Carefully she took a few clothes from out of the blanket and placed them in the drawer. There was another dress, as sacklike and shapeless as the one she was wearing, some underwear, and one other pair of long stockings. But something was left in the folds of Maddie’s old blanket, a lump still in there. Both sisters noticed. Maddie tied the blanket again around the lump and kept it on her lap.
Idella stood in the corner, looking out the window. She didn’t have the strength to be nice to this one, didn’t want to be bothered. They all left, the girls. What was the point?
“You walk the whole way from Salmon Beach?” Avis was so nosy.
“Oui.” Idella looked over at Maddie impatiently. “Yes,” Maddie said. “It was Salmon Beach.”
“They tease Dad about them notices at Wheeler’s Store,” Avis said. “Mr. Wheeler said he should charge Dad a nickel for every one he puts up, and he’d be rolling in it.”
“Avis, get your feet off the bed with them shoes.” Idella reached down and brushed dried clods of field off the patchwork spread. She’d worked hard getting that clean.
“Did you sleep somewheres?” Avis ignored her sister and leaned over toward Maddie eagerly, her behind barely lighting on the edge. “You come so early this morning.”
“In a barn.”
“They know you was in there?”
“The horses.” Maddie smiled. “And the cow. I drank milk.”
“From the cow?” Avis laughed. “You put your mouth right up over her tittie?”
“Avis!”
Maddie laughed. “I spray.” Maddie made a noise like something squirting. “It is good. Warm.”
“Why’d you come here?” Idella turned from the window and snapped the question across the room.
Maddie looked at her. “Here I get air. Not like the lobster factory.”
“You work there?” Avis asked.
Maddie nodded. “I hate it.”
“Me and Idella watch the girls walk up and down on their lunch break. We can see them from our back field.”
Idella could see, even from this distance, that Maddie’s fingers were covered with ragged cracks. They looked red and sore.
“What you got in there?” Avis pointed at the bundle.
“Avis! That’s none of your business! Quit picking at her. You’re going at her like she was a lobster. Pick, pick, pick.”
Maddie looked down at her large hands and shrugged her broad shoulders.
All that first day, Maddie moved slowly about the house, taking things in. She was nervous, fidgety at the beginning. Avis followed her like a fly. Idella stood off to the side more and watched. Maddie studied everything. She went into Mother’s pantry and shook and lifted all the bags and barrels. She pulled the tops off all of Mother’s spice jars and put her nose close down into them to smell the precious contents. She put her hands on everything.
“What is this?” Maddie reached high up and took the jar of honey from the top shelf.
“You can’t touch. It was Mother’s special honey.” Idella grabbed it. “It was from Dad.”
Maddie looked at Idella. “Pardon. I did not know.”
“Honey keeps forever.” Idella placed the jar back exactly where it had been. “I’m keeping it forever where she put it. You French girls touch everything.”
There was the sound of a wagon approaching. Maddie turned quickly from the window and put her head down, as though trying to disappear.
“Hello there, you Hillocks!” The man in the wagon was yelling. “Need anything in Salmon Beach today?”
“That’s just Mr. Pettigrew,” Avis said. “He always calls that when he goes by. He’s nice enough.” She ran to the door. “No thanks, Mr. Pettigrew. Not today.”
“Just asking.” He kept his wagon moving. “Tell your dad not to work too hard!” He laughed as he said it. “Tell him I said so.”
“Do many people go on the road?” Maddie asked.
“Nah. The Pettigrews, ’cause they live farther up. The Doncaster boys go tearing by. They’re always cursing at each other, so you know it’s them. Then Mrs. Doncaster yells after them from her porch. Come on out to the barn.” Avis took Maddie’s hand and pulled her out into the yard. Idella followed at a distance.
Maddie looked at every chicken, like one was different from the other. She came up behind them as they scattered about the yard, felt them, put her hand down around their bodies, and laughed when they pecked her.
She put her hand on the muzzle of Tater, the cow, who turned her big head heavily in Maddie’s direction. “You have a nice cow,” she said as they stood in the doorway of the barn watching her.
