by R.P. Burnham
Mark was straining. She could feel the muscles of his neck and shoulders go tight, but with no result. His bowels, along with everything else in his poor, violated body, were not working right. For over ten minutes now they had been in the bathroom—really an indoor privy since their house had no plumbing and even the water in the kitchen had to be hand pumped to flow. The air was fetid and unpleasant, but she kept urging him on. If he didn’t produce today, the doctors told her she was going to have to take him back to the hospital for an enema. Returning to the hospital would be a defeat. It would mean he was not getting better. She urged him to keep trying, hoping not to show her anxiety but sure he was sensing it.
Since his three-day stay at the hospital where he had been almost lost amongst tubes and machines that flickered strange messages in numbers and graphs, nothing was going right for him. At home she had to see he took his medicine and vitamins several times a day. There were another six weeks of school left, but it was very unlikely he would be back in the classroom this year. The thought that terrified her and which when she thought of it even made her cringe was that he wouldn’t ever go back to school.
He had poor balance and as a result his gait was unsteady. He had a tremor in his left arm. His hearing was poor—he complained of a ringing in his ears. His extremities were still numb. Yesterday he had burned his hand on the stove and at first didn’t even feel the heat. Suzy was pretty sure his sight was poor as well. More than once she had come up beside him and was not sure he could see her until she came directly in front of him. The doctors told her these symptoms were common with children poisoned with organic mercury. They were less precise about the degree to which these symptoms were permanent or temporary. To her untrained eyes he seemed to be getting better. One symptom, however, was scarier than all the others combined and in the two weeks since he had come home seemed to have stayed the same. This was his mental state.
He used to be a typical, active little monkey. Now he seemed to be in a daze. He would sit watching TV and only occasionally show any sign of emotion. He rarely smiled. He never laughed. Sometimes he cried quietly. He used to speak so fast he’d trip over his tongue. MaIwannawaI’mthirsy.” Now he said “I’m thirsty” very slowly as if he had to struggle to remember even the simplest words. He was a different boy in every way. Only when his sweet blue eyes looked up at her yearningly as if asking for help was she able to connect him to the little love of her life. She would not give up.
“Come on, sweetie,” she said. “Try.”
After another few minutes passed without any result, the piercing, whining voice of Sissy called from the other side of the door.
“Hey, Ma! Would you hurry up in there!”
“You hold your horses, Sissy. Mark is having trouble with his bowels.”
“Ma! The school bus will be here soon.”
She ignored her, urging Mark to strain. He looked up helplessly, making her feel helpless in return. “Come on,” she whispered, angry now. “You’ve got to make some poop.”
“Jesus Christ, Ma!”
She turned to the door, frowned, then back to Mark. He looked as if he was about to cry. She sighed. “Okay, sweetie. Stand up.” She pulled his pants up and fastened his belt.
Sissy glared at her as she rushed by slamming the door behind her.
She sat Mark down at the kitchen table and got Sharon’s hat and coat. Malcolm resisted her suggestion he get the same clothing and shrugged when she told him it might rain. Both of them appeared subdued and sullen.
She was getting a banana for Mark when Sissy came back to the kitchen. She was still angry and glared at her mother.
“What’s wrong now, Sissy?”
“Nothing. You spend too much with Mark, that’s all.”
“And you don’t think of him at all.”
Sissy clucked her tongue. “Not that stupid banana again! It’s a crime in this house to eat a banana.”
Yesterday she had snitched one of Mark’s bananas. They were one of the few things Mark was eager to eat. When Mrs. Carnevale, the woman whose house she cleaned, learned of this, she bought a large bunch of bananas and some orange juice (which was the only liquid she could use to get him to swallow his pills). She had rebuked Sissy for taking the banana, and Sissy had reacted with all the wounded feelings a teenage girl was capable of. And now a day later she was still bristling about the outrage.
“It wasn’t just the banana. It was that you didn’t consider your brother’s health,” she said heatedly.
“Gawd, Ma! I live here too.”
She sat down beside Mark and gave him the banana. “Mark is different because he’s sick. Just because the rest of you were not severely touched by the mercury and Mark was doesn’t mean you have to be mean to him.”
“He’s more than sick. He’s a retard.”
Suzy jumped up and banged the table, making Mark cringe and look afraid. Because of his reaction she was able to resist the urge to slap Sissy’s face. Instead she released her emotion in angry words. “You shut your trap, young lady. What’s the matter with you? The poor boy has been poisoned.”
“He’s out of the hospital, ain’t he? He must be getting better.”
