South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [6]
“Cold today,” Arbutus said.
“Down around twenty last night, I expect,” Gladys answered.
“. . . that low, you think?”
“. . . call on Emil to get Us some more wood in.”
“Yes.”
It was like a fairy tale: the cold air and icy rain, the pounding lake, the acres of forest that had closed in behind her, the aged sisters in their kitchen, the boiled coffee and cook woodstove, her deep sleepiness.
“You may as well go along to bed for a nap,” Gladys said from far away at some point. Madeline began to apologize.
“Don’t be silly, you’ve driven all night,” Gladys said, frowning.
“You’re tired, dear. Go on and rest.” Arbutus beamed, and Madeline could not help but smile back. She was so very weary. It was as if years of tiredness had caught Up with her all at once. She let Gladys steer her Up narrow stairs to a small bedroom with faded wallpaper where there was an iron-framed bed with scratchy wool blankets and soft flannel sheets. She dropped into it and slept with abandon.
She woke Up in time to eat dinner, feeling guilty and apologetic throughout, but nearly dozed off again in her chair afterward. Gladys refused her help with the dishes and sent her back Upstairs to bed. Madeline considered protesting, but she didn’t have it in her. The drive had done her in.
She woke Up once to find the room black and the house deeply quiet. She felt her way to the stairs, made her way to the bathroom, peered at her wristwatch—three a.m.—and when she was finished made a detour to the parlor window. The rain was still streaming down, her car sat out front like a faithful dog, the dark street was empty, and she could still hear, faintly, the pounding surf of Lake Superior. Out of nowhere the gleeful feeling shot through her again. She was here.
In the morning she found Gladys and Arbutus—and Marley—in the kitchen again. The cookstove was shoveling out heat and the coffee was boiling. “We opened the stair door hoping you’d smell the coffee and get Up,” Gladys said, and Madeline heard criticism in her voice.
“I’m sorry I slept so long. Tell me what you need me to do, I’ll get started.”
“Nonsense,” Gladys said, her frown deepening. “You’ve just woken Up.”
“Sit.” Arbutus patted at a chair. “Have coffee.”
“And toast. There’s blueberry jam I made.”
“Wild blueberry,” Arbutus confirmed.
Each day began in more or less the same way except that Madeline never let Arbutus beat her out of bed again. She’d open her eyes from a deep sleep, fish around on the covers for Marley (never to find him, he’d adopted the space beside the kitchen range as his own), smell a whiff of coffee, and climb down the stairs. She’d join Gladys in the kitchen and visit—thin, stilted conversations that touched on nothing of much consequence—until they heard Arbutus stirring (it turned out Gladys was the true early riser of the two; Arbutus had just been excited that first morning). Then she’d help Arbutus get Up and around and situated, and try to find enough to do to fill her days.
That was a problem she hadn’t foreseen. Gladys relinquished no control of anything except the most basic aspects of helping Arbutus. She wanted no interference in her routine, allowed little help with the cooking or cleaning or dishes, had no big projects to tackle that might have filled some of Madeline’s hours. That hadn’t occurred to her as a potential issue, back in Chicago. She’d just latched on to the decision and ran with it.
Why? she had to wonder now. But there had been genuine kindness in Gladys’s letter and Madeline had grasped at that. At last, someone who Understood. Where had that woman gone, the one who wrote, I expect you are at sea still without her—a year is not really long in the scheme of things. I won’t say it was for the best or any of that. It can never feel right to lose someone so dear. More than a year after Emmy’s death Madeline was absolutely not all right, and