Here's another chapter of Daylight Moon. And you'll finally get to see the scene that inspired it's name.
Thank you so much, SundaySolis, for your review. Your interest means a lot to me!
A note to all you fellow pianists out there: I know the original "The Entertainer" is neigh impossible to play with two people at the bench, but I didn't do too much research on the music from this time frame. I wanted to stay safe with good old Joplin. So... keep it real.
Hope you enjoy this new chapter.
-Scarlet
Chapter 4: Strain
Old lady Palmer passed away the following morning, and Ms. Brigs down the street caught the sickness. My mother made house calls on our elderly neighbors while Edward and I stayed inside. Like Tom Judge's mother, she ordered us not to leave the house.
It was three hours to lunch, and my mother still wasn't home from the Thomson's. I wondered if Billy or Willy was sick, and if that's what was taking so long. I was lying on the living room sofa, writing an entry into my summer journal. But I didn't write about my father. I wrote about the red sign outside of Chubb's and the black curtains on the trolleys.
Edward sat on the piano bench, trying to learn a new piece. His wrong notes made me scowl.
Both my brother and I took instruction in piano during the school year, from our school's music teacher. Though we had started at the very same time, he had excelled above me. I always thought it was unfair.
The next chord that Edward hit was as foul as sour milk.
"Errr! Edward!" I jumped up from the sofa and marched over to the piano. He was playing "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin. It didn't look so hard. "Teach me the base so you can play better."
He looked up at me, frowning. "It'll take forever, Ella, and I'm not in the mood to –"
"C'mon, Edward!" I stomped my feet. "Please, please, please? Please, please! Please, please, please, please –"
"All right! Fine." Crossly, he made room for me on the bench.
It took a straight hour, but I was playing the left hand smoothly by the end of it. We both smiled when we finally played our impromptu duet through perfectly.
Then we sang all our favorite songs, and we laughed when I tried to sing as low as Red McKenzie. After another hour of that, we had to stop because I got a sore throat.
My mother rushed through the door at half past noon. "Edward, Eleanor!" she called.
The tone in her voice made me frown, and I caught Edward's worried look as we met her in the kitchen. My mother immediately pulled us both into a hug.
"Your friend Billy has a high fever," my mother told us softly. "Martha won't take him to the hospital because he doesn't want to go."
Martha Thomson had always spoiled her children. Their father worked at a bank.
"You may take me to the hospital when I take ill, Mother," I said.
Then my mother pulled away from us, and looked down at me. Her eyes were beseeching, but her voice was full of sorrow. "Don't say things like that, Eleanor," she said, taking me into her arms again. "Don't say things like that." She gasped, as though withholding tears.
Lunch was turkey and cheese sandwiches, with a special desert – Jell-O.
After washing up, Edward and I went out front to have some fresh air. I then understood why Tom Judge had been so bored the day before. There was not much to do in our small, mostly dirt yard.
I sat in the rim of our old tire swing, watching my feet as I spun and unspun myself around and around. The old rubber was very hot and smelly in the radiant sun, and a warm breeze blew through my hair. But then I got dizzy, so I sat on the porch step next to Edward.
My brother didn't say much; his sullen moon had returned.
I watched the white, puffy clouds wade across the blue sky in the wind. Suddenly, I gasped. "Edward! Edward, look! It's the moon!" I pointed my finger up at the vast afternoon sky, enamored by the pale half-moon I saw there. I'd never noticed it before.
"Yes, Ella. The moon." Edward wasn't as impressed.
"But Edward, why is the moon out right now?" I asked curiously, still watching with awe.
"Just because it's daytime doesn't mean that the moon isn't out. It's always there… you can just see it better at night."
I dropped my hand. "Oh." Then my face scrunched up. "Then why can't we see the sun at night?"
"Edward!" my mother's voice called. "Help me with the laundry, please!" My mother was never strong enough to lift the basket of wet clothes by herself. I wondered if I should help her spread them out on the line in the backyard, but I figured that she wanted to be alone.
