“Ma, let’s not talk about this now.”
“That doctor had to cut her right down through to get that baby out. To half an inch it was from her rectum. Half an inch, I swear, is all. I saw it. I saw.”
“Ma!”
“Oh, my.”
Edward was pale. “Ma, please.”
“My dear, maybe we shouldn’t bother Idella with these details.” Mr. Jensen put his hand over his wife’s. She batted him away.
“I have never seen a baby come out so hard. All turned around, he was. Facing the wrong way. Cord around his neck. It was wrapped right around it, thick as a rope. A thick rope. It’s a wonder she didn’t burst right open. I thought honest to God it was going to happen and we’d lose her and the baby. Half an inch to her rectum. No more than that.”
“Ma, please.”
“My babies come out pretty easy compared to that.” Mrs. Jensen smiled and nodded toward Edward. “Eddie got the Scoullar legs like me. Ethel, too. Now, Ethel is my own daughter, and I love her, of course, but I knew when she was born, from the day she was born, that she would not be smart. Or pretty. She’s a good girl, but those two features are not hers.”
“Well, I haven’t met her yet. Eddie’s told me about her situation.”
“Oh, yes. Terrible. Left alone with three boys to raise. Husband killed at the mill on Thanksgiving. Terrible shock. They had him working in an ice storm, you know. His own father sent him out that night. His own father.”
“I can’t even imagine,” Idella whispered.
“Now, my Albert was smart. I like to think that he became a doctor. You can tell right away with babies. Albert was smart.” She smiled at Idella. “Any more steak? I’ve saved you a nice second cut.”
“Oh, no thank you, Mrs. Jensen. I’ll burst. It’s all so good. So delicious. I’m saving some room for the shortcake. I’m so looking forward to that. Why don’t you have that extra piece yourself?”
“Yes, my dear,” Mr. Jensen said. “You take that last piece.”
Mrs. Jensen shook her head. “You know I always seem to make that little bit of extra. Like for another person. Enough for one more. It’s Albert’s portion, I tell myself. That extra portion would have been for my Albert.”
“I’ll take it, Ma,” Eddie said, handing his plate toward his mother.
“Albert would be twenty-seven years old now. Imagine. Probably tall like Jens.”
“Ma, I’ll take that last piece.” Eddie reached across the table and forked the last steak. He was red in the face.
“Eddie!”
“Well, what about me?” He was shouting. “Did you decide about me? Did you have me down for feeding the chickens on the day I was born? Pulling the goddamned weeds from your garden!”
“Edward!” Mrs. Jensen gasped.
“I’ve heard all I’m ever going to hear about Albert! He was a goddamned baby, is all!” Edward rose up out of his chair and pounded his fist on the table. “A goddamned baby! He wasn’t anything. He died before he lived. ‘If Albert had lived. If Albert had lived.’ I’m here, goddamn it. I lived. You’re crazy, do you know that? You are a crazy woman, and if Albert had lived, he would have hated you, too, just like I do. A goddamned crazy woman.” The silver trembled against the plates. “And Ethel isn’t pretty! I’ve heard that enough. And she’s not smart. But she got out of this house. Away from your watching, watching, always watching. Always saying a mean thing. Crazy old lady sitting on the porch all day, watching.”
He grabbed his dinner plate and clutched it, shaking. Idella thought it might break down the middle, he was holding it so tight. Peas rolled off onto the floor. Their soft tumbling was all that could be heard. No one moved. Then Edward threw the plate across the table toward his mother. “Here! Give this to Albert. Give him my supper!” It landed with a thump in front of her, knocking over her glass. Water pooled and spread, a darkening puddle in the white linen.
He stormed from the dining room, sending a last tremor through the dishes on the table, and out the back of the house. The screen door screeched open and slammed shut. Idella sat, stunned, staring at her plate. There was a crack in it, a faint crack like a vein that linked the dried bits of meat, disappeared under the peas, and ran off the side, right up to the gold rim.
“Well,” Mrs. Jensen finally said, her voice gone all funny. “Well. Well.”
