So, yes, there was bitterness in her mouth when she watched that ship appear on the horizon. Bitterness was superior to sorrow. Sorrow impeded function, and she still had to take care of her children and her home and herself. But there was also abhorrence for her weakness. For her ability to snicker and mock with Nettie while someone she loved drifted away. She kept these thoughts close. Balled up inside her heart. Tight as a supper bun, her father might have once said. Others had suffered worse. She had to move on. There was nothing unique about her story.
Stella clasped the wet brush again, pressed down, continued invading the floor with bent bristles. Back and forth, back and forth. She shimmied sideways, dampened a fresh area. A smell of sweet forests wafted up to her nose, and in some way, it reminded her of fresh tobacco. Summer afternoons. Happy men sitting on the painted front steps, a leg bent perhaps, elbow resting calmly on a knee. Inside the house, she might have been mixing oats for a fruit cobbler or stirring flour and water into a rich seal gravy. She imagined Nettie, her best friend, in a floral dress beside her. And as they chirped away about nothing in particular, that smell of smoke would drift in through an open window, easy laughter not far behind it.
Those moments seemed a lifetime ago, and Stella wondered how she had let them all slip by, rarely slowing down long enough to appreciate them. She crinkled her body, and for a self-indulgent moment, laid her head against the floor. To spend a moment there, living inside the memory.
Eyes closed, and she heard thumping. Her own heart? No. The thumping turned into a stomping. Angry shoes rebuking the stony path. Someone charging towards her home. Annoyed by the tricky handle on the door. A dozen livid clicks. Whoosh.
Before Stella could budge, Elise burst through the porch, flounced into the kitchen.
“What in God’s name is you doing?”
Stella bolted upright, gripped the brush. Remembering, was the first word that came to mind. But that would lead to explanation. “I’s cleaning the floor, Elise. ’Tis long overdue.” From the corner of her eye, she could see her daughter, tall with soft curves, hair falling forward like a rushing river in spring.
“Thought you was sleeping.”
“Sleeping in the kitchen? What a thing to say.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.” Elise scraped out a chair, plunked herself down, knees jumping. “’Tis dark enough in here.”
Without looking up, Stella made a few more swipes with her brush, dropped it into the bucket, then sopped up the splash with a rag.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” Elise said, fury in her voice. “Why is that too much to ask?”
“What?”
“You knows what I’s talking about. Every time I tries to talk to you, you just keeps on going, doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
Stella leaned back on her calves, stared at Elise. She started to say, “I’m listening,” but instead, “Good God” popped from her lips. Her daughter’s face was streaked with soot, triangles of clean skin where tears had flowed. Half of the sailor collar on her navy blouse was turned inside, dirty skirt wrinkled around her legs, her right knee, jutting out from underneath too short a hemline, was raw and bloody. Shoulders curled forward, and the certainty that always sat there was missing. “What happened to you, my child?”
“I got hurt.”
“How? Did you fall down? Did you slip?”
Elise looked down. “Part that.”
“Did you get burnt? At the fire?”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Someone got burnt?”
“Lewis did.”
“Lewis Hickey?”
“Yes, he. And I was there. With him.”
“What? What do you mean you was there? Weren’t everyone there?”
“That’s not what I means.” She pulled the candle towards her, flicked her fingers slowly through the flame.
“What then, Elise? I don’t understand you.”
Elise peeled off a partially broken fingernail, lay it neatly beside the candle holder. “I needs a drop of tea, Mother. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course I can.”
Stella stood, legs tingling, and she went to the stove, placed her hand on the curve of the kettle. Still warm, and she poured water into a teapot that was shaped like a small dog. Tea arriving through the outstretched paw, and when the cup was full, Stella sweetened it with a thin stream of molasses – white sugar still in short supply.
“Can you tell me what happened? Is young Lewis hurt bad?”
“He’ll survive.” Sardonic laugh, and Elise stirred her tea, round and round. “And he idn’t that young no more.”
“Well?”
