“I think I need to stand up some,” Ben said. Then: “Wednesday? Did you say it was Wednesday?”
Lottie nodded.
Ben struggled to stand. Wednesday, he thought. One day left. One day to go to Augusta and then back to Jericho. It was impossible. He would be a day late.
“We have to leave this morning,” he said.
“No, Ben, you can’t,” Lottie said patiently. She pulled from the chair. “You’re still sick.”
Ben shook his head. “I’ll be all right.” He turned to stumble back to the bed and realized suddenly that he was dressed only in his underwear. He stepped clumsily into the room’s shadow, away from the window light. “I’m—sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t know—”
“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Lottie said quietly. “Me and Mrs. O’Connor got you ready for bed.”
For a moment Ben did not speak. He stood hidden in the dark of the room, trying not to look at Lottie. He was embarrassed, and he did not know why. Two nights before, Lottie had slept next to him and he had not been embarrassed, or ashamed.
“Are you afraid of me, Ben?” Lottie asked.
“No,” Ben said. “I—”
“You know what I don’t understand, Ben? I don’t understand why it feels so easy being around you, but it does. I feel as good being around you as I ever have with anybody. I think I knew that the first time I ever saw you.” She crossed to him, took his hand. “Come on. Go back to bed. I’ll get you some water.”
“I think I better sit up awhile,” Ben said.
“If that’s what you want,” Lottie said. She guided him to the chair and helped him sit and then she took a blanket folded at the foot of the bed and covered him with it.
He sat without speaking as she helped him take water from a glass, and he watched her moving about the bed, stripping it of the perspiration-soaked sheets. He listened as she talked quietly about the doctor visiting him, about Elizabeth and Ralph O’Connor’s kindness, about his need to wait another day before traveling.
“You’re a stubborn man, Ben Phelps,” she said. “Not as bad as Foster, but bad enough. I couldn’t hardly handle Foster. He was wanting to walk on crutches two days after they cut off his leg. Doctor told him he wadn’t strong enough to stand up, but he made me get him some crutches so he could see for himself. Fell flat on his face. Made me so mad, I was going to leave, but I said I’d help out, so I couldn’t.”
Ben had forgotten about Lottie nursing Foster back to health after the amputation of his leg. No wonder she’s not uncomfortable or timid being here, he thought. Helping a sick man was natural to her, a gift even. He wondered if she had cared for her father on those nights when her father stumbled home drunk. It was likely. She would have learned patience with her father, learned that men were bewildered by weakness.
“Mrs. O’Connor said to give you some of her soup when you woke up,” Lottie told him. “You stay right there and I’ll go get some. I’ll have to fix a fire to warm it up, so it’ll take a little bit. Will you be all right?”
Ben nodded, whispered, “Yes.”
“I’ll get some more sheets, too. She showed me where they are.”
“Lottie?”
“Yes, Ben.”
“I’m in your debt. I want you to know that.”
“Why did you say that, Ben?”
“I just am.”
“No, you’re not. It’s the other way around.”
“I don’t see how you can think that,” Ben said.
“You’re taking me home, Ben. Nobody’s ever done that.”
THE AFTERNOON TRAIN from Nashville to Chattanooga and then to Atlanta left at ten minutes after four. It would not arrive in Atlanta until late in the night, and there would be an hour wait before catching the train to Athens and then to Augusta. By the schedule, the train would pass through Jericho before sunrise, too early for travelers, Ben believed, too early even for Akers Crews, who seemed to live at the depot.
He was still weak, still perspired freely. The doctor had suggested that he stay in bed for another day. Two would be better. “You’ll see I’m right when you get on that train,” the doctor had said.
Ben had lied, saying he felt stronger after eating, and then he tempered the lie with what he believed was the truth—that being home would be the best medicine for him, the sooner the better.
Ralph O’Connor had taken Ben and Lottie and Little Ben to the train station in his buggy, though the station was only a block’s walk away, and when Ben tried to pay him for the stay, he refused it. “There’s a difference between running a business and helping out when helping out’s needed,” Ralph said. “Me and the wife, we talked it over. It’s what we want to do. If you ever get back this way, we’ll make it a business stay.”
