Mother Lode

  His mother whispered, “I know you can’t be sleeping yet.”

  She crossed the floor and sat on the edge of his bed.

  “I can’t sleep, Jorie. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You’re shivering.”

  She nodded. “Let me slide in with you, to keep warm. Just for a little while.”

  His heart leapt. He wasn’t sure if it was in fear or exhilaration. Had he ever known the difference?

  In one swift motion she was under the covers, lying next to him.

  He willed his physical response to fade.

  She started shaking. “Oh, Jorie, hold me. I’m so cold.”

  He put his arm around her, and she turned to him. “I’m so alone now. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “You’re strong. You’ll carry on.” How lame that sounded.

  “Thank the Lord, you’ve never known how painful it is to be alone. And you never will, not as long as you have me.”

  Gradually her shaking stopped. He was about to suggest she go to her own bed, when the manner of her breathing indicated she was asleep.

  He held her for some time, but found it impossible to sleep himself. He noticed he had unconsciously adjusted his breathing to match hers as in years before. Quite deliberately he broke his rhythm to counter hers, exhaling as she inhaled.

  Memories from years before flooded in, how she’d held and comforted him. The Golden Bubble. What a magical paradise it had seemed at the time. Thank God he’d been able to break it, finally, and get away.

  Again, he realized he’d fallen into matching his breath to hers.

  He couldn’t wait to get back to the University.

  In the dark week that followed, only the happiness of little Eliza at having her brother home brought joy to Jorie’s heart. The rest of the time he felt another kind of sadness, for the father he’d never tried to reach and for what never could be now. He watched his mother and felt for her, too. Even though his parents hadn’t always seen eye to eye, he knew she would miss his father. Jorie did everything he could to comfort her and ease her burden. But after a week he was getting restless, eager to get back to his studies. Thank God for Helena. He was glad his little sister had this cheery Irish woman to watch over her. As he was finishing his breakfast he told her so.

  “So you’re planning to go back then, are you? Have you spoke to your mother ‘bout this?”

  Jorie shook his head. “No.”

  “Best you do, lad.”

  “You think she’ll object?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t say.” Helena left the room.

  He approached his mother.

  “Leave me! What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t mean tomorrow, Ma. In a few days.”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no!” She looked frightened.

  “What are you saying?” he stammered.

  “You can’t be thinking that you’d leave your mama now and go back to that school like nothing happened here!” Tears filled her eyes.

  “Ma, I’m sorry Pa died. I’ve tried to be of help this past week, and I’ll stay another if you like, but then I have to go.”

  “No!” she screamed. “You will not!”

  Why hadn’t he anticipated this? How could he have been so blind?

  “But Pa wanted me to be at the University!”

  “Your father up and died leaving me all alone with a baby to take care of!”

  A feeling of strangulation came over him. I can’t!

  “Your obligations are here! Do I have to tell you that? And believe you me, your pa would have wanted you to show some human kindness and stay to look after your mother now!”

  “I’ve got to go back!”

  The look in her eyes changed from fear to steely resolution. “You are only seventeen and I forbid it!”

  Jorie felt something like a lump of hot coal in his throat.

  He grabbed his jacket and muffler and dashed out of the house. Running, sliding down the icy hill, he reached Front Street, ran along the road toward the bridge, abruptly cut down the embankment and jumped onto the ice instead. He heard it crack, went further, heedless of the loud booms of fracturing ice and their resounding echoes.

  Somehow he made it to the other side, slipped and slid his way up the steep embankment to Houghton, ran through town past the saloons, and onto the county road that led west to Redridge, and Lake Superior.

  Somewhere, about five miles out of town, the pain in his chest caused him to slow down. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Well, he didn’t care. He turned off the road, collapsed in a field, and rolled onto his stomach. He pounded the frozen earth until his fists were as tired as his legs, then flopped over on his back.

  He didn’t know how much later it was when he was awakened by snowflakes falling on his face. It was dark and he could see no light anywhere. Still, he lay there.

  He tried to calm himself. Why was it so terrible to postpone college a year?

  If I stay she will swallow me.

  Finally, he got up and started back. Oblivious to the total whiteness of his world, he walked about a mile when a man in a wagon approached him going the other way.

  “Where ye ‘eaded, boy?”

  “Hancock.”

  “You’re hafter going the wrong way, son. You won’t reach ‘ancock that way hin a month of Sundays. I reckon I’d better carry ye. Snow’s comin’ down good now and yer six or seven miles from town. Get in.”

  Jorie scarcely cared whether he made it to home or not, but he got in and thanked the Cornishman.

