What Makes a Family

by Colleen Faulkner

  “Celeste said she saw you at The Gull last night.”

  Daddy pulls an oatmeal cream pie out of the brown bag and hands it to me. I take it. He pulls the second one out and tears the cellophane and takes a big bite. I nibble on mine. They’re pretty sweet. Too sweet. But they remind me of all the good things in life, and I savor each oaty, creamy bite.

  “I’m worried about her,” he says.

  I frown and watch two female mallard ducks paddle in and out of the reeds near the end of the crumbling dock that no one has used in twenty years. I love talking to my dad, but not about my sister. And we talk about her a lot.

  “She doesn’t look good,” he continues. “She’s drinking too much. And she’s . . . she’s sad, Abby.”

  I want to tell him she just puts on that act for him. To get him to feel sorry for her. To get him to give her money without having to ask. But I know what he’s talking about. It’s not all an act. I’ve noticed it over the last year or so. It seems as if it takes more energy for her to pretend as if everything is fine. As if she’s successful and happy and still beautiful. And not aging like the rest of us.

  “You know how she is. She gets sad sometimes.” I shrug. I don’t want him to worry about Celeste. He’s got enough to deal with, with Mom Brodie dying. “She takes medication for it.”

  My sister’s been on and off antidepressants half her life. Drum and I sometimes joke that we’d have to take them if we lived her life too, but it’s not as funny as it used to be. Her wild, unpredictable behavior went over much better when she was in her twenties, and even in her thirties. The drinking, the random men. Now it’s just . . . It makes me sad.

  “I’ve been telling her it’s time to make changes,” he says, chewing on a mouthful of oatmeal pie. “I think maybe . . . she ought to come home to Brodie. Live with us a spell.”

  I laugh out loud. “Celeste would rather be six-foot under alongside Mom Brodie than come home, Daddy. Than to admit she’s beaten and live with you and Birdie.”

  He thinks on that for a long minute. One of the ducks disappears under the dock, and I wait for her to reappear.

  “Would that be such a bad thing, living here?” he asks.

  I glance over at him. He’s not talking about Celeste now. He’s talking about me. And Drum’s dream of retiring. Here. On Brodie Island.

  I choose my words carefully before responding. This isn’t the time to talk about me picking up my whole life and moving to Brodie. “I don’t think she belongs here; she never did. She needs the bright footlights of the city . . . even if she’s not standing in them anymore.”

  He exhales. “I’m afraid she’s not going to take the news well.”

  I’m still eating my oatmeal cream pie. Daddy’s finished his and is crumpling the cellophane wrapper in his hand. It crackles between his fingers. I watch Duke lumber toward us. He’s got a two-foot-long, wet stick in his mouth.

  “What news?”

  He exhales again, loudly. It’s his sign that I’m not going to like what he has to say. Or someone isn’t going to like it. I’ve always teased him that he’d be a lousy poker player; he’s got the worst poker face ever. Unlike my mother, who can smile sweet as pie and curse you under her breath. At least her version of cursing.

  “Clancy came by the diner this morning. Had coffee with me.”

  The family attorney. The only attorney in Brodie. He’s got an office in the back of his house just off Main Street, the same office his father used before him. The Jacobses have been on the island since the nineteenth century. Been lawyers and judges and law enforcement for just as long.

  “Uh-huh. What’d Clancy have to say?” You have to be patient to have a conversation with my dad. He takes his time to say what he wants to say. And when he speaks, he speaks slowly, as if considering each word. He talks like a man whose family has been here since Maryland was a colony, with an accent that’s fading fast on the mainland. When Drum and I first started dating, he was fascinated by the Eastern Shore inflection I barely noticed. He did a little research and discovered that men and women in this area spoke in a very similar manner to men and women in Cornwall in the UK. Or rather the way they spoke there three hundred years ago. Somehow the Eastern Shore and Brodie Island have remained a capsule of that time and place where their settlers came from in the seventeenth century.

  “Clancy wanted to warn me that Mama came in to see him nine, maybe ten months ago.”

