“I’M AFRAID,” ARLENE whispered, closing her eyes tightly. “I am so afraid, honey.”
In the next room, Miss McAllister lifted the heavy lid and rattled half a hod of dusty coke into the firebox. The cookstove was already red-hot on top, and the heat from it sang in the stifling air.
Before replacing the lid on the stove, Miss McAllister walked over to the table by the window and picked up a piece of gauze that had been lying there on the white oilcloth ever since she had finished sterilizing the blue and white enameled pan. She carried the cloth to the stove and dropped it into the flame. There was a sizzling sound, a leaping tongue of purple fire, a puff of blackish smoke, and the gauze had been incinerated.
Miss McAllister shook down the ashes for the third time.
“I’m so afraid,” Arlene said again, her lips trembling more than ever. “Honey, don’t — don’t let anything happen to me!”
“It will be all right,” I said, looking away from the eyes that burned through me. “Nothing could ever happen to you, Arlene. He promised nothing would. Everything will have to be all right.”
Her fingers stiffened.
“I told Mamma we were going for a ride into the country this afternoon. I told her we would not be back in time for dinner tonight. I told Mamma not to worry, because I would be with you.”
The heat from the next room was swimming before my eyes. All the doors and windows had been closed tightly, and there was not a breath of fresh air anywhere. Overhead, beads of pitch dropped from the pine ceiling and fell on the bare floor at our feet.
“What did she say?” I asked Arlene. “Did she say anything?”
“She said that would be all right. She said she knew you would bring me home safely.”
“What did you say?”
“What did I say then? Why, I’ve forgotten now. Though I suppose I told her we would be back early. Why?”
Miss McAllister came into the room and looked at us. She stood close to the other door, turning around to look at us. She was wearing a stiffly starched white skirt with broad straps over the shoulders, and white cotton stockings and white canvas shoes with flat heels. The blouse she was wearing was pink georgette, and it was so thin that I could see the brown mole on her skin just above her waist.
“Where is he now?” I asked her.
“He’ll be here any minute now,” Miss McAllister said, looking at Arlene. “He phoned that he was on his way.”
Arlene’s fingers squeezed mine.
“You don’t suppose he will be delayed, do you?” I asked. “Do you think there’ll be anything to make him late? Will he get here in time?”
“Of course he will come,” Miss McAllister said, smoothing the pink georgette over her breasts and laughing deeply within her chest when she looked at Arlene.
A bead of glistening brown pitch fell from the ceiling to the toe of Miss McAllister’s right shoe, missing the tip of her nose by a hair’s breadth and dropping between the hollow of her breasts. Somebody was coming up the squeaky stairs.
Arlene was about to whisper something to me when the door opened and Doctor Anderson came in. He paused a moment to look at us. He smiled at Arlene, waved his hand at me, and then turned to Miss McAllister. She closed the door, bolted it with the thumb lock, and took Doctor Anderson’s hat and hung it on the tree behind her. They walked into the next room, side by side, talking to each other.
Doctor Anderson wet his finger on his tongue and tapped the top of the stove with it. We could hear the sizzle in the room where we were.
“I like your regulation blouse,” Doctor Anderson said. “At the next meeting of the board, I’m going to propose that we adopt your style of uniform for all the nurses at the hospital.”
Miss McAllister unbuttoned his vest and helped him with his long white coat.
“I forgot to bring the other one with me today,” she said. “I was in such a rush all morning that I didn’t have time to look for a regulation blouse.”
“How did you feel this morning? All right?”
“I had a little wobble in my walk for an hour or so. When I first got up, I felt like I was walking on stilts.”
“My wife asked me what kind of case I had last night. I told her it was an emergency call.”
There was a quick step, a moment’s silence, and an almost inaudible sucking of lips.
Doctor Anderson stepped into the doorway.
“All right, Miss —” he said. “We’re ready now.”
Arlene turned her face from him and buried her head against me.
“I’m afraid, honey,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid.”
I could not release her, and after a while Doctor Anderson came over and pulled us apart. He said something to Miss McAllister that I did not hear.
“Kiss me just once more, honey, and I’ll not be afraid to go,” Arlene said, holding her lips up to mine. “I’ll not be afraid to go.”
Doctor Anderson stepped back a moment. He waited for several minutes, fingering his stethoscope.
“All right, Miss —” he said. “We’re ready now.”
“I’m not afraid any longer,” Arlene said, standing.
Doctor Anderson took her by the arm and led her into the next room. I saw them enter the kitchen and I could hear Miss McAllister shaking down the ashes in the red-hot cookstove for the fourth time. It was so hot by then that the air in both rooms smelled scorched.
After a few minutes, Doctor Anderson came to the door. His sleeves were rolled above his elbows and his face and hands were so inflamed by the heat in the kitchen that the skin looked as though it had been smeared with blood.
He beckoned to me.
“You may come in for just a moment, Mr.—” he said. “But please do not touch anything on the table with your hands or body.”
He stepped back and I walked unsteadily into the room with them. Miss McAllister had opened a can of ether, and the odor had already permeated the air. It made me a little sick to smell it, even though the odor was still faint.
“I’m not afraid at all now,” Arlene said, smiling up at me from the white oilcloth on the table top. “Kiss me just once more, and I’ll be all right, honey.”
Miss McAllister stepped over to the table and drew the sheet over Arlene, folding back the hem at her throat. When she turned to go, she looked at the three of us through tight lips.
Doctor Anderson stepped over to the table and drew the sheet from Arlene, jerking it off in a single motion, and throwing it on a chair beside the cookstove. He came back and stood on the other side of the table looking down at Arlene.
I kissed her until Doctor Anderson laid his hand on my back and pulled me away from her. Her face was bloodless.
“That will be too much excitement for the patient, Mr.—” he said, pushing me away.
Miss McAllister was standing impatiently beside me with the ether cone in her hands. She caught Doctor Anderson’s eyes and nodded her head in the direction of the door. He turned me around and pushed me towards the other room.
When I looked back at Arlene and saw her for the last time, she raised her head just a little and said something. I stopped and waited until she could repeat what I had not heard.
“Please call up Mamma,” she said, smiling, “and tell her I’ll not be home tonight.”
“I will, Arlene,” I promised, starting back into the room where she lay. “I’ll do anything in the world for you, Arlene.”
Miss McAllister tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for Doctor Anderson to send me out.
“That’s sweet of you to say that, honey — and don’t forget to call up Mamma and tell her I’ll not be home tonight. And — honey, if — if I never see you again — you will always love me, won’t you — you’ll always remember me, won’t you?”
Before I could run to her, Doctor Anderson had grabbed me by the arms and had pushed me into the next room. Miss McAllister ran and shut the door between us, bolting it with the thumb lock. Already the sickening odor of ether had entered that room, and I ran to the other door and down the stairs for fresh air.
On the front porch the old man was still sitting there smoking his pipe. The tobacco had burned out, but he puffed on the stem just as though it were lit. He glanced up when I ran out on the porch, and looked at me over the rim of his spectacles.
“I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen your face before, son,” he said, squinting at me. “When did you move in?”
My head was swimming and I could not understand anything he was saying. I leaned against the rooms-for-rent sign on the wall, closing my eyes as I felt myself slide slowly downward to the porch floor.
(First published in Contact)