A couple of days after Darius leaves, Mama falls while walking down the last few steps of the stairs.
At the sound of her body crashing to the floor, I rush from the kitchen where I've started breakfast to find her lying in a heap. I check to be sure she still breathes, and then bang on the study door to wake Mags and ask her to keep watch, before setting off to Thom's house for help.
The sun is just coming up. Pink rays color the clouds hanging low on the horizon. Pink is my mother's favorite color; surely the picturesque sky is a sign from heaven that things will be fine.
Thom and his teenaged son James help me carry my mother upstairs and into bed. Then James leaves to fetch Dr. Snow.
My mother is dazed. One side of her face droops and her words are slurred.
After the doctor inspects her, he motions me to leave the room so we can speak.
"Has she broken any bones?" I blurt out.
"Broken bones would be a blessing. They would mend. But this doesn't look well. Your mother has taken a stroke."
"Is there anything you can do?
Dr. Snow is grim. "No."
"Will she recover?"
He doesn't answer me directly. "You might want to let your sister know what's happened so she can see her."
That day is a whirlwind. Thom lets me use his phone to call Primmie in Lexington and to let Mr. Adkins know that I will miss work. Mags and I take turns sitting with her. Our minister pays a visit and prays with us.
My sister arrives by bus the next morning. We keep a vigil with our mother all day. But Mama has already slipped into a deep sleep and never awakens to even acknowledge my sister's presence.
In the early evening hours, she breathes her last. The muscles in her face relax and she appears at peace.
Primmie, a trained nurse, goes into hysterics, while I have the opposite reaction. A numbing anger washes through me as I consider the financial mess my mother has left behind.
My sister is unaware of the extent of our mother's debts. I didn't want to discuss it while she lay dying in front of us. But now I must tell Primmie everything because I have no idea how we are to pay for the funeral.
The next few days are a blur. Primmie and I ransack our mother's room looking for paperwork, for a will, for something to indicate the state of her finances, but we can find nothing.
All of her jewelry, other than her wedding band which she never removed even after our father died, is gone and since she hadn't worn any jewelry since my sister's wedding, we speculate that she must have pawned everything to pay for living expenses.
Thankfully Primmie's husband drives their car down from Lexington and takes charge. He pays for the funeral, although Primmie privately tells me that they are not so well-off as I thought since many of her husband's patients pay their medical bills in trade rather than cash.
We bury my mother next to our father. Through the kindness of the neighbors who bring us an abundance of food, my sister and I are able host a reception at the house following the burial.
Dr. Snow lingers until every one is gone. Primmie, my brother-in-law, and I sit with him in the front room.
"I'll give you girls a week to clear your family's personal items from the house," he says.
"What are you talking about?" I ask. "The house is ours."
The doctor shakes his head. He pulls a folded paper from the breast pocket of his suit coat and hands it to me.
My head spins as I read the legal document.
Only a few weeks earlier, my mother signed ownership of our house and its furnishings over to Dr. Snow. In exchange he agreed to allow her to remain in the house and work for him.
I lift my head and stare into his eyes that are as black as coal. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would she do this?
"Mama could have sold the house, paid off her bills, and had some money left over. Why would she just give it to you?"
"Let me see that." Primmie snatched the paper from my hands and began to read. Her husband leans in close and looks over her shoulder.
If she was that desperate why didn't Mama contact her brother Haymitch? Maybe if she wasn't so proud and had begged him for help, he would have given her the money.
Dr. Snow reaches into his pocket for a second paper. He hands it to me. "The thing is your mother couldn't have paid off all her bills. She owed about as much as she owned."
The second sheet lists my mother's debts and her many creditors, far more than I would have ever guessed. If the list is accurate, the doctor is right. My mother was completely broke.
"This proposition benefited both of us," Dr. Snow says. "Your mother could remain in her home and keep up appearances in Dandelion."
My mind races. Years of reckless spending and a ridiculous sense of concern about other people's opinion, caused Mama to sign up for a lifetime indenture to Dr. Snow – agreeing to stay in her home and work for him. It was that or end up on the streets.
Primmie hands the first paper to her husband and turns to the doctor. "What about Katniss? She didn't sign anything. Where's she supposed to live now?"
I'd only recently told my sister of my broken engagement. Now I understand though why my mother reacted so badly to it. She likely saw marriage as a life preserver for me, a safe haven in a sea of financial troubles.
Perhaps Mama planned to join Gale's and my household, or even Primmie's and my brother-in-law's, when she grew older and tired of working for Dr. Snow. I guess I'll never know now, but there's no doubt in my mind that the tension of everything contributed to her early death.
