Painting the Light

by Sally Cabot Gunning

  Hattie stood up. “I don’t know what’s happened to you.”

  “Let me think on that. Could it be I got tired of liars? Cheats? Thieves? In a word, Peases?”

  Hattie flounced off with a parting shot even Ida had to admire for its brutality. “Imagine if your mother and father were alive, what they’d say to you right now.”

  Ida went to bed taking comfort in the fact that surely she had reached the lowest point to which she could ever succumb, but it turned out she was wrong.

  Oliver’s grandfather was one of those men whose kindness was apparent within a half hour of his arrival, which eased Ida’s mind some. He thanked Ruth, Hattie, and even Ida for looking out for the boy for so long; he took note of Oliver’s downcast face and said right away, “I bet it’s hard to leave a place as handsome as this farm, but your grandmother has missed you so. I missed you too. We’ll just have to come back in the spring and see how much that sheep of yours has grown.”

  Oliver lifted his chin, pointed at Ida, and said, “We’re going to stay with her!” to which Ida only nodded and smiled.

  So who was the liar now?

  And down. More raindrops had just pocked the windowpane and Ida had rushed out to wrestle the sheets off the line, but the wind came up along with the rain, and Ida found herself batting the sheets around like a sailor in a gale. She—and the wash—were pretty well soaked through when Constable Ripley pulled up the hill. To her astonishment he leaped out of the wagon, rolled up one of the sheets as if he’d done it a time or two, and dashed it inside. Ida managed to corral the second sheet and they met up on the porch, Ida going in, Ripley going out. He followed her in.

  “I have news,” Ripley said.

  Ida draped the sheets over a pair of chairs, threw a log on the fire, and crossed her arms, waiting for Ripley’s news; she was through dishing up tea as if it could wash down trouble. And clearly, this was trouble.

  “What news?”

  “I told you Ezra Pease got on that ship. Trouble is, he didn’t get off on the other side.”

  “What?”

  “They had a man waiting on the other side. Pease got on in New York, but no one of that description came off in France. They think—”

  Ida threw up her arms. “I don’t care what they think—”

  “They think he checked himself on board and then looped around and got back off.”

  “Or he simply slipped through the crowd on the other side.”

  “These aren’t newborn babes over there. They said he didn’t get off, I’d tend to believe them.”

  “Or they wouldn’t admit it if he sneaked by them.”

  Ripley went still, considering, reminding Ida of Oliver, the way the boy drew to a halt every time he needed to think something through. “Possible, I suppose. But just to say again, I tend to believe them.”

  “Or he went overboard.” But even as Ida spoke she knew that Ezra had not pitched himself off the deck of the ship; Ezra would never cash in his chips before the game was played out to the end.

  Ripley said, “My money says he wants us to think he’s in France when he isn’t.”

  A wave of nausea swept through Ida. “Why?”

  Ripley shrugged. “Probably still has things cooking here.”

  “So now what?”

  Ripley shrugged. “Keep an ear cocked and an eye out. Let us know if you get wind of anything.”

  Ida yanked the sheets off the chairs, threw them on the floor, and sat down.

  Down and down and down. She slept with both ears cocked, hearing time and again Ezra’s tread on the stairs, waking to imagine him standing at the foot of the bed or peering in the window, which made no sense, as Ida’s room was on the second floor. Bett continued at Ida’s side, but Ida wasn’t at all sure the dog would sound the alarm if her former owner were to appear; mightn’t she just walk up and lap his hand? Ida should know.

  Ezra had not disappeared once before. “New York,” he’d said when Ida had asked, and she’d seen him out the door and down the track, heard the steamer whistle as it left the dock. With Ezra gone it seemed the perfect time to get his wardrobe in order. She mended, scrubbed, bleached, dried, and the next morning she ironed. But the next afternoon she decided she’d spent enough time on Ezra and turned to cleaning out her Winsor & Newton paint box; it was the kind of thing artists did when they wanted to stave off actually having to paint. Once she’d cleaned the box she decided to treat herself to a lemon pudding, not a favorite of Ezra’s, but she’d allowed her sugar to run low; she set off for Luce’s. After Ida had secured her loaf of sugar she took stock of the day; it was a fine one, the cool air offset by the warmth of a late-day sun, and her legs itched; she set off along the shore awash in the luxury of no destination or chore ahead of her.

