The Cape Ann

by Faith Sullivan

  “Then read your book, but do it in bed.” She led the way to the sleeping porch.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I pulled off my sandals. The smooth, gray painted floor was cool beneath my bare feet. I ran them lightly back and forth across the boards.

  “Stop stalling and get into bed now. You can sleep on top of the spread.”

  I lay down with Happy Stories for Bedtime, and before long I drifted into a breathless, sticky sleep of fragmentary dreams. In a dim attic I tried on heavy, winter coats.

  Grandma was in the kitchen pouring a glass of iced tea when I found her. “Is Mama back yet?” I inquired, picking sleep from my eyes.

  “It’s only half past three. They won’t be back till after supper.”

  “I forgot to write to Hilly yesterday. Do you have paper I can use?”

  “There’s a tablet in the middle drawer of the desk.”

  Sitting down at the dining room table, I wrote, telling Hilly of our trip and the heat wave and Grandpa Whaley (who was a stranger to me) dying of the heat while pulling weeds, and his daughter cleaning the attic. I asked if it was hot in Harvester. The Stillmans’ apartment was very close on warm summer days, as I recalled. I cautioned Hilly to drink plenty of water.

  Grandma handed me a prestamped envelope and I addressed it: Hillyard Stillman, Harvester, Minnesota. I knew how to spell those words without help. On the back flap I drew a little heart. If Grandpa drove me to the depot after supper to mail the letter, Hilly would receive it tomorrow.

  Grandpa seemed happy to get into the car after supper and drive us across town. The depot agent said that he’d see the letter went out that very night. Instead of heading immediately for home, Grandpa drove around the perimeter of town and out past the fairgrounds where men were setting up tents for the county fair, which opened on Wednesday. I knew because Grandma had remarked pensively that she wasn’t entering anything this year, not even her strawberry-rhubarb preserves.

  Before turning the car toward Cottonwood Street, Grandpa pulled in at the all-night café and bought me an ice cream cone. I didn’t think there were many children around who had had two ice cream cones in as many days.

  “Have you heard anything from the girls?” Grandpa inquired as we strolled into the house.

  “I don’t expect them before eight-thirty,” Grandma replied, glancing up from her crocheting.

  “What’re you making, Grandma?”

  “Edging for pillowcases.” She yanked more thread from the ball. “In the past two years I’ve edged everything in the house except your grandpa’s drawers,” she said with a sardonic little smile. “It calms my nerves.”

  Grandpa, gazing past Grandma out the window, said, “I believe that was Arlene’s Ford that went by.” He turned toward the back door. I was at his heels, and Grandma, thrusting herself out of the chair so abruptly that the crochet thread went flying, pushed past both of us to reach the screen door first.

  The white coupe pulled up beyond the gravel drive, up close to the back door onto the grass, before Mama braked and turned off the engine.

  Aunt Betty’s head leaned against the seat, and her face was whiter than the moon that hung over the garage. Grandma was at the car door, pulling it open.

  “My, God, Betty, what is this!” she exclaimed, staring down at Aunt Betty’s skirt, which was soaked with blood. “Fetch the blanket beside the lilacs,” Grandma told me. I ran to get the thick cotton blanket on which I’d been playing house.

  Somehow they got my aunt out of the car and wrapped the blanket around her hips. Grandpa carried her into the house and out to the sleeping porch.

  “Fetch the rubber sheet from the closet in the bathroom, Lark.” Grandma gave me a shove toward the stairs.

  “What is this?” Grandma was demanding of Mama when I returned with the rubber sheet, which she spread out on the bed.

  As if she were a sleeping baby, Grandpa lowered Aunt Betty tenderly onto the sheet, and Grandma began undressing her. “What happened today?” Grandma interrogated as she and Mama pulled off Aunt Betty’s dress.

  “She started hemorrhaging all of a sudden. She’s anemic, I think. She got her period and it just gushed. She’s got on three pads.”

  “Lark, find your aunt’s nightgown upstairs and bring the box of pads from the bathroom.” As I sped away, Grandma said to Mama, “You’re lying to me.”

  I was frightened of the blood. There was so much of it. I didn’t see how any one could lose that much blood and live. Aunt Betty looked dead. She wasn’t. Now and then she moaned, and each time I was relieved to hear it. I wished that she would make more noise so that I could be sure that she would go on living.

