by Mary Razzell
I dreaded the thought of all the extra homework that would mean.
On the other hand, I noticed that Mom didn’t seem to mind the homework for her poetry course. I’d always known she was smart, but when I saw her papers come back from Victoria marked “A” in red ink, I just had to look them over.
There were scribbled comments in the margin in the same red ink: “Good work, Agnes. Keep it up,” and “Shows originality,” and “You could enlarge on this— most interesting.”
On the last page of each paper was a section for the student’s comments or questions. My mother wrote, “Thanks for pointing out poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins and for all your help and kind comments.”
The next paper had this reply: “Agnes, only too glad to help someone who obviously loves and appreciates poetry as much as I do. William A. Mann.”
It was strange to think of her being known as Agnes by a teacher in Victoria who thought she was an excellent student. We were all proud of my mother’s marks and told her so.
“I always did well at school in Ireland,” she said. “That’s why it broke my heart when I wasn’t allowed to go past the fourth grade. But they needed my help on the farm, and that’s all there was to it.”
Shouldn’t she know, then, how I felt about school? Or did she feel because she hadn’t had it, neither should I?
* * *
Dad hadn’t written or sent any money home since Christmas, and here it was well into March. My mother was beside herself with worry. The house wasn’t finished inside yet, and there were still the monthly payments to be made on the land.
Tom finally told me what had happened at Williams Lake when the boys visited Dad for the Christmas holidays.
“You should see the woman who’s living with Dad. I don’t know how he can stand her.”
“A woman?” We were cleaning out last fall’s leaves from the wooden crib that kept the milk cold and fresh in the creek. I straightened up and tucked my cold hands under my arms to warm them. “What woman?”
“He says she’s his housekeeper.”
“Housekeeper! I’ll just bet she’s his housekeeper!” I was beginning to sound like my mother.
Tom lowered the milk can back into the cleared crib. “Yeah, well, don’t say anything to Mom about it. It would only hurt her.”
So we had to listen to my mother worrying about Dad not sending her any money, and all the time we knew why.
Each day she looked for a letter from him, and there was none. She began to talk again about my quitting school.
“Either that or get married to Nels,” she declared.
“I’ve just got a few months left, Mom!”
“May God forgive us all!” She made it sound less like a plea and more like an indictment. “To think that I should have to be back in this state, worrying about how to put food in our mouths.”
Then my mother turned the bread dough onto the table surface to knead it. She sprinkled the table with flour, folding the flour sack inside out, so as not to waste one precious bit.
13
MONEY FROM my father arrived sporadically. It was the uncertainty more than anything that was the hardest part for my mother.
“If I had my way,” she told me, “I’d see that every woman raising a family would receive a certain sum of money every month, regardless. That way we could plan, we could save. This way we’re at the mercy of the men.”
My mother lost the buoyancy of the past year. Pinched lines appeared around her mouth. She pushed through each day as if it required an act of will.
Some weeks ten dollars arrived in the mail along with snapshots my father had taken of the placer gold mine and its great pipes, the raw countryside and the huge equipment used in the background. I was allowed to keep the pictures. One of the snaps was of my father sitting on a “cat.” He looked completely in his element, and his open face seemed strong, ageless.
In his large handwriting he wrote about living and working in Williams Lake. I always skipped the descriptions of gold mining, looking only for personal comments. There were just a few. Usually in the last line he wrote, “My love to you and the kiddies,” or “Hope Sheila is back at school and doing well, as usual,” or “Tell the boys I enjoyed their visit, and I’m glad they’re turning out so well,” or to my mother, “Hope you are in good health and managing without too much trouble.”
What my mother wrote back, I had no idea. I knew she wrote regularly and that she asked us to write, too.
* * *
“Sheila,” my mother said to me one clear April Sunday when we were tidying up the kitchen after breakfast, “I’m going to put half of the land up for sale.” And hanging up the dish towel, she explained as much to herself as to me, “I need to talk to Helga Ness. About the payments on the land. I don’t know what else to do, I’m sure...” Her voice trailed off, then in a minute came back stronger. “Helga has a soft spot for you, Sheila. It won’t hurt to have you come along.”
I emptied out the dish pan, wiped it dry and hung it up on its nail above the counter. All the time I was wondering why I felt reluctant to go.
Together we walked across the bridge to Helga’s place. The creek was running high with the run-off from the melted mountain snows, and I leaned over the rail to watch it swirl just inches below. I thought how sad it was that my mother had to be concerned about money again, but I felt uncomfortable that I was to be used as...almost a bargaining tool.
We found Helga outside splitting cedar kindling. When she saw us she stuck the ax in the chopping block.
“It’s about the money for the land,” my mother blurted out as she stood there, the crystal April sun warming our hair. And she began to tell Helga about my father working up north.
Helga listened in silence. My mother became agitated, as if the telling rekindled her anger.
“I really don’t know what to do,” she concluded, her voice unsteady. “Frank wrote he’d try to be home at Easter, but I don’t know. I’ve not even enough money to feed us the rest of the month.”
