A Halloween to Remember
Faith stifled a yawn as she tried to concentrate on her paperwork. These "graveyard" shifts at the hospital always seemed long, but tonight's seemed endless. Inside this ward, dimly lit by an orange glow emanating from an unknown source, the wounded soldiers were all sleeping peacefully, despite the sounds of rain falling on the roof and a howling autumn wind that seemed intent on blowing the hospital off its foundation. Setting her pen on the desk, Faith rose from the chair to check on her patients, her action motivated as much by concern for her patients as by her desire to stay awake. Moving quietly from bed to bed, she checked each patient's chart to make sure she hadn't overlooked anything earlier. Though everything appeared to be in order, the stillness of ward was somehow unnatural.
As Faith returned to her desk, a black cat, jumping out of nowhere, crossed her path as it hissed loudly, causing Faith to halt in her tracks as fear invaded her brain and her heart dropped into her stomach. As suddenly as the animal had appeared, it was gone. Faith took a deep breath and then nervously looked around the room to see if the shrill noise the cat had made had disturbed any of the soldiers. Not one of them had even stirred.
"I'm so tired that I'm imagining things," Faith thought. "Cats aren't allowed in the hospital."
Regaining her composure, Faith went back and sat down at the desk where she tried to desperately to block out the sounds of the elements outside. While she was warm and dry, she couldn't help but worry about Jem. Was he being rained on in the trenches tonight? Even if he weren't, he must certainly be cold.
Faith was nearly finished with her paperwork when the sound of footsteps caused her to look up. Miss Hamilton, the grumpy supervisor whom all the V.A.D.'s dreaded, was walking across the room towards Faith, but instead of wearing the normal gray uniform with the white apron, she was dressed as a witch, complete with a black hat, and a long black dress and with a cape over it. Though Miss Hamilton could never be described as a pretty woman, she looked particularly unattractive tonight. Her complexion had taken on greenish tint, her eyebrows were as bushy as a squirrel's tail, and her pointy jaw stuck out prominently. Her appearance rendered Faith speechless.
"Don't look so shocked, my pretty," cackled Miss Hamilton as she stood before Faith. "I always dress this way on All Hallow's Eve. It's the most fun I have all year."
"Of course," said Faith.
"Lt. Blythe has been asking for you. He wants to say good-bye before he departs us. You'd better hurry, Miss Meredith. He's waiting in the ward down the hall."
"Jem is here?" Faith exclaimed. "Why didn't anyone tell me sooner?"
"You'd better hurry," Miss Hamilton repeated in a sharp tone. "He hasn't much time."
Faith rushed out of the ward and ran down the dark corridor. How long had Jem been waiting for her? Why was he here? Was he okay? Faith continued running, even though she was out of breath. Had the corridor always been this long? And why was it so dark? Had the storm knocked out the electricity?
When she finally arrived at her destination, Faith bolted through the swinging door to find herself standing in a hospital ward much like the one she had just left: a large, rectangular room with the same orange lighting and beds pushed up against the two long, opposite walls, leaving an aisle in between for the medical staff to move about. But this ward wasn't quiet and peaceful like the other one. Streams of bright red blood ran across the floor as the soldiers who occupied the beds hissed in pain, their cries sounding like the hiss of the cat that Faith had seen earlier, only amplified a dozen times.
"Jem, where are you?" screamed Faith, trying in vain to be heard over the cries of the soldiers, all of whom were gaunt and pale and clearly in terrible pain.
Faith sloshed though the streams of blood as she ran frantically from bed to bed looking for Jem. Each man she saw looked at her pleadingly as cat-like cries sprang from his throat, but Faith had no time to try to comfort them – she had to find Jem!
And she did. He was lying in a bed on the far side of the room. Faith's relief at locating him quickly turned to horror when she saw how emaciated he was – a skeleton with a thin layer of skin and ruddy hair. His hazel eyes were sunken in, and blood trickled out of his mouth.
"Oh, Jem! What happened to you?" screamed Faith as she knelt down in a puddle of blood by his bed and took his bony hand in hers.
Before Jem could answer, Faith was in a cemetery, kneeling in front of a headstone engraved:
James Matthew Blythe
1893-1917
Joy he gave, joy he has found.
"NOOOOOOO!" Shrieked Faith. "Jem, come back! Come back, Jem!"
