Sylvanus Now

by Donna Morrissey

  Ending off the card game with a round of handshakes to all, she settled into another game with another pair of opponents, listening and nodding and sometimes adding commentary of her own about the fishing and the long-liners and the trawlers and the factory freezers. Even chatting with women over tea became an exercise she faithfully greeted; smiling and thanking them as they exclaimed how well she was starting to look, no matter the paleness of her skin, and praising her house, its tidiness, and what a good worker she was—had always been, some testified, recalling those long, laborious hours of working the flakes and the assembly line at the fish plant.

  Nice. No doubt everyone had their ways, but mostly she found everyone nice. And who knows but that she might’ve learned to enjoy this new rapport—the fussing her mother made each time she came, bringing bread and buns, and the ongoing bantering of the others as they furbished her table with thoughts and anecdotes—maybe she could have, had her second pregnancy brought forth a child.

  But, no. Her second baby, born two years after the first, lived no longer than the minute it took to show the blue of an eye before dying upon her breasts. Two years again, and her third was readying itself for birth. This time Sylvanus insisted she travel the four-hour trip by train to the hospital in Springdale. Three days after a healthy delivery, an infection running rampant in the nursery rid it of life. She returned home, stone-faced and cold, the small white box in the coach behind her. She ordered Ambrose to motor it to Cooney Arm, while she motored with Sylvanus. And there she ordered it be taken to the church, whilst she sat at home, waiting for the service. Not once did she visit that little white bed. Not once did she look as it lay at the altar; nor when they lowered it into the ground before her, did she look at it fully. Frozen. Her eyes were frozen, and her blood ran cold as winter’s rain. For she still wore that thin wrap of vanity, the one stripped from her shoulders and flung onto her lap through the hands of Suze. Why else had she come to believe that the hideous birthing of the baby wrapped in caul was a summons toward her own salvation, and that a few jaunts across the bridge, caring for the sick, and a few hours rocking Suze’s youngster, were sufficient installments of retribution for her past sins? And come now, surely her second birthing would be the sweet, pretty baby of penance. And she would be smiled upon as she herself had smiled upon that flawless Mother of Divinity at the altar of her youth.

  But there was no salvation, only her neighbours. And salt onto a fissure were their sympathies, for far was she from the grieving mother they thought her to be. Rather, it was the Christ child she grieved, believing it him she had sullied, first with her vanity, her haughtiness, and now with her self-serving nature. For her hours of rocking and scrubbing and serving the sick were never from a true sense of goodness; they felt more like bribes now, no matter she’d honestly wanted to make things right, to make folk like her. It was to save herself from this awful sorrowing that she really wanted them to like her, as though their affections could validate her goodness before the all-knowing God.

  “Make them stop,” she whispered from her crumpled pillow to Eva one morning. “Make them stop coming.”

  “It’ll just be another thing you’ll fret about, if I do,” said Eva, straightening her bedclothes around her.

  “Why? Why do you say that?”

  “Because these days you’ll fret over anything. I could say you’re sleeping, I suppose, but then you’d only be straining to hear what they were saying over their tea.”

  She would’ve asked, had she the will, how it was the old woman knew so well the workings of her mind. But she already knew what Eva would say—that you don’t grow old without learning some things, my maid—so she said nothing, accepting the woman’s quiet administrations, trusting the gentleness of her hands as she quietly let herself in and out of her room, and grateful for her lack of need for words.

  Yet she rose, her face stricken with fear one morning as Sylvanus crept in with her morning cup of tea, and cried, “I’ve never felt life, Syllie. Not even when they were readying to be born—almost as if they were already dead in the womb.” Her hands shook so bad he laid the cup on her night table.

  “They’re not, though, Addie,” he said soothingly, coaxingly. “We knows that—at least with the last two—”

  “I feels the same dead now, like there’s no life inside of me. It’s a godawful feeling, Syllie,” she said shakily. “It’s like my soul was expelled, too, this time—or maybe I only thought there was a soul—but what holds you up if there’s nothing in there?”

