"Right here by the door, I hope. That's the best place."
I nodded dumbly.
"Well, let's get at it." He lifted that shovel right out of my hand and started digging in the loosened dirt, covering my shyness with talk.
"My mother had roses, a whole arbor of them to the side of the house. I used to play out there under the roses, when I was just a little boy. It was cool there. I love roses, don't you?" Before I could answer he laughed, "Dumb question. Of course you do."
My mind was moving again, but I guess I was not in complete control, for I blurted out, "What are you doing here?" It sounded more like an accusation than a question. I immediately wished I'd kept my mouth shut but I've always been that way, "Mouth ahead of brain," my daddy used to say.
David stopped his digging, and looked directly at me.
I tried to avoid his eyes.
"No, look at me."
I did, but it was uncomfortable even through the pleasure of looking so straight on at him.
"We--" he stopped. "What's your name?"
I stumbled it out.
"Sophie," he repeated, making it sound special. "I'm David."
I stood still, looking into his eyes, a fascinated thing like the hens would get when the boys petted them on their throats.
"Well, Sophie, I'm here to help you plant the roses. I came back up to get my paints. It's a natural day for painting, as it is for planting roses. But, I knew perfectly well that you would be here, maybe not today, but sometime. We couldn't go on forever seeing each other and never meeting, now could we?"
"Well... I never really thought about it." I mumbled the lie. This mumbling around was awful. He was going to think I was a complete idiot. Shrugging my shoulders in what I hoped was a casual manner I spoke up more firmly. "No, I guess not. After all," I said lightly, "we're neighbors."
"No Sophie, we're more than neighbors. I know it, don't you?"
I struggled against answering but his eyes demanded an answer. An honest answer, and for the life of me I couldn't lie to him. "Yes," then, angry at his forcefulness, I found my tongue. "If we're not just neighbors, what do you think we are?" I didn't want him examining what I thought we were.
"Friends," he answered. The dark blue eyes relaxed their grip on me and became sunny again.
"Friends, Sophie, and Lord knows that's as rare as, well, as rare as having an ebony-haired beauty greet me every day with a beautiful smile."
"Ebony-haired beauty?" Me?
I'd never had a man speak so fancy to me before. Once a fellow at a dance who'd had too much to drink told me I was, "a great looking dame," and men had certainly said fresh things to me when making passes, but most men had to have something to drink before they could get brave enough even to approach me. Mandy said I scared them off, but I don't know why.
And then, during the war they were either gone, or when they came back they seemed gripped by a frenzy to get married, an idea that always chilled me. The life of my mother, or my sister, was not what I wanted. Sometimes I scared myself. I knew I didn't want to lose my freedom. But it was all confused with the feelings that at times nearly overcame me. At least David seemed safe.
He turned back to the roses. He was relaxed, and with a silent sigh of relief, I relaxed too. Together we planted the roses. Maybe they're still there. They took hold right away and by the end of September were blooming so much that David cut some to take to his wife.
8. If You Want Me...
After that I was usually outside when he passed. As the summer took hold, David lost the routine of winter. Often he stopped to pass the time of day. Those were times of complete happiness for me. I took lots of walks on the beach, collecting the shells left behind by the waves. It became an obsession to see what new things were there. I found and kept so many that I felt guilty being so greedy. I wrote Mandy to tell the kids that I was collecting shells for them. It sounded so good I believed it myself.
More often than not, as I walked farther and farther I "happened" upon David. His favorite place was near a stump far up the beach. From that angle, early in the morning, the sunshine played on the Rock so that parts were in shadow.
He didn't just paint the Rock, he painted everything: the sea at storm, the seals, the gulls, many different places along the shore. He got tangled up in the colors, too, like me and my quilt. It was his fascination with the different shades of sand, and the different light--morning light and afternoon light, cloud light and sun light, shadows, rain drops and the bird footprints that added the depth to my quilt that it finally had. I've never looked at sand the same since.
And people. Sometimes he went to town or back in the hills to the farms. David knew most of the people who lived up in the mountains.
The Hosmer family lived up one of those dirt roads. About once a week David visited them, liking to have lunch with them but more, he loved seeing the children as they were, natural, so he could paint them later. He didn't want them posed, he watched them as they worked around the farm and did quick sketches that he finished in the winter. There was the Hosmer dad, and mother, and five kids. Three boys and two girls. Funny I should think of that now.
My favorite painting of his--oh, the mother's mother lived with them too--was one of the girls picking raspberries in their little patch with the grandma. The girl was about six. She had a little pail with a wire handle on it like her grandma's. Her face, in the picture, had a little raspberry juice on her lips, and the most self-satisfied smile. A comfortable thing she was there, in the patch with her grandma. All to herself. The grandma had white hair that was kinda twirly 'round her head. She wore a flowered dress, and boots, and her berry pail hooked onto the old leather belt she had around her waist. She's looking into the bush and reaching to get a berry from the middle.
I loved that picture. It was inside their front door and sometimes I'd look at it and I'd be the grandma, and sometimes I'd be the little girl. It was cool in the bush and hot on our heads. David was good at faces, though he didn't think so.