“Well what?” Elise crossed her arms over her chest, hands gripping her shoulders.
“Tell me.”
Shifting in her seat, eyes darting, she finally said, “A potato burst open, Mother.”
“Potato?”
“Yes, that’s what happened. A big fat stupid potato.” As she spoke, composure receded, breaths hitched in her throat. “Burst out of the fire.” Spitting words now. “Burst right out of the fire and ruined all my bloody plans.” She began to shake, mouth drawn back in a scarecrow smile. High-pitched squeals, tight and shrill, as though air were escaping from a pinhole in her heart. When the tears were replaced by cumbersome hiccups, Elise confessed everything. Well, she tried, at least. Most fragments refused to be aired, dug their claws into the soggy caverns of her chest.
Earlier that night, in a corner where four farms met, a large mound of dried potato stalks burned. Handfuls of boys darted around the fire, prodding the mound with charred sticks, squealing, their faces stained with soot. Occasionally a blackened potato that had been tossed in earlier was re-discovered, knocked clear from the ashes. When it cooled just enough to handle, a boy would press it until the top split and steaming white flesh emerged. A moment later, he would ram it into his drooling mouth.
Elise and two girls, Bee and Marg, stood a few feet away, arms locked together at the elbows. They were too old now to race about, and instead, watched the older boys tend to the bonfire, layering on additional stalks, jabbing and lifting with larger sticks, tucking in fresh potatoes, rolling out cooked ones. One threw a brilliant red bough on the fire, and it crackled and raged when fire consumed it. As they watched the bough disintegrate, the girls pushed closer together, giggled as billowing smoke burned their eyes, clung to the large curls they’d worked so hard to create.
Elise, Bee, and Marg each wore near-matching woolen cardigans, blouses with peter pan collars, and skirts, heavy fabric cut on the bias. October breezes blew through their clothes, around their open necks, up their bare legs. Marg disentangled her arms from the other girls’, tugged her skirt to the front, jammed the material between her legs and pinched it there. Through chattering teeth, she announced, “Mother said I’d catch my death if I goes out like this. Without no stockings.”
Elise snorted. “Mine said the same thing. See if I cares.”
“Don’t do that, maid,” Bee whispered, slapping Marg’s thigh. “I sees James looking at you right this instant.”
Grip on the fabric released, skirt freed and shifting in the easy wind, Marg raised a small hand, waved in such a way it appeared she was scratching the air. Like a kitten at a closed door, Elise imagined. A kitten, desperate to be let in. Desperate to be wanted. Elise smiled and nudged Marg’s hip.
As the evening progressed, the banter continued. The three girls smoothed their hair and skirts, huddled and whispered, clutched their stomachs when laughter occasionally crippled them. Charred potatoes were offered by circling boys, and they accepted politely, nibbled gingerly. Anyone looking at the gaggle would think they were the best of friends. Matching both in outfits and demeanours. Yes, the best of friends. And from the perspective of Bee and Marg, that opinion would be wholly accurate. Though Elise, who kept several devilish deeds secret, knew otherwise.
Their paths had silently diverged three years ago. Each girl had turned f
ifteen, and tucked away inside the oven of Bee’s attic, under a canopy of dried fish nailed to the rafters, Marg decided they should solemnly declare the names of the boys they loved. The ones they wanted to kiss. The boys they dreamed they might one day marry. “That way,” Marg reasoned, “no feller will ever come between us. There’ll be no confusion of who belongs to who. No cross-over affections, we’ll say.” Without hesitation, Bee proclaimed her eternal adoration for Chester Simms. After some high-pitched squeals and hand clasping, Marg calmed, ran her hands over her cheeks, and whispered, “James Gosse. He’s so delicious,” she cried, “I could eat the face right off him.” More shrieks and mini-hugs, and then they turned their shiny faces to Elise. “Tell us,” they hissed, “who you wants to marry, maid.” And Elise stared for a moment, then smiled coyly, mouthed the first name that came to her mind. “George Winsor.” All three howled and wailed then, fell back on the floorboards, kicking each other with stocking feet, bits of salt dropping onto them from the fish, until three thumps from the tip of a broomstick striking the ceiling below silenced them. “Beeeeeee!” Livid mother’s tongue, sparks from a fire. “Get yourself down here this instant ‘fore you comes through the floor.”