  “Oh, Addie, the will of God is what holds you up. The simple fact you wakes up tells you that. Don’t—don’t think of such things,” he pleaded.

  “How can I not?” she cried out, “when all the time I’m dreaming of a tombstone at the foot of our bed—and I wants to know the name on it, but I’m too afraid to look, scared there’s no name written—that it’s waiting for the next one, my next baby.” Her voice had risen, but she saw he couldn’t listen, couldn’t hear what might be madness, and she sank into herself as he buried his face in her breasts, pleading with her not to think about such things, that dreams were dreams after all, and like Grandfather Now always used to say, you’d lose your mind if you read them religious books too much; that life’s to be lived, not thought about, and religion is what you carries in your heart, and she’d nothing to worry about there, for her heart was as pure as those babies she lost.

  “And never you mind nothing else,” he argued as she cried out in protest. “Good health is all you needs to pray for, and I’ll do the rest. Strong hands, I’ve got, and a strong mind when it comes to caring for you, so stop thinking about those things.”

  She wished she could. She wished he could rip apart with his bare hands that hidden chamber within that was beckoning her more and more with each passing death. For as the days wore on, and her depression settled like lead, she despaired of ever finding her way out, that her worrying and penance and guilt were all for naught, that there never was a soul shoring her up, that God was simply the makings of her own creation, and the kingdom of heaven a construction in her limited world of thought, a ceiling onto the four corners of the room that contained her.

  She nearly cried out to Sylvanus then, but could find no words, no thoughts defined enough to share. Instead she watched, his step heavy with his own thoughts, his hands busied with fixing things around her. She marvelled at the strength that built and buried those little white boxes, that kept their larder filled, that kept the fire burning in their stove. And it was nice, those gifts he kept bringing her, of snow crab, and scallops bigger than tea plates, and handfuls of last summer mint tea buried beneath the snow, and the paths he kept well shovelled so’s she could take walks around the house, along the brook, or across the footbridge to sit with his mother. He did well with all of that, as he’d done in the past, as he’d done with listening to her trite little tales of high marks and passed grades and fallen ashpans and wretched skullies and aprons and fly spit.

  But some things she had never shared with him; some things were too deeply forged within to bring to the outside—like her sitting alone as a youngster before an altar, admiring the holiness of colour and quiet, the divinity of mother and child, and the lure of dreams before her co-conspiratorial God. Beauty. Those moments, those dreams had been the beauty in her young life, the magic, despite her subsequent judgments and brandishing of all else around her. And as does a snowflake dissolve upon touch, so does fantasy dissolve upon a tongue. So she hadn’t shared them with Syllie; had kept them in her private chambers. And now, with this darkness fallen upon her, and her thoughts so— In fact, there were no thoughts, not since the moment she had blundered into thinking there might be no God or Divine Mother or babe that had lain in a manger. The fright of such a discovery, or fear of its being, had struck all thought from her—even the tightening in her chest, and that wretched sense of befoulment sickening her stomach, had been struck from within her, forsaking, leaving her with a huge emptiness th
at sucked her attention inward as though it were a maelstrom, and leaving her as disconnected to Sylvanus and her outer world as if she were a babe in her own womb. Who can speak of such things?

  Thus, she burrowed into her pillow, getting out of bed simply to wash and relieve herself, or to peck at whatever small morsels of food Eva was able to persuade her to eat. And only Eva. She was back to wanting no other around her, not even Sylvanus.

  But to remain so was to bury Sylvanus as well. Those moments when he sat beside her bed, the brown of his eyes awash in the black of his pupils, and so deeply pitted with fear of this place she had gone, she felt him drowning in his effort to follow her. Eight weeks, then, after she had birthed and buried her third child, she started coming out of her bedroom, spending small amounts of time sitting at her table, delighting Sylvanus, delighting Eva, Suze, her mother, and all those others whose names she was too tired to think of, who traipsed through her kitchen, bringing stews, bringing buns, bringing salads, and their sweet spirits of nitre, and their ginger wine and tales of trite and woe. And grateful though she tried to be for their well-meaning gestures, she wished them gone, wished to be alone.

