Doc Newman said with interest, “What does that passage mean to you, Ingrid?”
She put her hands over her eyes. “It fills me with fear.”
She took her hands from her face and glanced at me, a brief look of motherly regret. “I have scorned Christ’s prophecies. I have cared only for myself. I have not loved. And look! Now I am living in a house upon the sand! A house built expressly for false Christians! I am surely doomed to hell for eternity. God is telling me this, I know.”
Doc looked alarmed. “Now, Ingrid, that’s taking things too far, indeed. You’re an upstanding Christian woman. I’ve never seen you miss a day of church. I think you need some more fresh air, move around a bit. Staying up here all day isn’t doing you a bit of good.”
With that, he told Winnie and me to leave the room so he could examine Mama, who was sobbing into her pillow. Half an hour later, Doc Newman clomped slowly down the narrow staircase. Winnie and I both greeted him expectantly at the bottom of the stairs.
Without meeting our eyes, he dispensed his favorite prescription. “She needs fresh air, and lots of it. That room is making her loopy. Quoting scripture, indeed.”
This hardly satisfied me. “Dr. Newman, pardon me for saying this, but it seems to me she needs more than just fresh air. She is unwell … in her spirit, too. And you led us to believe that she couldn’t get pregnant again.”
He shrugged as he snapped his doctor’s bag shut. “I’ve been known to be wrong in these kinds of cases. Things do happen.”
I dared to ask him, “Will she survive the birth?”
He fiddled with the rim of his hat. “It’s hard to tell. Everything appears to be moving along normally. But as you know, her pregnancies and births have been hard on her body. I can’t say for sure what will happen.”
I stared at him, wanting more of an explanation, especially one that freed her and the baby from death sentences. He just kissed my hand with his papery lips. “Rest and fresh air, Abigail. Oh, and I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
With a slight tilt of his flossy head, he donned his hat and headed straight through the sand toward the hotel.
As soon as the screen door banged shut after him, I heard Mama call me upstairs. Her voice sounded strangled, as if she were set to retch, so I hurried up to see her. She was out of bed and standing in the middle of the room in her dirty nightgown. I had forgotten how tall she was.
“Refusing a proposal of marriage?” she spit, her white face contorted. “Are you trying to kill me with your willfulness, Abigail?”
Doc Newman must have known more about the situation than he had let on. I couldn’t believe that he had mentioned it to Mama, especially in the state she was in.
But I could still feel Ben’s kisses on my thighs from earlier in the evening. I could still feel my sore flesh rubbing against my pantalettes when I moved. I couldn’t think about anything else.
I uttered the only words that came to mind: “I don’t want to marry him, Mama. He’s not the one for me.”
She began to pace the floor, her heavy breasts swinging against the cotton of her gown. She muttered violently to herself and pulled at her long hair. “You didn’t think you could keep the refusal a secret from us, I hope?”
I shook my head pathetically. “I didn’t think you were up to hearing about it right now. Have you seen yourself lately? You’re losing your mind up here, Mama.”
She moved quickly to me and slapped me hard across the fleshy part of my cheek with her bony fingers. “Do you think I like worrying about you? Do you think I enjoy planning for your future?”
Her voice was laced with a dormant Swedish accent. I had heard it only once before, when she was delirious after one of her miscarriages. “Do you know that you have always been like this? Ever since you were a baby, I have felt your desire for independence like a hot poker in my belly, and it has caused me no end of anguish.” She grabbed her breasts and squeezed them hard. “You flatly refused to take my nourishment. Oh, I tried to hold you just so, forcing your mouth toward my breast. But you would cry, your little fists screwed tight.
“I was forced to bring in Winnifred. Of course, you drank from her breasts like the milk contained the sweetest sugar. You never wanted me to hold you. You wiggled away from my body and lay facedown down in your cradle. From the time you first walked, you wanted to do everything by yourself, and do things your own way, never listening to my instructions. Roaming the fields, talking to the horses.
“And your laugh! You barked that laugh all day long, the most irritating sound, like an animal in heat.”
I remembered, suddenly, that it was Uncle Jack who had triggered all the laughter. I certainly didn’t inherit the habit from my parents. I tried mightily to imagine the advice he would give me right now, but all I could hear was Jack’s own belly laugh, a sound that I always associated with unconditional love.
In spite of the tension in the room, I stifled a smile, thinking of him at his happiest, and as the tickly warmth spread into my throat, threatening to erupt, I realized with clarity that some of Uncle Jack’s best qualities lived on in a Banker named Ben. And the two of them made me stronger, encouraging me.
Mama went on, oblivious to my straightening posture. “Messy ribbons dripping down your back, hem always dragging in mud. Nothing ever vexed you, except when you couldn’t do what you wanted. But I’m tired of your tantrums now. Worn out by your willfulness. You will marry Hector. I will arrange a visit myself, upon our return to Edenton.”
And down came the cage, with wooden bars, pilings in the sand. I asked reasonbly, “Do you want me to end up like you, Mama?”
As irrational as she had become this summer, when she looked at me, her eyes were as serious as a tombstone. “I see that you have dreams for yourself. You wear them all over your sunburned face. Learn to live without them, Abigail. Trust me, they will hurt you badly.”