“I’ll see you again,” promised Ben. It was a promise he could not keep, though he would visit the site of O’Connor’s Inn in 1915 on a buying trip to Nashville. He would learn that Elizabeth O’Connor had been struck and killed by a motorcar in December of 1911 and that Ralph O’Connor had returned in sadness to Ireland in 1912.
ON THE TRAIN, Lottie made a pillow for Little Ben from a rolled-up towel that Elizabeth O’Connor had given her— “In case you need it” —and she took her seat beside him, across from Ben. She held open in her lap the ivory-handled fan that Foster had given her. The fan was her only medicine against the illnesses lingering in Ben and in Little Ben.
“Are you all right?” she said to Ben.
Ben nodded. The lurch of the train in its pull away from the station vibrated in his body. He braced his hands on the seat. “I sure hope you don’t come down with something,” he said.
“I won’t,” Lottie promised. “I don’t never get sick, Ben. Not ever. Tired, sometimes, but I never been bad sick.” She smiled. “I been thinking about Foster.”
Ben nodded again.
“One time he got sick right after he started using his crutches, and he wanted to go out to see a ball game,” she said. “I kept telling him not till, but he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t listen at all. He got so bad at the game, he passed out, and I had to get a colored man that worked there to help me get him back to where we was staying. Know what I did, Ben? I hid his crutches, and wouldn’t let him have them back, not till I knew he was strong enough.”
She smiled warmly, turned the fan in her hand, gazed at the painted flowers, then she looked up at Ben. “Foster got mad at me,” she said. “Madder than I ever saw him. Told me it wadn’t right for a woman to go against a man like that. Only time he ever treated me like my daddy treated my mama.”
“You did what was best,” Ben said.
Lottie dipped her head once, but did not take her eyes from Ben. “You get sick, Ben, I’m going to do the same thing to you. I’m going to do what’s best, and I hope you don’t get mad at me for it.”
SALLY SAT, AS always, at the side of the dining-room table, in a position that conveniently separated Arthur Ledford from Alice Ledford. From her childhood, she had been a conduit for the brief messages her parents passed between them from the ends of the table, passed back and forth like the food dishes prepared by Lena, their maid. She knew her birth had become a treaty of civility that her parents honored with vigilant caution, like neighboring nations always armed for war. The narrow dining-table space that Sally occupied—her mother to her left, her father to her right—was a territory of neutrality. Still, to Sally, it was territory as unstable as a festering volcano. Formal. Polite. Orderly. And tense. Always tense. After each of the three suppers that Ben had taken at her home, she had become ill late in the night, knowing he could sense what was invisible, yet as terrifying as chains rattled by ghosts.
The marriage of Arthur and Alice Ledford had been a pretense for years, a secret that everyone in the town knew, but never spoke of, and no one knew it better than Sally, who had accepted it not with bitterness, but with pity.
When she married Ben, there would not be any ghosts. Or territories. Laughter and easy chatt
er would be at her table. And she would sit close enough to Ben to touch him.
Her father spoke first of Ben: “Does Ben’s mother still expect him home tomorrow?”
“I think so,” Sally answered. “I haven’t seen her since our supper.”
Her mother sniffed. “Don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“What does that mean?” her father said.
“I’m sure Sally knows what I mean.”
“No, Mama, I don’t,” Sally said.
Alice Ledford pushed her plate away, still filled with food. “It means he may not be back tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. It means there’s no telling when he’ll show up again—Mr. World Traveler.”
A rush of anger pulsed through Sally. She drank from her tea to control it. Her father did not look up from his eating.
“I think he’ll be here,” Sally said quietly.
“He’ll be here,” her father said.
