by Julie Berry
You look about the room, and when your eyes rest on me, they stare for a moment, bewildered. I’m seized by an unbearable urge to laugh. How disloyal to my brother, to laugh this morning!
Dr. Brands looks away from you and opens his bag. It is all the notice he’ll grant you, and apparently all you require.
Darrel, praise Mother, is far gone from this world. The doctor fusses with his bag of tools, with much examining and sharpening of cruel, curved blades. Horace thrusts his cleaver into the flames and turns it slowly like it’s a roasting pheasant. You take off your leather belt and offer it to Melvin, who cinches it tightly, impossibly tightly, around Darrel’s thigh at the groin, then forces a block of wood over Darrel’s tongue and makes him champ his teeth down upon it.
At last, when all is ready, Dr. Brands looks at Mother and me.
“You women had best wait outside, preferably far from the house where you can’t hear.”
“I can bear it,” Mother says, holding herself erect. She is regal and still has a young woman’s figure. “I need to be here for my son.”
She’s magnificent. Melvin Brands looks away. I gather it’s the thought of Mrs. Brands that turns the doctor’s head.
“I’m here as a volunteer, Mrs. Finch,” he tells the wall. “I will not charge you for my time. Therefore I insist you honor my conditions. The last thing any of us needs is for you to faint or become hysterical.”
Mother draws in her breath, but our poverty weighs heavier than her pride. She turns and marches outside, and I am quick to follow.
X LIV.
It’s a gray day, the clouds thick and low. Wind chases the last dead leaves around the pasture. Mother heads first for the garden. There are only withered stalks now, and the root vegetables for spring. She strips seeds off of cabbage and carrot plants that have grown tall and woody. The seeds she puts in her pocket, then she starts pulling up dead plants and throwing them down, hoeing them into the soil with leaves. I join her.
A cry from Darrel stops us both. Mother grips the hoe handle with white knuckles.
We both retreat to the edge of our land, where forest and field share a troubled border. Without a word, we gather sticks for tinder, filling our aprons.
Darrel’s cry is a constant whine, but far enough away that only a sliver of the sound reaches us over the wind. We can almost pretend he’s a babe again, whimpering for a slice of bread. So easy to ignore.
I concentrate on sticks, on gray-brown grasses, stiff and brittle, quick to snap. Little knobbly pine twigs, their fingers barely more than needles, the best for starting fires.
Our aprons filled, we look at each other, Mother and I. We wait to see who will go to the woodpile first. Neither one of us wants to venture near the house just yet. If she’s to be banished, her exile she’ll keep.
Then we hear the thunk of a blade buried deep into wood, and a garbled scream, worse than any he’s uttered this side of the womb.
Mother’s kindling tumbles down and she runs for the house, trailing apron strings.
The screaming doesn’t stop.
I follow after, but I keep my load of wood.
You meet my mother at the door and try to prevent her coming in. Your face is pink with heat, and there are bloodstains on your shirt.
She pushes at you, but you’re a wall. She pummels you, but you don’t flinch.
Anger rises in my belly.
Anger at you.
Darrel’s screams collapse into piteous sobs.
This feeling doesn’t know where to go. Who are you to bar her entry into her own house to comfort her own son? I reach the house and fling down my heap of twigs.
“It’s horrible, Mrs. Finch.”
There’s no need to raise your voice to her.
“Brands is working to close the wound. There’s nothing for it but for Darrel to endure it. It just has to be done.”
Mother’s weeping now, so loudly it frightens me. I’ve never heard this. I can’t even understand her words. Your face is red with pity.
“I should be inside helping to restrain him,” you say. “You must wait outside until we’re done. Then he’ll need you.”
I reach my mother’s side and put a protective arm around her. She twists and buries her face in my neck. I feel the wetness of her tears slide down my breast. I am made timid by my own mother’s embrace. I don’t want to move, lest I draw her attention to what she is doing.
