by Laura Best
“Why, Pru Burbidge, I have no doubt that you know exactly what you are doing, although for the life of me I can’t figure out why. You’re as odd as the day is long,” said Mrs. McFarland. “No one puts out perfectly dry clothes.
Surely you’ve got more to do with your time. What does your mother have to say about all this, you out here hanging her good dresses on the line? Are you girls playing?”
“Playing? I…I…Mama asked me to,” Pru said.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous. No one in their right mind would ask you to do such a thing. I must ask your mother what’s wrong with her head.” Mrs. McFarland began trot–ting toward the house.
Pru knew she had to say something to stop Mrs. McFarland. “They needed airing!” she cried out. Mrs. McFarland spun around on her heels. “The clothes cup–board was damp. Mama said her dresses needed airing.”
“Airing?” She sounded doubtful. “It’s a bit late in the year for airing, wouldn’t you say?” Pru held her breath, hoping Mrs. McFarland would drop her line of questioning. “Of course, no one pays attention to any of the old ways any more. Why, Rachel Lamb doesn’t even air her bedding any more. She goes from one season to the next without giving it a second thought. Not so long ago they dragged everything out of the house in April and scrubbed the house from top to bottom.”
“Mama says it’s a shame that folks don’t air their laundry more often and it’s positively scandalous that the cleaning ritual she grew up knowing has gone to the crows.” Pru bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t rambled on so. Mrs. McFarland gave Pru the most peculiar look.
“I may as well drop in to see Isadora while I’m here. I know we ended things on a sour note the last time around, but we’re neighbours nonetheless. I always liked your mother, Pru. And I’ll admit to feeling guilty over my last departure,” she said with as much righteousness as she could muster. “It can’t be easy for Isadora, what with your father up and leaving. I’m sure she would appreciate a visit.”
Pru could sense her hesitancy, as if she was waiting to be told that it was indeed a good idea for her to go in uninvited.
“You can’t do that,” said Pru point-blank. By this time Flora was hightailing it toward the house, pigtails bouncing behind her.
“Can’t?” Mrs. McFarland squeaked.
“It’s just that Mama’s not home,” Pru said.
“Not home?”
“She’s gathering things,” Pru said, realizing that likely sounded utterly silly to someone like Mrs. McFarland.
But Mama’s place more rightly seemed in the woods, with all the time she used to spend exploring the wooded area behind the house. “I belong in the woods,” she used to say. Gran Hannah used to take Mama to the woods when she was small, telling her about the things that grew there, which plants could heal and which ones might kill you stone dead.
But after Gran Hannah had died, Mama’s father had told her she should forget all that foolishness. “Your grandmother was an Indian, but you aren’t. You’re Irish like your mother,” he’d told her.
“You are a strange one, Pru Burbidge,” declared Mrs. McFarland, with her nose stuck up in the air.
Pru smiled and said she didn’t know what that meant and then Mrs. McFarland let a most unladylike noise escape from her mouth and marched away.
Chapter Nine
Sweet fern. Teaberries. Juniper. Black spruce.
Sometimes morning leaps into my bedroom window and I wake from a deep sleep trying to remember what all those plants are for, what medicines Gran Hannah used to make even though Mama’s father did not want her to. Mama and Gran Hannah hid what they were doing because they were forced to, not because they wanted to. “And it was a shame,” Mama said. “Gran Hannah made a poultice for Tom after the cow kicked him and my father became so angry. Before that day I didn’t even know how he felt.”
I often close my eyes and picture myself in the middle of the forest or by the edge of the stream or next to the meadow, all the places Mama used to take us. Sometimes I can almost hear the gurgling water skimming the moss-covered rocks in the creek. I imagine all the berries and the leaves Mama showed me. Every one of them had a special name, a special purpose.
Green was everywhere, so strong and pungent that the air was packed full with the aroma of ferns and leaves. The sun fell through the treetops, leaving patches of light and shadow on the forest floor, and we played a kind of hopscotch with the sun, jumping from one spot to the next. Every once in a while Mama would call out to us to slow down.
