When David was with me I didn't hear the ocean and it didn't matter what the weather was. He came for lunch every day, bringing groceries and newspapers and gossip from town. The two hours he stayed became the only part of the day worth getting up for.
The thing that saved my sanity, I'm sure, was the company of Punkin Sue Tiger, a golden kitten David gave me for Halloween. He came late one afternoon, near evening, his hands behind his back. "Close your eyes and put out your hands," he said.
I didn't feel comfortable doing that since one of my brothers handed me a snake once. After he promised I would like the surprise, I yielded, as I did in so many things to him.
The moment David put a little warm bundle of fur into my hands, my eyes snapped open. It was the cutest thing--a furry kitten, about six weeks old. He squeaked when I lifted him up close, then started purring when I laid him on my shoulder. The more I petted him the louder his purrs got. Like David's grin, Punkin Sue Tiger's purring captured my heart.
After David left, the kitten followed me around the cabin. I warmed up a bit of milk and put it in front of him but he only drank a little before, with tiny mews, he was exploring the cabin again.
I named him Punkin Sue Tiger because of his color and the fact we didn't know what sex he was. We thought he was a she, thus Sue, after a particularly catty woman I knew up home.
In the evening I sat in the chair looking out the window at the ocean. Punkin Sue Tiger came up and began playing at my bare toes, trying to grab them as I rocked. He made more happy little mews as I picked him up to avoid the rocker's legs, he settled right down on my lap as I stroked his golden fur. Mixed in with the pumpkin color were a few darker, tiger stripes. His little body just vibrated while I petted him.
I pulled lightly on his tail, he turned around and looked at me in such a way that I stopped, but then I just couldn't help myself, I did it again. This time that little thing growled at me. Like most guys he didn't much like me to laugh at him, but he wasn't serious enough about it to get off my lap.
When I went to bed I put him in a box padded with rags, but after a couple of meows I got up and put him on the cover beside me, the top quilt edge turned back over him to keep him warm.
When I woke up he was still beside me, but snuggled under the covers, his whiskers tickling at my chin. His bright eyes were staring at me, his little mouth was open, crying at me to get up. He was too small to get off the bed without falling. I took him outside with me for his morning walk and he seemed as happy to get back in the warm house as I was.
He delighted me. He was something to talk to, and play with, and care about. And he gave me no complicated arguments.
I did spoil him terrible so that he crawled up the chair and hung around my neck like a fox fur when I was sewing, or once in a great while, when I was reading a paper. The rattle of the paper teased him like a mouse and he'd swipe at it with his tiny claws. Later, he got to be a real nuisance with the embroidery thread but no matter what he did, he kept me from suffering more.
14. The Quilt and a Letter
Without the boys to do for I had a lot of time on my hands. I took over their room for sleeping, turned mine into a sewing place and took back up with the quilt.
David helped with more drawings of patterns for the rocks. He had strong ideas about the colors I should use. Even wanted to bring me some blue material Amy had that he said would be just right for the water where it met the sky, but I wasn't having any of her material in my quilt. It was our quilt, I didn't want any of her in it.
From a sheet Willie had left behind, I made a new bag into which I would put all the material to go into Beach. I lugged my old bag of rags into the front room, where the fire warmed me and the light from the window brightened my dark mood. Bringing out all the old materials brought up the past, everything seemed so simple then, now my life was a tangle. The ocean moved slowly in large swells. Sometimes I would just sit and stare at it, watching the birds flying in and out of the thin fog, then I'd go back to sorting material.
I usually made pieced quilts, Beach was an appliqué, you know, small pieces sewn onto to a larger piece to make a design. It was the first one I ever did that way. Even with David's help, I still frustrated myself over the colors. There were the brown and gray leftovers from Zack's quilt, and some blue. More of Zack ended up in Beach than I planned, but as I worked on the quilt I forgot the bad things and only remembered that first night when he went poetic on us. So what had been a bad memory eased into pleasant.
I used large chunks of gray from a wool army blanket that he'd got from somebody who brought it back from the war. It was darker than I liked, but what the heck. The Army hadn't asked me before dyeing their blankets. It would do well for the frame around the frontpiece.
I separated out the rich light blue of a cotton blanket I'd used for Zack's border and as a runner between the squares. I loved the color, which reminded me of the eyes of a Siamese cat. Of course it didn't have the see-through quality of a cat's eye, but it was a lovely shade of blue. There was a lot of it. I'd only cut from the sides leaving me about half a blanket, good for the deeper ocean behind the rocks. I'd have liked more. Greedy? I made do with what I had. There was even some left over that I used in the Name Quilt.
The leftovers from Willie were fewer and smaller, but that was okay, because so much of Beach was drab grays and deeper blues. The little spots of color stood out and brightened it in a way that a fully-colored design wouldn't have.
For the lighthouse I found an especially clear emerald green, perfect for the sea around the base. I think it was left over from the collar of a cousin's flower girl dress. Yellow came from a piece I'd bought special for a quilted pillow I made for Mandy's wedding present--it fit for the lighthouse beam--just a tiny spot but a memory of comfort for me every time I saw it.
