From the Relief Society Magazine, April 1949 –

Through the Darkness

By Hazel K. Todd

With an aching heart Rebecca watched the little girl playing with her doll. The child, with her good little left hand, tugged at the blanket she was trying to wrap around the dolly, then, because she couldn’t make it go the way she wanted it to, she held one corner in her mouth while she arranged it around the rubber infant. Never once did she so much as raise the little right hand that hung lifeless at her side, the small fingers curled around like tiny bird claws.

“Make your other little hand help,” Rebecca pleaded, but, as always, it was no use.

“I just can’t, Mother,” the little girl said, indifferently, and straightway left the room, carrying the doll in one arm while the blanket dragged behind.

“Oh, there is no use,”whispered Rebecca. Not even the mechanical words of “next time” found a place in her mind now. It was senseless to fool herself. Linda’s hand was useless. The little fingers that had been full of pep and vitality only three months ago, were useless now, cut on a piece of glass, made to hang numb and unnatural, all their spontaneity gone. “Wait,” the doctors said. “Wait a little longer. Cut nerves and tendons are slow to heal. Perhaps, in time…”

She had waited, waited three long months, each day when she awoke, hoping that maybe today Linda could move the hand just a little. But each day went by the same, and each night when she tucked her into bed she breathed again the prayer, “Oh, dear God, make my little girl’s hand well.” But it was not well. And there was no sign that it would ever be well so far as she could see. And now even the doctor looked grave when he said, “Wait a little longer.”

By the window where she stood, she turned her eyes out across the garden already beginning to take on the look of autumn. A few dark clouds floated uneasily across the sky. As she watched, a flood of homesickness choked her, a yearning for the home and friends she had left behind six months ago. Perhaps if her husband had not been transferred, perhaps this terrible accident would not have happened. She longed for the feeling of security and peace she had known, not this dreary sensation of hopelessness and heartache. Her tears stung her eyes. But as she looked she hurriedly dabbed them away with the corner of her apron, for she could see her neighbor, Mrs. Werry, coming up the path, carrying a half dozen faded gladioli.

Rebecca straightened her apron and opened the door to meet the sagging face of Mrs. Werry. “Come in,” she said and motioned to a chair.

The pudgy form of Mrs. Werry sank heavily into the chair while her hand wiped the perspiration from her brow.”I told Hebe I just had to come in and see how you were, you poor thing,” she began in her expressionless voice. “No matter how I feel myself, after all, I don’t have a child with her hand cut off.” She folded her big hands with the few gladioli in her lap and heaved a weary sigh.

Rebecca struggled to keep back the tears that threatened again. She dared not speak.

“I stopped by little Linda out there,” the toneless voice went on. “Her poor little hand. She just can’t use it at all, can she?”

“No.” Rebecca stared at the window. “Not at all.”

“You know I had a cousin who had a boy with his hand cut that way.”

Oh, no! Rebecca felt she just couldn’t stand to hear the account again, how his fingers never recovered and were always stiff and useless. “Those flowers, did – did you raise them?” she asked.

The woman looked down at the meager bouquet. “Yes,”she said dully. “I thought a few flowers might brighten you up a little. I did intend to get more, but my back is so lame. Must be rheumatism.”

“You shouldn’t have bothered,” Rebecca said.

“No bother. Only, as I always tell Hebe, what good are flowers if you have so much misery that a body can’t stand to look at them.”

Rebecca took the flowers and placed them in a vase.

Mrs. Werry wiped the perspiration from her face again. “Deary me, it’s hot. I tell Hebe it’s hot as the middle of the summer. Takes the energy right out of a person.”

Rebecca half-consciously arranged the flowers in the vase while she gazed through the window again to where Linda played with her doll by the sand box. She was picking golden glows that hung over the fence, picking them with her one little hand and carrying them to cover her doll. Rebecca watched while the child collected a golden mound on the grass; then she sat and lifted them by handfuls into her apron. Now she was trying to gather the folds of cloth with her one hand. But they kept slipping away. “Raise the other hand, just a bit,” Rebecca kept whispering in her mind. But no, finally the one little hand had gathered the folds of cloth, and Linda skipped away to the doll in its yellow bed, while she sang a gay little tune. But the one little hand had not been quite efficient enough. The apron began to sag and the flowers to tumble. Painstakingly, the little girl tried with one hand to rescue the flowers.

