The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd

by Bette Lee Crosby

  The winter Joy was in the third grade, Prudence came down with a severe case of influenza. At first she insisted it was nothing but a common everyday cold.

  “A day or two of rest and I’ll be fine,” she said. “Until then keep Joy out of my room; I don’t want her catching this cold.”

  For the next two days Ruth carried bowls of beef broth and apple cider tea to Prudence’s room on a tray, but Prudence had no appetite and the soup sat on the table beside her bed until it grew cold.

  “I could heat that up for you,” Ruth suggested.

  Prudence shook her head and said such a thing wasn’t necessary. “I’m just not in the mood for beef broth.”

  “How about chicken soup?” Ruth asked, but Prudence closed her eyes and didn’t answer.

  Hour after hour Ruth sat beside the bed. She plumped the pillow, piled on extra blankets and read aloud from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s book of sonnets. But on the third day, Prudence’s fever spiked to one hundred and three. At that point Ruth insisted on calling Doctor Schumann. After listening to the wheezing of Prudence’s chest, he confirmed that she did indeed have influenza.

  “It’s particularly bad this year,” he said. He recommended a Musterole chest rub three times a day and a tablespoon of baking soda mixed in warm water twice a day, morning and evening.

  “And if you find sleeping difficult, take a few sips of brandy,” he added.

  For the remainder of the week Ruth rubbed Prudence’s chest with Musterole three times a day then set a kettle of boiling water on the bedside table.

  “Breathe in the steam,” she’d say. “It’s what the doctor ordered.”

  Twice a day she took out the teakettle, heated some water, added a tablespoon of baking soda and carried it up to Prudence. On the tenth day Prudence’s fever broke, and she began to feel better.

  That afternoon she got out of bed and sat in the breakfast nook having cinnamon tea and toast. She looked out at what in summer was a flower garden; now there were only black crows pecking at the patch of dirt.

  “Scavengers,” she grumbled disparagingly. She rapped on the window, and the birds took flight.

  “I thought you enjoyed seeing birds in the garden,” Ruth said.

  Prudence frowned. “Not crows. They’re bad luck. A bunch of crows means there’s a devil on your doorstep.”

  “Oh, poppycock,” Ruth said with a grin. “That’s nothing but an old wives’ tale.”

  Even as she said this she could remember how Cyrus would put up scarecrows and wind socks to keep those very same birds away.

  That evening Ruth made a hearty beef stew and a full tray of biscuits for supper.

  “This will help you regain your strength,” she said as she set the bowl in front of Prudence.

  After only a few bites of stew, Prudence slid from her chair and fell to the floor in a dead faint. Cyrus lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom as Ruth frantically called for the doctor to hurry over. By the time Doctor Schumann arrived Prudence’s temperature had spiraled up to one hundred and five, and she was struggling to breathe.

  Two days later she was gone.

  Cyrus Dodd

  Yesterday we buried Prudence Greenly, and I stood there thinking about how much I was going to miss her. With this wretched war going on, it seems like death is everywhere. I thought we were safe here in Wyattsville, beyond the reach of all the misery and violence. I never expected something like this to happen.

  I spent the last ten years wishing we could move out and get a place of our own, but now I hate the thought of leaving.

  In an odd sort of way, this is our home. The night we arrived in Wyattsville we ended up here by accident; then ten years came and went but we never left. I wanted to, but we never did. There was always some reason or another why we had to stay.

  Sometimes when I’d see Ruth sitting with Prudence, laughing and talking the way we used to when we were back on the farm, I’d feel jealous of what they had. I thought Prudence got the best of Ruth, and I got what was left over.

  Now I regret ever thinking such a thing. The truth is Prudence gave me the best of Ruth. She gave me back the happy life-loving woman I married, and I owe her for that. If it wasn’t for her, Ruth might never have made it through those last few months of carrying Joy.

  I should have told Prudence these things when I had a chance. Now it’s too late. She’s gone, and all I can do is regret that I didn’t tell her.