Dr. Snow smiles at me. "Maybe we can work something out." He stands. "I'll see myself out. I'm sorry about your mother."
As soon as he goes, my sister speaks. "You need to come with us to Lexington, Katniss."
Out of the corner of my eye I notice my brother-in-law frowning. I imagine he's not so happy to realize that my sister has no inheritance and that he won't be reimbursed for my mother's funeral expenses either. I hardly think he'd want me to move in with them.
"No Prim, I can't."
"Why not?"
"I have a job here. You can't guarantee me work in Lexington."
Maybe I could find work as a schoolteacher in the fall, but it's late March and school will break in a couple of months for the summer.
Primmie's lips turn up into a pout. She knows I'm right. "But what will you do Katniss?"
"I'll find a room to rent. Maybe someone would be willing to take me in as a boarder."
I help my sister and brother-in-law pack up Mama's keepsakes, some treasured photos, the family Bible, and some seashells she saved from a trip to Florida with my father before we were even born. My brother-in-law takes a few of my father's books. Then Primmie and her husband drive home.
The next day Dr. Snow moves an older, married couple into my mother's bedroom.
"This is Sae and Ephraim Edwards. They'll be running the place for me."
Two new boarders appear the day after – Bonnie and Twill. Bonnie, looks to be about sixteen. Her foot was injured in an auto accident, and she hobbles around on crutches. Her Aunt Twill suffers headaches as a result of a head injury from the same accident.
Ephraim places two cots in the study for them, causing Mags to complain to me about sharing her room with Bonnie and Twill. "They talk too much."
"You should bring the matter up with Dr. Snow," I tell her. "I have no say about anything going on in the house anymore."
He tells me I can continue to stay in my bedroom for now but only if I'll help out Sae and Ephraim in the evenings and on the weekends, too.
Even though I'd already been helping my mother anyway, I am furious. Still, I accept his conditions because I don't have anyplace to go and I don't have the energy to find a place either. I need to return to my job. I already missed a week and a half of work dealing with the details of my mother's illness and death.
Somehow word has spread about my loss. My library customers make every effort to cheer me up. One woman insists I join her and her family for a lunch of dandelion salad. That hearty plant is dotting the hills and valleys heralding spring. I used to like dandelions, but now the yellow flower mocks me in my grief.
Another patron gives me a card with a handwritten prayer on it and a pasted on illustration of an angel.
Still a third slips me a bottle of a special "tonic" to lift my spirits. I take a sip while I eat my lunch to discover that it's powerful moonshine. It burns my throat as it goes down.
I stay up later than usual every night, sometimes weeping over my situation, but writing letters, too. I write to Gale. I write to my Uncle Haymitch. I write to my sister and tell her that the doctor has turned our house into a nursing home. I write letters to Peeta in my head because I don't have his address. I've given up hope of ever seeing him again. When I visit Delly, she tells me they didn't even know he was working in Frankfort.
Three weeks after my mother's death I receive a letter from Gale. I save it to read that evening as I lie in bed. But I am stunned at his words.
I, too, have experienced a sudden life change. I've taken on a wife. Senator Undersee's daughter Madge, married me in a ceremony at the Undersee residence a few days ago.
While I know with certainty that Gale and I were never meant to be lovers – even though I wrote him a letter to end our engagement - the fact that he immediately turned around and married that golden-haired flirt only a month later infuriates me.
"I won't be returning the ring to you," I gripe, as I crumple his letter in my hand. "Why should I? So she can wear it?"
My low mood sinks even lower after receiving Gale's letter. Over and over I ponder the facts of my life.
I'm Katniss Everdeen. I'm twenty-five years old and alone. My mother is dead. My sister is married and lives to Lexington. I have a job, but no home.
My life sounds pathetic to my ears. I have no hope for the future.
Even my work, that I once enjoyed, has become burdensome to me. I find myself jealous of my customers that I used to pity.
They have homes and families. I have neither. They seem happy. I am not.
My birthday comes and I turn 26. There's no one to remember it, not that I feel like celebrating anyway. Primmie's card arrives a day late.
I trudge home in a foul mood one June afternoon after passing along a copy of The Rich Man's Pearl to a happy housewife to find Peeta sitting on the porch in front of the house. He wears a light-colored button-down shirt and cotton pants. He drinks a cup of water and speaks with Sae.
The late afternoon sunlight causes his hair to glow as if it were on fire. I inhale sharply. It's as if an angel has appeared in the flesh to rescue me from all my troubles. A tiny ember in my darkened heart begins to glow.
My cheeks grow warm and I throw him an embarrassed smile. "Hello Peeta."
He grins back at me and my insides turn to mush. How does he do this?
