Page 42

Within a matter of days, Dorothy was running a high temperature and her nose streamed. The telltale rash had developed by the end of the week.

“Measles,” Emily confirmed.

“The same as Pieter?” Dorothy seemed almost pleased. “Will I have to go to the hospital?”

“Yes, the same as Pieter. And no, you don’t need to go to the hospital. Plenty of bed rest for you, my girl. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

Dorothy was confined to bed with her Anne of Green Gables books and Toto, and although Emily slipped easily back into her role of nurse, she couldn’t help worrying.

All children got the measles, and while most only had a mild case, for some, it could be more serious.

Emily kept a careful vigil, making sure Dorothy had plenty to drink, pressing a cool damp cloth to her head, encouraging her to take small sips of bone broth.

While she still felt clumsy and inadequate with so much of the business of being Dorothy’s aunt, caring for the child when she was sick came naturally to her.

She checked on her throughout the day, feeling the now-familiar tug of tenderness as she watched the child sleep or pressed a hand to her forehead.

She longed for her to get better, yet she partly dreaded it, too.

As soon as she was better, there would be no further reason to delay their plans to send her to Nell.

“How’s the patient?” Henry asked when he came back from another foreclosure sale.

“She’s bored and too hot and wishes she could go outside, but doing fine on the whole.” She reached for Henry’s hand. “And how are you?”

“Me? Nothing wrong with me.”

They both heard the lie. Everything was wrong.

He hadn’t been anything like himself for weeks now.

He was worried, tired, drained by the heat, and his temper was unusually short.

He also complained intermittently of an ache in his gut.

Emily had heard of plenty of men getting an ulcer or putting a strain on their heart with all their worrying. She was increasingly concerned.

“I wish you would talk to me, Henry. It isn’t good to stew on things alone. You don’t discuss things with me the way you used to.”

“There’s nothing to discuss, Em. That’s the problem. There’s nothing we can do.” He tapped his yield book with his finger. “The facts speak for themselves.”

Henry liked life to follow a pattern. He worked in neat, ordered columns, and the detailed records he kept in his journals and farm accounts.

He knew when to plant winter wheat, when to harvest, when to prune the fruit trees.

He worked to the predictable rhythm of the seasons, clear dates, known facts.

This period of uncertainty, without pattern or precedent, had left him rattled.

Emily hated to see him so helpless. “This isn’t a private battle between you and the prairie. It’s our battle. I’m your wife, Henry. Don’t shut me out. Let me help. Please.”

He shook his head as he let go of her hand. “Help how? There’s nothing you can do, Em. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

He picked up his hat and went outside. He didn’t say where he was going. Emily didn’t ask.

She watched Dorothy and made bread, desperate to do something practical, kneading her worry into the pliant dough.

He still hadn’t come back by sundown.

Checking that Dorothy was asleep, Emily went to look for him.

She found him behind the barn, knelt on the ground in front of a small mound of earth.

“Henry?”

He turned to her. His face was streaked with tears.

“Had to dig it out,” he said as he lifted up a small wooden cross. “Damned dust isn’t content with choking the living half to death. It’s burying everything that’s already dead, too.”

Emily walked over and knelt beside him.

She’d thought it was her own private sorrow to heft around, forgetting that while she’d been denied the chance to be a mother, Henry had also been deprived of the chance to be a father. The losses were his, too.

He’d insisted on driving her to the doctor that awful October day after she’d returned from washing herself at the creek.

He’d wanted to do something to help, pleaded with her not to shut him out.

The doctor had said there was no reason for what had happened.

“There’ll be others,” he’d said. “My best advice to you is to keep trying, Mrs.Gale. They come along eventually.” He’d spoken without an ounce of compassion.

He might as well have been talking about a lost crop after a bad hailstorm.

There hadn’t been others. Not a hint of a new life ever since.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming out here?” she asked.

Henry shook his head. “I don’t always know what to say to you, Em, but I think about it, often. More so lately.”

Emily reached for his hand. “Because of Dorothy?”

He nodded as he let out a long sigh. “All this talk of her leaving has me torn apart, Em. Seems like the kid only just got here, and yet it’s as if she was never anywhere else.”

—

Emily was awakened by a low, distant moan. She opened her eyes to see Henry doubled over in agony. The bedsheets were soaked with sweat.

She sat up. “Henry? Henry, whatever’s the matter?”

He could hardly breathe the pain was so bad. “My stomach.”

The pain made him vomit. His face was clammy. His pulse was way too high. Emily applied pressure to various places on his stomach. His reactions indicated possible appendicitis and there wasn’t a thing she could do to help him if it was. If the appendix were to burst, it could be fatal.

“You need to go to the hospital,” she said.

The low moan came again, but this time, it wasn’t Henry.

Emily rushed to the window. A familiar ominous green hue colored the sky. A sure sign of a twister forming.

