“I have no preference on hymns. Or words.” She stood up. “Thank you for stopping by.”
Ruth blinked. “We’ll take the carriage. We’ll pick you up at quarter to.”
“I’d prefer to walk, thank you.” Ida could feel the stillness inside herself, the kind of stillness that felt like a solid wall, but apparently Ruth felt no wall.
“The carriage will stop here at quarter to,” she repeated.
Ida sat on the bed, upright, clothed in black, two hands behind her propping her up. After a time it occurred to her that her hands touched the very spot where Ezra used to lie; she swiveled sideways and smoothed the coverlet over what might have been Ezra. Had been Ezra. She let her hand lie there, attempting to feel some remnant of him, attempting to feel some remnant of anything. She heard the carriage come and go, pictured Ruth’s face set in an anger that turned to humiliation as she sat in church waiting for Ida to appear.
No. Ida didn’t want to humiliate anyone, especially an old woman who wanted only to mourn her nephew in the company of her friends. Ida pushed herself off the bed, collected her cloak and a purse stuffed with a handkerchief useful both for wiping tears and hiding their absence, and set off.
The pews were full. Ida considered sitting quietly at the back, but the point was that Ruth see her there, that everyone else see her there with Ruth and Hattie: the widow. And besides, she’d seen Henry Barstow seated at the back, near the door, as if reserving for himself the option of exiting before the end of the service. Ida walked along the length of the aisle, eyes straight ahead, collecting whispers in her wake like the rustle of a silk gown. Hattie slid over to allow Ida room, but not enough room; each time Hattie inhaled and exhaled Ida felt the ebb and flow of it in her own shoulder and hip. She unclasped her bag, removed her handkerchief, and touched it to dry eyes.
The organ erupted into a hymn Ida didn’t know. As it gasped its last the reverend stood and began a prayer Ida also didn’t know, spoke words that described an Ezra she didn’t know. The boy so full of life and laughter. The man so upright and strong and devoted to his family. The community leader responsible for a much-needed dredging of the harbor (for which he got well paid), the repair of the West Chop lighthouse (which guided him home), and the expansion of the Seamen’s Bethel (for which he provided the lumber at well over cost). By the time the reverend had reached the part about the Bethel, Hattie’s handkerchief was a wet, pulpy mass and her sniffing audible to the rafters. Ida opened her bag, jammed her handkerchief in and snapped it shut, the sound following Hattie’s sniffs skyward.
Ida had always thought of grief as love cast adrift, something that haunted the living heart once it lost its object; she was therefore unsurprised when she could feel none of it sitting in that church. She did feel a hollowness that might be called sadness, but it was a sadness over what she’d let slip away of herself in her years of grief, in her years with Ezra, and she didn’t know what to do with that.
Ida was brought out of her reverie as the service closed, as all island services closed, with a reading of Tennyson—May there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea—which could not by any stretch be said to apply to a man whose last breath had been choked out of him by frigid November sea water.
They stood or sat around Ruth’s parlor, the guests on their arrival stopping in front of Ida where she sat in the chair nearest the door, but it was as if she sat above her chair and looked down on them all.
“That he should have been on that steamer,” said Chester Luce, shaking his head at fate and moving on to Hattie, with whom it appeared he had a lot more to share.
“Condolences for your loss,” said George Amaral, who ran a lobster boat out of Creekville. His wife, Rose, who managed the Seamen’s Bethel, said, “Come by for a cup and a chat,” before she seemed to catch something in Ida’s face. “But only if you want to.”
“Come along, Rose,” her husband said.
Rose ignored him. “In fact, I’m trying to speak to all the island women about—”
“God’s breath, Rose, you’re not starting in with that voting rubbish at Ezra Pease’s funeral.”
“It’s important that we women unite,” Rose said, again ignoring him, but when her husband grabbed her arm she trailed away after him. “Do stop by,” Rose said, and gave Ida’s hand a squeeze, for which Ida felt briefly, unreasonably, grateful.
