“Burnt down to the dirt, it is.”
“Gone.”
Last Tuesday night, Delia and Percy had awoken simultaneously when the acrid stench of smoke began to ooze in around the window to their bedroom. She arose quickly, drew back the curtain, and witnessed a warm glow just beyond the trees.
So close, she thought. Our home.
Percy was silent for a moment. “No, ’tis too far off.” Then, “The mill, by Christ. That’s the mill. I’ll bet you a damn.”
Grabbing his trousers from the chair, Percy jammed one leg in, the other bounding after. As though by magic, Amos appeared behind him, both dashing from the house, suspenders flapping, buckets in either fist. Alongside his father, Amos was whippet-thin, but, Delia believed, what he lacked in bulk, he possessed in conviction.
Delia was suddenly alone, waiting in a cool creaky house, aware of measured time. Staring at the brightness through the trees, she saw it swell into a broad band of orange wisps, smoky ghosts circling. She had the urge to nudge Stella, tell her what was happening, but when she stood over her, Delia changed her mind.
In her sleep, Stella’s plump face lightened, then smiled, giggled even, with an amusing dream. Delia felt a tinge of bitterness, as she knew that, when awake, Stella saved those expressions for her brother and father. In truth, she didn’t blame her. Delia had barely been a mother to Stella, and a groove lived between them, liquid sourness coursing along. There had been occasions of lightness and giddy joy, but she could count those on one hand. And she rarely thought of them, never spoke of them, because the scarcity of those moments only made her sad.
Her illness might have been part of the cause. Throughout her childhood, Stella was required to nurse Delia and appease her. But Percy had never encouraged the child to openly love her. The choice was hers, and it was clear to Delia she chose not to. And, in turn, Delia held herself at such an aching distance, sometimes she could make Stella practically disappear.
Maybe, as Stella grew, Delia started to house a fiber of resentment towards the child. She would admit to just a hint, a wisp. A wispy wisp, at that. When Stella came into their home, the child had captivated Percy, and with each passing season, Delia faded more and more. Stella’s health only made Delia aware of her continual shriveling. When Stella scampered about, boundless energy, overflowing promise, Delia chided her own frailty, her slight slump, curling shoulders. She hated when her husband chirped, “Stella, my star.” But when he spoke to Delia, it was often instructional, “Now then, Del,” voice like dough made with dead yeast.
She was blessed by Amos, though. Loving him was so comfortable, like dozing in sunshine, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because he was a boy, and by nature, boys were easier to love. Loving Stella hurt, in a way that was different and worse than being sick. And Delia’s body was often so feeble, she needed to keep anguish away from her heart. If she were to survive at all.
Leaning in towards Stella, Delia smelled the woodsy-scent of her scalp, was reminded of the trees that surrounded them, the fire at the mill. She should check the progress from her bedroom window. But before she left, she touched the base of Stella’s neck, felt moisture, and loosened the quilts that bound the girl, made the thin hair cling to her face. No matter the temperature, Stella had always been a damp child.
Just as the sun was pushing up behind the water, tipping the waves with pinkish froth, Amos dragged his body through the door. He looked smaller than when he left. Bleary eyes stared out from a soot-coated shell, and he went to his mother who was seated in the rocker. He knelt down, placed his head on her lap. Thinking he might crumble, she touched him gently at first, then snarled her hands in his dirty hair, shook it a little. Not so easy, is it, my son? To be growed up. Like a man. Exhausted, he sighed, then closed his eyes.
Percy arrived shortly thereafter, barreling in, fury and failure riding high on his back. He swiped cool water from the basin over his hands, smeared the soot on his face, and didn’t heed the black water dripping from his elbows. His hands were fists, and they banged into each other as he paced.
He did not look at her for several minutes. Destroyed, was the only word he’d said.
“’Twas the lanterns,” Mrs. Primmer clucked. “That’s what my Bob says. Offering up only a pinch of light, they does. More trouble than they’s worth.”
“You said it, maid,” Mrs. Wells replied. “Lost my best curtains three years ago. Just ordered them in from the catalog, not hung for a month, but up in flames.”