“Please bring up the other one, oh, please, darling, bring up the other little hand,” whispered Rebecca. But the apron dropped, the hand remained hanging, and the flowers fell in a bright tumble over the grass.

Rebecca breathed a tired sigh and suddenly became aware of the dull voice of Mrs. Werry flowing on and on like an endless stream.

“And just think of butter a dollar a pound. Seems like some of us poor folks will just have to starve pretty soon.”

Rebecca turned her attention back to her visitor. “Almost, I guess,” she said because she felt she must say something.

“Well, I must go back,” Mrs. Werry said, wiping her face again. “Seems like there’s never any time for a body to sit a minute. I put some pickles on the stove. Such a lot of work peeling onions and cucumbers. I shouldn’t make them. Hebe can’t eat them any more. Has a bad stomach, you know. But the boys insist on having them.”

But she didn’t go at once to attend her pickles. She remained sitting and wiping her face. It was another fifteen minutes before Rebecca watched her finally go out the gate and down the path to her home.

“My new home,” she said half aloud, as the heavy steps of her visitor died away. Mrs. Werry with her perspiring brow and her cousin’s boy who never recovered, and her own little Linda with only one hand. She sat listlessly on the arm of the big chair and gazed disinterestedly out of the window. The clouds had gathered and hung black and foreboding in the west. Her throat ached. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands and cried long, choking sobs.

After a time she became aware of the merry whistle of her husband coming up the path. The new resentment that had been growing on her lately filled her. How could he be so gay? What was there to be merry about? Didn’t he realize that their little child must go through life crippled and handicapped?

She heard his footsteps on the porch now. Again she dried her tears on her apron and slid down into the chair with her back to the door. Now she heard him open the door. “Becky, oh, Becky, where are you?” he called in his free, impulsive voice.

With a half-guilty feeling, she remained silent. Then she felt his footsteps coming noiselessly toward her. Did he think he could keep her from knowing he was coming? Why, he had never even been able to walk without waking Linda when she was a baby.

She felt his two strong hands on her face, covering her eyes. “Three guesses to tell who it is,” he said. “So, I caught you napping.”

Quickly she pulled his hands away. “As if I didn’t know who you are. Who else would becoming here? And I don’t sit sleeping. I have too many things to think about,” she said angrily, and then she looked into his face and halfway she wished she could recall the words.

But he sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm around her shoulders. “Listen, Becky, dear, we are invited to go out dancing with the Daltons tonight. Look, it’s just what you need. Please don’t say no this time. Jack told me where to get a good baby tender.”

“Oh, Larry, how can you think of going dancing? Dancing when our little girl’s hand hangs useless and reminds you every breath you breathe. I don’t ever want to dance again. Not ever as long as I live. Besides, I hate this place. If we hadn’t come here we wouldn’t have had this terrible trouble.” She slid out of his arm and, without looking into his face, went out of the room, the hot tears burning her eyes.

It seemed impossible to go to sleep. Rebecca had watched Larry playing with Linda, bouncing her around on his back while he, on his hands and knees, was a pony that bucked and galloped. Never once had he seemed to notice her little right hand that hung useless. It didn’t seem to bother him that she had to cling frantically with one hand to stay on his back. Then he had played “This little pig went to market,” with her toes, and here cited a piece about the beggars coming to town. He had not mentioned the dancing party again.

Now he lay sleeping peacefully while she tossed about on her pillow thinking and thinking until she wanted to scream. It was sultry hot. Now and then she could hear a few far-off growls of thunder, probably the last electric storm of the year. A late mosquito that had found its way into the room buzzed its sing song above her head. Twice she arose and went into Linda’s room, but both times the child lay quietly sleeping. At last she fell into a troubled sleep where she walked alone in a thick darkness hunting for Linda who was crying and whom she could not reach.

She was awakened suddenly by a loud clap of thunder. She sat up quickly in bed. For a minute her world was foreign and illusive there in the dark, and then aching reality crept slowly back. It was still night and the night had already been far too long. Would it never end? She pulled the blind on the window and peered into the darkness. A quick flash of lightning revealed a brief picture in the yard. In that second she saw a heap of yellow with the face of a doll peeping from under the cover. Linda’s doll! She had left it out where she was playing. The rain would come and spoil its head. She must go get it.

From the closet she secured her robe and slippers and hurriedly put them on before the rain came.