  But, nay, nobody listened to her pleas of “I’m going to be fine now, I can do for myself. Yes, yes, it’s time I started doing for myself.”

  “Nonsense, nonsense, you’re not fine, you’re weak as anything,” they rejoined. “Here, sit down and let me get you some tea, some sweetbread, and take off that nightdress; time to get it washed, and your sheets and pillowcases, too, and look, over there by the washstand, some nice clean towels for your wash.” Even Sylvanus was hanging around the house all day long, leaving only to bring in a bit of wood or a piece of meat.

  One morning, early spring, after the ice had freed the arm and he ought to have been fishing, she crept into the kitchen as he stood making breakfast, her hands trembling as she pulled the kettle onto the front top.

  “I’m fine. It’s been well over two months,” she said, as he tried to steer her back to bed.

  “But you’ve still a lot of bleeding—Mother said.”

  “Only normal. I wonder you haven’t started fishing yet?”

  “Bit early still.”

  “Others have been fishing the past two weeks.”

  “I got a hundred quintal on salt in the stage, Addie. That’s a good start on the season. I can take a week if I needs to. Sit down. Will you please sit down and let me make you some tea?”

  She sat, watching him as he emptied the dregs from the teapot into the trash box behind the stove, refilling it with more tea and water, and settling it on the damper to steep. A small dipper of water was boiling on the front top, and to it, he added a cupful of oats, gently stirring. His step felt fatigued, she noted, and his hands heavy. She averted her eyes, not wanting the burden of what his thoughts must be these days about her, her illness, the babies, the deaths.

  “If it’s me you’re staying home for, I’m telling you I’m fine,” she said quietly.

  “You says you’re fine. That’s not what everybody else says.”

  “Everybody else!” She sighed, sinking deeper into her chair. “Oh, if they’d all just stay home. I’d get better faster if I had the place to myself.”

  “Not for a while yet, then, you won’t have the place to yourself,” he said, laying a cup of tea before her. “Not till we sees some colour on that face.”

  “Then I’ll put it there,” she cried, sitting forward with a burst of strength, pinching her cheeks. “There. Do I look fine now? Oh, I knows I’m still a bit under, Syllie,” she added at his pained look. “It’s just that, well, I’m fine for what I’m going through. It’s normal to be pale and tired and—and—all the rest of it.” She shook her head, sighing as he started back, stirred her tea, hearing nothing of what she was saying, seeing nothing of what she was doing, only that her tea needed stirring and she was weak and pale, and her body still bleeding. Was there nobody listening?

  Or perhaps she wasn’t saying the words, she thought. Perhaps she was only thinking them, for that’s what it sounded like each time she spoke—her voice far away, distant. Cripes, perhaps that’s why they weren’t listening, merely nodding and smiling as she pleaded with them, “I’m fine, I’m fine, really, I am, and ye ought to be home, caring for your own crowd. I can wash a cup and make a stew, yes I can, yes I can.”

  “Do you hear me?” she asked abruptly.

  He glanced up, pushing the oatmeal to the back of the stove, his eyes mirroring the hurt of a forgotten child. And she was immediately burdened—doubly burdened—by her own load, and now his, unwittingly laid upon her.

  “Oh, never mind.” Pushing herself up from her chair, she took the bread knife off the sink and started cutting into the loaf he had laid out. Her wrist buckled as though it were hollowed.

  “You’ve been through a lot, Addie,” he said quietly, taking the knife from her hand.

  “But I’ve got to start doing things,” she said. “How can I start getting better if everybody keeps doing everything for me?”

  “They’re just trying to be helpful.”