Suzy walked around the kitchen table to face her daughter. “Do you have any human feelings? What kind of miserable excuse for a human being doesn’t care if her brother has been poisoned?”
Sissy glared at her, then turned and started for the door. Then she stopped suddenly and wheeled around. “There are other people in this house, you know.” Her eyes went from the kitchen area to the living room in one sweep. “I should say this dump. It sure ain’t no house. You and Dad certainly have been great successes in life.”
“Hold your tongue! We do the best we can. We ask you to help and all you can think about is your selfish desires.”
“Now I know why Leighton ran away. You’re mean. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.” Her lips quivered, and despite herself tears welled in her eyes.
The tears softened her. “Be reasonable, Sissy. When you were sick with the flu last winter, who took care of you? Now Mark needs the caring. You should help, not complain.”
Her softer tone did nothing to pacify Sissy’s rage. “Not complain! You give us nothing. I have to go to Gramma’s to take a bath. The kids used to laugh at me about my clothes, so I have to work to buy some decent stuff so I won’t get teased. And what do you do? You take half of what I earn. What losers you are!” She glared at Suzy defiantly.
When Sissy frowned her face became unpleasant. Her prettiness came from the rounded lines of her chin and cheeks, but when she frowned these lines became sharp and emphasized her larger-than-average nose. In the heat of battle Suzy felt the need to inflict pain. “I’d advise you not to frown in front of the boys. It makes you look ugly.” Only after she said these cruel words and saw that they had hit home did she regret making such a low attack. Sissy’s prettiness was the only weapon she had in the struggle of life, and all her teenage insecurity instantly showed itself.
With reddening eyes and quivering lip, she screamed, “Again I see why Leighton ran away, you mean bitch!” She turned and raced through the door before she started crying. The whole house shook when she slammed the door.
Malcolm and Sharon looked shaken. Trying to calm them, she said softly, “I’m sorry this had to happen. Tell Sissy I’m sorry too. You all have to realize I’ve been under a strain.”
She was ashamed of herself. She had always prided herself on being a good mother despite being poor. If in dark moments she blamed herself for Leighton’s disappearance, most of the time she understood it was the poverty that drove him away. But if Sissy left, arguments like the one they had this morning would be the reason. With two children lost and another sick and possibly ruined by the food she put on the table, what then could she say about her mothering?
Suddenly the house became oppressive. She gave Mark his pills and then sat him down on the couch with a picture book. As soon as she was sure he was set
tled, she went outside. She needed the feel of the wind on her face and the sense of reality that trees and fields and sky gave her. Dark clouds covered half the sky, but in the east the low sun shone and sent shafts of light under the clouds and upon the earth. With the spring rains they had been having, the earth was very green. She could hear grackles making their creaking-door sound and further off the trill of the redwings in the marshy areas by the pond. Insects hummed. The old car Luke used for spare parts was shining like a jewel. The grass under her feet smelled wonderful. She turned and for a moment looked at the clump of sumac trees across the gravel road before directing her eyes above to the dark clouds. She saw that they were moving swiftly and that behind them in the west the sky was clearing. It wasn’t going to rain.
That was the information she was hoping for. For the past several weeks she had been doing her laundry at the farmhouse. Her washing machine had to be filled by hand, and being old (they got it from Hoot Berry’s barn), the spin cycle no longer worked. They also had no dryer at the house. More important to her than the laundry, though, was the chance to talk to Jenny. Having a sympathetic listener was the only way she would feel better. She went around the side of their house and got the shopping cart that she used to transport Mark and the laundry. It too was from Hoot’s barn, the place Sissy sarcastically called their Wal-Mart.
Back inside Mark was sitting quietly looking at the picture book. His lips seemed to be moving, and she hoped he was forming words. For that moment he looked perfectly normal; then she saw his eyes. The distance, the blankness almost as if he had forgotten who she was, increased her anguish. She leaned down and kissed him on the head. “My sweet boy,” she whispered. “You will get better.”
He looked up at her sideways. “Mommy,” he said.
That made her feel better.
She went over to the closet and got out his rain gear in case her reading of the weather was wrong. Then she got the two plastic garbage bags that she used for the laundry and brought them to the cart. She put Mark’s shoes on and walked outside slowly, holding his hand to steady him. On good days with dry ground she would go across the fields, but with the rain and damp earth she decided the road was safer. Down the gravel road she went, past Hoot’s house where his wife Olive waved from the window, and then down Route 177 the few hundred yards to the farmhouse. Mark rode on top of the laundry.