  “Warn you?” I wait, still eating my oatmeal pie. When my dad doesn’t want to have to tell me something, it takes him even longer to get it out. Duke comes to stand in front of me. He drops the stick, looks up at us, and picks it up again. “I’m not playing fetch with you,” I say. “Not right now, boy.”

  He drops the stick again, seeming to understand exactly what I’m saying. He tilts his black head at me and looks up with big, puppy eyes. “I’m not playing,” I repeat. Then I toss the last bite of my snack cake high in the air. The Lab leaps and catches it in his mouth, midair.

  I look at my dad. “So Mom Brodie went to see Clancy. Professionally, you mean?”

  Daddy nods. He’s got the apple out of the bag now, and he’s rolling it between his hands. He has small hands, hands scarred and tanned from years of hard outside work. I love my dad’s hands; they aren’t any bigger than mine, just thicker. Meatier.

  “And what did he want to warn you about?”

  “Changed her will,” he says.

  “Okay.” I lift one shoulder. I recall her whispering to me about her pin money. “Her prerogative,” I say. “And I don’t know what her will said before.”

  He looks down at Duke, who, realizing the snack cake is gone, picks up his stick and walks away with it.

  I wait on my dad.

  “She didn’t ask me my opinion,” he says finally. “She just did it. And she didn’t tell me once it was done.”

  “So you didn’t know she’d made changes.” I’m a little surprised, and I imagine he is too. Maybe a little hurt. Mom Brodie and Daddy were always a team. He never made major business decisions without consulting her, after Grandpop died. And she always consulted him on anything beyond simple household matters, which were always her domain.

  I frown, knowing I’m creating wrinkles across my forehead every time I do it. Permanent wrinkles. “You know that’s not really legal. Clancy telling you Mom Brodie’s personal, legal business.”

  “He knows she’s dying. Everybody on Brodie knows it. I was at the diner an hour later than usual this morning, so many people coming by to pay their respects.”

  “Jeez, Daddy. She’s not even dead yet,” I mutter.

  “They don’t mean any harm by it. Everybody loves your grandmother. Respects her. She did a lot of good here. For the people of Brodie.”

  I’m fascinated by the sense of responsibility Mom Brodie and my father feel for the people who live and work on Brodie Island. And not just the people who work for us. For anyone who makes their life here. I suppose my mother feels it too, but I’ve always gotten the sense she feels an obligation to them, not a responsibility. It’s not the same thing.

  Again, I wait. I wish I had Duke’s stick to prod my father into just spitting out what he has to say.

  “She . . . Mama . . . I guess she thinks Celeste isn’t responsible.”

  “She isn’t, Daddy.”

  “With money.”

  I suddenly get a bad feeling, realizing where this is going. “Oh, no,” I murmur.

  He nods. “She cut her out. Your sister.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it.

  “Out out?” I ask.

  “Out out,” he repeats.

  I lean on the rickety rail, copying his stance: forearms against the splintered wood, legs apart, shoulders hunched.

  “The way Clancy tells it, Celeste isn’t getting a cent. Just . . . some pieces of old jewelry.”

  “Maybe they’re worth something,” I say hopefully, thinking my sister would run, not walk to the nearest pawnshop. There�
��s no such thing as sentimental value to her. No such thing as sentiment.

  My father stares out at the bay. “Good chunk of change. In the will.”

  Now I’m curious. I can’t help myself. “Who . . .” I feel guilty, even before I speak the words, so I swallow. “You think we should wait and talk about this after . . . after she’s gone?”

  He just keeps staring out at the bay. A skipjack, one of the few commercial sailing ships left, glides across the water. It looks like the Miss Claire. Most of the skipjacks left in the Chesapeake Bay dock at Deal Island, nearby. Skipjacks are commercial fishing vessels that dredge for oysters in the winter. They only still exist because of an old law that prevents motorboats from dredging the Maryland state oyster fishery. Daddy says it’s only a matter of time before the law changes, and that will be the end of the skipjacks.

  I watch the Miss Claire move slowly through the dark, green-gray water. She’s sloop-raked with a boom the length of the boat and a sharply raked mast. Her mainsail is a simple triangle with a jib mounted on the bowsprit. The sailboat’s strange construction allows for enough power, even in light winds, to dredge for the oysters.

