Three

Enit loowed her friendly bovine greeting to the invader and thankfully woke me up from images of pollution and horror. It was pre-dawn, and the sky still dark and speckled with stars. "Lisbet? You awake yet?" Grandmother Bet called up to the loft.

"Aye, I am." I sat up and stretched. "Which do you want me to do, eggs or milk?" I called back down to her as I stood up and gathered the blanket I laid upon to shake out and fold.

"Neither, dear. Go sit with your mother, she is asking for you. She took a turn for the worse."

The blanket crumpled to the floor as the words sank into my mind. With speed I thought I could never possess, I made it down the ladder and into the house. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I skidded to a stop.

On the wall with the hearth, were the four family bedspaces, each with an herb and flower stuffed pallet topped with furs and woolen blankets. Mother moaned from hers, and whispered hoarsely, "Lisbet, where's my Lissybug?"

A hard knot formed in my throat at her use of my pet name. She hadn't called me her Lissybug since before Father died. "I'm here, Mama." Thoughts that I should have stayed up with her, tended her myself, maybe she wouldn't have faded the way she did surged through my mind. Just a day past, she was hearty and hale. To see her brought low so quickly attacked me at a primitive level.

Her arm swung wildly over the side of the bedspace as she tried to grab air. "I need.... I need you to help me." I rushed to her side, heart in throat, and held fast to her hand, letting her know I was there. My hands must have felt like ice in her fevered grip.

"What is it you want me to do, Mama?" Tears rolled down my cheeks, only to fall and stain the linen of my indigo tunic. Your Father is dead and your Mother soon to follow echoed through my head. My mother was supposed to live long enough to see my children grow and wed. My heart broke at the thought of her death. All I would have of her were the memories of wandering thought the forest in different seasons as she showed me what to harvest and how. Her patience with me as she taught me construction of simples, salves, poultices, oils, tinctures and brews and the way to properly administer them all. Grading the quality of dried herbs to find the finest for use... most importantly, her hugs and kisses and words of maternal comfort. My world crashed down upon me. I looked to her waxen face, and the shadows under her eyes ate away at the beauty that was once hers . Hollows in her cheeks made her look like an old woman. "Lissy, get--get me the... the poppy. Please."

Her request stunned me. For all the bones I'd set, toothaches cured, cuts stitched and healed, for all the birthings I had attended, not once did Mother ever allow the use of the poppy for pain relief. Her tincture was strong, too strong. It was hard to gauge the correct dosage. Too little meant another dose must be used to be effective. Too much of the poppy, and one would fall into a peaceful sleep, never to wake up. Another wave of shock careened into my bones as realization bloomed like a rose in my mind. She was asking me to help her die to escape the pain. Nausea slammed into my chest. "The poppy?" My voice fell flat, leaden.

Her raspy voice ripped through the morning air. "Please! No... boil... to… lance." She paused and took a deep breath. "Lissy, for the love of your father, please release me from the pain..." Her voice faded away, but her glassy teal-blue eyes pierced my own. Right now, I could die, I could die and I don't think I'd care... but her death, I very much cared about.

I was standing in the middle of a mental war with myself. I could try to give her the correct dosage – her pain would abate and she could rest. But to give too much or too little was a thought of horror. I did not want my mother to die, and I did not want her to die from my hand.

I felt torn, as I hated seeing mother writhe in unrelenting agony and knowing that with a wee touch of poppy, she would be at peace. But what if she rebounded back from the plague on her own, as some did? I was at a loss at what to do. My heartbreak must have been visible, since Mother then said, "There is no shame.... in giving mercy.... to those in need." Each word took more effort for her to say than the one before.

Tears welled up and flowed down my face like floodwater. "Do you want me to fetch Father Simon? Or send someone for him?" I asked, knowing that if I were to administer tincture of poppy, then circumstances for his presence to give her the last rites would be ripe.

"No... there's nothing he... can do for me now... Lissy, the buboe won't emerge... I felt it rupture... inside me... I am already dead." I gasped. If the boil came to a head, it could be lanced, drained of it's fetid contents and dressed. Most people who get lanced survive, provided the wound didn't get inflamed. But if the boil never comes to a head, it festers inside the body, growing and pressing on sensitive areas until it bursts open and the poor person is poisoned from the inside out from reeking pus. There was no hope for her to recover any more. After a brief pause, she continued in her soft, raspy voice. "I just want the... pain to stop...two drams... of the tincture.... please."

My resolve broke. How could I deny her some measure of peace in her final moments? There was no chance I could over dose her. As she said herself, she was dead.

My heart broke again and again with each step I took towards the small pharmacea we made out of what was once a storeroom. Shelves lined the walls of the rectangular space, with the exception of the narrow wall opposite the doorway. It held a tiny brick hearth. The oak-plank shelves held stone pots both empty and filled, wooden boxes, bowls of various sizes, a few small cauldrons and completed unguents. A table topped with a sandstone mortar and pestle was pushed up against a long wall. What was normally a place of contentment for me now felt like a prison and I was trapped by the warder, a mere potion.

With a deep, soul-filled sigh, I reached up to the top shelf, in the corner furthest away from the door and grabbed the tiny bottle containing tincture of poppy. As an afterthought, I took down a small pot of honey. Poppy is a bitter tincture, and honey would sweeten away the foul flavor. I didn't want Mother to suffer any more than she already had.

At the table, I measured out two drams into a small wooden cup, and stirred in enough honey to make it a thick syrup. Even if it didn't make it down to her stomach, syrup of poppy would coat the inside of her throat and be ingested that way. I didn't want her hurting anymore, and if this was the guarantee that she would keep the medicine down, then so be it.

I will tell you the truth, never had I cried harder in my life, as than when I walked back to my mother's bedside, knowing that even though she was doomed regardless, in my hand held poison to ease her out of this life. I would rather heal my mother than kill her. That was denied me, made me bitterly angry that I was not to be a healer this day coming to the rescue, but an executioner, ax in hand. For the first time ever, I was glad Father wasn't alive to witness this act of "mercy."

Blinded by the tears, I reached Mother's bedside quickly. My grubby hand wiped at my face, freeing my eyes from the tears that wouldn't stop pouring. "I'm here Mama. I brought you the poppy. Mama?" Silence met me. "Mother?" With my free hand, I felt the side of her neck, looking for a pulse of life. There was none. Gone no more than three minutes to complete my task, but in that tiny span of time, I missed a lifetime.

The cup fell from my hand and spilled upon the floor. I sank into the mess, weeping bitterly. I wasn't fast enough and she died in pain. I let my mother die in pain, alone. She, who tended my father with such devotion was cheated out of that same care by me. Guilt shook my frame just as hard as sadness did. My mother was gone, nothing but a lifeless shell with a look of pain emblazoned across her face, forever etched into my mind.

Grandmother came through the door, milk pail in one hand, the other holding up a corner of her apron to make a makeshift basket for the chicken eggs it contained. She took in me crumpled upon the flagstone floor weeping wildly, my mother staring sightlessly into the space in front of her, and the spilled cup by my side. With a crash, the pail fell out of her grasp, spilling milk across the floor and the eggs shortly followed with a rat-tat-tatting shatter. The mess traveled across the stone floor slowly to me, to end up mixing with the spilled poppy syrup at my side. Grandmother Bet held both hands to her face in disbelief and horror.

"Lisbet, what in the name of God happened?"

I cried harder, unable to vocalize the request Mother had made, and my effort to fulfill it before she passed.

With all the coherency I could muster, I said through the sobs, "My mama died."

And on that day, a part of me died, too.