“Idella saved that cow’s life,” Avis said. “She got a chunk of potato stuck in her throat, and that cow was going to choke to death.”
“Let me tell her, Avis—it was me that done it. Dad was yelling for me from the barn, see, and I didn’t know what he wanted, but I knew he wanted it bad! He said, ‘You’ve got to get that potato. We can’t get our arms down there.’ So I did his bidding. Dad and Dalton held her mouth open, and I reached my arm in—I stuck it way down in, through the mouth and beyond—and I felt around, and then I come to it—I got my fingers around it, and I pulled my hand out all along the way with that piece of potato. Dad told me I’d saved the day. He used them words.”
“That’s why we call her Tater,” Avis said. “We used to have two cows, but the best milker went with Baby Emma.”
“Who is Baby Emma?”
“Our sister.” Avis picked up bunches of loose hay and scattered them over her head, twirling about. “She’s two on May Day. She lives ten miles away, and she needed the cow for her milk. Mother died having her.”
“Avis!”
“Well, she did.” Avis stopped her spinning and stood. “So Dad give her to Aunt Beth. She wanted a girl, and Dad had two already.”
Maddie stood with her hand on the cow and looked at Avis and then Idella. “C’est triste,” she finally said, then caught herself. “Sad. So sad.”
“She was beautiful,” Idella said, returning Maddie’s sorry gaze with narrowed eyes. “Our mother was beautiful. She was a lady. She wasn’t anything like you.”
“Non.” Maddie shook her head, her fingers still splayed heavily on the back of the cow. “Non. Not like me.” She spoke softly. “I am sorry, Idella. I did not know what happened to your mother. I did not have a mother for long.”
“Did she die?” Idella asked.
“She left me.”
“Left you? By dying?” Avis asked.
“By going in a wagon and not taking me. She left me with my father.”
Avis persisted. “He nice to you?”
Maddie looked at Avis. “There was no jar with honey.”
“Dad got that honey for Mother special from the man with bees,” Idella said.
“I am sorry I moved the jar. Don’t be mad, Idella. Please.”
Idella ran up to the pile of hay and kicked her leg through it, scattering stiff bits in a prickly flurry. She turned and ran into the house, jumping over the porch step and slamming the door.
“What bit her on the ass?” Avis said, staring after her.
Maddie turned and smiled at Avis. “Such talk, Petite Avie. She is sad. And angry.”
“Petite Avie?” Avis laughed. “Is that French for ‘Pretty Avis’?”
Maddie reached over and pulled bits of straw from Avis’s hair. “Pretty Avis. Oui. Sad Idella.”
Maddie did not go to sleep when the girls did. She said that she would just sit on her bed and look out the window. She slept very little, she said, and never before midnight or one.
“Well, you’d better get to sleep sooner than that to get up in time to do stuff,” Idella said, sitting stiffly on her bed in her nightgown.
“Ah, oui, I am up at dawn. I shake the rooster.”
“Why don’t you go downstairs with Dad?” Avis asked.
“Ah, non. Non, I belong here with you girls.”
“Well, I think thi
s is weird,” Idella said.
“Shut up, Idella, and go to sleep.” Avis was under the covers. “Then you won’t know she’s here.”
Idella did think it odd. She could feel Maddie’s heavy presence. She was such a poor hulk of a thing. Her cheeks were rough and reddish, as if she rubbed at her face a lot. Idella pulled the blanket up over her eyes. Still, her smile had a sweetness. It came and went so quick, like a rabbit skirting out of the tall grass and then freezing up again.
“Good night, Maddie,” Avis said finally, in a voice that had lost its vinegar. “I’m glad you’re here.” She was soon asleep.
Idella lay there longer, feeling the new presence in the room, smelling her body smells. There was dirt and milk and salt about her. Idella turned her face to the wall and fell asleep.
Avis sat up in bed the next morning and looked over at the small cot. The brown woolen blanket Maddie had brought was carefully spread over it. The lump was gone, and she was gone. “Where’s Maddie?”
