The Love of a Good Woman

same thing. Evil grabs us when we are sleeping; pain and disintegration lie in wait. Animal horrors, all worse than you can imagine beforehand. The comforts of bed and the cows’ breath, the pattern of the stars at night—all that can get turned on its head in an instant. And here she was, here was Enid, working her life away pretending it wasn’t so. Trying to ease people. Trying to be good. An angel of mercy, as her mother had said, with less and less irony as time went on. Patients and doctors, too, had said it.
    And all the time how many thought that she was a fool? The people she spent her labors on might secretly despise her. Thinking they’d never do the same in her place. Never be fool enough. No.
    Miserable offenders
, came into her head.
Miserable offenders
.
    Restore them that are penitent.
    So she got up and went to work; as far as she was concerned, that was the best way to be penitent. She worked very quietly but steadily through the night, washing the cloudy glasses and sticky plates that were in the cupboards and establishing order where there was none before. None. Teacups had sat between the ketchup and the mustard and toilet paper on top of a pail of honey. There was no waxed paper or even newspaper laid out on the shelves. Brown sugar in the bag was as hard as rock. It was understandable that things should have gone downhill in the last few months, but it looked as if there had been no care, no organization here, ever. All the net curtains were gray with smoke and the windowpanes were greasy. The last bit of jam had been left togrow fuzz in the jar, and vile-smelling water that had held some ancient bouquet had never been dumped out of its jug. But this was a good house still, that scrubbing and painting could restore.
    Though what could you do about the ugly brown paint that had been recently and sloppily applied to the front-room floor?
    When she had a moment later in the day she pulled the weeds out of Rupert’s mother’s flower beds, dug up the burdocks and twitch grass that were smothering the valiant perennials.
    She taught the children to hold their spoons properly and to say grace.
    Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat …
    She taught them to brush their teeth and after that to say their prayers.
    “God bless Mama and Daddy and Enid and Aunt Olive and Uncle Clive and Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.” After that each added the name of the other. They had been doing it for quite a while when Sylvie said, “What does it mean?”
    Enid said, “What does what mean?”
    “What does it mean ‘God bless’?”
    E NID made eggnogs, not flavoring them even with vanilla, and fed them to Mrs. Quinn from a spoon. She fed her a little of the rich liquid at a time, and Mrs. Quinn was able to hold down what was given to her in small amounts. If she could not do that, Enid spooned out flat, lukewarm ginger ale.
    The sunlight, or any light, was as hateful as noise to Mrs. Quinn by now. Enid had to hang thick quilts over the windows, even when the blinds were pulled down. With the fan shut off, as Mrs.Quinn demanded, the room became very hot, and sweat dripped from Enid’s forehead as she bent over the bed attending to the patient. Mrs. Quinn went into fits of shivering; she could never be warm enough.
    “This is dragging out,” the doctor said. “It must be those milkshakes you’re giving her, keeping her going.”
    “Eggnogs,” said Enid, as if it mattered.
    Mrs. Quinn was often now too tired or weak to talk. Sometimes she lay in a stupor, with her breathing so faint and her pulse so lost and wandering that a person less experienced than Enid would have taken her for dead. But at other times she rallied, wanted the radio on, then wanted it off. She knew perfectly well who she was still, and who Enid was, and she sometimes seemed to be watching Enid with a speculative or inquiring look in her eyes. Color was long gone from her face and even from her lips, but her eyes looked greener than they had in the past—a milky, cloudy green. Enid tried to answer the look that was bent on her.
    “Would you like me to get a priest to talk to you?”
    Mrs. Quinn looked as if she wanted to spit.
    “Do I look like a Mick?” she said.
    “A minister?” said Enid. She knew this was the right thing to ask, but the spirit in which she asked it was not right—it was cold and faintly malicious.
    No. This was not what Mrs. Quinn wanted. She grunted with displeasure. There