  “Wasn’t but two year ago a man and ‘is wife was found froze to death. Up in Red Jacket hit was. Blizzard come on ‘em and they got lost between the barn and the ‘ouse. Couldn’t see a thing. ‘E didn’t come back, so she went to look for ‘im. That’s what the deputy figured. They was found ten feet apart, not more’n twenty feet from the ‘ouse.”

  Jorie was silent.

  “What be yer name?”

  “Radcliff.”

  “Ah, from up on Portage ‘ill.”

  “Aye.”

  “Used to work for your Pa. Miner I was. Got too old for that. Now I’m a wagoner. You work for your pa?”

  Jorie shook his head.

  “It’s a load of furniture I’m ‘aulin’ at the moment. Whoa, ‘erbert! Better put the tarp over hit.”

  He stopped the wagon, and for some time wrestled with a large piece of canvas, trying to cover everything and get it tied down.

  Jorie finally jerked to attention, jumped down and helped the man.

  When they’d finished, the man tossed him a blanket and they climbed back into the wagon.

  “Should ‘a ‘ad this load delivered afore sunset, but my axle froze up hon me. Lost a couple of hours tendin’ to hit.”

  They rode on, the stranger carrying on a one-sided conversation. Most likely he didn’t even notice, Jorie thought.

  As they neared the bridge in Houghton, Jorie said, “I’ve probably taken you out of your way. I can walk the rest of the way.”

  “For certain?”

  “Yes. Here’s for your troubles.” He gave the man a coin.

  “I thank ye, sir, I do. An’ I ‘ope someday ye’ll think yer life was worth the savin of hit.” He smiled and tipped his hat. ”Good-evening to ye.”

  When he reached home, he found a cold supper on the table, but his mother nowhere in sight. Jorie went up the stairs as quietly as he could but the squeak in the third step from the top was always a giveaway. He crept down the hall, not wanting another confrontation.

  A numbness came over him, toward his own woes and his mother’s. What did anyone’s dreams matter? Perhaps it was better to have none. Then there could be no room for disappointment.

  He fell asleep determined to lead a life indifferent to events.

  It was late morning when he awoke. He scrunched his pillow under his head and went over everything that had happened. Now that he’d had some sleep, maybe his head would clear and he could find a solution.<
br />
  Obviously, she meant to cut off his funds. Another payment of tuition was due as well as rent for his room. Well, some chaps worked their way through college. He could do that if he had to.

  Then he remembered what she’d said about his age. If you were under eighteen you had to have parental consent to go to the University, and Ma would make sure they knew he no longer had that permission.

  He could always run away, just leave home. She couldn’t really stop him from doing that. Maybe he’d hitch a ride back to Ann Arbor and get a job until he was eighteen. That thought brought a moment of peace as the feeling of strangulation faded. In any case, he’d have his ‘sizeable sum’, next fall, when he turned eighteen. Unless she’d manage to queer that, too.

  He heard the door open and turned his head to the wall. Would she allow him no privacy at all?

  Eliza ran to his bed and jumped up on it.

  “Get up, sleepy head! It’s twelve o’clock!”

  She started tickling him unmercifully.

  “All right, all right, Izzy.”

  He rose and carried her to the hall. “Now you let me get dressed, and I’ll be right down.”

  As he came downstairs, he realized that almost against his will, he was hungry.

  In the kitchen he found cold pancakes that had replaced the cold supper. Without bothering to sit down and butter them, he ate them with his fingers, standing.

  His mother came into the kitchen.

  “Where are the pancakes?”

  “I ate them.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it.

  He poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea.

  “I can heat it for you.”

  He shook his head.

  “Jorie, sit down, I want to talk to you.”

  He ignored her.

  “Please sit down.”

  “I can hear you.”

  He could see she felt at a disadvantage, but he remained standing.

  “It’s unfortunate our words were unpleasant and overly emotional yesterday. I want you to know that I am not without respect for your sentiments regarding the University.”

  Had she memorized this little speech? He said nothing.

  “But it isn’t the end of the world. You can go to college across the lake.”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, do sit down, Jorie.”

  He complied, waited. He listened to the wind tormenting the window, felt a resonance with the glass.

  “Do you have anything else to say?” he asked.

  She started to whimper. “Please don’t make this so hard for me, Jorie. Look at me.”

  “What do you want, Ma? I’m not going to sit here all day.”

  “Oh, God, don’t talk to me that way! I can’t stand it.”

