“Oh, that will make your mother happy—a house call from the new doctor.” He sighed, then laughed. “Don’t think, though, that enough doctors could ever come calling to please your mother.”
“ ’Spose you’re right, Pa,” May replied. She stifled the urge to ask him why he put up with her mother’s behavior. There were so many times when she wished that Gar would just out-and-out get mad at Zeeba. But he never did. He would pour himself a little bit of whiskey, make a funny little grimace as he swallowed, and carry on.
“Pa, I brought you some oatmeal and some clean bandages for your cut, and spirits to wash it with.”
“Well, I hate to tell you, de-ah, but seeing as it’s my right hand that got so cut up, I’m afraid you’re going to have to help me or I’ll make a mess of myself.”
“Don’t you worry, Pa. I can do that.”
“Serves me right, I suppose. You don’t think that ship went down because of …”
May felt her chest tighten, but she forced herself to speak. “Don’t say such a thing, Pa. It’s not true. They could see the light. It’s not our fault.”
“My fault is what you mean.”
“Quit it or I won’t feed you another drop of this oatmeal.” She smiled quickly at him. He chuckled. May sensed this was the time to ask her question. “Pa, how come you never let me get as much as a toe in the water?”
The color drained from Gar’s face. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean.” May tried to say this in a half-teasing voice.
“After a night like this you want to know why I fear the sea for you?”
“Yes,” May said, and looked at him directly, but he tried to avoid her eyes. He was looking around the watch room—every place except where his daughter was sitting beside him with the spoon of oatmeal held in midair.
There was a long silence. May noticed that Gar’s eyes had settled on a small closet door that was always locked. After a moment, his gaze drifted back to her. May flinched when she noticed a shadow of sadness in his eyes.
“What’s in that closet?”
The sadness vanished. “None of your business, miss!”
May was shocked and, at the same time, more intrigued than ever. She knew that he did not keep the key to the closet on the ring with the other keys of the lighthouse. This closet held secrets, and it was as forbidden to her as the water. In that moment the closet and the sea became linked in May Plum’s mind. The words that Gar said next when he turned to May confirmed her thoughts.
“I been thinking, May, that maybe I could arrange a position for you off Egg Rock. You know, where you could make a bit of money.”
“Where, Pa?”
“I thought maybe over in Bridgeton or Augusta,” Gar said, looking away.
A quiet terror welled up inside her. Yes, she had wanted to get off this island, out of this house, but inland? There was something unimaginable, unthinkable, about not being in sight of the sea.
“Bridgeton! Augusta! Pa, that’s so far. I don’t want to go polishing some rich person’s floor.” Even if it meant escaping the silence and suffocation of the lighthouse, she could never move inland. To be so far from the sea would be another kind of suffocation.
Her father held up his hand. “Hold on, de-ah. I don’t see you polishing no old biddy’s floors or sewing—though you are a good seamstress. But you’re so good with book learning and numbers, better than me or your mother. I think you could be a teacher.”
“But, Pa, I’m only fifteen. I haven’t graduated school yet, and with the way the winter’s been and me hardly ever getting across, it’s going to take me an extra year at least.”
But he wasn’t listening to May at all. “Or maybe you could be a librarian like Miss Lowe. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
This took May up short. A year ago she would have loved the notion of being a librarian. But now she was not so sure, especially if it took her to Bridgeton or Augusta, far from the sea.
“Maybe,” she whispered sullenly.
“May?” New alarm sounded in her father’s voice. “You seem a bit vexed.”
Anger rose up in her. May wondered why her mother could always be “poorly,” her father often drunk, but she herself had no right to feelings.
She squeezed her eyes shut and spoke. “Yes, Pa, I am feeling a mite vexed.”
“Well, you’ll get over it and be right as rain again. I suppose the strain and all.”
