Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [91]
There was a long pause before she continued. “I was always afraid that if I pushed too hard he’d be gone and I’d not see him no more.” She turned to look out across the water into the dark night. “When things turned bad with his health, it was a struggle then to keep going. It all became too much.”
The wind was from the north. It savaged its way along the side of the wood-frame house, seeking out small cracks and sending icy chills into the makeshift bedroom that had been set up in the parlour. Peg stood in the grey light by the window, alone with her thoughts. In the garden the ground lay fallow, ragged and unkempt, thick with dying weeds and grass. Inside the fence, the mounds of the potato ridges were still visible, like small waves on the landscape. The past spring, she had put down a small patch of vegetables close enough to the house to see them through the winter, but had it not been for Mary Anne’s husband, Pius, they would still be in the ground rotting away. Those days, not even a year past, Matt had worked alongside of her, like a child, helping for short spurts, sometimes being a nuisance, undoing what she had done, but more times he’d be off in a corner, busy doing other things. She had to be watchful, making sure he didn’t roam. When the weather was fine it was so much easier to cope. She could recall then the warmth of the sun on her back as she stooped to the earth, and hear the wind tug at the endless rows of washing on the line
They would never plant the garden again. Those days were done; the weeds around the edges would take over and the long grass would come right to the door and grow strong and tall in the rich ground. Winter was just around the corner, and with Matt and the state he was in, she knew in her heart that she couldn’t endure another January on the island. Yet each time Pat came she couldn’t bring herself to make a decision.
The wind came hard against the house again and she thought she felt the floor shake beneath her feet. All her life she had hated the wind, feared the force that could in a minute whip up the sea into a frenzy of rage and fling her father, his boat, and the silvery cod fish he’d caught, high in the air and then send it all crashing back down into the cold black water. She sat now, transfixed by her old nightmare. “Take away the night,” she had begged her father one time as they sat home curled up in his big chair while the storm battered the house. She had clung tightly to him, afraid that he might have to up and leave her, but he’d wrapped his great arms about her and held her all night close to his warm chest until the wind quieted and her little body relaxed into sleep. Peg wrapped herself now in her own arms and shivered.
A harsh raspy intake of breath sounded from the bed behind her and brought her back to reality with a start. She turned. A scrawny arm reached from beneath the blankets into the chilly air. She went to his side, taking his hand in both of hers. His eyes were closed, his face passive. She pressed the long fingers to her cheek; there was so little to hold on to anymore. Then without warning his eyes shot open. Wide and bright with fear, they stared at her long and hard. Terror hit the pit of her stomach. Something was happening, something she wanted but couldn’t admit to. The hand gripped her fiercely. It was strong and unyielding.
The busy clanging of pots and pans came from the kitchen. Mary Anne was making such a racket.
She shivered again.