Witch hazel. Bayberry. Willow bark.
Mama told me and told me so many times, and I wish now that I’d written everything down instead of trying to keep it all in my head. Gran Hannah knew what these plants were used for and she left the names behind for Mama. Mama said she’d forgotten plenty over the years but the more time she spent walking in the woods the more it began to come back to her.
“I promised Gran Hannah I wouldn’t let these things be forgotten,” Mama said. “My father was ashamed of who he was and he thought he could make a better life for us. He didn’t want people to know.”
Gold thread.
“You’ll find it in the earth,” Mama said. “As thin and bright as thread made of spun gold. It is a perfect name.” Tearing the mossy soil away, she dug into the ground until she found what she was looking for. “It might help with my appetite,” she said, and I thought about how nice it would be to have Mama sit at the table and eat a hearty meal, although I doubted it was at all possible, even with the gold thread tonic.
“Gran Hannah used to steep it right in the kitchen when my father was gone.” She gave a small laugh. “There was no stopping that one, no matter what my father said. I tried a sip once and it was bitter as old heck, but Mum would drink it down without batting an eye. It’s a wonder her stomach didn’t bother her more often, as hard as my father was,” she added.
One day in late August Mama asked me to go for a walk in the woods with her. “Just Pru. This time is for Pru and I,” she said when Flora and Davey whined that they wanted to go too.
Mama was weak but did not complain. From time to time, she held fast to my arm for support. Although Mama did not tell me her reasons for wanting to go for a hike so deep in the woods that day, it seemed to me that as weak as she was and as many times as we stopped to rest, she moved with a certainty in her steps, her head held high with conviction. We walked until we were standing on top of an overhang looking down into a small ravine.
“I found this place by accident right after we moved here,” said Mama. I stood looking at Mama, at her arms stretched upward toward the sky, as a yellow ray of sun–light broke through the clouds and touched her skin. Her face transformed, the lines and shadows disappeared. It was as if she’d been made well by some secret cure. I wanted to laugh out loud and clap my hands, but then the sun slipped back into the cloud and I could see that nothing had changed.
“It’s the perfect place, Pru. No worries or cares, just the wind and the trees and the earth beneath your feet. If I could keep this moment forever, I would,” she said, and took my hand in hers.
A light breeze fell across my face, like an invisible hand caressing me with long, even strokes. Mama’s hair trailed out behind her and the fabric of her dress flapped each time the wind picked up a bit. Far off in the distance a tree stood out in the open. A handful of its orange leaves waved at us across the gap and I told Mama I had never seen such a strange sight as autumn leaves in the summertime.
“The world is filled with many strange things, so many that you couldn’t count them all even if you wanted to. But it’s not the knowing of everything there is in the world so much as it is the imagining of all there could be,” she said. I wasn’t sure I knew what she meant, but her words seemed to bring me comfort.
For the longest while we stood on top of the bluff, listening to the birds and the wind and the deep rumbling sounds of bullfrogs echoing up from a nearby marsh, spellbound by the sights and sounds of nat
ure all around us.
“Can you feel Gran Hannah, Pru? Her strength, her wisdom?” asked Mama.
I wasn’t altogether sure I could, but I said yes anyway.
“Sometimes I hear her voice in the wind. I look around but she’s never there. She seems so close. I’ve seen her in my dreams, Pru. I know it sounds silly, but I’ve felt her touch upon my skin.” Mama looked over at me and smiled, hooking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re so much like her. I’ve known it for a while now. You lead with your heart but you use your head too. That’s what strength is, Pru, holding it all in even when you’re aching to let it out. You are a wise girl.”
“No I’m not, Mama.” I knew I was anything but wise. How could Mama say such a thing and mean it?
Mama smiled and told me that one day I would under–stand what she was talking about.
“There are all kinds of wisdom in the world, Pru. It’s in everything from a sunrise to a dewdrop. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Complicating things is our own doing. We’re handed life on a platter. It should be so easy,” said Mama as she clasped her hand around the delicate golden thread she had dug from the earth. There was sadness in her voice.