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Faith bolted upright in bed, her face and neck slightly damp with perspiration. A storm raged outside and a fierce wind whistled through the trees. Gasping for breath, she turned on the lamp next to the bed. Thank goodness it had only been a dream, no doubt brought on by the ghost story that Jem had been telling the girls earlier that Halloween evening before he had been called out on an emergency. Faith tossed the covers aside and carefully got out of bed as her center of gravity was off slightly now that she was seven months pregnant again. After putting on her robe, Faith quietly slipped out of her room and into the girls' room to find all three of her daughters sound asleep, oblivious to both the downpour outside and to their mother's presence.
Faith smiled contentedly as she walked slowly down the steps. The house was quiet, meaning that Jem must not yet be home. Poor Jem often had to go out on cold and rainy nights, but such was the life of a country doctor. Despite the late night house calls, it was a good life. Shortly after Jem and Faith had been married, Jem went into practice with his father and purchased High Hill from Rosemary Meredith and Ellen Douglas. Jem and Faith had now lived there happily for thirteen years; they had three delightful daughters, and Faith was certain that the child on the way was a son.
Faith was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of hot tea when she heard the car pull up. When Jem walked through the back door, wet and tired, Faith rose and walked across the room to greet him.
"Sweetheart, what are you still doing up?" he asked, pleasantly surprised, as he leaned over slightly to kiss her. The kiss he received in return was not the quick peck he had been expecting. He smiled broadly as he gazed into her lovely brown eyes that radiated with the love she felt for him.
"The storm woke me a little while ago and I couldn't go back to sleep," she said, not wanting to relive her nightmare by telling him about it. Besides, Jem didn't like to talk about the war. Neither did she, for that matter. But her nightmare had made her remember her worst fear, and as a result she was acutely aware of different the last fifteen years might have been and of how lucky she was to be standing here with her beloved Jem now. "You must be hungry."
"Starved, actually," he said.
"How about an omelette?"
"Sounds great," Jem said.
"How did it go?" Faith asked, referring to the house call.
Jem sighed. "By the time I got there, it was too late. I couldn't save Mrs. MacAllister or the baby."
"Oh, Jem. I'm sorry," Faith said gently, knowing that even after all his years practicing medicine, Jem still took it hard every time he lost a patient.
"It was so senseless. If only they had called me sooner. But it's the same old story. They didn't call because Mr. MacAllister has been out of work for over a year, and they were worried about paying the bill. When I think of the needless death caused by this Depression…"
"Don't think about it just now," Faith said. "Go upstairs and get out of those wet clothes while I make your omelette."
A short time later, when Jem returned to the kitchen feeling dry and comfortable, he reflected on his good fortune as he sat across the table from his wife and ate the meal she had prepared for him. Even after thirteen years, the sight of her still made his heart beat faster, and he loved her more now than he had the day he had married her. She was a loving wife and devoted mother who never complained about the middle of the night telephone calls from patients or about the late night house calls he had to make. Although they hadn't been affected by the Depression to the extent most of their neighbors had, Jem's income was not as much as it had been before because so many patients owed him money. Faith never expressed dissatisfaction over that either, saying instead that she was grateful that she and Jem had the resources to provide a comfortable life for their daughters.
When Jem finished eating, Faith rose to clear his plate from the table, but Jem stopped her and did it himself. Though Faith seldom admitted it, he knew that this pregnancy was harder on her physically than the others had been. At thirty-nine, Faith was six years older than she had been when their youngest, Susan, was born. And those six years were causing more aches, pains and discomfort. Though Jem knew that there was no reason to believe Faith was in danger, Mrs. MacAllister's death had reminded him that even healthy women die in childbirth, and that was a thought that unnerved him.
Sitting down in the chair next to his wife's, Jem kissed her on the cheek as he placed his hand on her abdomen. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine," she said, as she placed her hand on his cheek. She knew that he was thinking of the patient that he had lost that evening. "You have nothing to worry about."
"I know. But you need your rest."
Faith nodded and smiled. "Yes, especially since our girls will probably be up at the crack of dawn wanting you to finish that Halloween ghost story you started telling them earlier."
"Perhaps you'd like me to finish it for you as a bedtime story," he said teasingly.
"I think I'm more in the mood for a 'happily ever after' story," she said quietly.
"I think that can be arranged," he said before he kissed her softly.
And as the storm outside let up, Jem and Faith turned out the kitchen light and walked up the stairs together, each grateful for the other and for their life together.