Chapter 27 – Rosalie – Taking Care of Our Own

The fever began late that night.

I was alone, watching over Emmett. I had slept a little earlier, on the sofa in the living room so I was still near him, but I had woken again and was now watching while Miss Adeline caught some rest in the room next door.

Asleep, Emmett became increasingly restless. He tossed his head from side to side and whimpered, his hands groping at the wounds on his chest. Before he could touch them I snatched them away, taking his hot, dry hands in mine.

"It hurts," he mumbled. "Rosa…don't go away…"

I touched his forehead, trying to gauge his temperature. He was warm, but it was a warm night and I had no experience with fevers. Perhaps some water.

He tried not to show how much it hurt him to be lifted up a little to drink, and he gulped down the jam jar full of water and asked for more. When he was done I took a cloth and wiped his face with cool water, hoping to make him feel more comfortable.

Emmett was still and quiet then, watching me with eyes that glittered in the candlelight. Caught up in his gaze I couldn't stop myself from reaching out and stroking his face. Inside, the baby kicked and rolled, and I smiled as I took Emmett's hand.

"I want to show you something."

I could feel his hesitation as I took his hand and pulled it towards me, but then he stretched his fingers and cupped it over the bulge of my belly. For a long moment we sat, silent and motionless, before the baby once again kicked, right against Emmett's hand.

"Hey! I felt it move!" Emmett grinned at me, and for the first time since he'd been carried out of the forest I saw his dimples. "That's so crazy…I didn't know you could feel it on the outside." He half laughed as he felt the baby move again, stopping with a moan when the effort hurt him. "I reckon it's a boy…what do you think?"

I shrugged. Secretly I wanted a girl, a little blonde girl who would be nothing like Royce and instead would be mine alone, but I didn't want to say that aloud. "I don't know."

But Emmett's attention was drifting now, his face taking on the white, strained look it got when the pain was bad. I lifted his hand off my belly and kissed his fingers, then tipped another spoonful of medicine down his throat so that he might sleep.

He slept, but it wasn't an easy sleep. His temperature rose and he moaned and twitched in his sleep, waking frequently despite the medicine the doctor had given us for him. Around dawn I was scared enough to go and wake Miss Adeline.

She came right out, throwing a robe on over her nightgown, and knelt by Emmett's side. She winced as she saw the blood on his hands from when I hadn't been able to stop him from blindly groping at his wounds, and then she frowned as she touched a hand to his forehead.

"Is it bad?" I strove not to sound as terrified as I felt.

"I expected some level of fever," Miss Adeline said, avoiding a straight answer. She disappeared for a moment and then came back with a basin of clean water and a cloth. "We must do what we can to manage it. Sponge down his face and neck to try and cool him a little. I'm going to restrain his hands so he can't keep touching the wounds."

Miss Adeline tore a strip from the sheet we had been tearing up for bandages and tied one end around each of Emmett's wrists, running the strip behind his body so could no longer moved his hands more than a few inches. It was a simple but effective restraint, although the sight of it being used on Emmett made my eyes burn with unshed tears.

Please get better Emmett. I can't bear the alternative.

Emmett continued to tug uselessly at the restraint, whimpering and moaning in his fevered sleep. I kept cool cloths on his forehead and wiped down his sweating face and neck, determined to be there every time he flickered back into wakefulness and looked for me.

I only left when my own need for the outhouse could no longer be ignored, or when Mr McCarty and Miss Adeline had to help Emmett to relieve himself. On one of these trips out of the sickroom I stripped down to my underwear on the back porch and scrubbed myself with cold, fresh water, washing away all the sweat and grime. I was only slightly embarrassed to be caught so nearly naked when Elizabeth came wandering out, Rosie dolly tucked under an arm.

Much to my surprise she came over and kissed my bare stomach. "Hello baby!" she chirped, before she looked up at me with a much more serious look in her eyes. "Emmett is very sick, isn't he?"

