“Only if you let me have the first drink,” Nealy shot back.
“Done!” Jess said as he handed over the bottle.
6
Nealy watched with tears in her eyes as the ambulance attendants wheeled Maud into the house and then into Carmela’s small apartment off the kitchen on the first floor. The housekeeper had moved to the second floor a week after Maud’s stroke. It had been Jess’s idea to switch the rooms, saying it would make it easier on everyone. Nealy had done her best to take away the hospital atmosphere of the room with the hospital bed, medication bottles, charts, and the nurse herself by bringing down the pictures from Maud’s room and re-hanging them. She’d gone to the florist in town and had brought back some green plants the doctor frowned on, along with some knickknacks the nurse said she wasn’t dusting. Emmie watered the plants and dusted every other day. The florist delivered fresh flowers daily. There was nothing she could do about the sick smell to the room except open the windows from the top for a little fresh air.
Today was, according to Jess, the last time he was subjecting Maud to the ambulance trips to the local hospital for weekly testing, citing Maud’s fear of hospitals. “What will be will be.” Maud had blinked her acceptance of his decision early on, he’d said. The consensus now was that everything that could be done had been done, and the only thing left to do was to see to Maud’s comfort.
Three long, agonizing weeks had passed since Maud’s stroke. While her condition hadn’t worsened, it hadn’t improved either. The doctor stopped by daily. Jess said he didn’t know why, since he didn’t do a thing except take Maud’s blood pressure. “He’s doing it for the money,” Jess had said sourly. Nealy decided he was probably right.
Nealy’s gaze sought out Jess, who was hovering near the hospital bed. To her untrained eye, he had gone downhill steadily since Maud’s stroke. His once-robust frame seemed shrunken now, his steps slower, his face almost as gaunt and haggard as Maud’s. Nealy knew he wasn’t sleeping, and he barely ate enough to keep him alive. On more than one occasion she’d woken and tiptoed into Maud’s room in the middle of the night to see him sitting by the side of the bed, whispering or talking to his wife with his fingers.
Satisfied that Maud was settled and comfortable, the nurse in attendance, Nealy reached out to Jess, and whispered, “Let’s go for a walk, Jess. Just once around the house. You need some fresh air, and it’s snowing out. You know how you love snow. Emmie’s down at the barn, and this is our quiet time. Maud is sleeping. I don’t think she would want you to be giving up, and you are giving up, Jess. Please don’t let Maud see that.”
“She’s not going to get any better,” Jess said as he slipped into his denim jacket. “I always thought I’d be the first to go since I’m older. I’m having a hard time with this. Nothing seems to matter anymore. Why is that? The farm should count, the horses should count, but they don’t. I don’t give a good rat’s ass about another Derby winner. Maud doesn’t care anymore either. I know she doesn’t. She wants to die. I see it in her eyes. What in the damn hell kind of life is blinking to communicate? She can’t hear, she can only see out of one eye, and she can’t talk or eat and is fed through her veins. Why doesn’t God take her?”
Nealy shivered. “I don’t know the answer, Jess. I guess He wants us to keep her a while longer. You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?” Nealy demanded as she grabbed the old man’s arm and swung him around to face her. He slipped in the wet snow, but her young arms held him steady until he was upright.
“It’s what Maud wants, Nealy.” His voice was so flat, so dead-sounding, Nealy grew light-headed.
“No!” The single exclamation exploded into the frosty air. “Don’t even think about that, Jess. They’ll lock you up. You can’t . . . Damn it, no! Oh God, you aren’t . . . you weren’t . . . Jess, no!” Nealy cried. “I can’t do this alone. I need you. Emmie needs you. Please. Don’t . . . Maud isn’t of sound mind right now. You aren’t either. I’ll tell. I swear to God I’ll tell.”
“It’s what Maud wants. I always do what she wants. I can’t stand seeing her like she is. She isn’t my Maud anymore. She doesn’t even look like herself.”
“If . . . if . . . you do . . . anything, I swear to God, I’ll take Emmie and leave. I will, Jess. I’ve never been alone before. I need you. Emmie needs you. I think Maud looks forward to Emmie’s visits to her room. Promise me.”
