When Bram and Hiren reached Abel’s small house Bram was surprised to find Abel gone. Not pausing to wait, Bram gathered up his few belongings, and the trunk of clothes Abel had given to Hiren, and loaded them into the buckboard wagon he had borrowed from Curtis Mickelhauser to haul the church bell back to Littleton. Hiren busied herself with plucking the rest of the burrs out of her skirt and stockings; she was conscientiously avoiding Bram’s eye.
During the two hour trip to Littleton Bram spoke much, filling the time with words seemed to relax Hiren and the few times that Bram stopped speaking and the pair traveled in silence he could visibly see her body tense up and her breathing become shallow. So, Bram kept talking only falling silent when he saw his small house in the distance. At that point he stopped Marvelous, the gentle roan who pulled the wagon, and he and Hiren stared at the simple wooden house and small barn. The fields beyond the house seemed to sway on the morning breeze and when the wagon had come to a full stop they could hear the plop, plop, plop of the tricking stream on the left.
Bram was filled with a swirl of anticipation and anxiety and the combination compelled him to urge Marvelous on again; it was just a little further.
At the sight of the house in the distance Hiren’s anxiety returned full force. She had allowed herself to be lulled into relaxation while the man talked on and on in his strange language that she could not understand.
Bram. That was the man’s name. This much she understood.
Somehow she knew that she would soon reach her final destination and that she would travel no further. So overwhelmed with anxiety was she, that when the wagon stopped in front of the house and she attempted to lift her leg to climb down she found that she could not move an inch. Her legs refused to budge. At last, Hiren wrapped her hands around the bottom edge of her seat and made the decision to just stay put on the wagon. Let the horrors that awaited her in that house wait. If they wanted her, they could come and get her.
Moments later her resolution and temporary paralysis left her and she quickly jumped off the wagon and walked right into the house.
There was a baby crying.
“Mumi, Jai is so hot, he has a fever. He won’t stop crying Mumi.” Hiren pleaded with her mother to take three year old baby Jai and comfort him but Mother wasn’t rising from her bed. She had been laying there for two days, barely moving. Occasionally, she would rise from her place on the floor and crawl to the doorway of the house to vomit and then collapse back inside. Since yesterday she was vomiting right where she lay, she didn’t even attempt to move out of the house anymore.
Hiren stuck her hand out to touch her mother’s shoulder and when she did she felt the heat rising from her body. Hiren handed screaming Jai to Kusha and gently rolled her mother over. Mother’s mouth was hanging open as she slept and Hiren was shocked to see many small red spots on her mother’s tongue and all around the inside of her mouth.
“Mumi. Wake up! Mumi!” Hiren cried out and then tangled her hands into her mother’s clothing and shook her slight body. Mumi’s eyes fluttered open but never even focused before closing again in a restless sleep.
Hiren had never felt so helpless in her life. There was no one to call. No one would help them. Since the day that Akash had died and Hiren had not been sent to die with him their family had been outcasts. Even her parents’ own families would have nothing to do with them. They were shamed and punished for not following the customs and traditions of their people and for offending the gods.
Hiren sat there helplessly. She couldn’t even call for her father because she had no idea where he went anymore. He had begun to wander for days at a time and no longer came home. For months he had neglected their small fields and the scarcity of food was sorely felt in their home. Then two days ago Mother collapsed onto her cot, and Hiren feared she might never get up again.
“It’s Jai, Mumi, your son, Jai, he is sick, please Mumi, wake up.”
Hiren longed to pray but she was afraid of the gods, afraid that they were angry with her. If she came to them now in her time of need would they not turn away from her?
For two days Hiren and her sisters took turns caring for Mother and for Jai. Hiren was heartbroken when she saw the red spots appear in Jai’s mouth only a few hours after they had appeared in Mother’s. It was not long after the spots appeared that they grew large and broke open. During those hours Hiren and her sisters felt that they couldn’t bear to listen to their mother’s moans and Jai’s screams any longer. Hiren fought against the urge to run away herself, just to escape from the moaning and agonizing crying of her loved ones.
Hiren awoke from a fitful sleep and found the sun warming her face, that’s how she knew it was day when Jai died.
A few hours after the rash began to form over his face and then down over his body he stopped crying and his fever went away. Hiren had laid him across her lap, and in the quietness, fell into a deep sleep for the first time in many days. When she awoke, the sun was shining and she looked down at the small boy lying across her legs. He no longer looked like her little brother, the joy of their family. He was weakened and bloated and he was now covered from head to toe with the red rash. Hiren lowered her hand to brush a fly off of his brow and she felt the coldness of his body.
