ALL THAT'S LEFT OF ME

By Jo Anzalone

Chapter 97:

The second week of September, 1875, another hurricane blew into Winston County. This

one had followed an irregular path, heading first west into Texas, then curving sharply

back through the middle of Louisiana and straight into central Mississippi. No tornadoes

accompanied its passage over the McDaniel farm, but it brought with it much stronger

winds, up to 90 MPH by the 11th. The shutters were latched, everything loose had been

put away or tied down, and the family went more slowly to the root cellar, taking with them

blankets and pillows, food and more lights. To pass the time, Jonathon got all of them singing, lustily belting out his baritone to help block the noise of the wind.  Lily refused to leave his

lap the entire time.

He sat there, surrounded by his family, aching really badly from the effort it had taken to

get down the steep steps into the root cellar.  After a while, when the singing had stopped,

Addie looked over at him and noticed his eyes were closed and his jaw was set.  She knew it

was more than the storm.  He had dark smudges under his eyes as though everything he did

were a great effort.

Leaning into him, she whispered, "I love you."

He opened his eyes, smiling at her. "You're my darlin', Addie, an' you always will be."

Her throat thickened. "I love you so much."

Georgia heard her mother and came up. "Georgia loves her darlin', too!" she pronounced.

"I'm your darlin', little one?" he asked.

"Daddy darlin'. Yes, yes."

He stuck his chin out. "Give Daddy a Georgia kiss."

She put a little, wet smack right on his lips, which curved into a smile. "Georgia kisses are

good."

She giggled and pressed a little fingertip against the end of his nose.

Lily didn't want to sing, didn't want to talk.  All she wanted was to press her face into her

daddy's chest and let the sound of his heartbeat block out the sound of the wind. With his

arms around her, she was safe.

The new barn had held against the storm. Large branches were down all over and one had

taken off a small corner of the front porch, but by and large, the McDaniel farm had

weathered the storm.

Addie turned 25 on October 5th.  "A quarter of a century!" Billy joked.  He was 31 now.

Kissing her cheek he proclaimed, "And she doesn't look a day over 24!"

She sat with Colby on her lap and her three daughters gathered around her. Jonathon had

asked for them to gather like that because he wanted to sit and just look at them. "How

beautiful you are, all of you."

"You're beautiful, too, Daddy," Georgia said.

He smiled at her. There was something about her that radiated strength combined with loveliness. What a marvelous woman she would grow to be. He was certain of it. Of all his

girls, she looked the most like her mother, and Addie had that same combination in herself.

Sometimes he still had a hard time believing she simply hadn't given up on him.

When the girls went to play, she asked him, "What were you thinkin' just now?"

"I was rememberin' how I left you in silence for long times, more'n once, yet you didn't

turn away."

"I couldn't turn away from you, Jonathon. You've always been my everythin'. You don't

turn away from that. You can't."

"I think some people do."

"I couldn't.  There was no way I could.  I held onto hope even when you didn't write. It was

all I had...hope. An' I was right to do it.  Here you are an' I've got your son in my arms."

"My son in your arms.  Those are about the most wonderful words in the world. You, my

Addie, holdin' my son, an' with our three little girls just over there with their dolls. I...it's...

I..."

"I know, my love, I know."

He teared up.  "You can't imagine Caroline Street, Addie, or the Sherfy Farm, an' I'm so

glad you can't.  But it's all there in my memory, an' when I see you like you are an' I hear

my girls laughin', it...it just...it..." He covered his eyes and she kissed the top of his head.

"That...what you just did, Addie...it's so...opposite...so sweet...so...."

"An' it's your life, Jonathon. It's the way your life is. No sharpshooters in trees, no bugles

blowin' the charge or drums beatin'.  It's me kissin' your hair an' you hearin' your girls'

laughter."

Tears ran down his cheeks and quickly she handed Colby to Sarah and wheeled him into

their bedroom.  "Jonathon, talk to me, darlin'."