  There were three of them: Ezra, Mose, and a stranger. At first Ida doubted her eyes, but the dory sat low in the water and made poor progress so she had time to go through the whole game of Ezra-not-Ezra-Ezra and back again, but where she ended was where she began. It was Ezra.

  When he came home at week’s end, Ida said, “How did you find New York?”

  “Much the same.”

  “Interesting.”

  Ezra peered at her. “You’ve got some problem with New York?”

  “New York? No.”

  “Honest to God, Ida—”

  “Don’t,” Ida said. “If you don’t want to make yourself more ridiculous than you already are, don’t say another thing.”

  Remarkably, Ezra didn’t.

  Another drip of that snowmelt.

  So Ida passed the time until the livestock sale, which caused the kind of wrench in Ida no self-respecting farmer would allow. She hadn’t felt any such thing the year before, but now she thought of these as her sheep, had fought so hard for every life; she only realized how possessive she’d become once she watched Bett and Lem drive them down the track. She lingered, feeding Betty corn out of her hand, corn Betty did not need, corn the chickens did need, until she looked down at her hand and saw how pathetic she was. She dashed the last of the corn on the ground for the chickens, fetched the paint can from the barn, and set to work touching up the chairs. After she finished the chairs she even stood on a stool and painted the beam that ran through the middle of the kitchen, but now she was done. There was nothing left to paint. Time to move on. But how? The Main Street property was attached. The farm would go to Hattie and Lem. The sheep money would arrive at the bank where it would sit waiting for Oliver to go to college?

  No.

  Ida climbed the hill. She saw Lem’s wagon in the yard and was glad, or she supposed she was glad; she expected fair play from Lem, but then again, she’d expected fair play from Hattie. But she hadn’t even reached the stoop when Lem came out the door.

  “Hattie saw you through the window. Figured it might be best to head you off.”

  “So you know why I’m here.”

  “I guess I know.”

  “I earned that money, Lem.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not leaving here without that money. I can’t leave without that money.”

  Lem reached in his pocket, pulled out a folded bill, handed it to Ida. “Best I can do right now.”

  Ida slapped Lem’s hand away. “No. She’s the one owes me.”

  Lem folded the bill away. “Come, I’ll drive you home.”

  “No.”

  “Ida, please.”

  “Why are you letting her do this?”

  “She’s upset about that boy. She never really figured he’d go home, somehow. You reminded her when you said he’d come back to visit, and so she wanted to get it over with, the leaving. And then she felt bad. Or so Hattie says. So she’s hell-bent on giving him that money.”

  “It’s not her money, Lem. Not twenty percent of it. I’m not letting her get away with it. If I have to—”

  “All right. Give me a week. Now get in.”

  Ida climbed into the wagon. They jolted in silence down th
e hill, but when Ida slid to the ground Lem surprised her by getting out too and walking straight to the pasture gate. Ida stood for a minute staring at his back, thinking what she did and didn’t know about that back, thinking of the secrets it had managed to conceal, like Hattie. She crossed to the gate and leaned beside him.

  “You never said. How did the sale go?”

  “Good. Very good. That ram of Ezra’s; they were clamoring to get at some of that bloodline.” He pointed to the sheep. “Which of them would you put to him this year?”

  Ida thought. “Not Betty. You’re right about that.” She pointed to one more. Its mother had had a narrow pelvis and had almost expired giving birth to that lamb; it looked to Ida like she’d passed that pelvis on. Ida explained her thinking.

  “Good,” Lem said. “Any more?”