I rubbed myself dry with the old, scratchy towel. "I think so."

"Will he stay in bed for a long time? When Mama was sick she stayed in bed for a long time." Elizabeth took the face washer and wiped her doll's face. "I used to read to Mama in bed…I could read to Emmett. I'm a much better reader now."

I stooped and kissed her forehead. "I'm sure he'd like that when he's feeling just a little bit better. He's supposed to sleep now, but it will take a while for his wounds to heal, and he'd love to listen to you read while he's getting better."

I couldn't bring myself to face what it would mean if Emmett didn't get better.

The dark thoughts crept more and more frequently into my mind as the day passed and his temperature soared. Despite the poultices his wounds were weeping and inflamed. The doctor came again and looked grave as he examined Emmett. He offered to take him into the hospital but admitted that there was little that could be done, and Miss Adeline shook her head and said that we would keep him at home.

"He has round the clock nursing care here," she told the doctor. "That's better than having him at the hospital."

Emmett certainly was never left alone. During the long, hot afternoon there were always someone by his side to replace the cold compresses on his forehead, to hold up his head and offer sips of water whenever he was awake and lucid enough to drink. Often several people, since I never left him and his mother spent every spare minute with him, the others all coming in and out too. He was offered food but didn't want it, until I asked Will and Stephen to take some of the money I had got for my rings and buy him some oranges. I peeled them and cut them into segments that I fed to him myself, his hands still being restrained, and he ate the sweet fruit gratefully.

"Thank you," he muttered hoarsely, as he swallowed the final piece and I wiped his hot, pale face. His eyes were dull, and he closed them wearily and I soon lost him back to the fevered, dream-filled sleep.

Miss Adeline alternated her warm poultices with cool cloths in an attempt to draw the poisons from the wounds and then to cool Emmett down. He no longer screamed when they touched him, but he arched his back and jerked against the restraints, and I hated to see how much pain he was in. The medicine the doctor had given us seemed to help with that, although nothing helped for long. Every period of quiet, healing sleep would end with the restless, delusional half-sleep of the fevered. Emmett mumbled then, mostly unintelligibly, although sometimes he called for his mother and sometimes he called for me. Once he called me angel and told me he loved me, before closing his eyes with a moan.

His fever rose higher, until it seemed like his flesh was burning, radiating heat as I sat close beside him. Mr McCarty came in and prayed at his side, which made the terror rise in my heart and the tears threaten. I refused to give in and let them fall though. I would be strong for as long as Emmett needed me to be; I wouldn't be tearful or needy when he was suffering so much.

Mr McCarty looked at me for a moment when he'd finished his prayers, and then he gave me a smile that was so like Emmett's I was startled.

"Come on child," he said kindly. "You come along outside with me."

"But Emmett…" I protested, touching his hot, damp forehead.

"He'll be fine with his mother and Maggie for company," Mr McCarty said placidly. "You could do with a break…you come and help me with the cows and we'll get some good fresh milk for the boy."

I followed him out of the house. Over to the pasture the three cows, and their calves, were all crowded by the gate, and when Mr McCarty opened it they trotted over to the barn.

"I shut them up separate of a night," Mr McCarty told me, in his slow, quiet way. "That way the calves can't take the milk, so the girls fill up overnight and I can milk 'em in the morning. But we'll get a bit out of one of them tonight, for Emmett."

He caught one of the cows with a rope halter and tied her into the milking stall, then shooed the other cows and the calves into separate pens. This was a routine they were used to, and they did as they were bid with no fuss.

"Have you ever milked a cow?"

I laughed in sheer disbelief. "Are you joking? I mean…no."

Mr McCarty chuckled. "You city girls! It's about time you learned lass. Come over here and sit down."

Too baffled to object I sat down on the little milking stool, shoulder to shoulder with Mr McCarty as he knelt beside me with the pail. "You need to be gentle with her," he told me seriously. "Gentle but firm squeezing…see, like this."

