Chap.19 ThroughTheDarknessInto aNew Day

THROUGH THE DARKNESS TO A NEW DAY

         Joey was fast asleep in the back seat as Jesse was driving home through the early dusk of a rainy February day. The chilly drizzle matched his mood. On the way home he turned off the Carthage road, driving down the side road behind the church to the cemetery and stopped. He looked into the back and made sure Joey was asleep then he got out and walked the few steps to the MacIver family ground. He asked himself, what he was doing her? In the gathering dark he could not make out the name and dates at the top of the monument, but he knew them by heart: Jesse Andrew MacIver 1900-1931. The new inscription still showed the white of freshly cut stone, Lillian Severn MacIver 1901-1952.

         He stood in the rain, reliving that night. He was awakened by a cry and the sound when she fell. He remembered seeing her lying in the hallway, picking her up and carrying her to her bed. The paramedics came quickly but it was already too late. Still they worked over her until Dr. Bowman came. Bowman told him, "I'm sorry, Son."

         The memory of that night would always be confused and surreal. He remembered sitting on the couch with Joey huddled beside him. It was a cold dark late time when people should be in their beds. Someone brought him coffee but his hand was shaking so that it would take two hands to hold the cup and right then it seemed more important to hold Joey so he put the cup down. The question that loomed in his mind was "How do I take care of Joey now?"

         He got back into the car. He was shivering, as much from his grief as from the cold. There was a coat in the back and he put it over Joey and then headed home.

         They had eaten at the diner. Jess could ill afford eating out but he was a miserable cook and he knew it. Joey needed something hot and substantial. Besides he couldn't face trying to fix something for him at home.

         In the weeks that had followed Lil’s death everything was unreal and confused. He was told this was a normal stage of bereavement. People were helpful or tried to be. They told him that she was in a better place and she was home with the Lord. He knew that. What was troubling him was not where she was but that she was no longer here.

         He was trying to soldier through and making pretty much a botch of it. The house was a mess. He did load after load of the bottomless accumulation of laundry and seemed never to make any headway. Up to now he had had no idea what it took to run a house. A thousand and one chores he had taken for granted. Chores he didn't even know existed. The house was only part of it; he had made a risky investment in a new flock just before it happened. He was confident he could make some real money out of it, but if he lost them he would be bankrupt.

         And always in the back of his mind was the haunting fear that they would take Joey away from him. If he couldn't pull himself together to take better care of him than this he shouldn't even wait for them to take him away. It was a year since he lost Nyla, now Mom, and would Joey be next? What had he done wrong? He couldn't think of anything. When he cried out "Father, where are You?" the answer was always "I'm right here," but as comforting as that was, he couldn't see any way out. He couldn't see how it could get any worse.

         When they got home the house was dark. Jesse thought, I should have left a light. Coming home to a dark house smote him again with that recurring sense of loss and aloneness.

         He reached in back to wake Joey. He was too tired even to put the car in the garage. In the porch was a package that hadn't been there before; it was the rose bushes he ordered to make his mother the rose garden she had always wanted. Joey came into the porch then, still half-asleep. Jess leaned against the doorpost and said "Oh God, why does everything I do have to be too late?" Joey came to him and wrapped his arms around him.

         Jesse was too young to know that there was always this kind of regret and pain at such a time, the things one could have said, or done, the things one should not. He unlocked the door and went inside. He knew already that the house was a mess. He was too tired to do anything about it even if he had known how. It was discouraging to find out how much he did not know how to do. Joey couldn't live like this. Neither could he. He sent Joey to bed and tried to put his mind to the paper work waiting to be done and ended up in a fitful sleep with his head on the desk. He woke after midnight and went up to bed. The thought came to him that the darkest hour is before the dawn. Or was it before the storm?

         Treacher came out to see him the next day. He looked around at the wreckage and shook his head. "You need to get some help. There are a lot of people ready to pitch in and help you if you ask them.”

         “But they have their own work to do,” Jesse replied. He had his pride and before long that was going to be all he had, the way he was going. He told Treacher, "Unless I get working a lot harder than I have been I'm going to lose Joey. I'm going to lose everything."