  Grandma and Mama were busy with my aunt. They didn’t notice me in the twilit corners of the room. Mama was in a state as close to panic as I had ever seen her. She thrust herself here and there, now sitting on the edge of the bed, then bethinking herself and jumping immediately up again; now standing at the foot, regarding Aunt Betty with frightening intensity as if she could will her well, then swooping around the bed to brush Aunt Betty’s hair back from her damp forehead. Mama behaved as if she were responsible for Aunt Betty’s being sick.

  “Stay with her,” Grandma told Mama. “I’m going to make tea.”

  “Now?”

  “Not for us,” Grandma said. “For her. If she starts to hemorrhage bad again, come get me.”

  Mama nodded. She held her sister’s hand, though Aunt Betty seemed unaware that Mama was there.

  Grandma disappeared around the corner, into the dim shadows of the other arm of the sleeping porch where the cupboard of strange smells stood. She hurried to it, extracting three small Mason jars, which she carried into the house to the kitchen.

  At the stove she measured a teaspoon of whatever was in each jar into a saucepan of water and began heating it, stirring it with a spoon. As the water started to simmer, it gave off a peculiar and pleasant odor. I thought there was some mint in it, but I couldn’t identify the rest, and when I sidled past Grandma to have a look at the jar labels, she suddenly took note of me.

  “What are you doing up?” she asked. “Get to bed. Up in your aunt’s room tonight. She’s in your bed,” she told me as if I were not aware of this.

  I didn’t want to upset her further, so I slipped back out to the sleeping porch and climbed onto Mama’s bed. There were no lights on except in the kitchen and dining room. Some small illumination filtered through to the porch, but mostly we saw by the faint light of the lavender late evening sky.

  “Why don’t we call the doctor?” I asked Mama.

  “Because there’s nothing he can do but make trouble,” Mama said. She sat on a chair now, beside Aunt Betty’s bed, holding the other woman’s cold white hand.

  Grandma emerged from the deeper shadows at the opposite end of the porch, a big cup held in both her hands, its rich potpourri preceding her, dispelling the doomsday odor of blood in the air.

  “I think it’s cool enough to give her,” Grandma said. “Get the pillows from my bed and put them under her head.”

  Not moving, and barely breathing, I watched as Grandma spooned tea into Aunt Betty. From the backyard came the smell of a cigar. Grandpa was sitting there, out of the way.

  The individual hours became lost in the dark. Certain moments flickered like fireflies. Mama said, “We’re out of pads.” Grandma said, “There’s a length of cotton flannel in the sideboard.” Later, I think, Aunt Betty sighed, “Stanley, is that you?” Mama whispered, “Sweet Jesus.” Grandma did not reprimand her for using the Lord’s name.

  When Grandma went to the kitchen to reheat the tea, Mama whispered to Aunt Betty, “Don’t die. You did the right thing.” Then Grandma was there beside the bed administering tea.

  I was reminded of Maria Zelena and her magic. I had wronged Maria Zelena. She had tried to tell me about the baby’s death, and I wouldn’t listen. My knowledge of the universe was so small. How would I ever learn enough to survive? Aunt Betty was thirty-tw
o, and she did not seem to have learned enough.

  46

  IN THE MORNING GRANDMA was asleep in one of the rockers, Mama in the other. I was in Mama’s bed, fully clothed, the bedspread pulled over me. Grandpa, also in his clothes, was lying on top of the spread on the double bed, snoring and giving off vile fumes of cigar mouth.

  Aunt Betty lay in my bed, with her arms straight at her sides. But she was breathing. Though it was nearly imperceptible, the white, ripple-weave spread did lift and settle, lift and settle. Was she going to live?

  “She’s not out of the woods yet,” Grandma said later. The bleeding had abated, but Betty was running a slight fever. That meant there was a trace of infection, Grandma explained.

  Mama called the dime store and told Mr. Miller that Aunt Betty was home with German measles. “I don’t like telling lies, Lark,” Mama said, “but this one time it’s necessary. You mustn’t tell anyone anything about this, not about the bleeding or … anything.”

