This Sweet Sickness Read Free Page A

sweet old thing.”
    â€œAll right. Thank you very much, Mrs. McCartney.”
    â€œAnd thank you for the rent,” she said, making a backward retreat. She checked herself. “You didn’t notice that biggest window leaking any, did you? That rain Monday—”
    David glanced quickly at the window behind him, a huge window flanked by two small tall windows and set in an oriel bay. “Not a bit,” he said, “not a bit.” It probably had leaked, but he did not want Mrs. McCartney or her handyman George prowling about his room while he was gone.
    â€œGood. Well, have a nice weekend, David, and give our regards to your mother.”
    â€œI will, thanks.” David waited behind his closed door until her steps faded to silence on the stairs, then went out and locked his door behind him.
    Mrs. Beecham lived on the third floor at the back. The third floor of the house was much smaller than the others, and had only Mrs. Beecham’s room, a bath at the center rear, and a room the size of Mrs. Beecham’s at the left which Mrs. McCartney slept in. David knocked gently on Mrs. Beecham’s door, and her sweet, high voice immediately called, “Come in, David.” She knew his step.
    She was in her wheelchair with some knitting and a book on her lap. On the book stood her rectangular magnifying lens which she moved downward on the page as she knitted and read simultaneously. She was eighty-seven, and she had been paralyzed in her left leg and partially paralyzed in her left arm for twenty years from a stroke. Her daughter in California sent her a little money regularly, but David had heard that she never came to visit her.
    â€œSit down, David,” Mrs. Beecham said, gesturing to a broken straw-bottomed straight chair. “I was hoping I’d catch you before you took off. Didn’t you say your mother was about my size?” She had thrust her chair expertly over to her bureau and parked it sidewise.
    â€œJust about,” David said, as he had many times before. “Don’t tell me you’ve made something else.” He had sat down, smiling, to be polite, but he leaped up nervously as she drew a pink garment out of her bureau drawer.
    â€œIt’s just another bedjacket. You know it doesn’t take me any time to make ’em, David, and who else’ve I got to give ’em to?”
    David examined it appreciatively, and tried to think what he could give Mrs. Beecham in return. He had given her several presents. But presents for Mrs. Beecham were difficult for him to think of. “It’s really beautiful, Mrs. Beecham. You know, though, she’s still wearing that other one you made her—last year.”
    â€œWon’t hurt to have two. Two pairs of socks aren’t hardly enough for you neither, David. Be sure you bring ’em to me when they get holey. I’m making my new little great-grandchild a coat and bonnet now, but socks for you come next.” She was fiddling with her knitting needles, too old and gray to blush with her pleasure at David’s liking the bedjacket.
    David stood looking at the pink thing in his hands, abandoning the idea of asking her anything about her great-grandchild, whose sex he had forgotten, because he was not sure her family had been decent enough to send her a picture of it.
    â€œI asked that nice girl downstairs to bring me home a box for it, and I know she will, but she’s not back yet. I know her walk already, I do.” Mrs. Beecham looked at him brightly through glasses that enlarged and made quite visible to David the cataracts in both pupils.
    â€œWhat girl?” David asked.
    â€œEffie Brennan. You don’t mean to say you haven’t met her?”
    â€œOh, yes, of course, I have,” David said with a smile. “Well, Mrs. Beecham, what can I bring back for you this trip? Some more of that cheese you like? A plant you’d like?” Her east windows were banked