But she wasn’t smiling now.
“I need to talk to you, Genuine,” was all she said.
“Your grandma told us we might find you here,” the man said to me. Giving the Tromps a regretful smile, he added, “Sorry to interrupt your evening.”
“We ’preciate the apology, but who are you?” Travis asked, stepping between the man and me.
“My name’s Tom Holt.” He offered Travis his hand. Travis shook, wary but civil.
“Please, both of you, sit down,” Miz Tromp said. “You, too, Genuine. Can we get y’all something to drink?”
The man said he’d be glad for some water, but Edie only shook her head and sat. With nothing else to do, I took a seat, watching helplessly as Miz Tromp pulled Travis with her into the kitchen.
“What’s all this about, Edie?” I asked.
Edie opened her mouth, tried to say something, and started to cry. I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a handful of Miz Tromp’s fancy paper napkins, and offered them to her.
When she finally collected herself, Edie said, “My mother didn’t want me to talk to you, but Tom—Tom saw you on the news and he said, Aren’t you neighbors? What could it hurt? And so here we are, you know?”
“Sure.” I nodded encouragingly. “That makes sense.” Though, I confess, I was hoping it would make more sense soon.
Tom spoke up. “I work at the Ardenville Cancer Center. I’m a nurse there.”
Edie slapped her fistful of tear-damp napkins on the table. “My mom is sick, Genuine! Really, really sick!”
“I—I’m sorry, Edie,” I said, and I meant it.
“We thought she was going to get better, but all at once, it struck her worse than ever. The pain—it hurts her so bad she cries, Genuine!”
I tried to imagine a pain that terrible. Even when I had broken my arm—and that smarted something terrible—I shouted, but I never bawled.
Miz Tromp drifted in and set a glass of water before Tom. Travis, I saw, lingered within hearing, leaning just inside the kitchen door frame.
“We—Tom and me—we were hoping you might come and talk to her.” Edie sniffed. “See if you can wage some kind of peace between you two, so maybe she’d accept one of your wishes.” She leaned forward. “A wish would fix her, right?”
“Truly? I don’t know, Edie,” I told her. “Maybe. I’ve never tried to fix a sickness before.”
“But you could try, couldn’t you?” Edie asked.
I dropped my chin to my chest. Could I?
Part of me wanted to. After all, I knew what it was like to be bad off and alone, wishing like mad for some prospect of help.
“Even if you could just help the pain some,” Edie pleaded. “She’s so tired with it. She can’t even sleep!”
“Late last night,” Tom said, “I went in to check on Penny. She wasn’t in her bed. Finally, I found her in another room, sitting with another patient—a girl who was sick from her treatments. Penny was hollow-eyed and trembling with her own pain, but there she was stroking this girl’s back, whispering, You can do this, sugar. You’re a fighter. She stayed there till the girl nodded off.” Tom pressed his lips together. “Penny made me swear I wouldn’t sneak in one of my alternative medicine ‘crazies’ for her. But seeing her caring for that girl . . . Please try, Genuine. Talk to Penny. And if she’s willing, use whatever tools you have—”
I looked at Edie. Her lip trembled, but besides that, she’d gone utterly still.
The smell of fresh-baked wish biscuits hung in the air.
“Can I say—nobody here is asking for a miracle.” Tom seemed to think something over, then went on, “Well, maybe we are. Asking for one. But we’re not expecting it. Some treatments work. Some don’t. We know that. We accept it.”
Edie nodded.
I searched out Miz Tromp, who stood in the corner, expression heavy, hand resting over her heart.
I said to her, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure, honey.” Her voice was soft.
She led me into the kitchen, past a worried-looking Travis, and out onto a little porch.
She’d barely closed the door behind us when I blurted, “I’ve got biscuits to bake and send!”
“I know,” Miz Tromp replied. “You’ve been working hard.”
“But I have to go. Don’t I?” I asked. “I can’t just leave Penny to suffer.”
“I’m sure we can arrange—”
“But, then, what if I go to her, get Edie and Tom’s hopes all up, and Penny Walton turns me away? Or what if I can’t do it at all? What if the stars don’t have that kind of power?” My ma never did try her shine against Loreen Walton’s sickness.
Miz Tromp stood with me, sturdy as an oak. “How can I help?”
I squinched up my face. “Could you come with me? Tonight? You and Travis both? And—also—could we drop off this first batch of biscuits at Jura’s?” Was it too much to ask? I wasn’t sure.
“I can be ready and out the door in under three minutes. Travis, too, I imagine. Isn’t that so?” Miz Tromp knocked on a nearby window. I hadn’t noticed it was open just a crack.
Travis’s face appeared. He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Jura’s, then Ardenville.”
I let out a sigh. “Thanks, y’all. To go off to a big city, not a friendly face around me—I don’t know if I could do it!”
I was headed back inside when Miz Tromp said, “You are gonna give your grandma a call before we go, aren’t you?”
“I’ll have plenty of time to call from the road,” I replied. “Tom surely has a cell phone he can lend me. If I can help Penny, I want to get on with it.” Besides, I didn’t want to give Gram the chance to forbid my going. After her secret-keeping about the Waltons, it was hard to know what she’d say.
Miz Tromp pursed her lips. “All right. Let’s go.”
16
What Comes of It
TOM, MIZ TROMP, TRAVIS, AND I PILED INTO TOM’S jeep. Edie took her own car; she’d be staying there with her mother till the end, one way or the other.