"It's...I don't know...I...sometimes I get this feelin' an I...."  He couldn't talk and she sat on

his lap in the wheelchair, folding him in her arms.  After a while he sighed deeply and wiped

at his eyes.  "I love it so.  I don't...I don't want...."

In late October the dynamic of the household changed again. Sarah married a local farmer

and went to live in his house.  Then Geraldine died in her sleep one night. Addie felt like she'd lost her mother all over again, possibly more. She'd had her mother for 12 years. Geraldine she'd had for 25. 

The second week of December Sheriff Conner drove the McDaniel buggy home, his horse tied

to its rear.  Billy heard it arriving and, as usual, went out to unharness Betty.  He was

surprised to see Conner in the buggy and looked quickly at Jonathon, who was sitting, leaning

against one side, unsuccessfully trying to manage a reassuring smile.

"Johnnie?" He then looked sharply at the sheriff. "What's goin' on?"

"He ain't goin' to be able to do City Clerkin' no more, Billy, an' that's the truth of it."

"No more? What?"

"He ain't been tellin' you how it's been with him this month. He can barely drag hisself

around to the places he's got to go. It's too much, Billy, an' he can't be doin' it no more."

"Johnnie? It's that bad?"

Jonathon gave a small, dismissive wave of his hand. "Not...that bad. Just...hard."

Conner got out of the buggy and came around to where Billy was standing. "Ok, Johnnie.

You go an' show your brother just how easylike you get yourself outta that there buggy.

Go on. Show him."

Biting into his lower lip, Jonathon straightened and then leaned forward, his left hand

gripping the edge of the buggy.  He had his artificial leg on and tried to stand, got half

way up, wobbled and sat back down.

"Man's got a fever, Billy.  I talked with Doc an' he's comin' out in a bit."

Lewis was coming out of the barn, saw the buggy and walked over. "What's goin' on?"

"Your brother here's not doin' so well.  Best you two help him inside.  Looks like a cold

rain's comin' up an' I got to get myself back to town." He walked around behind the buggy

and untied his horse.  "Don't you be lettin' him try an' come to work tomorrow."

Billy got up in the buggy and put an arm around Jonathon, basically lowering him to Lewis.

Together the two brothers got him inside just before the rain began.

"Jonathon?"  Addie's hand went to her mouth.

"Just like Mama," Jonathon murmured.

"He's sick, Addie. Sheriff had to bring him home."

She hurried ahead of them, turning down the covers of the big bed.  He grimaced as they

moved him.  "Just...just let me lie here a minute," he said, not wanting any more movement

done that would involve changing his clothes.

Addie felt his forehead. He was very warm. She got a cool, wet cloth to put on his forehead

and he sighed, "Feels good."

Lewis went out to take care of Betty and Billy found Ann, telling her Jonathon wasn't feeling well and asking her to entertain the little girls that evening. When Lewis came back in, he saw Billy sitting in a kitchen chair, leaning forward, his hands laced around the back of his head.  Lewis touched his shoulder and Billy glanced up.

"He looks bad, Lewis. I don't like it. I don't like it at all."

"He's always pulled through, Billy. He'll do it again." Lewis looked toward Jonathon's

door.  "He always does."

The doctor arrived and Billy showed him into the bedroom.  "Evening, Johnnie.  Sheriff

thought I should come by an' see how you're doing."

Jonathon still had his suit on and Billy helped him sit up so they could slide his jacket off.

He made a little sound and the doctor asked, "Hurts, does it?"

With his right hand, Jonathon made a motion toward his left armpit, then squeezed his eyes

shut as they got his shirt off. 

"You lie back now, Johnnie, and let me have a look at what's hurting you."

Slowly he lifted Jonathon's left arm up.  "Ahhh!" the doctor sighed.

"What is it?" Addie and Billy both tried to see.

