Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran Read Free Book Online

bemused smiles at the young, smooching couple, adding to the dark looks darting from a group of elderly women. Marjan considered turning away, leaving them to it, but on second thought remained where she was. An image of an overweight monk, the Fat Friar from the
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advertisement, popped into her head. She let out a loud cough. The pair of them looked up with a start, Layla giggling coquettishly Malachy wearing a wide grin, his arms still wrapped around his girlfriend. Marjan smiled back, handing each of them a glistening corncob wrapped in wax paper. “Have you seen Estelle anywhere? Weren't you two supposed to pick her up?”
    Layla brought her hand to her opened mouth. “Oh, I completely forgot! She called right after you left. Said she couldn't make it tonight. Her arthritis is acting up again. Said she'll callyou tomorrow.” Layla twisted open the top of the papered cob with a guilty look. “It slipped my mind. Sorry Marjan.”
    “Did you want me to check up on her?” Malachy assembled his shoulders into a manly stance. “I can borrow my aunt's car and go up there now, if you want.” No longer at home in his childhood house, the young man spent his weekends down from Trinity College at his aunt Margaret McGuire's.
    “That's okay, Malachy. The roads are still slippery from the shower earlier. I'll give her a call later,” Marjan replied, her eyebrows knitting with worry. Estelle did not usually let her arthritis stop her from attending a party; this latest bout must have been especially debilitating. When it acted up, which was quite regularly nowadays, the older lady's arthritis could leave her just a shadow of her usual chirpy self.
    A gentle ripple of applause filled the air, followed by a quick scrambling for seats. One of the first to settle near the front of the pyre was Bahar, who had been thoroughly captivated by Father Mahoney's pithy speech. Oohs and aahs resounded across the field as Fiona Athey stepped up to the straw man with a lighted match. She paused dramatically before the crowd, waiting for Father Mahoney's nod.
    As the flames took hold of the dried grass, Godot the goat gave another bleat from his elmy hideout, mourning his burnt supper, no doubt.

    FIVE MILES AWAY, in a hillside cottage, an old lady was wincing in pain. As Estelle wrung the bloody washcloth into the bedpan, she could feel another wave stab the ligaments in her already aching fingers and wrists. She took in a deep breath and countedto ten, uttering a quick prayer to Saint Jude for mercy. If any ailment deserved its own saint, she told herself, then arthritis was certainly top of the list. The pain was nothing new; the changing season always triggered its darkest head. But in the last two hours her fingers had swollen to twice their size, and that was surely a record. It had taken her a whole five minutes to run a clean cloth under hot water and apply it again to the girl's sores.
    The mermaid lay perfectly still as Estelle laid the warm compress between her legs. She didn't even let out a cry as a disk of greenish pus seeped from a cut, darkening the white gauze.
    Estelle cringed and averted her eyes. It was an infection all right. There was not as much blood as when she had first found her, lying facedown in the sand—an improvement, she supposed—but this infection could mean a turn for the worse. And then, there was the fever to contend with as well. Estelle sighed, returning the soggy washcloth to the pan. She placed it on the bedside table and made her way around the perimeter of the large bed, tucking in the duvet as she went along.
    Although she let out a low and breathy moan a few times, the mermaid did not open her eyes. It was as though she was no longer living, yet not passed through that shimmering threshold, the afterlife.
    Estelle was glad she had called Dr. Parshaw, even if she had only gotten the nurse at the hospital this late in the day. Once he got her message, he would be right over, she was sure