Emmetsburg: Twenty-nine

Louis Stanton came around a little that evening when Anna went up to look in on him. It wasn’t much, but enough to take a bit of her chicken soup. He sort of looked at her through half closed eyes, as though she was an angel. She was quiet, cradling his head gently as she lifted the soup to his lips. He took a few spoonfuls and laid his head back on the pillow. His brow faltered with obvious pain.

The light from a small kerosene lamp on the shelf was soft, filling the room with the color of warm molasses. The small orange flame danced ever so slightly, throwing competing shadows against the sloping wall. Anna and Louis seemed suspended and eternal in the glow of the lamp, like subjects from a painting by Vermeer.

John was behind her at the top of the stairs. She’d heard him come up. She’d heard the old wood stairs creaking and groaning under his weight. Anna stood, still holding the bowl in both hands. She was radiant.

Anna turned away from Louis and met John at the top of the stairs. Her eyes met John’s, finding an emerging weariness for life; the collective shame, heartache and uncertainty that accumulates with a life. She also found not a small amount of trepidation about their love making the other night. It was, she recognized, a reticence to cause her any further pain. In the end a man is bound by his fears, and each man’s toleration is entirely his own.

John gently cupped her soft warm cheek. Their eyes held for a moment. She kissed his hand then carried the bowl down to the kitchen. John waited until she was gone before going to Louis.

Louis was already asleep again. John sat in the chair beside the bed and leaned back, draping an arm across the back of the chair. He sat there long after Anna had gone to bed. The room was dark, lit only by the pale blue-white light of a crescent moon. The most magnificent breeze came through the open window. The world felt at peace, and John basked fully in that sublime moment.

He breathed deeply and studied Louis’ face carefully. Stanton had drifted off to deep, deep sleep. His face was to the window. His breaths were slow and rhythmic. John folded his arms and felt his tired eyes brow heavy. He fought it as best he could, and kept telling himself he should get down to bed. Sleep won the argument a moment later.

John awakened with a jolt believing for an instant that he was tipping from the chair. He grabbed for the seat with both hands, the bisected halves of his injured palm tearing against the stitches. He groaned in pain. The groan was abruptly cut short when he noticed Louis. Startled, he retreated from the bed, tipping over the chair and stumbling backwards before catching himself against the book shelf.

“Jesus!” he laughed, chagrined. “Frightened me, Louis.”

But Louis’ gaze was far away. His eyes were wild staring past John. He was holding tightly to the edges of the bed, his body and head rising off the bed, hinting at an unnatural strength John felt utterly impossible to believe.

“Louis?” said John, inching forward when there was no reply. He’d seen men at the end of their lives refusing to concede to that dark and mysterious destination. He’d seen them do impossible things, seen them display amazing feats of strength in those final defiant moments, but nothing like this. John reached to him, stopping short of the bed.

“World is bigger than us, John,” said Louis with the same strange voice from the night before. John started for the bed, his face twisted as he struggled to understand Louis’ meaning.

Louis continued. “Day is fast approaching, John Perkins, you'll meet your maker.”

The words washed over John like an icy cold shower. He'd heard them, there could be no doubt. Louis suddenly threw his arms towards the ceiling, his fingers outstretched and rigid. He raised himself higher into a semi-sitting position, seeming to degy gravity. Tremors shook him, as if energy flowed through his whole body.

“Ain't the end of the world,” said Louis. “Anna will get by. All for the good, John, all for the good.”

It took a moment before John could collect himself. It all seemed like something from a nightmare, yet John felt sure he was very much awake.

“What about Anna?' John demanded. “Tell me waht's going to happen to Anna!”

Louis' eyes remained wide and unblinking, staring far off into another dimension where time and another world overlapped with this one.

“Sun rises and it’s a new day,” said Louis, “and all those who went before are dead and forgotten.”

John'd had enough and grabbed Louis by the collar, pulling him closer. Anger crumbled before rage until john was almost blind and capable of anything. He shook Louis hard, if though it might rattle him from this trance. He looked to the window and thought he might finish things for good. It would easy enough to explain. John could tell how Louis went mad from his injury and threw himself out the window.

“Enough of your damned riddles!”

“Be all right, John Perkins. Its all for the good.”

“What good?” John shook him once more. He growled through gritted teeth. “What the hell are you saying!”

“You got to die, John. Its the only way.”

“Only way?”

“You die to save Bert Himmel's boy,” said Louis. “Anna be all right. Find herself a good man and give him a son. Life goes on, John. Sun rises, it’s a new day.”

John let go of Louis and backed away from the bed. He rubbed the tension and confusion from the forehead, pacing the room a moment. He stopped and turned to Louis again, taking a moment to find words.

“How do you...I don't understand.”

“Ain’t for you to understand, John. For you to go to your fate…”

“My death,” John interrupted.

“Your fate knowing it’ll all work out just fine.”