After Edward went back in, I saw Timmy Butler walking across the street towards me. He had his head down and his hands in his pockets. "Hey, Ellie," he said.
"Hi, Timmy." Though we were in the same grade in school and we lived across the street from each other, Timmy and I weren't the greatest of friends. Maybe it was because his house was two times the size of ours, and he had twice as many toys in his very own room.
"Sorry about your dad, Ellie," Timmy said, leaning against the Thomson's chain-link fence. Our yard didn't have a fence.
I shrugged. I had cried enough. "A lot of people have died," I said simply.
He nodded. "Did you hear about Billy getting sick?"
"Yeah," I said. "He should go to the hospital; he'll get his whole family sick if he doesn't."
"Yeah…" Timmy looked around. "Is Edward sick?"
"No," I said quickly. "We won't get sick because we're staying inside."
"You're not inside," he remarked harshly, and I felt my temper flair.
"I'm inside my yard," I snapped.
"Your mother was over at the Thomson's today, she probably got it from Billy."
"No, she didn't!" I shouted, standing up. Timmy was a brat and a troublemaker.
Timmy just shrugged. "I can't believe that you didn't get it from your dad… maybe it's because he was never around…"
I jumped off the three steps of the porch, not even bothering to step on them. I stomped up to Timmy Butler and smacked him across his fat little face.
He held his cheek, and his eyes were wide. "Hey!" he yelled, and I could tell he was mad.
"Eleanor!" Edward was back.
I knew immediately that I had done wrong, but I didn't care. I wasn't sorry, and I knew he'd never hit a girl back.
"She smacked me!" Timmy shouted, looking to my brother for justice.
Edward walked down to us, and he pushed me back so he could stand in front of Timmy. He was head and shoulders above him, and Timmy's face was shadowed as he looked up at him. "Go home, Tim," Edward said.
Timmy scowled and threw a glare at me, but he knew not to argue with a seventeen-year-old. He walked back to his house and slammed the white door behind himself. I knew my mother would be hearing from his mother, but I couldn't find it within myself to care.
"Ella, you need to get control on your temper. He was just trying to bait you," Edward said. He was sounding like our father again.
"You didn't hear what he said." My voice was heavy with imminent tears, and I rubbed my eyes hard so I wouldn't cry. "What he said about Dad!"
But he wasn't won over. He was mad at me. "That's still no excuse! You don't go around smacking people just because of what they said!"
I felt betrayed by my own brother, so I crossed my arms and turned my face. "You don't get it. If you heard what he said, you would've beat him up."
He put his hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off. He sighed. "Ella… sometimes you have to ignore what people say."
I was so mad that my hands shook. I growled softly under my breath. "You don't get it. You're just like Mom."
"Ella…"
"No, shut up!" I smacked his hand away when he tried to reach out to me. "You never understand! You would actually care if you listened to me!"
"Eleanor," his voice was like acid, "stop making a scene and come inside. You're just upset."
I whipped the tears off my face violently and growled, "Stop that, Edward."
My back was turned, but I could hear the confusion on his face. "Stop what?"
"Acting like – like – like…" My lip trembled, and I couldn't bring myself to say the name. My chest felt like it would implode if I didn't let myself cry. A sob broke from my lips, and Edward caught me when I was halfway to the ground.
I can't remember much of the rest of that day. I remember Edward carrying me inside and lying me down on the couch, and I remember my mother coming in to feel my forehead. I cried mostly, but soon I got so tired that I fell asleep right on the couch.
Hours later, I would wake up from time to time with coughing. I would see my mother there, sitting next to my trundle-bed and wiping my forehead with a wet rag. Edward would be there, too, but I couldn't focus hard enough to hear the words he said to me.
It was inside me; I knew it.
Just like David Williams and Willy Thomson and old lady Palmer. And my father.
I had the sickness.
Oh, no! Poor Eleanor. Will our favorite Doctor make an appearance in the next chapter?
...Who can say?
-Scarlet