by Lucy Lambert
"He'd be too drunk to care, and you know it! Father was a miserable husk of a man, so stop glorifying him! Maybe if he were around, it would be better. Those awful witches would see what war really does to a man!"
Mother took two quick steps around the table and slapped me across the face. It stung right away, twisting my head around to the side. I clutched at my cheek, my jaw dropping. She'd never hit me before. Never. What had become of my mother? She was a different person.
"Don't you dare speak about your father like that ever again. Those women are coming over whether you like it or not, you petulant child. Run away to your park, or hide up in your room for all I care.”
I rubbed at my cheek, shaking. Everything seemed to be coming apart. Why was she choosing strangers over me? Couldn't she see how this hurt me, how deeply her words cut into me? I had to try. They couldn't step foot in that house so long as I called it home.
"Please, mother, don't let them come in. I just couldn't live with it! If... If they set one foot inside that door, I'm leaving. And I'm not coming back."
Mother crossed her arms under her breasts, her lips pressed together until they turned white. She refused to look at me.
"Then go," she said, picking up the plates from the table. She scraped my sandwich and her leftovers into the bin by the sink and began rinsing the dishes under the tap, the porcelain making a tinkling noise as she splashed water across the countertop.
As I already had my shoes on, I stormed out through the kitchen, through the living room, and to the front door.
My initiative faltered as I reached for the door handle. I held the cool metal knob in my hand. It quickly heated with the warmth flowing through me.
Was she really going to just let me go? Part of me held out hope that she'd call out "Eleanor, wait!" and I would run back to the kitchen. We'd hug and forgive each other, and she'd tell me that she'd changed her mind about having the war wives over.
Glass shattered in the kitchen. Her vigorous scrubbing had done it in. But the tap never stopped spewing water out, and she said nothing at all.
I put my other hand against the door and leaned my forehead on the wood paneling. Mother wasn't going to call out to me. The heat I'd been feeling washed away under a cool wave that sent my muscles trembling.
No, I'd dared besmirch the good name of my dearly departed father. I hated the war, and I hated those women. And she couldn't understand that. I licked at my lips; they'd become so dry.
So I grabbed my bonnet from the rack beside the door and squished it down on top of my head, not caring if my hair came loose. I should have run upstairs to grab the little bit of money I had under my bed. I should have gone through my closet and dresser and packed everything in the worn old leather suitcase I had.
Instead, I opened the door. The breeze brushed past my body, ruffling my dress between my legs. I didn't look back as I slammed the door behind me with enough force to rattle the pane of glass set near the top of it.
The sound startled a horse pulling a small carriage, and the driver gave me a glare for the trouble.
"I'm sorry!" I said, not directing the words at anyone in particular.
The sun, having burned through the clouds, heated the back of my neck and my shoulders, working some of that cold, tense energy from my muscles as I went up Weber Street and made a right onto Victoria. The light glinting off all the windows on the Kaufman factory dazzled my eyes, which stung terribly anyway.
Instead of going to the park, I walked all the way up to Marie Beech's end unit townhouse. Waves of heat shimmered off its brown bricks, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped up onto the covered porch. A single bead of sweat made its way in the crease of my spine, down the small of my back. A few strands of my bangs had been glued to my forehead by perspiration.
My knuckles rapped sharply three times on the door before I'd really thought about what I was doing there. Supper wasn't for hours. Marie might not even be home, I thought.
But what sent my thoughts scampering around my head was the knowledge that she might be home. What would I say? What would I do?
My heart rode up my throat. I couldn't be there, laying all this new trouble at Marie's feet. Her son was on his way by train to Halifax at this very moment, ready to fight for King and country against an enemy whose home lay thousands of miles away from Canada's broad borders.
I turned to go. My right foot had dropped down to the first step on the porch when the door opened behind me.
"Eleanor? Where are you going?"