I watched his strong, big hands handle the cow's udders and listened to the sounds the milk made as it hissed into the bucket. After so many hours spent smelling the harsh, ugly smell of Emmett's mutilated body and listening to his noises of pain, the scent of hay and cow and milk, and the quiet sounds of the barn were an unexpected pleasure, and I felt myself beginning to relax. I rested my head against the cow's warm, hairy hide and watched.

"You try now," Mr McCarty invited, and somewhat hesitantly I tried to arrange my hands the way his had been. "That's right lass…firm but gentle."

He laid his hands over mine in guidance, and in only moments I had the milk coming in steady streams into the pail. It gave me an odd sense of satisfaction, to accomplish this task that was so far away from all the skills that had always been expected of me.

"You're doing well," Mr McCarty said with quiet approval. "You've got nice hands for it, if they're a bit soft still."

"I've never done anything like this before," I admitted.

"You've got a knack for it." Mr McCarty rubbed the cow's flank. "You're a good girl Rosalie. I've watched you try and settle in here…I'm guessing it's pretty different to what you had at home?"

I nodded, still keeping my eyes on my hands and the milk frothing in the pail. "Emmett wrote to you about it…it was very different to this."

"Yes. But I've watched how hard you've been trying since you got here. You're a strong, determined woman Rosalie, and Miss Adeline and I admire that in you."

I blushed, but I was secretly thrilled at the praise. Mr McCarty was a quiet man, but his few words always carried great weight and to have his approval meant a great deal to me. He'd barely spoken five words to me before this.

Mr McCarty peered into the bucket and said, "We'll leave it there, that's enough milk for Emmett to have some. Nothing like some good fresh milk for building up your strength."

"You think he's going to be okay then?" I said, almost immediately wishing I hadn't spoken. What if he said no?

Mr McCarty scratched the cow behind the ear and said thoughtfully. "Aye, I think he'll be okay. He's a mighty strong one, our Emmett. If anyone could get himself mauled by a bear and make it out to tell the tale it'd be him."

I laughed shakily. "He does seem to have a gift for getting himself out of trouble."

He gave me another one of the gentle smiles that reminded me so much of his son. "But if he maybe doesn't make it, I want you to know that you're still welcome here and you'll have a safe home here for as long as you want one. Our Emmett loves you, and that makes you one of us. We'll always take care of our own." With another smile he handed me the pail of milk. "Take that inside now, and see if you can get Emmett to take it."

Emmett did drink the milk, but it didn't do any good. For a long time nothing seemed to do any good, as his fever burned steadily hotter. His periods of lucidity became shorter and further apart, and I hated leaving him even long enough to go to the outhouse in case I missed him.

"Rosalie."

"I'm here." I took his hand again, feeling the trembling of his fingers as he closed them around mine. "I'm here."

"Stay here."

"I am," I promised him. "You know I won't leave you."

There were others in the room, but he had eyes only for me as he tried to smile. "I mean…later. Don't go back to Rochester…even if…promise me you'll stay here. My family will take care of you. I can't stand to think…don't go back."

"Oh, shut up!" I snapped, terrified to hear him even allude to his own death. "Of course I'm not going back. But you're going to be here to look after me yourself, Emmett McCarty! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get better!"

Emmett's laugh ended in a choked moan, and I gently cupped his face in my hands. "Shhh…I'm sorry," I whispered. "But you can't think like that. You have to fight it."

"I'm trying," he said hoarsely. "I'm so tired…"

Oblivious to anyone else watching, I pressed my lips against his dry, cracked mouth. "But you have to get better Emmett…I need you."

Emmett's eyes glimmered with the faintest hint of a smile. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Forty-eight hours after it began, Emmett's fever broke, his wounds began to look pinker and healthier, and we knew he was going to be okay. I kissed his face, then went to bed and slept for fourteen hours straight. I dreamed of Emmett and woke with a smile on my face.