*
Alice warned herself to take care as she hurried down the stairs to notify Analee. Together the two women gathered up the girls, who fortunately, having finished their cookies and poured the last drop of their apple juice “tea,” were eager to go back to the playroom and play dress-up with the new silk gowns for their dolls. They were sure their dollies were eager to be getting all fixed up for the ball, and they chattered of Cinderella and their mother’s mysterious Mardi Gras ball. One even turned on the stairway to ask why Mama hadn’t had glass slippers or how Prince Charming was to find her. As they crossed the threshold of their playroom, they instantly entered another realm, a land of enchantment, where they were content to stay for quite a spell. For that Alice was grateful.
Constance shifted and moaned as before when Alice opened the door and the two women entered. Alice noted how swiftly Analee took charge, how she knew just what to do and how to do it. Speaking softly but firmly, she issued instructions on when and which way to turn. Within minutes, Constance’s skirt and shirtwaist were in Alice’s hands, and Analee was at work on the corset, which thankfully was lightweight and not one of those heavily boned pigeon-breasted ones. After that, too, had come from Analee’s into Alice’s hands, she rolled it and laid it on the seat beneath the outer clothing, which she had folded neatly over the chairback. She was overwhelmed at a sudden loss of knowing what to do.
As Alice turned back to the bed, she realized that Constance was shivering now. With assistance from Analee, she pulled the covers from beneath Constance, then back over her before tucking the blankets around and under her shoulders. Memories flooded her of her own mother wrapping her thus as a child. She couldn’t remember what illness she might have had, but she remembered her mother’s face, full of both love and visible fear. From the corner of her eye, Alice spotted Maggie standing backlit in the doorway, her doll hanging limply over one arm, the thumb of her other hand in her mouth. Alice slipped quietly to her and led her out into the hall.
“What is it, angel?”
Now Delia crept toward her from their playroom, put her arm around her little sister, reached out to stop the forbidden sucking of her thumb.
“Don’t do that. You’re a big girl now,” she said to Maggie. “We heard Mama crying.”
“Mama sick?” Maggie shifted her doll to her chest.
“Mama is a bit sick, girls.” Alice knelt beside them. She was at a loss what to tell them. “Analee and I are taking good care of Mama.”
“Like Mama cared for us when we got sick?” said Maggie.
“Just like Mama would take care of you, pumpkin.”
“Can we help do it?” asked Delia.
“Take care of Mama? I’m not sure what you could do, sweet girls.”
“We can get the cloths wet and . . . ,” Delia said.
“And twist them, so they don’t leak on the bed.” Maggie completed the sentence.
“And fold them to put on her head and make her cool. Is she hot?”
“Well, at the moment, I think she’s shivering cold. That’s why we are wrapping her up in her blanket.”
“But she can be shivery cold, and her head can be hot. Maggie was when she got sick, and Mama put the wet cloths on her head, and her head got cool and the rest of her got warm again.”
Analee’s gentle hand touched Alice’s back. The girls looked up, and Alice twisted her head to see the concern in that kind face.
“Still got the chills,” Analee said.
The girls were tugging on Analee’s apron now, and she leaned her tall figure down to them.
“Can we wet the cloths and twist them for Mama’s head, Analee?”
“Why, I do believe you can. That’s a good way for you to help your mama.” She raised herself up, then held out a hand to each of the children. “Let’s just go get us a clean bowl of water and some dry cloths. We’ll be right back, Miss Alice. Come on now, childrens.”
Alice watched the threesome head down the stairs before she turned and went back into the bedroom. She would be hard pressed to put a name to all that flooded her now: her uncertain fear for Constance; her unfamiliarity with sickness in grown-ups; a memory of herself sick as a child, her mother holding her hand and humming old hymns; the memory of her fevered infant son, of Howard holding him in the sink to cool him down, of Jonathan’s face under water, his infant eyes growing wide, her scream, Jonathan’s breathless body in her arms, the look of terror on Howard’s face, his voice as he muttered, “Don’t, Daddy. Please, please, Daddy, don’t.” Alice grew weak. She felt her way to the chair, where she sat on the rolled corset and collapsed against the folded clothes, uncaring now if they wrinkled or not.
Alice sat, waiting to gather herself. With a deep breath, she rose, holding the back of the chair for support. After a moment, she edged her way to the bed where Constance lay quietly now, the shivering ceased. She laid her hand on Constance’s smooth forehead. So hot, so very hot.
Before Alice could think what to do, the door opened. Analee entered, balancing a large bowl of water, which she placed carefully on the floor a little way from the bed. Each of the girls had a stack of three bath cloths balanced in front of them, carried like icons in a sacred procession, though Alice doubted they had much experience of church ritual at this age. The girls sat cross-legged on each side of the bowl, still holding the cloths in their arms. Oh, to still be so agile, Alice thought. She felt a twinge of envy then, not for that young agility, but for the girls themselves, for Constance’s motherhood in spite of the loss of her son. Then the baby kicked or turned, whatever it was that babies did in that secret place of the womb. Alice laid her hand over the bump protruding at her side, a little foot stuck out perhaps. There is nothing to envy, she thought, scolding herself, feeling shame. Soon enough, her own motherhood would be there again. In truth, even in bereavement, her sense of motherhood had never forsaken her.
She studied the children, so concentrated on their task, wetting a cloth, wringing it out, or twisting it, as they said in their quiet whispers, then handing one at a time up to Analee, who folded and laid the first on Constance’s burning forehead, the next one under her chin, the third one against her flushed cheeks, one, then another, and another, and then handed the cloths back to the girls. Like a well-organized assembly line in the recently established garment industry, thought Alice, her mind immediately leaping to the young girls at the orphanage and their own project to keep the older girls from such work. But first, there was Constance to think about. Alice was aware that her thoughts were scattered and swirling, while Constance lay here, so ill.
“Why do I hurt so bad, Analee? Every inch of me hurts.” Constance’s voice was muffled.
“I expect you got the influenza, Miss Constance. I don’t rightly know, not being your doctor. But right now, I’m working on getting that fever down you got.” Analee changed out the cloths in another round, removing the ones that had warmed, replacing them with cool ones.
“Where are the children?” Constance’s query was almost a moan.
“They right here. Right here beside you, handing me up these cool cloths.”
Alice stood at the head of the bed, feeling somewhat useless, holding the cloths in place so they would not slip, trying to keep the pillow dry around Constance’s disordered hair.
“Should we send for the doctor?” Alice looked to Analee for guidance.
“I don’t know just yet. Let’s see do this fever come down. If it don’t, one of us can go for Dr. Birdsong.”