by Linda Byler
She found herself watching Neil’s face for signs of . . . of what?
She wasn’t sure. A clue, perhaps.
The first cold, windy day in October, when Edna watched the bare limbs of the maple trees slashing the sullen, scudding clouds, she wondered to herself how they could be putting siding on any building. As all wives of builders do, she worried that someone would get hurt, or take risks, causing an accident.
Marie and Emmylou slammed the door in the laundry room, shucked their coats and scarves, kicked off their shoes, and came into the kitchen, where Edna was coating chicken pieces with a mixture of cornmeal, flour, and spices, her own special coating for fried chicken.
Breathing in and out with exaggeration, their cheeks red from the wind, they threw their lunchboxes and book bags on the counter.
“It is cold!” Emmylou breathed.
“It is going to snow!” Marie shouted.
Edna smiled. “Oh, come on. It’s not Thanksgiving yet. It won’t snow yet.”
Marie gave her that special look that meant she was in error.
“But you don’t know.”
Edna laughed. “No, I don’t. You’re right.”
“You don’t know a lot of things.”
The sadness weighed heavily, then, like a wet blanket. With Marie, there was always the disrespect, the pushing of boundaries, testing Edna to see how far she could go before being scolded or reminded of her disrespect.
To find the proper level of love and discipline was like balancing on a beam. Too far to the left, and you lost everything. Too far to the right, and ditto, the same result.
What had changed?
They had wanted her, begged her to be their mother. Evidently, being a maud and mother were polar opposites, which left Edna trying to decipher every motive, every lack of respect or hidden slur. If these girls were her own, she would administer some good old-fashioned discipline in short order, and wasn’t sure it would not come to that, yet. Children needed boundaries. They needed rules, which was a sort of safety net for their well-being. Oh, she’d seen plenty in her days as a maud. Timid mothers who tried to please their children to earn their respect merely allowed them to have the upper hand, with the result a total lack of honor. Or caring.
The same with passive fathers, who turned a blind eye while the children followed their own way.
Edna sighed.
It was all uncharted, or was it?
Hadn’t she learned by experience? Nothing had ever taken away so much of her self-confidence as being a stepmother to children who made no secret of their disapproval of her.
If only she could approach Orva with all her fears and insecurities where the children were concerned. He was a kind and loving husband in every aspect, but could not seem to understand Edna’s struggle with the children.
His children were doing O.K. What was she complaining about?
And so Edna went to him less and less, knowing what the outcome would be.
A shot of irritation.
She turned to Marie.
“You know, Marie, I know a lot of things. I know a little girl who needs to stop being unkind to her mother.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“I am your mother. Your own mother is in Heaven, and I am here. Your father married me, we all live together in the same house, so I expect you to listen to me and stop being so mouthy. Go hang up your coat and put your shoes on the rug. After that, you need to feed your bunnies. I saw their water dish was empty this morning.”
Marie’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Turning on her heel, she motioned to Emmylou, who sat at the table with a pile of mini pretzels and ranch dip, methodically swirling them through the dip one at a time before popping them into her mouth.
“Wait,” she said.
“Hurry up.”
Edna said nothing, merely watched as Emmylou popped the last pretzel into her mouth before following Marie into the laundry room.
Edna peeled potatoes and watched the tree branches lash back and forth, like her own restless thoughts. Brown leaves swirled across the lawn and skidded across the macadam driveway into the corner of the shop, where a good-sized pile had already accumulated. The trees bent and swayed, the wind tossing the top branches into a wild dance. Birds dipped and soared, with their wings held out to catch the main current or beating frantically to gain momentum.
She heard an unsettling crash on the front porch, hurried to find one of the wooden porch rockers blown end over end. The wind tore at the storm door, lashed her skirt to her legs, tugged at her covering strings as she bent to set the rocker upright.
