Helen asked about her fee.
“She do like treasure best,” said Ernestina. “Something she can use in her business.”
“What kind of treasure?”
“When she cured me of the rumatiz, I give her my little silver ring. Silver is ’specially bad for the devil.”
She won’t get mine, thought Helen, remembering the leftovers and hand-me-downs Debbie often gave Ernestina. And Ernestina was glad to have them. One person’s trash was another person’s treasure.
“Does she need bus fare?” asked Helen.
“No, ma’am. She got her own ways of gettin’ around.”
“How does she get around?” asked Helen nervously.
“In a car,” answered Ernestina.
“I’ve got more treasure in this house than I know what to do with,” said Helen. “If she wants treasure, she shall have it.”
She asked Nell to help her carry out the treasure. First they sifted through the old clothes in the basement. There was a fur coat she’d meant to pass on to somebody, as it was worn and something had nibbled at the sleeve. And there was that awful fox stole Hal’s sister wore before she died; Helen hated all those little heads and paws and tails hanging down and the grieving glass eyes and the dry noses painted black.
In the attic they found a glass orange tree that had most of its glass leaves and half of its glass oranges and some blue taffeta that Helen had bought for a dress she’d never made.
“We’re redecorating, are we?” said Grandpa. “I shall scarcely know my own room anymore.”
They arranged the treasure in a neat pile at the foot of the front lawn, and Helen remarked that you never knew how much treasure you had until you looked.
“I wonder if I should tip her,” said Helen.
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to tip her,” said Nell. “Not with all the stuff you’re giving her. You wouldn’t want to tip her.”
“Do you think she’s honest?” asked Helen. “You hear so many stories about cleaning women who take whatever they can get their hands on. She doesn’t have references.”
“Ernestina wouldn’t bring her if she were dishonest,” said Nell.
“Ernestina has never asked to be paid in treasure,” said Helen. “Have you ever heard of anyone else who asked to be paid in treasure?”
They agreed it might be prudent to hide what Helen called the really good stuff. Helen hid the really good stuff every time she and Hal went on vacation. She’d hidden her best silver coffee pot over a year ago and hadn’t found it yet.
“It’s in the house,” she’d say when anyone asked about it, by which she meant that it was still hers, though she hadn’t the use of it.
The tray and the sugar bowl and the creamer were safe, of course, under the four-legged bathtub on the third floor.
“Do you think the root doctor will be going to the attic?” asked Nell.
Helen shrugged.
When Grandpa heard the puffing and clattering in the bathroom, he called out, “Why not put all the good stuff together, in a pillowcase?”
“I don’t want it all in a heap where she can just walk off with it,” Helen called back. “I read in the newspaper about two gypsies that came to a woman’s house, and one asked for a glass of water and the other stole her jewels. Would you believe it? She’d hidden her jewels in the wastebasket.”
“Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and dust …” began Grandpa.
But the two women were already downstairs, turning their attention to the Dresden, though Helen agreed it would be hard to steal a dozen dessert plates without breaking them. “Of course, that won’t keep some folks from trying,” she added.
“Where should I put them?” asked Nell. All this secrecy had exhausted her.
“Under the love seat. Push them behind the fringe.”
Deferring to Nell’s bad back, Helen moved the larger pieces herself. She pushed the little jade pedestal under the piano and set the blue china clock under her bed as carefully as a hen on its nest.
Then she trudged downstairs. Nell had not moved from the love seat.
“One more thing,” said Helen. “The vase.”
“You’ll break it, Helen. It would take two men to move that vase.”
“She might have an accomplice,” said Helen.
The vase was French porcelain and egg-shaped and showed a shepherd, draped in a magenta toga, offering his girlfriend an apple while two cupids ran interference. It perched on a gold stem which rose from an ornate base, agleam with gold leaf. The gold handles were badly glued and the lid was tied on with a black ribbon, which caused visitors to ask if the urn held the ashes of some dead relative.