“Can’t do that. Don’t you be badgering me now. Shouldn’t you be fetching Emmie from the barns?”
“Emmie knows the way to the house. She’s been coming and going for years, and you know it. If you want to be alone, just say you want to be alone. I’ll go back to the house. The snow is pretty, isn’t it?”
“Maud always loved the first snowfall of the year. Snow don’t make me no never mind. I like warm weather.” He reached out to shake the snow from a yew branch as much as to say, see, I told you I don’t like this white stuff.
“Maybe I’ll make Maud a snowball and take it up on a plate for her to see it. I can ask the nurse to wheel her bed over to the window so she can see the snow falling. What do you think, Jess?” Nealy asked.
“Don’t bother. Here comes Emmie. Take her up to the house. I’m going down to the barns. How’s the filly doing?”
“She’s doing just fine. She isn’t the one, Jess. I’d know if she was. I thought you didn’t care.”
“Don’t.” He returned Emmie’s exuberant hug before he walked down to the barn. Nealy felt her heart thump in her chest at the way he shuffled and his shoulders slumped. She had to shift into neutral now and take care of her daughter.
Nealy looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t ever remember looking this bad before. The dark circles under her eyes were almost as dark as her eyes themselves. There were hollows in her cheeks that hadn’t been there prior to Maud’s stroke. Pulling her dark curly hair back into a ponytail seemed to accentuate the hollows. Maybe she should let her hair down, but if she did that, it got in her way. She was more tired than she’d ever been in her life, even when her pa had worked her eighteen hours a day. It was the lack of sleep and eating on the run that was making her look like a ghost of herself, according to Carmela, who clucked her tongue and chased after her with plates of food she only picked at. She simply wasn’t hungry. Sleeping was something she used to do but not now. She spent half the night in Maud’s room watching Jess while the nurse dozed in her chair.
She walked up behind Jess’s chair and placed her hands on his shoulders. She sniffed. He was wearing the same clothes four days in a row. Carmela had told her all he’d eaten in the past days was half an apple and some saltine crackers. It was alarming how much weight he’d dropped. His shoulders felt bony to her touch.
“Go to bed, Nealy. You look worse than I feel.”
“In a little while, Jess. I’ll just keep you company. Do you want to play checkers? I know how you and Maud loved a good game after supper.”
“No. Don’t like those things they have on her. Know she doesn’t like it either. They’re scratchy. Maud always liked . . . Maud likes fine things. She had this special nightgown she loved more than anything. She’d wash it out by hand and hang it on the line. It had little rosebuds that were silky-feeling around the neck and arms. She’d always iron it after she took it off the line. It was thin and fine and you could . . . you could see through it. Now they have diapers on her.”
Nealy didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She continued to massage Jess’s shoulders.
“Maud used to like to paint her toenails. She had this varnish she said was called Strawberry Whip, and by dang it did look like the color of strawberries. She couldn’t do that anymore after the accident. Oh, she could have gone to the beauty salon and they would have done it for her, but she just didn’t like people doing things for her. She was . . . is a stubborn woman.”
“You’re stubborn, too, Jess,” Nealy said, wondering where this conversation was going.
; “True. We got along. Her breathing is different today. Did you notice that, Nealy?”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“Means her lungs are filling up with fluid. Seen it happen too many times not to recognize the sound. Not a good thing.”
“Let’s go downstairs and get some tea, Jess. We could go outside for a breath of fresh air. It’s so hot in this room you can’t breathe.”
“Maud likes it warm. You go ahead. I’ll stay here.”
“In that case, I’ll stay, too.”
“You should fix yourself a mint julep. Kentucky is known for their mint juleps. You’re old enough to drink now.”
Nealy forced a smile to her lips. “No thanks.”
“What will you do when we’re gone, Nealy?”
“I don’t know, Jess. I’ve been thinking about that. The best answer I can give you is I will do my best to run this place the way you and Maud did.”
“You won’t be going home then?”