  In the far distance, beyond the Miss Claire, we can see the shore of the mainland. When I’m here, the mainland, the real world seems far away and not quite . . . real. Drum says Brodie Island is the most enchanted place he’s ever been, a place and people almost untouched by time. I tell him he’s touched in the head.

  “Do you think Celeste was expecting money?” I ask my dad. But I already know the answer.

  He looks at me. Tugs on the brim of his ball cap. “What do you think?”

  I sigh and stand up. “You going to tell her now or wait until after Mom Brodie dies?”

  “I’ll wait; it will mean holding off the storm.”

  I can’t help myself. I smile. My sister can throw a hell of a fit. She doesn’t just scream; she throws things. Mostly accusations, but occasionally a shoe or a glass of iced tea. A disagreement over whose turn it is to use the washing machine can quickly become a discussion of who got more candy in his or her Christmas stocking in 1985. And how I’m Birdie and Daddy’s favorite. Always have been. Which isn’t true. I’m Daddy’s favorite, but Birdie can barely tolerate me.

  “You could talk to Birdie about when you ought to tell Celeste. She’s pretty good about measuring Celeste’s temperature.”

  “I don’t like to bother Birdie with such things.”

  I hesitate. My parents have been married for almost fifty years. Who am I to tell them how a marriage should be? But I just feel like it needs to be said. Even if I’m wrong. And that’s one of the best things about my father. Even when you’re wrong, he’s willing to listen to you. “You know, Daddy, when Mom Brodie dies, you’re not going to have her to talk things over with anymore. Birdie’s going to be the head of the house. She . . . in some ways she’s going to have to take over Mom Brodie’s position on the island. She’ll be the matriarch of the family. You need to start including her in things. In decisions you make.”

  My dad looks at me, and I think he’s going to agree with me. But instead, he says, “You best get home. Your mother might need help with Mama.”

  I sigh. I don’t feel sorry for my mother often; she creates her own discontent most of the time. But for once, I feel like Daddy’s wrong. Drum and I talk about everything. Sometimes we argue, but even when we know an argument is coming, neither of us avoids a subject. It’s the way we’ve kept our marriage sound.

  But I don’t argue. That time and place thing. And this isn’t it. “You’ll be home for supper, right? Sarah’s been going through old photographs. She’s been asking a lot of questions about . . . Mom Brodie,” I say carefully.

  I have no intention of telling him about his mother’s tattoo. And I know Sarah won’t either. Like her namesake, she’s a woman to be trusted with a secret. Drum always says she’s the one to trust with the knowledge of where the bodies are buried.

  “Only natural. A girl gets to be her age, and they start trying to figure out where they belong in the world. Best way to do that is to know where you come from. I’ll answer her questions best I can. You know Mama never talked much about growin’ up.” He covers my hand on the railing with his. “Thank you for dropping things at your place and coming. Glad you could be here. It’s what she wants. The way she wants to go. All of us gathered ’round her.” His voice is thick with emotion, and I’m afraid he’s going to start to cry again. Which means I’ll cry.

  “Me too,” I say, blinking back tears. I give him a quick kiss on his weathered, farmer’s cheek and head for the pickup.

  11

  Sarah Agnes

  He’s waiting for me at the foot of the Ferris wheel, just like I knew he would be. “Bonjour,” I say to him, my face feeling hot.

  “Bonjour.” He smiles, looking into my eyes as if I’m the only girl on the midway. The carnival is busy, despite the late hour. “Would you like to ride?” he asks me, holding my hand.

  Not trusting myself to speak because my words sound all breathy, I just nod. Standing close to Henri like this, I can smell his aftershave, and it makes me light-headed. Is this what love feels like?

  He turns to a man standing nearby, smoking a cigarette. “Hey, Spotty. Can you send us up?”

  Spotty looks me over the way the boys from town looked at me this afternoon, only he makes me feel a little uncomfortable. He’s a tall man, a long drink of water, Papa would call him. And covered with freckles. Like me. Only his hair’s not red. It’s blond and shaggy. He’s wearing red pants. I’ve never seen a man in red pants. “Sure this is a good idea, Hank?” he asks, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, bobbing up and down. He’s still staring at me. “She looks young.”