Down by the water one day I was looking for more sand dollars to use as models for my quilt. But I was picking up everything else that wasn't broke when I saw David waving at me to come over. My apron was full of the shells so I walked rather than ran over to him like I wanted to.
The sand underfoot was white and dry. It squeaked as I crossed it. Gulls and crows were flying up and down the beach, looking to be more playing than seriously hunting for food. When I got to David he untied my apron so I could put the shells down. His face was a sight. His nose was sunburned and peeling. His reddish hair was windblown and sticking up every which way. To me he was the prettiest thing on the beach.
Something had him excited. After taking off my apron he lifted me up on a stump and with his arm around my waist to steady me, he pointed out to sea. I was more aware of his closeness and his hand at my waist than of where he was pointing, but as I looked I saw what he was so excited about.
There were three whales playing in the ocean, big, long gray things. The calm sea allowed us see them more clearly than was usual, plus they were closer than the ones I was used to seeing from my window.
"I think those are called gray whales," David said, "Gosh, aren't they grand?"
They were spouting and diving and looked to be having fun. It made us both giggly. Maybe being so close together had something to do with it, too. He had to hold me tight to keep me from falling, and finally I had to get off the stump before I fell off it.
We sat down in the warm sand. As we talked he played with it, piling it into mounds, then smoothing them flat. Dribbling handfuls of sand, he made designs while asking me about the shells I'd gathered.
"You have so many, going into business or something?" Did he think I was greedy, or silly? I explained about my nieces and nephews, and off-handedly told him about the quilt. He was interested.
"But, David, the center is to be a piece-over of Haystack Rock, and I've tried, and tried, and I can't copy it."
"Sophie, would you mind...?" His face was bright with an idea, plus the sunburn. "One artist shouldn't interfere with another..."
An artist? Me? I would have laughed, but he was so serious I just smiled. "But we can help one another. What if I draw it for you?"
I didn't expect his help. "Oh David, you shouldn't waste your time."
His blue eyes were earnest, "I'd like very much to do it."
"Okay. If you insist. I'd really like some help," I said. I'll admit that I wanted more than just his help. I wanted the drawing, yes, but because he would be thinking of me while he did it. To know that David was thinking just of me and doing something just for me was a pleasure I wanted very much.
Plus I was flattered. The family always took my quilts for granted, or teased me about my eternal, infernal stitching, and complained about the little pieces that seemed to float into every nook and cranny of the house. And here David was calling me an artist.
He changed the subject. "So, Sophie, you make quilts, and plant roses. I'm learning more about you every day. Tell me, which of the brothers is your husband, and how long will you be here?"
Me, married to one of my brothers? The idea was so ridiculous and too, my nerves were just stretched thin. I hooted and laughed 'til I got a stitch in my side, thinking first of Willie and then Zack as a husband to me.
"What's so funny?" he kept asking.
I finally got control of myself. "I'm here to help the boys, cook and clean for them. They pay me a little from their wages and I get to live at the beach. I was tired of being with my sisters. Willie and Zack and I, we all three like it."
"I wondered... I'm glad. The older one seems so gruff and unlike you that I didn't like to think of you married to him. I see him sometimes outside when I pass by in the evening, and he's barely civil. I don't think he approves of me." His eyes twinkled. "And the younger one, he stopped and talked to me on the beach, last year, and seems to like my painting...but he's too young, too immature. So..." "I wondered." While he was discussing my brothers as husbands, my mind was on his wife. I didn't want him to speak of her, but maybe I'd made the same mistake he had.
"But you, David, you're married, aren't you?" I hoped he'd laugh too and tell me she was his sister, or his housekeeper, anything but his wife.
"Of course I'm married."
He didn't notice my disappointment. I swallowed it and kept smiling brightly at him, while I murmured, "How nice," or something polite.
"Amy and I've known each other all our lives. It seems we've always been married. It's been about twelve years now."
"But where is she?" I insisted. "I never see her." I wasn't happy with his tone in speaking of her. He didn't sound at all like a miserable husband.
"You haven't seen Amy because she seldom comes to the beach. She used to come often when we first moved here about seven years ago, but now she's satisfied to stay at home, reading and taking care.
"She writes. When she's not off selling my paintings for me, that is. That's where she is right now, in Salem. She left a week ago. I have a dealer there who sells for me. She delivers a few to him. She has a regular route she follows all around the state, visiting small galleries, and shops, and people she knows who are particularly interested in what I have to sell. She loves to travel. And she really has a knack for selling, which is good, because I hate it. Getting out, seeing all her old friends and meeting new people, it's good for her. Sometimes," he said quietly, "she's gone all summer."
"Then she's not...sickly?" I wasn't overjoyed at the idea of such a healthy, self-reliant woman.
"Sickly? No. Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Well, Zack saw her last summer here on the beach..." It embarrassed me to admit I'd been talking about him.
The sun went out of his face. "Oh, that. Yes, last summer she wasn't well. For a while." It seemed difficult for him and I wished I hadn't pried.
"We lost our baby." His face tightened. I tried to stop him.
"You needn't tell me."
