Some days later, Cindie knocked at my door with a note, ordering me to the first-floor piazza, where Mother retreated most afternoons to catch the breezes. It was unusual for her to write out her summons, but Cindie had grown abnormally forgetful, wandering into rooms unable to recall why she was there, bringing Mother a hairbrush instead of a pillow, an array of queer errors that I knew would soon convince Mother to replace her with someone younger.
As I made my way down the stairs, it occurred to me for the first time she might also replace Handful, whose resourcefulness and ability to walk to the market for fabric and supplies was now in question. I paused on the landing, the portrait of the Fates leering, as always, and my stomach gave a lurch of dread. Could this be the reason Mother had summoned me?
Though it was early in May, the heat had moved in with its soaking humidity. Mother sat in the swing and tried to cool herself with her ivory fan. She didn’t wait for me to sit. “We’ve seen no progress in your father’s condition for over a year. His tremors are growing worse by the day and there’s no more that can be done for him here.”
“What are you telling me? Is he—”
“No, just listen. I’ve spoken with Dr. Geddings and we’re in agreement—the only course left is to take him to Philadelphia. There’s a surgeon there of renown, a Dr. Philip Physick. I wrote to him recently and he has agreed to see your father.”
I lowered myself into a porch chair.
“He will go by ship,” she said. “It will be an exacting trip for him, and it’s likely he’ll have to remain up north through the summer, or as long as it takes to find a cure, but the plan has brought him hope.”
I nodded. “Well, yes, of course. He should do everything possible.”
“I’m pleased you feel that way. You’ll be the one to accompany him.”
I leapt to me feet. “Me? Surely you can’t mean I’m to take Father to Philadelphia by myself. What about Thomas or John?”
“Be reasonable, Sarah. They cannot leave their professions and families so easily.”
“And I can?”
“Do I need to point out you have no profession or family to care for? You live under your father’s roof. Your duty is to him.”
Caring for Father week after week, possibly for months, all alone in a faraway place—I felt the life drain out of me.
“But I can’t leave—” I was going to say, I can’t leave Nina, but thought better of it.
“I will see to Nina, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
She smiled, such a rare thing. The memory of being in the drawing room with the rector swept back to me: Mother’s cold stare as I defended Nina’s right to follow her conscience. I hadn’t taken her warning seriously enough: As long as the two of you are under the same roof, there is little hope for Angelina. . . . It hadn’t been Nina whom Mother meant to remove. It had been I.
“You leave in three days,” she said.
Handful
Mauma pretended a limp, and I got the real one. I used her old wood cane, but it came up to my chest—more like a crutch than a cane.
One day when the rain poured and Goodis couldn’t work the garden, he said to me, “Gimme that cane.”
“What for?”
“Just give it here,” he said, so I did.
The rest of the day, he sat in the stable and whittled. When he came back, he had the cane clasped behind his back. He said, “I sure hope you like rabbits.”