My shoulders hunched up as though I were a child trying to sneak out after a grounding. I turned. Marie's smile dropped from her face when she saw my dishevelled appearance. I hadn't cried yet. At least, I don't think that I had. But I knew what a picture I must have made.
She rushed out from the door in her slippers. Grabbing up my hands in her own, she asked me what was the matter.
I buried my face in her shoulder. She smelled of lavender and fresh cotton.
She didn't push me away, or tell me to stop being a child. Instead, she smoothed my hair with her hand.
"It's okay, dear. Come inside and we'll talk. I'll make tea. Would you like some tea?"
"Yes," I said, swallowing heavily as I moved out of her arms, trying to straighten my hair, pushing strands of it up under my bonnet.
I let Marie lead me into her home. She sat me down on the couch, clucking and cooing and telling me that everything would be fine and to just let her get the kettle on the stove. My fingers drummed out a nervous beat on my knees until I forced them to clasp in my lap. But they wouldn't stay woven together that way, one of my thumbs stroking the top of the other, my fingers prodding and scratching at one another.
Dishes clattered in the kitchen, the tap running for a few moments.
Then Marie came back out. She sat down in the chair beside the sofa, leaning forward a little.
"While we wait for our tea, why don't you tell me what's happened? I wasn't expecting you until dinnertime," she smiled and nodded at me reassuringly, letting me know that this was no inconvenience to her at all.
So I related to Marie what had happened less than half an hour ago. Her smile never faltered, but her eyes narrowed as I continued, the muscles in her cheeks tightening.
The kettle started whistling from the stove when I finished. I cut off abruptly, uncertain what to do or say next. I couldn't read Marie's expression as she looked at me, and I found myself staring at down at my nervous fingers.
"The tea!" Marie said, jumping from her seat as the whistling grew shrill.
She rushed again into the kitchen, opening cupboards and pulling down cups and saucers. When she came back down, she placed two matching white cups with delicate pink flowers on them on the table. It was black tea.
"They didn't deliver any milk today," she said, "I hope you don't mind."
The water had just come off the boil, but I didn't care. I looped my finger under the handle. The porcelain burned against my hand, and the tea scalded my tongue and the roof my mouth. Marie watched me sipping at it, and she kept watching me as I placed it back down on the saucer.
"Shall I go have a talk with your mother, Eleanor?"
"It would do no good," I said. I had to keep rubbing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, it stung so.
"It's that bad, eh?"
"Something's broken inside her. I could see it in her eyes. She looked at me like I wasn't her daughter anymore. Oh, Marie, what's happened?"
"It's this war. People think it doesn't reach us, with all that water separating Canada from those battlefields. But it does. And it's all the worse when people don't recognize it. We think we're out of harm's way..."
Her eyes glassed over for a moment, and I knew that she also thought of Jeff sitting on that train, hundreds of miles away, speeding towards Nova Scotia.
"They say there are U-boats outside St. John's harbor," she said.
Then she shook her head, and her sight returned to the here and no
w. She offered me her hands and I accepted them. Her skin was warm and calloused, dry without a hint of moisture. How could she stand the worry so well? I wondered.
"Eleanor, you're going to stay with me."
"Marie! I can't," I began.
She shushed me. "No, I won't hear any answer but 'yes.' You've nowhere else to go, and I won't have my future daughter-in-law sleeping in the streets. You'll stay here until your mother finds the good sense to realize her mistake."
Some of the tension went out of my shoulders as she squeezed my fingers reassuringly. My throat wouldn't let any words out, so I smiled and nodded at her.
"We won't let Jeff hear of this. It will just worry him."
"I wish I were going with him!" I said.
I blurted the words, not really considering them. I knew that I couldn't go with him; women were not allowed anywhere near those trenches. And besides, I hadn't the money for the train ticket out to Halifax. And there were few to no ocean liners willing to take civilians over. Most of them had been requisitioned by the government for troop transport in any case. It was an impossibility. I was stuck in Kitchener.
