The Way of Women

by Lauraine Snelling

  Mellie nodded but remained as far back in the chair as she could disappear.

  “I’m Harold Buckmaster, supervisor for A-1 Logging.” He held his hat close to his chest, as if wishing he could hide within or at least behind it. “The company your husband, Harvey Sedor, worked for?”

  Another nod.

  Come on, Mellie, don’t act like you’re terrified of him, after all he … But she is terrified. She’s shaking like a leaf. Lord, how do I help her?

  “I … I want to offer you my, our condolences. Your husband was a good worker, a good truck driver.”

  “He … he loved trucks.” Mellie’s whisper brought a lump to Katheryn’s throat. Past tense. Was. Loved. Would that be the way she referred to David from now on?

  “I want you to know that we will pay your husband’s medical insurance for three months. There will be papers for you to sign and all, but I just wanted you to know that we will pay all the funeral expenses, too. I wish I, we could do more.”

  Mellie stared down at her numb fingers. A single tear tracked down her cheek. The silence in the room magnified the noises in the hall. He shuffled his feet.

  “Thank you, Mr. Buckmaster.” Katheryn stepped forward and took the card he held out.

  “I have the home address and phone. We’ll be in contact.” He turned back to Mellie. “I hope your little girl gets better real quick.” He fled the room.

  “Thank you.” Mellie leaned her head back. “I don’t know how I can do all this. I just don’t know.”

  “Well, all we have to do right now is get Lissa checked out of the hospital. I’m sure you want to go see Mr. Johnson.”

  “I want to go home, but I want Harv to be there.”

  Yeah, I want my husband to be there too.

  “We had a good time, didn’t we, honey?” The nurse and Lissa wandered back into the room.

  “I put the bunny puzzle back together.” Lissa leaned on the arm of her mother’s chair. “Can we go home now?”

  “Soon as the discharge papers are ready.” The nurse patted Lissa’s head. “I’ll be back with those in just a minute.”

  They got Lissa checked out and took the elevator to the medical floor.

  “Hey, look at that. You’re walking on your own. How’s my favorite girl?” From the chair in the corner, Mr. Johnson held out one arm, the other still connected to an IV.

  “I got blood again.” Lissa’s voice had the air of one used to medical procedures. “A doctor with a funny red nose got it in.” Standing in the circle of his arm, she looked up at her mother. “Where’s my red nose?”

  “In the bag.” Mellie patted Mr. Johnson’s shoulder. “You’re looking a hundred percent better than when I saw you.”

  “Feel that much better too. They’re saying I could go home if I had someone there, but since I don’t, I’m going to have to go to a convalescent home for a few days.”

  “You could stay with us.”

  “Thank you, but you have too much to handle right now as it is. It’ll only be for a few days.”

  “Where?”

  “Down here, I guess.”

  “But if you come home, I can come and see you.” Lissa tipped her head so she could look up at his face.

  “You sweetie.” He hugged her and smiled up at Mellie. “I’ll have to take it easy for a while, is all. Bet the weeds have been growing in the garden.”

  “Mommy, who’s taking care of Kitty?”

  “Mrs. Robins.”

  “Oh.” Lissa looked over to Katheryn. “Do you have a kitty?”

  “No, I have a dog named Lucky.”

  Back to her mother. “Are we going home now? Daddy might be there.”

  Mellie exchanged a long look with Mr. Johnson. Tears filled both their eyes.

  “Come on, Lissa, I have something really funny to show you at the shelter.”

  Lissa kissed Mr. Johnson’s cheek when he bent to hug her goodbye. “You come home soon.”

  “I will.”

  She turned and waved one more time as they walked out the door.

  “What kind of s’prise?”

  “You have to wait and see.”

  How long do I stay? Wouldn’t I hear just as fast at home? No, I need to be here. I don’t want to go home. The empty house? Kevin will be there. My children need me too. I have to call Mother. Oh, Lord, this is beyond me. Mellie says she can’t manage, and I give her platitudes. I hate platitudes. The thoughts raged like flotsam on the swollen rivers.

