by Jim Nelson
Hanna remembered that knife. It seemed appropriate out in the woods, like having a rifle on the wall. She always was a little scared of Ma Cynthia. She spoke her mind whenever they visited the farm. She criticized everyone, her mother, her father, Uncle Rick and Aunt Azami, even Hanna. No one did anything right, according to Ma Cynthia. But now, with this one revelation, Hanna beheld her grandmother with a fresh measure of awe. Gardening, vegetables, hand-tinted photos, midwifing—how did she learn all these things?
Aunt Azami peered across the room, verifying Uncle Rick was still asleep. “Before your grandmother delivered your mother,” Aunt Azami said softly, “she drilled your uncle on everything he was to do when the time came. He was only six, but living on that farm, he grew up pretty fast, as you might imagine. When the time arrived, he prepared the water and soap and towels while Ma Cynthia began coaching her bridge through the delivery.”
Aunt Azami eyes were veiny and pink. “Your Uncle Rick held his bridge sister’s hand through the entire labor. He was just a child. She died right there in front of him. Her hand was clenched so tight, his little fingers went numb. Then her hand relaxed and…fell away. And there was Ma Cynthia swaddling your mother and rocking her in her arms. He told me, it was like she didn’t notice her dead daughter lying before her.”
She continued after a moment. “Your Uncle Rick, he did everything he’d been told to do. He pulled the blanket over his bridge sister’s face and got up and went to the next room. He called the county and told them to bring the morgue van. Then he began heating bottles of milk and drawing water for the baby’s bath.”
Aunt Azami looked over at Rick again, longingly. “Ma Cynthia caught him when he was eight or nine crying over his bridge sister. She told him he could cry that once and no more.”
She reached over and stroked the side of Hanna’s head. “I’m not telling you all this to scare you. I really don’t know why he drinks so much. But I think, somewhere deep down, that’s where it started.”
After a long silence, Aunt Azami said it was time to turn in. She and Hanna stripped the back cushions off the couch and placed pillows at one end. Aunt Azami tucked in Hanna between layers of blankets. Within a minute Hanna was toasty-warm, from toes to neck. Aunt Azami changed into a long shirt herself. She hit Uncle Rick on his ribs until he rolled to one side of the bed. Then she slipped under the covers.
“Don’t worry about the radiator,” she said across the room to Hanna. “It talks in the middle of the night. It’s normal.” And she turned off the light.
*
A great clanging of hollow metal awakened Hanna. Off in the corner, the cast iron steam radiator banged twice again, then rattled. She remembered Aunt Azami’s assurances, she told herself it was an old building and old buildings do this kind of thing, but she could not return to sleep.
In her unwinding imagination, someone or something lived in the basement. It slammed the flat of a heavy wrench against a lead pipe, one of hundreds of pipes snaking through the basement, a pipe for each dwelling in the building. Its banging was delivered up the walls and into the apartment, like sending a message through an old-fashioned pneumatic tube. An ominous telegraph from below addressed to Hanna and detailing things to come.
Thirteen
When Hanna awoke, it all came to her at once: lightheadedness, the golf-ball lump in the back of her throat, the taste of old pennies in her mouth. She bounded barefoot across the thin carpet and made it to the bathroom in time.
“You okay?” Aunt Azami called from the kitchen.
“I’m fine,” Hanna called back, vomit dripping from her lips. She spit out the last of it, flushed, and washed up. It was a one-vomit morning. She felt better now.
The bed curtains were tied to the walls and the bed was made. Food was on the table, a glass of pineapple juice and a plate of eggs and toast. Aunt Azami washed dishes in the kitchen, wrapped in a lavender cotton robe cinched tight around her waist.
“Good morning,” she said, hands in the sink’s sudsy water. “Can you eat? I made some breakfast for you.”
“Where’s Uncle Rick?”
“He left for work at five.”
Hanna couldn’t imagine rising that early, and not understanding hangovers, she barely conceived of the willpower it took for him to do so five days a week.
She fell into the chair before the plate of eggs and dug in. Her empty stomach beckoned. “I can’t wait to see the Flower Mart,” she said. “I’ve wanted to go there for so long.”
“Hanna,” Aunt Azami said cautiously, “your parents will be here any minute.”
Hanna felt something drop out of her insides.
“I spoke with them this morning,” Aunt Azami continued. “They didn’t want to wait any longer. Your mother is all torn up.”