Nealy fixed her gaze on the opposite wall, where a picture of Maud, Jess, Emmie, and herself hung. One of the workers had taken it the day Emmie went off to first grade. They were all waving, smiling, and saying “cheese” for the benefit of the camera. So long ago. “No, I won’t be going back.” She refused to use the word home in reference to where she’d once lived. “This is home for me and Emmie, Jess. That other place, that was just a house. There was no love there.”
“We never talk about that, Nealy. Do you want to?”
“Only if you feel a need for me to talk about it. I sent back all the money my brother loaned me and I called like I said I would. I know you know who my pa is. How did you find out? Didn’t we talk about this that first day when Maud had her stroke?”
“Guess we did. My memory ain’t what it used to be. Looked at the registration in that truck you drove here. It was all there. No need to talk about it. Maud said if you lit out, then you had a good reason. We heard you talking to Emmie one night, and you said your pa was going to send her to an orphanage. That made Maud’s mind up right there on the spot. Mine, too. I think Maud loved you and that child as much as she loved me. Do you see how I’m talking in the past tense?”
“It doesn’t matter, Jess. I know what you mean. Carmela made vegetable soup today and fresh bread. I’m going to fetch you some.”
Jess shook his head. “If I eat it, it will just come back up. Nothing will stay down these days.”
Nealy rubbed her eyes. She could feel Maud and Jess slipping away from her. Her stomach started to churn, and her eyes burned unbearably. She knew he was deliberately starving himself to death, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“I’m going upstairs to check on Emmie. Then I think I’ll get a breath of fresh air. I won’t be long.”
“I’ll be here. Take your time. Won’t do anything, so stop worrying. Don’t think I don’t know how you’ve been watching me like some evil-eyed hawk.”
“Was I that transparent, Jess?”
“Yep.”
Nealy nodded as she backed out of the room. Outside in the frosty air, she sucked in a lungful, held it, then expelled it in a loud swoosh. When she felt her body cool down she sat on the steps and stared into the star-filled night. She knew in her heart that Maud’s days were numbered. On the other hand maybe there wouldn’t be days, just hours. Was there a way to prepare for death? If there was, she didn’t know how to go about it. Obviously Jess knew, and that’s why he hadn’t budged from Maud’s room. Wearing the same clothes for four days in a row had to mean something.
When the cold, nippy air made her shiver, she got up and headed for the second floor, where she stopped at Emmie’s room to look in on her. She smiled. She always smiled when she looked at her daughter. How happy she was these days. How contented. How would the child handle Maud’s and Jess’s deaths? She had to admit she didn’t know. She bent over, smoothed back the springy, blonde curls before she kissed her gently on the cheek. She closed the door softly behind her and headed to Maud’s room.
She felt like a Peeping Tom, a thief, as she went through Maud’s dresser drawers and closet. Where was the nightgown with the rosebuds Jess had described? If it was a special nightgown, Maud would have saved it even if it was worn-out. She finally found it at the bottom of the cedar chest that stood at the foot of the huge sleigh bed. She felt awkward and guilty going through Maud’s things. The chest held mostly mementoes of her father and a few faded photographs of Jess. The nightgown was on the very bottom of the chest, wrapped in three layers of tissue paper and tied with a pink-satin ribbon. Jess was right, it was beautiful, gossamer thin, the rosebuds perfect little swirls of pink satin. Did Maud wear this the first night she spent with Jess? She held it to her cheek. It smelled musty, with a hint of jasmine, Maud’s favorite scent. She folded the gown and wrapped it back up before she replaced everything else in the chest. Her heart heavy, she walked into the bathroom, where she opened the linen closet. Where would Maud keep nail polish and polish remover? She moved towels and linens, soap, tissues, and finally saw a box covered in gold leaf on the top shelf. There it was, Strawberry Whip nail polish. Four bottles that had never been opened. That meant it wouldn’t be stringy and gooey. She stuck one of the bottles in her jeans pocket. She dropped to the floor and started to cry then, hard sobs racking her body, her fists pummeling the floor until she was exhausted. It was all she could do to get to her feet and stagger downstairs.
