The Magic Mirror

by Michael Gemignani

I went to wheelchair and explained that we were going to put Emily in the chair and bring her back to the house.

  AWhat are we going to do?@ he groaned. AWhat are we going to do?@

  I knew at once what he meant. He was helpless and needed Emily to take care of him. Now Emily was also disabled and needed someone to take care of her. I did not want to think about their terrible predicament. For the moment, I rushed the chair back to where Emily lay, and David and I lifted her as gently as we could off the ground and into the chair.

  It was difficult to maneuver the wheelchair over the rough ground, but David and I did the best we could to smooth the ride. Emily was clearly in great pain and gave sharp cries whenever the chair jerked even slightly.

  At last we reached the foot of the steps leading to the porch. David and I stood for a moment studying the situation. AThe only way,@ I said, Awe=re going to get her up on the porch is to carry her in the chair to the stairs.@

  Emily sighed. AI=m sorry I=m causing you all this trouble. Please don=t hurt yourselves.@

  AThat=s all right,@ David said, trying to sound convincing. We=ll be careful not to hurt you or ourselves.@

  Emily was a petite lady who I guessed weighed no more than 110 pounds. I could not imagine how she took care of Hiram all by herself. The chair probably weighed another 40 pounds so David and I would each have to lift 75 pounds. Lifting 75 pounds was close to the limit of my strength.

  We decided to lift Emily one step at a time rather than risk trying to carry here up the stairs without pausing. David and I were both out of breath from the effort, but we did manage to get Emily and her chair on to the porch without hurting her or ourselves. We then eased her into the foyer and rolled her into Hiram=s room.

  Hiram gave a cry of joy when he saw Emily, but quickly became concerned when he saw the look of pain on her face. AEmily,@ he called out anxiously, Awhat happened? Are you all right?@

  Emily started to cry. Hiram became more agitated. AEmily, Emily, it=s all right. Don=t cry. Someone sent these young me to take care of us. Everything will be fine.@

  I tried not to show how worried I was. David and I had probably saved Emily=s life, but now Emily could not care for Hiram, and, worse, someone would now have to take care of Emily as well. The mirror had led us here, and, once more, we found ourselves in trouble.

  Not only did David and I not have the skill needed to care for this elderly couple, but we were supposed to be looking for Robin. If we stayed here until Emily was able to walk again, we might be here a month or longer, and that was assuming that Emily had not broken any bones. We didn=t even know how to check for breaks and even less about what to do if we found any. We didn=t know how to run a farm, milk cows, or do all those things that Emily herself had done, and, in addition, taken care of Hiram. I felt totally helpless.

  Mirror, mirror, what have you done to us? You are supposed to be helping us find Robin, but you must remember that we do have only a limited amount of time to find him. If we spend a month or more here, then we will not have much time left to find him and bring him home to Samuel and Martha. As Emily continued to sob, Hiram also started to cry. I looked down at the floor and realized that I myself was close to tears.

  But why, it struck me then, could David and I not seek find help for Hiram and Emily. We ourselves could not be of much help to them, but we could find others who could help them, others who would know what they were doing. Hope displaced my despair..

  The Call for Help

  Emily was calmer now. I approached her and asked if she had a telephone so we could call someone to help her and Hiram and to take care of the farm.

  She looked up at me. AYes, we have a daughter who could help us. Her husband also is a farmer. If the two of them could stay here until I=m able to walk again, they could take care of us. There=s also a home care service in town that will help us out, but they can=t do anything about the farm.@

  AWouldn=t it help to hire a someone to take care of the farm until you=re better?@ I asked. AIt might be good if the person you hired stayed on even after you=re better so you won=t to work as hard.@ I didn=t want to say that there would also be someone around to help if she hurt herself again.

  Hiram and Martha had probably worked at the limits of their endurance all their lives, and now that Hiram was bedridden, Emily was working even harder. It occurred to me that they probably could have, and should have, retired years ago, but then what would they have done? The farm and their marriage was their life. If they did not have the farm to care for, they would have had only each other. Would each other have been enough for them? Could the obvious love they shared fill the void left by depriving them of their work?

  ALet me use your phone,@ I said, Aso I can call your daughter to tell her you need help. I=m sure she and her husband can hire someone for you to take care of the farm.@

  Emily frowned. AOur phone went out a month ago, and I kept telling Hiram that we needed to get it fixed, but we never got around to it. I guess I was just too busy taking care of the farm and Hiram, and it would have meant a trip into town so we could tell the phone company to come out to do their repairs.@

  AThat=s all right,@ David said, AI can drive back into town, call your daughter, and also ask the phone company to come out and fix your phone. It will only take about 45 minutes to get back to town. In the meantime, Adam can stay and help you out. Please give me your daughter=s phone number. But first let me find something to write it down on.@

  David went to the living room and found a pencil and slip of paper on a small desk in one corner. There was also a phone on the desk, but when he picked up the receiver, there was no dial tone. How can anyone live without a telephone, he asked himself. But then he realized that he and I had been traveling without a telephone. If my parents wanted to reach out to me, there was no way for them to do so. But then I remembered that my parents were too poor to have a phone.

