Home by Morning Read online

  Jessica’s wires to Seattle and Portland yielded helpful but daunting information.

  The Red Cross sternly advised that everyone in town should wear fine-mesh gauze masks to block sneezes and coughs. Their volunteers were making them and they could sell them to Powell Springs for ten cents apiece. She got Mayor Cookson to authorize the funds and placed an order. She also told the mayor the rest of what she’d learned—anything that drew people together, such as church services, theaters, schools, meetings, and parades, should be cancelled or closed. He agreed with her (convinced in part by the alarming condition of his own son, she was certain) and sent a formal public announcement to the Powell Springs Star, the town’s semiweekly newspaper. The editor thought the proclamation important enough to print an extra edition, which had happened only twice in the periodical’s twenty-year history.

  The Red Cross asked Jessica if she needed a nurse sent to help her, but she declined. She’d not reached that point. Dr. Martin at Seattle General Hospital made the same cautionary observations, and also mentioned the possibility that an effective vaccine was in development but not yet available.

  Helen Cookson took a room at the hotel and remained in town to help care for her son, for which Jessica was most grateful. It gave her a chance to sleep, wash, and change her clothes. Soon the small clinic smelled of sickness, camphor, and Vicks VapoRub.

  Now that she had a little help, Jessica was able to escape for a while to meet Amy for lunch at Brill’s Confectionery. The shop had a very limited menu—mostly phosphates and sweets—but they’d both heard that Granny Mae was still crabby over the business with Eddie so they avoided the café.

  As usual, Amy was neatly dressed and pressed, with shoes that matched her gloves and bag. Her honey-blond hair was curled and swept up into a fashionable hat. Jess was certain only that her own face was clean, her teeth brushed, and her hair combed. But given her last twenty-four hours, she was satisfied with that.

  Over egg salad sandwiches and iced tea, Amy stabbed at the newspaper announcement with her index finger. “Mayor Cookson can’t mean this! If the bond committee can’t meet, how will we raise funds?” In a most uncharacteristic display of temper, she thumped the small marble-topped table with her fist, making the silverware clatter. “It’s not fair! No one but poor Eddie Cookson is really sick, and he’s practically quarantined in your office. How can anyone else come down with the grippe?”

  The counter girl stared at them.

  Amazed by her outburst, Jess said quietly, “Shh, people are already getting sick.” She revealed some of the information she’d received. “I asked the mayor to ban large public gatherings like church services and to close the schools. I imagine places like this and Mae’s might be next.”

  “You did! Jess, how could you? You know how important this is to me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Amy, this is disappointing, I know, but—”

  Her sister’s face took on a pinched, suspicious expression. “No, you don’t. I’ve been expecting Cole to take me to the hotel for dinner and propose—” Tears glistened on her lower lids, and she dabbed at them quickly. “I’ve dreamed of my wedding day for years, and just when I think he’s about to ask for my hand, something happens. His work, the ranch, now this. You can’t begin to feel, to know, how disappointing it is.”

  Jess fixed her with a sharp look for several seconds. “I know very well how it feels. You might remember who I expected to marry before you—” She broke off the sentence, fearing she would say something she might regret.

  Amy stared at her with a flash of guilty comprehension and then dropped her gaze to her sandwich, her cheeks blazing red. “Yes, of course,” she mumbled.

  They ate in silence for a few moments while Jessica smothered the fierce resentment that had flared within her. In the days since she’d come back to Powell Springs, she’d struggled to put on her best face and keep her hard feelings in tight check. Amy was her sister, her only family, she told herself, blood was thicker than water, things just hadn’t worked out between Jess and Cole. She’d conjured every excuse and tired bromide she could think of to get through the days.

  But the unvarnished fact was that Amy, sister or not, was planning to marry the man Jess had once expected to have as her own husband. A man who had told her he would no longer wait for her. And though it was probably her imagination, Jess thought that Amy seemed unbearably smug and triumphant about the turn of events.

