frankenstein to shame.’ I guess that means he doesn’t use leeches.”

  Carrie giggled.

  “Uh oh.”

  “What?”

  “He’s writing a book.”

  “A book!”

  “Forty Years of Country Doctoring, he’s calling it. ‘Tell Carrie to enjoy her moment of glory while she can because it’s almost over. Wayne’s Crossing is about to boast two famous native authors.’ He’s got ‘two’ underlined about four times.”

  “ ‘Famous,’ ” she snorted, giving Rachel a kiss to keep her awake and sucking. Carrie’s bird book had been wonderfully well received by the handful of people who’d bought it, but it had definitely not set the world on fire.

  “Well, well,” said Ty, reading again. “Guess who’s getting married.”

  “Who?”

  “Eugene Starkey.”

  She looked up at that.

  “To Teenie Yingling. Stoneman says they deserve each other.”

  “Teenie’s nice,” Carrie protested automatically. Ty never had a kind word to say about Eugene, and she’d finally stopped trying to defend him. He’d loved her as much as he could, and she truly believed he’d have tried his best to make a good life for her and the baby. What he’d done at their wedding had shamed him very badly, she knew. He didn’t deserve to be miserable forever, no matter what Ty said, and if he was marrying Teenie, it must mean he was feeling better about things. How could she be anything but glad?

  “You’re happy for him, aren’t you? Admit it.”

  His accusing look made her smile. “I can’t help it,” she shrugged.

  He shook his head and made a pretend-exasperated noise, then went back to the letter. “Stoneman went to see Broom at Brockhurst on Sunday.”

  “How was he?”

  “ ‘I could almost envy the little bugger,’ ” he read. “ ‘He talks about missing Carrie, but except for that he seems genuinely, obliviously happy. He looks good; he’s put on weight from the starchy institution diet, and the nurses are fond of him and keep him clean and combed. Personally, I think he could live out his life there in perfect contentment.’ ”