THE DOCTOR WAS wrong about Little Ben. He did not have anthrax. At morning’s light, he opened his eyes and said, as a question, “Mama?”
He was sick, still weak, but the fever had left him, and the doctor guessed that he only had an infection of the throat.
“There’s so much we don’t know,” the doctor confessed. “So much we’re just now learning about.”
“Can we take him with us?” asked Lottie.
The doctor frowned. “He’s still not well, and he’s a little bit undernourished. I’d rather you let us watch him a while longer—this morning, at least. Let’s try to get some food in him. Maybe you could leave this afternoon.”
“Can I stay with him?” Lottie wanted to know.
“I’m sure he’d like that,” the doctor answered.
OUTSIDE, IT WAS a bright, early-hot day. Ben moved sluggishly along the sidewalk leading to O’Connor’s. “Go get some sleep,” Lottie had insisted. “You paid for the bed, you might as well use it.”
She was right, of course, Ben thought. He needed rest. There was still a long way to travel and he would need to be alert. He was not accustomed to going without his sleep. Still, he felt uncomfortable going to the bed where Lottie had slept. Her body would not be there, but her presence would be—her presence and the flower scent that seemed to be on her skin and in her hair.
In the room, he removed his coat and tie and shoes and fell across the bed. The scent of Lottie was in the pillow, and he pushed it away and closed his eyes. He thought of Sally, imagined her moving gracefully about the store, her smile breaking into laughter, her voice as merry as music. She was beautiful, so very beautiful.
And then he slept. Deep. Heavy. Hot. Floating in space that was absolutely black, space so thick it contained only a slow-moving dream, and in the dream he was again in Augusta, again in the centerfield grass of Hornet Field, again cawing in his boy’s voice for Nat Skinner: “You can do it, Nat! Bear down, bear down, bear down…” He saw Nat’s pitch, saw the swing of the bat from the Seagulls player, heard a sharp crack, saw the ball rising—small white dot against the black—and he could feel his body begin to move, the tension in his muscles uncoiling like a released spring. He could feel a hot wind slapping at his face. His heart thundered in his chest and the blood spewed in a flash throughout his body. And then he was in a dive, his left arm extended, palm up, and the hot wind that slapped against him seemed to cushion him, hold him. He looked up at the falling ball, and the ball became a shooting star, a slow, streaking fire across the absolute black of his dream space, and as the star fell toward him, he could see Sally’s face in the red-orange of its kite-tail light. She was gazing at him, smiling. And then he could feel the star exploding in his gloved hand, shattering like fine glass, its light sizzling over his hand, and in the light he could see Lottie sleeping on the train. He heard voices from across the grass: “Ben! Ben! Ben! You got it, Ben! You got it!”
“Ben?”
Ben could hear his name, could feel the tug on his arm.
“Ben?”
He rolled his face, forced his eyes to open.
Lottie stood beside the bed, leaning over him. She looked frightened.
“You got the fever, Ben.”
He opened his mouth to speak, could feel a swelling in his throat, a burning across his face and neck. His lungs ached.
“You lay still,” Lottie said. “I’ll go get the doctor.”
Ben closed his eyes again. He could hear Lottie rush from the room, and after a few moments he could hear her voice downstairs and the voice of someone else, and then the closing of a door, a dull, faraway sound. He tried to raise his head, but could not. The stem of his neck throbbed with pain. His breathing was shallow and labored.
And then someone was in the room with him, and he heard a woman’s voice: “Now don’t go worrying, young man. You’ve just got a touch of something.” There was an Irish lilt to the voice and he knew it was Elizabeth O’Connor. “Your lady friend’s gone for the doctor, but we’ll make you a bit cooler.”
He could feel a damp cloth on his face, a gentle stroking over his forehead and eyes and lips.
“It’s the heat, it is,” Elizabeth O’Connor crooned. “Oh, yes, I’ve seen it many, many times. You get a bit of a cold and the heat drives it in you, and before you know it, you’ve got a full-blown fever.” She pulled away the damp cloth. “Now, could you take a little sip of water?”
