Say she took that knife away, put it out of sight. Would he notice and wonder what it meant? Would he ask her what she had done with it, look for it in her dresser drawer? Under her pillow? Could she put it anywhere at all that he might not just come across it and think, This is strange, why has she hidden it here? She had thought it through a hundred times. That knife was the difference between her and anybody else in the world. Ugly old Doll hunched over in the firelight, spitting on her bit of whetstone, sharpening and wearing the blade till the edge of it curved like a claw, readying herself for whatever fearful thing she turned over in her mind while she was working at it. And, knowing that the fearful thing might take even Doll, who stole her and carried her away from whatever she could have had of place and name and kin, Lila watched her, hoping the knife would take on the witchy deadliness she was conjuring for it.
Fear and comfort could be the same thing. It was strange, when she thought of it. The wind always somewhere, trifling with the leaves, troubling the firelight. And that smell of damp earth and bruised grass, a lonely, yearning sort of smell that meant, Why don’t you come back, you will come back, you know you will. And then the stars, and Mellie probably awake, lying there thinking about them.
Lila could tell by the smell that the sheets had frozen on the clothesline. Then Mrs. Graham or whoever had the time had ironed them. But there was still that good, cold smell that made her think of the air after a lightning storm. New air, if there was such a thing, that the rain brought down, or the snow. She was still the preacher’s bride, and those women still starched her pillowcase, blessing his happiness, praying for it. All those years of his loneliness were a weight on their hearts. Then he took a wife and he fathered a child, even if it wasn’t born yet, and what else could they do? What more could they do? It made her think of the old days, when she lived her whole life just for the hours she spent at the movies, when everybody in the audience would sigh and weep and laugh for those beautiful ghosts in that unreachable place where people lived lives strangers could care about. She had a dream once that a woman’s giant face turned and her giant eyes stared at her, and Lila was scared to death because, sitting there in the dark, nobody along with everybody else, she knew she was real to that woman. The look meant, Should I know you? as if to say, Who are you to be watching me like that? Now here she was under the covers with this man anybody in Fremont County knew better than she did, knew when he was first a married man and a father. All of them probably wondered now and then how the two of them passed the time together, what in the world they could find to talk about, different as they were. All of them thinking how sad any sadness that came to him would be, how sweet any happiness, the poor old fellow. And here they were, the two of them, waking and sleeping through the long afternoon, in the crisp sheets that smelled like snow, the baby stirring a little sometimes, the old man young in his sleep and his comfort and she as still as could be, wanting nothing. Those women, looking on at their life, would say oh, and ah, when the curtains stirred and let whiter light into the pale room. Doll there, too, watching. Damn that knife.
She said, “We got to do something with that damn knife.”
He said, “I suppose.” She could tell by his voice he’d been awake for a while, lying still, too. “It’s handy to have around, though. Good for paring apples.”
“You been using my knife to pare apples?” She’d have turned to look him in the eye, except for the heft of her belly.
“Once or twice.”
“I never said you could use it.”
“Sorry. I don’t think I did it any harm. I believe you said you used to use it to clean fish.”
“That’s different.” Why was it different? Because it was the only knife she had. And she never slit a fish without thinking she hated the need to use it that way. Hating the need almost made it seem all right. Besides, it was a kind of a little murder, gutting a fish, so when she did it she thought back over her life, and there was something to that. The knife was a potent thing. Other people had houses and towns and names and graveyards. They had church pews. All she had was that knife. And dread and loneliness and regret. That was her dowry. Other women brought quilts and china. Even a little money sometimes. She brought hard hands and a face she could barely bring herself to look at in a mirror because her life was just written all over it. And that knife.
But thinking about her life was another thing. Lying there in that room in that house in that quiet town she could choose what her life had been. The others were there. The world was there, evening and morning. No matter what anybody thought, no matter if she only tagged after them because they let her. That sweet nowhere. If the world had a soul, that was it. All of them wandering through it, never knowing anything different or wanting anything more.
Well, that wasn’t true, either.