So many other bits of color I'd scavenged from aprons I'd made for Christmas presents for Mom and my sisters over the years. Tiring of pulling them out piece by piece, I upended the bag onto the floor. I didn't have much money but I was rich in material. Calicos and stripes and prints along with plain blacks, blues, and greens. Not much extra yellow because I used it so much in my quilts. Every bit of fabric took me back to what now seemed like an easier time.
I pulled out a bright orangish-yellow from the skirt I'd made for Mandy when she was pregnant with one of the first kids. She never liked it, so was happy to donate it to my quilt bag when I'd packed to go to the beach with the boys. That seemed so long ago. The orange was perfect for the starfish clinging to the rocks at the base of Haystack.
I smoothed the orange material flat, my heart filling with a bittersweet feeling. I'd used that color in every one of the stars in Willie's quilt, with a narrow band of it around the outside for a frame. It was so cheerful. It had taken a lot of piecing because I'd cut it sparingly, not wasting one scrap.
The pieces laid in a heap while I stared out at the ocean, seeing the tide line and the little birds skittering along the edge picking up broken bits of clam or tiny bits of fish. If I was close up I would hear their little cheeps sounding like baby chicks calling to their mother.
I got on with the job, tossing back into the old bag the patterned material leaving only the plain for the front of the quilt.
Every day I pulled the Beach bag into the front room and settled myself into the chair between the table and the window. It took days to get the pieces cut just right. And more weeks to get them pinned onto the large curtain piece David bought new from Puffin, a large plain piece of cotton but of substantial strength to hold the appliqué.
The day he brought it he also carried with him a letter. I saw it poking out from his jacket but was excited about the cloth, and planning how I'd dye it a pale blue as backdrop for the sea and sky. I didn't know the letter was for me. I made us tea while we talked about how to use the cloth when suddenly he slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"Oh, I forgot. When I picked up the material today from Puffin he g
ave me this letter for you."
He handed it to me and I was staring at my name written in Mandy's big scrawly handwriting on the front. I felt the letter and held it up to the light from the window and rubbed it and flattened it. It was pretty thin.
"Guess she doesn't have much to say," I said and put the envelope on the table.
"Aren't you going to open it?"
"Well, sure. But I thought we could drink our tea first."
"Sophie. How long has it been since you heard from your family?"
"Well, that's kind of just it. Maybe I don't want to. Maybe Zack or Willie told them something about, well, you know. Us. Maybe my brothers told my mother about you and me. Maybe Mama has figured out that I'm not just staying as a housekeeper for the neighbors."
"If you don't open it you'll never know."
"Maybe I'd rather not know." He was always pushing at me.
"Okay, Sophie. I've got to get back to the house. I'd sure be interested to know what your sister has to say, when you finally read it. You will open it, won't you?"
"Uh huh." I picked up the cotton material and started folding it.
He left and I messed around with the pieces that I'd cut out with David's design, opening the curtain material back up and trying pieces on it to see how'd they look. I'd still have to wash and iron it, and dye it, but I needed to try it out first. I pinned Haystack Rock just to the left of center, a bit below the halfway mark so there'd be room for the tide pools. Haystack was a perfect reddish brown, like it is when the sunset turns the sky red. The two thumbs out of the same cloth went to either side. At the place of the tide pools I pinned on the smaller rocks and attached some of the starfish and anemones and pieces of tide pool plants. David had found a sand-colored piece onto which he'd drawn the little birds that skittered over the sand in that way they had that I loved. On another piece he'd drawn seagulls.
The letter sat on the end of the table where I'd pushed it to make room for the pieces. I forgot, almost, that it was there, until it started getting too dark for the close work I had to do. When I went to fold up the cloth to put it away the letter got knocked to the floor. I left it there while I put everything back in the sewing chest where Punkin Sue Tiger couldn't get at it.
I made another cup of tea and put another piece of wood in the stove and stirred the beans I was cooking for dinner. All the while thinking about every possible thing that Mandy could have to say, going back and forth from things the boys could have told her, to telling myself that the letter wouldn't have anything to do with me, to worrying that maybe something had happened to somebody in the family. Mama or Daddy? I finally sat down at the table with the letter and used my pocketknife to open it.
She didn't have the best handwriting but what she said was clear. She wanted to bring the kids down to the ocean. Would I have room for them in the cabin? She didn't have money to spare to rent a cabin but would bring enough of her canned food to help out while she was there and she'd thought from what I'd said in the letter I'd sent several months back that we could get clams and fish enough from the ocean that we'd all have enough to eat. Maybe we could make clam chowder?
Here? She was going to come here? I could barely breathe as I thought about it. I'll tell you, Annie, I never wrote a letter back to someone so fast in my life.
Of course most of it was a lie. It had to be. I couldn't tell her the truth.
I ate some beans and bread while I thought about what to say. Before I went to bed I'd written my letter, telling her that I was now living in the house with the Smither's family 'cause the wife needed me in the house. The cabin was rented out to another family and as much as I'd love to see them, this spring just wasn't going to be a good time because the wife would be having a baby sometime around then. I was going to be very busy and not able to visit. Maybe another time?
