by Megan Chance
I remember turning to my silent mother, crying that he cared nothing for me, for any of us, and she admonished me in a soft voice that stung even more, and said, “He loves you, Charity. More than you know.” Then she had gone after him. I never knew what she said or what she did, but I didn’t go to the Andrewses’, and he never threatened to send me out again.
Those things came back to me now, as real as if they’d just happened, and suddenly I felt the dearth of my mother’s presence like an icy chill in the damp, smoky air of the hall. Even baby Faith seemed to feel the cold, because she quieted, so that when Father spoke again, his voice sounded too loud. “I’ll make the coffin myself. There’s a goodly amount of white pine in the barn.”
Mama had always loved the smell of pine and the feel of it when my father had planed and shaped it. She had exclaimed over a corner cupboard he’d made only a few days before—the memory came back to me sweetly, and I felt again like crying. When I met my father’s eyes, he nodded as if he remembered it too, and the shared memory became, for just a moment, something like a kiss between us, a tenderness that made me long for more, and then it was gone.
“She’ll need to be laid out,” he said.
I blinked away my tears. “I’ll dress her in the green—”
My father looked startled. “’Tis no job for a child.”
“I am not a child. I am nearly sixteen.” I stepped to where Father stood and reached for the blanket covering my mother. My voice trembled with the need to make him understand. “I can do this, Father. You’ll see. I—”
He gave me a long sad look that took my voice. He lifted his hand—he was going to hold me at last. I let my mother’s blanket fall and turned.…His hand dropped to his side, and his voice was a little rough when he said, “You’re still a child. Let your aunt take care of it.”
My tears came; I could not stop them. I had misjudged him once again. I could not be the good, righteous girl he wanted, no matter how hard I tried, and my lack settled into me like a stain only the two of us could see.
“You could help me, Charity,” my aunt said, but I shook my head—the gift was too scant. It was not what I wanted.
“No, Father’s right,” I said bitterly. “I am just a child.”
“Charity,” Father warned, and I could not stand it any longer. I could not bear my own longing for his comfort. I ran from the room, racing for the freezing bedroom I shared with Jude, angry that my father still thought me the smallest of children, that he would not allow me to do the things that were my right.…But more than that, I was angry at my mother for dying, for leaving me alone here without allies or friends. Hell was not fire, as Master Parris said. Hell was cold as ice and barren as winter, and it was a place I knew too well. Hell was the distance in my father’s eyes whenever he looked at me.
The next day, the storm was gone, taking with it the clouds and the wind, leaving behind bitter cold under clear skies. In those first moments after waking, it felt like any other morning, but then I remembered Susannah, and Jude was out of the trundle and curled like a hard little ball into my side, and I remembered that the world had changed overnight.
Mama was gone.
I remembered the cellar and the sad way her specter had looked at me, and now, with the fresh eyes of a night’s rest, I recognized that it had been a waking dream, and the realization brought a terrible sadness. I could not imagine a world without her.
I got out of bed and fell to my knees in prayer, desperate for the balm of God’s presence, but I felt no reassurance, and ’twas with a sore heart that I woke Jude and we dressed to go downstairs.
My father had already left, and Goody Way too, along with the new baby. Susannah was readying to lay out my mother. As we watched, she poured water into a tub and hefted it. At the parlor doorway, Susannah stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. “Are you coming?”
She expected me to watch, and since I could not do the tasks that were mine to do, I consoled myself with the thought that I could make sure my aunt made no mistakes. So I followed her into the parlor. No fire had been laid to corrupt Mama’s body, so the room was dark and cold. I lit a candle and saw that the bed was mussed, as if someone had lain beside her, and I wondered then where my father had slept last night, if he had spent the hours cradling her lifeless body, praying for her soul. I could not imagine it.
My aunt set the tub next to the bed. In the dim light, Mama looked as if she could be sleeping. I felt the tears come to my eyes again, and I blinked them away. The time for crying had passed. Jude had come in behind me; she stood there looking heartbroken. I could not look at her. Instead, I turned my gaze to my aunt and settled myself to watch.
Susannah did nothing at first. She looked down at my mother, and I heard her murmuring something; a prayer, I thought. Then she turned to me. “You’d best get started,” she said. “You’ll want to be done before your father returns.”
I stared at her, unsure how to answer.
She motioned toward the bed. “I don’t think you’ve much time, Charity.”
“But I—Father said I—”
“’Tis your right, as you said. She was your mother.”
“He told me not to. He said I was a child.”
“Well, you’re not, are you?”
She smiled, and it startled me. I had not expected this gift, and did not know how to accept with grace. I did not even know that I should accept. My father had been uncompromising: I was to leave the laying out to my aunt.
But I wanted it badly—this last thing I could do for the mother who had loved me and guarded my weakness so well. ’Twas not her fault I had found ways to fall.
“Aye. Take it, Charity,” Susannah said, smiling. Then she looked past me to Jude. “And you—you shall not tell your father. It would not do to have him angry over such a little thing as this.”
Jude nodded.