Elise scampered home to finish her chores. She wrung out the wash waiting in a bucket on the stoop, squeezing and twisting until her rough palms ached. With split wooden pins, she nipped the laundry onto the lines, then once completed, she walked amongst the shivering shirts and sheets, let the damp fresh fabric cling to her bare arms, her cheeks. Cooling her. What exactly had happened this afternoon, she wasn’t certain, but something had shifted. She recognized how different she was from Bee and Marg, and she hoped they hadn’t noticed her lack of enthusiasm, her hesitation. For the truth was, she had not yet fallen in love. Not even close. Never imagined kissing a boy. Had never conjured the notion of being married. And when she pictured Marg and Bee, their souls pulsing with excitement, their passion flushing their cheeks, making their voices quaver in their very throats, Elise felt sore. Raw like a rope burn all up and down her insides. It wasn’t her George Winsor lie that caused it. She understood. It was plain and simple jealousy.
Perhaps it was this bud of envy that made Elise stare at James Gosse during church service. Not that she found him particularly appealing, but when he turned in his pew and caught her eye, she never looked away. This went on for nearly a year, this brazen gawking through sermons and hymns, stolen glances during prayers. She took note of his disheveled hair and determined which side he’d slept on the night before. She eyed the collar of his shirt, envisioned his mother ironing his clothes. She watched him nudge his little sister when the Reverend sneezed or snorted during a sermon.
Whenever Marg would bend Elise’s ear (which she did incessantly) about how fine a man James would be, Elise had no trouble to summon his image. So clearly, the jut of his chin, flatness of his freckled nose. His eyes reminded her of looking up through water. Down by the pond. When she lay on the slimy gravel bottom, facing upwards, and opened her eyes. Which she often did, alone, during summer afternoons.
“How can you do that?” James was standing by the edge of the water, waiting until she broke the surface.
“Do what?” she replied, catching her breath.
“Sink like that. Like you’s made of stone.”
Made of stone. She smirked, though she didn’t mean it. Made of stone. “Maybe I is.” And she knew when she said this, she would wonder about that appraisal long after her encounter with James was over.
She was almost sixteen when she let James reach up under her skirt, touch her backside, the very edges of her underwear. She was leaning against a birch tree, he pressed against her, gaping mouth wet on her neck, and for those few moments while his hands roamed, she peeled thin strips of bark from the trunk, scarring it, rendering a portion of the old tree naked.
After that, she rarely ever looked at James. Instead, her focus shifted to oafish Chester Simms with his pinched clothes, crowded teeth and unevenly trimmed black hair. These were traits that Bee adored, claimed he looked like a lost little boy, so innocent and sweet. Not so, Elise discovered. On a blustery afternoon behind the schoolhouse, Chester was stacking wood for the stove. Elise leaned against the pile, and he smirked at her, squinted his eyes in the reflected sunlight. “Well now,” he said with a loud guffaw. “Don’t want to be mistaking you for a junk.”
Elise couldn’t recall what she’d said or why he’d kissed her. She couldn’t remember exactly how he’d unbuttoned her red wool coat, her sweater, then slipped his mittened hands inside and clutched her chest, several painful squeezes. When she sat to the table for an early supper that night, her mother simply frowned at her. Looking down, Elise saw that the front of her good blouse was marred with daubs of sticky turpentine, flecks of sawdust, strands of wool from her own sweater. “Carting wood,” Elise managed. “For Miss Kilbride.”
Her mother never blinked, responded, “That’s an awful queer thing to look so sheepish over. So guilty in your eyes.”
