A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [103]
With an effort, Bridget lifted her swollen, burning eyes to focus on the other woman. “How do you get over it?” she asked hoarsely.
“You don’t,” Ida Mae replied simply.
The two women looked at each other for a long and gentle moment, and then turned and began to silently gather up the towels, the blankets, the basin of used poultices. When her arms were full, Bridget turned to the sheepdog, who had not moved from his vigil in the corner.
“Rebel,” she said, and the dog lifted its head to look at her. So did Ida Mae. Bridget smiled faintly, tiredly. “Come on, let’s go.” She patted her thigh and the dog got up and trotted to the door. “It’s been a long night.”
Two days later, Cici and Lindsay surprised Bridget with a birthday cake after supper. They brought out birthday hats and noisemakers and sang “Happy Birthday” and gave her silly presents that made her laugh.
“Of course we didn’t make the cake,” Lindsay felt compelled to explain, scraping a last dollop of icing off her plate, “Ida Mae did.”
“Well, it was delicious.” Bridget smiled at Ida Mae as she came to collect the cake plates. “Thank you, Ida Mae.”
“You all gonna be wanting coffee this time of night?” asked Ida Mae with her customary tact, and of course no one admitted that she did.
“Good,” said Ida Mae. She stacked the cake plates on the corner of the table and folded her hands across her stomach. “ ’Cause I got something to say. I ain’t getting any younger, you know, and I have a mind to take it easy in my remaining years. I can’t be running up and down them stairs changing your beds every day, or hanging out your linens to dry or doing your ironing, either. So if you want your sheets changed more than once a week, you need to do it yourself.”
Her eyes went from one to the other of them, and they said not a word.
“And another thing,” she went on, “I can’t keep up with all this cooking at my age. I figure Sunday dinner in the dining room is about all I can manage, but during the week, you’re gonna have to do for yourselves. Now, I don’t mind helping out now and again, keeping the place tidy, peeling potatoes and the like, for my room and board. But I ain’t no machine, you know. You all are just going to have to learn to do for yourselves, and if you don’t like it, now’s the time to say so.”
There was an immediate chorus of understanding and agreement from Lindsay and Cici, but Bridget didn’t say anything at all. She simply stood up, walked around the table, and hugged Ida Mae. At first Ida Mae looked startled, even embarrassed, as though she didn’t know what to do with her hands. But Bridget did not back away, and eventually Ida Mae lifted her arms and patted Bridget uncertainly on the back.
“Thank you,” Bridget said again, softly.
Ida Mae grasped Bridget’s shoulders and stepped away. “Well,” she said gruffly. “How about doing up them dishes, then? I got to get to my resting.”
“I’ll be happy to,” Bridget replied, smiling. “But first, we were going to have a glass of wine by the fire. Maybe you’d like to join us—for a sip of sherry?”
Ida Mae looked at her for a moment, her eyes narrowed fractionally. And then she smoothed out the folds of her apron, tilted her chin, and pronounced, “I don’t mind if I do . . . just this once.”
Winter
Home
18
In Which an Ill Wind Blows No Good
It got cold, and then it got colder. The brilliant cobalt days and vermilion sunsets gave way to lead-streaked skies that spit icy particles of snow. Almost overnight the last of the yellow and orange leaves shuddered off the trees and left nothing but bony protrusions along the spine of the mountaintop. The lawn turned brown with dead leaves that accumulated faster than they could rake them, and the ragged, withered seed heads of a few forlorn flowers were all that remained of the perennial beds.
“Why didn’t anyone tell us how much colder it is in Virginia than in Maryland?” Lindsay complained, shivering in a turtleneck, sweatshirt, jacket, wool hat, and gloves as she came in from packing the last of the mulch around the roses