Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [90]
Bit by bit she followed her ritual: first one shoulder, then the other, his chest, thin arms, the long bony fingers of his hands. Only now, now that he was gone from her, could she touch him, look at him, feel the warm pulse of his body. He could no longer turn away. She continued, tucking the warm towels about his upper body while she washed his withered buttocks, his legs and genitals, carefully parting the slack folds of skin and wiping him clean. Her face remained serene, no flinching, no grimacing, no longing. It made no difference now; all she could do was care for him and make him comfortable. She was glad to do that.
When she had finished, she put on his fresh pyjamas. “There now, that feels better, I’ll allow.” There was no reply. At this point she liked to sit on the side of the bed for a spell, hold his hand and search his eyes, hoping to see that faint glimmer of recognition that told her he was still there. Sometimes she was rewarded with what seemed like a faint ray of light behind his eyes, the very beginnings of a smile or a slight pressure from his hand. These were the private intimate moments in her day when she could be close to him. Somehow in his need, something had changed between them. The touching of flesh to flesh, the salve of fresh clean water, the cleansing, had brought to her a new feeling of love and contentment, one that she would never have dreamed possible in the circumstances. It was a feeling at once powerful and gentle, a deep tenderness that had not been there before, and it filled her with a kind of happiness that needed no explanation, a happiness that would remain with her forever, warming her soul in years to come, making her firm in the knowledge that they were steadfastly bound to each other.
She leaned over and stroked his forehead and then called out to Mary Anne. Together they rolled him over and slipped the clean sheets onto the mattress and placed the hot beach stones wrapped in wool socks between the blankets but clear of his feet.
“I’ll see to the sheets now while you get him something to eat.” Mary Anne departed with the bundle under her arm.
It was a waste of time getting food for him. Peg knew that, but nonetheless she went to the kitchen and mixed up a couple of spoonfuls of the white powdery baby food that Pat had brought from Placentia. She took it in to him and sat on the bedside, spoon poised. “Just a small drop,” she whispered, pressing the spoon to his lips. She watched silently as the thin gruel, mixed with a trickle of saliva, slid along his lips and ran from the corner of his mouth. She scooped the runny liquid onto the spoon. “Look,” she said, tasting the sticky mess, “it’s good.” She brought the spoon back to his mouth. “You must eat, my darling,” she whispered urgently, her eyes bright with tears. But he stared back at her with wide frightened eyes and finally she gave up and took the food back to the kitchen.
23
“Those days, Mary Anne was a wonderful friend to me. Every day she’d come by to help. She’d do the work about the house, mostly washin’, and there was plenty of that, and I’d just tend to Matt. Pat came when he could. He laid in the wood for the winter that year and brought food and supplies from Placentia so we were well stocked up.
“Many times now, girl, I wonder why God sent him to me from halfways ’round the world. Did he mean to open a door for me so I could walk right through and have a different life? I stepped through the open door all right but there were many other doors I should have gone through instead of just standin’ there listenin’ and lookin’ and wonderin’ what might have been.”
“What would you have done differently?” Nora asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe tried to get him to come out of himself a bit more. To get