Elise thought about this as she watched James heap an armload of potato stalks on the fire. The dead plants writhed and curled, and in an instant, were swallowed by the flames. Her mother had been right, she did feel guilty. But, she also felt something else. When she stood alongside Marg and Bee, Elise felt absolute relief that the jealousy, like a troublesome ball of burrs, was now gone. Not that she wished unhappiness on her friends, Elise just wanted to have those secrets. Just wanted to know that Marg and Bee’s rippling glee was an illusion, created in folly by a teenaged human heart. When her own heart had felt like a dried jellyfish, withered on the rocks, Elise had taken some solace in the knowledge that the objects of their love were flawed.
Perhaps because of her own actions, Elise no longer trusted Marg and Bee. She never admitted her indifference to George Winsor, accepted their condolences when he began courting Elise’s cousin, Annie Smith. Even opened her arms to their hugs, shed a tear or two. Then, when her mind became preoccupied with Lewis Hickey, she never told a soul. She reasoned it was only like a fly bite, after all, and it would soon disappear. But her preoccupation developed from fly bite to full blown rash, and took over her mind. During the long summer days, she could think of nothing and no one else. And she was very careful, guarded that knowledge fervently.
Lewis was the grandson of the late Reverend Hickey. Everyone said he would be a minister himself, if given a little time to grow up. Elise believed this. There was a natural holiness about him. When she covertly watched him move about the fire, handing cooled cooked potatoes to the children, patting their heads, she thought he looked as though he were already practicing for the position on the church steps. Yes, there was definitely something godlike about Lewis, his soft curls, like a mound of wood shavings, eyes of a placid deer. She also noticed he had extraordinarily large hands, and she thought this was a heavenly feature as well. Bigger hands for holding, healing, helping. Godly hands. That seemed like Lewis. Though she barely knew him, she was certain he was someone who would have influence. Make her a better girl. Turn her into someone her mother might manage to love.
Lewis was within a few feet of her now, tossing raw potatoes into the ashes, covering them. He leaned in, nudged some stalks with his stick, and there was a sudden pop, then a yowl, and Lewis dropped to his knees, clawing his face. Several girls rushed, but Elise reached him first. He yanked at her skirt, drawing her closer, used the fabric to wipe away the clumps of steaming potato that clung to his cheeks, forehead and left eyelid.
Everyone stared as Elise put her arm around his waist, helped him to his feet. “Let’s get you home,” she said with an authority that surprised her. “Get that all fixed up.”
But as they left the bonfire, he never led her in the right direction. Holding her hand firmly in his, he walked towards a boarded up farmhouse a good distance from the fire. In the shadows, they picked their way across the abandoned property towards the well, and while Lewis propped himself against the stone sur
rounding, Elise lifted the wooden cover, lowered the bucket. Good shake of the rope, bucket sinking, and she drew up cool water. He splashed his face several times, then ran his damp hands over his hair.
“How do I look?” he asked, cocking his head, smirking. “Is I burnt beyond?”
Elise heard a giggle burst from her lips, even though she hadn’t given it permission to escape. “Not too bad,” she replied, gazing down at her hands. The brazenness she had felt with James and Chester no longer existed, and when she stole glances at Lewis, shyness altered her heartbeat, making her dizzy. “Does it hurt?”
“Nah. ’Twas only a small one. Good thing I weren’t that close.” He stood up, walked towards the house. Touching the weathered boards, he jammed his nails under cracks in the paint, and Elise watched as it flaked away, dropping, disappearing into darkness.
“Good thing,” she breathed.
He turned towards her. “You knows who lived here?”
“Uh-huh.” Elise stood beside him, but not too close. “Mrs. May and that feller.”
“Lard, she was an old one. Face on her like a cabbage left in the field all winter.”
Elise giggled again. “I wonders why she lived so long.”
“Grandmother told me once ’twas cause she had a cold heart. But don’t tell no one I said that.”
“I won’t,” Elise promised. She took his request seriously, sealed his words inside. “People’ll think ’tis poor taste to speak ill of the dead.”
The Seary Line Page 21