“Oh, no,” Helen would say. “It holds our important papers.”
Mashed into the vase were birth certificates, old report cards, an AAA sticker, several public library cards, and a lock of auburn hair. Helen lugged it to the cellar, setting it down on every table she passed to rest her arms, and lifted it to the shelf of Bartlett’s pears she’d canned three years ago and pushed it behind the mason jars. When she sat down in the living room with Nell, her arms ached, and she felt slightly ill.
“If I die in the next hour, don’t forget where everything is,” she said.
“It’s well past noon,” said Nell. “I believe she’s not coming after all.”
“I hope she doesn’t expect lunch,” said Helen.
The backfire of a car brought them to their feet.
“Is she here yet?” called Clare from her room.
Nell peered out the front door.
“Not a sign of her,” she answered.
32
A Power That Never Fails
SOMETIMES WILLIE WAS A nuisance, Father Legg reflected. Hanging around the parish office with his good intentions, and now wanting the two of them to go ahead of the bus with the box lunches and the cake.
Wants to be helpful. Lord, give me patience.
“I shall ride the bus with my team,” said Father Legg. “If you want to deliver the lunches and the cake earlier, you’re perfectly free to do so.”
“I thought we could set up the tables, Father.”
“What tables? The picnic tables are already there.”
“I thought white tablecloths would be nice.”
Father Legg sighed. “If you wish to be responsible for returning them, laundered, you may use the church tablecloths. But we’ll be needing them for the potluck next week.”
“Oh, I will. I will.”
“And, Willie—”
“Yes, Father?”
“The baker is putting all our names on the top.”
He paused, rummaging his mind for further instructions, but found none.
“What if it rains?” asked Willie.
“We’ll hold the picnic here, in the parish house. But it won’t rain.” He couldn’t really predict the weather, now that weather reports on the radio were canceled for security reasons, but he could hope for the best. “And, Willie—”
“Yes?”
“I could use your help decorating the bus. Hutton’s is donating the bunting. We’ll give it to the Salvage Sewing Center afterwards.”
The bus jouncing and creaking; Henry singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and Charley and Stilts leaping over the backs of their seats to clap their hands over his mouth; the town jogging by them through dusty windows, hazy and strange, buried under dust and twilight like an early memory—oh, they might be riding to a game against Dexter High or Flat Rock last year, before Durkee got drafted, before death took him in the Philippines, when their whole lives lay before them, uncomplicated, empty.
Sol nudged Ben. “Did you say good-bye to everybody?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
Behind the wheel, Mr. Clackett began to sing.
“God bless America,
Land that I love.”
Mr. Bacco and Mr. Lieberman and Mr. LaMont joined in:
“Stand
beside her, and guide her,”
and now they were all singing with great feeling:
“Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains to the prairies—”
“Praireeeees,” howled Mr. Clackett, speeding up.
Lord, thought Father Legg. He’s drunk.
He tapped the bellowing Clackett on the shoulder.
“Slow down, my good man. We’re coming to the bridge.”
The bridge was nowhere in sight, but Mr. Clackett slowed down. To their right, the river shifted from slow drift to frothing rapids.
“Over hill, over dale,
We will hit the dusty trail,”
sang Mr. Bacco.
“Look,” said Sol. “Is that Willie?”
Ben followed his gaze out the window. On the other side of the river ahead of them he saw two picnic tables, their white cloths fluttering. Willie was sitting on one of them.
“He doesn’t see us,” said Ben.
“Yes he does. He’s waving.”
“Mr. Clackett, slow down,” said Father Legg again. “You’re taking the turn too fast.”
The bus skidded around the curve, and Mr. Clackett started fighting with the wheel, and Father Legg reached past him and grabbed it as Mr. Clackett hit the brakes, and the bus, like a maddened animal, took off into freedom, leaving the bridge and lumbering into the air.
Early the next morning, Willie surveyed the eight women gathered at South Park.