Mr. Jensen righted the spilled glass and sopped the water with his napkin. He took Eddie’s plate, bent down, and gathered up peas from the floor. Nothing was said. He worked gently and quietly. His long arms reached carefully across and in front of Mrs. Jensen, scraping up food.
She seemed not even to see him. The cameo brooch was heaving up and down on her blouse, like it, too, was gasping for air. She moved her head back and forth and began making whimpering sounds. She pursed and unpursed her lips, as though wanting to speak.
Idella felt so heavy—her head, her arms, her chest, all so heavy. She couldn’t move. She dared not speak. She only lifted her eyes in thanks when Mr. Jensen removed the plate from in front of her.
“The shortcake. My biscuits,” Mrs. Jensen simpered. The starch was all gone out of her. She peered up at Idella, so sad looking. Her thick glasses reflected the glare of the overhead light. “Do you want shortcake, Miss Hillock? Strawberry shortcake?”
“No thank you, Mrs. Jensen,” Idella answered. She stood and pushed her chair in. “I’d best go find Eddie. I think he went out back.”
She stepped carefully out of the dining room, past the slumped, chittering figure of Eddie’s mother. Mr. Jensen was cooing her to calmness like a mourning dove, gently stroking her hand.
Idella walked through the kitchen. Such a nice big kitchen, she thought. She saw the iron skillet askew on the eye of the stove. Dried clumps and shreds of burned meat clung to its bottom in thick patches. Its surface needs priming, Idella thought. A black iron pan is no use for frying if you don’t take good care of it.
The back room was taking on the evening’s coolness. Its darkness was soothing. Idella walked on through it, past the jars of preserved jams. I wonder what those are like, she thought. Sour probably. Or runny. Poor old soul. She noted the nice stacked shelves along the walls, some lined with empty canning jars. This back room did make a nice summer kitchen. She reached the screen door and swung it open. The raspy, hawing sound of the rusty hinge filled the air like an old crow’s call. She stood for a moment, holding the door open, looking out over the garden and field. Chickens quietly clucked in the little henhouse, their gentle pips of noise adding to the sense of quiet. A firefly blinked. Another, farther out.
And there was Eddie, over by the strawberry patch, scooched down on his haunches. He, too, was looking out at the field—a soft gray figure silhouetted in the dimming light, fuzzy around the edges as though sitting in a private fog. Mist rose up from the long field grasses and sat like puffs of smoke in the lower dips and hollows. Idella slipped gratefully out of her new shoes—she wasn’t used to wearing that much heel—and stepped down onto the cool, dark grass. She walked toward Eddie, choosing to let go the screen door so it screeched and banged closed behind her. Not for the last time, she thought, as she padded toward him, smiling. Not the last time she’d hear that screen door bang.
In the Family Way
Prescott Mills, Maine
September 1931
“Idella?”
It was impossible to hear clearly over the phone. Idella put a hand over her other ear. “Ethel? Ethel, is that you?” She hated to talk too loud with the phone here in the hall, on the bottom floor of the apartment house on Haskell Street. She’d been washing her hair in the sink when she heard the three-long, two-short ring that was theirs. The towel she’d wrapped around her head kept untwisting, and she needed both hands to get it back together. “Ethel?” She was sure she’d heard Eddie’s sister saying her name and then nothing, no sound. “This is Idella. Is that you?”
“It is. It’s me.”
She sounded terrible. “Is
everything okay? You sick?” More silence. “Is Mr. Jensen okay? Ethel, what is it?”
“Idella, I’m . . . I’m . . . Oh, God help me, I’m going to have a baby!”
“A baby!” It came out of Idella like a gust of wind. Her towel fell to the floor behind her, and her wet hair flopped into her face. “You’re sure about this?”
“I am. I been to Doc Russo. It’s four months now.”
“You been to the doctor?” Idella wasn’t absorbing the information as quickly as she got it. She could feel herself a beat behind. Four months! She reached up and squeezed the back of her wet hair. Dribbles of still-soapy water went down her back and got her dress wet. What in Holy God’s name was Jessie going to do? Who would tell Edward?
“I’m afraid, Idella. I’m afraid to tell.”