  Pushing her resentment back into a dark corner of her heart, she spoke at last. “I’m sure the ban on public gatherings won’t last long. Just until we know if Powell Springs is in danger of a real epidemic. Things have been bad everywhere else.”

  Her dignity recovered, Amy replied stiffly, “Then I’ll pray that Eddie not only gets better soon, but that he’ll have the only serious case of influenza.”

  Late the next afternoon, Jessica had just sent an order to the druggist’s for more influenza pills when she heard someone open the front door. Worried about what might be coming next, she was surprised to find Adam Jacobsen standing in her waiting room holding a bouquet of pink and yellow chrysanthemums.

  “Adam! You must be here to visit Eddie.” She assumed so, since he was once again Sunday-dressed and didn’t seem to be ill himself.

  He smiled at her. “Yes. Well, partly.”

  “And you brought him flowers. How thoughtful.”

  He stepped closer and handed her the mums. Over the sickroom odors, she caught the faint whiff of hair tonic. Holding her gaze with his dark-lashed eyes, he said, “The bouquet is for you, Jessica.”

  Though the blooms themselves had no fragrance, the flowers and stems were damp and smelled fresh and green in her grip. Dumbfounded, she stammered, “Me—I—”

  He glanced at the floor and looked almost sheepish. “I saw them growing in the yard and they reminded me of you. Golden and blushing pink.”

  As if on cue, Jessica felt her cheeks grow warm. She hadn’t blushed in years. It was an awkward moment, but one that also was a balm to her female ego, somehow. No one had given her flowers in, well, she couldn’t remember how long it had been, and now they came from Adam Jacobsen, of all people. She barely knew how to respond. “It’s very kind of you. Thank you, Adam.”

  “I wanted to thank you again for agreeing to take care of our folks for a while.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “And I came to see Eddie, of course.”

  “You know, you probably shouldn’t. You’ll expose yourself to his contagion.”

  “That hasn’t stopped you from tending to him.”

  “But I’m his doctor.”

  “And a noble one at that.”

  She laughed, thinking he must be joking. Amy seemed closer to noble, knee-deep in her good deeds. “Really, I’m nothing of the sort—” But in his face she saw that he was serious.

  He glossed over her objection. “Just as your calling requires you to deal with difficult situations, so does mine sometimes. I’m sure Eddie could use a little spiritual comfort right now. I hear he’s pretty sick.”

  Her smile faded. “He is. He might not even know you’re there. He’s been delirious a lot of the time.”

  “It doesn’t matter, God is with him. Eddie isn’t alone in his darkness. I just want to remind him of that.”

  Jess could think of no answer to that statement. If Adam was determined to visit her patient, she wouldn’t stop him. She gestured at the stairs. “He’s up there. His mother is sitting with him.”

  He nodded and turned to climb the steps.

  Jess went to find a vase for the mums, her firmly established opinion of Adam Jacobsen a bit discomposed.

  Midnight settled over the clinic, a lonely time that, in Jessica’s experience, began the hours that could bring a new life or take one too weary to survive. These were the hours when the rest of the world dreamed in sleep, or wept in the darkness from loneliness or despair or regret.

  Helen Cookson had gone back to the hotel just an hour earlier, and
now Jess examined Eddie with growing alarm. Air that should be in his lungs seemed to be escaping into the outer tissues of his failing body, puffing him up like a balloon. Whenever he moved he made a crackling noise like crumpled cellophane. What in the world kind of influenza was this? she wondered desperately. His breathing had become more labored than ever, and the cyanosis—the blue pallor tinting his skin—had grown darker and more pronounced. Muted light from the bedside lamp only made him look worse.

  But there was something else, something new. The smell. This wasn’t the odor of an unwashed body—Jess had experienced that plenty of times. And it wasn’t just from sickness. This was the smell of putrefaction.

  Jessica’s heart sank.