A plate of cake arrived; a cup of tea that Ida was forced to take up in her off hand, which caused her to spill it; she set both down and snatched up her purse, looking for that pristine handkerchief. When she finished dabbing at her skirt, she lifted her eyes and found Henry Barstow leaning against the doorjamb that led to the back porch. He knew. He alone of everyone in the room knew that her widow’s weeds were a sham, that she was playing a stage part and poorly.
Ida fanned her face and pressed a palm to her forehead, signaling to anyone watching her need of air; she stepped onto the porch, feeling the eyes at her back as Henry followed her through.
“Did Mose or Ezra ever talk to you about going to the Klondike after gold?”
A look of confusion washed across Henry’s face; not the subject he’d been expecting. “Ezra talked to me of the scheme,” Ida continued. “I tried to talk him out of it. Later I heard Mose doing the same, but Ezra wasn’t one to give up on an idea, especially a bad one. I got to wondering if they’d talked of it with you. Or better yet, if you’d found mention in those account books of a secret stash of gold.” She smiled as if indicating a jest, but Henry didn’t seem to follow. His smile went only halfway. But then again, they were at a funeral.
“No one talked to me of the Klondike. I found no mention of gold.”
“Everything all right out here?” Lem spoke from behind Ida.
“Everything’s all right,” Ida said. “I grew overheated and now I’m overtired. If you would make my apologies, I believe I’ll just slip quietly home.”
“Let me—” Henry began.
“I’ll take you home,” Lem interjected.
Ida held up a hand to each. “Please. I only need air and quiet. Say nothing unless asked; most won’t notice I’m gone.”
She plunged down the steps and over the lawn. She could never have dared such a thing in Boston, she thought, and then amended; she would never have dared. Why? Because there she’d cared about everyone and what they thought; here, no one.
8
After the funeral Ida began to have some trouble attending to things. She would be engaged in a task and something about it would draw off her thoughts; for example, one morning while scattering corn for the chickens and collecting the dwindling eggs she found her thoughts drifting to the ship that had perched on the beach like a setting hen; she began to wonder what was happening with the Addie Todd. She set off for the beach.
It was a bright but raw day, the wind shoving Ida from behind, the sunlight signaling her from the waves; the Addie Todd had still not appeared above the surface, but fewer people stood watching. Ida strolled near enough to collect the day’s report without having to engage directly with anyone and learned that equipment trouble had delayed the operation.
“She’ll be up by Christmas,” one of the watchers predicted, and off Ida’s mind went: Christmas.
Traditionally Ezra and Ida went to Ruth’s for Christmas dinner, and Ida had learned early in her marriage that this invitation was not one to be negotiated, but surely if there were ever a year when Ida might be excused, this was it. So when Ruth presented her invitation Ida said, “Thank you, Ruth, but I’ve decided it would be best for me to stay at home this year.”
“Very well,” Ruth said. “But I hope you’re not serving us mutton.”
Christmas also meant it was time to separate the ram from the ewes, a task Ida had never attempted before and didn’t wish to now, for the simple reason that the beast always looked at her with a look of . . . well, hatred. She stared at him standing on a rise in the field, looking down his arrogant Grecian nose at Ida. He was ha
ndsome, she would admit—gorgeous, in fact—sturdy leg bones, strong shoulders, nice tight wool, bold, bright eyes well spaced on either side of a strong brow. All right, so she’d given the beast his due, and here he was already stamping the dirt at the sight of her. She collected Bett, opened the gate, pointed at the ram with her crook, and gave the dog the command to shed; Bett isolated the ram and drove him into the smaller paddock without trouble, but once in the paddock Ida noticed that the beast held one foot off the ground. Ida braced herself, slid through the paddock gate crook at the ready, and called to Bett to keep the ram cornered. The next thing she saw was sky. She scrambled to her feet and fled the paddock.
Lem came, looked without comment at Ida’s muddy backside, removed a stone from between the ram’s toes, and somehow managed to stay upright. Once safely out of the pen, they stood side by side admiring the ram, or rather Lem admired it and Ida glared at it.