“Well, now.”
“Would’ve lost the house too. But I hauled them down, bunched them up, flames and all, tossed them right out the back door. Don’t know what come over me.”
“Good Lord was watching over you that evening.”
“I allows.” Mrs. Wells nodded vigorously. “A shame though.”
“A real shame.”
Delia tried to nod in time with the others. “Did you re-order, Mrs. Wells?” she ventured.
“Re-order?” Snorting. “My dear Mrs. Abbott, it took me half my lifetime to scrape together the few dollars for those. No, ma’am. I did not re-order. Nothing of the sort.”
“Oh.” Delia began to swipe the pews with a cloth doused in lemon oil. Dust rose up, tickled her nose, and she sneezed, saw a brilliant burst of colour behind her eyes. She sat down with force, and the sound of her elbows knocking the wood echoed throughout the church.
“Something wrong, Mrs. Abbott?”
“No, no.”
“Well, we best carry on then. A lot to do, and I still got to peel all the vegetables for the crowd tomorrow.”
“Can’t work on the Sabbath.”
“I swear, you’d think I hadn’t fed them all week. Way they goes at a Sunday meal.”
“Georgina got mine all taken care of. God bless her.”
“I needs time to iron those cloths for the service. But I expects I’ll get them done by sundown.”
“Well, I think I’ll take a spell,” Mrs. Primmer said. She sat on the step that led to the altar, shook her head. “Don’t know what’s to become of the men. What’ll they do?”
“Doubts if the Fullers’ll extend us either bit more credit,” Mrs. Burden said. Her voice cracked, and she put her hand to her mouth. “Don’t know how we’ll make it through the winter. The girls’ll have to come out of school. Work to get by.”
“They don’t deserve this. The men driving themselves into the ground. All for nothing.”
“No need to be heading off to the camps this winter. There’d be nothing to do with the logs they cuts.”
“The river’ll be empty. Nar man out on the logs with his pickpole and peavey.”
“Sure, that’s no kind of life, anyways, if you asks me. Sleeping on those old bough beds. Eating old bologna, a scattered baked bean, gingersnaps if they’s lucky.”
“Surprised it’s not the death of the load of them.”
“Every year, John’s a shadow of hisself when he comes out.”
“And do you know what they does with all that wood?”
“No, maid.”
“Ships it to the States, they does, where they uses it to make the insides of pianos. Can you fathom it? Our men near killing themselves so that some uppity rich youngsters can play their pianos.”
“I never knowed.”
“Mrs. May got a piano.”
“Well, that’s different.”
Mrs. Burden whimpered, pressed her side into the wall by the door, knuckles in the mouth now.
“No point to belabour it,” Mrs. Hickey chided. She was on her knees, both hands gripping a wooden brush. As she scrubbed, her backside, like two over-risen loaves of bread bound together, waggled. She sat back onto her calves. “Who amongst us is going to cast the first stone, hey? Like I always says, you can’t unring the bell, ladies.”
Curious about how it might feel to live inside such a grand body, Delia began to stare at Mrs. Hickey as she worked. A hint of jealousy bristled within Delia when she noticed Mrs. Hickey’s bod
y jiggling. Every few swipes of the scrubbing brush, the woman would pause, reach her soapy hand behind her and tug at the hem that was riding up over her backside, exposing her slip. Delia ran her lean hands down over the bodice of her dress, felt her ribs beneath the fabric. Skin pulled over bones, her body was nothing more than a series of emaciated racks. Mrs. Hickey, on the other hand, had surely managed to establish such a form by denying herself nothing. Plenty of lard, white sugar, heaps of dripping scrunchions. Her hefty skeleton was tucked deeply away, safe inside thick layers of fat, a good foot of room between her soul and the outside world. Delia wondered if she might be happier if she had Mrs. Hickey’s hips, her doughy folds. And she had the sudden urge to put her arms around her, squeeze the softness, feel the warmth that such a pelt might offer.
Delia stood, daubed more lemon oil onto her cloth, and began to wipe down the pulpit. “It’s good fortune that Percy makes furniture in the winter. He’s guessing it’ll tide us over until the mill is built up again.”