Hanna set down her fork. She had no more appetite. She drank the pineapple juice for its sugar, to get her engine started, but it tasted acidic and had the consistency of whole milk, and nothing seemed pleasurable that morning.
*
Hanna’s mother rushed inside and hugged Hanna. She felt around Hanna’s back repeating, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
“Thanks for watching her.” Hanna’s father stood in the hallway beyond the front door. “We’re sorry to put you out like this.”
“It’s no problem,” Aunt Azami said. “We’re happy to have her.”
Hanna stood in the entryway, arms hanging at her side, while her mother crouched on her knees and continued hugging her deeply. Hanna felt like she was being pressed into her mother, as though she wanted to return Hanna to her womb. She knew the outpouring of affection and her mother’s question—“Are you okay?”—were not directed at Hanna but the child inside her. A miser hugs the lockbox tight to his chest, but he does not love the lockbox, only the precious gold inside.
*
In the car, her father navigating downtown traffic, Hanna made one more play. “Can I say goodbye to Uncle Rick?”
Hanna’s mother turned around in the passenger’s seat to look Hanna in the eyes. “Were they smoking in front of you?”
Hanna, off-guard, truthfully shook her head no.
“Were they smoking in their apartment?”
“I didn’t smell cigarettes,” Hanna’s father said.
“Hanna?”
Hanna shook her head again, beginning to realize where this was leading.
“There’s tobacco smoke in her sweater,” her mother said to her father.
Her father chuckled and looked at Hanna in the rearview mirror. “You better tell your mother where you went last night.”
“Did your uncle take you to a bar last night?”
Hanna sank into the backseat cushions, shoulders collapsing inward, head down.
“I want to go to that Flower Mart right now,” her mother said to her father. He was smiling a puckish smile, one even Hanna could see from the backseat.
*
The San Francisco Flower Mart took up an entire city block, most of it fenced off. Through the chain link Hanna watched panel trucks and pallet lifts in action, moving boxes and crates of blooms from loading docks into the main building, a flat, featureless warehouse with sliding metal gates wide open for foot traffic. A smaller, more personable building ran along the street with florist business names above each door. From years of listening to Uncle Rick’s gripes about work, Hanna knew the florists and downtown flower stands used these offices to transact business with the wholesalers inside the warehouse.
As the trio crossed the floor of the warehouse, Hanna gawked at the flowers around her. Pallets organized by variety and color filled each wholesaler’s portion of the sales floor. Some specialized, such as an orchid dealer with hundreds of the weird plants on stands and tables. Another wholesaler decorated its sales area with red Chinese paper lanterns and a twisting dragon kite strung to the rafters. Cincotti’s Flowers was in the rear of the warehouse, its floor area lined with long rows of annuals and perennials in buckets. Hanna ran her hand over
the top of a field of penstemon plants, leafy and tall, their elongated stems lined with umber blossoms like velvet trumpets.
“Ritchie!” her mother called out. Across the warehouse floor, Uncle Rick pushed a stack of boxes with a hand truck. A quick grin split his beard. He left the boxes to trot over to Hanna and her parents.
“Hey, Dee.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Barry, good to see you.”
“Thank you for taking care of Hanna last night,” her mother said with an unmistakable terseness.
“No problem at all. Right, squirt?”
“Did you take Hanna to Azami’s bar last night?”
Uncle Rick’s grin slowly collapsed, like a circus tent deflating. Hanna felt squishy and embarrassed—embarrassed for herself, embarrassed for Uncle Rick, embarrassed to be seen with her lecturing mother.
“I thought we could go see Azami,” Uncle Rick said. “She wasn’t getting off until two, so, yeah, we went and visited for a little bit.”
“You took her to a bar.”
“It’s not what you think,” Uncle Rick said. “It’s a neighborhood place. People bring their kids in some times,” although Hanna did not see any other children there.
“What if the police found her?” her mother said.
“They’d look the other way. Dee, the cops know the bar, they know Azami, they’re not going to—“
“Her sweater smells like an ashtray,” her mother said, tugging at the elbow of Hanna’s sleeve. “I don’t want her around smokers, you understand? Or people drinking of all things.”
It went on like this for another minute, Uncle Rick taking the drubbing, nodding, admitting he did wrong, and finally asking for forgiveness.
“But it was all my idea,” he said. “Don’t blame Azami. Or Hanna. Please.”