Ben nodded feebly. He could feel Elizabeth O’Connor’s hand under his neck, lifting his head, and then the touch of a glass to his lips.
“Just a bit,” Elizabeth O’Connor whispered. “Just a bit. What you need is a good swallowing of fine Irish whiskey, but I’m sure the doctor would faint away at such a remedy.”
The water spilled over his lips, into his mouth. It was warm and tasted of tin. He tried to swallow and the glass moved and water trickled down his chin.
“Now, there I go,” Elizabeth O’Connor complained quietly, removing the glass. “Trying to drown you.” She lowered his head back onto the pillow. “But that’s enough for now.” She began to bathe his face again with the damp cloth. “The doctor will be here soon enough. You’ll be fine.”
BEN DID NOT remember the doctor appearing at his bedside, declaring him infected with an illness that was, perhaps, the same as Little Ben had. He did not hear the doctor telling Lottie, “Maybe it’ll go away as quick as it did with your boy, if it’s the same, but sometimes it’s easier for little ones to throw off an infection than it is for us older people.” He did not know who had undressed him and moved him between the bedsheets. His body demanded sleep and he obeyed, drugged by medicine and by the illness that had probably crawled from Little Ben to him.
He did not know that in the afternoon a powerful storm had hurled out of Missouri and Illinois, battered Nashville with rain and hail, and above Nashville, a tornado had skittered across the land, killing a dozen people who had gathered in a church to plan a week of camp meeting services.
He did not know that, before the storm, Elizabeth O’Connor had helped Lottie move Little Ben from the doctor’s office to a bedroom across the hall from where he slept. No charge for the stay, Elizabeth O’Connor had insisted. It was the neighborly thing to do. Besides, she had been young once with her first child, not knowing what to do, and she had been treated kindly, and one could never do enough to pay back such generosity. And, too, she liked Lottie and Ben, knowing they were friends and that Ben was making good on his promise to her dead husband. A fine man, Ben was, she declared to Lottie in her singsong voice. She’d known many people named Phelps, and she had known many people named Lanier. All fine people. All of them. Some of them regulars when they came to Nashville. It was part of the joy of having a boardinghouse—knowing people, trying to connect them, name by name.
He did not know that in Boston, Milo Wade had had four hits against the New York Highlanders, but had been ejected from the game in the ninth inning for brawling with the Highlanders’ second baseman, and that a writer from one of the Boston newspapers would pen a story about Milo Wade striking his wife in a fit of anger. The headline would cry: WADE A WIFE-BEATER.
He did not know that, as he slept into the night, his mother had invited Sally Ledford to supper as a gesture to repair any hurt feelings about the encounter she had had with Sally’s father, and that, as they talked, woman to woman, they fashioned a bond that would become more powerful than Sally’s bond with her own mother.
He did not know that, after the supper, in her own room, Sally had written another letter to him.
My dearest Ben,
Tonight I had supper with your mother and came away from your home loving her almost as much as I love you. If you are at all worried about what happened between her and my father, you shouldn’t be. She did not tell me this, but I know they have talked and all is well. I know my father misses you. I see him looking around the store as though he is looking for you. This morning, he said to Mr. Jesse Taylor that you knew more about the stock than he did, and that you were a born merchant. I think he said it for me to hear, since Mr. Taylor only wanted to pay a bill for his wife and had no reason at all to be interested in the stock.
It was so wonderful being in your home. Your mother invited me to see your room. I could feel you there, the little-boy you and the you that you are now. (I loved the photograph of you with your father. Why haven’t you told me about it?) Your mother told me you were a good housekeeper and seldom had to be asked twice about helping out with the chores. But I knew that. You’re the same way in the store.
Oh, one thing about supper tonight: Your mother gave me recipes of all your favorite dishes, including fried okra, and I plan to start practicing on them. I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at it as your mother, though.
It seems you have been away for so long, although I know it’s only been for a few days. The hours seem to crawl by without you in them, and no matter how much I wish it, I cannot make the clock spin faster. Tomorrow will be an eternity, but you will be home the day after (I hope!) and we will be together.
I love you with such joy I think I can feel it lifting me up off the ground, taking me cloud-high with happiness.
Sally