Sweet Hope by Bush Mary Bucci

Author:Bush Mary Bucci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9781550715781
Publisher: Guernica Editions Inc
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Flood

June 1905

“YOU do things too late,” Fiorenza told Serafin, and then her face flushed at having spoken out of line. Fancy Hall raised an eyebrow to her, then resumed feeding Amalia mashed chicken liver from the soup. She’d been coming for several days, first with herbs and tea for Amalia and greens and corn bread for Serafin and the children.

“She needed you before, too, that’s all I’m saying,” Fiorenza stammered. “Now she’s getting well.”

“It’s never too late,” Serafin answered in a thin voice.

Of course Fiorenza was right. He looked around the bedroom cluttered with people, bedclothes, the pot of tea, bowls and cups, then out the window at the pounding rain. His fault, that’s all he could think — her fainting in the field, the blood, the sickness.

Now she was sitting up in bed, her hair brushed back, taking a few swallows of Fancy Hall’s soup. “You look better,” he said, dismayed at her sunken face. She blinked her eyes once, slowly. They had not mentioned the baby that was not to be.

“Go rest,” Fiorenza told him. “There’s nothing for you to do here.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I’m dead,” Serafin answered.

He went to the window, sorry as soon as the words escaped his mouth. He knew how foolish he was, fretting like an old lady when in fact he’d been doing nothing to help — absolutely nothing but sitting in the room day and night — while the two women tended his wife. He brushed aside the buzzing mosquitoes and flies that hovered at the glass while outside the rain poured down.

It had come all winter and spring, stopping long enough for the land to dry out for planting, and giving the crops a week of sun here and there. Then it would start in again, and the cotton struggled to grow in all that wetness. The river crept up steadily until the water was just a few yards below the top of the levee.

Along with the bad weather, their debts piled up. In spring they lived on greens from the fields and woods: dandelion and chicory and the low, trailing purslane. He had never told Amalia about his visit to the priest, and Horton’s charges afterwards. “I’m growing roots from eating this food,” Serafin had said more than once. “My skin will turn green.” At first he said it jokingly, then despairingly. The water was too high and roiled for catching fish; and he had little luck using snares.

Thunder cracked above the sound of rain, and white streaks of lightning split the sky. The Pascala children set out more pans and bowls to collect the steady streams of water pouring through unseen holes in the roof while the adults whispered and Serafin worried about their crops, their debts, their health. He touched his face, refusing to believe that he, too, had a fever.

It was exhausting, this fretting, this doing nothing but listening for a sound, a word, a request, and waiting for time to pass.

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