"I know, dear, I know," Marie said.
She withdrew one of her hands and gently stroked my cheek.
After supper, I explained to Marie about how I'd left so hastily that I'd brought almost nothing with me. No clothes, no money. I told her that I'd contribute all I could from my meager salary to the added expense of having me around. She replied that it wasn't necessary.
The guest bedroom was mine for the duration of my stay. I also helped her pull down a dusty old chest from the attic. The old padlock set in it wasn't locked. Inside were her old dresses. Marie was a few inches shorter than I; nothing that making sure I kept my stockings pulled up wouldn't fix. And they were decades out of style, but I said nothing as she pulled out dress after dress, holding them up against me and saying how pretty I'd be in them, how pretty she'd felt wearing them.
It was a side of Marie I'd never seen. She came from a Mennonite family, and I'd always thought her somewhat severe and disciplined, if kind. I'd never pictured her as a young woman who wanted to feel pretty. It must have positively scandalized her family.
She enjoyed it so much, and I realized then that she must have desperately wanted a daughter to play with. But she'd had two sons. Jeff's brother had died as an infant in his crib many years ago. Jeff was the younger of the two, and thus had no memory of the other boy.
Marie's sudden and unexpected girlishness pulled me from my foul mood, and I found myself smiling and laughing with her. For the first time that day, I felt as though things might turn out all right after all.
Chapter 8
Marie rose with the sun the next morning. The guest bed was hard beneath my back, the mattress worn and sagging slightly in the middle. I hadn't slept well during the night, spending most of it rolling from one side to the other, fluffing the pillow, alternating between pulling the cover up all the way and kicking it down to the foot.
I didn't even want to think about how my hair looked after all this commotion. I'd tied in into a ponytail, but from the way it splayed about my shoulders in tangles and knots, I didn't hold out much hope.
Over the course of a life, you become used to the sounds a building makes. As the air cools, I knew, a house settles, creaking and groaning like an old man lowering himself into a chair.
The groans and creaks of my house were as familiar a sound to me as my own name, and therefore didn't frighten me. But every pop, every shifting board, of Marie's townhouse sent my eyes fluttering open.
So, when she finally got up, I too was quick to rise. The bits of sleep I'd managed to snap up had been filled with more of those terrible battlefield dreams.
A hot run of morning sun came in through the gap in the thick, black drapes. Marie busied herself downstairs, and I could smell fresh oatmeal on the stove. And coffee. Mother had never really let me have coffee, especially since the rationing started.
I thought to myself about how fortunate Jeff was to have a mother like Marie, and that anger I'd felt against him heated in my chest again. How could he leave her, and a home like this one?
After a moment's indecision, I pulled on a plain white skirt that ended just a little too high over my ankles, and a light blue blouse the color of a morning sky that was just a little too loose in the chest and shoulders.
The traffic on Victoria Street hadn't picked up much with the bustle of daily activities, and I paused for a moment as flock of ducks laughed somewhere in the distance.
Against the inside wall was a dressing table with an old, warped mirror. A brush I'd borrowed from Marie sat on the chipped finish of the surface.
The knots were stubborn that morning, and I found myself hissing and gritting my teeth as I worked them all loose. The sweet smell of the oatmeal grew stronger, the aroma of the coffee richer. I could barely take the time to splash my face with some water in the bathroom before rushing downstairs.
"Hello, Eleanor. I hope you slept well? That old mattress..." Marie said, looking back at me over her shoulder from the stove.
"Quite well," I lied, the saliva squirting into my mouth the whole while.
"Sit, then. Have some oatmeal. Would you like some coffee?"
I accepted both as graciously as I could, my stomach growling its insistence the whole while. She sat and ate with me. We were both quiet, the only noises the steady increase of traffic outside and the light tink of metal spoon against glass bowl.