  Ida found one more that she’d been watching because its weight had started to drop. She could see now that it didn’t seem to be grazing well; she pointed that one out to Lem.

  “Let’s look.”

  Ida fetched Bett and separated the sheep. Lem rolled it and opened its mouth for Ida to see. Parrot mouth: another thing you didn’t want to pass on.

  So yes, in her year of managing the flock, Ida had learned a thing or two.

  As was always the way as soon as the days began to shorten, the ewes went into heat and the ram began to lift his head to smell the air. Bett drove Betty and the sheep with the narrow pelvis and the poor grazer into the far field and Lem put the ram in with the rest of them. It began, the ewes in heat squatting in front of the ram, the ram circling the field three times a day to service them all. After a week, the ram had lost weight; he’d lose more by the end of his run. Contemplating the end of that run, contemplating her year having come full circle by then, contemplating another winter on the island, Ida saw that the time had come. It was time to leave. Lem’s week was up and no money. Ida was done with the lot of them. She would admit if pressed that she was hurt as well as puzzled by Lem’s refusal to push her case for her, despite the new circumstance of a future mother-in-law in the picture. Lem was her friend. Or so he’d told her time and again.

  This time when Lem came out the door to head her off, Ida said, “Excuse me,” and made to swing around him.

  “Ida.”

  “I’m leaving and I need my money.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I told you the other day. I need it now.”

  “I mean about the leaving. You’re staying to see me married.”

  “Why, so you can look across the room at me and remind yourself it could have been worse?”

  “Don’t go forgetting yourself, Ida.”

  “I want my money, Lem. You get it or I will. I’ll bring in the law if I have to.”

  Lem gazed off at the field, at the ram sniffing up one of the ewes, and the sight seemed to heighten his resolve. “All right, stay for my wedding and—”

  “No. No deals. It’s my money and I’m not going to bargain for it. Get it for me now or my lawyer will.”

  Lem shook his head at her, the way her father used to shake his head at her when she begged to go after her brothers.

  “Do I need to call my lawyer?”

  “No. Jesus, Ida.”

  Ida started to move off.

  “Ida!”

  She whipped around.

  “I’d take it kindly if you’d stay for my wedding.”

  “I’d take it kindly to get my money. If I don’t have it by Thursday, I make that call.”

  Ida pulled the trunk out into the middle of the room. It would be an easy pack this time; she’d already returned her Boston clothes to it, and she need fit in only the few things she’d take with her of her island clothes: her bicycling trousers, her bicycling boots, the hat she’d purchased in anticipation of many hours riding in the summer sun. She went to her studio and looked around; she’d had more room here than she’d had in town but had somehow insidiously filled the space anyway—she imagined she could fill four crates with her books and art supplies and completed or not completed paintings. She lingered over the painting of Henry’s father, still unfinished, still waiting for that thing that would make him Henry’s father and not Henry. She paused at another early painting she’d attempted of the sheep out in the pasture; it wasn’t right and while she couldn’t see why before, she thought she might see something of it now.

  Ida carried the sheep painting downstairs, propped it up on the porch, and looked out over the sheep. She’d made them too round—she saw that right off; Cheviots had corners to them. And the legs—the way the rear legs kicked back; and where the eyes sat and how black they were—she’d gotten that wrong too. But even if she’d gotten the shapes and the legs and the eyes there was nothing to the painting; no one in Boston would pay for a picture of a bunch of dirty sheep standing around in a rock-strewn field.

  Ida returned to the kitchen. She’d added little to the shelves here just as she’d added little to the parlor and the bedroom; it was as if the farmhouse had absorbed her, as if she would come and go and leave no mark behind. She wandered into the parlor and stopped at Ezra’s desk. Well, she’d left something there.

  Ida hadn’t, after all, burned the letters Ezra had written her. She didn’t want the letters, but neither did she want to leave them for Hattie or Lem to find. She rolled back the desk lid just as she’d done so many months ago, but in such a different frame of mind. How she’d suffered trying to grieve for the man then, how free she was of that struggle now. And yet she was still not free of Ezra.