         On top of everything else, he realized he was getting sick, coming down with a cold. His throat was sore. Jess argued with himself that he had never been sick in his life. But then the weather turned cold and the boiler went out. He spent a rainy night tending brooder fires. It was daylight before he could get the boiler going again. The cold was settling in his chest by then and he had a wracking cough. When he came in that morning he could hardly drag himself up the back steps. He called Joey to get up and get ready for school.

         Joey said, "You’re sick”

         "No, I'm not. I just have a case of the sniffles."

         Joey touched his face. "You've got a fever."

         Jesse didn't feel like a fever, he felt cold. When the coffee was ready he poured a cup in hopes that drinking something hot would stop the wretched shivering but all it did was make him nauseous. He felt more like pulling the covers over his head than like starting a day's work. That was the first day he kept Joey home to help and by that alone he knew his situation was getting worse. Joey pitched in with a will but he was only ten and the best he could do was not enough. Jess could barely put one foot ahead of the other. When Joey opened cans of soup for supper, Jesse could no longer deny he was really sick. Whelmed by a wave of misery he wanted his mother.

         He sent Joey to bed, and collapsed on the couch thinking he was beaten, after all his hard work and all his hopes and dreams and plans he was finally and soundly defeated. There was no way to pull this one out of the fire.

         When Joey woke up around midnight and went looking for him, he was still on the couch. He was burning with fever and his breathing was raspy and the sound of it was scary. Joey ran to the phone and called Treacher because he couldn't think what else to do.

         Help came quickly after that. Dr. Bowman took one look at him and said "I warned him he was going to work himself to death. I pray to God he hasn't gone and done it!" As the daylight came up the neighbors saw the doctor's car and the police car in the yard and went into action. The help Jesse should have called for a couple of weeks sooner had arrived. But had it come in time?

         Neighbor men took his bed apart and set it up in the dining room downstairs to save stair climbing for the people taking care of him. Nobody had time for Joey’s questions right then and with his grandmother's death so fresh in his mind he was frightened. He was sitting in the kitchen where someone had fixed him a breakfast he couldn’t eat. He felt warm arms go around him and looked up. It was Mrs. Cate, a lady he knew from church. He didn't know her very well but right then he just needed someone to cry on and she would do. He asked, "Is Jess going to die?"

         She couldn't tell him no, because she didn't know that. "He's young and strong and we're taking good care of him. Everybody is praying for him." Dr. Bowman often called Trina Cate when he needed a nurse on the job. She was in her early sixties, a calm strong woman, the kind of presence needed in a home at a time like this.

         Joey watched out the window as the neighbor men took over the work outside. They were all farmers and they knew a farmer lives always on the brink of disaster. They had been there themselves. And very often it had been Jesse himself who had taken over and seen them through. Now it was his turn.

         Trina Cate was well aware that both MacIver boys needed her loving care that morning. She kept coming back to Joey to hold and comfort and reassure him. She sent him upstairs to get dressed and then decided the best thing was to keep him busy. She asked him if he knew where there was a nice big kettle. He got it out for her. She told him a neighbor had killed and dressed a chicken for her and she had to make a pot of soup. "He's going to need something nourishing when he comes out of this." Someone had gone to the store for her. She showed Joey how to peel carrots and soon there was a fragrance of good food cooking.

         The following morning Jesse was no better but at least he was no worse. Oxygen was helping his breathing. All day long neighbors kept coming, bringing food, bringing their offers of help. By night Jesse's chores were all up to date for the first time in weeks. During the night his fever broke and there was hope at last. Trina told Joey that he was going to be all right and put the child to bed.

         Jesse became aware of daylight outside his closed eyelids. He opened his eyes and saw only a blur so he closed them. A little later he tried it again and this time the blur resolved itself into Trina Cate's face.

         "Good morning, Love,” she said. “Do you know who I am?"

         He recognized her then. "You're Mrs. Cate." He couldn't believe how weak his voice was. Speaking made him cough and his ribs were sore from coughing. When he could speak he asked, "Joey?"