“’Tis a pity we idn’t all as fortunate,” Mrs. Well said, words a caustic drip. Then, with smugness, “Doubts there’ll be much sales, though, when nar man got a job.”
“He thought of that. But he says most things he makes goes across the harbour anyways.”
“Well, now.” Mrs. Hickey hoisted herself to her feet, face mottled like beetroot smashed on white china. “I don’t believe ’tis necessary to flaunt your prosperity amongst us regular folk, Mrs. Abbott.”
“I certainly was not flaunting, then.”
“Whatever name you choose. I would imagine the good Lord frowns upon such boasting.”
“Come, Matilda. I was hardly flaunting or boasting, or any such thing. I was just trying to contribute to the discussion.”
“Contributions like that we can do without, Mrs. Abbott. Now, if you don’t mind, the Reverend would appreciate having a clean church. A little less tongue wagging and a lot more elbow grease might get us headed in that direction.” Mrs. Hickey wobbled up the aisle, holding the back of each pew as she passed them. “If you’ve got no objection, Mrs. Abbott, you can carry on with those floors. As you well know, I have a touch of the arthritis in my knees, and today, they’s right gone.”
“Very well,” Delia replied politely, and as they passed alongside each other, their eyes met. Mrs. Hickey’s were dull, the colour of an old, but still tender, bruise. Though she tried not to acknowledge it, Delia knew Matilda Hickey despised her, even though they had never fought, a heated passage once, perhaps, but never an argument. After years of assessing the origin of the ill-will, Delia had decided it was deeply rooted in what she considered to be an informal exchange involving a marriage proposal and a reasonable man.
When she was sixteen, Delia had moved to Bended Knee to help her mother’s friend’s littlest sister, a woman named Joanna Cable. Joanna’s husband had drowned. He was lost along with three other men while clubbing seals when a sly blizzard engulfed what began as a fine day. Shortly after his death, Joanna gave birth to twin girls. Because she had been married only a short time when her husband died, she was very much alone in her new village, and Delia was sent to offer relief, to help smooth the rough patches.
Throughout that summer, the young minister came frequently to offer support to the new widow. Sipping tea in the front room, he always perched awkwardly at the edge of his seat, weight still on his thin legs. The embroidered cushion never felt a brush from his back. As he sat, his expression was frequently of the pained variety, reminded Delia of an uncle she had who suffered terribly whenever he consumed boiled cabbage. Conversation was often stilted, and his mind would constantly trip, mouth stuttering. He would blush when he spoke of Bod’s Gook and when he told the women that he loved to hing symns. Delia wondered if four girls in one room made him nervous, and when he caught his slips, he would whinny like a jumpy foal.
Fall arrived, marked by the lonely smells of uprooted earth, burning leaves, irritated sea. Joanna told Delia she decided it was time for the Reverend to move on. During his next visit, she explained that she was getting by just fine, what with Delia and all. She gently suggested he might consider tending to others less blessed than herself. But he shook his head, hair tumbling into his eyes, and said, with some stammering, that grieving was an arduous process, being close at hand during trying times was the noblest part of his profession. How could she respond to that?
As the winter dragged on, Delia noticed the Reverend spent less time ministering to Joanna’s torn heart and more time staring longingly about the room. Perhaps the paisley wallpaper reminded him of a room in his deceased mother’s home. Or, Delia wondered if he might like to stay there, if he envisioned himself sharing this simple family life that Joanna was creating. If he were to become a permanent fixture, and he very nearly was already, Delia would surely have to move on. She would never admit this to anyone, but she found the Reverend unattractive, thought his presence was like a gulp of cod liver oil – essential for good health, maybe, but with a rancid flavour that made her shiver.