“Let’s go,” Henry gasped. “Now, Em.”

“What about Dorothy?” Emily was frantic but tried to stay calm and think clearly. They couldn’t drag the child out in the middle of the night, not when she was sick in bed with the measles and running a temperature.

Henry could barely talk he was in so much pain. “We have to leave her.” He’d barely gotten the words out before he groaned again in agony.

Emily didn’t have time to think. She rushed to Dorothy and shook her arm until she woke. Toto started yapping from his tomato crate bed.

“I have to take Uncle Henry to the hospital, Dorothy. He has a pain in his stomach. You’re to stay right here, with Toto. And if the wind picks up, you’re to go to the cellar. Do you understand?”

Dorothy was still half asleep. “Where are you going?”

“To the hospital…” Henry let out a great wail. “I’ll be back soon. Stay right here with Toto. And if you need to go to the cellar, wait there until I get back.”

Dorothy scooped Toto up into her arms. “I’m scared, Auntie Em!”

There was no time to debate or explain further. Emily pulled the child into an embrace. “Toto will look after you. Be a good, brave girl. I won’t be long.”

It was absolute torment to leave her, but there was no time to second-guess herself.

Emily helped Henry out to the car, turned the crank, and willed the engine to start.

After a few attempts, it caught. She jumped into the driver’s seat and pressed down on the accelerator.

The vehicle lurched forward, but all that she could think about as she drove away from the farm was the little girl she had left behind.

The night was ink black, the moon hidden by clouds that rushed across the sky, blown by the strengthening wind.

Twice she nearly turned the car around, but twice Henry cried out in pain.

She carried on, going as fast as she dared, navigating by the dim beam of the headlights and the telegraph poles.

“Hold on, Henry. We’re nearly there. I told you it was a good idea for me to learn how to drive this thing.”

Henry groaned and begged her to hurry. He vomited again. His groans and moans terrified her.

After what seemed like an age, she reached the turn for Liberal and the road widened a little. She pressed her foot flat to the floor and willed the motorcar to go faster. Henry cried out with every bump and pothole she drove over.

Finally, the hospital emerged in the distance.

“We’re here, Henry! I can see it. Just a few minutes more.”

At the hospital, everything moved quickly. The doctor confirmed appendicitis.

“We’ve given him something for the pain and will operate as soon as we can. Don’t worry. Henry will be fine. You should go home, Mrs.Gale. Looks like that storm’s changed direction and headed our way. If you set off now, you might just make it home in time.”

Emily didn’t hesitate. Henry was in the best place now, and poor Dorothy was all alone and now the storm was coming.

As she reached the motorcar, she kicked out at the tires in frustration and let out a muffled cry of despair. Why was this all happening now? What had they done to deserve such bad luck?

As she made the turn out of town, hailstones began hammering on the roof. She thought about Dorothy alone at the house, and how afraid she would be. If the wind was bad in town, she knew it would be far worse out on the exposed prairie.

She put her foot on the gas and drove as fast as she could.

She had to get home.

She had to get back to Dorothy.

The wind nearly blew the car off the road several times.

Emily gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward, peering out through the murk.

The headlamps lit up swirling clouds of dust kicked up from the parched road, the wipers making no headway against the disorienting soup of hail and dirt that smeared the windshield.

She could barely see a few feet in front of her, but she drove on.

The gusts blew stronger and stronger. Tumbleweeds flew against the windows, blinding Emily’s view.

She hit a pothole hard, and too fast. The tire burst, sending the motorcar veering wildly across the road until she came to a stop in a narrow ditch.

The rim of the wheel was wedged tight. She was stuck.

Abandoning the car, she continued on foot, head bent against the painful hail that pummeled her skin and the gritty dust that irritated her eyes. She ran as fast as she could, her breath snatched from her by the gusting wind.

The last stretch of track to the house was blocked by the gate, which had been pulled from its hinges and lay at an awkward angle. Emily tried to pull it to one side, but it was too heavy. She kicked at it until it gave way.

“Dorothy! Dorothy! I’m here!” She cried out again and again as she ran to the house, desperate not to leave the child alone a second longer than necessary. “Dorothy! It’s Auntie Em!”

As she rushed inside, she glanced at the child’s bed and saw that it was empty. There was no sign of Dorothy, or Toto. They must have gone down to the cellar.

Emily grabbed the latch of the trapdoor and pulled it open. “Dorothy! It’s Aunt Em. I’m coming down. Don’t be afraid.”

The cellar was pitch black. She could hardly see where she was putting her feet and almost fell as she missed a rung on the ladder. Steadying herself, she continued down into the dark.

“Dorothy? Are you in here?”

She grabbed the flashlight from the shelf and swung the beam from left to right, but the cellar was empty.

Dorothy wasn’t there.