She stopped by the shed to say hello to Vernon. Being one of those men who had to keep busy, he spent most of his time out there working on things like chairs, appliances, his car, anything he could find. Jenny called it nonsense, just busywork—but her opinion had no effect on him whatsoever. His face was permanently tanned from a life outdoors. He farmed until he was forty; and when he had to give it up and sold his four cows and his chickens, he had worked as a day laborer for some of the bigger dairy farms that managed to hang on. He got a pittance for Social Security, so in the summer he would still hire himself out even though he was seventy-one. His knowledge of cows and dairying made it easy for him to find these part-time jobs. His wrinkled face and yellowish-white hair made him look even older, but he was still wiry and despite a bad leg that never healed properly after a cow giving birth rolled over on him, he was still capable of working as hard as a twenty-year-old man. Though he was gruff and didn’t say much, he was always good to Luke and her, and she liked him.
He was planing a board as she came by. “Jenny up at the house, Vernon?”
He looked up, his pipe clenched in his teeth. “Ayuh.”
“Got me some laundry to do.”
He nodded, and she went on.
Jenny was at the door. “Saw you coming, Suzy. How’s Mark today?”
“’Bout the same.”
Like her husband, Jenny was quite spry for someone in her seventies. She had an arthritic hip and hands but otherwise was so healthy that Suzy had never known her to have even a cold or the flu. She had a kindly grandmotherly face that hid a will of iron, which was hinted at whenever her thin lips were set and a look came into her large gray eyes magnified behind rimless spectacles. The kids all loved her but were also a bit afraid of her. Another symptom of Mark’s mental problems was that he seemed to have forgotten this dangerous quality in his grandmother. She, however, allowed him the indulgence of the sick, so when he picked up a knickknack on the kitchen shelf she didn’t say, “Put that down, young man!” as she usually would do. If Suzy had her wish, Jenny would be able to yell at him. Putting the laundry into the washing machine, which was nestled into a corner of the kitchen, she felt the familiar sadness even while she reminded herself not to give in to hopelessness. She knew that only she could nurse him back to health—if it was possible. But there was that despair lurking in the corner of her mind that whispered “impossible” every time she hoped. She had to shake herself to get rid of it.
They talked about Mark’s health for some time, speaking mostly in whispers, even though Mark didn’t seem to listen. Jenny promised to take them to the hospital, but it would have to be tomorrow morning since she was helping a friend with some sewing this afternoon. That information actually made Suzy feel better. It gave her one more day to try to get Mark regular.
Jenny boiled some water, and as soon as it was ready they sat down to a cup of tea for them and a cup of cocoa for Mark. Suzy had brought his new coloring book since it was one thing he seemed to enjoy doing, and he quietly worked with his crayons as the women talked.
“Well,” Suzy said, “I’ve had a bad morning. I had a fight with Sissy. She said some nasty things, and I’m still upset.”
Jenny took a sip of tea and regarded Suzy from above the cup’s brim. “Oh? What brought it on?”
“I was trying to get Mark to move his bowels. She wanted to use the privy, and one thing led to another.”
“They always do.”
“She thinks I’m spending too much time with Mark. I am, of course. But he’s the one who needs attention. I reminded her that when she was sick with the grippe last winter I took care of her.” She leaned over and wiped Mark’s face where he’d dribbled some cocoa. “Careful, sweetie. It’s still hot.”
“Did she get the point?”
“No. She’s a selfish little thing now.”
The flash of anger she felt as she remembered the urge to slap Sissy made her speak so sharply Jenny’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? She’s boy crazy now. It happens to most girls.”
“It’s more than that. It’s the way she thinks of me. It’s as if I’m not a person but—”
Jenny interrupted with a laugh. “I know. You’re a mother, right? You don’t have any other life.”
She knew Jenny was purposely trying to calm her down. It was working too, for after a deep breath expelled as a sigh she did feel calmer. “Uh huh. Now that I think about it, I thought of my mother the same way. Like she was always worn-out and run-down. Like she was always an old hag, never young.”
“And you think that’s how Sissy thinks of you?”
“Yeah, I do. She shows me no respect. She got real nasty too. She blamed me and Luke for our poverty. She called us losers.”
“Seems to me all young folks today lack respect.”
Suzy noticed she spoke philosophically and didn’t criticize Sissy. “The difference is we may have thought those things, but we didn’t say ’em.”
Jenny laughed at the justice of that remark. “Things don’t change, I’m thinkin’.”
Mark slid his coloring book across the table. “Mommy, look,” he said. She held up the picture, and they both admired it; then he went back to his coloring and became very quiet again.