  She reached down to straighten the sheet across his chest and he opened his fever-bright eyes.

  “I’m going to die,” he croaked in a froggy whisper. It was the first time in the forty-six hours since he’d collapsed in her office that he’d seemed almost lucid.

  Jess grasped his hot hand where it lay on top of the blanket. “Do you think so?”

  His nod was almost imperceptible, and Jess knew the truth nearly as well as he did. A few times she’d seen people as ill as he was who felt the very life draining from them and knew their time had come.

  “I’ll get your mother—”

  “No,” he said, struggling for every breath and word. He kept his grip on her hand. “Stay with…me. I don’t…want…to be alone with him.”

  “Him?”

  “He’s come to take…me. See?”

  Jess felt the hair rise on her scalp as she looked around the room. “No.”

  He lifted a heavy arm an inch or two and pointed. “Sitting down there…end of the bed…waiting…for me to die.”

  Again she looked, though she knew she would find nothing. Jess ought to get his mother—the hotel was just a couple of blocks down the street. But she didn’t want to leave Eddie. If he died alone, she would never forgive herself.

  She thought of the telephone downstairs. The hotel had one, too. But without an operator to connect them, it was just a useless gadget mounted on the wall, like a stopped clock with no key to wind it.

  Disentangling Eddie’s hand from hers, she went to the window, looking for any living soul on the street below. It reminded her of two nights earlier when she’d hoped to find someone to give him a ride. There had been no one around then, and that had been at six-thirty. Now at midnight, even Tilly’s was about to close.

  Feeling helpless and cut off, she lifted the sash and stuck her head out to gaze up and down the dark street. There was no one. Only a stiff night breeze carrying the scent of rain. Its first drops hit her in the face. The fresh air was a relief but didn’t solve her dilemma. Then, just as she was about to lower the window, she saw movement, someone on the sidewalk below. Straining to see into the darkness, she waited for the figure to step into the square of light cast from her own window.

  Cole Braddock. Wishing it was someone else, she was also grateful to see anyone. And she knew he would take action.

  “Cole!”

  He looked up, his eyes shadowed by his Stetson. “Jessica? What’s the matter?”

  “Please—will you go down to the hotel and get Mrs. Cookson? It’s an emergency! I can’t leave Eddie alone.”

  He gave her a short nod and took off a trot. She watched him go, all long legs and lean torso, as he faded into the darkness. Only fleetingly did she wonder why he was in town and on the street at this hour. Returning to the bed, she took Eddie’s hand again.

  “Your mother will be here in a minute.” But he’d slipped back into the shadowy world between life and death, and this time she didn’t believe he would come out again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Time lost its meaning as Jess sat beside her patient’s bed. It crept by while she waited for Helen, and she worried that the woman wouldn’t have a chance to say good-bye to her son. But time flew in terms of the moments that were left to Eddie on this earth. With each gurgling rattle, Jess watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest. His breathing had become irregular, stopping for several agonizing seconds before commencing again with a gasp. Outside, rain began to fall in heavy, spattering drops.

  “Hold on, Eddie,” she urged, squeezing his hand, “hold on. You can’t leave us yet. You have to wait for your mother. She should be here any minute.” She had no idea if he could hear her.

  At last Jess heard a frantic knocking on the door downstairs, and then the rattle of a key in the lock. She ran out to the landing to look over the railing and saw that Cole had let Helen in with his own key.

  The poor woman was soaked to the skin. She had obviously thrown on her clothes in a hurry, wearing only a light dress, her bedroom slippers, and no coat. Her hair was plastered to her skull and swung in a wet, braided rope down her back.

  “Is he…?” Helen couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “He’s still with us. Go up.”

  Helen bounded up the stairs, grief already etching her face. Jess patted her shoulder and came down to the clinic to give the mother and son privacy.

  In the waiting room, Cole stood by the door, his long frame limber and easy. He was drenched too, and his thin tan shirt stuck to his torso. Though he still wore his hat, his ruddy-fawn hair curled at the ends from the dampness.

