She could never forgive herself for not having the courage to go back over to the hospital and be with her mother. She still woke up crying over the guilt, and there was not a way in the world she could ever make up for it.

Maybe having gone through this had been the start of Evelyn's fear of anything having to do with doctors or hospitals. She didn't know; all she knew was that the thought of going to a doctor made her literally break out in a cold sweat and start to shake all over. And just the sound of the word cancer caused the hair on the back of her arms to stand up. She had stopped touching her breasts at all, anymore, because one time she had felt a lump and almost fainted. Fortunately, it turned out to be Kleenex that had stuck to her bra in the wash. She knew it was an unreasonable fear and that she really should go in for a checkup. They say you should have one every year. She knew she should do it, if not for her sake, for her children's sake. She knew all that, but it didn't make any difference. She'd had a few moments of bravery and made appointments for a checkup, but she always canceled them at the last minute.

The last time she had been to a doctor was six years ago, for a bladder infection. All she wanted was for the doctor to prescribe some antibiotics over the phone, but he made her come in and insisted on giving her a pelvic exam. Lying there with her feet in the stirrups, she wondered if there was anything worse than having some man you didn't know reach inside of you, looking for things, like you were a grab-bag.

The doctor asked how long it had been since her last breast exam. Evelyn lied and said, "Three months ago."

He said, "Well, as long as you're here, I might as well do another one."

She started talking a mile a minute to try and distract him, but in the middle of it, he said, "Uh-oh, I don't like the feel of this."

The days of waiting for the test results had been almost unbearable. She'd walked around in a nightmarish fog, praying and bargaining with a God she was not even sure she believed in. She promised, if he would only let her not have cancer, she would never complain about anything again. She would spend the rest of her life just being happy to be alive, doing good works for the poor, and going to church every day.

But the day after she found out she was fine and would not be dead soon, as she had imagined, she went back to being just like she was. Only now, after that scare, she was convinced that every pain was cancer, and if she went to the doctor to see if it was, she was sure that not only would it be true, but that he would listen with a stethoscope to her heart and rush her to the hospital for open-heart surgery before she could escape. She began living with one foot in the grave. When she looked at her palm, she even imagined that her life line was getting shorter.

She knew she couldn't go through any more days of waiting for test results, and decided that she really did not want to know if anything was wrong, and preferred to drop dead in her tracks, never knowing.

This morning, as they drove out to the nursing home, she realized that her life was becoming unbearable. Every morning she would play games with herself, just to get her through the day. Like telling herself that today something wonderful was going to happen . . . that the next time the phone would ring, it would be good news that would change her life . . . or that she was going to get a surprise in the mail. But it was never anything but junk mail, a wrong number, a neighbor wanting something.

The quiet hysteria and awful despair had started when she finally began to realize that nothing was ever going to change, that nobody would be coming for her to take her away. She began to feel as if she were at the bottom of a well, screaming, no one to hear.

Lately, it had been an endless procession of long, black nights and gray mornings, when her sense of failure swept over her like a five-hundred-pound wave; and she was scared. But it wasn't death that she feared. She had looked down into that black pit of death and had wanted to jump in, once too often. As a matter of fact, the thought began to appeal to her more and more.

She even knew how she would kill herself. It would be with a silver bullet. As round and as smooth as an ice-cold blue martini. She would place the gun in the freezer for a few hours before she did it, so it would feel frosty and cold against her head. She could almost feel the ice-cold bullet shooting through her hot, troubled brain, freezing the pain for good. The sound of the gun blast would be the last sound she would ever hear. And then . . . nothing. Maybe just the silent sound that a bird might hear, flying in the clean, cool air, high above the earth. The sweet, pure air of freedom.

No, it wasn't death she was afraid of. It was this life of hers that was beginning to remind her of that gray intensive care waiting room.

MAY 16, 1934

Gopher Bite Report

Bertha Vick reported that Friday night, at about 2 A.M. in the morning, she went to the bathroom and was bitten by a gopher rat that had come up through the pipes and into her toilet. She said she ran and woke up Harold, who did not believe her, but he went in and looked, and sure enough, there it was swimming around in the toilet.

My other half said that the floods must have been the reason it came up through the pipes. Bertha said she did not care what caused it, that she would always be sure to look before she sat down anywhere.

Harold is having the gopher rat stuffed.

Was anybody else's light bill high this month? Mine was very high, which I think is strange, but my other half was off for a week, fishing with his brother Alton, and he is the one who always leaves the lights on. Let me know.

By the way, Essie Rue has a job over in Birmingham, playing the Protective Life organ for the "Protective Life Insurance Company Radio Show" on W.A.P.I., so be sure and listen.

. . . Dot Weems . . .

JANUARY 19, 1986

Mrs. Threadgoode guessed that Evelyn hadn't come out to the nursing home that Sunday, and she was taking a walk on the side corridor, where they keep the walkers and the wheel-chairs. As she turned the corner, there was Evelyn, sitting all by herself in one of the wheelchairs, eating a Baby Ruth candy bar, with big tears streaming down her face. Mrs. Threadgoode went over to her.

"Honey, what in the world is the matter?"

Evelyn glanced up at Mrs. Threadgoode and said, "I don't know," and continued to cry and eat her candy.

"Come on, honey, get your purse, let's walk a little." Mrs. Threadgoode took her hand and pulled her up from the chair, and began to walk her up the corridor and back.

"Now, tell me, honey, what is it? What's the matter? What are you so sad over?”

Evelyn said, "I don't know," and burst into tears all over again.

"Oh sugar, things cain't be all that bad. Let's start one by one, and you tell me some of the things that are bothering you.”

"Well... it just seems like since my children went off to college, I just feel useless."

Mrs. Threadgoode said, "That's perfectly understandable, honey, everybody goes through that."

Evelyn continued, "And . . . and I just cain't seem to stop eating. I've tried and tried, every day I wake up and think that today I'm gonna stay on my diet, and every day I go off. I hide candy bars all over the house and in the garage. I don't know what's the matter with me."

Mrs. Threadgoode said, "Well, honey, a candy bar's not gonna hurt you."

Evelyn said, "One's all right; not six or eight. I just wish I had the guts to get really fat and be done with it, or to have the willpower to lose weight and be really thin. I just feel stuck . . . stuck right in the middle. Women's lib came too late for me. . . I was already married with two children when I found out that I didn't have to get married. I thought you had to. What did I know? And now it's too late to change. . . I feel like life has just passed me by." Then she turned to Mrs. Threadgoode, tears still running down her face. "Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, I'm too young to be old and too old to be young. I just don't fit anywhere. I wish I could kill myself, but I don't have the courage."