He had died in her arms as they both slept.
Mother died a few days later. The rash had spread over her body and the red spots had turned into hard bumps. Papa returned home the day that Mother died. She opened her eyes and looked at him before she closed them for the final time. She never knew that her baby son had died as well.
Bram could hear Gabe’s screaming long before the wagon reached the front door of his house. A discouraged sigh escaped his lips as he thought of his beloved son. After being away for almost two days, Bram had begun to hope that when he returned Gabe might have grown out of his crying and become a pleasant and restful child. Foolish, he thought to himself as he pulled open the door. Nevertheless, Bram was relieved to be home again and he looked forward to seeing Thea, although she might not be too happy to see him.
After much thought, Bram had decided to prepare Thea before bringing Hiren in. The girl seemed content to sit in the wagon for a few minutes. He just wanted two minutes alone with his wife to explain the situation; he feared that she would be terribly shocked to see a strange girl enter her home wearing her dead sister’s clothing and he wanted to explain the situation before introducing Hiren to Thea.
When he entered the house he was chagrined to find that the two church ladies were no longer there; presumably they had to return home to their own families. Bram walked through the kitchen and headed toward the sound of the screaming coming from his bedroom. Before he took one step in that direction, Thea appeared in the doorway of their bedroom holding a red-faced Gabe in her arms.
She didn’t look good and she definitely didn’t look like she was capable of adjusting well to the news he had to tell her. Her hair was unbound and uncombed, her usual shining waves tangled and matted. Large dark circles beneath her eyes dominated her normally peaches and cream complexion and tears were silently rolling down her cheeks.
Bram opened his mouth to speak and before he could make a sound he saw Thea’s tired and dazed eyes shift from his face to somewhere behind him. No, he thought, not yet. As Bram looked over his shoulder it was as he feared; Hiren was standing in the doorway.
To Thea’s credit she never said a word, nor did her expression change in the least. She just looked at Hiren and then back to Bram.
Hiren moved first and walked straight to Thea and before Bram could utter a word she had plucked baby Gabe out of Thea’s grasp. Gabriel stopped crying for a moment as he adjusted to the new hands that held him. Then his face started to scrunch up and his lower lip dropped and started to quiver and Bram saw Thea’s body visibly clench and her eyes close in preparation for the ear piercing scream that never came.
When a moment or two passed without any earsplitting wails, Bram stopped looking at his wife and turned his attention to his son. He didn’t see Thea slowly opening her eyes one by one to steal a glance at Gabe. But in a moment they were both staring in amazement at their baby who was smiling and cooing up at the stranger.
Standing before the fireplace in Thea’s dead sister’s dress that was both too large and too long stood Hiren, cradling their only child in both arms and swinging him back and forth near to her body. As Bram and Thea looked on Hiren smiled and cooed right back at their quieted son.
Bram moved toward Thea while she was lowering herself slowly and carefully into a chair at the table. She lowered her head down on to her arms and closed her eyes. Bram saw her lips moving and he could just hear her say, “Thank you Lord for sending your angel.”
There seemed to be an abundance of them lately, Bram thought as he lowered himself into the seat next to Thea.
Thirty minutes later Bram finished telling Thea the story of how he ended up with Hiren and not a large church bell, and everything else that had happened since yesterday afternoon. She listened silently as he spoke; it appeared to Bram that she didn’t even have the energy to interrupt him. However, as he finished his tale, Thea rose from her chair and walked over to the corner of the room where Hiren sat cross-legged on the floor with a peacefully sleeping Gabe across her legs and said, “You are welcome in our home, Hiren.”
Bram had previously explained to Thea that Hiren did not speak English, yet he was afraid for a moment that she may not have heard him in her exhaustion. He was about to tell her again when he saw her sit down on the floor across from Hiren and take the girl’s hand in her own.
“Thea. Thea,” she said while tapping her own chest with Hiren’s hand.
“Hiren, Thea.” Thea repeated, moving Hiren’s hand in her own back and forth.
“Tea-ah,” Hiren repeated. “Tea-ah,” she said again.
When Bram looked at his wife’s face he saw tears once again. But this time they were not tears of frustration and exhaustion; this time they were tears of emotion, gratitude and love.