Idella hesitated. She had to watch what she was saying out here in the hall. Old Mr. Bentley was just coming in with his daily quart of milk. He nodded to her as he shuffled by and opened the door to his apartment. He wouldn’t care. But if Mrs. Rice up on the second floor got wind of this, Ethel wouldn’t have to worry about who would be doing the telling.
Idella lowered her voice. “Is it? . . . Was it? You know . . . that did it, that was the source?”
“Yes. O’ course. He’s the only one I been out with, Idella. He said . . .” Ethel was crying. Idella could tell by the jerky gaps in her words. “He promised he loved me . . . and he said . . .” Oh, she was really going to pieces. “He said he’d been fixed. . . .”
“Fixed?” Idella didn’t think she’d heard that right.
“Fixed. You know. Not like he was broke, but I thought it didn’t work. He told me that. Oh, God, Idella, what am I going to do? You’re the only one I dare tell. I had to tell. I’m showing!” Ethel’s sobs were coming right through the wire.
It worked all right, Idella thought. That bastard. A soldier stationed down in New Hampshire. He’d seemed nice enough. He’d seemed too nice. Oily. Over Ethel. She was not the type to attract . . . well . . . attractive men. She was proud to be dating someone in a uniform who made her feel special. God knows she’d had so much trouble in her life that everybody just sort of went along with it, hoping she wouldn’t get too broken up when he left. No one thought he’d leave her with something.
“I’ve got to talk to Eddie. He needs to help find him. He’s the only one with a car.” Ethel was crying so, it was hard to make out the words. “I’m afraid to tell Eddie. I can’t tell Mother!”
“Someone’s waiting on the phone here, Ethel. You wait there. I’ll tell Eddie when he gets home. He has to be told. You go back home and wait. Rest, why don’t you?” Foley’s Market. That’s over a mile she’d walked to make the call. People must be taking notice of her closed up in the booth crying. If she didn’t get herself home, Jessie would find out by sundown.
“Get on home now, Ethel. Go on. I’m hanging up. Mrs. Tilden needs the phone.” This wasn’t true, but she had to get off. Mrs. Tilden was probably glued up against the other side of her apartment door taking notes. Idella’d heard the radio go off in there all of a sudden. And she smelled cigarette smoke.
She went back to the apartment and locked the door, which they normally only did before bed. She had a need to feel safe. She didn’t even wash the shampoo out. She sat down at the kitchen table, with the wet towel on her lap, in her slippers, and started worrying.
Poor Ethel. Idella had felt sorry for her upon sight. She was a simple woman. Not stupid, exactly, but simple, plain in every way, and sort of wooden. Even her face didn’t move much when she talked. It was a blank expanse, like a sheet of paper with a mouth and some eyes drawn onto it. And her pleasures were simple—always making afghan squares and crocheting doilies. Ethel had a toaster cover she’d made out of purple yarn that Idella thought could not be safe. But Ethel was so proud of it that she never said anything. There was a doll with a big crocheted skirt over the roll of toilet paper. That drove Eddie to distraction. He’d nearly beheaded it one time.
Her going to all that trouble to make covers for things that didn’t need covering pointed out the way that Ethel’s intentions were good but the thought process behind them was apt to have holes in it.
And bad things did happen to that woman. It was not Ethel’s fault that her own father-in-law was a foreman down at the paper mill those ten years ago and that he sent his son out working in a big storm on Thanksgiving. Maybe it was because it was his son and he didn’t want to appear to play favorites. Whatever the reason, that man sent his own son, Ethel’s husband, out across the catwalk, and he slipped on the ice and fell into the machine, and that was that.
For years Ethel had to be helped through Thanksgiving. Even after Idella’d come on the scene, it was a solemn occasion.
And that father-in-law cut Ethel out! He did not help support her or offer help for those kids. And the mill itself gave her a measly six hundred dollars in payment. And for the longest time, they would not hire her. What matter if she wasn’t going to be their best worker? They owed her at least that much, those damn men over there. They ruled lives in this town. Every week, for years, Ethel would walk down to the mill and ask about getting hired. The paper mill hired hundreds of workers. But they wouldn’t take on Ethel until four or five years passed. It was a crime, Idella thought, an actual crime. Now, at least, Ethel was one of the clerks. She could do that, and she should have been doing it a lot sooner.