Glad to be back in the cozy kitchen, she wondered if the men would not be home early on a day like this. Surely it wasn’t safe to work outside. As if in reassurance, the black pickup truck slowed, turned, drove up to the shop, and disgorged Orva and Neil before making its way back to the road.
Orva disappeared into his office, but Neil hurried through the wind, into the kitchen, slammed his lunch and thermos on the counter before saying to no one in particular, “I hate him!”
Shocked, Edna turned, her eyes wide.
“Don’t look at me like that. He’s crazy. No way should we have been on the job. But you can’t tell him.”
“But, Neil, he’s your father. He knows best.”
“He thinks he does.”
Then he burst out, “And he’s not my father.”
The blood drained from Edna’s face. She gripped the edge of the kitchen table for support. She could not meet Neil’s fiery gaze.
“He’s not, you know. Obviously. I don’t have a father.”
With that, he turned and left the kitchen, stomped up the stairs, clopped down the hallway, and slammed the door, hard.
Edna didn’t take time to think. She took the steps lightly, tapped on his door without expecting an answer, and said, “Neil, you do have a father. God is your father. He spared your life, so be thankful.”
“Yes, right.”
The sarcastic answer was a blow to Edna’s confidence, but she let it go at that. No sense in pushing unwanted words on an unwilling recipient, so she padded away, moved softly down the stairs. She opened a package of frozen corn, placed it in a saucepan, and added butter and salt before setting it on a back burner. She had harvested, shucked, cut, and frozen this corn, so it was immensely satisfying to cook this pot of her hard-earned bounty. She wondered if the sweet dill pickles were good. Or the mixed pickle. She headed to the basement for a jar of each.
All the everyday, ordinary tasks helped to keep her thoughts centered, to keep her calm in the face of all she had experienced throughout the day. She didn’t allow herself to dwell on any of it as she greeted Orva when he came into the kitchen, putting her arms around his solid waist as he bent to kiss her.
He smelled of cold air and aluminum, of lumber and electric tools and the faint smell of mud.
“How was your day?” he asked, stepping back to search her eyes.
“Good.”
Bright and cheery. An expert at hiding her true feelings. But it was time to say something, to test the waters. She took a breath and gathered her courage.
“So, a few days ago I was in the attic. Housecleaning.”
He stepped back, his face registering surprise.
“You were in the attic?”
“Yes. Is there something wrong with that?”
He shook his head as if to clear it. “No, no. It’s alright, of course. I’m sure it was quite a job. Sarah didn’t clean the attic, said it was not her responsibility, something I never understood. I thought perhaps in her home the men actually did keep the attic clean and organized, so I never bothered myself about it.”
He sniffed. “Something smells really good.”
Edna smiled. “Fried chicken.”
She mashed the potatoes and made gravy from the pan drippings, while he washed and scanned the daily paper, shook his head at the latest goings-on in Syria, holding the pape
r on his lap like a blanket as he spoke of his outrage to Edna.
She smiled. She was a married woman. A wife. A confidante. Someone needed her, asked for her opinion, and wanted her. She was a helpmeet to Orva. She stood beside him, walked beside him, was enveloped and cocooned in his love. She was so secure in her belonging. All her years of being single could never compare to this love between them, in spite of its flaws. At times like this, his inability to deal with the children in the way she thought was proper paled in comparison to the burning light of her love, carried like the Olympic torch.
She called Neil to supper, but there was no response.
She questioned Orva, who shrugged his shoulders, said let him go. He’d been a bear all day.
Edna bit back the anxious words, poured the water into the water glasses, and sat down, waiting on Orva to bow his head, the signal for hands to be folded beneath the table and heads bowed in silent prayer.
Emmylou spoke immediately when the prayer was finished.
“Marie was not looking at her plate.”
“I was, too,” Maria said sharply, glaring at her.
“Huh-uh!”
Orva didn’t seem to hear this exchange; he merely helped himself to an enormous portion of mashed potatoes, reached for the platter of chicken.
