“Fitzsimmons,” said Maufrais. He spoke softly, but the entire room hushed to hear what he’d say. “Let him try.” To Nathan he said, “You have until Thursday. Blevins is falling behind as it is on those load balancers.” He narrowed his eyes at Blevins now. “You also have until Thursday. I suggest both of you make use of the time.”
“Thank you, Mr. Maufrais,” Blevins said, and returned to his desk. Nathan looked from Maufrais to Fitzsimmons, then back to Maufrais. Had he really just been given more work?
“Well, don’t stand around gawking,” Fitzsimmons growled. “Get to it.” More quietly, for Nathan’s ears only, he added, “You’ve put the noose around your own neck now.”
Nathan took the assignment back to his desk and got out a fresh sheet of paper. When he looked up, Fitzsimmons was smoking at his desk.
Clark passed by on his way to the pencil sharpener. When he had ground away sufficiently to sharpen his pencil’s point, he made the return trip. Nathan looked up and was surprised to see a faint smile on his lips.
“You’re a regular troublemaker,” Clark said, and winked.
CLAIRE OPENED HER EYES AT THE COOLNESS THAT accompanied her mother peeling the sheet back from where it lay across her.
“She’s done it again,” her mother said.
Doc Peters appeared at her mother’s shoulder, frowned. “That’s going to happen. The infection has spread a good bit. She can’t tell when she’s going or not.”
Claire was dimly aware of relief, then the warm tang of urine. It was easier to close her eyes again, to let it be someone else’s problem. In a moment she was drifting, aware of being rolled to one side.
Doc Peters’ voice penetrated. “This blanket out here where she’s been sleeping? Why isn’t she in there sharing the bed with you?”
Her mother’s answer was less distinct, lost in the next room.
“There’s relief people in town that would give you a bed or two.”
Her mother’s voice, raised, came through clearly, “We ain’t relief!”
Now it was Doc Peters’ turn to talk in a low voice. Claire could hear the sound, but not the words. They were placating sounds, a call to reason. Then Doc’s voice rising, in command once again. “And you’re going to tend to these children and not tax her. I’ll drive her there myself. Besides, it’ll be easier for me to check in on her in town.”
The two carried their conversation out onto the porch, and Claire fell into fitful sleep.
Then, hands gripping the sheet beneath her, making a gurney of it, lifting her. Claire listing to one side. Doc’s voice, admonishing, and the sheet pulled level, the hands carrying her out into the yard, into the back of Doc’s car. Late afternoon, and the sunlight through the trees along the roadway strobed against Claire’s closed eyelids as they bumped along the road to town.
Claire’s saliva gone to paste. Stronger hands, more of them. Quiet, men’s voices.
Her aunt’s voice, “Bring her right in through here.”
“I thank you, Irma,” Doc said. “I’ll be back in the evening with those pills.”
Claire roused when the voices went away, when there was only the quiet, insistent sound of fabric rustling. She opened her eyes to find Irma making up the bed in her front room.
“Aunt Irma,” she said.
Her aunt looked over, kept working at her task. “Hush now, you rest. We’re going to set up a nice place for you here. Doc told me all about what happened. First your man and then your mother. Lord, girl, I’m about the only family you got left.”
“Mama didn’t throw me out,” Claire said.
“No, but she was going to let you sleep on that floor until kingdom come. Eliza was selfish when she was a child, and she hasn’t changed one whit.”
“Where are Tom and Nan?”
“Don’t worry yourself over them. Your mother is going to mind them until you are feeling more yourself. I spoke to her myself on that point. You just concentrate on getting yourself better. They’ll be fine.”
“I suppose,” Claire said. She shifted beneath the sheet and pushed a foot out to cool. Underneath her gown was wet again. “Oh, I’m afraid I’ll ruin your bed.”
“Hush now, you think you’re the first to wet the bed?” Her aunt pulled back the sheet that she was just tucking in to pat something that Claire couldn’t quite see from her position on the floor. “You remember Mrs. DeWitt? That son of hers? I had the hardware store cut me this square of tarp.” She patted the bed. ”If it can handle the DeWitt boy, it can handle you.” When she was finished, she covered Claire back up and went out into the hall. Claire heard her speaking to someone, and then four men in suits came back into the room with her. Claire began to protest, but the four quickly lifted her by the corners of the sheet and set her upon the bed.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” her aunt said, and the men went back out. Irma secured the door behind them and began stripping the wet clothes from Claire.
“I’m sorry for this,” Claire said.
“Hush, girl. Sometimes life hands you things. There’s nothing to be done but get through it.”
Her aunt brought in a pitcher of water and a glass and set them at the bedside.
“Doc said you’re to drink all of this,” she said.
“It’ll make me pee.”
“Don’t you worry about that. He’s bringing that medicine this afternoon. Called all the way to Memphis to chew on that pharmacist for taking so long. Turns out it’s been sitting in Corinth, just a few miles down the road. Postmaster down there was waiting for more mail to pile up before he sent it on.” Irma poured a glass of water and helped lift Claire upright. Claire drank it down, heard her stomach gurgle and move, realized that she hadn’t eaten all day. Her aunt heard it, too.
“If you think you feel up for it, I’ll bring you some dinner after I’ve got those men fed. For now, rest. There’s a bed pan under there, if you think you need to go. I’ve got to get dinner started or they’ll all be standing around grumbling.”
Claire nodded, drinking, and her aunt went out, closing the door behind her. She forced herself out of the bed. The room spun mildly from the effort, but she managed to get her nightgown up around her waist and squatted over the chamber pot on the off chance that this time she really had to go. She didn’t. The bed was soft when she climbed back into it. In a moment, she was asleep.
Dinner that night was chicken and dumplings, a dish that Irma told them was one of her best. Nathan was late arriving, coming through the door just as the men were taking their seats. He hung his hat on a peg in the hallway and took a chair as Irma began to bring the first dishes out from the kitchen.
The men of the boarding house were a decent lot. There was Charlie Smithson, a master electrician out of Kentucky. He spent his days traveling with the advance team of the distribution crew. Beside him sat James Krebs, his face in his plate. Krebs was a surveyor. Each morning he stuffed his pockets with whatever was left over from breakfast, then set out on his day-long hikes through the countryside. He alone among the group challenged Nathan’s position as the one most often tardy for evening meals. Pugh was the group’s self-appointed social chair. Each evening he was first to propose smoking on the porch or a drink in the alley behind the neighbor’s outbuilding,