by Nancy Hartry
“This is it!” I shove it open.
Mom is in the kitchen peeling apples, and Jimmy is lying on the braided rug at her feet. He has his hand over his eyes and is watching the light from the ceiling fixture between the slits of his fingers.
“MMM — NN-NNN,” he bellows.
“What’s that, honey?” Mom tickles him with the toe of her slipper.
Andrew slips the bag off his shoulder and to the floor. He walks toward Jimmy and kneels down beside him.
“Hi, there, Jimmy. Are you looking at the moon?”
“MMMMM-NN-NNNN!” Jimmy is excited because Andrew has understood what he’s been saying.
The paring knife falls from my mother’s hand and clatters in the sink.
“Gracious! You scared me to death. And who might you be?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, Mrs. Jamieson Mrs. MacGregor sent me over to help watch Jimmy.” Andrew shakes my mother’s hand, but his eyes are for Jimmy. It’s as if Jimmy is the only person that matters in the room, and it is left to me to whisper the details of the plan to my mom. Andrew puts his hands over his own eyes and peeks through his fingers at the ceiling fixture.
“Yes, Jimmy, I think that’s the moon. A full moon. A real beaut.”
My mom steps away and Andrew lies down on the kitchen floor. Jimmy scrunches closer to him and puts his head on Andrew’s shoulder.
“My, goodness. I’ve never seen Jimmy take to anybody so quickly have you, Carolyn?”
I stand there like a guppy Not since his accident or even before, has Jimmy taken to someone like this. For a second, I feel jealous of Andrew and how he has touched Jimmy’s heart so quickly. I’m prideful, as I said. And then Andrew motions me over and there we are, the three of us, lying on the kitchen floor, looking at the moon. Mooning over the moon, in Aunt Jean’s kitchen.
I can tell my mom likes Andrew. We carry on madly as we lug his stuff up to my old room at Aunt Jean’s place.
Jimmy tries to help as we change the sheets on my bed. We all land on the bed laughing, laughing, laughing so hard, I think my stomach will burst, or I’ll wet my pants. We are laughing so hard, we don’t hear Uncle Ted creep up the stairs. We don’t notice him standing at the entrance of the bedroom. Not until Jimmy starts wailing and trying to hide himself under the bed.
“And what the hell is going on in here?”
I almost choke. It’s what I said to Ted yesterday, almost exactly, minus “the hell” part.
Mom straightens her skirt.
“I said, what the hell is going on in here?”
“Gracious, Ted. I don’t think there’s any call for that kind of language. The kids were having so much fun we didn’t hear you. Many hands make light work, you know. They are helping make up Andrew’s bed. Oh. You don’t know anything about this, do you now, Ted? Meet Andrew Granger. He comes well recommended by Mr. MacGregor at St. Olave’s. Isn’t it wonderful? He’s looking for a place to rent and has volunteered to look after Jimmy until Jean is on her feet.” Mom smiles brightly. “Now Jimmy won’t have to put you out at all. So, say hello. And will you stay to dinner? The minister and his wife are coming.” I think Mom will never take a breath.
If looks could kill. Gas fumes seem to be coming from Ted’s nose. Andrew holds out his hand first, and Ted swats it away.
“Jean doesn’t need any Christian charity from you or the church. I, for one, know my family obligations.”
My mother steps forward. “It’s nothing like that, Ted. This opportunity just fell from heaven and I couldn’t pass it up. It’s all settled. Andrew is moving into Carolyn’s room, here. And Carolyn and I will take over Jean’s room. It’s all been arranged. Jean is so happy to have the rent money from Andrew’s lodging….”
I can’t believe what is coming from my mother’s mouth. Did she just decide on the spot that we’d take over Aunt Jean’s bedroom? Aunt Jean can’t possibly know anything about Andrew.
“And I’m very glad to get room and board, sir….”
“I bet you are, you interfering son-of-a—”
I know what is coming next. The purplish veins on Ted’s nose look fit to burst, but he doesn’t actually get to say a swear. Jimmy saves the day. He lets go a long and noisy fluff, which would have sent Jimmy and I into hysterics in the olden days before the accident. A black look of disgust passes over Ted’s face to be replaced by a look that says as much as you’re welcome to the little so-and-so. Ted turns on his heel and stomps down the stairs like he might snap each riser. The door slams so hard, the windows rattle.