She removed the sticks from the shutters and shut the windows, encasing herself in the oppressive heat once more. Then she lay calmly back down on the bed, pale and spent. She reached for her Bible, free from the weight of the medical bag.
With all thoughts of laughter gone, I walked quietly out of the room, my thoughts already skipping to the night of teaching ahead of me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Benjamin Whimble
August 23, 1868
I cannot express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old hutch and lie down in my hammock-bed. This little wandering journey, without settled place of abode, had been so unpleasant to me, that my own house, as I called it to myself, was a perfect settlement to me compared to that; and it rendered everything about me so comfortable that I resolved I would never go a great way from it again while it should be my lot to stay on the island.
—ROBINSON CRUSOE
I SWUNG THE AX SO HARD IT WENT HALFWAY THROUGH THE OAK TREE ON the first blow. With a few more cracks, and a holler from my throat, it set to falling down into the dirt with a crash. Then I moved right along to the next one. I couldn’t think about nothing except Abby, and trying to show her that she could stay here with me.
After Jockey’s Ridge, I went straight over to see old Mrs. Barker about cutting some of her timber down. She’d been after me a while to do it, on account she needed the money from the wood right much, ever since her husband had died a couple years back.
As payment, she told me I could have some of the wood for my own use. It wouldn’t be much, after she had sold what she needed to, but it would be a good start, maybe just enough to build a house.
I featured Abby laughing that open-mouth laugh when she saw the tiny thing it would surely be. It would be near to about as small as her outhouse on the beach. But I was powerful hoping she wouldn’t care.
I kept thinking on the feel of her heavy hair, the bones of the back of her skull under my hands. And I couldn’t stop seeing that thatch of red hair between her legs, as unlikely a sight as a tangle of scarlet seaweed floating in a green ocean. I still fe
lt what it was like inside her. The memory of it was as warm as a summer evening spent sitting on top of Run Hill, thinking on all the good things that nature offers up for free.
I wanted that feeling for the rest of my days.
The summer sure had been a higgledy-piggledy one, the best of heaven ’n’ hell all back to back. The thoughts of the weeks previous, what I’d done for Mister Sinclair, were still weighing me down like a ton of bricks. When I wasn’t thinking about Abby, those memories haunted me all the time.
I took an extra-hard swing at the tree in front of me and it cracked loud as thunder as it fell, right in line with its fallen comrades. I stopped to wipe my forehead with the tail of my shirt and looked on the broken trees.
For many long years, those trees felt pretty good, thinking they were out of harm’s way. But there was no safe place on the Banks, for no living thing. Something was bound to get you, one way or another. Sooner or later, you were cut off from the roots you’d spent long years growing.
But those trees—so strong and proud—looked just like my future home. They would be put to some good use, even still.
After one last haul of wood to the building site, I rode tuckered old Junie back to Pap’s to wash up. And it was with a hopeful heart that I went to the weddings in Nags Head Woods.
Two couples I’d known for a coon’s age were uniting in matrimony, having finally gotten a bona fide preacher to do the honors.
By the time I got there there was already a big boodle gathered in a clearing near the sound side. There were tables and chairs set up for a wedding feast, and flowers and vines were strung from the branches of the trees as a decorative touch. Pap stood with the other old-timers, likely sharing fishing yarns they’d told over and over through the long years.
I bet he had a mouthful, since he didn’t talk with me anymore. So much was different for me now. Seemed like I needed to talk to Pap about it to make it all seem real to me. But none of it was what he wanted to hear.
My buddies were still glad to see me, though. “Where you been?” Jimmy hollered. He looked me over close. “What’d you do, wash yerself?”
Harley said, “I’ll bet you been off with that teacher gal. What she been learnin’ you now, is what I want to know.” He slapped me on the back.
I grinned, not being able to help myself. Just the mentioning of her made me want to scurry ’round the sand like a jackrabbit.
Harley whispered, “Better tell you now, Eliza is here, and none too happy at that. She’s acting more ’n’ more like her mama every day.”
I caught sight of her with some of her friends, laying out the fixings. She looked right nice, her hair pinned up again and wearing what looked to be a new blue dress. But her face was gray and ornery. She never was the grinning kind of gal, though.
I doubted I should go talk with her right now. She’d rightly yell at me in front of the wedding guests and ruin the frolic. Just then, little Genny Harper came running through the woods, hollering that the preacher was coming. Sure enough, a wagon came rolling through the woods, carrying the reverend.
The crowd whooped and the wedding couples appeared. Their brown faces told of only happy thoughts. They held each other’s hands and wouldn’t let go.
I thought of Abby, and how I’d like to marry her in these very same woods. Maybe she’d wear that yellow dress of hers. It lit up the woods like sunshine, but she didn’t really need a dress to do that. I thought of her pink nipples poking through her wet undershirt, soaked with water from my own Great Pond, and almost swooned right there in the sand.
