Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

that Emily didn't seem to mind. No one enjoyed being alone more than she did. She didn't think anyone else was fit company, and for one reason or another especially avoided Eugenia.
    Despite the setbacks Eugenia continually experienced in her battle against her horrible malady, she never lost her gentle smile or her sweet nature. Her body remained small, fragile; her skin, guarded and protected from the intruding Virginia sun in winter as well as in summer, never was anything but magnolia-white. When she was nine, she looked like a child no older than four or five. I harbored the hope that as she grew older, her body would grow stronger and the cruel illness that imprisoned her would grow weaker. But instead, she dwindled in little ways, each one breaking my heart.
    As the years went by, it was harder and harder for her to walk even through the house. Going up the stairs took her so long that it was a torture to hear her do it; the long seconds ticked by while you waited to hear her foot take that painful next step. She slept more; her arms tired quickly when she sat brushing her own hair, hair that flourished and grew despite everything else, and she would have to wait for me or Louella to finish the brushing for her. The only thing that seemed to annoy her was her eyes tiring when she read. Finally, Mamma took her to get glasses and she had to wear a heavy framed pair with thick lenses that, she said, made her look like a bullfrog. But at least it allowed her to read. She had learned to read almost as quickly as I had.
    Mamma had hired Mr. Templeton, a retired school teacher, to tutor Eugenia, but by the time she was ten, his sessions with her had to be cut to a quarter of what they'd once been because Eugenia didn't have the energy for long lessons. I'd rush to her room after school and discover that she had fallen asleep while ciphering or practicing some grammar. The notebook lay on her lap, the pen still clutched between her small fingers. Usually, I took everything away and gently covered her. Later, she would complain.
    "Why didn't you simply wake me up, Lillian? I sleep enough as it is. Next time, you shake my shoulder, hear?"
    "Yes, Eugenia," I said, but I didn't have the heart to wake her out of her deep sleep, sleep that I wished would somehow mend her.
    Later that year, Mamma and Papa acceded to the doctor's wishes and bought Eugenia a wheelchair. As usual, Mamma had tried to ignore what was happening, had tried to deny the reality of Eugenia's degeneration. She would blame Eugenia's increasingly bad days on the horrid weather or something she had eaten or even something she hadn't eaten.
    "Eugenia will get better," she would tell me when I would come to her with a new worry. "Everyone gets better, Lillian, honey, especially children."
    What world did Mamma live in? I wondered. Did she really believe she could turn a page in our lives and find everything had changed for the better? She was so much more comfortable in the world of make-believe. Whenever her lady friends had run out of juicy gossip, Mamma would immediately begin telling them about the lives and loves of her romance novel characters, speaking about them as if they really existed. Something in real life was always reminding her about someone or something she had read about in one of her books. For the first few moments after Mamma spoke, everyone would scan their memories to recall who it was she was talking about at the moment.
    "Julia Summers. I don't remember any Julia Summers," Mrs. Dowling would say, and Mamma would hesitate and then laugh.
    "Oh, of course you don't, dear. Julia Summers is the heroine in Tree of Hearts, my new novel."
    Everyone would laugh and Mamma would go on, eager to continue in the safe, rosy world of her illusions, a world in which little girls like Eugenia always got better and someday rose out of their wheelchairs.
    However, once we got Eugenia her wheelchair, I would eagerly encourage her to get into it so that I could wheel her about the house or, whenever Mamma said it was warm enough, outside. Henry would come running and help get Eugenia down the steps, lifting her and the chair in one fell swoop. I'd take her about the plantation to look at a new calf or to see the baby chicks. We'd watch Henry and the others brush down the horses. There was always so much work to do around the plantation, always something interesting for Eugenia to see.
    She especially loved early spring. Her eyes were full of smiles when