         "He's fine, I sent him to school." She touched his face and said "No fever. You may not feel like it but you're a lot better this morning."

         She was right. He didn't feel it, but he was beginning to remember the past few days. "Are you a nurse?”

         "No, Love; that is I didn't go to school to be one. I've raised a family all older than you, and four foster sons; I guess that qualifies me to take care of people."

         She asked if he wanted anything and he asked for water. It was humbling to find he was unable to lift his head or hold a glass. She eased him back on the pillow.

         "Were you here all night?"

         "Yes, Love, and all day yesterday and all night before that."

         "I've lost a day."

         "You did well to lose it; it was a bad one." Realization was coming back to him now and he made a scrambling effort to get up. His reward for the attempt was blinding pain. He lay back, hating the helplessness. “I’ve blown it now for sure. I've lost everything.”

         "No you haven't! Your good neighbors are taking care of your flock; you won't lose a feather."

         "My neighbors?"

         "Yes and why not? Didn’t you ever do chores for a sick neighbor?"

         "That was different."

         "Why? This time it's your turn?" He couldn’t connect thoughts enough to argue the point right then.

         He had always been proud to show up with his tireless strength and save the day. But being on the receiving end he had never even considered. How many times he had gone to a sick neighbor's place to do chores! But that was different. He was proud, doing feats of strength to show off. Pride! ‘Pride goeth before a fall. Well this is a fall!’ The worst of it was, he knew he had done it to himself. That was pride too; the unwillingness to call for help or even admit that he needed it. "They're going to take Joey away from me," he said, with a sorrowful resignation.

         "I don't think so."

         "I don't have any parental rights. And even if I did I can't half take care of him. This proves that!"

         "He's all right. He's had a bad time, but he's all right. You built him strong."

         "He has to be a lot better than just all right."

         "Well, you sleep now, Love. I'll be right next-door in the kitchen. If you need anything." She put Lillian's bell in his hand, kissed his forehead and left him.

         When Dr. Bowman arrived about an hour later, she met him at the door. "Don't you dare wake him up."

         "Why? Is he giving you a hard time?"

         "No, of course not, but he needs to sleep."

         Bowman was taking off his raincoat. "He needs to sleep. I need to sleep. We all need to sleep. One thing you learn in my line of work is how long a man can stay on his feet without sleeping. Got any coffee, Old Girl?"

         She got two cups and poured coffee. He sat down wearily, warming his hands around the hot cup. "You make good coffee, Trina Cate. I must say this place looks a lot sprucer already."

         "I made a cake, want some?"

         "Cake? That's fat, sugar and starch in a lethal combination. Poison, that's what cake is."

         "Then don't have any," she suggested, laughing.

         "I just said it was poison, I didn't say I wouldn't have any."

         She put a slice on a plate for him and gave him a fork.

         When he finished his second cup of coffee he got to his feet. "So let me have a look at our boy. How‘s he doing?"

         She followed him into the sick room. "He had a fairly good night, except for the cough."

         "Well, he's going to have that a while." He stood looking down at the patient. Then returned to the kitchen and said, "He’s breathing all the way down on both sides; that’s good. We can probably get the oxygen tank out of here by tomorrow if he doesn't need it any more before then. Well, Old Girl, we pulled it off, and I don't mind telling you, I thought there a couple of times he was slipping through our fingers."

         "He put up a good fight."

         "You don't slice it much thinner than that and live to tell about it. I brought him into this world; I didn’t want to see him leave it twenty-two years later."

         She offered him more coffee but he said he had to be on his way, other patients to see. As he was putting on his raincoat he said “This situation is tailor made for you isn't it, Trina Cate?"

         "What situation?"

         "I mean this house with the two orphan boys ~~ you're in your glory aren't you?"

         "Yes, I am. Jess has tried so hard and nobody twice his age has worked more than he has. With just a little help he can make it."

         "Well, maybe a lot of help," Bowman said getting his gloves out of his pockets.

         "All right a lot, then."

