Brighten the Corner Where You Are

by Carol Bruneau

  It was still dark out as I stood there. Dawn’s streaks hadn’t yet lit the treeline across the road. The cold through my slippers near turned my toes to iron, but I hesitated before going inside, wasn’t sure what kind of mood I’d find him in.

  Ev had the fire stoked when I crept in. Sometime between coming home for good, devouring the pickles, and burying the jar, he’d fetched wood from the pile. In the glow of an open burner I glimpsed his face. Oh yes, he had been drinking. In the closeness of the house I smelt it off him. He had the same hangdog look as Joe got when Ev yelled at him to sit. Joe was sweet as a lamb when he knew you had a bone to throw and could curb his urge to take your hand off, lunging for it.

  All I could think of was my ring. But I didn’t dare ask about it, lest he think I was accusing him of something.

  “Here. Have a cuppa tea.” Ev poured out the stone-cold dregs from yesterday’s pot, which I’d left sitting in favour of fresh-brewed. It was six of one, half-dozen of another, whether you chose hot tea from a used bag or cold tea that had steeped all day. He shook the empty milk tin.

  “Next time you go to Shortliffe’s you might pick up some more.” I modelled my tone after Lamb-Joe, not wishing to sound bossy.

  “You might go and pick some up yourself.”

  Dawn hadn’t begun to light the room, nor had the crows begun to stir. But I didn’t mind the dark. Like a cat, I was so used to seeing in the dark I took comfort in it. Ev watched me bring the cold tea to my lips, and nodded.

  “You got your work cut out for you. When’s your friend coming back for more orders? I suppose you had yourselves a big old chinwag yesterday, made no headway a-tall on them boards awaiting.” He sucked his gums as he spoke, studying me. I hoped the rag pile didn’t look any different with that ruined board, the beginnings of Matilda’s portrait, stowed behind it. His cheeks looked rosy in the small circle of light from the fire. “Getting up like you did, coming outside in the dead of night—fuck knows what you were thinkin’. Whyn’t you go back up and get some shuteye?” His eyes flicked upwards at the ceiling.His voice seemed to crack, with patience you could say. He rubbed his hands together, warming them, and sucked on the matchstick he’d put in his mouth. The matchstick’s paleness bobbed up and down. His eyes had a watery look like they got when he worked at being gentle.

  “I’ll carry you up any time.”

  But it was warmer down here, and once I got up in that attic it would be like shaking a tooth loose getting myself downstairs again, especially if he decided to take himself off somewheres. I was already making myself comfy on the daybed.

  Ev rooted behind the range and pulled out a board. In the dimness it looked like a half-done picture of oxen, a regular team, a Lion and Bright. I couldn’t remember starting it let alone abandoning it. I hoped, come daylight, what was already there could be finished enough to look decent. Ev picked up on this.

  “That’s a good board, you best not waste it. Like I told you, I’ll he’p all I can with them orders. Don’t want you getting low.”

  Low in spirits or low in sales? I didn’t dare ask.

  It was too soon to start the day’s work but I had no more urge to sleep than to venture out into the cold again. Ev lit the lamp like he’d only just remembered it was there. He stooped to run his hand over the daybed where I lay. Despite the draft coming through the wall it was shoved against, it was cozy being close to the fire.

  “Next I s’pose you’ll want breakfast.”

  By now the range threw a nice heat, warming the velvet upholstery under my cheek. In no time the air grew toasty, a little wisp of smoke curling from where the stovepipe cut through the ceiling. Ev sat on his chair, hung his head between his knees to sober up. Kicked off his boots. As dawn broke through my window it lit squiggles of dried mud on the mat from their treads. The toes of both his socks showed off his handiness with a darning needle. The poor man had no choice but to be handy that way, seeing how useless I was at such chores.