Your eyes meet mine. They’re full of relief. You think I came to help you. You reach out and grip my arm, squeeze your thanks. Before your fingers have withdrawn, you realize what you’ve done again: you’ve touched me. You squeeze once more—your apology—then your eyes widen with embarrassment. You flee indoors, preferring to face a footless patient than a pair of distraught, accusing women.
X LV.
I am sitting by the stream, some hours later, when Mother comes and stands beside me.
“He’s resting,” she says. I rise up and look at her. I would embrace her if I thought I could.
Her face looks swollen and tired. “It was his only hope,” she says. She watches the stream where bits of bracken glide and collide. “The purulence was killing him.”
I remember the thick, foul discharge she would lance from his heel. What I can’t remember is the last time Mother spoke to me this way.
“If it hasn’t already.”
I reach for her hand and hold it tight. So familiar, Mother’s hand, but I haven’t felt it in years. She shows no sign of revulsion.
The paler spot behind the clouds passes its highest point and begins to fall. My stomach groans for its dinner.
A fat raindrop splashes on her cheek, and we both look up. I feel another on my face. Mother holds out both her hands.
The clouds that were brooding all morning erupt, dropping a curtain of rain. The stream drinks it eagerly.
“It will be what it is,” Mother says.
She looks at me, then looks away.
XLVI.
Brands cauterized the stump. Horace Bron, his face dripping with sweat, accepted our offering of eggs and bread and an apple tart in return for the wielding of his blade. Small payment, even if Mother’s baking is legend. Melvin Brands took bread, and the foot, wrapped in camphored cloth.
He said he would bury it. There was no need for us to know where.
I wonder if he really will. I once heard it whispered, years ago, that he secretly studied the bodies of the dead to see how they were put together.
Now he can examine a foot of the living.
You took nothing, but later on you brought a fresh-killed hen.
XLVII.
I spend the afternoon capturing rain in buckets. There will be no end to washing for some time to come. Mother orders me about, but it’s different now, and I’m happy to do her bidding. We have gotten through the worst, and now there’s work to do, which we tackle gladly. XLVIII.
If Darrel thought he knew pain before, he was wrong.
XLIX.
Days pass in weariness and dark November rain. Will the smell of blood and whiskey ever fade? It’s too cold and damp to open windows, but at midday we do it anyway. Darrel flinches and cries out. The pain in his foot is worse than ever, he says. In vain does Mother tell him it couldn’t be; it’s gone.
I think of Melvin Brands and wonder if Darrel feels his foot’s second surgery.
L.
Mother rises hours before the sun to do extra baking for Abe Duddy to sell in his shop. Without Darrel’s help the harvest was poor, and she fears for us this winter, even with her whiskey earnings. I squeeze poor Person’s udders dry, extracting every drop of cream for cheese.The hay bin is more full than last year, but not full enough for a cow and a horse.
LI.
You and Jip stop by one day with a cane you’ve carved for Darrel. Darrel is pleased and flattered, which makes up for Mother’s indifference. Jip’s whole body wags to see me, and when Mother isn’t watching, I break off a corner of a brick of cheese and sli
p it to him. He licks my hand lovingly with his long, pink tongue.
I’m jealous of a dog.
He has a warm tongue, and he lives with you.
LII.
Darrel sits in a chair at the table, and in between spasms of pain, he does small tasks for Mother. When she can’t conjure up any more, she makes him read the Bible to her while she works. I envy him his velvet voice, his fluidity with reading. He’s still in awful pain but, he says, each day it gets better. The wound heals clean, which Mother calls a mercy. She changes his dressings morning and night, and every time he protests less. I have to force myself not to stare at the bizarre, unnatural remnant of his leg. Heaven knows I should have more compassion for someone who has lost a part of himself.
LIII.
I bring indoors a basket of eggs—twenty-one today, and at this time of year!—and lay a hand on Mother’s shoulder. She shrugs me off.So we are back to the place we were before.