  Our sweltering vigil continued. Aunt Betty was hotter than any of us. Grandma removed the covers from her and bathed her body with cool water, and sometimes with alcohol.

  “I thought you were supposed to keep a person warm when they had a fever,” Mama observed.

  “I don’t believe in that,” Grandma responded tartly.

  When they weren’t bathing Aunt Betty, they were forcing liquid into her. “Keep her kidneys going,” Grandma told us. “The kidneys carry off the poisons.” That was what Maria Zelena had said.

  It wasn’t easy work. Aunt Betty was suffering awful pains in her belly. Even when she was half out of it, she’d pull her legs up and clutch herself and groan. The sweat poured off her till the sheet beneath her was soaked. The electric fan was brought out from the dining room, and Grandma filled a couple of hot water bottles with ice, applying them to Aunt Betty’s arms.

  At four o’clock Grandma said, “Arlene, you’d better call your papa home from work.” The way she said it made me shudder. Still, Grandma would not let up on the liquids. Now it was ice water.

  When Grandpa arrived, he sat on the bed, holding Aunt Betty in his arms while Grandma dribbled ice water into her mouth.

  “Can’t you leave her alone now?” Grandpa wept.

  “No.”

  At six, the phone in the dining room rang. “See who that is, Lark, and remember what I told you about the measles.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello. Who is this?” a man inquired.

  “This is Lark Ann Erhardt.”

  “Is your mother there?” he asked.

  “She’s busy.”

  “Well, this is Mr. Miller. I was wondering how Mrs. Weller was feeling. Everyone missed her at work today.”

  “She’s still sick with the measles, Mr. Miller. I don’t think she’ll be in tomorrow. She has more measles than anyone’s ever seen before.”

  “Tell her we all said to take care of herself.”

  Mama snorted when she heard. “Sonofabitch.”

  Mama felt the ice packs. They were getting warm. Grandpa took the glass of water and the spoon. “Look how her mouth is getting sore, here at the corner, from the edge of the spoon,” he pointed out.

  “Better that than convulsions,” Mama said, and she took the hot water bottles to the kitchen to fill with fresh ice.

  Aunt Betty was retching. I held the pan and wiped her nose and mouth. “No more water,” she moaned.

  “Don’t stop,” Grandma commanded.

  As twilight lengthened, we were shadows moving among shadows. Late in the evening Mama began to cry. She didn’t sob, but I saw her brush tears away, and heard her sniffle and blow her nose.

  “One more day of this and she’ll be gone,” she said to no one.

  I lay down on Grandma’s bed, not meaning to fall asleep, but it was as though someone closed a door on me. Hours later, I heard Mama say to Grandma, “Wake up! Betty asked what day this was. She’s cooler, I think.”

  Grandma was on her feet and at Aunt Betty’s side, running her hands along my aunt’s arms and legs, then her face. She pulled the sheet up around Aunt Betty.

  Weak as water and puffing as if words were a great exertion, Aunt Betty whispered, “If this is heaven, I bet there’s ice cream.”

  Grandpa was awake now. He began to laugh. We all laughed. The birds woke up and set to chattering and singing and flying from tree to tree. I thought they were laughing, too, to see a porch full of crazy people laughing and eating ice cream at dawn.

  47

  AUNT BETTY GAVE UP her job at the dime store. “If I went back, I’d be in the state hospital by Christmas.”

  “Come stay with us,” Mama told her.

  “No. Willie’d have a fit.”

  “What do I care? You’re my only sister. You can help me with the business. Till you know where you’re at.”

  Grandma packed a lunch for us, and we left after church on Sunday, Aunt Betty still weak and ashen, but anxious to get out of Blue Lake. “To think that I used to be somebody with a place of my own,” Aunt Betty said to Mama.

  “Do you see, Betty,” Grandma told her as we were leaving, “this is God’s way of telling you to go to California?”

  “I’ll never be able to have a baby now,” Aunt Betty told Mama on the ride from Blue Lake to Harvester.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mama said.

  “It’s true. I know it.”

  “You’re no doctor,” Mama reminded her.

  “I know what I know.”

  Papa didn’t throw a fit in front of Aunt Betty. He was as cordial as you could hope. But when he got Mama alone, down at the freight room, he wanted to know, “What the hell is this all about?”