“Do it again, Jimmy! Make a stinker!” Andrew tickles Jimmy’s tummy. Another fluff, and we all fall on the newly made double bed. Even Mom.
It is all made funnier by the relief of it all.
Andrew can stay.
It turns out that the minister and Mrs. MacGregor aren’t really coming for dinner at all. Mom says she made a little white lie to get Ted out of the house, and that she didn’t really think Mr. MacGregor would mind. But as it turns out, it isn’t quite a lie, after all, because Mr. MacGregor drops by for tea and cookies before he goes back home, just to see how we are all getting along. He even brings the cookies.
I could have hugged and kissed him, but I’m not the touching type. Partway through his visit, I notice that the knot of fear that has been growing in my stomach like a fur ball is gone.
For the moment, the clenching is gone. And now, as I look back, I wonder. If I hadn’t let go of that clenching, would I have been better prepared for the next blow?
The jury’s out. Maybe yes. Maybe no.
We settle into a nice little routine at Aunt Jean’s. Between Andrew, Mom, and me, there are comings and goings all day and all night long. The only person who stays in place is Jimmy. For two weeks, there’s no sign of Ted. Two Thursdays come and go and no Ted. I feel free enough to go to choir practice, confident that there will always be somebody to protect Jimmy. The adult choristers fuss over and pet me. Being the only kid, I’m an oddity. A specialty. I feel more at ease with them than any other people in the universe.
My solo performances in the choir somehow seem to help my public speaking. It’s strange really. Everything is forward-looking — practicing carols for Christmas. Practicing my speech for November 11th. I don’t really remember much about Thanksgiving, except at dinner Ted had too much to drink and made remarks that Mom said were very inappropriate. Something about the meal being the Last Supper. After that, Ted stopped coming over every Thursday.
You might think that I’m glad not to see his ugly face. I am, but now I have to worry every day of the week about when he might pop up. At least before, I could relax until Ted-day My mom says I’m like a border collie, always nipping at her heels and Andrew’s heels to make sure that someone is going to be at home for Jimmy. Always.
On two Saturdays, Jimmy and I walk over to St. Joseph’s Hospital. My mom has arranged with Aunt Jean that she’ll sit in the lounge at one o’clock and Jimmy and I will be outside on the lawn. I count up five storeys and along to the end window. I point out Aunt Jean to Jimmy and he is so excited. We wave and wave and do goofy stuff on the lawn, like somersaults and play sword fighting. We try to put on a show for Aunt Jean to amuse her. She looks like an old lady up there sitting in a rocking chair watching us but, of course, she’s in a wheelchair. My mom says that Aunt Jean is recovering well from her operation, but she’ll have to rest when she comes home.
Her homecoming day is crazy with housecleaning. Jimmy picks up on the excitement, even though we don’t tell him what is going to happen. Andrew’s in charge of moving the furniture and I dust and vacuum. Jimmy tears around the place like a terrier, getting into trouble and in the way.
My mom makes homemade bread and Scotch broth for nourishment. There’s a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and some old-fashioned current scones. And butter tarts.
Everything looks quite sparkly for Aunt Jean’s arrival. Jimmy and I cut some snapdragons that are growing beside the hous
e and have managed to escape the frost. We arrange them in a pint milk bottle and place them on the kitchen table. It all looks very homey.
Ted picks up Aunt Jean in his car and brings her home. He and Andrew make a seat with their hands and lift Aunt Jean up the stairs and onto the verandah. Once there, she shoos them away.
“I can enter my own house under my own steam, thank you very much.” She wavers at the threshold of the front hall, gripping the doorjamb for support.
Jimmy is sitting on the stairs playing jacks.
“Mm-ahn!” he bellows. I grab his braces and hold on, fearful that he will run at Aunt Jean and knock her down. She’s so skinny and pale, her legs like Popsicle sticks peeking out from a black wool skirt. But her face softens when she sees Jimmy and tears stream down her face. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear the words because of Jimmy’s bawling.
“Sit down Jimmy!” I haul him down on the last stair and half sit on him to keep him in place. “Jimmy, let Aunt Jean get into the kitchen! If you knock her over, you’ll land her right back into the hospital and we can’t afford that, can we?” I can hear a chair scraping on the linoleum in the kitchen as Aunt Jean settles.