But one time she and Mellie cut across a field, and just beyond it there was a little valley, budding cottonwood trees letting morning light pass right through, new ferns and new grass all bright with it. In a few days it would be the valley of the shadow, but that day there were only traces of shade, the light just blooming, dandelion yellow in all that green. When you see something like that, it doesn’t seem like anything you’ve ever seen before. She and Mellie were whispering. It would be their valley. They’d think of a secret name for it. Soon enough they heard Doane calling for them, and they had to leave it behind, and it felt like a broken promise when they did.
Remembering always felt almost guilty, a lingering where there was no cause to linger, as if whatever you loved had a claim on you and you couldn’t help feeling it no matter what. There was nothing to do but leave, and still. That Mack. There was a time when she would have been so glad if he’d asked her for anything at all. If he had said one word to her, there in the street that day. The old man always pretended he was worried that some fellow would show up at the door. When she told him there was nobody coming for her, Mack was that nobody. She could just see the smile on his face, him standing at the Reverend’s door, his eyes all sly with the evil he was doing. He’d have his hands on his hips, looking around at the neighborhood as if he couldn’t quite believe people really lived that way. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, laughing to himself. No decent man would look at every single thing in the world as if it had a price tag on it and he knew it wasn’t worth half that much because he could see what the paint hid, where the rot was. He’d flip his cigarette into the bushes and say, So it’s Mrs. Ames now, and laugh. He’d say, Good to see you, Rosie, hardly looking at her, and light up another cigarette and glance away from her like anything else would be more interesting, because nothing had changed at all. She’d probably shut the door on him, and then if he left she’d be thinking about him more than she usually did.
Or he might sit down on the step to finish his smoke, and if the old man happened to come walking up from the church, he’d tell him he was looking for a little work. If he happened to get a lift out of town, people always appreciate a dollar or two to help pay for the gas. The Reverend would nod, he could do something or other around the place, and he would say, Thanks, smiling, and then as soon as the old man had come inside to look for his wallet he would drift away because it was a lie that he wanted work or money. He would have said a few words to the old man just to make her worry about what he might say. He’d have been sitting there smoking, his back to her, making sure she remembered that the two of them were not strangers and never would be, either. That’s just how it is. If she ever saw that child of Missy’s, it would be the child she’d hoped to steal. No matter that it had never seen her face. If she heard it was in trouble, she would say, Come here to me, then. I used to dream I’d have you to comfort. That’s how I kept myself alive for a while one time.
You. What a strange word that is. She thought, I have never laid eyes on you. I am waiting for you. The old man prays for you. He almost can’t believe he has you to pray for. Both of us think about you the whole day long. If I die bearing you, or if yo
u die when you are born, I will still be thinking, Who are you? and there will be only one answer out of all the people in the world, all the people there have ever been or will ever be. If we find each other in heaven, we’ll say, So there you are! We’d be perfect in heaven, no regrets, no grudges, nothing to make you turn a cold eye on me the way you might do someday when you’re old enough to really see me. When I tell you that that knife is the only thing I have to leave you. Then I’d be all hard and proud, like it didn’t even matter what you thought. What else can a person do? And it would be the only thing that mattered, because no one else could say “you” and mean the same thing by it. But there would be years when the child would just want to sit on her lap. He’d favor her over anybody. He’d be crying and she’d pick him up, and then it would take him a minute to be done crying, but that would be all that was left of it, because she had her arms around him. Comfort. That’s strange, too. When she used to lie there almost asleep, with her cheek on the old man’s sweater, the night all around her chirping and whispering, the comfort of it was a thing she’d have promised herself the whole day long.
Thinking that way made her want to turn onto her back, to feel how good it was to be lying there, her body resting at a kind of simmer, the baby nudging a little, just so she’d know it was there. She could feel her body resting, the way you can tell that a cat asleep in the sun knows it’s sleeping. The pleasure of it is just too good to go to waste. When she stirred, the old man sat up out of the covers. “Night!” he said. “Well. I guess the wind has died down. We slept through supper. How are you feeling? Can I get you a sandwich?” He fumbled for his glasses. It always took him a minute to collect himself. That’s what he would say. Let me collect myself. Give me a minute here. Everything seemed strange when she thought about it. Where had he been? Nowhere at all, even lying there beside her. His hair was all pushed to one side, that longer hair that was meant to hide his baldness a little. He looked as though he had waked out of a dream, or into one, that made him feel he had to do something important and couldn’t take the time to figure out what it was.