  By and by he rose and dug around for the oatmeal in its paper bag. Someone had brought it over, a lady from across the road, maybe. She and I had been pals ever so briefly, before Ev pointed out how she got in the way, eating up whole afternoons with her visits when I should have been working, making me smoke twice as much while shooting the breeze and drinking us out of tea. He’d have said the exact same about Secretary if Secretary hadn’t proven so useful. Ev had soured on the neighbour lady and her husband a long while back, when Ev still worked selling fish. “Two fucking peas in a pod, those two—take take take, that’s him, think they can get something for nothing, like I should give my wares away. Him and his missus are just alike, believe you me.” It was awkward when gifts of food appeared on the doorstep, no note, no nothing to identify their givers, the same as with the radio. If Secretary or, back when she was still over there, Olive from the almshouse hadn’t brought them, I figured they came from across the road. Of course, my Ev had nothing against accepting presents.

  The thought of my ring burned in my head.

  The oatmeal bag had got gnawed on a bit, by another kind of visitor. Oats spilled onto the floor. Ev used his hand to sweep them into my pretty dustpan and from there into the white enamel pot. He poured in water from the water bucket, put everything on to boil. I laid still and let the warmth from the fire tend to my joints and ease their stiffness.

  When the porridge was ready, he ladled a speck of it into a bowl and set it at my end of the table. A wad of Couriers made a placemat but set the bowl too high for me to eat from comfortably. I hesitated, holding my spoon aloft.

  “What?” Ev’s eyes were like Willard’s. “Ain’t it enough to get waited on? You want I should spoon-feed you too?” He shook his head and laughed. It was his after-drinking laugh, a bit sour. Perhaps he was feeling poorly. He made no move to get a bowl for himself.

  It struck me as odd, he generally had a big appetite. “Not having any?” He acted like I had not spoke. “Something wrong, Ev?” I didn’t usually ask when he was in one of his moods, figuring whatever was bothering him would eventually come out in the wash. But I couldn’t help thinking about that family that had come the day before and how Carmelita Twohig had badmouthed Ev right to my face, him not there to defend himself—what was that about?

  Without speaking, he stepped into his boots, pulled on his jacket. Its red and black blurred together like blood mixed with India ink in the weak sunlight just coming in. Without saying where he was headed, he took off again.

  I was damned hungry, my belly’s growl louder just then than concern for my ring. It could keep for a minute. The porridge could have used milk and a sprinkle of brown sugar. But it was thick and warm, and as I tried to lick the bowl, the sun grew bolder and shyly filled my window. Its peachy glow was only a little dimmed by the dust on the panes.

  Ev had brought in wood but forgot to fill the water bucket. If he had remembered, I’d have done my best to wash the dishes. There was enough porridge for a second helping, which I scraped into Ev’s bowl and set inside the breadbox atop the other breadbox with the rabbit. That rabbit needed to be cooked yesterday and had started to smell. If it were summer, the flies would’ve been thick. Short of laying it out of doors, breadbox and all, hoping it froze up a bit, I didn’t see how it would keep much longer. Waste not want not: it was a cold day in hell Ev would willingly waste food. “Are you joking, woman? You never know where your next feed’ll come from, it’s a fact.”

  What a fine feast a rabbit would make for the crows. But I had something a lot bigger on my mind than birds. Listening for the sound of Ev puttering outside and hearing only the wind, I crept to the windowsill, dug inside my basket.

  I felt a cold twinge in the pit of my stomach. Sure enough, the ring and the box I had put it in were gone.

  So Ev had buried it. Along with some money, for safekeeping? You could never be too careful protecting yourself from thieves, he was always
saying. I should have felt grateful for Ev looking out for us and our valuables. Instead, the notion that he’d buried my ring filled me with a naked, restless feeling. The Twohig woman’s questions about why I had no ring on my finger itched like ringworm under my skin. They itched almost as bad as did Ev’s worries that friend or foe could bust in any old time and rob us blind. If it happened while he was out, what could I do to defend myself? I counted myself lucky to have a man who looked out for our well-being as much as he did. Don’t know what I would have done without a sharp businessman like him handling the money. It wasn’t like I could walk or hitch a ride to the bank, or stop a thief from nabbing what was mine. Though I figured it would take a real conniver to think of looking inside a dusty old basket for a golden ring.