Andrew comes back to the vestibule for Jimmy. He lifts him in the air, clamping Jimmy’s flailing arms to his side. Then he swoops Jimmy’s face down close to Aunt Jean’s head. She grabs that poor boy’s neck and smothers him with kisses. Wet, teary kisses.
Jimmy bellows.
“Mommy has a hurt,” says Andrew. “Gentle. Gentle.” Andrew lets go of one of Jimmy’s hands and guides it to Aunt Jean’s shoulder. Jimmy paws at her shoulder making sure she’s real. My mom helps Jean off with her hat and coat. Her galoshes.
“Will you stay for dinner, Ted?” my mother asks. She says it coldly just to be polite.
“Much as I’d love to, I have things to do.”
I can see Aunt Jean muscling herself together and sitting up straight. “Thank you, Ted, for bringing me home. It’s so much better to be in my own house. I’ve been looking forward to my own bed.” Aunt Jean stresses the word own. It’s her new favorite word.
That night, it seems strange to be back in my own bed on my own side of the shared wall. Just me and my very own mom. In the morning, it’s luxurious to stretch like a cat, touching right to the bottom of the bed with my toes and wiggling them under the blankets. It’s all so new that it takes me a while to realize that something has changed in the night. The light’s too bright and too soft in my room.
Snow! The first snowfall! I rip open the curtains. The street is silent and lumpy and clean and so white like someone has rolled out a cotton batting carpet. My heart leaps high with excitement. There are things to be thankful for. I mean, Aunt Jean’s home. Andrew’s like Jimmy’s new big brother looking out for him, only better, because he pays rent. I close my eyes tight. Thank you, God.
When I open my eyes, I see what I didn’t see before.
Boy, oh boy. Ted meant it last night when he said he had things to do.
There’s an orange and white sign right in the middle of Aunt Jean’s lawn. Some time after we’d gone to bed, Ted pounded a for sale sign into Aunt Jean’s frosty grass!
I feel a spasm in my stomach so deep and so cold, it travels all the way to my toes.
Our Jimmy will be moving away from me.
It’s true. I have to believe it. Ted is selling Aunt Jean’s house right out from under her! How can he do this? To his own sister? And her so sick and just home from the hospital!
Bastard.
Ted’s a bastard. And I don’t care anymore who knows it.
When Mom sees the sign, she puts her coat on over her flannelette pajamas. She stuffs bare feet into boots and slams our front door so hard that both houses shake. I watch from the front window as she tries tugging the sign out of the ground. Then she tries to knock it over with one good kick. Finally she grabs the garden rake and swings it like a baseball bat, splintering bits of wood across the lawn. She stuffs the sign and what’s left of the stake into our garbage can. Then the two of us troop over to Aunt Jean’s for coffee and breakfast.
Mom goes into the kitchen to put on the kettle. She’s making a big, big racket in there.
I discover Aunt Jean dressed and dozing in a chair in the parlor. The curtains are drawn and there’s only a faint glow of orange coals in the fireplace to warm the room. Poor Aunt Jean. She looks wizened and old, her mouth open, her glasses, which usually hide some of the puffiness under her eyes, rest on an end table. Gently, I tuck a quilt around her.
She stirs, but doesn’t open her eyes. “Is … that … you … dear?” Every word has a sigh and a pause in it as if there’s just too much — too, too much effort required to form the word and push it out of her mouth.
“Yes, Aunt Jean. Guess what? It snowed last night. It’s a winter wonderland outside.”
“I know dear. I … saw … it….”
We both know we are not talking about the snow but the for sale sign. A single tear leaks from her eye, catches in a wrinkle furrow, slips off her chin and onto her bosom.
“I wonder if he’ll let us stay until Christmas.”
“Where will you go?” I whisper. I can’t imagine what the answer to this question will be.
Nor can Aunt Jean. “Help me up, dear.”
I brace her under the elbow and lever her to a standing position. I think that my shoulder will crumple with the weight of her body leaning on mine.
Aunt Jean is distracted at breakfast. She manages one bite of toast and a sip of tea that I lift to her lips. I look at my mother for help. She shrugs her shoulders as if to say “What can I do? What can anybody do?”