  How isolated I was from those I wanted now so much to see: my parents, Samuel and Martha, even the man in the forest who had given me the mirror. I felt I was adrift on a sea without any way to tell where I was or where I was going.

  I looked at Emily and Hiram, Hiram helpless in his bed, Emily helpless in the wheelchair. The two of them had lived together almost all of their adult lives. They had worked the farm and raised at least one child, perhaps more. Whatever joys and tragedies they had faced, they had faced together, supporting one another in a mutual love I was still learning to understand.

  And now here they were, side by side, one not able to help the other, both dependent on whatever assistance someone else would have to give them. Now they would have to support one another in that painful and, no doubt, humiliating dependence on others rather than on one another

  Magic mirror, is this why you led us here? Was it because you knew this dear couple needed help they could not summon for themselves? Or was it so that I might meet them in their need and learn more about what love truly means.

  I thought back to Martha and Samuel and their love, both for one another, and the son who had left them. Martha was facing the loss of the man whom she had cherished for so much of her life. Who would love her when Samuel was gone? She would be as alone as Hiram and Emily . . . unless we could find Robin and bring him back to her.

  David returned with pencil and paper, and Emily gave him her daughters phone number. He promised to return as quickly as he could and left the room. We heard the front door close behind. I was alone now with Hiram and Emily and worried that if I tried to help them, I might do more harm than good. I had never been trained to attend to the needs of others, particularly those who were as old and fragile as they were.

  Emily spoke. AI fell when I was trying to feed the pigs. They get kinda wild when they=re hungry. Could you go out and feed them now? You know where the pail is. I spilled the slop, but there=s plenty more in a bin in back of their pen. I=d worry a little less if you would take c
are of that for me.@

  There was no point in telling Emily that I had never slopped pigs before. She was concerned about her animals, and my feeding the pigs would lessen that concern.

  AWill you and Hiram be all right if I leave for awhile?@ I asked.

  AOf course we will,@ said Hiram too weakly to be convincing. ANow go and do as Emily says.@

  I left the two of them and went out to the pig sty where the pigs were milling about and squealing for their supper. I walked behind the pen and found the pail laying where Emily had dropped it. I stepped carefully around the slops she had spilled and went to the bin where the slops were stored. Opening the bin, I tried to ignore the smell that enveloped me. Lowering the pail, I scooped up enough slops to fill it almost to the top and proceeded back to the front of the pen. The squeals built into a mighty chorus.

  I threw the slops over the fence into a trough on the other side. A crush of pigs battled to get close to the food. The noise was almost deafening. I=m sure Hiram and Martha could hear it even in the bedroom, as they had heard it innumerable times before. It probably consoled them to know that the pigs had been fed. They obviously cared deeply about their animals, even those that might be sold for slaughter or that they would butcher themselves to put food on their table.

  I glanced toward the pasture and saw several cows grazing. I wondered if Emily had to milk cows too. If so, I prayed that her daughter would get here before milking time. I would be scared out of my mind to milk a cow. I had never even been close to a cow before, much less milked or fed one. Does love, I thought, make you do things you never thought you could do, things you never expected to do, things you really do not want to do?

  I watched the pigs for a few minutes nipping at one another, butting others aside to get to the trough, all the time making more noise than I had ever heard before. If I had fallen into the pen when they were hungry, I suppose they would have attacked me with the same ferocity they attacked the slops. Pigs, I decided, are not loving animals, even toward others pigs,

  I turned away from the bedlam and went back to Hiram and Emily. Emily thanked me profusely for feeding the pigs. I told her it was a pleasure, a new experience for me, and that I had not realized how ferocious pigs could be. She chuckled. Even Hiram seemed to be amused.

  AYes,@ she said, Apigs are something. When we plan to butcher a pig, we have to isolate it from the other pigs. If they sense it is wounded or smell its blood, they will attack it and eat it.@

  I swallowed hard. I was right about the danger of falling into the pen. AWhat about the other animals?@ I asked. ADo they need to be tended to as well?@

  ANo,@ Martha said. AWe only have one milk cow now, and I milked her earlier today. She could wait until tomorrow morning to be milked again.@

  That=s lucky for me, I thought. By that time David should have called the daughter, and she and her husband might have arrived to help out. For the moment, though, I was by myself and felt very much alone.

  The Pain of Being Human

  I was alone with Hiram and Emily at a farm whose owners had grown too infirm to care both for it and for themselves. Had David and I not come when we did, Emily might still have been able to make her way back to Hiram=s side, dragging herself painfully along the ground

  And then what? Perhaps her daughter would have come to visit before they starved to death. How horrible it would have been for them to lie there together, neither one able to help the other, unable to call for help because their telephone was not working. Having supported one another in life for so many years, they might have died together