There was no cream for the coffee, and only a pinch of sugar each. But each sip invigorated my senses, and the bitterness and heat of it made me drink it slowly. I was only about half finished my cup when Marie excused herself.
"I have a few errands to run down in Waterloo," she said.
"May I come? I could help you..." I began, but she waved me to silence.
"Sorry, Eleanor, but I'll have to attend to these by myself. Thank you, though, dear. I'm sure the paper will be delivered soon. I should be back before lunch, but if you get hungry then please eat!"
I wanted to ask if she intended on going to the telegram office. Maybe Jeff had sent a message? Or, I thought, maybe I could ask her to send him one? I thought that he'd probably be in Halifax by now. How long would it take for the ship to leave? And which ship would he board? I again found myself hoping that he'd get on the somewhat slower Olympic.
Though, now that I thought of it, the speed of the Mauretania might keep him safe from those U-boats. Especially with them so close to Canada. How could they have gotten as close as St. John's?
"Don't worry," Marie said, putting her hands on the shoulders and looking down on me with a motherly smile, "If there is any word from Jeffrey, I will share it with you as soon as I come home!"
Then she kissed me on the forehead and left. That smile never left her lips. I wondered at why she seemed so happy.
***
True to her word, Marie returned just before noon struck. I'd spent the morning avoiding the paper. It just talked more about conscription, the evils of the Germans, and how many of our boys and men we'd already lost.
The front door opened and I stood from where I'd been sitting on the couch. I rounded the corner of the doorway to look for Maria in the entry hall. She hung her hat on the coat rack and slipped her feet from the pair of plain black flats she'd worn out.
She had a brown paper bag cradled in one arm, and several white and manila envelopes clutched in her hand.
"Here, let me take that for you," I said, holding out my hands for the bag.
Marie smiled and handed it to me. It contained a small loaf of fresh bread, some eggs, and a bottle of milk. These I put in their places in the kitchen.
The smell of the bread reminded me how close we'd come to lunch, whetting my appetite. With that bread, I imagined we'd be having sandwiches of some sort.
Mother and I had been eating sandwiches before our fight, I remembered. My appetite faltered slightly, but remained on its fe
et. Everything had turned out well so far. Certainly, I'd lost nearly all my possessions: my collection of Bronte novels, my dresses and other clothes, all of my toiletries. But thanks to Marie's kindness I wasn't out a roof over my head, or food in my stomach.
I'd searched to see if Marie had any interesting novels to read. I'd been wanting to re-read Jane Eyre. But there were few books that weren't philosophy or religion, and no fiction. While that had disappointed me, I hadn't been surprised. Marie didn't seem the type to lose herself in tales of the love lives of British gentry.
Marie came into the kitchen and sat at the table, laying the various envelopes down. I couldn't make out any of the addresses or names. But I did sit down across from her. It would be rude to start making myself lunch, even though my stomach panged.
"Any news from Jeff?" I asked, still trying to read the envelopes to see if any were telegrams.
"None," she said.
She grabbed an envelope marked with the crest of the Royal Bank of Canada and tore it open. Inside had to be several hundred dollars in newly minted bills. Marie counted them out on the table as I frowned. What was she doing with all this money?
I watched in silence as she licked one thumb and continued counting. Outside, a horn howled its protest and a horse whinnied in return. The sunlight came in through the windows, catching the dust in the air and leaving shimmering patterns of shadow across the countertop. I grasped my knees and smiled in my ignorance. I hoped that she'd mention lunch soon. I didn't know how much longer I could keep my stomach quiet.
Then Marie sat back, blinking. She had the tip of her tongue held lightly between her teeth.
"Yes," she said finally, "This should be enough."
"Enough for what, Marie?"
"Oh," Marie said, jerking slightly at my interruption as though she'd forgotten that I sat right across from her.
"First, Eleanor, let me apologize for being so secretive earlier. I just didn't want to tell you without first knowing whether it was possible. I didn't want to get your hopes up only to chop them off at the knee, you see?"