That night he dreamt he was a young man again. He was naked, appeared fit, but his stomach began to convulse and threads spewed from his mouth, coiled his body in layer upon layer of dirty twine. Berta was beside him, smoothing the shell, whistling all the while, and once encased, he was relaxed, happy. But soon it soured. Confined and bathed in a jaundiced light, he sensed he was softening, felt his throat beginning to swallow an endlessly available liquid. Panic stabbed him, and he pressed against the sides of the casing, but could not budge. Soon he was gasping. Choking. And somewhere in the distance, above the faded whistling, he heard a sharp shovel wounding a plot of wet earth.
Uncle awoke, sweating, cramped legs wrapped in a sheet. He got up, dressed, and went for a drink from the jug in the kitchen. Glancing at the ceiling, the papered walls, he suddenly felt trapped, stunted, had the urge to strip off his clothes, peel off his skin, and flee. But he had simply stood, staring at the wrinkled cotton towel hanging near the stove, and wondering how to go back in time.
“Willard. Willard?” Firmness in her voice, a firmness he needed.
Uncle’s cup and saucer rattled in his hand. She was the only person on the earth who called him by his name.
“You okay?”
He watched the steam from his cup rise straight up, ascending towards heaven.
“You’re so pale. Would you like–”
“Don’t,” he whispered, then put his hands on his lap, leaned his chest into the table.
“Don’t what?”
“Try.”
“Try what, Willard?” Her back was straight now, pressed against her seat. “You’re sitting here in my home. At my table. I’m just trying to be hospitable.”
“Don’t. I don’t deserve it.”
“You’re right. You don’t deserve it.” She took a long slurp of her tea. “It’s all just foolishness, anyway. Utter foolishness. This life. Our tangled story – or lack of a story. I feel like a silly old woman, Willard. All these years.” Her voice was an undercurrent, invisible, overtaking him. “What’s wrong with me? How come I never stopped?”
“Stopped?”
“You know what I’m talking about. I should’ve moved on. There was certainly plenty of opportunity.”
He closed his eyes. “Of course.” There would have been.
“But I couldn’t. I never stopped.”
“Stopped.”
She whispered now, body slumped. “Never stopped believing I was yours.”
With these words, Uncle gathered himself up and pulled himself in. He squeezed his face, his shoulders, his behind, his legs and toes as hard as he could. A horrible tightness gripped every vein in his body, constricting the blood, constricting his heart, constricting the blast of emotion that throttled him. He was unable to speak, and stood up, stumbled from her home. Falling through the fields, the grass twined around his legs, claiming him.
He made it to the fence, their shared fence, and stopped at the gate. He had touched that gate untold times over the years, but never lifted the latch, never tested the metal hinges. With as deep a breath as he could muster, he pushed it open. The wood was nearly rotted, but it moved effortlessly, not a single squeak.
Bending over, he gripped his knees with his hands, tried to calm himself. It was then that he noticed the hinges. So new-looking. Not a single speck of rust. He tilted closer, knocked them, then peered at the shimmer on his knuckles. A faint smell of grease tweaked his nose. Left alone, nature would have destroyed them. Instead, someone had been tending to those hinges all these years.
He sat down there, in the opening between the two properties, one bent leg leaning to the north towards Annabelle’s, and one to the south towards his own home. Divided. Uncle leaned his head against the gatepost and allowed his lids to droop.
She came upon him like this, placed a pale hand on his bristly mottled cheek and began to weep. He never made it home.
chapter three
Even though Delia Abbott was on the tips of her toes, face pressed up against the window, she still could not see the beach. And to this day, it irritated her. Her husband owned a decent piece of land, and she could never understand why he chose to build their home where he did. While there had been many level areas, he had selected a small patch of struggling woods in the upper northeast corner. He cleared a path to the centre, felled the trees, then sawed them into logs and stacked them. The summer before they married, he and his father had built the saltbox home and the small shed beyond.