“But I’m worried about her. She dresses like a tramp. I just hope she doesn’t become one.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me about that! I’ve seen some of the things she wears, including her underthings, when she comes up to the farmhouse for a bath. I asked her about ’em once, and she said all the girls dress like that. I said, if all the girls shaved their heads bald, woul
d you? But she didn’t want to joke. ‘Grammy,’ she says, ‘I don’t want the other kids to laugh at me.’ Now that is a powerful thing. I can understand that even though in my day things were different. Parents controlled kids. Why, I couldn’t see Vernon without my mother or aunt bein’ nearby as a…What d’ya call it?”
“Chaperon?”
“Ayuh, that’s the word. We had to be real tricky to get some time alone, I can tell ya.”
“That goes back to what I was saying about Sissy thinking I didn’t understand. But when I tell her she’s making a mistake, I’m not just making things up. I went down the same road she’s traveling.”
“Which is?” She rose to get the hot water to freshen her tea. She offered water to Suzy, but she put up her hand.
“Thinking that the town boys were the promise of the future. Us upcountry folks mostly being poor, them ones that had doctors and lawyers and such for parents seemed like gods.”
“I’m guessin’ you went out with some of those young bucks.”
Suzy watched her swirl her old tea bag through the hot water, squeezing every last bit of tea out of it. “Yeah, I did. I guess I was considered pretty in high school—something Sissy would never believe, I’m sure. Anyways, quite a few of those boys asked me out. I discovered most of them were interested in just one thing.”
“I’m sure they were. My grandmother called it our virtue. Men were animals. We were pure and had to keep it that way. ’Course I see enough stuff on TV to know things ain’t that way now. That’s why I couldn’t put up much of an argument to Sissy ’bout her clothes. Young folks don’t want to feel different. On Oprah they call it peer pressure.”
“But it wasn’t only sex,” Suzy said a bit impatiently—Jenny was wandering away from what she wanted to say. “I remember one boy, Taylor Beckham. He was a doctor’s son, handsome, and a football player. He had a steady girl, but they had a fight and he asked me out.”
“I bet you were excited.”
“Excited, yes, but also ashamed. He was so rich his father bought him his own car, and not one of those old heaps boys soup up. This was brand-new and expensive, a really nice car. I didn’t know what he would think of the house we were living in.”
“That would be your Uncle Leighton’s place, I’m thinkin’.”
She nodded. “After Dad died in that hunting accident—I was only eight at the time—we had to move into one room at the house. Uncle Leighton and Aunt May were poor, of course, and there was no hiding it. I think Sissy has gone out with town boys, but she meets them somewhere in Waska. What I did, I came out the door as soon as I heard his car. I didn’t want him to see the house, I remember.”
“You know now it was honest poverty and nothing to be ashamed of. But,” she said, her voice rising in anticipation of something interesting, “you were sayin’ it wasn’t only sex. What was it, then?”
“When he got to town and driving towards Courtney Academy where the dance was, we passed this poor mangy stray dog. He looked scared and lonely and hungry too—he was skin and bones. The moment I saw him I began to feel sorry for the poor thing. I was working up the courage to say something like we should stop and help him, but before I could speak, do you know what Taylor said?”
Jenny shook her head. “You tell me.”
“He said, ‘Would you look at that miserable cur. Someone should put a bullet in his head.’ He spoke so coldly and he talked like the dog was something that made his life unpleasant. He had no feelings for the dog. I remember thinking that—don’t rich people feel? I don’t think I made the connection to how he really thought about me and our people, but later after the dance I did.”
“This sounds interesting,” Jenny said. “What do you mean?”
“Now I do mean sex. That’s all he wanted me for. On the way home after the dance he pulls into this dark lane—one of those old lumber roads. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and—”
“What? Did he rape you?”
“He tried, but I kneed him in the groin and got out of the car. I had to walk home, crying all the way.”
“I imagine that did it for you and city boys.”
“I was too stupid, I guess, ’cause I went out with some others after that. Most were like him, maybe not as bad, but like him. A few were okay. But, you know, I always had the feeling of being a stranger when I was with them. I began to realize I would miss things if I ever lived in town away from fields and woods and brooks and never hearing the owl hoot at night, never seeing deer gather at the edge of the woods at twilight, never watching barn swallows raising their young. I came to the conclusion that I belonged in the country among my own people. You know Luke was already sweet on me at the time. He was shy but I could see the way he looked at me on the school bus. I knew with him I’d never ride in a big fancy car or live in a big house. I knew we’d be poor. But I also knew he was as real as the dirt under my feet. He was real. He was honest and sensitive and a good man. We’ve had a hard life together, but I’ve always loved him despite his faults.”