  She put her head down on the table, and wept bitterly for what seemed a long time. He tried to feel nothing, but already the recently acquired numbness was wearing off.

  “You’re all I have.”

  “No. You have Eliza.”

  She was still sniffling. “You know what I mean. I need a man, a grown-up. Oh, I’m saying it all wrong. I need you, Jorie.”

  He heard the mouse trap go off in the pantry.

  “And Eliza needs you.” She let out a deep sigh. “She’s not very attached to me, Jorie.”

  She would be if you’d give her the attention she deserves.

  Eliza came into the room and crawled up on his lap. “Stay, Jawie. Please stay.”

  “Maybe next year you could go back to Ann Arbor. You’ll still only be eighteen. But this year — please try to understand. I’ve just lost my husband.”

  She seemed so pathetic, so vulnerable. An intense feeling of remorse filled him at the thought of leaving her alone so soon after her loss.

  Eliza cupped his face in her small hands and turned it toward her. “Promise you won’t go ‘way again?”

  That evening at dinner she smiled as he carved the meat. “Do you remember the meaning of ‘sacrifice', Jorie?”

  He groaned silently. “Yes.”

  “Tell Eliza what it means.”

  He could feel the heat crawl up his neck and face. “It comes from the same word as sacred.”

  “That’s right, Darling. So what you’re doing for your sister and your mama is a very sacred thing. Knowing that should make it easier for you.”

  Somehow it didn’t.

  The trunk he’d sent for arrived at the train station, and Jorie went down to get it. All his books, papers, clothes — in short, all his dreams were packed inside that box. He hired a dray to haul it home. It had no sides, so he sat on the floor holding the trunk as they jostled along the bumpy road. He put his legs and arms around it to secure it, hugging it harder than necessary, trying to believe it was the stinging winds off the lake that were causing his eyes to water.

  Chapter 25

  It was Sunday morning; he hadn’t had to work Saturday night.

  When he came down stairs, his mother asked, “Did you get a good lie-in?”

  “I hate type-setting.”

  “You’ve only been there two months. You won’t be doing that forever,” Catherine said as she put her apron over her head. She turned around and he tied it for her, as he’d done a thousand times before. She turned and patted his cheek.

  “You do well with that job, and they’ll see how bright you are and move you up. The Copper Country Evening News is a good place for you.”

  He turned away from her. “It’s so boring.”

  “You could have gone to college across the lake, but oh, no, that wasn’t good enough for you.” She began humming a little tune.

  “I went with the News because I thought I could do some writing.”

  “You will, in time.”

  “I can’t keep my mind on placing those little pieces of lead all night, and when I drift, I make mistakes.”

  “You have to keep your attention on it, Jorie. You’ll never get ahead making gaffes for the whole county to see when they read the paper.”

  “You talk as if I was going to be there forever. It’s just temporary, you know, until I go back to Ann Arbor.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked up surprised with big, sad eyes.

  “The worst of it,” he said, “is I can’t change a single word, no matter how badly written it is! It’s full of overly sentimental editorializing, bad grammar—”

  “You better not be showing that attitude at work. Remember your age, and show some respect for your elders.” She held up a slice of apple mixed with cinnamon and sugar. “Here.” She popped it in his mouth.

  “Can you imagine a sentence like this: ‘We are informed that Joe Abbot fell down the shaft to a depth of forty feet resulting in a fractured femur of both limbs, also the tibia and fibula of the left limb directly above the ankle and otherwise he was not injured and is now under the best of surgical assistance.’”

  Catherine shook her head.

  “Or this: ‘Mr. Pollack departed this life after a disabilitating, long and lingering illness, in which his devoted wife stood sentry at his bedside during the whole of these long and tortuous months, ever watching over him, anticipating his every need.’”

  Catherine laughed. “When you are the obituary reporter, I’m sure the notices will ring with—”

  “Brevity. I’m going for a walk.”

  She sighed. “Another walk. Is there a rabbit or fox hole in the whole county you don’t know by now?”

  His work schedule required that he sleep during the day. On Thursday when he came down stairs at five o’clock his mother was excited.

  “What is it?”

  “Jorie, I have it! Let’s pretend we’re going to a salon tonight, like they have in Paris. Un salon français. We’ll dress just as though we were in a fine hall. You will read some verse to me, I will play the piano for you, then you will play—”

  “Oh, Ma.” She led him into the dining room. He saw the table, with its fancy cloth, china and
candles.

  “Remember when you were little, and I taught you how we had to reinvent life in order to survive it? We can do that now, too.” She looked up, awaiting his answer. “I want you to be happy here!”