  “How old are you, baby? Seventeen, right?” Henri asks, draping his arm over my shoulder.

  “Eighteen my next birthday.” My voice sounds squeaky now. I look down so he can’t see my eyes, but I feel my face growing hot from the lie.

  “See. Almost eighteen,” Henri says.

  “Fine. Just don’t let Jacko catch you.”

  I look up at Henri, suddenly frightened for him. I don’t want him to get in trouble. Not on account of me. “We don’t have to. I don’t have to ride,” I tell him.

  “It’s fine. Spotty’s a worrywart. Oui, Spotty?” Henri pulls the long lever on the Ferris wheel that’s slowly turning over our heads, and it slowly comes to a halt. There are a couple of passengers, but their cars are nearly at the top. Henri helps me into the blue car. It swings as we get in, and Henri reaches across my lap to secure the metal bar. When he moves back, he does it slowly, looking into my eyes. And I see his. The prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Then Henri gives Spotty a thumbs-up, and the car lurches and swings, and suddenly we’re moving up, up in the air.

  “He called you Hank,” I say, looking up earnestly at him. “Why’d Spotty call you Hank, Henri?”

  Henri shrugs. “These birds, they don’t speak Français. You know.” He brings his finger beneath my chin and tips it up so he’s looking right into my eyes. His breath smells . . . mediciney. “But you, mon amour . . .”

  High above Bakersville, the bright colored lights of the carnival flashing in the darkness, I get my first kiss. It’s too amazing for words. Utterly heavenly. And it’s such a doozy that I’m still holding Henri’s hand, staring up into his eyes when we hop off the Ferris wheel. Then we stroll down the midway, crowded with men and women and a few children who’ve come to Bakersville from miles around. I don’t see anyone I recognize; most of the people have to be out-of-towners so late in the evening. But I wouldn’t care if someone I knew did see me. I’m not like Cora. I’m not like anyone in this town. I’m not afraid like they are. Afraid of everything. Which is why I don’t belong here.

  Henri buys me cotton candy, and he plays a game where he throws metal rings onto wooden sticks. He makes the hardest throw and wins me a Kewpie doll with a painted blue dress
. I hesitate to take her when he holds her out to me; I don’t want Henri to think I’m a child. But she has rouged lips so I decide it’s okay to take her. We walk by several other booths where you can play all sorts of games and win fancy prizes. Henri knows everyone, and he waves and greets the people working there. They all seem to like him.

  I feel like I’m spinning in circles, even when we’re walking hand-in-hand straight through the trampled grass. The colored lights on the game booths blink on and off, and men call out to passersby, trying to entice men and boys to win prizes for their gals. Then we come to a big red and white-striped tent where men are lined up along a rope. Loud, racy music comes from inside the tent.

  “What’s in there?” I ask.

  “Girls.” He grins. “You know.” He shakes his hips.

  Then he laughs, and I laugh like I know what he’s talking about, even though I don’t. I know from the sound of Henri’s voice and the sounds of the men in line that neither my papa nor Mrs. Hanfland would be the people to question. And something tells me Cora won’t know, her being the daughter of a preacher.

  Just past the tent, Henri backs me up against a metal pole and kisses me again. His kiss is long and hard, and, when I pull away, I still taste his tongue that touched mine. “I should go,” I tell him.

  “Not yet. Come see my place.” He points into the darkness. “I got a little jag juice.” He winks at me and kisses me again quick on the lips.

  “Jag juice?” I say.

  “Foot juice. Giggle water?”

  Then it dawns on me. He means whiskey. Or some kind of hard drink. That’s what I smelled on his breath. Tasted when he kissed me. Prohibition is still the law of the land, though my papa is always reading from the newspaper about how people say it’s not going to last much longer. My father doesn’t drink, far as I know. I don’t know anyone who does except for Old Mr. Clopper who’s the town drunk and sometimes sleeps on our back porch if Granny doesn’t catch him.