Chapter Six
By the time Madelaine woke up a second time, she was alone in the bed. Simon and Belle were gone, and their empty spaces felt cold and barren.
Panic gripped her with full force, her eyes flew wide open, and she struggled to lift herself up off the bed. The pain in her head seemed to have subsided a little, so she shook her muddled head to clear the fogginess in her brain. Then she heard Belle and Simon cackle.
Madelaine saw a woman sitting in a rocking chair by the window, with both children on her lap.
It appeared that she was reading to them in a quiet, gentle voice from the Bible about Noah’s ark, listing all the animals.
Seeing Simon’s and Belle’s rapt faces, Madelaine was reminded of her mother, how she used to read to all of them. She missed her so much.
Madelaine swallowed the anxious sob that had crawled into her throat. The noise made the woman raise her head. Her beautiful face immediately broke out in a huge smile.
“Miss Peterson! How are you feeling?” she asked as she put the book aside. She gently put Simon, who was protesting loudly, back down. She rose and held Belle in her arms, bouncing her on her left hip.
Seeing the way she handled the children, Madelaine took a good look at this woman.
She was pretty and appeared to be of a similar age, maybe slightly older than herself.
Her long auburn hair was tied up in a thick braid, which casually fell over her shoulder, and her bright brown eyes expressed nothing but kindness.
And the children seemed to like her—Belle was not crying, and Simon clung to her skirt as if it was Madelaine’s.
Not waiting for her answer, the young woman sat down on the edge of the bed. “My name is Evelyn. Evelyn Whitfield. I’m Caleb’s wife.” She put Belle down on the blanket, who happily crawled on all fours toward Madelaine. “I believe you have met him? He is the sheriff’s deputy.”
“Yes…” Madelaine said, but her voice came out a croak.
Evelyn smiled softly, grabbed a pitcher sitting on a small table next to them, filled a cup with water, and handed it to her.
Only then did Madelaine realize how thirsty she was. She drank the whole cup all at once. “Yes,” she tried again, and this time she sounded more like herself. “I met him. And the sheriff.”
“Yes. Luke is my cousin,” Evelyn announced as she lifted Simon, who was pulling at her skirt, off the floor and onto her lap again. “How is your head?”
Madelaine lifted her hand and felt for the bandage. “It hurts. My head is pounding.”
Evelyn nodded empathetically. “Oh, yes. You must have taken a bad fall. I had to tend to a small cut at the back of your head. It wasn’t severe, but I thought it would be best to cover it with bandages. So it wouldn’t get infected.”
Evelyn smiled again, and this time Madelaine responded in kind. “Thank you.”
The woman filled the cup a second time, and Madelaine took it gratefully, drinking all of the water to the last drop.
“We have called the doctor to come here so he can check on you. Just in case,” she explained. “They found you lying in the cold snow. You seemed to have passed out.”
Madelaine nodded hesitantly and handed her the cup. “Where are we?” she asked.
“We are at Luke’s ranch. He wanted to make sure you were all right. We live next door, so I came right over to look after you.”
“We had pancakes!” Simon piped up, clapping his hands excitedly. “They were so yummy!” Evelyn laughed at that.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked. Madelaine opened her mouth but didn’t answer immediately. Evelyn raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Your horse was injured…”
“Yeah! Tinsel was shot!” Simon added with a worried expression. “I heard them talk about it.”
“I thank the Lord for saving all of you,” Evelyn said.
Madelaine couldn’t help it, and her eyes filled with tears. “Tinsel was shot? Is she…? Is she dead?”
“No!” Simon and Evelyn both said in unison, and grinning at each other because of it.
“Caleb took her back to the barn, and our ranch hands have been tending her wound. She is doing fine. Her leg was grazed by a bullet, but it wasn’t very deep and will heal in time,” explained Evelyn. “Do you not remember anything that happened to you?” she asked again.
Looking up into Evelyn’s kind face, Madelaine felt deeply conflicted.
She didn’t like to have to lie, especially as a Christian woman.
Would God forgive her if she did? She might have to in order to stay in this house for a little while longer.
They seemed safe here, and Phineas wouldn’t be able to find them.
Please, God, forgive me!
Swallowing hard, taking a deep breath, Madelaine slowly shook her head. “No.”
Evelyn nodded in acknowledgement.
Simon made a face and curiously cocked his head to his side. “What do you mean?”
Madelaine didn’t want to lie to her little brother, too, so she just shrugged her shoulders, as if she didn’t know the answer, still trying to figure out how far she needed to take it.
Internally, she prayed to God in earnest to be merciful.
Please, God! Please understand what I am trying to do.
I love You, and I beg for Your forgiveness.
You are my Lord and Savior. I will not stray from my faith in You. Please understand. I am so sorry.
“You remember Tinsel… Do you remember me?” Simon asked.
He seemed alarmed. “You are my big sister! Don’t you remember me?
” Simon jumped off Evelyn’s lap and scrambled past an oblivious Belle to Madelaine.
Putting his little hands firmly onto both of her shoulders, he forced her to look into his eyes.
“I am Simon!” he said a little too loudly and obviously panicked.
Madelaine couldn’t take it. “I know you, Simon,” she said, pulling him tightly into her arms. “Of course I remember you! How could I not?”
The little boy almost choked a sob as he returned the embrace with a fierce hug. Madelaine was surprised at his unbound strength. Then he leaned back and searched Madelaine’s face. “What about Belle?”
Madelaine knew that the little girl wasn’t really old enough to understand, so she took the chance to reinforce her ruse of not remembering everything by pretending not to know her. She lowered her chin, avoided direct eye contact, and slowly shook her head. “Who is Belle?”