Then, one summer afternoon, when she arrived home from the general store, small packet of sugar in her purse, she overheard a discussion that changed everything. The Reverend was in the front room (no doubt balancing on his particular chair), and talking to Joanna in hushed but furtive tones. Delia nodded to herself, confident he was confessing his adoration, and she stood just outside the door, eavesdropping. Keeping her hand in her purse, she felt the packet of sugar, lifted it, enjoyed the weight of it, the luxury of the pure white crystals. She would bake a pudding, maybe a cake even, for when Joanna announced her good news, and Delia took only shallow breaths so she could make out their exact words. But the air snagged in her throat when her own name was spoken, and the direction of the conversation became clear. “Delia is young and lovely,” she heard the Reverend declare. “I won’t deny she’s caught my fancy.” He coughed, then made a terrible noise, akin to a wet sneeze from a yawning cat. “I would like to ask her father for her hand.”
Delia jumped, locked her fingers over her gaping mouth.
“My good man,” Joanna responded. “That would be quite impossible.”
Imperceptible sigh from behind the door. “Oh?”
“I’m surprised we never mentioned it. Some months back, we received a letter from her mother telling us they were moving farther eastward. If Delia wanted to join them, she best get on home. I told her I was in a good way now, but she decided to stay on, rather than dislodge herself again, I suppose. I figures she got a life started here, and she’s a real self-reliant sort. So, I thinks you’d be hard-pressed to make the trek to see her father. ’Tis an awful good distance.”
“Ohhh, that’s too bad.” Spirit twirling down the eddy.
“But I knowed her father pretty well, and he’s always been a modern sort. I believes if you asked for Del’s hand, he’d likely say you could have it.”
Delia gasped, buckled over, then wrapped one leg around the other, squeezed to counteract the sudden impulse to rush to the outhouse.
“Then he’d probably laugh,” Joanna continued, “good-natured like, and tell you he could give you her hand, but if you wants the rest of her, you best ask her yourself.”
When Delia heard the Reverend’s chair scrape, she quickly opened the door to the cellar, stepped down onto the top step, and waited in the musty darkness as he stumbled out. How wrong could she have been? He had not twisted his pity for Joanna into compassionate love. No. He lingered all those months, drinking tea, rubbing his hands through his hair, describing the virtue of Pod’s Glan with another objective in mind. Now she realized it was all because of her.
Delia did her best to avoid him, feigned feminine discomfort and stayed in her room for two days. Thursday and Friday she managed to dart out the back door when she spied him strolling up the lane. But on the Saturday afternoon, when she was lost in thought as she shaved splits from a large junk of spruce, he was able to sneak up behind her.
“Walk with m
e,” he said, and she had no choice but to do so. They strolled to an oak tree, a sturdy rope and wood swing dangling from one of its branches. She sat, idly swaying back and forth with a push of her toe. Leaning against the rough trunk, he pressed a glass of water and chipped ice Joanna must have given him to his forehead.
“Marry me,” he said, without delay, and Delia had the immediate sense he chose the simple sentence so that any mix-up of consonants would go unnoticed.
She put her head down, stifling the inappropriate laughter taking hold of her diaphragm. Slowly at first, she began to swing, then climbed higher and higher, closing her eyes as the oak tree began to groan. How she despised herself, her immaturity, her conceit. She could not see past the pockmarks that traversed his face, crawled down over his neck. She could not ignore the clumps of gingery hair curling out over his collar, hinting at the vast rug beneath. She could not tolerate his moist hands when he touched her after a service, her yearning to rinse away the smell of his salt. She did not waver in her decision. She had to say no.
Just as that thought solidified in her mind, the tree issued a vulgar grunt and the rope buckled and snapped. Both swing and limb broken, Delia flew through the air, landed flat on the packed dirt of the path, skidding several feet. Rocks jabbed into her backside, tugging her skin, tearing the fabric of her dress. Body burning, eyes watery, she looked to the sky, puffy clouds floating with mocking laziness. Your wrath is great, Lord, I feel it. But I just can’t.
In a flash he was leaning over her. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she announced through clenched teeth.
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“No.” Tears ran from her eyes, pooled in her ears. “I mean, no.”
“Oh,” he replied, stepping back, freckled hand to his cheek. “Oh, oh. I thought you. . .oh.”
She began to writhe now, rolling on her side, thin strips of wet earth peeling off the back of her torn dress, dropping away.
Joanna came running from the house, long skirt and apron lifted to her knees. “What happened?”
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