Sacrificing Virgins Read Free Page B

scrub grass and the willow here when they built the place.
    The entry was dated April 22, 1954.
    The early entries extolled the beauty of the prairie and eventually bemoaned the fact that a new house was going up a little ways down the road. They’d no longer be alone in their wilderness. Emma wrote about Jerry’s new job at Goldstar, selling appliances, and about how much he loved her spaghetti, and about how they often they sat in the afternoon or at night in their family room looking out on the grassy plain behind their house, frequently watching falcons hunt rabbits.
    But by 1957, Emma’s entries grew shorter, and her mood less upbeat. She complained of headaches and sickness and more . I don’t want him to worry, was her frequent explanation for why she told these things to her diary, but kept them from Jerry. Eventually, Jerry apparently noticed that her slim form had grown bony and her smiles turned from cheer to grimace. In December of 1957, he forcibly took her to a doctor, despite her protestations that they couldn’t afford it.
    They came home with two bottles of pain pills and the memory of the doctor’s expression of hopelessness.
    In February of 1958 she wrote, It hurts to breathe, it hurts to eat, it hurts to live. It’s killing Jerry to watch me die. He’s been so good to me, trying to keep me warm, making sure I take my medicine so that the pain goes away, a little bit. I don’t think this can drag on much longer in any event. Every night when I say good night to him, in my heart I say goodbye, just in case. But I so hope to see the spring come one more time. If I could just see my hyacinths bloom one last time and the goldfinches return…
    Jerry’s notebook told an equally painful story. The short version was, he’d lost his job before Thanksgiving and had no family to turn to as his wife grew more ashen and frail by the day. He couldn’t afford the morphine, and so he sold off his possessions, one by one, to buy them rice and milk and medicine. After he sold their car, he spent two and a half hours walking down the country roads back from town in a snowstorm. That was on February 16, 1958.
    On March 21st, 1958, he wrote:
    Emma screamed all night. I couldn’t do anything but watch her and rub her head with cold rags. Her fingernails drew blood on my arms. But this morning, she got her wish. The green she’s been watching all week finally burst into color—the purple hyacinths she planted the spring we moved here have bloomed. I carried her outside so that she could smell them, in the grove she dug near the willow. When I brought her back in the house, she fell asleep on the couch, and there was a smile on her face for the first time in weeks. I hate to admit it, but I cried then. I sat in front of my wife and cried, and she didn’t hear me; she’s too far gone. That’s when I went to the kitchen and poured all of the morphine pills into her broth. It’s not right that she suffer anymore. I can’t do anything else for her. Today, she got what she’s been praying for—she found spring. Tonight, I’ll send her home to heaven.
    On March 22nd, Jerry wrote simply, I laid her in the earth by her hyacinths. I have no money for a coffin or a stone or to bury her in the cemetery…but her flowers will mark her place.
    The next entry was dated two months later, and was equally brief.
    I can’t stay here any longer. The bank threatens foreclosure, and the electric company turned the power off last week. This is no longer my home, it’s her resting place. I will place these memories of her someplace safe, and say goodbye. Emma found her spring, now I have to find mine.
    There were no other entries, though the ink was blurred on that final page, as if it had gotten wet. Perhaps from tears.
    Eric felt chilled as he closed the notebook. He looked at the date on his phone and nodded. It was March 21st. Fifty-three years