She opened her eyes and looking at him took his hand. “No, Pa, I might not,” she said softly, but there was a firmness in her voice. Gar stared at her as if, for a moment, his daughter had been replaced by a stranger. But even the look of hurt and confusion on his face wasn’t enough to keep her from speaking.
“I do not see myself going inland to Bridgeton or Augusta, no matter if there were one hundred libraries where I could find employment. Not there!”
She stole a glance at the closet with its dwarfish door. She needed to find a way to open it. She was determined.
Voices could be heard downstairs. “The doctor must have arrived. I’ll bring him up to see you as soon as he finishes examining the other men.”
“And your mother, de-ah. Don’t forget your mother. She will want a long consultation.”
5
THE DOCTOR’S VISIT
HEPZIBAH PLUM ATTEMPTED to keep the new doctor, Lucius Holmes, by her bedside as long as possible.
“Fresh air! My goodness, Doctor Holmes, all we got around here is fresh air. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think, Mrs. Plum, it would really help your gout.” The doctor hesitated slightly. “Even more than this medicine.”
Hepzibah Plum pulled herself higher on her pillows and leaned forward. “Doctor Holmes.” She nearly spat out the two words. “I’ll have you know that I know a thing or two about medical matters, too. This medicine treats the cause. Not just the symptom.” She paused to let the power of this information and her knowledge sink in. “And I for one like to get to the cause and not merely the symptoms,” she said smugly.
“Mrs. Plum, I do not dispute you, but in these days of modern medicine, it is possible to treat both.”
But Hepzibah Plum had closed her ears to the doctor. “May!” she barked. “Fetch the chamber pot with my night urine. You’ll see the crystals, Doctor Holmes.”
May felt herself redden to the very roots of every hair on her head. She could not believe her mother was doing this, asking her to bring in the night pail to show someone else, even if that someone was a doctor. Hepzibah spent several minutes every morning examining her urine, but this was too much.
She decided to lie. “I’m sorry, Mother, but I already threw it out.”
“You what?”
May might as well have said that she had thrown out the family silver had there been any.
“Well, Mother, there was so much going on here last night, what with the rescue and all. And then this morning I had to fix up a comfortable place for Pa since you felt there was not room here.”
“Of course there wasn’t room in this bed—not for two failing people,” she muttered with barely concealed resentment.
Dr. Holmes’s mouth settled into a grim line. May could almost feel the dislike flowing between the doctor and her mother. Hepzibah was not used to doctors like this. Old Doc Fletcher, who had died before Christmas, had been a master at humoring her mother. He used to marvel at Zeeba’s descriptions of her condition, her thoughts about treatment. This doctor, although polite, was clearly less than impressed with her lengthy and detailed disquisitions on her various ailments. “My suggestion for some fresh air and exercise is based on evidence, Mrs. Plum, that mild physical activity can actually reduce the inflammation in the joints.”
“You think walking on these will help them?” Hepzibah stuck one foot out from under the blankets to reveal an inflamed and knobby big toe that seemed rather like an accusatory eye glaring out from the bedclothes. “Talk to my to
e, Doctor Holmes,” Zeeba snarled. “See how it fails to preserve any sense of balance for me when I walk or stand for more than a few minutes.”
“Perhaps if your daughter helped. Walked arm in arm with you a bit.”
“Her! May? May’s got her hands full as it is running the light and taking care of me and now her father with his so-called hip problem. You think she has time to waltz me around this island?” She paused.
“Yes, yes … I see the problem.” For the first time Dr. Holmes seemed to have lost some of his composure. He ran his hands through his thinning hair, which was turning gray at the temples. He was always referred to as the “new young doctor,” but May realized that was in comparison to Dr. Fletcher, who was almost ninety when he died. Dr. Holmes must be close to fifty. He was not what one would ever call a handsome man, but there was something very appealing about his manner that made up for what might constitute any flaws in his physical appearance. His nose did seem a bit long, and his eyes drooped somewhat at the corners. His ears were rather large, and yet all of these features came together in a pleasing manner.