Jenny seemed touched by her honesty. She was remembering her youth and the life she had lived. “Me and Vernon have been together over fifty years now. In one way we’re both lucky. There’s plenty of country folks who are brutes and boozers, but our menfolk ain’t. Both don’t talk much. Luke ’cause he’s shy, Vernon—well, I don’t know what it is with that old coot, but it’s like he’s playin’ poker all the time. Keeps his thoughts to himself. I can take credit for one thing, though. Neither of ’em don’t drink much. I told Vernon if he was gonna marry me he was gonna have to kiss the bottle good-bye. Kiss me and kiss the bottle good-bye.” She grinned, pleased with her humor. “But I’ve been thinkin’ about one thing that might make Sissy less huffy. It involves you all. I’m talkin’ ’bout our idea of you folks livin’ up here at the farmhouse. Now with Mark”—she pointed with a toss of her head at him in a way that said without saying “because he’s sick”— “it’s even more important.”
“You know the problem’s Luke.”
“Ayuh. That’s really what my idea is all about. I think it might bring him around, y’see.”
“You mean about us moving to the farmhouse?”
Jenny nodded. “Ayuh. I think it might bring him around. You know the farmhouse is looking run-down, and you know goin’ up a ladder is one thing I don’t allow Vernon to do. Well, s’pose we ask Luke to do some carpentry, some paintin’, fix the chimney up, that sort of thing. Spruce the old place up, you know.”
Mark interrupted to show them another picture. They both admired it. Jenny tousled his hair and called him a sweetheart.
“You mean, if he does all that work, it’s like he’s earned living here?”
“That’s it. I reckon he’d see that as a fair swap. I ain’t sayin’ it’ll work, but it’s worth a try. What with Mark feelin’ poorly ’n all, I think you folks really should be here. But he’s a stubborn one, always has been. It’s the reason he stayed in the country while Charlie moved to town.”
“It’s what he knows,” Suzy said. “He’s a woodsman. Always was, always will be.”
“Woods’s like farmin’. It ain’t no good anymore. No, he’s a stubborn one, that young fella.” She took her spectacles off and with her thumb and index finger rubbed the corners of her eyes. “But things are different now, as I say. Mark oughta make him see things different. Tell me again what Mrs. Carravali said.”
“Carnevale,” Suzy corrected. “She said that the company was responsible and they should pay.”
“That’s one of those Italian names, ain’t it?”
Suzy smiled. Jenny pronounced it “Eye-talian.” Just last week Mrs. Carnevale had asked her why the people upcountry pronounced it that way, and she said she didn’t know. They just did.
“Yes, she’s French, though. She told me her maiden name was Roy.”
“She’s still popish, I’m guessin’.”
“Uh huh, but she’s really quite nice.”
“So y
ou’ve said. I s’pose she has some job. All these women do. I don’t know how they raise kids.”
“Yes, she’s a legal secretary.”
“Legal secretary! She works for a lawyer?”
“Uh huh.”
“Why don’t you get her boss for a lawyer?”
“What? About Mark?” Suzy shook her head. “He ain’t the right type. He does deeds and stuff like that. They specialize, them lawyers.”
Jenny snorted indignantly. “It don’t need to be so complex. Right and wrong ain’t no mystery.”
They both looked up as Vernon came into the kitchen on his way to the bathroom. Suzy rose to take the clothes out of the washer and put them into the dryer. Jenny did a few dishes and got Mark a cookie and some milk. They both sat down, and Jenny refreshed their tea. Again she reused the tea bags, hers for the third time.
Vernon got out of the bathroom and came into the kitchen where he started looking for something on the cluttered shelf beside the stove.
“Vernon, what do you think it would take to get Luke to move here?”
He didn’t answer for some time. He found the matches he was looking for and lit his pipe, already packed with tobacco. It took two matches to get the thing going satisfactorily.
“Well, what do you have to say?”
He turned and gave her a sharp look as he shook the match to put it out. “I reckon he knows his own mind. He knows he’s welcome here. He knows we have room. It ain’t up to me to figger out what it’ll take.”
“He could use some persuading, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
Jenny spoke as sharply as his eyes had looked. Vernon’s inaction was obviously a bone of contention between them. His attitude was that most things were like the rain: they happened whether you liked it or not. Having said all he had to say, he walked past them on his way back to the shed.
“That man,” Jenny muttered. “It’s been fifty years and I’m still not used to him. Getting a word out of him is harder than getting blood from a stone.” Then she smiled and gave Suzy a look they both understood.