Out in the darkness she waited for a flash of lightning to show her the yellow bed. It came and she saw it almost at her feet. She saw the doll’s face with its sleeping eyes and its rosy cheeks; and she saw the golden flowers freshened already by a few splashes of rain, lying close together as neatly as though two little hands instead of one had placed them there. She stooped and reached for the doll in the darkness. Her hand fell into the soft bed of flowers. She paused a minute. A curious thought struck her. It was amazing what Linda had learned to do with her left hand. She was naturally right-handed, and yet, now that her right hand was of no use, she had taken to the other with quickly gained efficiency. Because she was so young. At three it was easy to form new habits. And she would grow and learn to do other things as thoroughly as she had placed the flowers together. God was merciful when he made two hands. She should be glad that Linda had one good hand. And then another thought came to her with vivid revelation. Linda was happy with her one hand. She had skipped and sung as she had built her flower bed. Was there a chance that she, herself, might spoil that happiness in her constant remindings and never-ending worry?

She raised her hand and reached for the doll. Her fingers rested on its cold plastic head. She lifted it and stood up. A splash of rain fell on her throat and she pulled the soft folds of her robe closer around her neck.

Another flash of lightning showed her the path to the Werrys – Mrs. Werry, with her sagging face and her eternal sighs. Could it be that she was on the way to becoming another Mrs. Werry? Perhaps sometime she would go to her neighbor’s and carry a few straggling plants and sit and talk of rheumatism and the price of butter.

There was another quick flash, a loud peal of thunder, and the rain came down splashing her in the face and on the hands. She slipped the doll into her robe and walked into the house, only half conscious of the wetting rain.

Without turning on the light, she sat on the divan, slipped off her wet slippers, and curled her feet under her as she used to do when she was a little girl. It was dark and quiet and she could think. Outside she knew the rain was pouring in the darkness, and somewhere, if it was not too late, bright music would be playing dance tunes while couples talked and danced gaily. She wondered if the Daltons would ever ask them again. She had met them once when they first came. They had invited Larry and her to dinner. But she was homesick and she had come home and wished they were back with their own old friends. Then when Linda had been hurt she had refused to go anywhere. Somehow she had been gone when Mrs. Dalton had called, and Larry, who loved to dance and be with people, had tried to get her to go with him, and when she had refused each time, he had played with Linda, read a magazine, or brought work home from the office.

The resentment had gradually grown on her because he didn’t seem to worry about Linda’s hand. And then, in the darkness outside, she had suddenly discovered that all her worry and heartache had not helped Linda. It was Larry who rode her on his back, and laughed with her, who kept her happy, A tender feeling came over her and some of the peace she had known in her old home.

She awoke with a cramped feeling in her neck. She twisted her head painfully and rubbed her eyes. Then she remembered. Her knees ached and her legs had needles and pins sticking in them. Carefully, she straightened them out onto the floor. Early sunshine was streaming through the window. Remembering the storm, she went to the door and threw it open. Everything was fresh and clean after the rain. There was a sharp breeze that said autumn was at hand. But what did it matter? There was still brightness in the world.

A slight noise in Linda’s room caught her attention and she turned and tiptoed to the door. It was ajar and she pushed it gently. Quickly she caught her breath. Larry was there kneeling by Linda’s bed. But why? Was something wrong? A quick glance told her that Linda was still asleep. And then she saw. Larry was gazing fixedly at the little right hand, with its curled fingers. Rebecca looked from the little hand resting on the covers up to Larry’s profile, and she saw the tears glistening on his lashes; and his lips were moving silently. Instinctively, she knew they were saying a prayer. And she had thought he didn’t care enough!

A deep peace crept over her. And a new strength, a strength of faith and hope, one that she had lost for a while, but which Larry had carried through the darkness. She turned and walked noiselessly to the window and looked out at the bright autumn day. Wet branches shook their dripping leaves gently.

“Becky!” She felt Larry’s hand on her shoulder. “You were gone so bright and early. I didn’t even hear you. When did you get up?”

She turned and smiled up at him. “Oh, I got up when it was still dark,” she said brightly. “But look, Larry, isn’t it a lovely day?”

He looked at her quickly and a broad grin spread over his face. “Uh-huh,” he said and squeezed her shoulders in his arms. “Maybe it’s nice enough we could even go dancing tonight. Do you think?”

“Maybe,” she said and slipped her arm through his.