  I’ve already got a list of regrets as long as my arm. I regret I didn’t let Virgil Jackson take that damn pig, I regret putting poor Ruth through those years of misery and I sure as hell regret having to bury two of our babies. The thing about regrets is that no matter how many you’ve got, you just keep adding more. You might think that once a person understands the heartache a regret brings they’d be careful about adding more of them, but that’s not possible.

  The problem is you never know exactly what it is you’re going to regret until it’s too late to change what you’ve already done.

  The Greenly House

  Cyrus Dodd walked from room to room, studying every detail of the house and trying to decide what to do. That morning he’d received a telephone call from William H. Smyth, Arnold Greenly’s attorney. According to Arnold’s will, a will that was written some fifteen years earlier, the house and all proceeds of the estate were to go to Frederick Amsterdam, a twice-removed nephew from Philadelphia.

  Smyth asked if Cyrus and his family could stay on until Mister Amsterdam could get down to Wyattsville to inspect his inheritance.

  “Or at least until the will is probated and the deed registered,” he said.

  “Of course,” Cyrus answered. “We’re in no hurry to leave; no hurry at all.”

  Prior to that telephone call he hadn’t considered leaving. He’d thought perhaps there was a mortgage, and he could simply pay it off or buy it outright. After ten years of saving, he now had $7,412 in the bank. That was more than enough to buy the house.

  This, he assured himself, was just another layer of red tape to go through. He and the nephew would haggle a bit then come to a fair price for the house, and the deal would be done.

  Of course it wouldn’t be the same without Prudence. Joy so loved the woman. Even though she was a mite big for it, she would still climb into Prudence’s lap and ask for a story.

  And Ruth. Oh, how Ruth would miss the mornings where she and Prudence sat in the breakfast nook and lingered over a second and sometimes third cup of coffee. Cyrus knew he could never replace Prudence and all she meant to their family, but he could do something about keeping Ruth and Joy in the house they’d come to love.

  Right then and there he decided to buy the house, regardless of price. There would be no haggling. He would ask how much the nephew wanted and then obtain a bank draft for that amount. If perchance, and it was only a remote possibility, the nephew asked more than seven thousand for the house, then Cyrus would simply take out a mortgage for the difference.

  Once he had settled on that thought, Cyrus felt confident everything would work out just fine.

  * * *

  Two weeks after the funeral Frederick Amsterdam arrived in Wyattsville. He was nothing like Cyrus expected, but then the nephew was related to Arnold and did not have the family bloodline of Prudence so it was rather unfair to look for similarities. Still, from what he’d heard, Cyrus expected the fellow to be a good-natured jovial sort…if he went by the opinions of Arnold that buzzed around the railroad yard, that is.

  Frederick Amsterdam was tall as a cypress tree and skinny as a toothpick, but those features were not what surprised Cyrus. What did was the straight hard look of the man’s mouth. When he spoke his lips never moved. His jaw went up and down and his mustache moved with it, but there was no movement of his lips, no smile, not even the slightest upward tilt at the corner edge.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Cyrus said and stuck out his hand.

  Frederick offered his, limp as an ov
ercooked string of spaghetti. “Likewise.”

  Cyrus introduced Ruth and Joy. Ruth smiled; Joy curtsied.

  “We’ve been with Prudence for almost ten years,” Cyrus said.

  “So I’ve heard,” Frederick replied.

  Instead of speaking to Cyrus face to face, the nephew was looking up at the crown molding and tapping on the walls as if to test their solidity. He sniffed the fireplace then pushed the curtain back and peered out the window.

  Before Cyrus had a chance to say he was willing to pay whatever the man wanted, Frederick asked to see the rest of the house.

  “Of course.”

  Cyrus led him back through the dining room and into the kitchen. Following along, Ruth pointed to the window in the breakfast nook and said, “This was Prudence’s favorite spot. She so loved her flower garden.”