“Well, I’m glad you do!” Hepzibah said in a calmer voice. “I have complications. I have for a lifetime. And with them come other complications. Why, I doubt May’ll be able to go back to school this month.”
“Mother, I’ve been out for three weeks because of weather.”
She shot May a dark look. “Well, your father should’ve thought about that before he —” But before she could finish the doctor broke in.
“Yes, Mrs. Plum, of course. You’re right.” May felt her heart sink. Why had the doctor given in so quickly? But just as she gave up hope, he spoke. “But, Mrs. Plum, a girl has to get out.”
Hepzibah jerked her head up. Her nearly black eyes seemed to spring out from their sockets. Dr. Holmes might just as well have said, “A girl needs to go to the moon.”
“What in the name of Pete are you talking about?”
“A young healthy girl cannot be confined all the time to take care of sick people.”
Hepzibah’s mouth gaped open, then closed slightly and opened again. It was as if her lips could not grab hold of the shape of the words to respond.
Dr. Holmes turned and said, “Mrs. Plum, I shall send you some more medicine for your gout.” In a lower voice he added, “May, meet me at the dock. I’d like to speak to you.”
May saw the doctor waiting at the end of the dock, where Captain Haskell had tied up. To her surprise, the men had just finished loading the survivors on the boat.
“I thought they were too ill to move,” May said as she walked up to the doctor.
Dr. Holmes turned to her. “I think you have your hands full enough. We’ll get these fellows across all right.” He gave a slight cough and seemed to be studying the barnacles on the pilings. “I meant what I said back there in the lighthouse. You need to get out.” May looked down at the toes of her shoes. She had not put on her rubberized weather boots, and the water was slopping over the edge of the float.
“Listen to me!” There was a sudden urgency in the doctor’s voice that May found alarming. “Your mother is not weak. She is strong in many ways that you might not suspect.” May was startled. And she saw that Dr. Holmes was somewhat taken aback by his own outburst when he looked at her. “I don’t want to worry you. But although she has ‘complications’ as she calls them, well, how to put this?” He suddenly seemed very unsure of himself. “Her illnesses cannot, should not, be the center of your life.” He paused at this point. “Is her illness the center of your father’s life as well?” May felt as if the doctor and she were speaking some sort of code. Yet there was a feeling of relief just in being asked, the first tiny crack in the lighthouse silence.
“Well, my father—it’s not easy for him with her, and he does drink a bit, sir,” she replied hesitantly.
Dr. Holmes looked at her. “Perhaps I could find you someone to help out here. My wife might know someone.”
May shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so, Doctor Holmes. We don’t have money for that kind of thing, and besides, my mother wouldn’t stand for it. She’s very particular.”
“Well, May, you have a life, too. Remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
6
A YEARNING DETECTED
LUCIUS HOLMES WATCHED as the island receded into the distance. May’s dilemma was a haunting one. At the very core of it was her mother’s selfishness, combined with her father’s drinking. In addition, he sensed Edgar Plum’s absolute passivity. All of this did not make for a promising situation for May. He could imagine her life on this tiny barren island too easily. The isolation, the loneliness. And that mother! A tyrannical, vicious woman.
As he watched he saw May climb to a promontory and look out to the east, toward The Bones and beyond to the boundless ocean. She leaned into the wind. Her red hair began to escape from its pins, and tendrils flared into the gusts like licks of fire. Yearning, that was the word that came to mind as he watched her. She bent to this breeze as if she were longing to be transported to some invisible place. Did she expect the breeze to carry her there? Did she ache to throw herself on a gust and join the squawking seagulls that wheeled in the sky overhead? No! Not air but water! The sea. She was looking straight down into the churning waters of the sea.
He turned to Captain Haskell, who was at the helm. “I am new here. This is the first time I’ve met the Plums. What do you know about them?”
“Not much to tell, Doctor. They married late. Gar is a nice enough fellow. He’d been engaged to a pretty girl. Polly Bunker. But on the eve of their wedding Polly took sick, and within two weeks she was dead.”