He took a long breath. "Amy was about three months along and we were very happy. We'd waited so long, and had just about accepted that we wouldn't have children when she realized she was carrying a child. She was very careful... But I guess it wasn't meant to be. Losing the baby was very hard on her. More on her thinking than on her body."
He sat quietly for a while, playing with the sand. Gulls screeched from down by the water, fighting over a bit of something washed up in the tide. I couldn't think of what to say. Then he squashed the tower he'd built, "But, it's all right now. We still have time. I'm thirty-five and she's only thirty-three.
"On to a more cheerful subject. How big should my drawing be?"
I was glad to talk of anything else. The last thing I wanted to hear was how happy he and Amy were. I preferred to forget her. As for the quilt I wasn't sure what size the middle piece should be, so he said he'd draw up several sizes and I could choose which one I liked best.
As I got up to leave he put his hand on my shoulder. "I often see you walking on the beach. Please stop by and talk to me again."
"But I don't want to bother you."
"Sophie! I love to talk with you. Your laugh makes me glad."
I smiled at that.
"And sometimes I just get lonely here by myself. Promise me you'll come again."
"If you want me..."
"I do."
For the next week I saw him on the beach every day, and armed with the invitation always found my way over to him. I limited my time with him and hated leaving, but I was skittish, afraid that if I stayed too long he would know what a dummy I was, or at least what a dummy I thought I was.
For up 'til then no one had ever talked to me, with me, or maybe even more important, listened to me. He wanted to know what I thought. What I thought about books he'd read, whether I ever went out and just looked at the stars at night? Did I believe in God? What was my family like? What did I think happened after a person dies? Did I think there would ever be another war?
Funny things: had I ever seen a ghost, and did I think people had more than one life? If I could travel, where would I go, and why? Did I want to get married and have children? What did I want to do with my life?
I wasn't used to so many questions, and certainly none about most of the things he thought about. I'd take the questions home with me, the strange and new ideas and thoughts spinning in my head, and work out my answers while I sewed and cleaned, or walked on the beach.
Next day I'd go back full of answers and questions of my own and we'd be off again, talking and laughing a mile a minute, until I pulled myself away, frightened by the pull he had upon me. David would always touch me somehow, lightly across my shoulders, fussing about to make sure I was settled comfortably on the sand, taking my hands to help me up when I was leaving. And once he insisted on helping me brush the sand from my skirt when I stood up, causing such a feeling in me that I ran away.
The feelings he raised in me! I was sucked into him, completely absorbed in him, but, oddly, I also felt separate, unique. With him I felt at peace. Alone, or away from him I was confused.
He's married, I kept reminding myself, but the pull just kept getting stronger. Every day I would tell myself, Today I'm not going down there, I'll stay at home. But then, he would pass by in the morning and wave, and I'd decide, Well, just for a little while this afternoon if I haven't got anything else to do. And the day would go on forever, until I left the cabin, and went to him.
Every day I used the excuse of the drawings to go talk to him. "Are they done yet?" I'd ask and for a couple weeks I waited, wondering if he was really working on them or just a talker. You know how lots of men are... And every day he'd say, "Just a little bit more, almost done," until it got to be almost a joke for me to tease him and him to pretend that he was working on a masterpiece and I needed to wait for the, "magic of the muse," whatever that meant.
The day it happened... One day, about a couple of weeks later, after the boys had left for work, I
was rummaging through my scrap bag when I heard what I knew was his knock on the door, what they used to call a shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits knock. I jerked and scraps fell on the floor. I tidied my hair quickly in the small mirror in my bedroom and tried to appear casual when I opened the door.
He'd never come into the cabin before. He took some time to look around. I let him wander and started coffee, just to have something to do besides stare at him. The fire in the stove was low, it didn't take much but a couple pieces of wood to get it up enough to cook the coffee. He offered to help but I brushed off his offer, I needed to do something with my hands.
My clearest memory of him is the way he looked that day. He was wearing a blue shirt that set off his eyes and tan prettily. His hair seemed more red, but as usual, it was wild on his head. If I hadn't grabbed the coffeepot I'd have reached for his hair. I always wanted to touch it, pat it, pull my fingers through it.
He walked around the room, then stopped in front of the window. "I like your view." He smacked his lips like he was disappointed. "I tried to get this cabin. This land."
I watched him taking in the view, until he turned his head quickly, the sunlight flashing off his hair. His eyes caught mine.
"Oh, really?" I said, just to keep him talking. I didn't care what he was saying. My hands moved to the stove so I could open it and stir the wood about, reaching to the box for another small piece to shove in.
"Un huh," he said, "but our landlady, Mrs. Hope, said she'd rather rent it out and have some income than sell it and probably waste the money. The land our house is on was hers, too, but she wasn't making anything on it. She was glad to get rid of it."
He came to the shelf Zack had put up for me. I'd put my shells on it, and other doo-dads, just stuff I'd found. Now they took on a glow as he admired and fingered the trinkets with his easy hands. He had his back to me when he said, "How's the quilt coming along?" He whirled around to pull some sheets of paper out of his back pocket.
The drawings. In the excitement I'd forgotten them.
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