Free The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick Page B

surgery.”
    â€œI’ll tell Nettie.” Patience was lost.
    Nettie and Ben had been in the same class all through school. He occasionally came out to the Nursery to deal with big projects: moving trees, building the split-rail fence and the willow trellis where the cutting sweet peas grew, digging the small pond at the edge of the wildflower meadow. He was a gentle man for all his size and was as careful around the plants as the Sisters were. Patience didn’t know that Ben had stayed withNettie after he finished filling Thaddeus Sparrow’s grave. He’d watched her, alone at the top of the hill, leaning against her mother’s headstone, crying. No one knew that on the day she’d buried her father, Ben discovered that he had feelings for Nettie. He climbed the hill to sit with her, leaving his shovel behind so that she wouldn’t think of him only as the gravedigger. Ben had given her his bandanna to blow her nose and helped her to her feet when she finished crying. It was too strange to talk about that day the longer they left it, so he and Nettie had simply gone on as they had before, buying each other’s goods and services, nodding to each other on the street, shaking hands at church. So, of course, Patience couldn’t make a connection between them, and Henry Carlyle had no reason to.
    Henry was shaking his head. “This isn’t about Nettie, or not directly. I tried to give Ben something for the pain, but he refused. He said you’d detoxed him.”
    â€œOh,” Patience said. “Oh, I get it.” She picked up the gin and ice and tried to walk around Henry, who didn’t get anything and hadn’t moved.
    â€œBen decided to clean up his act,” she said as she stopped in front of Henry. He could see the nimbus of light around her from the door and for a moment he could hardly focus.
    â€œHe’d been feeling kind of lurgy so I put together some stuff to, you know, wash him out.” Patience scooped her hand through the air.
    â€œLurgy? You have a cure for lurgy?” Henry blurted.
    â€œMore like some teas and a lot of water.”
    Ben had followed Patience’s instructions to the letter even though he’d come to her hoping to find a way to ask Nettie out. Patience suspected that Ben was in her barn because he was in love with someone. She could taste it in the air around him. But he didn’t ask for help with love.
    â€œAnd it worked?” Henry asked. “Your remedy?”
    â€œDon’t sound so skeptical,” Patience said.
    â€œIs lurgy a real ailment?” Henry asked as Patience stepped around him.
    Patience turned at the door, one foot already out. Henry saw heat rising from the pavement behind her and vaguely acknowledged that it was well and truly summer.
    â€œYou know, I don’t appreciate your jokes. This town has gotten along perfectly well with my help now and then. I’ve been just fine without you.”
    If Sorrel had heard how sharp Patience’s voice turned, she might have slapped her. As it was, Henry was the one who looked like he’d been hit. His cheeks reddened and his hands curled into fists, not to hit back but to keep himself from reaching out to grab Patience. He couldn’t believe how suddenly angry she was. Only hours before he’d felt slightly heroic as he worked over Ben; he’d felt accepted. Now it was as if he’d been repelled.
    The two stared at each other for a minute. Patience caught Pete’s eye over Henry’s shoulder. He was staring too. She banged out of the door before Henry could see how much she regretted her outburst. She wanted to drive away so she didn’thave to examine why she’d said, “I’ve been just fine without you” to a man she didn’t know.
    â€œJuniper,” Pete sniffed. “She’s wicked mad, but it’ll pass.”
    Henry inhaled and realized that Pete was right. The air was rich with the