  “I don’t want their help! Let them stay home if they wants to help. Gawd, Syllie, everyday there’s two or three bodies sitting around my table, gabbing and yakking about the damn old weather and their gardens and never once talking about youngsters so’s not to upset poor Addie, poor Addie. Gawd, I hates their poor Addie look. I’d rather they were all busy making fun of me. Yes, I would,” she exclaimed as he looked at her skeptically. “Least then I didn’t have to sit, talking and smiling all the time. Bloody pretending, is all it is, and I hates it; I hates pretending right now.”

  “Pretending what?”

  “Pretending that I’m nice, that they’re nice, and everything’s nice,” and she broke off, stunned to find herself still hating and wanting to curse everyone after all she’d been through, and was still going through; that she was still the same old Addie, hating everything and everyone excepting for her own house, and she was starting to hate that too now with everybody coming, all the time coming, and talking and supping. Gawd! Her thoughts trailed off and she stood appalled by them.

  “Oh, never mind,” she said as though she had spoken them out loud, and giggled as Sylvanus continued looking at her with a growing perplexity. And worried that he now feared she was losing her mind—as she very well might be—she threw down pretense and trudged despondently toward the window, looking out over the sunless sky, the dreary grey cliffs of the neck, and the grey waters of the arm. Leached. Everything leached of colour—the little dirtied bodies—at least the two she had seen—the first had been hidden beneath that awful caul, and her chest constricted in fear as the old midwife’s words shot through her mind: “Cursed! Cursed!’”

  “Addie.” She sprang from his touch. “Addie,” he whispered, placing both hands onto her shoulders as though to keep her from escaping him. “I’ll stop them coming if you want. Let me take care of you for a few days.” His arms went around her, steadying, strong, and she rested against him, allowing him to rock her. In this manner, at least, he could be that pillar upon which she leaned. She gazed up at him, managing a smile, as tremulous as it was grateful.

  He stopped rocking, his eyes having found hers again. And there in the bright morning light, in the sobriety of her solitude, they begged from her an intimacy that even when they had lain together as lovers she was able to enter only under the diffusion of shadow. And now, with her body cramping from a third dead baby, and the air sickly with the smell of blood, she tried to turn from him as he brought his mouth down on hers.

  “Oh, gawd, Syllie,” she groaned, twisting from him, “how can you even think—” and she buckled onto a chair, her hands to her stomach, her mouth lined with self-loathing, which, from the sudden reddening of his face, he no doubt believed was for him. She reached for him, but he was lunging out through the door, leaving it swinging behind him. “Syllie!” She rose, stumbling after him. “Should’ve left me rotting in t
hat damn plant,” she cried out, as though he were standing on the other side of the door, listening. Standing on the stoop, she watched as he hurried over the footbridge, past his mother’s, half walking, half running, like the fool who, unlike the wise man building his house on rock, had built it on sand instead and was now fleeing from the fall of it.

  “Should’ve left me rotting,” she whispered more quietly. “Should’ve left me rotting.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WIDOW’S WALK

  STUMBLING BACK INSIDE the house after Sylvanus shut the door to his stage, Adelaide clung to the table edge and lowered herself onto a chair. Fatigued. Every bone, fatigued. A sound from outside and she raised her eyes—it was him, come back. But, no. It was Eva, a knowing look in her eyes and a commiserating murmur as she entered, giving Adelaide permission to sink back into her state.

  “Perhaps you needs to get out and walk a bit,” said Eva, flitting about the kitchen, gathering the bread pan and flour can and yeast crock from a bottom cupboard.

  “Oh, it’s just my stomach,” lied Adelaide, wishing that it was her stomach, wishing even for that lump of sickness back; anything over this hollowed-out emptiness, this nothingness!

  She watched listlessly as Eva pinched butter into the flour, adding warm water to a bowl of sugared yeast

  “Walks are always good,” said Eva. “After the drownings, I always went off by myself, walking.”

  The drownings. First time Eva had ever mentioned them. Adelaide watched as she poured the yeast and a dipper of warm water into the buttered flour, and stuck in her hands, folding and mixing and kneading, the mixture turning the thin gold band on her gnarled finger a filmy white. Something that Suze said that time she gave her the shawl came back to her, something about another person’s misery bringing comfort.