Sally saw her mother’s eyes turn in a glare across the table toward her father. “He’s never been away from home,” she said. “Except for that short time thinking he was a ballplayer, and we all know how that turned out. He’s always been right here, tied to his mother’s apron strings, and you think he’s not going to be carried away by all the goings-on in a big city like Boston?” She sniffed again. “I wouldn’t put it past him to fall in with that group of ruffians Milo Wade associates with.”
Arthur looked up, matched the glare in his wife’s eyes.
“Don’t give me that look, Arthur,” she said. “You know exactly what I mean. Why, there was a story about it in the Boston paper only yesterday, how Milo Wade was a wife-beater.”
“Where did you see a Boston paper?” Arthur asked.
“I didn’t. I happened to be talking to Charlotte Crews this afternoon, and she said that one of the train conductors had given Akers a copy of it on a stop at the station—knowing this is Milo’s home.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that,” Sally said.
“Me, either,” her father mumbled.
“If you don’t believe me, go see Akers tomorrow,” her mother said. “Call him on the telephone tonight, if you wish.”
“It’s got nothing to do with Ben,” Sally said defensively.
Her mother looked at her and a condescending smile swept over her face. “Of course it doesn’t,” she said. “What I meant to say was that I hope he didn’t get caught up in all of that. Ben’s a good boy. I’m just wondering when he’s going to ask for your hand, and stop keeping us on pins and needles.”
Sally knew the smile was false and the words were false. Her mother had not mentioned Ben since her warning talk about the in-between time of her life. Then she had sounded sad and regretful. Now she sounded shallow.
“In his own time, Mama. If it’s what he wants, it’ll be in his own time,” Sally answered. She quivered at the sound of her own voice.
THE FEVER STRUCK Ben again ten minutes after leaving the Athens train station. He was sitting, leaning his body against the seat, his eyes closed, and then he coughed once and collapsed forward, falling into Lottie. A passenger across the aisle, a man who identified himself as a preacher in the faith of the Baptists, helped her lift Ben to the seat, turning him to stretch out with his suit coat rolled into a pillow for his head.
“Father God, reach out your healing hands and through the grace of your son and our Savior, bring comfort to this poor man in his illness,” the preacher prayed earnestly. “Give his good wife the strength to care for him, and take away any fear his child may be suffering, for we bring our petition of mercy before you, acknowledging our sins and weakness, yet knowing that, in Jesus, we have the great physician as our caretaker. In his name, we make this prayer. Amen.”
Lottie thanked the preacher with her eyes. There was no reason to correct him about Ben being her husband, or Little Ben being his son. The preacher would not have understood, and he had prayed a good prayer. Correcting him might waste it.
“If you need anything, I’ll be right across the aisle,” the preacher whispered. He added, “You better think about getting off at the next stop and finding a doctor.”
“Yes sir,” Lottie said. “That’s where we’re headed. How much longer do you think it’ll be?”
The preacher fingered a watch from his vest and looked at it. The watch was attached to a soft leather fob with the imprint of a cross. “Less than an hour, I’d say.”
“Thank you,” Lottie said.
“I’ll give you a hand with him when we get there,” the preacher told her.
“I appreciate it,” Lottie said.
“Least I can do,” the preacher replied. “But don’t you go worrying. He’s in God’s hands. God don’t take time off.”
“Yes sir,” Lottie said. “I guess he don’t.”
AKERS CREWS STOOD on the platform of the depot, one hand propped against a post. The arthritis in his back throbbed, forcing him into a hunch, yet he could not complain. Not openly. He hated early-morning stops, but the stop on this morning was for his wife. She intended to visit her sister in Augusta and wanted to have a full day of it. Gab time, Akers called it. Damned hen convention. Bad as it was, it was still better that his wife visit her sister than her sister visit his wife. Goda’mighty, they made a racket. Worse than hens. You could shut hens up by filling them full of corn, but his wife and her sister would cluck their way through a tornado.
He watched the train slowing to a stop. It was not yet dawn, though the coming light of day was on the eastern horizon like a bruise. Not long now, Akers thought. Get her on the train and get back to bed. A little whiskey for the pain, and then sleep.