I struggled with my conscience. It was wrong, disobeying him this way. He would be angry if he found out. But this was my privilege, and when Susannah nodded at me to go ahead, it felt right, somehow.
There was a comfort in my aunt that reminded me of Mama, and I clung to it greedily, feeling suddenly less alone. This was what Mama’s spirit had been trying to tell me: Susannah was to be my new guide. I yearned so to believe it that I forgot my father and his disapproval and how I should obey him. I moved to the side of the bed and looked down into my mother’s sleeping face and said, “The green was her best dress.”
Susannah stood back, watching as I lifted my mother’s arms and undressed her. I had not imagined how hard it would be to touch skin that held no warmth, to move arms and legs without resistance. I had loved this body, and I reverenced it now as I washed her and combed her hair. I felt my aunt beside me, not too close, there to guide me if I needed it. I saw the tears shimmering on her cheeks and knew that she had loved Mama too. I felt the strength of that love, and it bound me to Susannah.
Together we dressed my mother in the worsted that usually saw only Sabbath meetings. When we were finished, Susannah said, “She looks beautiful. You’ve done well.”
I stood back and looked at my mother. I could never tell my father about this, but I longed for his approval enough that I would seek it even through Susannah. “Do you think he’ll think so?”
She nodded. “Aye. He’ll thank me well for it.”
She smiled again, and I smiled with her. I felt my spirit reach out to her—she understood me as Mama had. ’Twas such a relief that I let the control I’d held throughout these last hours slip away. My tears fell again. Father was not here to see, and Susannah’s warmth filled the spaces around me, so I did not try to stop. My aunt looked at me with a gentleness that only made me cry harder, and she took me in her arms and pressed me hard against her body, and though she didn’t smell like my mother, she felt like her, and her hands went to the right spot just below my shoulder blades as if they knew already where to go, and rubbed with my mother’s smooth and even comfort.
&
nbsp; “’Tis all right, Charity,” she murmured. “’Tis good to cry.”
But it was not; I knew that. I shook my head against her and pulled away so she had to let me go. Then I wiped my eyes with the edge of my skirt. “She’s with God,” I said. “I know she is happier now than she could have ever been with us.”
“Oh, child—”
“’Tis just that I miss her. And I…I don’t know what to do without her. She was so strong. And I…”
Susannah seemed to hear what I hadn’t the courage to say aloud. “You are strong,” she said. “You must believe that.”
I shook my heard. “No. It isn’t true. Mama always said—”
“Charity, I’ve a story to tell you.”
I wiped at my eyes. “I’m too old for stories.”
“Not for this one. ’Tis about a girl just your age. A silly girl who was forever getting into trouble of all kinds, to the despair of the whole village. She had a reputation for being impulsive and disobedient, and she was. She was a weak girl, without any sense at all. But this girl had a sister, and that sister was kind and good and strong. Without her, the girl would have been lost.”
I looked up at her. Susannah said, “That girl was me. And the sister was your mother.”
“But you—you’re not weak at all.”
She smiled. “There’s weakness in everyone, don’t you think? ’Tis just that some are better at resisting it than others. When your mama left me, I did not know how I would survive. But I did, Charity. Just as you will. Your mama taught you well. You remember that. You remember how strong she taught you to be. It’s there inside you; I know it.”
She fascinated me. I looked into her face and saw the light shining there, and I took strength from it the way my mother had. Susannah was like a gift from God, and it seemed she lifted the staff my mother had left behind, so ’twas as if we’d known each other years instead of only hours. She gave me hope. If my aunt Susannah could survive herself, then surely I could. It was as she’d said: She was just like me.
Chapter 3
IT WAS LATE THAT EVENING BEFORE MY FATHER RETURNED, LOOKING worn and tired.
Together Jude and I watched him as he hung his cloak and came across the room to sit heavily at the scarred tableboard. There was still some pottage in the kettle, and I quickly ladled some into a wooden trencher and sliced some bread, but when I set it before him, he shook his head and pushed it away.
“Where’s your aunt?” he asked.
“Here.” Susannah stood in the doorway between the two rooms, a folded bed rug in her arms. “You look tired, Brother. You should rest.”
I thought how kind she was to him, how like Mama, to be concerned for his health. Father only shrugged and looked away. “Time enough for that later. I’ve talked to the pastor and put up the notices. We’ll bury Judith on Saturday.”
He seemed so alone sitting there at that table, as if there were a wall around him that no one could see—it was a gift of my father’s, that he could seem alone in a room of people without it being pride that kept him that way. Now it only made him look lonely, and I wished I could go up to him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. I had a vision of the four of us sitting on that bench together, taking comfort from one another, but when I blinked my eyes, it was gone, and we were as we were—a room full of people with distance between us, and my father keeping it that way.
“Faith will be baptized on Sunday,” he said.
Susannah frowned. “So soon?”
“’Tis the first Sunday after her birth,” he explained.
“A funeral one day, a baptism the next? ’Twould hardly be a crime to wait another week.”
“Satan finds his way into children too easily as it is. Shall we give him so much opportunity?”
“She’s a babe. She hardly seems bait for the Devil.”
