Paulette Jiles - Stormy Weather

“Oh Bea,” said Elizabeth, and smiled at her fondly and stroked her cheek.

They were given the name of a home visiting nurse. She was employed by the county health department, and it wouldn’t cost them anything. Her name was Winifred Beasley, she was very efficient and had a degree in nutrition as well as nursing and was just the most concerned person in the world. She would be out there in a few days to give them a hand.

Jeanine drove so her mother could cry all she wanted on the way home, in the truck cab, where Bea couldn’t hear her. When they arrived at the house Elizabeth blew her nose and Jeanine and Mayme carried Bea in on the stretcher, and lifted her onto the bed they had prepared for her in the parlor. She would have the fire in the fireplace and a view out to the front yard.

Abel and Alice came over in their old Model T roadster. Abel volunteered to fill in the well, but Bea heard him and called out, Please don’t. Please just fix the curb. She loved the well. It was the most important terrible thing that had ever happened to her.

Abel and Alice walked into the parlor and took Bea’s hand; Alice touched the temporary cast and then Bea’s head bandage. They shook their heads.

“By golly, girl, we about lost you,” Abel said. “You’ve put about ten years on your sisters’ and mother’s life.”

“But don’t fill it in,” said Bea. Her voice was weak and she shifted back and forth as much as she could. She had begun to look like a little old woman, with the pain lines in her face deepening, it seemed, every hour.

Abel said he wouldn’t. Instead he and Jeanine mixed mortar and reset the stones, and then tore down the tipped and twisted well roof. Then they covered the opening with hog wire and cemented another row of stones on top. When they were done she and the old man stood with their hands caked with cement watching Smoky gallop across the lower field with his tail in the air, calling out to Sheba. He had worn a path along the fence line as if it were his own private racetrack, he had pounded it smooth with his unshod hooves and raced along it because someday it would lead him somewhere and something important would happen to him. Dust rose up in a cold cloud behind him.

WINIFRED BEASLEY CAME driving into their driveway at five in the afternoon two days later in a dark blue Chevrolet. It was a good car, only two years old. She stepped out in a careful way. She opened the double doors to the house as if the doors were disjointed and she was fearful of them coming apart. She walked into the hallway without a word and then into the kitchen; she gave them a brief, curt bob of her head and asked where Bea was.

“I’m Elizabeth Stoddard.” Their mother turned away from her small desk, and laid down a seed catalog. She stood and faced Winifred.

“Good to meet you, Mrs. Stoddard.” Winifred put her purse on the table. “And you are Bea’s sister?” She regarded Jeanine with a cool stare but didn’t wait for an answer. “My concern is with the child. Where is she?”

Jeanine laid down the load of wood she had just brought in and said, “In here.”

Winifred walked into the parlor, and as she did she turned one way and then another to see what they had in the house, and what sort of furniture they sat on and the dishes they ate on, whether there were pictures on the wall or a cloth on the table and proper washing facilities. She glanced down at the braided rug made of flesh-colored hosiery and up at the dancing orange pigs of the feed-sack curtains and sideways to the back window with the outhouse beyond.

She stood by Bea’s bed and smiled. Her smile was drawn and it made her mouth look square.

“Well, Miss Bea,” she said. “We’re here to make you well and healthy.”

“Good,” said Bea. “I’m happy to meet you.” Bea went back to staring at the wall and counting the willow leaves on the stained wallpaper. She moved her mouth as she counted in a whisper. She counted between pain pills.

“I am sure you are. I am the county health nurse and I visit lots and lots of families.” She reached down and pulled the blankets up around Bea’s throat. “You must stay warm. How do you use the facilities?”

“The facilities?”

Elizabeth was standing at the door. “She is lifted onto a chamber pot,” she said.

“It must be cleansed after every use,” said Winifred. “And disinfected with bleach or Lysol.” She leaned down and patted Bea’s head and parted a lock of hair above the bandage. Bea shrank away and lifted a hand to her head bandage. Winifred grasped her hand and laid it firmly down on the blanket. “Do not touch that bandage,” she said. “An infection would be disastrous.” She straightened up. “Now I must speak with your mother and sister. Is this all you are?” She turned to Elizabeth. “Just the three of you?”

“No, I have another daughter. My oldest.”

“Are any of you employed?”

“Yes, my oldest is employed.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together and clasped both hands together in front of her, as if she had Winifred Beasley’s neck between them. “Are we to pay you? Is that why you’re asking?” She turned her head. Mayme came in the door in a blooming shaft of cold air with a jug of skim milk in one hand and called out to Bea.

“No, you are not to pay me. The government provides this service.” She turned and walked past Elizabeth and into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “We need to lay out some ground rules here,” she said. Mayme stood and stared at her. “You’re the oldest daughter? Stop staring at me. I am the county health nurse. Sit down.”

Elizabeth and her two daughters glanced at one another but they sat down.

Winifred looked around the kitchen. “Do you have pencil and paper? I want you to take notes.” Elizabeth got up and stalked into the parlor and came back with Bea’s Big Chief tablet and pencil. She sharpened the pencil with the kitchen knife and bent her head to the task so Winifred would not see how furious she was, and would not go away and leave them without help.

“I have in my car relief rations,” said Winifred. “They are to be used by the injured child. No one else. I will bring in canned milk, beef, beef stock, malted milk tablets, cod liver oil, powdered eggs, and calcium tablets. She needs a nutritious diet in order for the bones to knit. These are strictly, I repeat, for the injured child.”

“We heard you the first time,” said Jeanine. She held up a forefinger. “The first time.”

“Jeanine, hush up,” said her mother.

“There’s a dairy just down the road. I used to work at there,” said Mayme. Her eyes were sparkling with malice. “I bring home lots of milk every evening. We have milk.”

“Skim?” said Winifred.

“Well, what of it?” Mayme said. Albert slipped in through the window and hurried to sit beside the stove. He stared at Winifred and then walked into the parlor.

“Won’t do.” Winifred had little expression on her face. Her repertoire of emotions was clearly very limited, she seemed to vary between contempt and disapproval. Maybe she went to a Charlie Chaplin movie once in a while and laughed but Mayme doubted it. “Whole milk. Contains butterfat. Our patient in there is below normal weight. But who isn’t these days? At any rate, I see you have a cat. The cat is to be kept away from the patient. Also, I congratulate you that she does not have head lice. Do any of you?”

“No!” said Elizabeth. Her pencil point broke. “Really!”

Winifred stared at her calmly. “It’s very prevalent. Now. I know the cost of the surgery and the specialist will be very expensive. So you are going to be in financial straits.”

“We are not,” said Jeanine. “We have a horse we can sell, and that’s going to pay for it.”