She turned and went briskly out of the room, and April turned his face to the wall. His thin breast lifted, while one deep bitter sob after another shook him. He had fought a long hard fight with Death, and now he was sorry he had won! If he had known how things would be, how Joy would feel, he would have given up, but it was the thought of Joy that made him try to live.
April stayed on the bed in the shed-room day after day, looking out over the rice-fields where the tides rose and fell. Breeze’s work was changed from minding Joy’s baby to staying with April, keeping the flies off him, handing him water to drink.
Few plantation sounds could reach this shed-room at the back of the cabin and when staying by April became unbearable, Breeze would go outside and walk as far as the water’s edge, or stand by the window watching cranes and kingfishers. One old bald eagle spent much of his time on a branch of an old dead tree and when a fish-hawk dived and got a fish the eagle took it from him.
April complained little. Once when the night was damp and the sound of the poison machine louder than usual he got very restless. He said it was hard to lie helpless. Without legs. Flat on his back. Most of the time alone. While another man took his place. But except for sighs and a few moans, that was all.
At first the people on the place came often to see him. They brought him things to eat. A chicken, a few eggs tied up in a cloth, a bottle of molasses, whatever they had that they thought he might enjoy. Occasionally some friend put a piece of money in his hand. But his persistent low-spiritedness and down-heartedness did not encourage them to come back. Soon they stopped only long enough by his window to say, “How you do to-day, April?” or “How you feelin’?” as they passed by, with troubled glances.
Uncle Bill was the exception. He came very often and he’d sit and listen as long as April wanted to talk about his weariness or his misery.
April never grew tired of telling over and over his experiences at the hospital. About the nurses and doctors, their kindness to him and interest in him. How he had fought through the long dark nights with pain. At first it was a steady fight, then after a while the pain came in showers. But he had thought out many things. He’d learned that every man has to bear his suffering alone. He realized that the doctors could not help him. Neither could his children, nor any friend. He had to go the whole way through by himself—to the very end.
When April first came home, Joy stayed with him every night, then she began going to parties and birth-night suppers once in a while, and finally, every night as soon as the supper was over and the dishes washed and put away, she’d tip quietly down the steps and go. Without a word.