“Mrs. Teresa Bacco, first base. Mrs. Schoonmaker, second base. Mrs. Lieberman, third. Mrs. Henrietta Bacco, you’re our shortstop. Mrs. LaMont, you’ll cover center field, and Mrs. Clackett, left field. I’ll cover right field. Ernestina, you’re our catcher.”
They listened, sullenly, he thought. Their dislike was palpable; he could almost taste it. Not that he really cared what they thought of him.
“Who’s pitching?” asked Ernestina.
“My mother. She’s next of kin.”
“Wanda’s pitching?” asked Ernestina, raising her eyebrows.
Wanda, hearing her name, said, “How’s Ben?”
“The contract says Clare’s the pitcher,” said Ernestina.
“Clare can’t pitch from a wheelchair,” said Willie. “She’ll have to accept a substitute.”
Ernestina frowned. “Why can’t she pitch from a wheelchair?”
“It—isn’t—done,” Willie replied. “It’s not the correct thing. Clare will be on the bench with her mother. Besides, they’re not here, anyway.”
“They’re waiting for Friday,” said Ernestina. “They can’t come till Friday gets there.”
“Till Friday!” exclaimed Willie.
“How’s Ben?” asked Wanda again, touching his sleeve.
“Mother, I told you. He’s going to be fine. They’re all going to be fine. Ladies, take your places. Mrs. Clackett, you’re up first.”
Not that he cared if they liked him. He knew they endured him because Father Legg had promised to come here directly from the hospital with news. What irked Willie the most was sitting in the waiting room and listening to Mrs. Lieberman and Mrs. LaMont babble to his mother about people who came out of comas suddenly and for no reason, after the doctors had given up all hope—not giving him the chance to tell her, taking the comforting words he’d prepared out of his mouth.
Over and over they had praised Father Legg’s bravery. Although his head had required thirty-two stitches, he declined to spend even one night in the hospital; the shortage of beds was acute, and he would give his bed to someone who needed it more.
“Mother, it could have been worse,” said Willie.
“How worse?” snuffled Wanda.
“Nobody was killed, Mother. Nobody’s actually dead. Ben will wake up. Everybody will be out in a few days.”
“Not everybody,” Mrs. Lieberman reminded him.
Mr. Lieberman had cracked three vertebrae and had to be fitted with a cast and a brace, and Charley had broken his leg in two places and would be in traction for a month.
Mrs. Clackett struck out, but everyone cheered: at the far end of the park, Father Legg, his head turbaned in bandages, was striding across the field.
“How’s Ben?” shouted Wanda.
“Sleeping,” Father Legg called back, a little breathlessly. “Everyone else is wide awake.” As he drew closer, the forced cheer dropped from his voice. “The brain is a mysterious instrument. You can’t tell how long these things will last.”
He didn’t tell them he’d had to fight back tears as he walked through the ward with the doctor, asking about this one’s arm, that one’s back, to Intensive Care, where he asked nothing after the doctors told him they had no answers.
“What did I tell you?” said Willie. “Ben’s going to be fine.”
Not a trace of concern there, thought Father Legg. A cold fish, that one. The discovery unsettled him.
“Was it sabotage?” asked Mrs. Lieberman.
“There was an oil slick on the bridge,” said Father Legg. “It’s impossible to prove sabotage. But let’s put all that behind us.” He lowered his voice to get their attention. “Ladies,” he said, “and Willie,” he added, “I know the odds against us tomorrow are tremendous. But we have in our midst a power that no other team can boast. We have a power that never fails. We have love.”
A few faces fell.
“A miracle wouldn’t hurt,” said Henrietta.
“A miracle would be nice,” he agreed. He clapped his hands. “Play ball!”
Was it the sun beating down, Willie wondered, that made him feel so sick? There was not even a breeze. Wanda pitched, and the ball was weak and wild, and then Father Legg pitched. The more the women threw themselves into the game, the more Willie felt himself thrown out of it, a spectator removed to a distant peak. But not far enough. Though the names he heard were not his, every word Father Legg shouted seemed aimed at him.
