Wolves Among Us(13)

Mia was startled awake when she heard a spoon bang against the wall. Margarite was anxious for supper.

“Coming, Margarite,” Mia yelled. Yelling made her sound angry, but Margarite could not help being deaf.

Margarite groaned and hit the spoon against the wall once more. The busyness of meals, of interacting with Mia, made Margarite forget the pain, Mia suspected. Food became something they could still do together, one last link. Mia did not know if the woman even tasted the food or just wanted Mia to touch her and look at her. When old ones stopped eating, they died. Everyone knew that, including Margarite. She wasn’t ready to die.

The old woman held on even though her body failed more every day and the pain in her bones grew steadily worse. Her wasting disease showed no remorse, daily marching her closer to death. Mia did not understood why Margarite held on. She, too, once had a will to live, even through times when nothing existed to live for. But then she had been young, and there had been hope. For Margarite, what hope was there but death? Death would relieve Margarite’s suffering, so why did she resist it?

Mia sighed, walking to the pottage, waving a hand at Margarite to signal that the meal was on the way. She stirred the pottage, careful to scrape along the bottom where most of the meat had sunk. Margarite should put some more weight on her frail frame. She might feel better if she had more cushion, more softness around her bones.

Mia hoped Margarite’s sense of smell was still intact. The sage, already good for picking this early in the season, blended well with the rosemary. Sage lent a lovely green undertone in their tiny home that always smelled of sharp, sweet rosemary. Rosemary stayed green and lush through the final frost of spring and needed no care from Mia. She loved it for being so dependable. She loved it for not needing her.

Ladling the pottage into a wooden bowl, Mia pushed a chair close to Margarite’s and took the spoon from her. Margarite stared at her with a closed mouth, nodding in the direction of Alma, who played with a kitten. The kitten’s mother had depended on Mia for scraps in the winter, and Mia regarded the kitten as a welcome visitor. She would have to shoo it outside before Bjorn got home. But it was not the kitten that agitated Margarite.

Little Alma had those dark red circles under her eyes again, looking as if she had been beaten overnight.

Mia looked back at Margarite, her own stomach churning. Margarite nodded. Though deaf and not always lucid, this one thing she understood: Alma remained very sick, and Mia remained helpless. A rare moment of understanding passed between the women, a generous miracle. Another woman saw her struggle and did not judge. Mia would spoon a thousand mouthfuls of pottage for that one blessing.

Since her first true friend, Rose, had abruptly deserted her two years ago without reason, refusing to have anything to do with her, Mia had not known the comfort of another woman’s reassurance. Mia’s heart pinched at the thought of Rose’s strange, silent betrayal. Mia had poured herself, for the first time, into friendship with another woman, nursing Rose along after her husband died, when she had nearly died herself from grief. Mia reminded herself she could not think on it any longer. It only caused confusion, and Mia had plenty of confusion already. Even if she scraped the bottom of that old pot, what would she find but more trouble? She didn’t have to know the truth. Truth wouldn’t make it hurt less. She remembered what truth did to those who were not ready for it. What Mia needed was answered prayer for Alma. If God ever heard her prayers and healed Alma, Mia would not ask for anything else again. She swore this to Him, but it had not prompted Him to act.

Bjorn slammed the wooden door wide open, making the wood crack along the bottom. Mia jumped, stifling a groan of complaint. The cold night breezes must be kept out, away from Alma.

She forced a smile and cleared her throat.

Bjorn heard her stifled groan; she could tell by the way he sat at the table staring at her with an angry face. He looked tired and likely to start a quarrel. Mia kept spooning the pottage into the mouth of Margarite, who stared in the distance.

“What happened with Stefan yesterday morning?” she asked. Bjorn had left with Stefan early and then had come home drunk last night, angry and unsteady. Mia had lain in bed, stiff with dread, trying not to move until his breathing became deep and steady.

“Is there a reason you let Alma bring an animal in the house?” he asked.

“It keeps her happy while I feed Margarite,” Mia said, keeping her voice even.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“I know, husband, and I meant to put it out before you came home. You returned early today.”

“Is that all that happens while I am away, Mia? Or are there other betrayals?”

She glanced at him, a darting look to judge his expression. “What did you say?”

He folded his arms. “I’m hungry.”

Mia wiped Margarite’s mouth and settled the blanket up higher on her lap. She pointed to the window, where the sun made its marvelous exit from the afternoon. Margarite liked watching the sunsets.

Alma had walked, in halting, heavy steps, to the door, her breath bubbling, the squawking kitten tucked under her arm. Mia nodded for them to go, knowing Alma would stay near the door until Mia had the warm evening milk ready for the kitten.

She ladled pottage into another bowl and set it before Bjorn, trying not to meet his eye. She had done nothing wrong. She did not want to be flayed for someone else’s sins. Not today. She had spent her dawn hours holding Alma, who had to force each breath through a tightened chest, sweating from the exertion of just surviving the night.