LIV.
The trees are bare. The world is gray. I must go farther in search of wood. The forest makes me remember you. By now, the shock of what I did has worn away, leaving only the hollow fact that I’ll never touch you that way again.
But these thoughts are too heavy to bear, so I busy myself with the work of survival. I haul wood for fires, while you chop trees and haul timber. You’re still building the room you began for Maria.
I haven’t the time I once did to shadow you. The recollection of it almost embarrasses me. I’ve scarcely even the time to think of you as before, which grieves and puzzles me.
Then you appear, through the trees, guiding your mule as he pulls a tree limb. Like a soldier back from battle you fill my vision. You’re a flood, a baptism I’d forgotten, and the force of you leaves me breathless.
LV.
I venture early and alone to church to sit unseen in my usual corner. On the way, Jip waddles out to see me, and I slip him a crust I saved from breakfast. We understand each other, Jip and I. The new Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright come into church, pink and silly with love, not heeding the boiling looks the older women pour over Maria. She turns and notices me and walks over, thrusting out both hands to clasp mine. I take her hands reluctantly, not wishing to tarnish her esteem in the village any further. But she wills it; they sit beside me. This is their first time in the chapel since they were wed; they have no regular spot for worship as man and wife. Neither her mother nor Leon’s family is happy with her choice.
“Let’s both be lepers,” Maria whispers. It takes me a moment to realize—she’s called me a leper! And she’s laughing beneath her bonnet. She’s teasing me and means no malice. I’m not accustomed to this, nor to such daring.
You take your seat just as the organ swells. Your eyes are hollow; you are elsewhere.
Preacher Frye reminds us of Christ’s golden rule, that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
LVI.
After meeting you head straight for home. No conversation for you today. “Don’t forget your promise,” Maria says, outside on the stoop. “Come sit with me this week.”
I nod. How will the village belle and village mute forge a friendship?
Eunice and her sisters watch us from across the way, but do not come over.
Abijah Pratt glares at me from the churchyard. One hand holds his cane, and the other rests on Lottie’s gravestone.
LVII.
Darrel startles us at breakfast by announcing he’ll return to school as soon as he’s able. Could be there’s a living to be had for him in learning. And studies are better than staring at the ceiling as a means of whiling away the hours. Mother is unprepared for this.
“And how d’you suppose you’ll get to school and back?” “Worm can help me. On her horse.”
“Worm’s got other things to do.”
Now you, too, call me that, Mother?
She’s not done. “And that horse can’t stay.”
Darrel wisely says no more, and after a spell, I help him
back into his bed for a rest.
LVIII.
I slip into town in the afternoon and find Maria taking up housekeeping in a cottage where Marshall Dabney, a bachelor, had lived before the battle. Now he sleeps in the churchyard. I force myself to knock. I want to break and run for home instead. How does one visit with nothing to say?
“Judith!” she says, embracing me. “You’ve come. I’m so glad.”
Marshall Dabney had kept his cottage neat, and Maria has already decorated it with a vase of goldenrod, and linens and glass from her trousseau, easily the finest trousseau in town. “Come sit. Have some bread and butter.”
“Are you well?”
“Is your brother healing?”
“Leon’s visiting with his father this morning, so it’s just us two.”
“I received some tea as a wedding gift. Would you like a cup?”
“How about preserves on your bread?”
She has a pretty way of asking questions that don’t expose my lack of speech, and it occurs to me, as she fetches the preserves from her cupboard, that she rehearsed this in her mind before I came. She wanted to spare me awkwardness. Mother and I can communicate, but not in a way that doesn’t humiliate me.
Maria sits back down and leans her elbows on the table, then smiles at me.
“You are a lady of many surprises,” she says. “I’ll never forget that day you threw an egg at Leon. Lord, how it made me laugh.”