“Don’t see why more don’t do this,” he had said after the work was completed. “Breaks up the wind for one thing, and ’tis a bit more grand, if you asks me. Living in a forest.”
But Delia didn’t agree.
Forest was a stretch. Grand was preposterous. Instead, they lived among a cluster of straggly spruce twigs that never flourished in the cold salty winds that tore through them. Underfoot, there was a never-ending supply of fallen needles, roots and knobs, and the ground was perpetually moist. To some extent, the trees did keep out the wind, but she also felt they somehow kept her in. She suspected that this was Percy’s real wish – to protect her, hide her away from any peril that could walk, without care, right up to their doorstep.
Just once did she confess she didn’t like it. Told him that only late afternoon sun could slant sufficiently to find its way to her windows. Said although her laundry did have a pleasant woodsy odour in summer, more often than not, it was graced with daubs of turpentine, a scattered whitish smear from overhead birds. And most importantly, she explained, she couldn’t see when the ladies were strolling up and down the lane. There was no opportunity to invite someone in, have a moment to gossip, and she often wondered if her life was lonelier because of it.
She was about to suggest thinning out the trees, but Percy appeared so deflated with her complaints, and she immediately regretted saying anything. Then he stared at her with a curious expression, and it made her question if he thought she’d become somewhat spoiled since they were married. So, she let it go.
Percy was not only mistaken about those trees, he was mistaken on another account as well. Since the day they’d met, he’d treated her as though she were something far more fragile than she really was. Sometimes she felt like an enormous speckled porcelain spaniel, similar to the ones sitting so primly on her bedside table. In the fickle eyes of fate, that had surely been a blunder. Shielding her like he did. She didn’t blame him, really, though she firmly believed that by tangling the trail, he had lured calamity towards her.
She began to feel ill a few years into their marriage. As she plucked weeds or kneaded bread, she noticed her arms weaker than they should have been. Throbbed after only a few minutes work. When she stood quickly, sometimes her knees would buckle, and she would fall, leaving oval bruises and a shock that resonated in her pelvis. More than once Percy had found her like that, and she lied to him. Said that she was such a devout Christian, occasionally the need for prayer simply brought her down. Then the stomach troubles, too embarrassing to mention to Percy. And the tedious weight loss. No matter how much she ate, she sensed her body was starving.
Over the years, Dr. Barnes would come and go, though he was never able to reach a diagnosis. Once, she heard him say to her husband under his breath, “She’s a woman with a delicate constitution.” She remembered Percy nodding pleasantly, as though Dr. Barnes were confirming an inkling he’d held all along. He liked to fix things, and it seemed to suit him better to be joined to someone broken.
Harrumph, she thought as she paced in front of the window and tried to find a crack of light amongst the clump of trees that had swallowed her. Even though her upper arm was not much bigger than her wrist, she still considered herself to be a tough old bird. Lesser women would have shriveled up, climbed so far inside themselves, never to be found again. What with James, her first child, and Emma, her second. Then all those hopeful starts and disastrous stops. The last time, she bled so heavily, she was convinced she saw the sinewy hands of long d
ead Great Aunt Enid reaching for her, and Percy swore he would never touch her again. He relented, of course, though only after much badgering, a handful of shaky assurances.
And then came Stella. Delia welcomed her with an open heart, even though the child was born from peculiar circumstances, to say the least. Delia hadn’t questioned a thing, never asked Uncle for a single detail, just loved the child as though she were her own. Then, as if her hands weren’t already full, within two months of Stella’s arrival, she got word that her younger sister had passed away. The husband, who was the cook on a boat that carted loads of salt fish to Boston, was unable to take care of their three-year-old boy. The news came by way of a concise letter, something hinting at Delia’s childless state, and the boy arrived shortly thereafter. A skinny child, he seemed lost in Sunday clothes, a brown wool sailor suit trimmed with pumpkin-coloured cord. Eyes of clear blue, and his nose and hollow cheeks were decorated with a smattering of freckles. His name was Amos Flood, and in the time it took her to take him by his sweaty hand, she had fallen in love once again.