  They were just about to the shelter when Katheryn said, “If you can wait until tomorrow, I can give you a ride home.”

  “Are you sure? I mean you haven’t heard …”

  “I know. But you need to be in Seattle on Friday, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could swing by your place and get what you need, then you can spend the night at my house. I’m not really far from Fred Hutchinson.”

  “You are so kind.” Mellie laid a hand on Katheryn’s arm. “Thank you.”

  “Where’s my s’prise?” Lissa asked when they walked through the door to the school.

  “Over there.” Katheryn pointed to a bird stand, where Adolf preened his wing feathers, running his beak from the base of each primary feather, clear to the tip, then to the next one.

  Adolf stopped, shook himself, cocked his head. “Hey, gimme a kiss.”

  Lissa looked from the parrot to Katheryn. “It talks.”

  “You cute thing, gimme a kiss.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Sure.” Together they walked over to the bird on the stand. “Hi, Attie. I’d like you to meet my friends. This is Lissa, and Mellie Sedor.”

  “You can call me Aunt Attie. You want to pet Adolf?”

  Lissa’s eyes rounded even larger. “Can I?”

  “I’ll hold him. He likes to be petted under his wing. I’ll show you.”

  Katheryn glanced at Mellie. Fear rode her like an apparition. White of face, body stiff. What is she afraid of? Of course, she’d heard how parrots can bite. But Attie wouldn’t invite them like this if Adolf were a biter.

  “He’s so pretty, so red.” Lissa stroked the bird under the raised wing like Attie showed her.

  Katheryn moved closer to Mellie and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “She’s a brave little girl.”

  “I know, it’s me, I …” Her voice came in spurts, as if breathing was a major accomplishment. “Harv always taught her to try anything, not be afraid like her mother.”

  Katheryn leaned closer to Mellie. “Last night he greeted me with a string of profanities, then yelled, ‘Gimme a kiss,’ and I had no idea where it was coming from. Let me tell you, that was a shocker.”

  Mellie smiled, a faint smile, but real nevertheless. Her breathing had calmed.

  “You have panic attacks often?”

  “Uh-huh. I can sometimes fight them off, but the last few days …”

  “Anyone would suffer from a panic attack after all you’ve been through.”

  The door opened, and at the sound, Adolf straightened, saw the entering figure, and wolf whistled.

  Lissa stopped petting him, froze for a second, then giggled. “Jenn is here.”

  “Ms. Stockton,” Mellie corrected her.

  “She said Jenn. She likes that better.”

  “Hey, sweetie, who’s your new friend?”

  “This is Adolf and Aunt Attie. He talks.”

  “Gimme a kiss,” the parrot murmured.

  “I’m pleased to meet you.” Jenn smiled at the older woman, then squatted down beside Lissa. “Does he really give kisses, or is he all hot air?”

  “Give me a kiss, Adolf.” Attie leaned toward the bird and was rewarded by a nibble on her lip.

  If Lissa’s eyes had rounded before, they saucered now.

  “Now, that’s a picture you need,” Katheryn said with a chuckle as Jenn took her camera out of the pack.

  “Will he mind a flash?”

  “Oh no, he’s all ham.”
r />   Katheryn watched as Jenn went into photographer mode. Lissa and the bird could well have been the stars in a well-rehearsed act. Aunt Attie played the straight man.

  When Jenn recapped her camera, Lissa leaned against Aunt Hattie’s arm, one finger stroking down the bird’s back. “I like Adolf.”

  “He likes you too.”

  Lissa turned. “Mommy, can we go home now?”

  “How about we go sit on a cot and I’ll read to you?” Jenn took her hand. “Oh, here.” She dug in her backpack. “I found us some paper dolls.”

  Mellie and Katheryn watched the two walk off. “I’m going to go help back in the office for a while. Perhaps there is someone there who can answer some of your questions.”

  “Okay.”

  Hearing a spate of giggles behind them, they turned to see a hobo clown stroll through the door, a bundle of long skinny balloons under his arm. He drew children like a Pied Piper and began making animals and hats from his stash of blown balloons.