“Dat. Marie wasn’t putting patties down,” Emmylou said.
“I was!” Marie insisted.
“Putting patties down” was the children’s version of praying before a meal, a common expression among Amish all over the United States. It was just that, putting children’s hands below the table, bowing heads. One-year-olds in high chairs learned to put patties down, often asserting themselves by raising dimpled little fingers on to their tray before their father raised his, resulting in a sideways glance and a light tap from the mother.
“What? What’s wrong?” Orva sked.
“Marie wasn’t putting patties down right. She was looking out the window. I saw her.”
“How do you know, Emmylou? You weren’t bowing your head, either?” Orva asked, a twinkle in his light eyes.
A smirk from Marie, a knowing nod of righteousness.
“Emmylou, you need gravy?” Edna asked, watching her face with kindness.
She was always the one everyone else seemed to take advantage of, the smallest, the one who was easy to boss around. Marie had a streak of unkindness where Emmylou was concerned, and the situation was not getting better.
Emmylou nodded, dipped the back of her spoon to make a hole in her mashed potatoes.
“There you go, Emmylou.”
Edna smiled kindly into the questioning eyes.
She had seen plenty of children with bad table manners, the parents far too preoccupied to notice the licking of table knives, the lunges across other plates to reach bowls of food instead of asking, leaving vegetables and potatoes uneaten and helping themselves to dessert.
But she had never seen a teenaged boy sequestered in his room whenever something didn’t suit him. It still bothered Edna, the way it always had.
“So what happened at work? Neil was pretty upset when he came home.”
“That’s only normal. He’s always mad at work.”
“But isn’t there something you could do?”
“I can’t stop the wind.”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, can’t you talk to Neil, sort of talk him out of his bad mood?”
“We don’t talk at work.”
Edna sighed. How hopeless. It seemed only days since Orva had stood crying beside Neil’s bed, and her hopes had been elevated, sure things would change, and here they were, worse than ever. To fix a sour relationship between a father and a son was apparently in the same category as hundreds of other impossibilities. You just had to keep your opinion to yourself, stay quiet, and accept it for what it was.
Especially now, since the discovery in the attic.
“Wasn’t the work dangerous today, though?” she asked.
“We were actually finishing up a job. Mostly trim, so it wasn’t too bad. Neil had the hardest job. He was up on a ladder.”
“Are you sure that was a good idea with his leg?”
“Doesn’t hurt him. Makes a man out of him.”
Edna struggled through the days of autumn. She loved Orva the husband but did not understand Orva the father. He was absent so often, and at home he was stuck in his office, doing bookwork, and running his lucrative siding business. Always, there was plenty of money. Money to buy groceries, to purchase shoes and clothes, necessities for the house, and to pay drivers she hired to take her to see her parents. If she saw a new piece of artwork, an area rug, a large houseplant for the living room, or anything she would have walked away from before she was married to Orva, she bought now, without hesitation. He always approved of her purchases, put money into her account, told her she deserved it.
So she figured her blessings outweighed the times of trouble, nothing on earth was perfect, and took it for what it was. A mixture.
Whenever she was alone with Orva, she wanted to bring up the subject of the cedar chest, of Neil and Sarah, but could not find the courage to begin. Neil knew Orva was not his father, so what else was there to say?
She asked her parents if they had heard anything about Neil’s first wife when she was young, told them about the cedar chest in the attic.
They were seated around the old oilcloth-covered kitchen table, Trixie eyeing her with no less affection than she ever did. Flies stuck to the used, sticky flytrap above their heads, and the old, worn turntable in the table’s middle containing dozens of bottles of vitamins, prescription pills from the favorite druggist, the soiled sugar bowl, and a trail of sugar going from it to her father’s coffee cup.
But it was warm, the cold November air kept at bay by the propane gas heater, the kitchen with its odors of fried mush and piecrust and high cholesterol.
Edna laughed outright, all by herself.