  Where was he now?

  Ida found the letters. This time she didn’t stall but opened the stove door and fired them in, not waiting to watch them burn, not willing to give even Ezra’s flames another drop of her attention. She returned to the desk, continuing to sort: one pile to keep, one pile to throw, one pile to leave for Hattie and Lem. Hattie and Lem would get the farm book, the business cards, the bill receipts, the papers on the ram. Ida fingered the ram’s paper with distaste; most of the sheep Ida had come to respect, even admire—those thousands of years of survival tactics and adaptation bred into them—she’d even developed a certain affection for their silliness and was outright in love with those ears. But that ram! Ida opened the paper, curious to see how much Ezra had paid for the beast; the shock of it unfocused her eyes. And then she saw the date.

  Ezra had deeded the farm and its livestock to Ruth before their marriage; he’d bought the ram a year and a half after it. The ram didn’t belong to Ruth; it wasn’t Ruth’s to give to Hattie and Lem.

  36

  They sat at Ruth’s kitchen table: Ida, Ruth, Hattie, Lem. The ram’s papers sat in the middle of the table where each had read them in turn.

  Ida pointed to the date. “Ruth, when did Ezra deed you that farm?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Ezra bought that ram after he deeded you the farm.”

  “Well, it’s not yours either,” Ruth snapped.

  Ida retrieved the paper and set it in front of her, squaring the corners with the edge of the table. “It’s not if I tell the law about him, that’s certain; he becomes another piece of attached property and ends up in some investor’s bank account. But what if I don’t tell?”

  Silence.

  “I told Ezra when he brought you here,” Ruth said at last. “I told him he was a fool.”

  “He was that,” Ida said. “And so was I. But not anymore.”

  Ruth opened her mouth, but Lem cut in. “What’s your plan, Ida? No one here can afford to buy that animal off you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “A fair exchange.”

  “Ruth gives you your money and you give us that ram,” Hattie said.

  “I told you. I’m not a fool anymore. Ruth gives me nothing. I earned that money. She surrenders that money, and I don’t remove the ram from the flock until he’s finished the season.”

  “And next year?” Lem asked.

  Ida looked ou
t the window. It had started to rain again—sideways—the wind flipping over the leaves in a way Ida knew only too well. Almost a year ago a storm had come along and flipped Ida’s life just as it flipped those leaves, and here she was, still, upside down. It was time to right herself.

  “Boston’s expensive,” she said. “And I don’t know just what my situation will be. Let’s talk about my fee for the ram’s services next year.”

  “I’ve always said you were a despicable creature,” Ruth said.

  “An opinion not generally shared,” Lem said.

  Hattie flashed him a look.

  “Ruth,” Lem went on, “Ida holds the paper. She can sell that ram right now and ease her way considerably, but think where that leaves your farm. You know as well as I do it was because of that animal we did so well at the sale this year. You also know that the money you’re threatening to give to Oliver is Ida’s. I’d take the deal being offered here. One more year of that ram’s blood strengthens your flock, and your bank account, no matter what comes afterward.”

  Ruth pointed a bent finger at Ida. “You don’t even care if that boy goes to college. Your own husband’s son.”

  Ida stood up. She took two steps toward Ruth and leaned down, the words she’d once said to Ezra fighting for release, but she held them back. Why, though? Why was Ruth free to say whatever she wished, and Ida was not? She took a breath, felt it press against her ribs. “Ruth, a word of advice. Don’t make yourself any more ridiculous than you already are. My twenty percent isn’t going to keep Oliver from college, but if it did, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s my money. Now, you think on what I’ve offered and let me know what you decide. Come Tuesday, if I don’t have the money, the ram gets packed up and shipped off.”

  Lem rose. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “It’s fair,” Ida said.

  “It’s fair,” Lem answered. “She’ll come around.”