They were partners and had been for a long time, though in the early years of her marriage to Luke she kept her distance from Jenny. She lived on her land; she was the mother of her husband; she looked severe and unfriendly. Only with time did she grow to appreciate and like her mother-in-law and see that she was an older version of herself. Though they never spoke of it, both knew that they as women were stronger and wiser than their menfolk. Where Luke or Vernon consulted their male pride and feared losing face to other males, they as women knew their role was to see that the family survived. Pride was useless if your innocent children were in need. Saving face was stupid if it let life crush you. Thus the two women became allies. When she was sixty Jenny learned to drive. It was she who brought Suzy downtown to get surplus government food and food stamps. Together they would work on their men to bring about what they wanted. They always won because they never made it a contest with winners and losers.
Suzy, thinking of the toilet Vernon had used, changed the subject. “The man who came out to test our water said we were not up to code.”
“What’s code mean.”
“It’s the government requirements for all kinds of things in houses—electrical, plumbing, heating and the like. The man was talking about the plumbing.”
Jenny took a sip of tea and considered. “I bet he meant things like runnin’ water and flush toilets, right? There’s still a lot of country folk don’t have those things.”
“Yeah, like us.”
“So what did he do?”
She looked over at the table and watched Mark choosing a color. Most of the picture was done except the sky, but he didn’t seem to know he needed blue. Her pulse quickened. Then he picked up the blue crayon. Her eyes returned to Jenny. “Oh, he was a nice guy. He said he knew we had enough troubles without worrying about the plumbing and he would pretend he didn’t see it. He did say, though, we should try to get the plumbing fixed whenever we could spare the money.”
“I hear those plumbers charge a lot. Marge Manning told me a joke about it once. I forget how it goes, but it was about this plumber who comes to a doctor’s house to fix a faucet or somethin’ and it turns out he charged more than the doctor did for a house call. The joke was somethin’ about the plumber sayin’, ‘Yeah, I know that. I useta be a doctor.’” She grinned.
“Well, money’s something we ain’t got.”
“Did you tell Luke about it?”
“Yeah. He said he’d heard about them codes too, but it wasn’t some-thing we could plan on doing. He said he was working at a house under construction once. Plumbing up a house costs thousands upon thousands of dollars.”
“All the more reason Luke should see the sense of movin’ in here. We got plumbin’, we got a toilet. Did you know Vernon put it all in himself years ago? Yep, did it himself. It was after we stopped farmin’. With the money he got from sellin’ the cows and chickens and the pastures on the other side of the road, he had an artesian well dug, then did the rest of the work himself.”
“I remember.”
“Too bad he sold that land thirty years ago. With all them rich people movin’ up here and buildin’ them fancy houses, we coulda made a fortune.”
“Yeah, it is too bad.”
“But spilled milk,” Jenny said philosophically, “water over the dam. All we got is a bunch of richies livin’ amongst us and no money. But it’d be good faw ya to get ahold of one of those lawyers, I’m still thinkin’.”
“I know it would. But Luke doesn’t trust city folks.”
“It’s his shyness. He don’t know what to say to ’em.”
“I know.”
“But he’s a good man.”
“I know that too.”
They both looked up. Mark made a gurgling sound. Instantly Suzy was filled with panic. Jenny, sitting next to him, got to him before she did. She took his face in her hands and examined him, then looked at Suzy. “It’s nothin’. He just swallowed wrong.”
For a moment fear showed itself in Mark’s eyes, but when he saw they were calm, he too became calm and turned back to his coloring.
They sat back down. Jenny arranged the sugar bowl, shaped like a big apple and with the handle of the lid fashioned to resemble a stem, and tossed the two tea bags into the wastebasket. “I see on TV people can get a lot of money in them lawsuits.”
“The lawyers get a lot of it.”
“But there’s plenty left over. Do you think?”
“What? That we should sue?”
She nodded. “Ayuh. You yourself say somebody did this to Mark. He oughta pay, don’tcha think?”
“I do. Luke’s the problem.”
Jenny rubbed her arthritic hand. “He’s a man. I reckon he’d like a big load of cash like any other man.”
“He worries about paying for Mark. He doesn’t like the idea of charity. So…” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t really imagine being rich. It seemed an impossibility, something that happened to other folks. Their lot was to struggle and somehow survive. The thought of a lot of money actually scared her.