“Look out the window, why don’t you?” Idella, who’d been lying awake, pointed toward the cliffs.
Maddie was standing at the top of the cliff ladder looking out to the bay.
“She better not go over the cliffside,” Idella said, joining Avis at the window. “Dad’d be mad as hell.”
Avis turned to Idella. “Let’s go through her things. I want to find her treasure.”
“No, Avis. That’s not nice. And she’s coming back now.”
“Maddie’s not very pretty, is she?” Avis said, watching again from behind the curtain.
“Well, no. I don’t guess she is,” Idella said.
They got themselves dressed and down the stairs. It was much earlier than usual for them, but they were interested. Maddie was now in the kitchen standing at the stove over the black iron fry pan. There was nothing in the pan yet. The blue tin pot on the stove had steam still coming out the spout; the smell of coffee was strong. Bill’s door was closed.
Maddie looked up when the girls came in. “Bonjour.” Her smile stayed a little longer than yesterday. “Café?”
“You think too much French in the morning,” Avis said. “You’ve got to switch to English before Dad gets up. He hates not knowing the words.”
“Coffee?” Maddie repeated. “Sweet?”
“Sure!”
“Avis! We don’t drink coffee yet.”
“I’m ready. Nobody offered it up before.” Avis got herself a cup off the shelf and held it under the pot. Maddie looked at Idella, who shrugged and went to get down her own cup. Maddie nodded and half filled Avis’s cup.
“Looks like spring mud,” Avis said.
Maddie pursed her lips and frowned. “Too strong you think I make it?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t say.” Avis took the cup from her. “Where’s the sweet?” Maddie pointed to the sugar bowl.
The bedroom door opened with a scrape. Bill came walking out, tousled and unshaven and blinking back the light of morning. “That’s the best smell of coffee I’ve woke to in about all my life, Maddie. It smells so strong I don’t even need to drink it. If you keep smells like that in the house, I’ll have to marry you.”
Idella saw Maddie turn red and her head go down. Her hair, still wild and windblown, fell forward and hid her face.
Dad pulled his suspenders up over each shoulder as he walked to the table. “You two are up early. Going fishing?”
“Dalton, he has gone.” Maddie placed a full cup of coffee in front of him and hurried back to the stove.
“He does everything alone.” Dad picked up the mug and held it under his nose. “This here is like a bed of roses to me, Maddie. To wake up and smell coffee. Not since Emma.” Idella watched as Dad took a cautious sip. “Jesus H. Christ!” His eyes sprang open. “Holy Mother of Jesus!” His voice boomed. All three girls froze as they watched him. “Did you add water?” He turned sharply and looked at Maddie. Then he threw back his head and laughed full out so that they could see the buttons of his long underwear rippling up and down like waves coming and going. “Is there new hair on my head?” he asked when he was able. “Did that sip do anything to me yet?”
Slowly, cautiously, the three girls shook their heads. None of them dared go beyond a smile yet.
“You make damn strong coffee, Maddie!” He took a larger swallow. “And it’s damned good!” They all started laughing then, happy and relieved.
There got to be a pattern to things pretty soon. Every morning when the girls woke early, they’d know to look out the window if they wanted to find Maddie. There were a few mornings when they could hear voices together out in the front yard. When they looked out, they saw Dalton talking to Maddie before he went down the ladder. Once they saw Maddie clap her hands and laugh at something Dalton said. Another time he was showing her how to do something, but they couldn’t figure out what it was. It might have been something to do with being in the boat, by the look of things, or with fishing. Dalton didn’t get excited by too many other subjects.
The coffee continued strong and hot. Dad got so he asked for a second cup before he’d finished the first and said he didn’t know how he’d gotten on drinking that watered-down piddle piss he used to call coffee. Maddie blushed.
For breakfast she cooked potatoes and then fried eggs in the black pan. Every day. The potatoes were hot and brown and crisp and the eggs all cooked through till the yolks were a crumbly light yellow and the whites mottled brown at the edges. Everyone ate them as she presented them, sliding onto the plate with a slap.
