Shaina Straightens Things Out
by Ida Alexander
Part 2
Shaina tucked a bowl of potato salad into a picnic basket and shut the lid. “Now Mother,” she cautioned, “don’t work too hard today. You know you haven’t been feeling well. I’ve left potato salad and baked beans for you in the refrigerator, and there are carrot sticks and oatmeal cookies. You won’t have to do a thing about lunch. Just take it easy.”
A horn sounded in the driveway. “Oh! There’s Lucie!” Shaina picked up the basket. “We should be back before dark.” She kissed her mother’s cheek. “Remember, Mother—take it easy!”
The girls had barely turned onto the highway when Shaina remembered her camera. “Can we go back?” she asked. “I wanted to take some pictures.”
Lucie agreed. Shaina found her camera on the dining room table. As she picked it up, her mother’s voice sounded clearly from the back door.
“The child is too sick to be without you. You run along home. I’ll manage the ironing and housework. Of course, I’ll pay you just the same.”
Then Mrs. Ryan’s voice, grateful and eager: “Blessings on your kind heart, Mrs. Foster. The children pray for you every night, they do.”
Shaina stood, stunned. Her mother cleaning toilets and washing floors, when she already felt ill! And just so someone else—who had been paid to do it—could have a free day! Doing thankless work for people who probably laughed at her for it! Spending herself for others—being imposed on—
Gritting her teeth, she stalked out to Lucie’s car. “Something’s come up, my friend. Will you mind too much if I don’t go on the picnic, after all? There’s business at home that must be straightened out this very day.”
Sick child
Shaina slipped into the house and stole up to her room. After Mrs. Ryan left, Shaina found Mother on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. The girl stood for a full minute watching her mother rubbing away as if her life depended upon it. She looked tired, bent, old. A fierce, protective tenderness burned in Shaina’s mind, side by side with a rage against the people who imposed upon her mother. Moving forward, she took the floor rag from her mother’s hand.
“Let me do it, Mother.”
Her mother looked up with a start.
“Shaina! I didn’t hear you come in. Are you sick?”
“Sick at heart.” Shaina jerked the rag back and forth on the tiled floor. “Tired of seeing you work for other people who care nothing at all about you. Disgusted at the way you allow yourself to be imposed on. Weary and out of patience with it all. If you must make yourself sick working for others, why, I’ll stay and help you. I can’t stand it. I—”
“Shaina,” her mother interrupted, “you’re getting upset about nothing. Mrs. Ryan has a very sick child. It was a small thing for me to let her go home to him.”
“But why couldn’t you have asked her to send someone in her place? Why try to do the work yourself when you know you’re not feeling well? Why, Mother? Why?”
“I couldn’t pay two people, dear. And she needed the money.”
“Well, for that matter, so do we.”
“But not as she needs it, my dear, for medicine and food.”
“Look at the suit Father’s wearing today,” Shaina went on. “He’s ashamed to be seen in it, I know. And why? Just so someone who hardly knows us could pay his rent. Look how you helped Mr. and Mrs. Jones when they both had pneumonia, nursing them night and day, wearing yourself out. They have lots of money. They could have hired a nurse. But they preferred to impose on you and save their money. Why? Maybe so they could buy that brand new BMW?” Shaina’s voice rose. “And look at our car—the same old wreck we’ve had for the last five years!”
“My dear,” Mother sighed, “those were only little neighborly things that any of us ought to be willing to do. No one can live only for himself. We must help each other. I couldn’t buy a piece of cake for myself while a neighbor’s child was hungry for bread.”
“People use us because they know they can,” Shaina insisted. “You don’t see them doing anything for us.”
“We haven’t had a need,” Mother’s eyes filled with tears. “We can thank God for that.”
As Shaina met Mother’s eyes, her resolve softened. “You’re just too good for this world, dear Mother. I know that, whatever I say. I’ll finish the housework. Then we’ll have a nice, quiet day, just the two of us. You lie down until I call you for lunch.”
“You’re the best daughter a mother ever had.” Mrs. Foster kissed Shaina, then turned toward her bedroom.
Fateful phone call
When the work was finished, Shaina tiptoed up to her mother’s room. She had fallen asleep. Shaina stood watching her for a moment, studying her kind face. Mother’s beautiful, she thought. Even the wrinkles seem like marks of gracious living.
Suddenly the telephone jangled. It’ll wake her! Shaina worried, hurrying to answer the call.
“Hello!” a strange voice began. “Is this Mrs. Foster?”
Shaina frowned. If this was another telemarketer, she was not going to let them bother Mother. “Mrs. Foster is resting,” she parried. “I’m her daughter. I can take the message.”
The man hesitated. “This is Bert Jones. You may have heard of me.”
Ah yes! The man who had had pneumonia! Shaina’s heart hardened. What new disease would he expect Mother to nurse him through now? As if the pneumonia hadn’t been enough! “Yes, indeed I have heard of you, Mr. Jones.” Her voice was like ice.
“I have bad news, Miss Foster. Your—your father was involved in a car accident just outside my office. The car is totaled. Your father—well, the ambulance has taken him to the hospital.” His voice broke, then he continued. “Does your mother have a way to get to the hospital?”
“No. We have—had only one car.” Shaina’s mouth suddenly felt so dry she could hardly speak.
“Don’t worry, dear,” the man said. “I’m coming immediately to take your mother to the hospital. I don’t know whether she’ll be able to see him, but I know she’ll want to be there.” His voice softened. “Tell her gently, won’t you? Tell her we don’t know yet how extensive his injuries are. It may be nothing too serious.”
Shaina put down the phone and moved trancelike toward Mother’s bedroom.
(Continued in Part 3.)
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