As soon as Percy walked in for his lunch on the day Amos came to them, Delia said in a hush, “He idn’t budged an inch. Been in the porch this last hour, staring at me. I don’t want to force him.”
Percy walked straight up to the child, bent slightly, hands to his knees. “Now, you don’t look familiar. Not from around here, I’d say.”
No response.
“Any chance you works over to the mill?”
He shook his head slightly.
“Didn’t think so. I knows most men that works to the mill. Do you fish then?”
A slight nod.
Delia started to walk towards the child, but Percy jigged his hand for her to stay put.
“Well, now. A fisherman. I guess that means you’re looking for a job. No self-respecting feller goes too long without a job. You idn’t nothing if you idn’t got work. Isn’t that right?”
The child stuck his toe in the rug, wiggled his heel.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re after a bit of work, I’m betting. Well, wouldn’t you know it, you’re in luck.”
The boy glanced at Percy now, and there was a faint twinkle of curiosity in his eyes.
“I’m betting too that you’re a strong feller, with shoulders like that. And I needs a strong feller. But you got to eat a good meal. Keep up your strength and all that.”
Amos toddled over, sat down in Delia’s chair at the table. Then he spoke, his voice like a bird’s chirp. “I’s strong. My mommy says.”
Said, Delia silently corrected, and the tense pinched her heart. It was difficult to reconcile her sister and the presence of this child. Delia had left home when Grace was only six weeks old, and in her mind, her sister was still only a newborn. She could hear her mother’s warnings, watch where you seats yourself, as her sister was always tucked into the corner of the sofa or the back of a chair. Somehow it was easier for Delia to believe her sister was lost when she was an infant, perhaps someone did the unthinkable and plunked themselves down without consideration for the plump white pillow beneath them. This way, Grace had never lived a full life. She’d never skinned her knees or braided her hair, never felt her soul ache with love, the awe of conception, the bittersweet joy of severing the cord.
Yes, her sister Grace was long gone. But what to do with Amos? How could she squeeze him into this picture? Resolve his existence? There would never be any mention of her. Of Grace. A child his age would have the memory of a sieve, everything slipping through.
That evening, Delia was nearly reduced to tears as she sifted through the trunk – clothes hastily piled up, a book of nursery rhymes, embroidered handkerchiefs, a pair of shoes, a lot of empty space. An abundance of miniature outfits, nearly too small for the boy now. As though someone, an experienced seamstress, had created with feverish intensity, and then suddenly stopped. Those tiny overalls, pants, sweaters would hardly be worn by the intended owner. And at the time, she recalled, that saddened her more than anything else. That this small boy, so lost in the world, would barely get a chance to feel the affection in the stitches, the touch that still lingered in the fabric.
Delia stepped away from the window, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, and sat down in the rocker. She wanted so badly to watch her family, watch her husband bend and lift in the cool October air, the children, cheeks flushed, pretend to labour diligently while they covertly played. She still hadn’t gotten used to how enormous Percy became when the children arrived. His hands were dinner plates when he patted Amos’s back, his thighs, like overnight logs, when he sat beside Stella on a bench.
She longed to compare them just now, but she could see nothing. Absolutely nothing, only a handful of old man’s beard clinging to the trunks of those cursed trees. Next fine day, she would tear away as much of it as she could reach, burn every shred.
“You are a ridiculous woman,” she said aloud as she pictured herself with both feet planted firmly against a trunk, two fists gripping the stringy moss, tree howling. “And now look. You’re talking to yourself.”
In the past five years her life had changed more than she ever would have imagined. The carefree existence between Percy and herself had vanished: the teasing, their special unspoken banter, the quiet dinners beside the stove when their toes would touch underneath the small table. With the arrival of Stella, and compounded by Amos, Percy had become deathly serious. He rarely smiled, and within six months of parenthood, his hair had morphed from the shiny black she adored to the peppered fur of a winter hare. Taking care of one had been pleasant, but three became overwhelming, and sucked the marrow from his bones.