"Abscess.  Crutch has rubbed so hard and for so long, he's got an abscess there. Looks like

it's been there for a few days.  He didn't mention it to anyone?"

He hadn't. He'd been using the wheelchair entirely while he was home lately. 

"Well, thing's full of pus. That's why he's got a fever."  He set about making a paste of

magnesium sulfate to draw the pus out. "We'll see if this helps an' I'll come back another

time an' lance it if it needs. He's definitely not to use his crutches."

Carefully wrapping a dressing over the paste, he stood back while Billy and Addie got

Jonathon into his nightshirt. His pants were removed and his artificial leg set aside.

"Maybe make him some willow tea, Addie."

The paste didn't do its job well and the doctor lanced the abscess, hoping that would stop

the progress of the infection. It didn't and Jonathon grew steadily sicker. Christmas was

a dismal affair for Addie, but Billy brought in another white pine and Ann and the little

girls decorated it. They placed it where Jonathon could see it when his door was open.

All the little girls knew was that Daddy was very sick but it wasn't anything they could

catch.

He slept a lot, often waking to find Addie cuddled into his right side.  He smiled at her with

fever-bright eyes and whispered how much he loved her.  Georgia would come into the room

and sing to him, confident that would make him feel better.

As the early days of January passed, Addie could see him fading before her eyes. Even though

it was cold, she'd go out and sit in the winter-bare garden and cry desperately. The doctor

came and went, came and went. Nothing seemed to help.

"It's septicaemia," he finally sighed.

"What...what's that?" Billy asked, his face grim.

"Basically, Billy, it's blood poisoning. The infection has got all through him."

Jonathon's heart began beating faster and he took more and more short breaths. Sometimes

when he was awake, he seemed confused because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. "His lungs

are giving out on him," the doctor said. "There's nothing I can do."

January 10th and 11th he didn't open his eyes at all. Addie didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't

leave his side except to nurse Colby and even then she sat in the rocker, her eyes on her

husband's face.  He was leaving her. Oh, God...he really was! She was consumed with the

grief of it, of the fact that his babies would lose their Daddy, that he wouldn't get to see them

grow up, wouldn't be walking his girls down the aisle, wouldn't...anything. She thought of

Adeline's nine years without George and wondered how many she would live without

Jonathon.  She wanted to die. If it weren't for the babies, she probably could have willed

herself to do it. She sat beside him and she was literally breaking in half.

"No, Jonathon," she whispered. "Please, no, Jonathon. Don't leave me! Don't leave me to

raise these babies without you. Oh, God...oh, God...oh, God....Jonathon, Jonathon, Jonathon!"

He wasn't old enough. She wasn't old enough.

Billy heard her sobbing and came in, putting his arms around her. He looked down at his

older brother and he, too, knew he was losing him. How...how could he have gone through

so much...suffered so much and yet survived...how could he be dying...now...when he had a

young wife and four little children...when his son was only eight months old? It was so wrong,

all of it, unthinkably wrong.

Addie cuddled into him all night January 11th and sometime in the morning of the 12th,

as she sat holding his hand, he opened his eyes, his vision clear for the first time in days.

"I was runnin'," he said, his voice little more than a whisper. "Like I did...long ago. It was

a dream, Addie...a beautiful, impossible dream."

"I think, my darlin'," she began, her throat thick with emotion, "that in heaven no one is

without their limbs."

His eyes began to close and her breath hitched with a painful stab in her chest.

"I...love...you."

The words came slowly, a pause between each, but very clear. His fingers tightened around

hers as he said them, then one corner of his mouth quirked up in that small smile she loved

so dearly. His fingers loosened, his lashes coming to rest on his cheeks.

"Run," she whispered brokenly. "Oh, my darlin' Jonathon, kick off your shoes an'...

run."

ON TO AN EPILOGUE ABOUT THE FAMILY (if you read nothing else of this, read the ending paragraphs)