Sometimes I go to the woods by myself just to listen to the birds and the squirrels and the sound of the trees. I hold my face toward the sky and let the wind touch my cheeks. I breathe in the colours, the sights, sounds, and smells. I think of the old people, the first ones in this country, even though Mama always said you’d have to stretch us out mighty thin to find that drop of Indian blood in us. I try to imagine I’m one of them, wise in the ways that will one day count.
Then I go home.
One evening Mama showed me the metal tin in her dresser drawer and made me count the money that was inside. My hand trembled when I reached in and removed the paper bills. There was more money in that little tin than I had ever thought of seeing at one time. Through all her years of penny-pinching and making do, Mama had put a small fortune aside: a whole big stack of ones, twos, and five dollar bills—money not even Daddy knew she had. She admitted that she had started saving before we moved to Dalhousie.
“Your uncle Tom slipped me a hundred dollars after the funeral,” she said. “Shoved it in my dress pocket with your father standing right there in the room. He said that Mum wanted me to have it. And it was fair of him, Pru. He didn’t have to do it. I’ve thought about it at least a hundred times, the fact that he didn’t have to give me anything. But I couldn’t tell your father. You know what you father was like. When he had his mind made up about something there was no one could change it. I knew if I told him it would just set him off again. Look how he behaved when Tom sent that parcel. And the honest truth was I didn’t know what he’d do with the money. I thought he’d waste it on something we didn’t need. Your father was impulsive that way. A man with big dreams.”
I could hear the desperation in her voice as she tried to explain it all to me. When she was finished talking, she took my hand in hers. “Tom isn’t a bad man, Pru, no matter what your father thought,” she said with a sigh. I guess him giving that money to Mama proved it, at least in her mind. “This money will keep the family together after I’m gone,” she told me. “It’s for you and Jesse to know about and no one else.”
“Don’t worry, Mama. I promise we won’t waste it.”
“Now it won’t hurt to buy a treat now and then. Remember the peppermint candies we bought right after the first baby bonus cheque came?”
I nodded. How could I possibly forget, as happy as Mama had been that day?
“But you shouldn’t make a habit of it. There are many things out there that will tempt you, but your brothers and sister must come first.”
I made all the promises Mama asked me to make before she closed the tin.
“If you ever need to leave, you go straight to Reese Buchanan. He’ll help you. This money will take you wher–ever you need to go.” There was a look of satisfaction on Mama’s face.
“I promise, Mama. We’ll go to Reese if we need to.”
And that was the very last promise I made to Mama.
Then I asked Mama how we would ever manage with–out her and Mama’s answer came without hesitation.
“You might not see me but I’ll still be around,” she said, “like the breeze that comes from out of nowhere on a hot summer day. And when you find yourself smiling for no reason in the world, a part of me will be smiling too.”
“I won’t smile once you’re gone,” I said.
“It may take a while, Pru, but your smile will come back. That’s why we have to celebrate all the little things we do, because some day you’ll look back and remember what that smile felt like,” said Mama. I knew Mama was wrong, my smile would never return. How could it? It had slipped from the face of the earth like the setting sun, and it would never rise again.
“We all have our time, Pru. And we don’t get to choose how long it will last. My time’s not up yet,” Mama whispered. “Not yet.”
I buried my face into Mama’s pillow and she touched my head gently.
“I hope you understand why I kept some things from your father,” she added. “Not all secrets are bad, Pru. Sometimes it’s better to keep the peace than to lay every–thing out on the table.”
I could not look Mama in the eye when she said that. A queer feeling snaked through me, a feeling so strange that it caused my heart to flutter. I thought suddenly about what Jesse had done and the secret I had kept from Mama all these months. I should have spoken up right then and there; it was my chance and I let it slip away. But I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes. A deed done and over is a deed that cannot be taken back. So how could I have possibly told Mama the truth that night?
At the time, Jesse said it was for the best. He said that Uncle Tom was a thief and Mama was far too trusting. He held the letter up toward the sky and tried to look through the envelope.