All this time Helga was following my mother’s words closely, once in awhile giving a little nod of understanding.
My mother went on.
“And there’s no sense writing his boss. I did that once years ago, and when they called him into the office about it, Frank just up and quit his job.” She paused for a minute. “I could sell part of the land, I suppose...apply for welfare. I hate to do it, but I guess it’s come to that. But about this month’s payment for the land—”
“Is okay,” Helga answered. “Pay when you can.”
My mother sighed deeply, and her face relaxed. “Well, I do feel better for having talked to you.” And she put out her hand to touch Helga’s in appreciation.
I looked at Helga. She was smiling that special smile of hers, the one that looked like sunlight breaking on crests of waves.
* * *
Then, one day, when I came home from school, there was a young woman sitting in our living room. On the chesterfield on either side of her were scattered blue pages, pink forms and yellow cards.
My mother introduced us. She was Miss Gamon from the Welfare Department.
It seemed to me that we were all nervous and uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because Miss Gamon had to ask personal questions. Had my father a drinking problem? No, my mother answered. Had he been unfaithful? Well, yes, she admitted. My mother was embarrassed. I was furious at my father for putting us in that spot. And I hated Miss Gamon’s blue gabardine suit, her long red fingernails and her smug superiority.
We did receive some money from the Welfare Department, and Miss Gamon visited us every month. Whenever she was in our house, I got out and stayed out until she had driven away in her little green car.
* * *
My father did come home for Easter. He was sitting at the kitchen table when we came in from school.
We knew he was home before we got to the house. As soon as the noise of the school bus had died down, we heard the angry v
oices coming up the road.
“You think you can walk in here as if nothing has happened, and we’re supposed to greet you with open arms? No, Frank. Never again.”
“Now, Agnes. Don’t be that way. You know—”
We had to go in sometime. We couldn’t stand out on the back porch all afternoon.
Tom was the one, finally, to push open the door. We all went straight to our rooms.
None of the bedrooms had doors. It was one of the details that had been left until there was more money. I heard Tom playing softly on his harmonica, and from where I sat at my desk, I could see him sitting on the braided rug in the boys’ bedroom, leaning back against his bed. Jim and Mike were building a glider, and curls of soft balsa wood piled up beside them.
I pulled out my geography homework from my looseleaf and began coloring the map of South America. Red for beef, brown for rubber, yellow for mining.
“Can you honestly expect, Frank, that I can feed the five of us on what little you send home? You can’t be that daft! Some months, nothing. What am I supposed to do?
“You have the land. You can sell it,” he said quietly.
My mother was crying now. “My God in heaven! The only security we have, and you want me to throw it all away.”
“This owning land has gone to your head, Agnes. There’s no talking to you since you got the land. You won’t even let my name be on the title. What kind of wife is it who’d do a thing like that?”
“That’s it. That’s what’s bothering you.”
My father put on his logical voice.
“After all, it was my money that bought the land and built the house. By rights.” And he paused as if to make his point. “Any lawyer will tell you the same thing. It should be in my name. There’ll be no peace between us, Agnes, until the property is in my name.”
“Your money? Your money, was it? It was the money I saved from the government allotment checks. There are wives on this peninsula who spent every cent of their allotment checks on hair perms and trips to Vancouver, and then cried poor mouth. Your money!”
“Yes, my money.” My red crayon broke, dragging beef production past the borders of Argentina. “If I hadn’t been in the air force in the first place, you would never have got the check. Would you?” He made it sound so plausible.
“Francis Xavier Brary! The shame of it! To twist things like that!”
“You’ll never get another cent from me until that title has my name on it.”
“If I thought you would act decently,” my mother said in a more controlled voice, “I would put your name on it. But you won’t. You never have. Why should I think you’d turn over a new leaf now? No, Frank. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes again.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Agnes! You’re talking nonsense now. Trust a woman to get hysterical, imagining things.”
There was a loud crash from the kitchen. A pot had been slammed down hard on the table.
“That’s it, then,” my father said. “You’ll get no support from me. And don’t think the Welfare Department snooping around will matter two hoots to me. I can get a job anywhere. And if you catch up with me, I’ll just move on.”
My mother began to shout. “The Welfare Department tells me you’re living with a woman up there. If you weren’t keeping her, you’d have more money to send home to your children and your wife.”
“There’s no sense trying to talk to you, Agnes. When you get like this there’s no reasoning with you.”
I wanted to go out in the kitchen and shake him. There were a few minutes of silence. I could hear my mother moving around the kitchen. The stove lid was lifted, dropped again.
Then, in a voice deadly serious, “Get out, Frank.”
My heart curled in a tight ball.
“Get out right now. And don’t ever come back. I’ll manage somehow without you. But I’ll not put up with your lies and your cheating and your women. We’d be better off if you were dead. May God forgive me for saying it. But it’s true—” Her voice broke.
“If I go out that door, Agnes, I won’t be back.”