Delia wandered around every inch of the kitchen, tapping her shoe in each corner, running her hand along every smooth surface. Caged inside her own home, and she was convinced this confinement contributed to her exhaustion. She sat upon the daybed again, breathing laboured due to her walking, and she listened intently. Gusts pushed at her home, twigs tickled the windows. Inside was glaringly still. She hated being alone.
“How long you going to be gone, Percy?” Delia had asked as they hauled on dusty boots, hats, sweaters.
“Not long,” he’d replied. “We got work to do. Just because it’s fall, don’t mean things let up.”
“I knows.”
Delia was on the daybed, and as Percy unfurled a blanket, he nudged her backwards with his elbow. Unintentional, perhaps, but the gentle propelling riled her. Then he snapped the blanket in the air, tucked it around her, securely, intestine around the skinny sausage.
“God, Percy, I got to breathe.”
“I would hope so.”
“Are you going to be long?” Her voice echoed inside her head, the annoying repetition. A syrupy neediness that sickened her.
“You needn’t worry yourself about that, maid.”
“I idn’t worried, just you knows I don’t like to be by myself is all.”
“Well, you’re not alone. Why, there’s . . . You got. . .” He looked around the room. “Stella can stay with you. Right, miss?”
“Noooo,” Stella whined. The child’s undersized sweater was tucked into oversized pants, and when she gripped Percy’s forearm, dangled there, her silky belly was exposed, pants threatening to tumble. “I wants to work.”
“And you needn’t think I’s staying in,” Amos announced. Delia turned, stung. Over the years, Percy had become the pleasure, while she was the painful punishment.
“Can’t blame them for a wanting a bit of fresh air now, can you? Heh-heh.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she had murmured, hot iron pressing on her words.
Delia lay down on the daybed again, threw the blanket across her knees. Percy would be upset if he returned, found her traipsing about their house. Tomorrow was Sunday, everyone would be at church, and she needed to appear rested. Other than Dr. Barnes, no one really knew about her peculiar illness. Percy never told a soul, and neither did she – not that she really had a soul willing to
listen. But silently, both of them had agreed. Sharing the story of her sickness, speaking of it in the open, would only change it into something real.
Last night’s storm had torn away the mounds of seaweed that clung to the rocks, then thrashed them about, tossed them up on the beach. Percy and the children were down there now, crawling over the stones, collecting the slippery strings and shoving them into four enamel buckets. When the buckets were filled, Percy would cart them up over the road, onto his property, and dump the mess in small piles on his garden. After strewing it around, he would leave it, allow it to rot over the winter, creating a rich fertilizer for his potato plants in the spring.
As he tipped the fourth bucket from a load, Percy leaned his head in close to the pile, edges of the kelp already withered and blackened with the high October sun. He inhaled deeply, considered how it was an honest odour, the scent of hard work. His mother was jumbled up in that smell – along with his four brothers, a handful of squashed damsons – all part of the last pleasant family memory he held.
Every Sunday afternoon, when he and his brothers were boys, they were instructed to sit on the hard bench in the front room. The embroidered cushion was always laid aside, as their mother predictably announced, “Now’s not the time to be thinking about comfort.” The older three were told to read from a thick book of yellowed pages. Children’s Bible stories. Percy, who was not yet big enough to read, was told instead to simply sit still and concentrate on something “holy.”
Percy struggled with this, the concentrating bit. He tried, no doubt, but when he stirred his mind, a dirty stew of thoughts floated up, spoiled root vegetables bumping against the spoon. A dead chicken’s head on a bloody stump. Blisters on his tongue after a fever. The queer excitement of watching his mother undress, the sheerness of her cotton slip. Nothing “holy” there. While he waited for something to arrive, he chewed and swallowed his fingernails, sucked the blood that often wept from torn skin.
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