         "I don't know Trina Cate. You're not twenty-one any more."

         "Would hardly be proper if I was."

         "The little one's a handful."

         "He's a lamb. It's the big one that's going to be a handful."

         "Just so you're aware of that. Keep him quiet and feed him light, plenty of fluids, you know the drill. Thanks for the refreshments." He reached for his hat. "And by the way a word of warning. Ralph's on the warpath."

         "Ralph's always on the warpath. What about this time?"

         "About you being here. Irene thinks it looks like he sent you out to work."

         "Oh. Well, remind him he's my baby brother. I used to change his diapers and I don't need his permission for anything. Tell him that!"

         "Tell him yourself; I have a feeling he'll be coming here before the day's over. Thanks again for the coffee," and he was gone out the door.

         She watched him drive away and returned to what she was doing. This house was one glorious mess crying out for her skills to put it right. The next time she heard a car outside she discovered Bowman had been right. Ralph Cheyne was coming up the steps. She met him at the door and warned him not to make any noise and took away his cigar.

         Ralph came in and looked around. “Hey Sis, when are you going to be done here and come on home?"

         "I kind of think I am home, Ralph." She got him a cup for coffee.

         "You're not going to stay here."

         "I am if I like. At least until he's on his feet and that will be over a month. Do you have a problem with that?"

         He cleared his throat and began, "Irene ~~ "

         "Irene doesn't tell me what to do either."

         She set a slice of cake in front of him. She knew how to deal with Ralph. A piece of her homemade chocolate cake and she had him eating out of her hand, so to speak.

         "How is he doing?"

         "He's getting better."

         Ralph was enjoying his cake. "He's a good boy."

         "Yes he is. His grandmother and I were best friends at school, did you know that?"

         He knew his sister as well as anyone did and knew that if her mind was made up there was no changing it. He said, "I told Irene, I'd talk to you."

         "And you have."

         "Did you tell him yet what you're thinking of doing?"

         "Not yet. I'm going to talk to him tomorrow. It's up to him, of course, but at the present time I don't know what choice he's got. Especially because he wants to keep the little boy."

         "I don't see why he wants a kid for at his age. What is he now? Twenty?'

         "Same age as Ralph Jr. Twenty-three next month."

         "So what does he want to be saddled with somebody else’s kid for at his age?"

         "Don't judge him by yourself. Do you still hold it against him what he did to Ralph Junior?"

         "Nah. Ralphie was due for a comeuppance and Jesse gave him one. Irene, now: she's another story; she's not so forgiving." Trina remembered that incident, the time in sixth or seventh grade, when Ralph had picked a fight with Jesse. Ralphie had been asking for it and in those days anybody who asked Jesse for it almost always got it.

         "Well, it isn't up to Irene or to you. I love you Ralph, but don't tell me what to do. I'm healthy and I need something to do and even if you don't choose to believe that God calls people for specific things He wants us to do, I know He does! This is where He’s putting me for this time in my life."

         Ralph looked at his watch and said he had to be going. "Unfortunately there are people who need burying."

         She watched him drive away and then set about preparing a snack for Joey who would be home soon.

         She heard the bell ring and went inside. Jess asked for water. She brought him juice. He sniffed the air. "Who was here?"

         "What makes you think someone was here?"

         "I smell a cigar."

         "My brother Ralph was here."

         "Looking for me?" he asked with a wry smile. “Is the funeral business slow?”

         "That isn't funny! No, he stopped by to say hey. So ~~ you had a good sleep. Feel any better?" She was changing the pillowcase.

         “I feel better. Joey'll be home soon. Can I have my glasses, please?"

