They Call Me Patrice

“She’s had several spells over the past few years. A bad one when — when Hugh died. But she always has been touchy about them. Won’t admit they’re serious, or let anyone know she’s ill. Well, tonight she had another soon after we retired. The doctor’s been here for over an hour and a half. It was touch and go, for a few minutes at first—”

“But Father! Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sat down heavily on the steps. She sat down beside him.

“Why should I bother you, dear? I know what to do, and it was a matter for a doctor’s care anyway. This isn’t anything new. The spells have come before. And her heart’s always been weak. Way back before the boys were born—”

“I never knew. Why didn’t you tell me? Is it getting worse?”

“She’s sensitive about it, and won’t talk about it. But, of course, things like that don’t improve as you get on in years,” he said gently.

She put her head against his shoulder, in silent sympathy.

He patted her hand consolingly. “She’ll be all right. We’ll see that she is between us, won’t we?”

She shivered a little, and could find no words to answer.

“It’s just that we’ve got to cushion her against all shocks and upsets,” he said. “You and the young fellow, you’re about the best medicine there is for her. Just having you around—”

And if in the morning she had asked for Patrice, asked for her grandchild, he would have had to tell her they had deserted her. If she’d come out of her room five minutes later, she might have been responsible for bringing death into this house. A poor repayment for all the love that had been lavished on her. She might have killed the only mother she’d ever known!

He misunderstood her abstraction, and patted her chin comfortingly. “Now don’t take it like that; she wouldn’t want you to, you know. And Pat, don’t let her know you’ve found out about her illness. Let her keep on thinking it’s her secret and mine. I know she’ll be happier that way.”

She sighed deeply. It was a sigh of decision, of capitulation to the inevitable. She turned and kissed him on the cheek. Then she stood up.

“I’m going up,” she said quietly. “You forgot to put out the hall light, Dad.”

He retraced his steps momentarily. She picked up the valise, the coat, the hat, and quietly re-opened the door of her own room.

She closed the door softly behind her, and in the darkness on the other side she stood still a minute. A silent, choking prayer welled up in her.

“Give me strength, for there’s no running away. I see that now. The battle must be fought out here where I stand, and I dare not even cry out.”

The anonymous notes stopped suddenly. The days became a week, the week became a month. The month lengthened toward two. And no more plain white envelopes came. It was as though the battle had been broken off, held in abeyance, at the whim of the crafty, shadowy adversary.

She clutched at clues — any little bits of news that would give her comprehension — and they all failed her.

Mother Hazzard said; “Edna Harding got back today. She’s been visiting their folks in Philadelphia the past several weeks.”

But no more came.

Bill remarked: “I ran into Tom Bryant today. He tells me his older sister Marilyn’s been laid up with pleurisy. She only got out of bed for the first time today.”

“I thought I hadn’t seen her.”

But no more came. Things like that didn’t just happen and then stop. They either never began at all, or else they ran on to their shattering, destructive conclusion.

But in spite of that, security crept back a little, tentatively, reassuring — incomplete, but there.

In the mornings the world was bitter-sweet to look at, seeming to hold its breath, waiting to see—

Mother Hazzard knocked on her door just as she’d finished tucking Hugh in. The filching of a last grandmotherly kiss just before the light went out was a nightly ritual. Tonight, however, she seemed to want to talk to Patrice herself. And she didn’t know how to go about it.

She lingered on after she’d kissed the little boy and the side of the crib had been lifted into place. There was a moment’s awkwardness.

“Patrice.”

“Yes, Mother?”

Suddenly she’d blurted it out. “Bill wants to take you to the country club dance with him tonight. He’s waiting down there to find out if you’ll go.”

Patrice was so completely surprised she didn’t answer for a moment, just stood there looking at her.

“He told me to come up and ask you.” Then she rushed on, “They have one about once each month, you know, and he’s going himself. He usually does, and— Why don’t you get dressed and go with him?” she ended on a coaxing note.

“But I...  I—” Patrice stammered.

“Patrice, you must begin to go out sooner or later. It isn’t good for you not to be with young people more often. You haven’t been looking as well as you might lately. We’re a little worried about you. Hugh wasn’t the kind— He’d be the last one to want you to become a recluse. You do what Mother says, dear.” It was an order. Or as close to an order as Mother Hazzard could summon.