  Frederick nodded then asked if there was a gardener he should know about.

  “No,” Ruth answered. “Cyrus has been doing it for the past ten years.”

  Frederick nodded again then opened the pantry door and peered in.

  After they’d gone through the entire house, including the upstairs bedrooms, he turned to Cyrus and asked when they were planning to move out. Cyrus saw the apprehension that crossed Ruth’s face.

  “Well, about that,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you’d be looking to sell the house, and I’m ready to make a cash offer.”

  “A cash offer, huh? How much?”

  Caught short by the question Cyrus hesitated a moment, then figured there was no sense risking the deal over a few hundred bucks.

  “Seven thousand.”

  Fredrick hiked the right side of his jaw and shook his head. “Not enough.”

  “How much were you looking for?” Cyrus asked.

  “I don’t know,” Frederick mused. “Nine, ten. Maybe eleven.”

  “Thousand?” Cyrus sputtered.

  “Yeah. It’s a nice house. Good neighborhood. People are willing to pay for that.” He gave a sly glance over at Ruth who was nervously chewing on her fingernails. “Plus it’s got sentimental value.”

  There was nothing that irked Cyrus more than someone trying to put a fast one over on him. When he looked square into Frederick’s face, it was like seeing Virgil Jackson again.

  No, he thought. This time I am not going to do something I’ll regret. He swallowed back his anger and said he could maybe swing eight, but the house really wasn’t worth any more than that.

  “It is to me,” Frederick said, “because if you don’t buy it, I plan to move in here myself. I can sell my place in Philadelphia for ten thousand easy.”

  Ruth saw the look on Cyrus’s face. If he’d been stabbed with a hot poker he couldn’t have looked more pained. She put her hand to his shoulder.

  “Let it go,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  For a full five minutes no one said anything more. The silence was like a thick fog filling up the room, using the air Cyrus needed to breathe. As he stood there with beads of perspiration rising across his forehead Frederick circled the room, looking behind the sofa, jiggling the door handle and sliding the window up and down.

  Finally it was Frederick who spoke.

  “So when do you think you’ll be moving out?”

  Ruth lowered her hand and eased it into Cyrus’s tightly clenched fingers. “I think we’ll need a month or so to find a place, order some furniture—”

  “You can take what’s here,” Frederick said. “Darleen’s fussy; she’s not likely to be happy with used furniture.”

  “I don’t need a handout,” Cyrus said sharply. “I’ll pay for what I take.”

  “Okay, okay. It wasn’t an insult. I only meant—”

  “No apology necessary,” Cyrus mumbled. “We’ll be out by the first of next month.” Although he thought the words would surely cause him to gag, he added, “And thanks for the furniture.”

  * * *

  In early March the Dodd family moved into 17 Harrison Street. It was a small white house with black shutters and a tiny lawn, but it was theirs. It cost $6,350, and on the day of their closing Cyrus Dodd handed over a bank draft for the full amount.

  Ruth never mentioned the sorrow she felt at leaving the Greenly house, but if Cyrus had looked closely he would have noticed tear stains on the newspapers packed around the dishes and bric-a-brac.

  Ruth Dodd

  I try not to let Cyrus see me cry, but the truth is my heart feels as if it’s breaking. I loved Prudence as if she was my own mama, and there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t miss her sitting across from me as we had our morning coffee.

  Cyrus is a good man, and he does everything he can to take care of us. He bought us this lovely little house, but I feel like a stranger in it. Now when I have my morning coffee, I stand at the kitchen counter and look out the window. It’s too painful to sit at the table and see an empty chair across from me.

  I love Cyrus with all my heart, but he can’t take the place of Prudence any more than she could have taken his place.

  The friendship women share is different than the love between a husband and wife. Men and women each have their own interests. When Cyrus holds me and makes love to me, I feel complete. With him I’m truly a woman. But when Prudence and I got to giggling about something as silly as an upside-down quilt square, I was lighthearted as a girl. Cyrus is the meat and potatoes of my life, but Prudence was a cupcake I could enjoy just for the sheer sweetness of being with her.