“For an animal with such a pleasant job, you’d think he’d be better natured,” Ida said.
That shocked the kind of full-bellied laugh out of Lem that Ida rarely heard, and hearing it now cheered her unreasonably. Her mind floated again. “Would you like to eat Christmas dinner with us?”
Lem twisted to look at Ida. “Well, yes, I guess I would. I’ll bring punch.”
Ruth had never served punch. Ida felt better at once.
Hattie arrived at seven a.m. in a ruffled flannel tea dress, her apron neatly folded under her arm, vegetable parer in hand. “Mother sent me to help.” She stopped short just inside the kitchen door to drop her cloak onto the peg, and when she turned around her face was shimmering with tears. “I can’t bear not having him here today. Do you remember last year? That song he made up about Hattie’s hat? Sometimes it feels like I haven’t laughed since.”
Ida remembered no song about a hat. She remembered no laughing. But one thing was sure—there would be no laughing this year. Hattie began to attack the turnips, recalling other Ezra moments as she peeled, most of which predated Ida’s marriage: Ezra teaching Hattie to play poker; Ezra taking her to catch herring at the creek; Ezra rowing her across Lagoon Pond; Ezra taking her aboard the Cormorant and allowing her to parade around in Mose’s dive suit. That was when Ida knew that Hattie was in some Ezra world of her own devising—Mose had once told her the full dive kit weighed 150 pounds.
But in amongst her verbal creations Hattie managed to peel the turnips and apples, boil and mash the potatoes, and roll out the pastry for the pie, while Ida washed the turkey, chopped oysters and onions for the stuffing, set the cranberries to boil, soaked the soda crackers in milk for the pudding, set up another pan for the accompanying sauce of sugar and wine and nutmeg and raisins, and strained the stock for the clear soup that had been simmering since dawn.
Ruth was bringing the nuts.
When Lem arrived he claimed a spot on the stove for his punch, but even before it got poured into the cups, something went awry. Hattie had returned with Ruth, the former dressed in black satin and the latter in black silk. Ida had dressed in a crisp white shirtwaist and black brocade skirt, which she’d cinched with the same purple belt that had once attracted Henry Barstow’s notice—the belt drew all four eyes and pinched both mouths, but this she’d expected. The part she hadn’t expected was the fact that Lem’s entrance seemed to cause Hattie to temporarily lose her speech. Granted, Lem barely looked like himself, clad in wool suit and tie, his hair neatly damped and parted.
“Well, I’d no idea,” Hattie said at last.
“No idea of what?” Ida asked.
“That you’d invited Mr. Daggett.”
“Who wants punch?” Lem asked.
Ruth did not. Hattie did. Ida did. She held out the cups as Lem poured; before she even tasted it she could smell the fermented cider and the cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves; perhaps something citrusy besides. Lem lifted his glass. “To Ezra,” he said. “May he rest in peace.”
“Well, in that case I should not refuse a small cup,” Ruth said.
Even with the punch the meal was a quiet one, and Ida couldn’t blame it all on Ezra; where she’d hoped Lem’s presence would have eliminated a few conversation gaps, it only seemed to cause a bigger one. After Ida and Hattie retreated to the kitchen to clean up, the talk seemed to flow better in the parlor, Ruth’s chirps and Lem’s rumbles drifting over the exhausted silence in the kitchen. When Ida and Hattie returned to the parlor, Ruth stood up.
“Time to wander.”
“I’ll drive you,” Lem said.
“There’s no need of anyone driving me,” Ruth retorted just as Hattie said, “Thank you.”
Ida’s three guests left, and sooner than she’d expected, Ida was alone. She sat herself in the chair Lem had recently occupied and breathed in the relief of an empty house, but after a time the relief wore off. The tick of the clock grew loud, echoing around the room. Ida had just decided to give the day over to her bed when someone knocked on the door.
Thrusting her way through ghosts of Christmases past, Ida opened the door on Lem.
“Forgot my kettle.”
Ida stepped aside. Lem stepped in, picked the kettle off the stove, swished it. “According to the rules of hospitality as I know them, the kettle’s mine but the contents are yours.”
