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22

Freedom

A voice came from across the yard. "Pardon me, but don't you two have sense enough to come in out of the rain?"

They looked over at Miz Evelyn standing behind the picket fence, holding an umbrella. Even by the light of the streetlamp she looked stronger than yesterday. Invigorated.

"We did it, Miz Evelyn," he said. "We put things back to rights."

"House is weaker now but it ain't dead."

"It will be soon," he said. "And we're alive."

"Just barely! Look at you, bleeding like a stuck pig."

It was true. Blood was still seeping from the wound in his hand. Now that he thought about it, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he hurt all over.

"Oh," cried Sylvie softly. "There are nails still in your head. Turn around."

"Get over here," said Miz Evelyn. "I can help." As they walked around the picket fence and into the carriagehouse yard, Miz Judea came out onto the porch and waved them over. "Get on up here out of the rain," she said. "Come on, I've got what you need." Steam rose from a pitcher. She held a basket full of bandages and ointments. Some of them looked like the FDA had never certified them, but he figured Gladys knew things that the FDA never heard of, so there on the porch he stood while they pulled nails out of his legs and backside.

"Somebody nailed you good," said Miz Judea. Then she cackled with such mirth, you'd think she hadn't laughed for years.

As soon as he could, he sat on the porch swing and let them strip off his shirt and start anointing his wounds with foul-smelling salves that stung and then felt good. The old ladies introduced themselves to Sylvie and Sylvie smiled and introduced herself back again. Don just sat and watched, deeply weary but also satisfied.

"So you're the haint that's been living in that house all these years," said Miz Evelyn.

Sylvie reached up and touched her own cheek. "Not anymore, though," she said.

"I told Miz Judy here, I said if anyone can put things to rights, it's that boy Don Lark."

"Said no such thing," said Miz Judea. "You just said nobody could ever put things to rights."

"The memory is the first thing to go," said Miz Evelyn.

They watched as a man in sweats carrying an umbrella padded across the street to them. "What's going on in that old house there?" he demanded. "I thought I heard such a crash. And a woman screaming."

"That was us, I'm afraid," said Don. "I'm the one who's been renovating it. It wasn't as sturdy as it looked. A main load-bearing wall collapsed."

"That house ought to be condemned."

"You're telling me," said Don. "I'm not spending another night under that roof. I'll have a wrecking crew out here to tear it down first thing tomorrow."

"Wait till after eight in the morning, would you?" said the neighbor.

"Count on it," said Don.

"Can I give you some coffee?" said Miz Judea.

"No thanks, ma'am," said the neighbor. "I don't want to be awake."

"They barely escaped with their lives," said Miz Evelyn.

"Yeah, well, nobody was hurt, right?"

"All of us are fine," said Don. And, in fact, with Gladys's salves going onto his body and Sylvie there in the flesh before him, it was true.

The neighbor trotted back across the street.

"I think the rain is letting up a little," said Miz Evelyn.

"I love the rain," said Sylvie.

"You'll love the sun, too, come morning," said Miz Judea. "Now let's get this poor boy inside and in to a bed. I'm afraid he's going to have to buy himself some new clothes. Everything he's got is either in that house or full of holes and covered with blood."

"I guess I can go shopping for him in the morning," said Sylvie. Then she burst into tears. "Oh, Don," she said. "I can go shopping. I can go out."

In answer he held her hand, and with the old ladies fussing around them, they went inside.

A week later, the demolition was complete. Don never went into the house again. He was afraid that some shadow of Lissy would remain alive in there. He didn't want to hear her voice again. Didn't want to walk into her lair where she and the house might have one last trick up their sleeves. So his tools were a dead loss. The only things he might have missed were his pictures of Nellie, but those were in the photo album in the glove compartment of his truck. So he could lose the rest.

As the house came down, the old ladies brightened and strengthened and began taking walks around the neighborhood. Sylvie got a locksmith to make her a new key for the Saturn, and after Don cleared out every reminder of its previous owner, she began driving everywhere, taking Miz Evelyn and Miz Judea with her. The three of them were soon as thick as thieves. Leaving Don with Gladys in that upstairs room.

With new tools he carefully dismantled the doorway of her room and laid boards and carpet down the stairway to convert it into a long, slow slide. He opened the front door, cutting away part of the wall, and made ramps out onto the porch and down to the lawn. A parade of doctors came to examine her, to judge whether she could make the move. Arrangements were made with a sanitarium, and they rented a truck to move her.

On the day the demolition was complete, everything hauled away, and the foundation hole filled in, Gladys was hoisted from her bed and, with the help of four men from the sanitarium, she passed through the widened doorway of her room and slid very, very slowly down the carpeted slide. On the main floor they harnessed and winched her up onto three gurneys strapped together and rolled her out through the gap in the front wall of the house to the street, where the truck waited.

"We going to the fat farm!" she cried when she saw the truck. "Inside this body be fourteen skinny women dying to get out!"

"Just do whatever the doctors tell you," Miz Judea said.

"We'll visit every day," said Miz Evelyn.

"No you won't," said Gladys. "That get boring for you, and tell the truth I could use a little vacation from looking at you two every day. Of course I mean that nice as can be."

It took another twenty minutes of hard labor but finally Gladys was up inside the truck, sitting on a king-size mattress with an enormous pile of pillows all around her. Two attendants would be riding in back with her, monitoring her vital signs during the whole trip.

Sylvie and Don and Evelyn and Judea gathered around the wide-open back doors of the truck to say good-bye.

"I told you not to visit every day but that don't mean I want you to forget me." Gladys pointed at Don in particular. "I'm charming company and besides, you owe me."