Simon gasped, stared at Belle, then back at her with wide eyes full of shock, before pointing straight at the little girl, who was happily mumbling to herself in her own little world. “Her! This is Belle! She’s our little sister!”
Just as Madelaine shook her head, Belle looked up and beamed at her with the brightest smile she’d ever seen.
Madelaine’s heart tore right down the middle into a thousand pieces.
Guilt bubbled up like boiling water foaming over the rim of a pot.
It left her feeling empty, void of any decency and sincerity, as if she was a hollow shell, not worthy of anything good. It was a horrible feeling.
She didn’t want to do this. Madelaine truly didn’t want to lie.
But she didn’t know any of these people well enough to trust them, so she had to play this game to protect her siblings.
Swallowing the guilt, shame, and deep fear threatening to choke her, Madelaine tore her eyes away from the innocent little angel playing next to her on the bed and looked straight at Evelyn. “I don’t remember everything.”
***
Madelaine had stayed in bed all day, nursing her headaches as they came and went, mostly talking to Simon—who had now made it his mission to make her remember Belle and what had happened.
It was endearing, listening to his version of events, but Madelaine felt nothing but regret at having started this lie.
She knew it was wrong. She knew it was a sin.
She felt terrible for having betrayed her innocent little sister like that.
When Evelyn knocked on the door a few hours later, announcing that the doctor had arrived, Madelaine was grateful for the distraction.
At the same time, she was anxious, having to lie yet again, because the doctor knew who she was.
He’d been there when her mother had given birth to both of her siblings.
Evelyn picked up little Belle to bring her out of the room during the exam, but Simon insisted on staying, as he felt that it was his duty to protect and help his big sister remember things that might be important.
Doctor McPhearson was a former medical scholar at Cambridge University in England and had immigrated to the West almost a decade ago.
The elderly man with a thick mop of white hair walked into the room the way he always did, leaning on his walking stick with the polished silver duck head handle, carrying a heavy-looking brown leather bag with all of his instruments.
His bright blue eyes were still as spritely as they must have been when he’d been a young man.
As soon as he saw Madelaine, his face broke into a huge smile. “Hello, Maddie! What have you gotten yourself into, young lady?” he greeted her with humor.
Madelaine smiled nervously at him. “I don’t know,” she said honestly.
Should she pretend not to know him, too? Wouldn’t that take things too far?
Guilt was gnawing at her like a beaver building a new dam.
Putting his bag onto the bed next to her, the doctor immediately lifted his hand, feeling her forehead. “Good temperature. Good temperature. That’s a good sign.”
Simon sat right next to Madelaine and watched intently as the doctor opened his bag.
“And how are you today, Simon? Everything all right?” he asked.
Simon nodded eagerly, then shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Well, I am all right. But Maddie isn’t. She has lost her brain when she fell,” he said matter-of-factly.
Doctor McPhearson raised his bushy white eyebrows in bewilderment. “What do you mean, Simon? Please explain yourself, boy.”
“Well…” Simon was clearly searching for the right words but came up short. “She can’t remember Belle.”
His face was distraught, and Madelaine was close to telling him that she, in fact, did remember their little sister, but then the doctor put two of his fingers against her neck to feel her pulse, and she didn’t speak.
Pulling out his pocket watch, he opened the ornate piece and started counting as he watched the clock face.
Nobody said a peep until he was finished.
“Is this true, Madelaine? You don’t remember… Belle?” Once again, Doctor McPhearson raised his eyebrows as he looked at her questioningly.
Not really sure how to answer that, Madelaine opened her mouth, but it was Simon who came to her rescue. “She can’t remember most of what happened. Just bits and pieces,” he supplied, ever so helpfully.
The doctor nodded in acknowledgement. “Do you remember me?” he asked tentatively, looking straight at his patient.
The desperate look on Madelaine’s face seemed to suffice, because the doctor didn’t wait for her answer.
“It’s all right, my dear,” he said and patted her hand. “This might just be a temporary thing, you know?”
Then, he asked her to sit upright so he could listen to her breathing.
Simon watched with wide eyes as the doctor pulled out his stethoscope.
“Please take a deep breath for me, dear.”
Madelaine did as instructed, and while the doctor took his time listening to her breathing in several different places on her front and back, her mind kept racing as she tried to figure out what to do. All of this didn’t feel right, and the guilt kept piling up. Please God, forgive me.
Nodding, the doctor put the stethoscope back into his bag.
“Let me have a look at your head. How do you feel?”
“I have headaches. Some worse than others,” Madelaine said truthfully.
“Do you remember the fall?” he continued, as he began to remove the bandage around her head.
“I remember falling…” Madelaine replied tentatively.
“The wound on the back of your head is already healing very well,” he said, as he examined it.
“No need to worry. But you should rest. Allow your body to heal,” he said to Madelaine.
“I assume that you might be suffering from amnesia. We need to wait and see what the long-term effects will be. Sometimes, the memory comes back, and sometimes, it does not.”
He put his things back into his bag before closing it.
“If you’d like, I’ll come back in a few days, and we’ll see if anything has changed.”
Madelaine nodded. “Thank you, doctor.” She was so very grateful that this scenario was finally over, and she didn’t have to lie any more than she already had.
“If at all possible, it would be nice if Miss Peterson could stay here for a couple of weeks to get some rest,” he said to Evelyn, who’d come back into the room with Belle.
“Of course. Luke said she should stay as long as she needs. We will look after her and the children while she recovers,” Evelyn said reassuringly.
“Very well, I’ll return in a couple of days.” The doctor took his hat, put it back on his head, and left.
And just like that, Madelaine had a couple of days to figure out what to do next.