  “He’s dying?” Cole asked quietly.

  Jess nodded.

  That someone in the prime of life could be taken so quickly was astounding to Cole. “He’s only been sick for two days.”

  Jess whispered, “I know. It’s frightening. I wanted to make sure his mother had a last chance to see him, but he didn’t want me to leave him alone.” She poked at some loose strands of hair framing her face. “H-he said someone is sitting at the foot of the bed, waiting to take him when he dies.”

  Cole stared at her. “Did you see—”

  She shook her head and shrugged. “So I couldn’t go for her.” She lifted her chin. “I’m grateful for your help. What were you doing out there at this hour, anyway?”

  They spoke in hushed tones. “I was just catching up on some chores next door.”

  “At midnight.”

  “Well, you’re awake.” And beautiful though she was, she looked as if she’d been up for days. Her white bib apron was stained, and purple smudges underscored her eyes.

  “But I’m working.”

  “So was I.” It was a partial truth Cole told her, and he knew she realized it. There was no end of work to be done these days, but he had come into town because he’d gotten bored and restless just staring at the ceiling over his bed. Like Susannah, he hadn’t slept a whole night through for weeks. His sister-in-law had a good reason; he wasn’t sure of his own. Tonight, instead of tossing and turning until the bedding was a wad at the foot of the mattress, he had gotten dressed and come to the shop.

  She searched his face, looking for a better explanation. When they’d been closer, Jess had always been able to tell when he was hiding something from her. He didn’t know if it was her woman’s intuition or the sensitivity of her vocation. Or just that she knew him so well. He glanced away from her inquiring gaze.

  He settled in a chair and Jess sat as well, in an unspoken agreement to keep a deathwatch.

  “Have any others gotten sick?” he asked.

  “A few, but none as critical as Eddie. Yet.”

  “You think it’ll get worse?”

  She nodded. “That was why I followed the Red Cross’s recommendation about banning public gatherings. Amy was pretty unhappy about that.” She sighed. “She was unhappy with me, too.”

  He took off his wet hat and turned it in his hands. “I know. She told me she even went to Cookson’s office, asking him to make an exception on the ban just for the Liberty Bond Committee and the hotel dining room.”

  “She did?”

  “She came by the shop yesterday afternoon to tell me about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He refused.
I guess you convinced him to stick to his guns.”

  “She mentioned that she’s been waiting for you to, well…” There was a question in her voice, one that asked for an explanation Cole was not prepared to give.

  He shifted in the chair and crossed his ankle over his knee, distinctly uncomfortable. “Yeah, I know. With one thing and another to do with this war business…”

  “So she said. I was kind of surprised.”

  “About what?”

  “For a man so eager to get married, I would have expected you to propose to her by now.” Her green eyes glinted slightly.

  He hadn’t forgotten how direct Jess could be. He simply hadn’t experienced it lately, and he resented being put on the spot, so he deflected her attack with one of his own.

  He uncrossed his ankle and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Yeah? Once upon a time, you were eager to get married too. How is it that you can’t explain why you wouldn’t come home?”

  She pulled in her chin like a turtle retreating into its shell and fiddled with her collar. “I don’t see any point in discussing that now.”

  “I think you owe me that much, don’t you?”

  She sat up a bit straighter. “I don’t owe you a thing. You never proposed to me, either. And you’re the one who changed…everything.”

  A question sat in his mind like a burning coal, one that his wounded pride had never allowed him to ask. One that Amy had hinted at but never really expressed. But now, with death waiting to claim a soul upstairs, perhaps waiting to claim others, he reined in his ego. “Was there another man?” They were already speaking in low voices. This question came out in a whisper.

  She stared at him, her mouth ajar. “What?”

  “Amy mentioned that you told her you made the acquaintance of a doctor’s son. Someone named Stafford, Stanton—”