“Go, then! For the love of Christ, go!”
I heard the back door open. Felt the cold draft. Heard the clear barking of Pep come from a distance, the sharpness of evening in his bark.
“And you wonder why I turn to other women,” my father said.
“Don’t forget to take your suitcase.” My mother’s voice was hard. “I don’t want you coming back for any reason.”
The determination in her voice reminded me of her telling us, when we were younger, of how she had met our father. It had been at a dance.
“All the people I knew, they all warned me about Frank Brary. He had a bad reputation. But I wouldn’t listen. I’d made up my mind. He was the one I wanted. And nothing would stop me.”
Now she had made up her mind again, and with the same fierce determination. She was finished with my father.
14
“REMEMBER ALL the shooting stars last August, and how we used to wish on them?” I asked Nels.
We were down at the beach, our backs against logs, and we huddled close to each other for warmth. It was the first week in May and the evening was chilly at the water’s edge.
He nodded.
“Are you sorry we left the dance early?” he asked.
“No. Especially when the fight broke out. That Arnie Olsen! Besides, it gives us more time to be alone.”
“So let’s not waste it. Come here.”
“I am here.”
“No, like this...come down here, beside me. Here, let me put my jacket under our heads.”
“You’re going to be cold.”
“Stop talking, and let me really kiss you.”
I broke away in a few minutes, but Nels was persistent. And later, when he looked at his watch and saw how late it was, I was the one who didn’t want to leave.
“We’ve got to go,” he said. “Your mother will kill you.” He didn’t know I was feeling almost sick with wanting him.
All the way up the trail the wanting grew. One of the large stumps at the side of the trail had hollows in it, and I stopped and leaned back into one of them. When Nels fitted his arms around me, I felt him grow hard against me. Without stopping to think, I hitched my skirt out of the way, straining to have him even closer.
“Oh, Sheila, don’t do that.” He seemed shocked, but his voice had thickened, and I sensed the wanting grow in him, too. I kept moving myself until I felt him fit against me. He let one hand drop, and his hand fumbled between us against the skin of my inner thigh.
“Please don’t stop, Nels.”
He stopped moving but stayed leaning against me. I could feel a throb where his skin touched mine.
“What can I do, Sheila?” His voice was almost a groan. “You want me to stop? I can’t stop now.”
“I want you inside—”
“Oh, God. Don’t say that.” His voice was pleading, although he held me even tighter.
But I had already freed one hand and pushed the elastic down and out of the way until I felt the rayon in a heap around my ankles. I stepped clear.
I heard Nels’ sudden intake of breath, and then I felt a quick hurting that seemed to tear me. My knees gave way so that I partially collapsed. But Nels held me up.
I cried out with pain. But he didn’t stop, and then when the pain lessened, I seemed to loosen, become drowsy. Melted with pleasure, mounted up with pleasure. Stayed there, held there. A sense of danger—or excitement—held while I teetered...and fell. Such a long way down—my head would crack when I hit. Instead I came down into soft deep water that folded over me, rocked me.
I opened my eyes. The trees were black lace against the sky. A full moon lighted up the woods, Nels’ face. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful.
After that we forgot about time. I felt the springiness of moss under me and the pressure of twigs digging into my back. Once I noticed the shape of alder leaves, black against the moon.
All around us the woods were quiet. The night itself was a soft, dark country.
It was late—too late—when we finally checked the time. But, dazed and uncaring, we wandered up the trail.
The house was dark. My mother usually left the light on in the kitchen window. Quietly, I let myself in the kitchen door, and without stopping to wash or brush my teeth, I tiptoed in the dark to my bedroom, undressed quickly and got into bed.
I was floating off to sleep, still feeling Nels’ presence, when I heard my mother get up. The light went on in the kitchen. The sounds she made were purposeful and deliberate. I heard her open the back door and go out.
She was gone for over three hours.
I slept in short snatches, tight with tension. The window in my room was beginning to show light behind the thin white curtains when I heard the back door open again. Her footsteps, now tired, dragged across the kitchen, turned into her bedroom.
I heard her sit on the bed. Its protesting springs sounded short and distempered. Her shoes dropped to the floor, were pushed aside. I thought I heard a long sigh as she lay down. Birds were beginning to sing in the early morning light. They went wild when the sky turned rosy.
I found I could hardly breathe, and my mouth was dry. I dreaded the moment when I had to get up and face her. My heart was beating inside my chest, as out of control as the birds in the woods outside my window.
15
“A FINE THING,” my mother said. “Traipsing in at two o’clock in the morning.” She was watching me while I filled my bowl with Sonny Boy cereal, her eyes glinting with anger.
“You think I raised you to be some sort of a tramp? A slut at sixteen?”
I couldn’t answer. The early morning sunlight was shining in across the kitchen table. Last night seemed unreal. It didn’t belong with the bowl of brown sugar, the rainbow that was refracted from the cut-glass salt and pepper shakers, or the clean housedress my mother wore.