He stands up as I come closer. "I came by to see if you're available for dinner."
Dinner? I would have been overjoyed if he brought along a peanut butter sandwich to share with me.
I look to Sae. Usually I help her serve dinner to our boarders. Will she allow me to leave now?
She nods. "Go on girl, enjoy an evening out."
"I'm free, Peeta. If you'll wait a minute; I'll change my clothes."
Going inside, I climb the stairs and strip out of my sweaty garb, pants, a button-down shirt, and boots.
I've lately been keeping a pitcher of water on my dresser top for washing, as we have only one bathroom and a houseful of people. I dip a cloth into it and wipe the sweat off my face and then rub the cloth over the rest of my body.
Next to the pitcher is a letter from my Uncle Haymitch. It must have arrived in today's mail and Sae set it here for me. I make a mental note to read it later.
I put on a summery dress, white stockings, and low heels. I look into the mirror to take in my appearance.
My face is aglow with color. It would take too long to redo my hair completely as it's braided and pinned up. But I take a moment and tuck the loose strands around my ears so I look less windswept.
Taking a deep breath, I go downstairs to join Peeta on the porch. He stands again when he sees me. He links his arm through mine and leads me out of the yard and straight to Main Street.
It's Thursday and only one eating establishment is open – the long counter at the drug store that serves hamburgers and sodas.
Peeta points toward the barstool and I take a seat. A young, teenaged couple sits at the end of the counter. It's obvious to me that it's a date, as they share an ice-cream soda, two straws in a single glass. The girl bats her eyes at her beau flirtatiously.
They make me feel old.
"Order whatever you like," Peeta says as I scan the paper menu in front of me.
Does he really mean that? I can't help but think he's only being polite. I scan the menu for the least expensive meal.
Mr. Cray, the owner of the drug store, stands behind the counter staring at us. He wears a white apron.
Peeta asks for a hamburger and a coke; I order the same.
Mr. Cray brings us our sodas, and then sets to work frying the burgers at the grill at the far end of the counter.
"I'm glad you agreed to join me for dinner," Peeta says. "I saw a notice about your fiancé's recent marriage in the The State Journal so I figured you'd have no excuse to turn me down."
It was in the newspaper? That's not unusual, especially in light of Senator Undersee's position, but still it irritates me.
My face grows warm. "We ended things right after my visit to Frankfort. He, um, we've been friends since we were children, but there wasn't anything romantic between us."
"Your mother seemed especially fond of him, though."
My face darkens as I realize that Peeta likely doesn't know of her death. "She was upset, naturally. But, then, well, she died a couple of months ago."
His face grows serious. He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. "I had no idea Katniss. I knew something was different when that lady met me at the door, but she didn't say anything about your mother so I figured maybe she was away visiting or something. I wouldn't have…"
Immediately I realize how this must appear to Peeta – my mother recently dead, and I'm not in mourning, but instead wearing a flowery dress, smiling, laughing, going out for a spur of the moment date with him.
"It's all right," I interrupt, feeling the loss of his touch when he lets go of my hand.
"It's hard losing a parent," Peeta says. My mother passed when I was a boy and my father died while I was at school in Chicago."
"You were in school? I thought you were a baker?"
"I've done a little bit of everything. You have to in order to survive these days. It's not easy." Peeta lifts up his glass to drink.
Before I can ask more questions, Mr. Cray slams two plates, each with a hamburger and some fried potatoes, onto the counter in front of us.
When he walks off, Peeta reaches for a nearby bottle of catsup. "Want some?"
I nod and he hands me the bottle. I open it and pour some on my plate to dip my potatoes in. Peeta puts his hand out and I hand the bottle to him. He lifts his hamburger bun and adds a dollop to the meat.
We begin eating and the conversation stops for a few moments, as both of us are ravenous. But after eating three-quarters of his burger, Peeta sets it down onto his plate.
"I wanted to take you out to dinner to say goodbye."
I set my burger down. My stomach churns and I worry that I might be sick.
"I'm leaving Kentucky. I got a job with the WPA to paint murals in a new lodge that's being built at the base of Mount Hood."
"Where's Mount Hood?"
"In Oregon."
I think of Uncle Haymitch's unopened letter that sits on my dresser. The postmark on it reads Sandy, Oregon.
"How long will you be there?"
"I'm not sure. If I like the area, I might stay. Travel down to California after the job ends and try to get work with a movie studio. I hear they're looking for artists to paint backdrops for movie scenes. There's only my brother here in Kentucky. And he doesn't need me."
You can't go. I need you. But I can't say that out loud. Instead I say, "I'll miss you."
I turn my head and blink a few times to wash away the tears that have come to my eyes. I pick up my glass to take a sip of my coke, not wanting Peeta to see how foolishly hurt I am.