  “You can see she’s in poor health, Willie. She needed to get away.”

  “Well, I don’t want her staying, do you understand? A week, that’s it, you’ll have to tell her.”

  Aunt Betty slept on the davenport and lived out of her suitcase, except for two or three dresses on hangers which hung from a peg beside my crib. She stayed through the fall. It was close quarters, but Mama said that was all to the good. Maybe Papa would realize how much we needed the new house. “We can’t go on living here, with Willie and Lark and me all sharing the same bedroom.”

  With Aunt Betty to help, Mama didn’t need to hire another girl for the business. And Aunt Betty came up with an idea for adding to their income: letters from Santa. Aunt Betty was Santa. A discreet ad ran in the county papers, and as the holidays drew near, requests poured in for the letters. Aunt Betty cleared fifty dollars. It wasn’t a fortune, but it pleased her.

  After Mass on the first Sunday following Thanksgiving, Aunt Betty sat down at the kitchen table to write Santa letters. Papa was reading the paper in the living room.

  “Betty, for heaven’s sake, you can take a day off from that,” Mama admonished.

  “I’ll get behind if I do.”

  Mama poured her a cup of coffee.

  “Santa letters have to be written by hand, you know,” Aunt Betty told Mama. “Santa wouldn’t use a typewriter.”

  Mama sat down at the table. She was bursting to say something. Finally she confided in a low voice so Papa wouldn’t hear, “I’ve got enough for the down payment on the house.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s wonderful,” Aunt Betty exclaimed.

  “I’m going to talk to Mr. Rayzeen at the lumberyard this week, and then I’ll go to the bank.”

  “What about the lot?” Aunt Betty wanted to know.

  “Ben Albers is selling me a lot, a block east of the Catholic church. It’s beautiful. Nice trees. A hundred wide by a hundred and fifty deep.”

  “Can I tell Beverly and Sally?” I asked.

  “Wait a couple of weeks. Then you can tell everybody. When I own the lot, you can put it in the paper, for all of me.”

  I started dancing around the kitchen. Mama put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the living room.

  Wednesday afternoon Mama came in from the road early and
stopped at Rayzeen’s to get the figures to take to the bank. At supper Papa said, “Saw you going into Rayzeen’s when I was delivering freight.”

  “I’m thinking of putting up shelves in the living room,” Mama said, passing him the platter of meat loaf. Papa looked at her closely, but she set the ketchup bottle in front of him and seemed not to notice.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Hilly. Mama said that since he went nowhere and spoke to no one, it would be all right, providing I swore him to secrecy. Saturday night I sat down at the table and wrote:

  Dear Hilly,

  I have a wonderful secret to tell you. You must not tell anyone, except your mama, until after next week.

  Mama is buying a piece of land east of the Catholic church. As soon as the ground thaws in the spring, the builders will dig the basement for our new house! Next fall you will be able to visit me in my new house and help me decide what flowers to plant in the garden.

  Do you believe it’s really happening, Hilly? I’ve told you so many times that you could work in the garden with me. But now we have gotten down to brass tacks. That’s what Mama says.

  I’m so happy, Hilly. I’m shivering all over while I’m writing this.

  I know you don’t go out anymore, but you will like sitting in my new backyard. We can sit and look at the flowers, and no one can see us or bother us. I promise.

  Your friend forever,

  Lark Ann Erhardt

  PS: I like sweet peas very much because they smell so nice. I think we should have a whole row of sweet peas. Do you know how to make chicken wire stand up, so sweet peas will climb on it?

  I had meant to tell Hilly that God does answer our prayers, the new house was proof. I thought Hilly needed to know that, but I forgot. I would remember in my next letter.

  In the morning, on the way to Mass, Mama swung by the post office, and I ran in and mailed the letter. When I came out, I waved in the direction of Hilly’s bedroom window, which faced on Main Street. If he was there, looking down, he’d know I had mailed his letter.

  Father Delias’s sermon was about Advent being “The Giving and Forgiving Season.” As the year drew to a close, he said, we remembered Christ not only with our gifts to Mother Church and our fellow man, but with loving hearts that wiped clean the slates of grievance and misunderstanding. We must celebrate the Christ child’s birth with hearts cleansed of reproof and filled with love for all men, without reservation.