  “People are so good.” Mellie sighed. “I’m trying to be grateful like Harv always said, but …”

  But right now, gratitude is in low supply. Katheryn murmured some kind of assent and approached the woman she’d helped before.

  “Is there someone who can answer questions for my friend here?”

  “A social worker arrived an hour or so ago. Let me introduce you.” She performed the introduction, and Mellie followed the older woman into another office.

  “How’s her little girl?”

  “Better, she had a transfusion last night. They found her husband’s body yesterday morning.”

  “Ah, the poor thing. But better to know, I think. What about you?”

  “Nothing. Or rather, they found our car. That blue bug roosting in a huge tree was ours. But no sign of”—she fought the closing of her throat and took in a much needed breath—“my husband and our son.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. I need to keep busy. I’ve decided to go home tomorrow if I don’t hear anything today. Mellie needs a ride, and …”

  “And taking care of someone else is easier than being alone.”

  “Right.”

  “I have some typing you can do.”

  “That will be fine.”

  Some time later Jenn ambled into the office. “I was looking for you. Wondered if I could take you and Mellie and Lissa out for early dinner tonight?”

  “Fine with me. Where’s Lissa?”

  “Out with the other kids and the clown.”

  “She needs some laughter.”

  “True. Thanks for putting me on to the photo ops here. What a character, that Adolf. And Attie, too.”

  “There’s a family here with two live-wire kids and their gerbils.” She went on to describe the panic scene of the morning. “People seem to be helping each other.”

  “Yes, human beings can be real good in a crisis. Shame we need crisis to bring us together.”

  “Right.” Katheryn rolled another form into her typewriter. “I should be writing, but there’s nothing there. This helps.”

  “Speaking of help, Mellie said you were giving her a ride home tomorrow.”

  “Uh-huh. She could use a hand right about now.”

  “You know much about the bone marrow transplant she talks about?”

  “No, but if it will help that little darling, I’m all for it.”

  “I’d better get going; see you tonight. I’ll figure out a place and swing by here about four thirty. You tell Mellie, okay?”

  That night after dinner at a local diner, where they began sharing their life stories, the three women returned to the shelter to keep on talking. They talked of childhoods, and, for the first time in her life, Mellie told someone other than Harv how bad things had been. Talk of dating and marriage, schooling and careers brought Jenn to admit to the debauchery to which she had succumbed. Katheryn confessed her frustrations at David’s depression and the anger she kept within but recognized that it would need to be lanced someday. They put Lissa to bed and talked on, ignoring the people and goings-on around them.

  “I think they’re trying to tell us something.” Jenn motioned toward the dimming lights.

  Mellie looked from one of her new friends to the other. “I don’t ever talk to anyone like this.”

  Katheryn put an arm around her. “Me either.”

  Jenn shook her head. “Me three. As my mother would say, God got us together for a reason.”

  “Thank you.” Mellie reached out, took one hand of each of the others, and squeezed. “I can’t believe … I mean, tonight, I …” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I’d say you are stuck with two new friends.”

  “But I …” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t have friends, not like this.”

  “You do now.”

  “We adopted you.” Katheryn squeezed Mellie’s hand again. “That makes us family.”

  “I never had sisters.” Jenn got to her feet. “Only a brother, and he died in Vietnam. Call me and let me know what’s happening.”

  Mellie and Katheryn both nodded.

  “After all, the kiddo and I have lots of paper dolls to cut out.”

  Mellie sniffed. “Thanks.” Such a meager word for all they’d done. Now to get through the night.

  God help me.

  She once wooed them with her beauty, her glaciers so deep, the lakes of blue, teeming with fish, bordered by trees, green and tall, a playground for all. And now her friends came seeking their dead, trudging over ash and rock and burning pits beneath her surface. Like a victim of war, she lay spent and exhausted, trails of smoke rising like signals of despair. Was she to blame for the carnage even as she called out to the Creator, wondering why she was to endure this rupture, why she had to give birth to such blight?