Ida set out two fresh cups. Lem poured. They returned to the chairs by the fire. The stillness of the scene, Lem’s total concentration on the cup in his hand, reminded Ida of several of her early portrait sessions, the subjects intent on looking anywhere but at the artist, afraid to speak lest they creased their brow. But Lem’s face couldn’t disguise the years or the weather or the care, even in stillness. Ida leaned forward. “Lem. Let me sketch you.”
“Thank you, no.”
“It won’t take long. I haven’t tried a portrait in months. If I don’t start again soon—”
Lem drained his cup and stood up. “Some other time.”
“Why not now? You’re all spruced up. You’re warm. You’re fed. You’re full of punch.”
They eyed each other, Ida attempting to gauge the degree of Lem’s resistance, Lem no doubt attempting to gauge the degree of Ida’s desperation. She said nothing else; he would or he wouldn’t as he decided; that much she could see. At the end of it Lem made a half circle and perched on the edge of his chair, holding out his cup for more. Ida filled his cup in the kitchen and collected her pad and pencil.
But whatever stillness Ida had observed in Lem disappeared the minute she picked up her pencil. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. He ran his fingers through his hair. He tugged his collar. He leaned forward. Back. Forward again. Ida gave out no criticism or correction, but she realized she needed to distract him or she’d never get a single line drawn.
“So tell me, how many lambs might we get this spring?”
Lem’s mouth twitched, a twitch that said, I know what you’re up to, but he answered. “I count twenty ewes carrying, best I can tell.”
“You like the new ram?”
“I’ve never seen a finer. I told Ezra, he did well there.”
Lem went on. A big-headed ram had once created so many big-headed lambs that they’d lost nearly a dozen; a pushy one had tried to jump the fence into the ewes’ pasture and broke his leg; another stood calmly in the corner no matter how many ewes squatted in front of him. Lem never grew easy, but by the time Ida set down her pencil he’d stopped tugging at his cuffs and resetting his shoulders, and the damp of perspiration had dried on his brow.
Ida walked him to the door. “Tell me this, Lem. Do you want to manage the farm?”
“No. And that’s what I told Ruth.”
“When? When did you tell her that?”
“The day after you told me what she said to you. I also told her you’d been managing pretty well whenever Ezra was gone, and I’d help where needed.” He paused but stood there so long that another thought occurred to Ida.
“Why did you come back here tonight? Really?”
Lem gazed over Ida’s shoulder
as if at Ezra’s ghost. “I don’t recall that first Christmas alone being the best day of my life.” He paused again. “I’m not going to say Merry Christmas to you, Ida, but I will say thank you for a nice night and may peace settle on you soon.”
He was out the door before Ida could think what she might wish for Lem in return. She watched him climb into the wagon, watched him snap the reins and move forward, watched the wagon stop, watched Lem lean forward, fumble in his coat. Ida couldn’t see what he was doing, but she stood and watched until he rose from his hunched position and the wagon had moved off again. Odd, she thought, that this man was the one person who seemed to genuinely care what happened to her, care what she thought. Felt. As she cared what happened to him. The wagon paused again. Ida took a step after it, but before she could take a second step it bolted ahead and down the track.
9
Ida woke to a sound from Bett, that unearthly, I-mean-this growl that carried right through the window glass. She went to the window and looked out but saw nothing. She threw on Ezra’s boots and jacket, went downstairs, lit the lantern, picked Ezra’s Springfield rifle off the hooks over the mantel, and stepped out, but by the time she got there Bett had opened her throat wide and whatever it was had already crashed off through the woods.
Ida called the dog back and returned to the house but didn’t send Bett to her kennel. “Come,” she said, and Bett followed her inside, all the way up the stairs to Ida’s bedroom. Ida settled her on the rug next to the bed, but in the night she woke to feel the dog’s hard back pressed against hers, the dog’s nose an inch from Ida’s pillow. Well, she wasn’t about to get up just to put the dog out. And truth to tell, she liked that warm body against her own.
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