“You,” she said.
He laughed. “Who else?”
She said, “Nobody else in this world.”
* * *
There was more snow after that one, sugar snow, the old man called it, because his grandfather said that in Maine the last snow fell while the sap was running in the maple trees and they were catching it in buckets and boiling it into syrup. If he had ever visited Maine, it would have been in the spring. His grandfather talked about the wood fires and the sweet fog in the air and fresh syrup poured over fresh snow, the one earthly delight he would confess a craving for. “They ate it with a dill pickle. Afraid to enjoy it too much, I suppose.” He was happier than he wanted her to see, relieved even though he knew it was too soon to trust that they were safe yet, and worried that he was too ready to be happy and relieved. After breakfast he set a little glass bowl on the porch railing to catch some snow as it fell, and when he saw it had stopped falling, he took the bowl out to the rosebushes to pluck snow that had caught in the brambles. He brought it inside and set it on the windowsill so the sun would melt it. It was pretty the way the light made kind of a little flame, floating in the middle of the water, burning away in there cold as could be. It was for christening the child, she knew without asking. If the child came struggling into the world, that water would be ready for him. If it had to be his only blessing, then it would be a pure and lovely blessing. That was the old man getting ready to make the best of the worst that could happen. Not my will but Thine. In his sermons he was always reminding himself of that prayer. She would wake up at night and find him sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, his head in his hands. Maybe he never really slept.
Then there was a day of pangs and a night of misery, and after that the baby, scrawny and red as a skinned rabbit. When Boughton saw it he said, “Oh!” It was pity, startled out of him, and then he said, “My babies were always big, brawny fellows, except the one. And he grew up to be as tall and fine-looking as any of them. I always thought so. You can’t tell by—you can’t tell.” Boughton had to be there because he was always there when he thought he might be able to help, bony old thing that he was, eyes full of tears. And the old man wanted him there, too, to help him when he decided he should bring that little bowl of water up the stairs. They didn’t say so, but she knew. Teddy came the minute he could, probably afraid his father would die of grief. He was almost a doctor, there to keep an eye on the other fellow, his father said. She heard the phone ringing and the soft voices. People from the church. All the Boughtons would be coming from everywhere. Except the one. She wondered if she’d ever see the one. What did he do to make them all turn against him? “Well,” the old man had said, “it was really more the other way around.” She didn’t tell him she sort of understood how that could happen.
The nurse washed the child and tied the cord, and Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Wertz bathed Lila and changed the bed with her in it. You could tell they’d done it a hundred times, they were so quick and gentle. It made her feel calm lying there in her clean nightgown, all the sweat wiped away with lavender water. How could she feel so calm? Had she died? All this quiet, as if no one could believe the saddest thing that could happen really did happen. Her old man was sitting there beside her, his hand on her hand, white as death. She thought, How many years has this cost him, how many will it cost? This was the moment before everything changed, and there was nothing else to do but watch and listen. The house was as quiet as a held breath. She said, “Well, you should give me that baby anyway.”
He looked up at her and smiled. “Yes. Yes, the doctor has been checking him over a little. But he’ll be wanting his mama. He’s had a tough night.” He said, “And so have you, precious Lila.” So much regret.
She said, “You’re praying for him.”
He laughed and wiped his eyes. “Troubling heaven. You may be assured of it.”
“Boughton, too.”
“Boughton, too. Every last Boughton, in fact.”
“Except the one.”
He laughed. “I’m sure we would have his very best wishes.” His face was so white and weary.
“Well now, don’t you stop praying.”
“I don’t believe I could stop. For more than a minute or two.”
“You might mention yourself,” she said. “And Boughton. And the other one.”
The nurse brought the baby and put him against her side. Such a little thing, he could get lost in the covers. But there he was, all bundled up like a cocoon. The nurse said, “Now he’s happy.” Nothing about giving him the breast. Teddy was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, just watching, not saying a thing, but when the old man lifted his head and glanced at him, he nodded, so slightly, and they all knew what that meant. The old man got up from his chair. “I’ll get it. I don’t know. It seems better than tap water, I suppose.” He was a long time on the stairs, going down and coming back up again, with the little bowl of water trembling in his hands. She didn’t see any light in it.