“Maybe you should have just asked Mama what she wrote.” Jesse’s curiosity annoyed me.
“It really doesn’t matter what she wrote,” said Jesse. “Uncle Tom’s never going to read it.”
“No, Jesse!” I cried out, running toward him. But it was too late. I watched in horror as Jesse tore the letter to shreds and burned the pieces in the middle of the road.
“Mama would trust a thief if she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar,” Jesse said as the fire finally died out.
“Jesse, you shouldn’t have! What will Mama say?” I knew this was wrong. So very wrong.
“Mama’s not going to know if you don’t tell her. Look, Pru, Mama thinks Uncle Tom can do no wrong. But it doesn’t change what he did. You know what that house meant to Daddy, to all of us. Mama thinks because he’s her brother that it doesn’t matter what he did. But it does matter. We both know Daddy never would have left if we’d been living in that house down in Annapolis.”
I thought about Jesse’s words and I could see some truth in what he said. For many years, all Daddy had ever talked about was that house of Nanny Gordon’s. I know he tried to be happy in Dalhousie and sometimes he’d even had me convinced that he was, but that all changed after Elmer Galloway died. Everything about Daddy seemed to change after that.
“We’ll be fine,” Jesse said. “You and I are doing it all now anyway, and we’ve got Reese.”
I knew Jesse was right; we were doing it all. We had both grown so much over the past year, and perhaps I should be ashamed to say it, but it was far easier to trust in Jesse’s words than to put trust in Uncle Tom, who I hardly even knew. And so, right or wrong, I kept Jesse’s secret, hoping I wouldn’t regret it later. If we had only known then how sick Mama really was it might have made a big difference.
Flora and I sleep in Mama’s bed now, on the white sheets Uncle Tom sent her. When it is cold or windy, or simply if she’s scared, Flora curls into a tight ball beside me. Some nights I sing to her, but mostly we talk about all the celebrations and the happy times we had with Mama.
We talk about the pink slippers that Reese Buchanan helped us buy at the rummage sale and those nights when Mama would call us to her room so we could watch for the first evening star. Mama always said the first star would grant us our wishes, and even if it didn’t it was always fun to pretend. After we wished on the first star, we would play the “If only…” game, shouting out things like “If only I had a mink coat” or “If only I had a grand piano.” For the longest time, Flora’s “If only…” always ended with “If only Daddy would come home.”
Now, as we lie next to each other in Mama’s bed, Flora and I talk about all the happy times, savouring them like pepper–mint candies in our mouths, and then we go to sleep.
Deadly nightshade.
Sometimes before I drift off to sleep I think those words and it makes me angry. But then I think how selfish it is of me to be angry with Mama. There is a truth about the deadly nightshade, a truth only Mama knows. So I forget my anger and whisper softly to Mama, hoping that one day she will tell me that truth.
Chapter Ten
The very next day after Mrs. McFarland nearly barged into the house, Daddy came home. He arrived on the back of someone’s truck with an old brown bag slung over his shoulder, wearing a tweed cap that covered his eyes. There were days and perhaps months when I would have welcomed the sight of him without a bit of hesitancy, but now that he was within my sight I had to resist the urge to run away and hide. Strings of emotion were twining through me and I wasn’t sure which ones to trust. I watched as Daddy’s stride hastened with each step he made until he all but burst through the front door. I stood still for only a few moments and the instant he smiled at me I ran toward his open arms. I couldn’t help myself.
Daddy was home at long last! Everything would be better. All our worries could be thrown out the window and forgotten. There was so much to tell him that I had no idea where to begin, and a flood of words threatened to burst from my lips. I wanted to sob and laugh and shout alleluia all at the same time. But I knew I couldn’t allow it. I had aged too much over the past year to let some childish outburst betray me. I had learned to be strong just like Gran Hannah, and was not about to forget Mama’s les–sons just because Daddy was back. The amount of times I had explained things out to him when he wasn’t there to hear I couldn’t begin to count. Now here he was. He was here to hear it all, to listen and understand. I would begin with Mama of course. That was the most important part. I’d start with Mama and the rest would follow.