  They say that given time your grief will disappear, but I doubt that’s true. I think the best I can hope for is that time will dull the sharp edges of this heartache and cushion it with the sweet memories of those years.

  The Quiet Years

  Elk Bend

  With Jeremy gone the Jackson household settled into a time of relative peacefulness. By then Elroy’s stutter had reached a point where every word was an effort. The only exception was singing. Whether at home or in church, he’d sing and not once stumble over a word.

  On Sunday mornings he and Bethany attended services at the Calgary Chapel. They sat in the back pew and Elroy sang as loud and clear as anyone, but as soon as the sermon started he grew anxious and had to move. He’d jiggle his foot, fidget with his hands or step out of the pew and nervously pace back and forth behind the seats.

  His need to move was like an itch that crawled up his back and into his brain. One minute he’d be fine and the next he’d feel that need to move, whether he wanted to or not. It started the same year Jeremy took to sneaking up on him and slamming him on the back of his head. Now, even with Jeremy gone, that fidgety twitch was still there.

  Bethany understood Elroy in a way no one else could. When his struggle with speech pushed him to the point of tears, she’d sit at the piano and start plunking out Amazing Grace or The Old Rugged Cross. He’d listen for a few moments then drop down beside her. Before long the words were rolling off his tongue with no sign of stuttering or fidgeting.

  Virgil, who was looking for Elroy to start helping out in the field, claimed the boy’s stuttering was nothing but a way of getting attention.

  “It’s your fault,” he told Bethany. “You’ve mollycoddled him so much he’s become useless.”

  “Protecting a child from harm is not the same as mollycoddling,” she argued. “If you’d have put a stop to Jeremy’s behavior, none of this would have happened.”

  “It always comes back to me, doesn’t it?” Virgil said and walked off.

  After a number of such arguments, he gave up asking to have Elroy help in the field.

  By then any love Bethany once had for Virgil was long gone. The price for loving such a man was simply too high. After it had cost her both a son and daughter, the devil himself couldn’t pry this last child from her arms. Elroy was by her side every hour of every day. If you saw them together, it would be impossible to say whether he was holding on to her or she was holding on to him.

  * * *

  After the loss of Cooper, Virgil ga
ve up his interest in growing tobacco. He claimed it was a hard luck crop and not worth the extra profit.

  “Winter wheat,” he said. “Corn in the summer and wheat in the winter, that’s where the real money is.”

  That fall he hired three extra farmhands and planted wheat in four of the five fields he owned. When summer rolled around, they harvested the wheat and planted corn.

  For three years Virgil did the same thing, and each season all the pieces fell into place. The winters were mild, and the rain was plentiful. In the spring a warm sun brought forth tall shafts of grass that were heavy with wheat beads. The price of wheat remained steady, and the prosperity Virgil sought for so long was now his.

  But along with that prosperity came a feeling of discontent. He expected Bethany to take notice, perhaps say something about the cleverness of his venture or applaud the way he’d turned the large farm into a year-round moneymaker, but she said nothing. When he boasted of the deals he’d made at market, she did little more than give a nod.

  On a day when he’d spent the morning at market, he came home earlier than usual and found she was not at home. He looked around and called her name, but there was no answer. He went in search of her, and as he was crossing over toward the barn the sound of her laughter floated by on a breeze. It was a laugh he’d not heard for years. He followed the sound and found her running across the field with Elroy as they held to the string of a kite.

  “Want some help with that?” Virgil called out and hurried across the field to where they were.

  Bethany turned, and the laughter stopped. She handed him the tail end of the string she was holding.

  “Here,” she said. “You can do it with Elroy. I’ve got to get supper started.”

  “M-m-m Mama,” Elroy stammered. “D-d-d-don’t you n-n-need me to—”