Margaret hurriedly got out of bed and ran down the corridor toward the closed door of her son’s room. Through the door, she could hear strange animal sounds. Her heart pounding wildly, she pushed the door open.
Her husband lay on the floor, his face and body contorted. One eye was closed and the other stared up at her grotesquely. He was trying to speak, and the words came out as slobbering animal sounds.
Margaret whispered, “Oh, Jamie—Jamie!”
Dr. Teeger said, “I’m afraid the news is bad, Mrs. McGregor. Your husband has had a severe stroke. There’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll live—but if he does, he’ll be a vegetable. I’ll make arrangements to get him into a private sanitarium where he can get the proper care.”
“No.”
He looked at Margaret in surprise. “No…what?”
“No hospital. I want him here with me.”
The doctor considered for a moment. “All right. You’ll need a nurse. I’ll arrange—”
“I don’t want a nurse. I’ll take care of Jamie myself.”
Dr. Teeger shook his head. “That won’t be possible, Mrs. McGregor. You don’t know what’s involved. Your husband is no longer a functioning human being. He’s completely paralyzed and will be for as long as he lives.”
Margaret said, “I’ll take care of him.”
Now Jamie finally, truly, belonged to her.
11
Jamie McGregor lived for exactly one year from the day he was taken ill, and it was the happiest time of Margaret’s life. Jamie was totally helpless. He could neither talk nor move. Margaret cared for her husband, tended to all his needs, and kept him at her side day and night. During the day, she propped him up in a wheelchair in the sewing room, and while she knitted sweaters and throw-robes for him, she talked to him. She discussed all the little household problems he had never had time to listen to before, and she told him how well little Kate was getting along. At night she carried Jamie’s skeletal body to her bedroom and gently lay him in bed next to her. Margaret tucked him in and they had their one-sided chat until Margaret was ready to go to sleep.
David Blackwell was running Kruger-Brent, Ltd. From time to time, David came to the house with papers for Margaret to sign, and it was painful for David to see the helpless condition Jamie was in. I owe this man everything, David thought.
“You chose well, Jamie,” Margaret told her husband. “David is a fine man.” She put down her knitting and smiled. “He reminds me of you a bit. Of course, there was never anyone as clever as you, my darling, and there never will be again. You were so fair to look at, Jamie, and so kind and strong. And you weren’t afraid to dream. Now all your dreams have come true. The company is getting bigger every day.” She picked up her knitting again. “Little Kate is beginning to talk. I’ll swear she said ‘mama’ this morning…”
Jamie sat there, propped up in his chair, one eye staring ahead.
“She has your eyes and your mouth. She’s going to grow up to be a beauty…”
The following morning when Margaret awakened, Jamie McGregor was dead. She took him in her arms and held him close to her.
“Rest, my darling, rest. I’ve always loved you so much, Jamie. I hope you know that. Good-bye, my own dear love.”
She was alone now. Her husband and her son had left her. There was only herself and her daughter. Margaret walked into the baby’s room and looked down at Kate, sleeping in her crib. Katherine. Kate. The name came from the Greek, and it meant clear or pure. It was a name given to saints and nuns and queens.
Margaret said aloud, “Which are you going to be, Kate?”
It was a time of great expansion in South Africa, but it was also a time of great strife. There was a long-standing Transvaal dispute between the Boers and the British, and it finally came to a head. On Thursday, October 12, 1899, on Kate’s seventh birthday, the British declared war on the Boers, and three days later the Orange Free State was under attack. David tried to persuade Margaret to take Kate and leave South Africa, but Margaret refused to go.