Akers twisted his body toward the depot and motioned for his wife. “Come on. They running late. They not gone wait long.”
“Why, look at that,” Charlotte Crews said in a surprised voice.
Akers turned back to the train. He saw a man helping Ben Phelps from the passenger car, half-dragging him. A woman carrying a young boy was behind them, and a conductor followed with a suitcase and a wrapped bundle.
“Looks drunk,” Akers mumbled.
“Akers, don’t go saying things like that,” scolded Charlotte. “That’s Ben Phelps. You know he’s not been drinking.” She paused, craned her face forward. “Wonder who that is with him?” Then: “Go on, Akers, give them a hand.”
Akers hobbled forward to the man holding Ben. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“Got a young man here who’s terrible sick,” said the man. “My name’s Reverend Bolly Curtis of the Baptist persuasion. Just giving him and his family a hand.”
“Family?” said Akers.
“I think the boy’s a little sick, too,” the preacher said. “If you’d catch his other arm, maybe we can get him up the platform there.”
Akers glanced at Lottie, then took Ben’s arm and helped the Reverend Bolly Curtis drag-walk him up the steps of the depot to a bench. Ben sat weakly. He gazed at Akers and whispered, “Mr. Crews.”
“You’re home, boy,” Akers said. “We’ll take care of you.”
Bolly Curtis leaned to Ben. “You’ll be all right, son. God’s with you. God and this good man. I’ll be praying for you and your family.”
Ben nodded a confused nod. He tried to stand, could not.
“I’d better be going,” the preacher said. He looked at Lottie. “You take care of him, young lady. And your boy. Better get them both to the doctor.”
“Yes sir,” Lottie said. “Thank you.”
The preacher tipped his fingers to his hat and turned and quick-stepped back to the train.
Akers pivoted to his wife, who was staring at Lottie in disbelief. “Go on,” he snapped. “It’s about to leave.”
“But—” Charlotte said.
“But, what?” Akers growled. “You going, or not?”
Charlotte stepped back, toward the train.
Damn, Akers thought. That’s all she needs: something else to talk about.
“Maybe I better—”
“Get on the train, Charlotte,” Akers commanded. “I can take care of things here.” He thrust his face toward her. “And before you go off spreading tales, I think you’d better remember that you don’t know nothing about what’s going on here.”
“Akers—”
“Get on the damn train, Charlotte.”
Charlotte Crews turned and crossed to the train and took the steps into the passenger car without looking back.
Akers stood for a moment, watching the train struggle to move, then he motioned for Lottie to follow him out of Ben’s hearing. He said in a low voice, “You want to tell me what’s going on? You Ben’s family?”
“No sir,” Lottie answered quietly. “The preacher just thought so, and I didn’t tell him any different. Me and my boy, we just met him on the train. My boy got sick coming out of Kentucky and Ben—Mr. Phelps—helped me with him, and then he got sick from the same thing, I guess, and I felt obliged to see after him, since he’d been so good to us.”
“What’s your name?” asked Akers.
“Lottie Lanier,” Lottie told him. “My boy’s name is Ben.”
Akers frowned in suspicion.
“Just like Mr. Phelps’s name,” Lottie said quickly. “That’s how we got to talking. He heard me call my Ben, and he thought I was talking to him.”
“Where you headed?” Akers asked.
“Augusta,” Lottie answered. “My husband just died a few days ago and I was going home to where I used to live. But I haven’t been there in a long time.”
Akers turned his head to watch the train slide away from the station. “You missed the train,” he said.
“Yes sir,” Lottie said. “I was afraid my boy was getting sick again, and, like I said, I thought I owed it to Mr. Phelps to make sure he got home all right.”
Akers studied her with a narrow gaze. It was hard to judge her age. She could have been sixteen or thirty. She had soft, haunting eyes the color of honey. She did not wear a hat and her hair, pulled up in a bun, was blond-gold. A faint blush was on her cheeks, but not by the making of rouge. It was a blood-blush, the look of a woman at work, or pleasure.