         She put the pillow back under his head, then wiped his glasses and gave them to him.

~~~~~~~~

         It was still dark the next morning when Joey crept downstairs on bare feet and came into the sickroom. Jess woke and saw him standing there.

         "What are you doing out of bed? Where's your robe? Are you trying to get pneumonia too?" He lifted the covers. "Come on get in and get warm. You're cold."

         Joey wasn't cold but he didn't need another invitation. He stretched out under the blanket quite warm and comfortable. When he was little he often did this, coming to Jess’s bed. Bad dreams, a thunderstorm or just wanting to ~~ well this was kind of like a bad dream. "I was worried about you."

         "I know you were. But I'm all right."

         "They put that thing on your face."

         "What thing on my face?"

         "Like they put on Grandma. They put it on her and she died."

         "Oh, the oxygen mask, that's just to make it easier to breathe. She had a heart attack. I told you that; I had pneumonia. That's different."

         Joey moved closer to him and asked, "What's it like to have pneumonia?"

         "Kind of like a bad cold, you wouldn't like it."

         "Trina's been taking care of me. She can cook real good.”

         "What, better than me?"

         Joey giggled. "Way better. I like helping her. She says she loves us."

         "Yeah Little One I kind of think she does. You do everything she tells you, all right? No back talk like you do to me, I mean that!"

         Joey promised. "She said she doesn't mind how many questions I ask because that's how a kid learns."

         Jess thought giving this child permission to ask questions was kind of like deciding to allow the tide to come in. He said, "I can't see the clock. What time is it?"

         "Five o'clock."

         "You haven't got to get up for another two hours; you should sleep some more."

         "Here?"

         "Okay." Inside he was praying ‘Whatever it takes, Father, don't let them take him away from me!’

         Trina came in the room a little later and saw them; Joey curled up against Jesse, both fast asleep. ‘I might have known,’ she said to herself. She woke Joey gently warning him with a finger on his lips not to wake Jesse. She gave him his robe and slippers and told him to go upstairs and get dressed for school. He put on his slippers and ran out of the room.

         Later, when Trina came back in the room Jesse was awake. Along with getting better he was remembering what he had to think about. "What's wrong, Honey?"

         He was about to tell her nothing was wrong but she was too intuitive to be put off. "I was thinking ~~ you know they aren't going to let me keep Joey."

         She was all too aware that would break his heart. It would break Joey’s, too. "Don't give up hope, Love. Let's get you set for the day and have some breakfast together and we'll talk. All right?"

         This morning he was hungry. She sat down beside him with a cup of coffee. "Now, Love, I have some things to say to you. Did you know that I knew your grandmother, Lucy Severn? We were best friends at school. Back then we did a thing little girls do. We hooked little fingers and made a covenant to be best friends and love each other and take care of each other and each other's children forever. Did you know little girls did that?"

He had no idea what little girls did. So he waited for her to go on. "I moved away when I married John Cate but Lucy and I kept in touch until she died. I take my covenant with Lucy very seriously, Jesse. We said we'd take care of each other’s children forever and you and Joey are her children." She took his hand in hers. "After John died I came back to Carthage and I met you and Joey at church. I adopted you as my prayer children, did you know that?"

         He said he didn't but he thanked her.

         "Here's what I have to offer. Before you say anything let me tell you, I have been much in prayer about this and I know God is telling me what to do. Jesse, I will stay here and help you raise Joey, I will keep your house and take care of both of you."

         He was startled by the offer. "I can't ask you to do that!"

         "You're not asking. The truth is, Jesse, I cannot live in Irene Cheyne’s house. I really can’t. I have tried and I can’t. I need a kitchen of my own. Nobody needs me there, and I need to be needed in order to live. You need me, you can't deny that. I'm staying until you're on your feet which will be the most of next month. By then you'll know if you want me here."

         "I already know that."

         "Good, then, it's settled. This way Joey stays with us getting the best of care like always. You two can't be separated; it would be bad for you both!"

         He couldn't speak so he just held on to her hand.

         "I cannot live with Ralph and Irene! I have tried and it is not working. I need a place and you need me and we put our needs together and get one solution to everything."

         He was a little overwhelmed. She kissed his forehead. "Jesse, when God decides to love someone through you it is an awesome thing. I love you and Joey with all my heart and I think we will be a good team together, and I get to keep Joey." She took away his glasses and dried his tears and put the bell in easy reach and said she had work to do.

         He thought, I get to keep Joey. Thank you, Father. and then drifted into sleep again.