  It was best, with Ev going off on his jaunts, that I wasn’t left alone with jars of cold hard cash in the house, with strangers stopping in at all hours, strangers off the road, not to mention nose-minding acquaintances. Pests.

  The way I see it, looking back, there was a veil strung up in my life too, not just the veil separating you from me, your world from mine. Call it a curtain with Before I Got Famous on the one side and After I Got Famous on the other. And imagine that curtain made of pictures—photographs, not just of my paintings but of me painting them in the house, every inch of the place gussied up with flowers, birds, and butterflies, and Ev hamming it up for the camera.

  If he and I had stayed on the dim side of that curtain, I imagine our money worries would have been different. The same but different. And who knows, if that had been the case, but my ring would have stayed where I’d put it, in the basket. Or that he would have sold it instead?

  When after a good long while I’d heard no peep of Ev being about, I put on my shoes, put the rabbit in the dishpan, and flung it out on the ground outside my window, where Willard and them would be sure to see it.

  They say murders stick together, that crows have ways of warning each other of danger and spreading news of prey and man-made tidbits to feed on. Maybe their system worked like the party line folks had in the country, or so Secretary said they did, anyways, though I never had occasion to join in on such a line myself.

  I had barely got back inside the house when the cawing started—such frenzied delight, I hurried as best I could to the window so as not to miss the show. Willard and one of his sons were having a standoff, peck-peck-pecking at the carcass on the ground and at each other, squawking and tearing the rabbit this way and that till it was nothing but fur and mincemeat. When Willard flapped upwards with what looked like a paw in his beak, the young ’un had the nerve to drag the rest out onto the road—fair game for his brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, not to mention coyotes and other hangers-on. I hoped Willard had done right by Matilda and brought her the choicest bit. I cannot imagine being stuck in a nest high in a treetop for days on end, even in the finest weather.

  Nor could I imagine Matilda liking interfering visitors dropping by any more than I did.

  Much as I felt tickled having folks from all over creation come to see my paintings, even the nicest strangers stopping by unannounced made me nervous. Of course, as we had no phone, the only way they could warn us they were coming was by dropping us a line in the mail. Some folks I was not too keen on seeing or hearing from a-tall, truth be told. When the worldly side of that curtain brightens for you, suddenly a lot more people want to be your friend. They want a bite of the very piece of pie you were hoping to have to yourself.

  Even before I got famous, strangers had come knocking.

  The worst was when a blue car pulled up out of the blue one fine summer’s day, years before the man from Yarmouth came with his camera or those TV folks appeared. At least, the day was fine beforehand. I peeked through the curtains. A lady got out of the car. I only caught a glimpse of the man who was driving, he stayed put. She knocked and I had to get up and get the door, as Ev was out back. Good thing he was, too, busy chopping wood so the ring of the axe kept him from hearing the car and coming up to the house to investigate.

  Well, you think that Nosy Parker Carmelita Twohig going on about wedding rings was bad, this one made Carmelita look sweet. When I opened the door, the visitor stepped back and gaped at me. If Ev had been there he’d have said straight off, You here to buy? If not, we can’t help you. Can’t you see the missus is busy?

  “Can I help you?” I said, as a person does. Standing there taking me in, this one gave me the queerest look. Her eyes gleamed wet and dark as stones in a fast brook.

  “I guess you can,” she said, this lady I had never laid eyes on before, swear to God. Her eyes seemed stuck on me, like they might draw me, body and soul, down inside of her. Her voice was sharp, sharp as a pair of scissors, and how I wished a truck had roared by just then to spare me hearing what came out of her mouth: “Hello, Mother.” As if that wasn’t foolish enough, she said, “It’s Catherine. Dowley. I was a Dowley before I got married, just like you. Catherine Dowley, from Yarmouth,” she repeated, like this should be meaningful.