"We'll be there," said Don. "We'll even hold the wedding there if you want, so you can come. Nothing fancy. I figure just the five of us and some preacher or something to make it legal."

"And thanks for tearing up the house to get me out," she said. "Once I didn't have to fight that damn house anymore I thought I go crazy if I stay in that room another minute."

"I understand that," said Sylvie.

"Come on, boys," she said to her attendants. "Get me to the fat farm. Good-bye, Miz Evvie, Cousin Judy! I'm gonna miss your cooking!"

They said their good-byes as the driver closed the back door of the truck. Then they watched as it drove away.

Don walked over to the FOR SALE sign on the lawn of the carriagehouse, then up at the gaping hole in the front wall of the house. "I guess I got me some work to do before this house can be sold."

"And it's right kind of you to do it for us," said Miz Evelyn.

"No need for this house to end up like the other one," said Miz Judea.

They all looked over at the freshly leveled ground where the old Bellamy house had stood. It was hard to believe that the plot of land was even large enough to hold such a house, or that it had once risen tall among the trees.

"It was a beautiful house," said Don.

"Built in love," said Sylvie.

"Too strong for its own damn good," said Miz Judea.

"But I did love the place," said Miz Evelyn.

"Too many ugly secrets," Miz Judea answered.

"I was content there," said Sylvie. "For ten years."

"Dead but happy," said Miz Judea.

"No," said Sylvie. "Now I'm happy."

She took Don's hand.

"How can you be happy?" said Miz Judea. "You two got no money to speak of. All lost when that house came down."

"I got a few thousand left," said Don.

"Now don't spoil it by telling us you got all you need," said Miz Evelyn. She reached into her big purse and pulled out a SOLD sticker. She peeled off the backing and placed it across the FOR SALE sign.

"You've already sold it?" Don asked.

"The boy's a little dim, isn't he?" Miz Judea said to Sylvie.

"I think they're giving us the house, Don."

"No," said Don. "You need the place."

"I've had enough of this house, Don Lark. I want a nice little apartment where somebody else takes care of the yard while I watch TV or go to the movies."

"We already agreed on that," said Evelyn. "I'm still working on getting her to take a cruise with me."

"No boats," said Miz Judea. "No planes."

"She's just an old woman," said Miz Evelyn. "No doubt about it."

"We got plenty of savings," said Miz Judea. "We don't need the house. And we got no sentimental attachment to it, either, so once you get all that damage repaired, you go ahead and sell it yourself and move on, you understand? I know you two won't want to live next door to where all that bad stuff happened. The house may be gone, but the memories ain't."

"But we're OK," said Don. "I'll fix this up but you keep the money—"

Miz Evelyn shook her head and reached up and put her hand across his mouth. "Some folks just can't figure out when to shut up and say thank you."

"I feel sorry for folks like that," said Miz Judea. "Don't you, Sylvie?"

She laughed and Don laughed and it was done.

"We'll let you know when we set up the closing," said Miz Evelyn.

A Daniel Keck Co. taxi pulled up to the curb. The old ladies immediately bustled around, telling the driver to put the bags in the trunk and when there wasn't room, into the front seat so they could sit in back. And a few minutes later, they were away.

Alone together now, Don and Sylvie walked up the ramp into the torn-open house they had just been given. Sylvie went around touching knick-knacks, pictures, furniture, the artifacts of a half-century of life. "They can't mean to leave all this behind," she said.

"I think they do mean to," said Don. "They're done with it. It doesn't matter anymore."

"I guess you'd know," said Sylvie.

"I've left everything behind before. Lost it all. Only one thing I'm hanging on to now." He took her hand.

"Don," she said. "Look at me."

He looked into her face.

"Now that I look like Lissy, am I prettier?"

He laughed as if it were a crazy question, but she held his hand tighter and insisted. "I have to know, Don."

"Sylvie, I can't tell you, because I only saw Lissy's face for a few seconds before she left and this became your face."

"It's still the face I looked at all those years when I saw her. I don't like looking in the mirror now. It makes me sick and sad. And then to know that when you look at me, you see her..."

"No," he said, "no, don't think that way. It's not her face, not for a moment. She never smiled like you do. She never looked out of those eyes with your soul. I saw her there in the ballroom, how tired and worn-out she looked, cynical, plain-looking. And then it was you inside that face, and Sylvie, I would have recognized you even if I hadn't seen the transition. All the gestures, all the facial expressions. The way you laugh, the way you smile, it's you I'm seeing, and the face will look more and more the way it should as time goes on. Don't you see, Sylvie? The men who looked at her and preferred her to you—they were her kind of men, that's all. I'm not. I'm your kind of man."

She searched his eyes, believing him, not believing him, believing him again.

"Aw, hell," said Don. "I guess I'll just have to spend the next fifty or sixty years reassuring you."

"OK," she said. "That just might work. We're both damaged property, I guess."

"Plenty of time for renovation." He kissed her, there in the gap at the front of the house, with the chilly autumn breeze passing through, where all the world could watch, if they noticed, if they cared.

The kiss ended. "Let's get started," Sylvie said. "I know you work alone, but I'd like to train as your assistant."

"I think the official term is 'helpmeet'."

"Whatever," she said. "I've got no experience but at least I'm cheap."

They spent the rest of the afternoon framing in the replacement wall and putting up the new door. By nightfall, the house was tight again.

Copyright © 1998 by Orson Scott Card

ISBN 0-06-109399-8

Cover illustration © 1998 by Phil Heffernan/Stepback Art, © 1999 by Douglas Paul Design