My father scowled. “Children have no will to resist him. An infant particularly. Why, she’s still wet from Adam’s sin—”
“Wet from nursing, more like,” Susannah said. “I can’t think that my sister—”
“Your sister was a good wife,” Father said shortly. “A wife who knew to obey her husband.”
I knew to bow to that voice, and I waited for Susannah to hear it too—my mother would have nodded and gone silent.
Susannah said, “Unfortunately, I was given too little time with my sister to know if that is indeed true. But I will tell you that the woman I knew—”
“Is gone,” Father finished. “It has been many years since you shared that little house in Lancashire; and to hear Judith tell it, you were too…occupied…then to know her well. Where have you been since?”
My aunt stiffened. “I loved my sister, sir.”
“No doubt you did.” Father took a deep breath. He looked down at the table. “And she loved you. But this is not England, and my wife is dead. I will have deference from those in my protection.”
“Which includes me?”
“Unless you prefer the woods, madam.”
My aunt stood straight for a moment, and then she nodded and turned back to the parlor where my mother lay. There was silence in the hall, except for the crackling of the fire. I felt Jude creep up behind me and slip her fingers into my waistband.
I stared at the doorway. I could not bear for him to be angry at my aunt now, not after what she’d done for me. That feeling, along with my nervousness, conspired against me, so I blurted, “You should see Mama, Father. She looks so peaceful…” I trailed off when I heard how loud my voice was, how silly.
But Father only sighed and rose. “Let me see her, then.” He went to the parlor, and I followed, anxious to see what he thought, to hear the praise I knew must come. I’d done a good job with Mama—Susannah had said it, and I knew it was true.
The parlor smelled of tallow smoke and the faint sweetness of bodily corruption. When we came in, my aunt was bending over Mama, straightening a fold of skirt. She did not see us right away, and I heard her say, “I never imagined this, Judith. To see you this way after so long.…Ah, ’tis not how I wanted it.”
My father cleared his throat. She started, then looked up. Without a word, she backed away, easing between the candles lighting my mother’s body.
My father stepped past me to the edge of the bed and stood there with his hands resting lightly on the thin scarlet bed rug, looking into Mama’s face. I watched the way his gaze moved over her, her dress, her quiet hands, the face I had washed lingeringly and long—she had no cause to fear bathing or exposure to ill-humored air now. He leaned back his head; the candle near him flickered at his sigh.
“She does look peaceful,” he said to Susannah.
She nodded, but her gaze went past him to me. And when she said, “Thank you, Brother,” I felt the praise in her words too, and I smiled at her, unable to help myself, because he had praised me—even if he had not known it—and she had led him to it. I was grateful and happy that for once I had done something so right. I would bask in the words he’d said to my aunt for a long time.
It was that solace I clung to when my father left the parlor without another word. I was so thankful for my aunt that later, much later that night, when I lay awake listening to the wind whistling through the crack in the windowsill and the barred owl’s Hoo-who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? in the oak outside, I reached out in the bed for her hand. I was afraid I would not find it, afraid that I had fallen asleep and she had somehow fled in the night. When I touched her fingers, she murmured something and curled them around mine in a warm and reassuring grasp.
I did not let her go. When I woke, I still gripped her hand. The faint pink light of dawn was easing through the windowpanes, and I pulled away from her, relieved and a little embarrassed, not wanting her to see what I had done, not wanting her questions. I did not know how to explain that I had wanted to keep her with me, that I could not bear the thought that she would sneak away and leave me the way my mother had done, that I would have to find my way to my father with
out her.
The day of my mother’s funeral was cold and bright, the wind biting as we followed the bier with her coffin to the burying ground.
I walked behind, holding Jude’s hand, with my aunt Susannah and Pastor Parris a little ways away. It seemed everyone in the village was there; my mother had been well liked. In spite of the things my father had said—and no doubt because baby Faith was now in Hannah Penney’s care—Goodman Penney held one of the corners of the heavy purple pall that lay over the coffin. Joseph Putnam was another pallbearer. He and my father had been friends for many years. Joseph was the favorite son of old man Putnam, who’d died and made Joseph one of the richest men in the village before he was eighteen. Since the moment Joseph had been born—the first son of a new wife—old man Putnam had doted upon him. ’Twas like the biblical Joseph all over again, complete with a coat of many colors in the form of a rich estate, and older brothers who despised him. All the village knew of the animosity between Joseph and Thomas Putnam, who was the oldest son, and the one who should have inherited.
I saw Thomas Putnam now, walking with his wife and their children, keeping their distance. He and Joseph hardly talked to each other, not since Joseph had made things worse by marrying a Porter girl. No one ever said it out loud, and you would never know it to hear them talk to each other at meeting, but the Porters and Putnams had been quietly feuding for a long time. Joseph had shown where his allegiances were.
It had not exactly been a scandal. We did not have scandals in Salem Village. We had history. I’d grown up with such stories. I could not even remember how I knew them, but I could look at anyone here and tell you whom they were angry with and how far back that bitterness ran. It was hard to avoid conflict in this village. We lived too closely; we needed each other for too many things.