Red ignored Matt’s voice in his mind reminding him that The Kid was dead.
He would not end up dead. He would be the one to make everything come out right.
Chapter Fourteen
Decline.
Seven ordinary letters—one word that he would rather die than hear.
Matt didn’t die, though, even with the doctor standing beside Lucy’s bed making the pronouncement.
Morning sun broke through the storm and scattered it toward the east, but there was no cheer in it. He felt numb. Fear surrounded his heart and squeezed. Only by locking his knees did he remain standing so that he could ask what was the worst that could happen now.
Emma slipped in under his arm. Her fingers trembled against his vest, so he hugged her close. Her dress felt as wet as his shirt from the many hours of wrapping Lucy in warm damp sheets.
“It doesn’t always mean there’s no hope.” Doc Brown lifted his glasses away from his face and wiped his hand across his face. Two days’ worth of beard stubble scraped beneath his palm with a hiss. “From here on out her little body has less to fight back with. The disease has the upper hand and it’s harder for her to…but I’ve seen some make it that were even further into decline than Lucy is. Children are tough, for all they seem so small.”
“Lucy is.” Emma’s voice barely whispered out of her lips, yet it sounded certain. She turned in the crook of his elbow and reached out, touching his cheek with her fingertips. “Mercy, that child surprises us day in and day out.”
Lucy’s mother had been strong, and so had her father, but they had long since been in the grave.
Emma’s confidence rallied his sagging spirits only enough that they floated ankle-high in the gloomy room, which was a sight higher than they had been a second ago.
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead before he bent next to the bed.
“Lucy, darlin’. Did you hear the doc?” She lay so pale and silent on the bed that if it hadn’t been for the shallow rise and fall of her thin ribs he would have thought the worst. “You don’t have to go. You’re a strong little girl, just like Mama says. Everyone’s out in the parlor praying that you’ll soon be stomping around in the creek looking for frogs.”
Princess whined and laid her head over Lucy’s arm. Fluffy gave a quiet yip and a half wag of her tail.
“Did you hear that, baby? I believe Fluffy and Princess just said a prayer in their own puppy way.”
It may have been his imagination, but he thought he saw her head nod a fraction of an inch.
The fighter inside her hadn’t given up, but her little body seemed to be fading by the moment. Unless something changed, unless something…
It was clear that there was nothing more he could do for her. Maybe only ease her way out of this world with a song. He thought she might hear it, so he began a low croon even though it ripped from his heart and tasted bitter on his tongue.
The tone sounded shaky, as if his voice had grown too fearful to hold a common note. It stretched as thin as a tight string.
From behind he heard Emma choke on a single sob. All of a sudden he couldn’t breathe. The walls darkened and closed in like a smothering, living thing.
“I’ve got to go out for a minute, darlin’, but I’ll be back. Don’t you go anywhere, do you hear, baby? Don’t go.”
Matt dashed out of the sickroom and crossed the parlor without greeting Rachael or Joseph Sizeloff, who sat on the couch speaking in quiet tones with Jesse.
It was a surprise to see Jesse here at this time of morning, since no one had yet sent word of Lucy’s decline.
Out on the porch Billy sat on the stoop whittling a six-inch piece of wood. Red, leaning against the house, gave him a quick glance then stared at his boots.
Greeting them would be polite, but the only thing he wanted was to get to the barn. There, in the privacy of shadows and the silence of shifting straw, he would give way to the fear that turned his courage to dust. If he didn’t he might just burst open from the grief of it.
He’d let it go, then find the fortitude to go back inside. If his child needed him to hold her back from the grave with all his strength,