The kitchen clock read 3:10 when she put coffee on to brew and filled the sink with warm soapy water. Her touch was reverent when she placed the gossamer gown in the soapy water. While the gown soaked to get rid of the musty smell, she drank two cups of coffee.
An hour later she rinsed the gown, rolled it in a towel to get most of the water out of it, and set up the ironing board. With the tip of the iron she ironed each tiny rosebud, then the gossamer material. When she was finished, she bent over to sniff the garment. The musty smell was gone, but the faint scent of jasmine still lingered. From the pantry’s middle shelf she plucked a wad of pale pink tissue paper to wrap up the gown. It would be ready when it was needed. The clock read 5:20.
Nealy walked on weary legs back to the second floor, where she showered and dressed. Would she be able to make it through the day? She prayed that she would.
It was four o’clock when Danny Clay, the stud groom, happened to look into the stall of Stardancer, the stallion that had thrown Maud years ago. His eyes almost popping from his head, he called out to the other grooms in the barn, who came on the run. They gaped, too, at the sight of Nealy sleeping in the straw under the big stallion’s belly. “Someone needs to go up to the main house and fetch Jess. There’s no way we can get her out of there. How in the hell did she get in there in the first place? And why would she go in there at all? That horse is not one to mess around with. Her head’s right behind his front hooves. One move and she’s a goner. We need to get her out of there, and we need to do it now.”
Stardancer whickered and stepped daintily forward. He lowered his massive head and snorted. Satisfied that the sleeping girl was all right, he moved another step forward. Clay and the others watched, fascinated, as the stallion moved sideways and then forward again until he was clear of the girl entirely. He lowered his head again and nudged her shoulder. When she didn’t move, he nudged her again, harder this time, so she would roll over. She woke as the prickly straw tickled her face. A moment later she was on her hands and knees, struggling to get up. When she fell back down, the stallion used his head again to boost her upright. She clung to his neck until she was on her feet. A sea of faces stared at her. She stared back. “Don’t you have work to do? Why are you all standing here staring at me?”
Danny Clay’s voice verged on hysteria. “Of all the damn horses on this farm to go to sleep with, you pick the one that would just as soon stomp you to death as look at you. How do you think I could explain that to Jess or Miss Maud?”
“I know all about this horse. Watch this,” Nealy said as sh
e swung herself onto the stallion’s back. “See! This animal would no more stomp me to death than any other one. It was your mistake to ignore him all these years after Miss Maud’s fall. He’s your prize stallion, and you’re all too damn dumb to know it. Now get back to work; this isn’t a holiday! Another thing, I wasn’t sleeping. I was resting my eyes.”
She could hear them muttering as they went back to what they’d been doing earlier. She slid off the stallion’s back and proceeded to stroke his head. “You’re the one, Stardancer,” she whispered. “I know it. I feel it. You are going to make it happen for Miss Maud. Your next foal is going to be my Derby winner. I’m going to breed you with Little Lady. I’m going to train the foal myself. With your help of course. You know what I’m saying. I know you understand. Show me. Show me you understand.” She giggled and laughed outright when the stallion nudged her until she was in the corner. She stood on her toes and hugged him. “We’ll do it, too. That’s a promise.”
“What in the hell is going on here?” Jess roared. “What are you doing in there, Nealy? I told you to stay away from that stallion. He’s the one . . .”
“I know, Jess. I also know he’s the one! He is, Jess. I can feel it. I can feel it in him, too. He knows. He’s just waiting.”
“No. Not this one. Never this one. Do you hear me? Not this one!”
“Yes, this one. Even Emmie knows he’s the one. You have to accept it.”
“Never! I’ll have him shot dead.”
“No you won’t. You could no more harm an animal than I could. He’s not the reason Maud is dying. Are you going to help me, or are you going to fight me on this?”
Jess turned to leave the barn. “Do what you want. I don’t care.”
“Maud knows! I told her a week ago. She said it was okay. I saw a spark, Jess, when I told her.”
Kentucky Rich Page 7