Aunt Jean smacks the table top with her two palms. “I want to go to church.”
I know she’s in no condition to go to St. James. I beg her to come with me to St. Olave’s instead. “It’s not far. You can hear me singing. I’m in the choir and I have to get going pretty soon.”
“Jean, be realistic,” Mom says. “You aren’t well enough to travel downtown on the streetcar. Let me call Ted and he can drive you.”
“Over my dead body!” There are no pauses in Aunt Jean’s words now. They come out in a rush.
Aunt Jean agrees to a compromise. She’ll rest all day and she and I will take a cab to the streetcar loop in time to catch evensong at St. James. That way, she can save her energy and her pennies. While we’re gone, Mom will stay home with Jimmy and they can catch a nap.
At three o’clock, Aunt Jean’s dressed and waiting for me. She’s applied some powder and lipstick to her face, which only makes the paleness of her skin more pronounced. She’s dressed in black from top to bottom and smells faintly of mothballs. The netting from her old hat is askew. There’s nothing fashionable about what Aunt Jean is wearing today. She’s no competition for the Rosedale ladies.
The taxi man is kind. He speaks with an Italian accent, but he turns the meter off and waits quietly until the King car arrives so Aunt Jean won’t get chilled. He helps her up the stairs. She gives him a coin from her purse and I can tell he’s surprised. He doesn’t expect a tip from a sick lady who is clearly so poor.
Outside the cathedral, the bells are rocking, rocking so exuberantly that I imagine them whipping horizontally back and forth, calling Aunt Jean and me to pray.
Come in. Come on.
Come in. Come on.
Surely, the bells can be heard all the way to Swansea.
People stream into the church and I’m surprised at the number of parishioners. The sunlight flickers weakly through the stained glass. The church is drafty. The candles wavery and smoky. When the bells finally stop and the organ takes over with a funereal dirge, I want to weep, but as I said, I’m not the weeping kind. Instead, I roll, I twist my lace gloves in my hands until they resemble one of Jimmy’s bedsheets, “warshed” clean of urine and squeezed dry of soap and water, ready for the clothes line.
“Let us pray.”
It’s a luxury to sit in my seat beside
Aunt Jean listening to the Men and Boys Choir. Evensong is all about music and I don’t have to be interrupted once to check up on Jimmy. I’m glad we’ve left Jimmy home. I feel a prickle of guilt thinking that, and then it’s gone with one phrase of celestial notes.
The boys — just the boys, mind — chant all on one note. I find myself putting words to the tones. Not the Latin words of the magnificat, but ordinary words with weight and melody. “Lin — ol — e-um-mm-mmm-mmmn. Win — der — me — re-re-re-re. Thun — der — bir-d-d-d-d-d.” These three-and four-syllable words don’t sound like nonsense when chanted. They make about as much sense as the words in Latin coming from the boys’ mouths. Do they know what they’re singing? Some of them are so young, they can’t know how to read music. How do they sing at all?
“Di-ap-per-s-s-s. Un-der-wear-r-r-r-r. Tor-on-to-o-o-o-o.” Words with natural interval changes. Words to play with. Words for rhythm, for nonsense. “El-bow. El-bow to that!” El-bow makes as much sense as A-men, musically speaking. What does Amen mean? Where does it come from? Grandpa would know. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would have been able to tell me, but he’s dead now. The boys might as well be singing “H-um-ber,” a soft-sounding name for the river that winds its way to Lake Ontario.
Lost in this kind of thinking, I’m startled when the General opens our box and sits down with us. I didn’t know he came to the evening service, too. He nods at Aunt Jean and gives me a wink. He’s rubbing his hands together with excitement. He’s so glad I’ve come. He whispers in my ear that a good old friend of his from out west is preaching tonight. That’s why the church is so full, he tells me. There’ll be history in the making tonight, according to the General.
The General does the “reading” from the Bible. While eyes flash from face to face. He’s memorized his contribution. After he’s finished, there’s much clucking and coughing and rustling of clothes in anticipation of the guest speaker delivering the sermon. I check my sheet. The Right Honourable, the Right Reverend Tommy C. Douglas, Premier of Saskatchewan.