"I'll miss you too Katniss. I owe you a lot. If it weren't for your help in getting the doctor out to me, I would have lost my leg. There's no way I would have let Delly operate on me. I've seen the way she cleans a kill. She's not very neat."
He looks so serious, that I can't help but smile in the midst of my pain.
I choke down the rest of my burger, but offer my potatoes to Peeta.
When we are done eating, we take a long, roundabout way back to my house. For that brief time I forget he is leaving, and I relax in our easy conversation.
Gale and I could talk freely, too, but it is different with Peeta. I never wanted to touch Gale's face, to run my fingers down the slope of his nose, or trace them around the line of his jaw, or run them through his hair.
Peeta tells me about the mural he painted on the wall of the Frankfort post office.
"The governor's wife saw it and told her husband. He made some calls and, well, that's how I got this chance in Oregon. The supervisor said they'll hold it for me if I can get out there within a month."
Eventually we stand before the fence surrounding my house. Ephraim sits on the porch smoking a cigar. Sae sits alongside him. Both stare at us.
The sky is aglow with orange light as the sun says good-bye til the morrow.
"I like you Katniss. I know you're settled here with a job and a home. But if things were different…." His voice trails off, and he looks remorseful. "Maybe I could write to you?"
I nod at him and swallow hard, wondering if he really will write, or is he just saying that? A thought occurs. "You never told me what you wrote in that other letter, the one my mother didn't give me."
Peeta licks his lips and sly smile forms. "She probably didn't like the part about what I wanted to do to you."
He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. It's as if an electric current has touched me. Peeta must feel it too because he groans and pushes his lips harder against mine, causing me to open my mouth slightly. He takes it no further than my lips though, gently running his tongue over my lower lip and then sucking lightly on it in a way that makes me tremor.
This is my first real kiss – the first one in which I feel anything - and I find myself swaying forward. Peeta reaches his hands up to rest on my shoulders to hold me in place.
I don't want to stop, but eventually Peeta steps back.
He looks me square in the face. "That's what I wrote about, Katniss. I wanted to kiss you." He reaches for my hand, gives it a squeeze, and leaves.
I open the gate and walk up the path to the porch.
"He's a handsome fellow," Sae says. "I suppose we'll be seeing him around now."
"He's leaving to go west." I let the door slam shut behind me as I run up the stairs to my room. I'm twenty-six years old but I feel as lost as I did at age eleven when my father died. Abandoned yet again.
Much later, sometime in the middle of the night as I lie awake reliving that kiss, wondering if anyone will ever kiss me like that again, I remember my uncle's letter.
I turn on my bedside light and retrieve it. Sitting on my bed, I unfold it. Three twenty-dollar bills fall out.
Dear Katniss,
I'm sorry to learn that my sister is gone. Lily was far too young. I'm not surprised she left you penniless, though. She never had a head for finance. But at least you have a job and your sister has a husband. You'll survive.
I'm enclosing some cash to help with immediate expenses. Use it wisely.
Your Uncle Haymitch
P.S. If you're willing to leave Kentucky, you could come work for me in Sandy. I could use a good secretary right now. My old one left, and the place is in a shambles.
I hold the cash in my hand. It's kind of my uncle to send me money. Maybe he isn't as stingy as my mother always said.
I put the bills inside my purse and the letter back onto my dresser.
As I'm dozing off, the thought occurs to me that my uncle's offered me the opportunity to start over again. Maybe, like Peeta, I could go out west too.
I have nothing better to do.
I wonder how far Sandy, Oregon, is from Mount Hood?
Author's Note: Hippocrates, the father of medicine, recognized strokes more than 2,400 years ago. He called it "apoplexy" which meant "struck down by violence" in Greek. In the mid-1600s it was discovered that patients who died of apoplexy had bleeding in the brain. It wasn't until 1928 that the name "stroke" came into use.
In 1935 President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. It provided monthly monetary payments to a limited group of retirees and the unemployed, and a lump sum benefit upon their death. During The Great Depression more than fifty percent of seniors citizens were considered poor. The stock market crash had destroyed savings and bank failures did further damage.
The State Journal is a newspaper that serves Frankfort, Kentucky, and the rest of Franklin County.
WPA workers began the construction of the Timberline Lodge, located on the south side of Mount Hood in 1936 and finished in 1938. It's currently a popular tourist attraction (and National Historic Landmark) that draws two million visitors annually. It's exterior was used to depict the Overlook Hotel in the movie, The Shining.
For curious readers, Sandy, Oregon, is located at the base of Mount Hood, about 35 miles from the Timberline Lodge.