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Pale(3)
Author: Edward A. Farmer

   Despite the Missus’s condition, Mr. Kern spent that evening inside his parlor as usual, insisting no less that the doctor’s orders be followed scrupulously, that the Missus rest throughout the night and that I look after her for the remainder of the evening, replacing towels and retrieving water whenever she requested it.

   It was during this time of my care that she woke in a fit as frightful as the first and tossed the towels from her chest and forehead, sending them falling like wet sheets on the line caught in those nasty winds that rushed over the plains.

   “No, Miss!” I shouted, pinning her down as best as I could although her strength was that of ten men. “You can’t.”

   “I hate this heat,” she insisted. “If it were up to me, I’d leave right now, I tell you.”

   She pouted and appeared even more childish than when I first met her in that dark room, with her lily hands that had seemingly never lifted an object heavier than a spoon to her mouth and were so soft that they reminded me of wadded silk. Her tantrum was short-lived, however, and thank you, Lord, for as soon as she lay back, there was a faraway look in her eyes that I had only seen once before in a man right before he died, that blankest of expressions that made her appear either lost or dumb and signified defeat. Her eyes wandered for a bit in this confused state before settling permanently on the wet towels upon the floor. She then closed her eyes and moaned.

   “Guess I’d be lucky to leave this world anyhow,” she said.

   “Don’t talk that way, Miss,” I said. “It’s so nice here.”

   “I should know,” she said prudishly without ever looking up.

   She didn’t speak any more after that and urged me not to as well, unwilling to even fuss as I replaced the towels with fresh ones and forced more water down her throat. She lay there helpless like an infant for the remainder of the week, requiring that Silva “get this” or “move that” or “keep it down, please” or else she might be sick once more. Needless to say, Silva placed even this on me, repeating, “I don’t knows how else to say it, but some things just don’t keep inside this house!” Silva found need to remind me of this each time we passed. Whether it was the kitchen or outside the back stables or on that front porch and indeed along those gravel parts just beyond the back shed that led to the walking paths near the outer gates, she was a constant foe.

   “Missus gonna need lots of care,” she said, “and you can’t go forgetting it.”

   By the weekend, however, when the weather cooled and the smell of honeysuckle sat thick in the air, like children’s arms reaching and grabbing at one person then the other, Miss Lula showed renewed strength as she took her needlework to the porch for the first time that season. Indeed, the young woman had never stepped a foot outdoors in the weeks since I’d met her, at least not intentionally, that is, and definitely not in my presence, yet here she was all naive and untested as she marched proudly out the door with her tote underneath her arm.

   “A right old ‘weekday doctor, I’m not fine,’ but ‘weekend doctor, I’m well,’ ” I said jokingly as I spotted her on the porch.

   She returned a stiff smile then requested by way of a shooing hand that I return to my duties. Silva had also spotted this bit of humor and gave a stern glance in my direction, saying, “Bernice, the eggs!” She then shook her head disapprovingly and trotted off. Still, she needed to say nothing more as I knew my work inside the stables begged my attention and chatting would not see it so, although a bit of laughter seemed exactly what the doctor ordered.

   The coop was a mess if I’d ever seen one. Floyd had been off in town with Mr. Kern all afternoon tending to men’s business, his handprint surely missed on that coop where several chickens pecked their neighbors and rodents attacked the feed. I started with the nest box, removing the hens then applying a bit of white vinegar to the soiled area. Any noise caused me to sit up and take notice, as I strained to hear the sounds from the front porch. But surprisingly there were none. It seemed that even with the Missus’s usual fussiness she was at peace, sitting for several hours uninterrupted on that porch while Silva and I carried out our chores. When she finally grew bored of the sunshine, she returned to her dim quarters, where she spent the rest of the evening until dinnertime. Silva left the house reluctantly that night, aware that it was the first day of the Missus’s full recovery and afraid that I would somehow return the Missus to that wicked state. Silva couldn’t shake the pervading sense that something awful was on the horizon since I’d first arrived, bringing with me those cicadas that everyone knew was a surefire sign of impending bad luck. And sure enough, just when I’d thought I was in the clear and my mind at some semblance of peace, the Missus woke. Sick again.

   “Silva!” Miss Lula shouted just when the house sat empty, Mr. Kern retired to his parlor room and Silva nearly halfway to her home by this point.

   “She’s gone for the day,” I said patiently.

   The Missus looked up to find only me there as a look of disappointment settled upon her.

   “Can I help you, Miss?”

   “I swear that girl leaves earlier and earlier every day,” Miss Lula protested. “I wonder why we even pay her.”

   “I’d be happy to help,” I said. “She’s shown me most everything.”

   “I don’t want any help!” she said.

   “Should I get Mr. Kern?”

   “No babysitter either,” she scoffed.

   She looked around the room disgusted, her cheeks red with a desire that seemed more than mere fickleness, a translucence that shone in them as if her skin allowed what flesh and blood she had to shine directly through.

   “Go on, excuse yourself,” she said exhaustively. “And don’t bring him, either. I’d rather be alone than take his pity.”

   Her face was morbid, her lips a cold, barren blue—not like those corpses you’d see, all made up and ready for the grave, but rather like a skeleton, lifeless and bare. It was this expression that stayed with me more than any other, more than any whimpering she’d made throughout the night, as I closed the door and allowed her to rest, hearing her mumble a few additional words under her breath.

 

 

CHAPTER 3


   I was affixed to the fields by day and the house at night. My quarters adjoined Floyd’s, in an area out back of the shed and coop’s wafted smells. Tall oaks made the small space bearable, as the main house relied on shaded windows for coolness while my room required I only raise the square pane for a pleasant breeze.

   If the plantation was empty before, it was not now. Mr. Kern had hired some thirty cotton pickers for the harvest, and they worked each day from sunup to sundown with their canvas sacks trailing the mile-long rows, their arrival having been signaled by the hiss from that Flagstaff Motor Coach every day at dawn. The driver dropped them at the entrance to the gravel drive then returned each evening when the sun sat at its lowest, and Mr. Kern handed each man, woman, and child their day’s keep as they then boarded the bus and it grumbled away.

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