Bodark Creek - 5. Chapter 5

Aunt Evie didn’t have hookworm or the flu or anything Mama would have worried about us catching. She had cancer, which even Dr. Waechler couldn’t cure. Aunt Evie saw him when she first moved in with us, and towards the end, he was at our house every day.

“What’s cancer?” I asked Rosalind, because Mama and Daddy wouldn’t talk about it. They didn’t even want it whispered.

“Where did you hear that word?” Mama asked, the first time I used it.

“I heard Daddy tell Mrs. Seiler.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have. And I don’t want you saying it around here.”

I promised, but I didn’t know why. “What’s so bad?” I asked Rosalind.

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out?”

“I don’t think so. It would make Mama angry.”

But I asked my teacher anyway. She was new, and I figured she might not get me in trouble.

All she said was, “It’s not something you want to get.”

“I know that,” I told her. “But what is it?”

“I can’t tell you, Addy.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know.”

“Well, then who could tell me? Who would know?”

“A doctor could tell you. A doctor would have to know.”

But the only doctor we knew was Dr. Waechler. And the only time we saw him was in front of Mama and Daddy.

“Where does Dr. Waechler live?” I asked Rosalind.

“In the good part of town.”

That was on the other side of “downtown,” which was past our school. I’d only been there a couple of times, with Mama or Daddy, and there was no way I could go alone. I didn’t even know why it was different.

“What makes ‘the good part of town’ good?” I asked Rosalind.

“The houses are bigger.”

That didn’t seem so important. Our house was big, and it was hard enough to keep clean. When Rosalind and I had our own room, we had to sweep it all the time. Just as we had to sweep the front room.

“Is Charley going to help us when he gets older?” I asked Rosalind.

“Why should he?”

“Well, he’ll be sharing with us.”

“Maybe.”

“I bet that happens after ‘you know.’”

“You know” meant “after Aunt Evie died.” By then, Rosalind and I knew it was going to happen. We found it out when we heard Dr. Waechler talking to Mama and Daddy.

“I don’t think she’ll make it to Christmas,” he’d said. “The best we can do is keep her comfortable.”

“We’ll do that,” Daddy had promised.

“Does it hurt to die?” I asked Rosalind. “Is that why Aunt Evie has to be comfortable?”

“It depends,” Rosalind said. “If you get really hurt, like when that train hit that horse, it hurts a lot. But if you just go to sleep...”

Aunt Evie slept a lot, even when Mama stayed home to take care of her. “You can’t keep doing this,” Daddy told her.

“I have to.”

“Mrs. Seiler can watch Evie during the day.”

“I won’t lose my job.”

“I wish we were sure,” Daddy said.

Near the end, Aunt Evie was crying almost all the time. And at night, she’d make so much noise Rosalind and I would stay awake.

“Can’t Dr. Waechler do anything?” Mama would ask Daddy. But he’d only shake his head. And it wasn’t like Mama was talking about making Aunt Evie better.

Still, some mornings, she was fine. We’d help her out to the porch, and she’d sit on a chair while we played. She was very thin then, and her face was very white. But she always tried to look pretty.

“Can I brush your hair?” I’d ask.

“That would be nice, Addy. I can’t reach to fasten it anymore.”

The last week, Rosalind and I went to Mrs. Seiler’s. We’d go to school from there, and Mama and Daddy would see us every night when they came for Charley. “Why does he get to stay with you?” I asked.

“Because Charley can sleep through anything,” Daddy said.

The day Aunt Evie died, we got to see her one last time. Rosalind said she smiled

at us, but I thought she was always sleeping.

After her funeral, the older people went to the cemetery. That was even further than the good part of town, and it was somewhere else Rosalind and I had never been. And we weren’t allowed to go.

“What does it look like?” I asked Mama.

“It’s very pretty,” she said.

“Pretty like flowers?”

“Pretty like the woods. Only there aren’t as many trees.”

“Are there birds?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And animals?”

“Yes. But you can only see them at night.”

“Then why can’t Rosalind and I go? It sounds nice.”

Mama held me for a minute, then said, “It’s very sad there, Addy. Whenever I go, I think about all the people I’ll never see again. And that always makes me cry.”

“But won’t you see them in Heaven?” I asked.

“Yes. But it’s not the same.”

I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t change her mind. Mama cried a lot after Aunt Evie died, and so did Rosalind and I. Daddy kept telling Mama, “It’s better this way. She’s not hurting anymore. She’s at rest.” But it didn’t seem to help.