“I reckon for a spell…but you know, Miz Lila, how it all comes and goes,” Mr. Dykstra murmured.
“I do know. And I have also told you the height of the mountains and the cold air here do your lungs no good.” She settled him against the pillows and pulled covers up to his chin like her Mama had done in another life. Oh, Mama. I did chase my dream but it wasn’t the right one. She shook her head fast, afraid she’d said the words out loud, hoped Mr. Dykstra and Bronx himself would think she was vehement, not lost in the past. “For improved health, you would be better off in a flatter land. Drier and warmer. Arizona, perhaps.”
Bronx flinched. “Good night and morning, too!” he exclaimed over the white bowl he held, but Lila suspected the outburst wasn’t the epithet he would have originally wanted. “With your face cleaned, I see we’re of an age, Clemmons. I thought you were an old man, first blush.”
For a flash, Lila wondered if the two men could be friends once her patient was back to strength and health.
Mr. Dykstra rolled his eyes. “I feel old, that’s a fact. And I ain’t that perky yet. Miz Lila, please, don’t leave me. Tonight might be my last. I don’t want to be alone.”
Three empty mattresses on the floor loomed around Clemmons Dykstra in the big bed that had once been hers and Emmett’s. Lila hedged. She’d not spent a night here at Gethsemane without Emmett. Even in death, he forbade it.
“Tonight won’t be your last, my friend.” She gulped over her promise. He did seem much improved, but she didn’t know for certain. She did know Miss Frieda had nursed during the war, wondered anew if the landlady would ever find the kindness to lend a helping hand.
“Nope. I’ll stay. Not for an instant will Miz Lila stay here alone. This is an unrighteous part of town.” Bronx took charge and Lila let him. “I’ll stay.”
“You got no woman’s touch. I need the hands of an angel.”
At Clemmons’s complaint and soft glance, Bronx turned in surprise. Lila realized he thought Clemmons loved her, and she smiled, knowing no such thing. Even when she had known love, it had been the wrong love. A girlish loyalty, perhaps. Besides, she reckoned Clemmons had a heart for Malina.
She grabbed a smile. “Mr. Dykstra, you’re not going to die tonight. Should I think that, we will find a way to transport you to hospital. Now, get some rest.
“Please? Ma’am?”
Her heartstrings tugged with indecision. No one had thought Emmett would leave that night, either.
“We’ll have to see. Now, I need to finish serving up supper. I’ll have Malina bring you a bowl.”
“Malina. Yep. Malina.” Mr. Dykstra’s eyelids flickered, and so did a flash of envy. She hurried to get food, ashamed. Oh, she had a tender heart and a helping hand, maybe even healing ways, but it wasn’t vagrants and the destitute and fallen angels she wanted to tend. Rather her own home, her own family. Children. And that life was lost to her.
Bronx was close at her back. “How many hungry you expect tonight?”
She waved to the table where sat a stack of cast-off dishes. “Two have eaten and gone. A half-dozen, maybe. Eight, ten. It’s difficult to be exact. Rarely more than a dozen.”
“How many stay the night?” His voice was soft, gentle. Interested.
“That’s hard to say. One, two. Maybe none at all. Often after a meal, they...return to the bars or gambling hells. Or...” The word came out with no sound. “Or the bordellos and cribs.” She raised her face to Bronx’s, touched by the gentle eyes. “Em—we had hoped to make a difference, but it hasn’t come to pass.”
“Well, you make a difference for the ones who come.” Bronx’s tone was gentle, close. Amazement struck her. For Emmett, it had always been the numbers. The more, the better. His personal failure had been palpable. But how about the handful who truly had been rescued?
“Why, you’re so right. I have looked at everything through wrong eyes.” Through Emmett’s eyes, she corrected. “Anyway, if you’ve a mind, there is cake to cut. And thanks for slicing bread. Several bakers are ever so kind in sending over their day-old bread and sometimes pies. I noticed you have a hand with a knife.” She teased. “You know, for one who worked on a ‘cut’ line.”
He smiled at her, and her heart bucked. “If you’ve a mind to stay tonight, I’ll bed back there with Clemmons. I can rig up something for you on that bench, there.”
She knew the bench, one of several crude pews whose contraction Emmett had overseen. “Yes, I think I should stay. I, it’s hard to refuse such a request.”
“You think...he’s breathing his last?”
“No, but I don’t know for sure. And if I stay, I won’t have to worry about Malina. I’ve never liked her here alone, but she has no place else to go. It’s better than...”
“Better than where?”
Lila glanced away and choked. “The Red Creek Gentleman’s Club.”