Dinner was potatoes and dried salted fish from the barrels. Supper was beans and salt pork and potatoes.
“Maddie, how come we eat the same thing every day for every meal?” Avis asked one morning after Dalton and Dad had left the table. “We ever gonna have something different?”
Maddie pursed her lips and kept scrubbing a plate. “You like what I cook?”
“It’s good,” Avis said, “but it’s sort of tiring to have the same thing every day.”
“Your father, he is complaining?”
“Not to me.”
“I’m getting awful tired of it,” Idella said, looking up from her plate. “I don’t think you know how to cook anything else.”
The girls soon learned there were things Maddie would not talk about, would not even finish listening to the question about—mostly about where she came from, what her folks were like, who her people were. It was as if she came out of nowhere.
“How come you never wear them boots you brought?” Avis asked her one morning. “You walked in here carrying ’em and hardly nothing else. Whose are they? They’re awful big.”
“They’re mine.”
Even Avis knew not to keep asking after that.
As she got more comfortable in the house, Maddie loved to question the girls—about growing things, about how things were done in the house with their mother. How was a table set properly? How was a hem sewn on a skirt? These were things that Idella, at ten, knew way too much about and that Maddie, at fifteen, should have known a lot more about than she did.
Hardly any sounds at all came out of her when she was around Bill. She would answer a question when asked—never more than a word or two—or just nod. She looked down at her feet when she finished her answer.
So far Avis had learned the most. Maddie had no brothers or sisters that she knew of. French was what she spoke when she was young, but she’d had to learn the English more when her mother left her. She once had a cat named Nuage, which meant cloud, but he got lost in the woods and probably eaten by something.
She had no middle name.
“Didn’t your mother give you one?”
“She never told me.”
Avis liked being called “Petite Avie” and started asking for words in French. This amused Maddie, and she would point to things and tell Avis the word: la fourchette, le cheval, la tasse, il pleut.
Avis made Maddie laugh out loud at breakfast one morning when she asked if she could pass her
“an oaf.” “Oeuf !” Maddie laughed. “Not ‘oaf.’”
“What is an oaf anyway?” Avis asked.
“Well, that’d be someone like me,” Dad said, laughing, too. “Right, Maddie?”
“Non.” Her laughter stopped. “Mon père,” Maddie replied. “Mon père est un ‘oaf.’”
Maddie wore the one dress over and over. It was gray wool, more like a blanket than a dress, tight over her breasts and under her arms. She’d worn it so much that it was soft and thin in places, like at the elbows. One day the girls noticed that she’d done something to the dress to make it fit across her front better. She’d taken strips of fabric from her brown blanket and sewn them into the side seams under the arms like panels. It looked funny, but the dress didn’t pull on her so. Her breasts were looser, not so bound. Idella and Avis chose to not say anything out loud about the changes, though they both noticed and discussed it between themselves.
There was a lot of brown to Maddie. Idella thought her hair and her eyes were the light color of leaves that’ve been on the ground the whole winter and crumble when you pick them up. An earthy brown.
But all of her color came out when she sang. The whole first week she was there, she didn’t sing a note. She was serious all the time. Then one day she started in singing while washing the windows. It was a clear, bright, windy day, and suddenly Maddie started singing a French song. It started soft and sort of hummy, then got louder as each window got cleaner, as if the more light she let in, the more sound she let out. It was like a bird singing in the house, Idella thought, listening from the bedroom.
One day Dalton came into the house unexpectedly for some lunch. He was quiet, as he heard Maddie singing upstairs. He stood in the kitchen and listened until she tumbled down the stairs, quilts to be aired in her arms. She stopped still upon seeing him.
“Go on, Maddie.”
“Oh, I thought no one was here.”
“No one was. Now I am.” He smiled. “I’d be glad for you to sing. Mother sang in the house, too.”
Maddie blushed and smiled. But she did not sing anymore. She went out to hang the quilts from the line. She shook them busily, snapping them from the corners, until she saw Dalton come off the porch. Sandwich in hand, he waved and walked on into the barn.
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay Page 5