Idella sighed. Entering into a family could be such a muddle. She sat there for over an hour, till a jingle for Camel cigarettes, Eddie’s brand, came on the radio and roused her. She looked at the clock and saw that it was five. He would be home inside of twenty minutes.
She quick rinsed out her hair and changed from her wet dress. There was no supper ready. She looked in the fridge and saw the eggs. She would have to do some fancy footwork, cook up some eggs, put them in front of him on a plate, and call it supper.
She was slicing bread for toast, lost in ways to tell Eddie, when she heard him pounding on the front door. She’d left it locked.
“Idella! What the hell is going on? You in there?”
“I’m coming.” She ran to the door and unlocked it.
“Why’ve you got the goddamn door locked?” He stopped and looked at her. “Why is your hair wet?” He put his brimmed hat and car keys on the coffee table and looked around the room. “Is something going on here?”
“No. No. Nothing.” Idella went into the kitchen without looking at his face directly.
“You want a beer, Eddie?”
“Beer’d be good.” She got one out of the fridge and brought it to him. “You sit on the couch while I finish with supper. Put your feet up. Hard day?”
“Christ, yes. I’m so sick of watching tin cans come down the line. I’m getting out soon. Them guys think they know everything, and they don’t know nothing. Franklin telling Cobb there next to me to move things along. Asshole. Cobb’s doing his job. That Franklin never says anything to me, by God.” Eddie sat drinking his beer. He looked around. “Why was the door locked?”
“No reason. Habit.”
“You didn’t want someone coming in and robbing you while you was bent over the sink washing your hair?” Eddie laughed. “Is that it?”
He came into the kitchen, stood behind her, and kissed her neck. “I’ll bother you. Would that be all right?”
“It’s not too good an idea just now.” She stopped whisking the fork through the eggs and moved over to light the stove.
“What’s for supper?” Eddie looked into the bowl. “What’s this? Eggs?”
“Yes.” Idella tapped a pat of butter into the frying pan.
“Eggs for supper?”
“Why not?” She kept her eyes on the butter pooling and bubbling about the pan.
“Eggs is breakfast. What’s going on here, Idella? You got someone holed up in the closet?”
Idella took a deep breath and turned to face him. “Your sister called me today.”
�
�I’ll kill the bastard! I’ll murder him!” Edward had been mouthing threats since they’d roared out of their driveway on Haskell Street. He gripped the steering wheel so hard that Idella feared it might come off in his hands when he made the sharp turn on Elm Street. He pulled in to the drive of Ethel’s small clapboard house and was out of the car, at the front door, before Idella had her feet out.
“Ethel! Let me in! Where is he run off to?” Eddie was pounding on the door and ringing the bell at the same time. “I’ll make that goddamned bastard pay for what he done!”
Ethel opened the door slowly. As soon as she saw her brother standing there, she burst into tears.
“Where is he? Where is the bastard?” Eddie charged into the house as if Ethel’s boyfriend was hiding in a closet or behind the couch. Idella hurried up the wooden steps and closed the door behind her. She locked it. The whole neighborhood would be listening.
“He’s run off, Eddie.” Idella saw that Ethel’s face was wet from crying. “He’s disappeared.”
“How can a soldier disappear?”
“I went there. I went down to New Hampshire to the base. So help me, Eddie. I took the bus. I tried to talk to the officers, but they wouldn’t let me through.” Ethel was sobbing. “They won’t tell me where he’s been moved to. He’s gone somewhere else, and they won’t tell me.”
“Oh, my God.” Idella went up to Ethel and led her over to the couch to sit. “You have been doing this all alone. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“I’m so scared. I’m ashamed. He said he loved me. I thought he’d marry me.”
“There, there.” Idella put her arm around Ethel’s slumped body and tried to calm her. It did look like she had a little belly starting up there. Her dress was pulling some across her middle.
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay Page 19