An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [75]
"Well, you were right. About Uncle Valentine. He is stealing bodies."
She went on kneading. I told her the story about Myra, the trip to the college, the burn victims. She kept right on kneading. I sipped the dark, sweet coffee. For a moment or two after I stopped talking, she said nothing. A clock chimed somewhere in the far reaches of the house. Puss-in-Boots came into the kitchen and rubbed against my skirt, recognizing me. I picked her up.
"And so that's why you're leaving?" Annie asked dully.
"Yes," I said.
"You want to know what I think?"
"You know I do, Annie."
"I think you're spoiled and selfish, Emily. I think you don't know when you have it good. I think you're like your mother."
If she had slapped me, I couldn't have been more shocked. "Annie," I said, "don't you understand what I just said? He's a body snatcher. All of them—Robert, Maude, Marietta."
She never stopped kneading that bread. "Have you ever had a burn, Emily?"
"Not really."
She picked the bread up, threw some more flour on the board, and slapped it back down. She wiped her hands on her apron and poured herself a cup of coffee. She was getting thinner than ever, but her back was very straight in the old calico dress, and she did not turn around from the stove as she spoke. "Wouldn't you like to think that if you were burned someday, doctors would know how to treat you?"
I did not know what to say. "Yes."
"I've seen my mother suffer so with her migraines. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someday doctors knew what caused migraines? I understand Mrs. Lincoln gets them. And wouldn't it be wonderful if the next time a president got shot in the head they'd know what to do for him? Think of it! If they could have saved him, Mama wouldn't be in jail."
"Maybe she still would be," I said.
"But not in danger of being hanged."
I could say nothing to that.
"What's so bad about what your uncle has done? How do you think doctors got to know everything they now know? By working on dead bodies. My God, Emily, stop being a child. Look how your mother died. Coughing her lungs out. Maybe he'll cut into these men while he's at it and find out about lungs!"
"It isn't that," I said. "It's that they all lied to me. I can't live with people who have lied to me."
"Oh, my Lordy." She raised her eyes to the ceiling and gave a bitter laugh. "They lied to you, did they? Well, what do you think my brother Johnny did to us? What do you think my mother did to me? But I still love her. I'd give my eyes to have her back here in this house living with me right now. And Johnny, too! My God, Emily, they're going to hang my mother! They've got all the evidence against her. This trial that's coming up is just a formality. They want to hang people and they're going to hang them. Now, there is trouble. Not the fact that your uncle Valentine is trying to find a better way to treat burns and lied to you."
Silence in the kitchen. Except for Puss-in-Boots. She was purring.
"You're measuring everybody else's problems by your own," I said.
"That's right, I am."
"It isn't fair. The yardstick for measuring doesn't work anymore if you do that."
"That's right," she said. "If they hang my mother we're going to have to throw the yardstick away. Because nothing will be more unfair, Emily. So I would advise you to thank God there are men like your uncle Valentine and Dr. Mudd, who care so much for humanity that they are willing to take chances and break the stupid laws."
I set the cat aside and stood up. "There's no talking to you anymore, Annie. You don't care about anyone else. All you care about is your own problems."
"Because I have problems. And they aren't imagined."
"Other people do, too, Annie. Next to yours they may not seem important. But mine are. And I'm sorry you can't see them as I do."
She shrugged and started kneading the bread again. "I've been through too much," she said.
"Does that mean you don't want to be my friend anymore?"
"No. It means I've been through too much. Johnny's gone. My mother's in prison. Alex is dead. My