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“There’s nothing to decide. I’m not going to the hospital. The land has always sustained me. It will now. Dr. Murray is going to bring me more of the tea.”
“You can’t cure this infection with tea, Mama. I’m not saying you can’t find things to make you feel better and help your body, but the hospital is still the place where you can get the best care for what you are going through. You do want to live, right?”
“If these were the old days, you know what would happen if you said something like that. You’d be a non-believer.” Her eyes were still closed and her words rose and fell in volume like the tides.
“We stopped all of that, and for good reason. You remember that, right, Mama? People need to have their own thoughts and feelings without fear of punishment for expressing them. We’ve worked hard to undo all of that. I know at times it felt like you were betraying Dad, but really you were putting things right.”
“The stew is good, dear.” Her mother sighed.
Damn her.
No one could change the subject more skillfully than her mother. She was an expert at deflecting and ignoring.
“I’ve got to go back to Mrs. Tully’s,” Bailey announced, bringing over a napkin and small glass of water. Dehydration had been a problem for her mother lately and it was getting harder to convince her to drink anything. She didn’t have an appetite and some days hardly had the energy to bring a glass to her lips. The infection was taking hold.
“Why? Is she all right? Tell her the stew was just what I needed.”
Bailey wanted to shout back that carrots and beef weren’t going to cure her. Nothing from the land could do that. Instead, she allowed her mother to guide the conversation toward what was most comfortable.
“We have a guest,” Bailey explained. “He ran out of gas and Mrs. Tully is getting him dinner.”
“Who?” Her mother seemed to get enough energy back to look worried. “What do you know about him?”
“Trust me, Mama, him being here is a blessing. His name is King. He’s going to help us repair every roof that’s leaking.”
“We shouldn’t let strangers in here. You know how your father feels about that. It’s too dangerous. That’s how he got in trouble in the first place.”
It felt wrong not to call people out on altered reality and lies. But it’s similar, Bailey imagined, to a dementia patient. It was always worse to challenge their reality and make them feel like strangers in their own body.
However, the truth was her father got in trouble because he broke the law. He turned Cinderhill into a hellscape of archaic rules and twisted ideology. But to her mother, it was the prying eyes of outsiders that caused all the problems. In reality, those outsiders saved lives. Yet, there would never be a way to convince her mother of that. Dale Raine was her husband, her hero, and an all-around saint as far as she was concerned.
“King’s not staying long. Just passing through. We’ll help him and he’ll help us. That’s what Cinderhill is about, right?”
“Right.” Her mother sighed and closed her heavy sagging eyelids. There was no room for doubt that her mother was simply parroting back what she thought Bailey wanted to hear, but for now that had to be enough. “You’re so right, dear.”
CHAPTERSIX
King
“You finished dinner?” Bailey asked, as she strolled up to King. He’d found an overturned log and was perched there, staring up at the last few clouds that were turning cotton candy pink by the setting sun.
“And I did the dishes.” He beamed with pride.
“Not that easy without running water, was it?”
“I’ll admit,” King began, “this is a tough lifestyle. Certainly missing many of the creature comforts I’m used to, but I’ll survive. You’ve got a good system for well water. It wasn’t too bad.”
“I checked with Moe. He said you’re welcome to stay with him; he just needs a bit to get a bed ready for you. I warned him it’ll have to be a big bed.”
“Don’t blame me for being so tall. I wasn’t raised in a place like Cinderhill. My diet was all meat filled with growth hormones and junk food. I’m just a product of my environment.”
“Aren’t we all?” Bailey whispered, frowning for a moment.
“That’s a positive in your eyes, right? You love it here? What a great place to be raised.”
“Environment is more than just the place you live. It’s the people who raise you. There are some days I’d like to be a product of someone else. But we don’t get to choose such things, do we?”
“I heard you say your mother wasn’t well.” King stood and moved closer to Bailey. There was no time to be attracted to her. No scenario where it made sense to give in to his desire to kiss her plump pink lips. This was a job. He’d have to remember that. But she could help that situation by not looking so damn cute every second. The heavy topics would keep him in check.