  I spoke right up. “Lots of Dowleys down Yarmouth way.” Cousins and that, I meant, distant relations on my father’s side, folks I’d barely met let alone remembered. Why one of them would come calling now, all the way up here in Marshalltown and after all this time, I had no idea. People can be strange, they have their notions. But before I could shut the door on her, this one invited herself in. Stepping inside, she barely gave the place the time of day, I mean as far as taking a gander at the prettiness I had lavished on everything.

  Instead, she peered down at me, long and awkward, like a hug was owing.

  “Please lift your eyes, look at me,” she said, almost begging.

  Like I should on-the-spot recognize and throw my arms around her. Perhaps she had heard about me being from Yarmouth and about the cards me and Mama used to sell door to door. Folks remember things like that, they think if their mother or sister or old spinster aunt remembered you, you should remember them too. This gal was too young to remember Mama or me, at least firsthand.

  “I’m the one you gave birth to,” she said, her words snipping the silence as if it were nothing more than a slip of paper. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I am your daughter.”

  Ev had warned me about people like this. Shit disturbers. Nutbars. The type who get under your skin and take advantage, even when they are full of baloney and you know it. The world is full of ’em, he said.

  I’d had people drop in and say, “Oh my brother knew your brother,” or, “Oh my father had work done by your father,” or, “I remember you coming into the doctor’s office, my mother was the receptionist,” or someone else who worked in such-and-such a place and remembered us selling paintings and asking more than so-and-so figured our paintings were worth.

  Still, this one’s words were a kick to the stomach. I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on a doe I had painted on the wall. There is no depth of foolishness some people won’t sink to, not to mention gall. “Rudeness is the first fruit of a vengeful spirit,” Aunt Ida would say, not that I paid a great deal of heed to her words, but still—

  I wasn’t a bit shy telling this one off. “You are off your head. G’way. You are no such thing.”

  I thought of what Ev would say and let it bolster me: “The first thing I am learning you, Maud, is you don’t take shit off crazy people.” Ev’s old advice could have been a sharp-shinned hawk circling round and round in my head.

  “I never had any daughter; don’t have one now, I never did, and I never will.” I laughed out loud at the very notion, a woman my age having a child! “I do not know what you’re talking about. You are talking through your hat.” I looked as straight as I could into her strange, cold peepers. They looked glittery-wet, and I heard her breath snag. “Now I think you had best git.”

  That quick, I sent her packing.

  “You are no such thing,” I mouthed from behind my
curtains, watching her get back in the car. The roses printed on the curtains’ plastic were faded to the palest pink. The woman was slumped over, sort of, leaning into the man in the driver’s seat, acting like somebody had died, and it struck me, Oh my, you have got the wrong house, girlie, that’s it, you must be looking for someone at the almshouse. Check over there, ask Olive, I should have told her, there are umpteen women who could be your mother and proud to know you, for land’s sake. Talk about someone throwing a dart and missing the target by an eighth of a mile. Less, if you aimed to be particular. The poor thing.

  See, I did feel pity for her. Enough that I had a hard time settling on my chair again, a harder time holding the match steady to light a cigarette. Lord have mercy, Aunt might have said, and, in spite of her churchiness, Pull that smoke into your lungs, Maud, lickety-split, let it work its magic. Calm yourself, for Christ’s sake, I told myself. There is nothing you can do for that woman or others like her. You cannot let strangers upset your applecart; what right has anybody got to upset someone’s applecart, especially someone busy as you are minding her own beeswax, not hurting a flea?

  For I knew what it was like to be wanting: why would I inflict want on another person?

  Because I had a small secret, shared only with Matilda, about something Matilda knew. Matilda knew about losing young ’uns, after the time an osprey had raided her nest, before her hatchlings were ready to fly. For I had had a baby once, a boy, a long long time ago. He had died at birth. In a flicker, I had thought of him before giving that strange woman the boot. I think I’d even blurted this out, crying “Git!” the way Ev would’ve.

  Why I’d felt I owed her that much of an explanation I do not know. As I’d said the words I had pictured a featherless creature falling from the sky, its wings barely formed. I’d just wanted the woman gone. I did not need a troublemaker nosing around, upsetting Ev. Upsetting us.