“What about Mrs. Plum?”
“She was Hepzibah Greenlaw. No one ever expected her to marry. She’d spent most of her life taking care of her mother, who was … well, frail, and her grandmother as well. A few weeks after Polly died Zeeba’s mother went as well. I think Zeeba set her sights on Gar at Polly’s funeral, to tell you the truth. She rarely left her own house, but on that day she got a young girl to come in and mind her mother, who was failing fast. She went to the service and then showed up with a kettle of chowder at Polly’s parents’ house that evening. I was there with my wife, Emma. Emma saw the whole thing. Hepzibah went right up to Gar and said, ‘You got to eat.’ Then Emma said that Zeeba—that’s what everyone calls her, Zeeba—said the queerest thing. She said, ‘Even grief has to eat.’ Like it’s a cat or something that you have to feed. Have you ever heard the likes of it?”
Lucius Holmes shook his head. Not exactly, he thought, but it made a strange kind of sense. There was just one flaw in the peculiar statement — Hepzibah had used the wrong word. It was not grief that had to be fed, it was anger. There was a dreadful logic that drove this woman. She had spent her youth serving invalids—her mother and her grandmother. And when they died it became her turn. She did not seek love, she did not seek a companion but a caregiver. And this logic could be passed down from generation to generation, just like a hereditary disease. There was truly someone to save here and it was not Hepzibah Plum. It was May. He did not want May Plum to become the next victim.
“Folks were taken by surprise when she had May.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, she was old for one thing, and they’d been married quite a while, and her being frail as she is with all her complications. It was a pretty bad winter and all, so they hadn’t gotten into town. Anyhow, come spring they show up with little May. She was born, they said, at a time when there was no way a doctor could go out there to help Zeeba, but she seemed to do fine.”
Lucius Holmes fell silent and looked as Egg Rock receded. He could still see the young girl’s figure on the promontory, and even from this distance he could feel her yearning. She could have been a figurehead stretching out from the bow of a sailing vessel, cutting the wind, at one with the rhythms of the sea, a dancer on the cresting waves.
SPRING 1899
7
&n
bsp; “YOU HORRID GIRL!”
THE DAYS HAD BRIGHTENED and the seas had calmed. There was at last a true hint of the coming spring in the air, but in the month or so since the disaster on The Bones, May’s life had become as monotonous and as dreary as the darkest days of winter. Her mother had let her go to school only one day. Her excuse was that until May’s father had recovered enough to climb the stairs they could not risk her going ashore. Edgar had protested vigorously to no avail. It was true that he was still quite lame, but he argued that this was no reason why May shouldn’t be allowed to go to school.
They were having one such quarrel now. “But, Mother,” May said in response to her father’s pleas and Zeeba’s refusal. “Even Doctor Holmes said a girl needs to get out.”
“Yes, and he told me that I needed fresh air and look where we live! The man’s a durned fool. And that medicine he sent out on the mail boat ain’t worth the bottle it came in. We don’t need another disaster here like the ship that fetched up on The Bones. We’ll lose the lighthouse—and then where will we go? We’re poor. Your father drinks.”
“He has not had a drop since that night, Mother, and you know it!” May screamed. She had never shouted like this at Zeeba. It felt as if she had unleashed a great gale from deep inside her that had been brewing for years.
Hepzibah looked at her daughter with shock, and then quickly her face darkened. Anger rose in her like a coiled viper. “You horrid girl! Where did you come from? Where did he get you?” She turned to Gar. “You—you—couldn’t ever forget Polly, could you?”
“What are you talking about?” May looked at her mother and then at her father.
“Don’t, Zeeba! Don’t!” her father blurted out as he collapsed into his chair.
“Don’t what? What is she saying, Pa?” She felt something crack inside her. “Where did I come from?” She turned her head again toward Zeeba. “You’re my mother!”
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