  MAY 22, 1980

  But, Frank, I have to do something to help.”

  “Taking pictures isn’t enough?”

  “No. Yes, but …”

  “Okay, I’m taking some men out to check on their farms. Come on along.”

  Jenn slung her backpack up in the Blazer before Sig’s hindquarters cleared the seat. She glanced back to see him wag the tip of his tail, tongue lolling without a hint of sneer. “Morning, Sig.” She slammed her door shut and buckled the seat belt.

  The farther they traveled into a gray no man’s land, the more Jenn slumped in her seat. She used to ride her bike along this road, back before it had been widened. They had driven to Spirit Lake for picnics and for fishing in the spring.

  The Blazer plowed through areas of gritty mud covering the road, then speeded up when the way was clear again. Jenn couldn’t believe her eyes. The lush, green Toutle Valley was a solid sea of gray mud. Farms had disappeared; only hillside houses remained. The rest were buried. The few trees that hadn’t been swept away looked like squatty bushes dotting the moonscape.

  Several army trucks and local pickups nearly blocked the road as the Blazer topped the next hill.

  “I thought we were to be the first out here.” Frank braked the Blazer. He rolled down his window. “What’s going on?”

  A mud-covered man in drab green answered. “Animals caught in the mudflow. We’re dragging them out.”

  Jenn jumped from the vehicle as Frank parked behind the others, her camera at the ready.

  Ahead, three men worked over a bedraggled steer on the ground. Two cows stood spraddle-legged, heads hanging. Mud still dripped off their steaming bodies.

  “Not sure about this one,” one of them men said. “She was in pretty deep.” He felt the cow’s ribs and legs. “Can’t feel anything broken on this side.”

  “Can we leave her alone for a while?” someone asked.

  “No, better roll her up. She’ll get pneumonia lying like that, if she hasn’t already.”

  The men struggled with the cow. One pulled on her head while Frank and an old farmer tucked her legs under her. A teen boy knelt by her back, push-lifting
and talking the cow into a response. Slowly, the cow rolled up to rest on her folded legs. She coughed, then dropped her chin to the ground.

  “Better put her out of her misery.”

  The boy braced the cow with his knees against her back to keep her upright. “Give her some more time, please?” The cow coughed and shook her head.

  “She’s looking better.” Jenn capped her lens.

  “Let’s get her up, now or never.” One of the guardsmen slapped the cow on the rump.

  The boy bounced his knees into her back. “Come on, do it.” His voice broke on the words.

  The cow shook her head resentfully and tried to lie back, but the boy’s knees prevented her from rolling flat.

  “Come on, you can make it.” Jenn grabbed the halter rope someone had snapped in place.

  The cow’s chin balanced on the ground, her rump rising as her hind feet struggled for footing. The men braced her on both sides as she straightened her front legs and finally stood, head hanging, panting.

  Crack! A rifle shot echoed across the valley. Jenn’s heart leaped like a deer during hunting season. “What are they doing?”

  “An animal was still alive but too far gone to pull out,” one of the soldiers answered. “Can’t leave ’em to suffer, so …”

  Nausea churned in Jenn’s throat. Shooting animals that had been through so much seemed cruel beyond measure, and yet she knew it was for the best.

  Frank’s warm hand clapped on her shoulder. “Can’t be helped.”

  “I know.”

  One of the guardsmen pulled a bale of hay from the back of a truck and broke it open in front of the weary cows. Another set out a small water trough and filled it from the steel storage tank in the back of the truck. One of the cows drank immediately.

  Jenn got a photo of that and followed Frank back to the truck. Mud reached halfway to her knees. “I’d not thought about the farmers losing their livestock like this.”

  “There’s all kinds of loss no one thinks about until after.”

  Led by the Blazer, the caravan of rescue vehicles ground over the next hill. At the edge of the gray-mud wash, the blacktop disappeared. On the far side, the road picked up and meandered over the next hill. The mud looked like a dense fog had drifted back across the holler. Even in four-wheel drive, the wheels slithered and spun, unable to keep their traction.