Suddenly she felt all talked out. Jenny seemed to feel it too. She got up and went to the same cluttered shelf where Vernon had searched for matches and found a recipe Marge Manning had given her for baking apple bread. They discussed it for a while and then went into the living room to look at some sewing Jenny was doing. She had been making intricate and beautiful lace doilies for years, some of which she sold and some which she gave for gifts. Her current doily was progressing slowly because her arthritic hands were painful. When Mark started to pick it up, for the first time since his illness she sharply rebuked him. With a look of panic that was the strongest emotion he had shown in weeks, he dropped it. The dryer buzzer sounded at that moment. She loaded the clothes into the two garbage bags and made plans for the trip to the hospital tomorrow morning (hoping by some miracle it wouldn’t be necessary); then they left.
Back home after folding the laundry she baked some peanut butter cookies with the government surplus peanut butter and flour. While they were baking in the oven she read with Mark one of his children’s books. She tried to get him to read some of the words without much success. Many of the words like “farm,” “cow,” and “rabbit” were ones she knew he knew. Feeling the familiar despair, she tried another method. With a pencil she wrote the words on a piece of paper and asked him to copy them. This he did quite well, making her feel better and mystified at the same time. Tomorrow she would ask the doctors about the difference.
For lunch she made grilled cheese sandwiches from government surplus cheese and bread she’d baked yesterday. Afterwards she swept and dusted the house and washed the kitchen floor. While cleaning she found herself thinking about Jenny’s doilies. Their furniture, the rug, even the pictures on the wall were all somebody else’s junk that they had gotten mostly from Hoot’s barn. She was a little bit jealous of Jenny, who was equally poor and yet could still bring roses out of muck. Maybe when the kids were all grown up and she could find the time for beauty, she would ask Jenny to teach her how to create those lace doilies.
After putting Mark to bed for his afternoon nap, she spent a hour working in the garden behind the house. Because she did a great deal of canning to get the family through the winter, it was large, twenty-five feet by thirty feet, and surrounded by a fence made of chicken-coop wire buried two feet into the earth to keep the rabbits, ground hogs and raccoons out. In a week or two she would plant the radishes, cukes, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, green beans, peas, and corn. Some years they managed to get cow manure for fertilizer, but Luke’s inquiries with some of the neighboring farms so far had been unsuccessful this year. Still, she had to clear the weeds out and turn the soil over. It was hard work so that after an hour her muscles told her she had done enough for today.
Back inside the house Mark was stirring. She gave him his medicine and then put him in front of the TV to watch a nature show on Maine Public Television. They only got over-the-air reception so that the nature show was her only choice.
She put the cookies, which had been cooling on the kitchen counter, into a tin, then looked through the cupboard for something to cook for supper. There was no meat in the house, but she had plenty of packages of macaroni and cheese, which all the kids, including Sissy, liked, and for a treat to go with the peanut butter cookies she got down a large can of fruit cocktail.
She was about to do some more reading exercises with Mark when she heard a car coming down the lane. Quickly she went to the window. This was pretty typical of her. Not many cars came their way. When they did she would always go to see who it was. She saw an expensive black car carefully making its way through the rut-filled gravel road. It stopped about fifty feet from their front door and two people got out, a man and a woman, though at first she thought it was two men.
The man was short and overweight. When he brought his hand up to wipe his brow she saw he wore a big diamond ring. He was rich. The sneer on his face when he regarded their house and turned to say something to the woman told her the same thing. He had an unpleasant face. Arrogance grew on it like a beard. She could tell he was used to being obeyed. He could never understand what it was like to be one of the small people of the world. He wouldn’t understand her life. They would talk across a river, maybe even an ocean. She felt her nerves start tingling and her mouth go dry. Instinctively she did not like this man, and yet looking at the woman who was with him, she disliked her even more. She was mannish, big-boned and tall—some two or three inches taller that the man. Her hair was short, almost the haircut of a man. For a moment she wondered if they were married, for both of them smelled of evil—the kind of smell you could see with your eyes. But this woman, with a briefcase in hand, was not likely to ever turn a man’s head. She had a protruding brow like pictures she’d seen of cavemen, and her face was hard. She was a mean woman, very unhappy, very bitter, and it showed.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Several officials, including the cops, had come to their place since Mark was sick. Even when Luke was home she did the talking, but these two were scarier than the others who had come, and she was alone.
She slipped away from the window and said to Mark, “Honey, I’ve got to talk to some people. You watch TV.” He looked up at her, then turned back to the TV. She wasn’t sure he understood her.
Before they knocked she opened the door and stood before it. She didn’t want them to come inside.
“Mrs. Kimball?” the man asked.
She nodded.
“I’m Ned Ridlon, and this is my assistant Anna Rokoviak.”