Boughton said, “John, let me hold that for you.”
The old man took his Bible from the top of the dresser and opened it and read, “‘But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God since my mother bare me. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.’”
There was a silence. Boughton said, “Yes. I’m a little surprised you chose that text, John. It’s a fine text. I just wouldn’t have expected it. Don’t mind me.”
“No, you’re right. I’ve had that psalm on my mind lately, I guess.”
“Those verses in 139, ‘For thou didst form my inward parts: thou didst cover me in my mother’s womb’—very fine.” He said, “The darkness is as light to You,” and he shook his head. “Excuse me.” He began groping for his handkerchief, holding the bowl in his weaker hand
, and the water spilled, enough of it falling on the baby to make him mad, to judge by the look on his face and the sound he made.
Teddy laughed. “That was quite a howl.” He came over to the side of the bed. “I think he’s been playing possum.”
Boughton said, “Yes, well, I don’t think that was an actual baptism, though. I do apologize. There’s still a little water left in the bowl here.”
And Lila said, “We’re going to get this wet blanket off of him, first of all.” Teddy unbundled him and gave him to her, and there he was, a little naked man, not a Christian yet, needing comfort, then lying against her naked side where she unbuttoned herself so he could feel the softness of her breast. That wound when they cut him away from her, that dark knot, but never mind. He bumped his face against her side and pursed his mouth and found her breast with his wavering fist. She turned on her side to help him.
Teddy said, “Well, look at that! He’s pretty spry.”
Boughton was so upset with himself that all he could think of to say was “There is some water here. It hardly takes any at all.” Then he said, “It’s snowing again. That’s good, I suppose, if you want snow. I never saw such a spring.”
Teddy took the bowl out of his trembling hands and set it aside and put his arms around him. “Here,” he said. “Just rest your head for a minute. You’re all worn out.” And he did rest his head against Teddy’s chest, his sweater, crooked and small as he was, her old man watching the way he did when she knew he was thinking, that’s how it would be to have a son. And then he turned back the sheet and looked at the son he had, so small he could fit in her two hands, but alive just the same, and he laughed. The tip of his finger on the little bird bone of your shoulder.
* * *
So that other life began, almost the one she used to imagine for herself when she thought she might just slip a baby under her coat and walk away with it. She knew better than to waste that time. There isn’t always someone who wants you singing to him or nibbling his ear or brushing his cheek with a dandelion blossom. Somebody who knows when you’re being silly, and laughs and laughs. So long as he was little enough to carry, she could hardly bring herself to put him down. She thought, I know what happens next. Old Boughton will tell you that story a hundred times. He will say he performed a miracle and that was why we had to name you after him, because he really was your godfather, yes! If anybody in the world has ever had a godson! And that is why you love the snow so much! You were christened with it! And you will wonder what such an old, old man could have to say to you, what it could mean. Putting his face down close to yours, making his eyes big, and you just staring at the way his flesh hangs off his skull, and how there are always whiskers in the creases of it. It’s all strange. People never really believe they were taken from their mother’s womb and laid on her breast. I could see your eyes behind your eyelids, and veins through the skin of your belly, and they were that blue that was never meant to be seen. It is so strange that it belongs in the Bible, with the seraphim and the dry bones. The day you were born there was just wind enough to stir the curtains a little, and there was just light enough to make it seem like evening all day long. And there was quiet enough to make it seem as though sound had passed out of the world altogether, leaving the wind behind to sweep up after it. And then you with your big belly and your skinny legs, like a wet cat, not half looking like the makings of a child. I’ll never tell you that. It was a month before your father had the courage even to hold you in his lap. But when you were just two weeks old we took you to the church to be christened for sure, because Boughton kept on worrying until it was done. Your father said it was intention that mattered, and that didn’t matter, either, because a newborn child is as pure as the snow. Boughton said if they did not act on the intention when circumstance allowed them to, then the seriousness of the intention was questionable.
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