“What?” her mother asked, smiling.
“Oh. I was thinking how your kitchen always smells so good, like high cholesterol. You know, piecrust and fried mush.”
Her mother laughed along with Edna, her round stomach shaking. She pointed to the pills on the turntable.
“That’s what those are for.”
Her father drank his coffee, scowling.
“Now, Edna, I thought sure you’d stop shaming us when you visited as a married woman. You’re just nicer about it.”
“I’m not shaming you, Dat. If you want to continue eating the old-fashioned way, then that’s fine with me. Lard and fried mush and apple pie with lard in the crust . . .”
“Now you just hang on there, young lady,” her mother said, shaking a finger. “I’m no dummy. I read an article on animal fats, and it wasn’t all bad. In moderation, lard is better than Crisco.”
“Oh, come on, Mam.”
“I read it, Edna. In the Reader’s Digest, I think it was.”
Edna lifted her eyebrows.
“I don’t use it for my piecrusts.”
“But Orva has never tasted mine.”
Edna’s eyes sparkled. “I’ll tell you what, Mam. I’ll do Thanksgiving dinner at my house this year. You bring the pumpkin pie, and we’ll see what Orva says.”
“We’ll do it!” her mother exclaimed, already excited about making her pies.
She grew neck pumpkins, peeled them, and cooked them on the stove, then mashed the pulp and cold packed it in jars, lined them on shelves downstairs in the basement. Her pies were custardy, rich with milk and eggs and spices, pies she was convinced were unbeatable.
“Sounds like a plan. The boys can get a driver and take us along. It’s too far to drive old Dob,” her father said, grinning.
The conversation turned back to Neil’s birth and the objects in the attic. But her parents clearly had no remembrance of any of it, which convinced Edna that Sarah’s family had not been from Indiana, but an Amish settlement in another state.
Her father said he
couldn’t remember Orva’s marriage to Sarah, either, but then, it was understandable, given the size of the community.
Her mother thought it was strange that she still hadn’t confided in Orva, but Edna shook her head.
“He’ll think I was snooping.”
“Which you were,” her mother said shortly.
Edna cast her mother a look. “You’re really full of yourself today.”
Her mother socked a fist into an open palm.
“Feeling my oats,” she said, laughing at her own joke.
“That’s what lard does to you,” her father said, finding his own joke absolutely hilarious.
“You two!” Edna said, shaking her head.
But she knew how good it was to be home. Home, where you were accepted exactly the way you were, with no put-on, no airs, nothing.
You were loved, in spite of being imperfect: warts and all.
Jiggling hips and newly sprouted pimples or gray hair, uneven skirts or shoes that didn’t look right didn’t matter. You could be sassy or grouchy or burst into song, and it was all the same to them. You were Edna, their daughter, and daughters were held close to the heart. Always.
“So how’re the girls?”
Edna frowned. “Marie is having serious problems at school. She’s always been slow, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to complete fourth grade. Her teacher wants her to have a tutor three evenings a week, which I don’t think will do any good, but I’ll go along with whatever Orva thinks. Or the teacher.”
“You will have to.”
Edna smiled. “I am learning. I’m a married woman.”
The tutor was a shy young girl dressed in a pale pink dress, her blond hair like spun gold, and her complexion the color of a faded yellow rose.
Completely smitten with Marie and Emmylou, she barely noticed Edna after a polite greeting, and settled into the living room around the folding table and proceeded with arithmetic, the hardest of Marie’s subjects.
Her soft voice was punctuated by laughs, little bursts of sound that were followed by Marie’s giggles and Emmylou’s raucous snorts. Edna watched, enchanted, from the doorway, then turned away to complete her ironing.
She heard Neil come down the stairs, on his way out the door when his friend came to pick him up. But she also heard him pause at the living room door, only for a moment. Edna caught the quick glance, the second sidelong look, before he hurried out through the laundry room, slamming the door with much more force than was absolutely necessary.