I blush.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I had an egg to chuck at him myself. I only said yes to Lucas because Leon hadn’t gathered up the gumption to ask for me first himself.”
“Oh?” I say, then catch myself. Maria looks startled, then pleased. Her easy way of talking makes me forget that I don’t answer. She has brought me back to when people used to talk to me, and I would answer them.
I reach into my little bag and pull out some needlework. I am sewing a sack for Darrel to carry his schoolbooks in, one that slings from one shoulder across his body to the other hip. It seems like a better way for him to balance.
Maria continues her tale. “Was it wicked of me to encourage Lucas, Judith? Half the time I thought I would go ahead and marry him, just to spite Leon. I was so vexed at him, and I thought I didn’t care. Then as time went on, I wished he’d be a man and do something. Even fight Lucas for me! Can you believe the foolishness?” She paused and gazed out the window. “And then when he was injured I didn’t care anymore.”
I can only watch her. I suppose my dumb wonderment shows. I am not sure what mystifies me more: that she should confide in me or that she should place Leon over you. But I am glad, glad, glad of it.
Maria’s eyes sparkle. “Judith, I am just as wicked as they say. Now you see it’s true.”
Wicked indeed. I laugh a little. If she could have seen me a few nights ago in the woods . . .
“And what I see is that you are a person who misses nothing. You’re not what people make you out to be, a half-wit. Oh, come! We both know it. You were as sharp as any girl before, though you never were a prattler like some girls, were you?”
Maria notices me sewing and pulls out some knitting of her own. Socks, it seems, probably for her husband.
“Isn’t this nice?” she says. “What fine, close stitching you have, Judith. You could teach me, I’m sure. Is that a hunting bag?”
She watches me closely. I shake my head. Maria is not content with that dismissal. I wonder if I dare try an answer. My lips practice the motion before I trust them to make a sound. But these are sounds I think I can make.
“Book,” I say. My voice is squeaky, and somewhat nasal, but the word is clear enough.
Maria beams. “A book bag!” I nod. “For your brother?” I nod again.
She resumes her knitting, but I can feel her watching me out of the corners of her eyes. I wish I knew what she is thinking. She doesn’t seem horrified by my attempt at speech. And Mother need never know about it.
“You must come see m
e often, Judith,” Maria says. “I can see that it will grow lonely sometimes, especially when Leon improves and can be up and about his work all day.” She looked around her cottage with satisfaction. “As mistress of my own home, I can invite anyone I choose. So please come see me often, Judith. Come tomorrow. Promise you will.”
She wants me back. Surely she could invite any young wife or grown maiden in town to assuage her loneliness. She is watching for my answer. I nod.
She smiles, and we work side by side with our needles for most of another hour.
LIX.
I all but skip home. A friendly wind is at my back, and my feet feel light over the beaten track.One friend. Do I truly have one friend?
It may be a small social circle, but one friend, to me, feels like bounty. I can’t find a good reason why she would choose me, but I do not doubt her sincerity.
She likes me. She wants me to come back. I don’t want to tempt fate by demanding to know why. Only pretty and wellto-do Maria Johnson, now Cartwright, can risk association with me.
But what do I have to offer her? Mine is silent company. I can listen, at any rate.
Maybe it is more what she does not see. My missing tongue does not bother her, and she is stubbornly indifferent to what others think of my reputation.
Take away my missing tongue, and the sins that I did not commit. Why am I not then as likely a friend as any other human soul?
LX.
Back home, Mother works at the cider press. She doesn’t need my help, so I sit inside with Darrel and keep working on his book bag. He is seated at the table while the last afternoon light still streams inside, poring over the Bible, the largest book we own. This pleases me. I’m glad he wants to return to school. I sit down next to him and watch him peering over the page, tracing a line of words with his finger. I look at the black type on the faded yellow paper. I know my letters, and I can sound out simple words, but Darrel delves deeper into the mysteries of words and meanings.
