Chapter 13
Chapter
Evaluating the teaspoons of energy at one’s disposal was, alas, not an exact science.
It was more estimation than calculation.
For while two and two would always make four no matter whether one combined them yesterday, today, or tomorrow, in the world of chronic pain .
. . maths didn’t always add up. Patterns didn’t always repeat.
Margaret could guess she had eleven teaspoons because six months prior—when her body had felt as it did today—she’d had eleven teaspoons.
However, in the world of chronic pain, one could follow the same pattern and adhere to the same formula only to realize at day’s end that one had, quite unknowingly, been working with a set of negative numbers.
Upon leaving D.O.G.S. headquarters, Margaret had thought herself left with a teaspoon to spare, but when she’d arrived home and the adrenaline had worn off, she realized all too late that she’d exceeded her limit, leaving her in the negative.
With a teaspoon deficit, as it were. This resulted in a physical crash the following day.
Although Margaret had experienced this sort of misestimation before, that didn’t mitigate the resulting frustration or the bombardment of questions without clear answers.
What exactly had triggered the crash? Might it have been prevented, or was there nothing she could’ve done differently?
When she’d been forced to ask Mama to assist her with the chamber pot, the guilt weighed upon her chest. Though Mama was nothing but kindness itself, the unavoidable degradation and defenselessness flamed upon her cheeks. Once again, she was a burden.
Margaret didn’t attempt calisthenics, didn’t bother getting dressed.
As was her practice on crash days, she simply asked Mama to brush and plait her hair, then help her back into bed.
Her weak muscles felt leaden. Pain bored into her lower back and ribs, acute reminders of where she’d been struck the day of the accident as she’d bolted across the cotton-mill floor. Running, too slow. Fleeing, too late.
She combed her fingers through Figaro’s luxuriant coat, willing the vibration of his purr to ground her to the safety of the present. Shut her eyes, wishing the memory of her foolishness could be blocked out with the morning light.
A hand, familiar and soft, caressed Margaret’s hair, coaxing her eyes to open.
Mama stood by the bed, brow furrowed and lips pinched. “Is there anything else I can do for you, dear one? Fetch you breakfast? Keep you company?”
The mere thought of the effort it would take to sit up again to eat made Margaret sigh with exhaustion.
How piteous it was to need to recover after simply using the chamber pot.
How pathetic. How—no. No, Maggie. Don’t let your thoughts continue down this treacherous road.
It didn’t do her or Mama any good. She needed to send word to the chief and then seek solace from the only place it could be found on such days when her piano was beyond her reach.
“I don’t think I can eat just yet. Would you mind terribly opening the window and bringing me my peace box?”
Mama’s response was one of prompt action rather than words, and the window soon creaked as it was unlatched and lifted.
Sunshine crept into the bedroom, pale and gentle, as though not wishing to startle the occupants with its presence.
A soft breeze rustled the curtains, escorting the sweet fragrance of lily of the valley inside from the window box where the flowers were planted.
Margaret drew in a breath, as deep as she could manage with the perforating pain, and released a ragged exhale.
Mama placed the requested music box gently upon the coverlet, pulled just to Margaret’s lap.
On crash days, even the slight weight of the coverlet felt unbearably suffocating upon her injured rib cage.
Its fabric was a searing pain against skin that already burned with the pricking ire of damaged nerves.
Moisture began to well in Margaret’s eyes. She couldn’t let her traitorous body distress Mama with tears. “That’s all for now, Mama. Sorry for the extra trouble.”
“No trouble. No sorries.” Mama pressed a featherlight kiss to her forehead and offered a reassuring smile. “I’ll return later with luncheon. Ring if you need anything before then, promise?”
Margaret did her best to mirror Mama’s smile, to reassure her in return. “Promise.”
If Mama noted the way a tremor unsettled her lips, she was gracious enough not to mention it before her departure.
The moment the door shut, the first tears slid down the sides of Margaret’s cheeks, dripping near her ears and on to the pillow.
Was it considered weeping when the tears emanated from one’s physical shell, rather than one’s emotional being?
For, in truth, on crash days, her weary soul often felt too numb for tears, so overwhelming was the pain racking her flesh.
Could a body shed tears for its brokenness when the heart was too tired to feel?
Could the body yet mourn what the mind had long ago grieved and accepted as lost?
And oh, how long ago it had been since she’d known a day without pain. How long the pain continued, stretching before her with no end in sight. Lord, I don’t know how much longer I can live like this . . . don’t know how much more I can take—
Stop, Maggie! Stop. You’re not going down that path. Not again.
In the months following her injury, Margaret had slipped down that sodden, rutted road of thought.
Had fallen into a mire of anger and confusion.