Soon a peace settled over the folks, which is really saying something, since us Bankers aren’t known for our soft voices. I heard an osprey’s call and the quiet slap of the sound water. And I heard the preacher’s words ring out loud and clear, giving me gooseflesh all over my arms. He married the two couples in about five minutes flat, and then the feast began with shouts of glee.
The ladies had plumb outdone themselves. There was more belly timber than I’d ever seen in my life: savory venison, hams, sea bass and grouper, cuts of beef, all manner of chicken, biscuits and gravy, and cakes, custards, jellies, and pies. I for one ate like a swine on holiday.
When the sun started its setting, Jacob fetched his fiddle and began to scratch his bow on the strings. Harley and Jimmy joined in, and then all the folks commenced a double shuffle dance right there. Bare feet kicked up sand like a hurricane wind. Then a barrel of beer was rolled out, and everyone quit their dancing to get a cup full.
At candle-lighting, couples started their pairing off for more dancing. But I just sat in the sand, drinking beer and soaking up the good will. In the shuffling group, I saw Eliza dancing with Abner Miller. The man had had his eye out for Eliza for a long time, but she never took no notice of him, he having a lazy eye, buck teeth, and a limp.
Eliza twirled ’round in her blue skirts, her hair coming loose from her up-do. She hadn’t so much as looked at me all night. But she wasn’t looking much at Abner no how. She kept trying to move a different way than he was, and with him limping along, they looked like a three-legged donkey chasing its tail.
A while into the dance, Eliza shouted about something and went off to sit on a log. Abner just stood there, a-looking over at her like he’d lost his dog. Then Elena and Iola—her two best friends—broke off from their partners, too, one of who was a gangly-legged, pimple-faced boy named Willy. The girls sat talking like little old biddies behind their hands.
Willy came over and said, “I never knew Eliza to be so highfalutin. She told us we can’t dance proper and to go get ourselves lost.”
Before I could wonder a thought, Eliza came strutting over. She smiled at me, but the gesture made her look mad instead of happy. “You look slicked up tonight, Benjamin Whimble. What’s the occasion? Surely you didn’t get all primped up for a wedding. I know how little you care about such things as weddings.”
I tried my best to be natural. “A man’s got to wash himself ever once in a while. Man alive, I must have been dirtier than a pig’s snout, the way you all are acting tonight.”
She reached out and touched my face with a finger. “Well, I think you look right handsome. Hey, and what do you think of my looks?” She curtsied for me. “I made this dress myself. Ordered the fabric from a fancy store in New Bern. Cost me a pretty penny, but some things are just worth it.”
Before I could say a word, she grabbed my hand and said, “I want to talk to you. What say we walk over to the water and leave these drunks to their dancing, if that’s what you call it.”
She started pulling me toward the sound, away from the carryings-on. Willy just stared and shook his head at us real sorry like as we left.
We reached the water’s edge and stood in the wet sand looking at the round moon. Eliza wouldn’t let go my hand, and I didn’t have the heart to let go myself. I breathed in deep. “How you been, Eliza?”
“Not so good, Ben, if you want to know the truth. But I hear you’ve been having a grand time with that Abigail. Folks have been spotting you all over the Banks with her. That’s nice of you, to play tour guide with her before she leaves for the mainland. Must be any day, and she‘ll be catching that steamboat for home.”
At that I pulled my hand away from her, but it took some wrenching to do it. “Is this what you wanted to talk about? ’Cause I don’t want to discuss her with you. It ain’t right, given our history.”
She looked so sad then. “‘Our history,’ says he! Don’t that cap the climax! You know, I always thought we’d live our lives together, right here, in sight of the woods and the sound, like you wanted. I know this place ain’t much. Nags Head ain’t much better than a pile of sand stuck in the middle of the sea. But it’s us, Ben.” She sounded like she was going to have herself a good cry. “I can’t see myself here without you. And I sure can’t see you with that Abigail. Her family ain’t right for this island. They never will be. They don’t have the guts to stick it out here, year after year, sto
rm after storm. They ain’t made of the same stuff we are.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And everyone agrees with me. You shouldn’t go mixing with the weaker kind of folks. It’ll bring down the island, make us soft. We need to stick together, us Bankers.”
At first, I’ll allow, I thought the Sinclair house was the craziest sight I’d ever seen. And I still thought that way most days. But sometimes I caught myself wishing for a window to the sea, so that when I awoke in the morning I could look out and for miles and miles see nothing but water. Raging waves or lapping curls, it wouldn’t matter. It would be like having a friend who never left your backyard, a friend with a temper sometimes, sure, but also a merry friend, a true friend, one who was always there through thick and thin.
“I miss you, Ben. That’s all. I just miss you.” Her eyes were wild and her breath was quick and loud. “I can be a lady, too, just like Abigail. I can make you love me.” She grabbed my face hard with both her hands and kissed me rough. She tried to poke her tongue in my mouth, but I pushed her away.
“Stop it now, Eliza. I’ve got nothing else to say to you.” I turned and walked back to the party, closing off my ears to her gut-wrenching sobs.
I felt so sorry for what I’d done to her. But the love I had for Abby would never go away. Even if she did leave me for Edenton, I would always want her. And Eliza could never be enough for me again. That was just the way it was.
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