For once I was glad my family didn't have money for vacations and like that. I'm ashamed at how easy it was to lie to her and how easy it all came out of me that way. But, it worked. She wrote back saying she was sorry. The children had really been looking forward to it, which I thought was silly because they didn't know anything about the ocean and were still little enough to not care about going someplace. I figured that was Mandy's way of telling me how disappointed she was.
I was relieved. The day I got the first letter from her was just a terrible shock and the second letter was a great relief. The time in between was awful.
Sewing the frontpiece of Beach kept me busy. It was a joy, as I was making this with David. But most of the time I was alone.
I could feel my belly growing larger with each week. I'd see little poke- outs on my tummy when I was sitting--his foot as he stretched his leg, an elbow when he turned--this baby was telling me he needed more room. I would shift and the bump would go away but it would remind me that he--or she--was growing and was going to have to come out someday. I'd break out in a sweat when I remembered Mandy's birthings. She hadn't had any bad trouble, but I could see it wasn't a comfortable experience. Hadn't bothered me when it was her. It was different now that it was me.
When I made the backside of the quilt, I changed my mind about the solid gray. I pulled out the patterned materials I'd stuffed back into the bag. The old cloth with family memories gave me comfort. Everybody had troubles; most made it through. I made large squares of crazy quilt with the patterns and joined them together. When I closed up the whole thing I made a frame for both front and back from Zack's gray Army blankets. Later, I embroidered yellow suns around the edges.
I was pregnant, I was alone, I was afraid, and I despaired that David would ever be mine. The nights were long and so lonely. But, like everything else, I lived through it. The change when it came took me by surprise, though why I can't say now, as I should have been expecting it.
David usually did get what he wanted.
15. Tonight, He's Yours
The more bored and lonely I got, the more David insisted I come with him and Amy. I was strong willed, but, I tell you, Annie, to me nothing was worse than that continual fog and rain. If I'd been well, maybe I could have stood it, but I had heartburn, my legs cramped up at night, my back ached and I was so bloated I felt about to bust sometimes. Still I might of stuck it out 'til the baby was born if I hadn't fallen.
I was coming back from the woodshed, my arms full of wood for the fire so I could fix David's lunch. I slipped on the dang beach grass and landed flat on my rump. I didn't hurt myself, but David was just coming down from his place and saw me fall. He helped me up and made sure I was all right but didn't say anything about it. That should have been a warning, because David could carry on something fierce about the littlest problems I had.
That evening there was a light knock on the door. I thought David was being gentle because he didn't want to disturb me in case I was asleep.
When I opened the door a woman was standing there. I knew immediately she was Amy. She was not a timid woman. She stepped into the room. Right off I sensed the power and downright good sense of her. She was shorter than me, but not little. That night she had on a dark green cape that showed her eyes were more hazel than the brown Willie had described. She fixed them on me as she shut the door behind her. Standing just inside the door she undid the ties of her cape, still silent. The hood fell back. She shook her hair to lift the blond curls of her bangs where the hood had flattened them. I guess her hair had grown since Willie had seen her on the beach with David. She'd pulled it up into a soft bun from which some strands had escaped, falling down onto her shoulders. She was a pretty thing.
She took the cape off and laid it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Of all things, she was wearing a crème colored silk blouse that she'd tucked neatly into a tailored brown skirt. She was wearing pearls, for Pete's sake. Dressed to kill--only time I ever saw her dressed like that. Usually she wore her hair in braids and plain cotton clothes for working around the house. She was sensible though. Her shoes were sturdy black oxfords. She wouldn't have slipped c
oming down the path from their place.
I'd moved over back up against the table when she reached for me. I couldn't move.
"Dear Sophie," she said as she took my hand.
Dear?
She plunged to the point. "David tells me you fell today. Certainly you know you cannot be alone any longer. It's totally unnecessary." The small movements on my part to pull my hand from her grasp were ignored.
"David wants you with us..."
"Did he send you?" I was angry at this woman. And David. She was upsetting all my notions about her. I preferred to think of her, when I allowed myself to think of her at all, as a woman desperate for her husband's love. A woman willing to do as he bid her. A meek, submissive little nobody who secretly hated me but desperately kept it from David with her soups and sweet inquiries about my health.
"No. He didn't." She released my hand. "When I told him I was coming he tried to stop me, and then he wanted to come with me. But the talk we must have can't be done with him around. Now..."
She sat down, completely at ease. She motioned me to do the same.
That irritated me. It was, after all, my house. In defiance I chose to sit on the edge of my chair, to show I would do as I pleased in my own home, not as she bid me. I wanted her to know that I was not as malleable as she.
"I understand from David that you think his idea of us all living together is crazy, perhaps immoral. Gosh, I hope you're not right. As you know, David isn't like other men. That's why I love him so. If we're going to make this all turn out so that no one gets hurt--well, no more than can be helped--we're going to have to do something unusual. And we have the baby to think of."
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