Slapping the hand of God away for what He’d allowed, she’d wallowed in bitterness for nigh on a year.
Until the ache in her soul had rivaled that of her body.
At last, in frustration, she’d heaved her emotional bile at God, believing Him far off .
. . only to find Him by her side, offering peace in exchange for her turmoil.
The chief. She needed to send word to the chief.
Margaret sniffed, blotting bleary eyes dry with the flowing sleeve of her nightgown trimmed with cuffs of eyelet lace.
She traced her thumb along the ornamentation on the music-box lid, a cluster of lilies of the valley crafted of inlaid enamel, smooth and delicate.
Gazing upon the box, she could admire the dainty little bells of white as she enjoyed their fragrance, even when she’d not the strength to venture toward the window.
Just below the blooms, she’d carved the words Consider the Lilies of the Field, an excerpt from a favorite passage in the book of Matthew.
A reminder that the One who sustained her cared for every piece, every part of His Creation.
From the lilies of the field to the birds of the air.
She pressed one of the blooms raised slightly above the others, and a hidden compartment ejected from the box’s left side.
Margaret retrieved the tiny device nested within—an automaton goldcrest. One of her first inventions, the life-sized goldcrest’s feathers were crafted of pressed tin and hand-painted.
Gently grasping its wee feet, she rotated the left leg clockwise until she heard a faint click, then she rotated the right leg counterclockwise until the goldcrest awoke, puffing its wee chest and sounding a high-pitched twitter.
The automaton hopped on Margaret’s palm for a moment as though taking stock of its surroundings, and then alighted, soaring through the open window.
She released a sigh and shut the compartment, concealing it once again in the body of the wooden box.
If she drifted off now, it was no matter.
The goldcrest would make for the homing beacon hidden on the windowsill of Professor Quimby’s office, and when the device rapped upon the glass, the chief would understand the prearranged signal that she was physically unable to attend to D.O.G.S.
business. With the press of a tiny button tucked beneath the bird’s right wing, the chief would then send the goldcrest back to Margaret by return address, where it would nest in her peace box once more.
Hopefully, this crash would be of short duration, and she’d not have to send the goldcrest again tomorrow.
With that task completed, Margaret had naught to do but rest. Recuperate.
A task in and of itself when one was in such pain.
For there was no getting comfortable. Hers was a rest without relaxation.
Though she lay perfectly still, her body writhed with internal agony no one could see or stem.
Like a boat caught in a tumultuous tempest, all Margaret could do was endure the thrashing waves and wait for the storm to pass.
She’d learned as much, even before the accident, while on a sea voyage with her parents as a young girl.
When a gale had taken the ship’s crew by surprise, her parents had held her securely below deck.
While their comforting embrace hadn’t quieted the storm, it had quieted her soul and given her the strength to endure the thunderous tossing.
In the wake of the accident, her parents had attempted to console her in a similar fashion, but the intense physical pain had stripped the comfort from their touch. What had once soothed now seared. What had once quieted her soul now caused her body to scream all the louder.
This had forced Margaret to seek comfort elsewhere.
A change she had once grieved to the depths of her being, but now she could honestly say she was grateful in a way.
For the pain had driven her to the Source of a greater comfort.
The God of all comfort, whose embrace was peace itself.
A complete peace, like none other on earth, that transcended understanding and guarded weary minds amid the worst suffering imaginable.
Pressing another button disguised as an enamel bloom, Margaret opened a second hidden compartment on the left.
Stored inside was a stack of metal discs with tiny perforations.
The punched metal was curled onto the underside of the disc, creating raised projections known as plectra.
She chose one, closed the secret compartment, and then lifted a brass latch, opening the main lid to reveal a polyphon turntable.
She placed her musical selection into the music box and then wound a crank on the back until the spring resisted.
The turntable began to spin. Metallic clinking emanated from the box as the disc rotated and tiny forks brushed over the perforations beneath, generating sound.
Beautiful, fairylike, tinkling music. The tune of Mama’s favorite hymn permeated the room, one she’d sung over Margaret countless times as a prayer and a lullaby.
Though her pain was great, Margaret sang the familiar words of “Abide with Me.” Words of praise.
Words of hope. Her voice was as weak as her ragged breaths and as watery as the tears that soaked her pillow, but still she chose to sing.
Worshiping the Comforter who was with her even now.
Holding her close. Being the peace she did not feel, the strength she did not possess.
Sustaining her through this storm of pain as He had countless others before.
As she knew He would in the storms to come.
The Lord would abide with her, always and forever.
He’d shown Himself too faithful for her to doubt Him now, and heaven knew Margaret needed Him too much to push Him away in anger for the pain that remained and the healing that never came.
He always came, and that was enough.