“I want you to stand close to the plate, Mrs. Bacco.”
“Don’t worry about that one, Mrs. Bacco. Take your time.”
“You got a piece of it, Mrs. LaMont. Now take one out and give it a ride.”
“Come on, Mrs. Harkissian. You have to run full blast.”
“Just meet it, Mrs. Schoonmaker. Just meet the ball. Step towards it.”
“Take a lead there, Mrs. Clackett. Don’t get glued to the bag. Keep your eye on the ball when you make that turn.”
“Willie, you’re up. Willie?”
He took his stance and turned to face Father Legg, and his legs felt like cotton.
“A little late, Willie my boy. A little late.”
The ball rushed toward him and he swung.
“You got a bite on that, Willie. Next time you’ll get it.”
He swung again, and as his bat met the empty air, he heard behind Father Legg’s encouragement the voices of his first tormentors following him off the field: Easy out. Easy out. Easy out.
By the end of the afternoon Father Legg felt his faith wavering. Never had he asked of God a thing that could not happen according to natural law. In cases where the outcome was uncertain, he always said, “Thy will be done.” He was afraid to say it now. It would be like throwing the game, he thought, as he offered Willie a ride home. The women were all going to Mrs. Lieberman’s house for supper.
“Thank you,” said Willie, pleased that Father Legg had noticed he was not feeling well. But when the priest asked him a question, it had nothing to do with his health.
“Willie, do you believe Ben and his friends will die if the game tomorrow is lost?”
“They think so,” said Willie cautiously.
“But do you think so?”
“You told Ben that if a person believes he is going to die on a certain day, believing can make it happen.”
“Do you think we’ll win tomorrow, Willie?”
Willie was silent.
“Or do you think we’ll lose?”
“Miracles can happen,” murmured Willie.
&
nbsp; “Yes. Where there is love, miracles can happen.”
33
Fire, Do You Know Her?
“CLARE, I BELIEVE SHE’S not coming,” said Helen as they sat down to dinner, already postponed for an hour.
“Did she call?” asked Clare.
“No. I thought sure she’d come this morning. That’s two days we’ve waited for her.”
“Did you pray about it?” asked Grandpa.
“I pray for Clare every night,” said Helen, “and now I’m praying for Ben. I didn’t think I’d have to pray for her. I thought she could get here on her own.”
When she comes, I’ll ask her to heal Ben instead of me, thought Clare.
It was well after supper when Helen looked out of the kitchen window and spied a red Dodge pulling up in front of the house. A tall black woman in a long blue dress let herself out.
She stood over six feet tall, not counting the extra foot added by the white scarf wrapped around her head like the wimple of an eccentric nun. She had a long face with high cheekbones and skin so shiny that Helen longed to touch it. Her eyes met Helen’s: one blue and one brown eye, and as she waited on the doorstep for Helen to let her in, she clattered and tinkled and glittered. The bodice of her dress was covered with medals closely set; they seemed a single fabric, a suit of armor designed to protect her against no ordinary enemy.
She wore three dog licenses, and a Little Orphan Annie button, and a medal citing the American Legion Bricklayers and Masons International Union, and a pierced Liberty-head quarter on a safety pin, and a Go Blue button with a tiny golden football attached to it, and a medal showing Andrew Carnegie saying, “My heart is in the work.” She wore bells and buttons and bits of antlers and bones and a crucifix and God knows what else, thought Helen, who could hardly take her eyes from a necklace of dried lizards, brown and pinched as claws. And the leathern bag she wore on a rope around her waist—what horrors did that hold? Helen wondered, as she caught sight of the serpentine cane, which the woman did not lean on but held back, as one might restrain an ornery wand, chastising it: Stay put till you’re needed.
Things Invisible to See Page 23