He pointed with his thumb to the woman beside him, and she said in a smarmy voice, “We do hope your dear boy is feeling better.”
Suzy folded her arms across her chest. Thoughts crowded into her mind, but she had no time to think. She felt all her muscles tighten. “He’s ’bout the same.”
“We heard about this incident and were shocked,” Ridlon said. “We’ve been going over our books for days now and can’t understand how our company’s name has been dragged into this tragic accident.”
“What do you mean?” Suzy asked. She knew a liar when she heard one.
Ridlon looked at her with a surprised expression that first flickered into a dark scowl before quickly changing into his imitation of what deep concern and wounded feelings were supposed to look like. “I mean that we can find no certain evidence of any of the things we are accused of—”
“But we feel terrible and feel we want to help you, my dear,” the woman said.
Suzy regarded them silently. The lady would have been brought along for the woman’s touch, but it wasn’t really in her. There was no softness there, not even any understanding of how to fake it. And Ridlon was ridiculous. He seemed to have the idea that the way to deal with poor folks was to talk to them like they were children.
They were waiting for her to say something. She looked behind her to see if Mark was okay. He was sitting in front of the TV quietly watching and seemed to have no curiosity about the strangers at the door.
“Help me?” she asked.
“Yes,” the woman said eagerly. “One thing we can do to prove our innocence is to show you we want to help—with medical bills and such, you understand.”
Suzy let out a little scornful laugh. “That’s very kind of you, I’m sure.”
Ridlon and the woman exchanged a glance. He tilted his head slightly, and she took the hint.
“My little niece was sick with meningitis last winter. The worry we went through! That’s why my heart bled when I read about your boy.”
“I have children of my own, Mrs. Kimball,” Ridlon said. “I know the worry they can cause. Believe me, we want to help.”
Mrs. Carnevale had suggested that she sue. She herself had thought of it when they were driving home from bringing Mark to the hospital and she had said, “Someone’s responsible for this.” Jenny talked about suing this morning. If the idea of suing could occur to Mrs. Carnevale, Jenny and her, then it wasn’t exactly miraculous that the idea could occur to Ridlon and that brute of a woman with him. They were afraid.
The thought emboldened her. “By help I assume you mean with money.”
Ridlon’s face brightened. “To pay for the boy’s medical expenses, you understand. It would make me feel good to be able to do something.”
“I don’t understand. Why do you want to feel good?”
The woman started to answer, but Ridlon was a clever devil, she could see. He’d noticed that she didn’t like the brute-woman and cut her off with a look. “Because somehow our good name has got mixed up in this business, this, er, terrible tragedy.”
He wasn’t all that clever. He was so full of himself that he couldn’t see that she disliked him too. The realization gave her an edge. “You do own that shed down by the pond, don’t you?”
“I do indeed. My father got it in payment from one of your neigh
bors, a gentleman name of Berry, father of the present one, I believe. My father used it for a fishing lodge. I’ve used it for storage for some time.”
“Is that why we’d hear trucks going down there in the middle of the night?”
Again she saw the anger darkening his face before quickly becoming suppressed. “What are you driving at, ma’am?”
“Only this. Honest folks do their business in the light of day.”
“As we do, Mrs. Kimball. Maybe those trucks you heard were the actual malefactors. You should tell the police. It might help clear my name.”
“I’ve already told them. I’ve told a young man who’s investigating the case too.”
“If you’re referring to a Chris Andrews, I’ve found out he’s a terrible, unlawful young man. I wouldn’t trust him if I was you. He’s what’s called an eco-terrorist.”
“But why should I trust you?”
“Because we want to help. Would twenty thousand cover the costs?”
She felt a stab in the pit of her stomach that unnerved her. “Twenty thousand dollars! That’s a lot of money.”
He shrugged. “Hospitals are expensive nowadays. I understand how it is. I could write you a check right now. All you’d have to do is sign a document for my tax accountant.”
“You’ve got it all written out?”
He looked puzzled. So did the woman.
“I’m figgering you planned this,” she said. She looked behind her to see Mark growing restless. She had to make a quick decision, and yet twenty thousand dollars was so much money she hesitated.
But they misunderstood her and made the decision easier.
“Maybe thirty thousand would be better suited to your boy’s needs,” Ridlon said, looking like a hog buyer dickering in a pile of muck.
“Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. But I’ll have to talk to my husband about it, and right now my boy needs me.” Then with a strength of will she didn’t know she had, she closed the door on them.
With her heart racing, she listened to them talking but couldn’t make out much more than that they were angry.
“They’re afraid,” she whispered to herself, but so was she.
Day Trip