Hanna’s mother chewed on that for a second, considering all that had been said, then asked Rick for a hug. They embraced for a long moment, swinging a bit. Hanna’s father looked down on Hanna with a blank expression. He winked and she knew it was okay.
“Okay,” Hanna’s mother breathed out, wiping the corners of her eyes. “We will talk about this when we get home,” she said to Hanna.
“Can I see the rest of the Flower Mart?” she asked.
She could not. It was time to go.
*
Hanna’s father followed the signage directing them to the Bay Bridge. Once they were crossing the bay, Hanna’s mother turned to face Hanna again.
“When we get home, we’re going to have a talk,” she said. “There’s going to be some changes.”
Hanna nodded meekly, feeling the weight of judgment lowering in the car.
“Your father and I had a long discussion last night,” her mother said. “This ‘experiment’ of ours, this experiment of raising you differently than other bridge daughters, we’re now reconsidering that.”
Hanna, shrunk down as far as she could in the car seat, shrugged.
“We’re going to cut back your school hours,” she said, meaning the time Hanna spent at the kitchen table being homeschooled. That sounded like a pretty good deal, until her mother continued. “Instead, we’re going to have you follow more traditional roles. You’ll be taking more responsibility about the house.”
Hanna, throat dry, thought back on what the biologist had told her in the bar. “But we don’t have any other children.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought bridge daughters took care of the other children.”
“Long time ago,” her father said.
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, “there will be plenty for you to do. And there will be some new rules.”
“Like what?”
“Speaking only when spoken to,” her mother said. “Asking for permission. You’ll always be at my side when we’re out of the house.”
Reading and writing, the freedom to speak her mind, books of her own and a real allowance, pittance it may be—this hybrid of bridge-rearing, her mother’s blend of tradition and new thinking, this was the experiment her parents abandoned while Hanna sat on a bar stool munching maraschino cherries.
Hanna turned in the backseat to admire San Francisco’s skyline one last time. The pyramid, the tower, the prison on the island, the Ferry Building’s great neon sign proclaiming SAN FRANCISCO—the car shot into the tunnel and all of it was gone.
Fourteen
Hanna awoke with her mother standing over her. She had a grim, almost imperious air.
“You’ll be making breakfast today,” she told Hanna. “We’ll have pancakes.”
Hanna, sullen, rose and followed her mother to the kitchen, still in her pajamas. She retrieved the box of dry mix from the pantry. At her mother’s prompting she read the directions on the side of the box, located the necessaries in the refrigerator and cabinets, and whipped up the batter. A side of bacon was in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, and with her mother looking on, got four strips sizzling in a pan.
Satisfied with her progress, her mother sat at the table with her coffee and unfolded the newspaper before her. Hanna wordlessly prepared the breakfast and poured apple juice for them both. Food on two plates, she brought the meal to the table.
“You need to set the table,” her mother said without looking up.
Hanna returned the hot plates to the countertop and set the table. Her mother held up the newspaper so Hanna could put the utensils and placemat before her. Hanna then presented the meal. She wondered if she had to wait for her mother to start eating, but her mother indicated it was fine for her to begin.
“Is this my punishment?” Hanna said down to her pancakes.
“This is how other bridge daughters are raised,” her mother said.
“I said I’m sorry.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” her mother said. “Traditional bridge daughters would eat in the kitchen standing up.”
That confused Hanna. “Why?”
“Your place is not at the table,” Hanna’s mother said coolly.
They ate quietly for a few minutes facing each other. Hanna’s mother did not look at Hanna, finishing the newspaper while eating.
“There’s a reason we let you stay with your aunt and uncle last night,” her mother finally said. “I was furious at you for running off. Your father suggested we let you stay in San Francisco so we could discuss the situation between ourselves. Maybe, I told him, maybe we should have stayed with the old ways, like how Ma Cynthia raised her bridge daughters.”
“I don’t like it,” Hanna said softly.
“I don’t care for it either,” her mother said, “but the way you’ve been acting lately, and running off like that—running away, exactly like I’ve been warned you would since before you were born. I always told myself, My bridge daughter won’t do that, I’ll raise her right. And then you go and do it, threatening the life of my child…” She shook her head. “When you finish, we’ll start making cookies.”
Hanna brightened. “Cookies?”
“We’re going to the Grimonds’ for coffee,” her mother said. “You’ll be expected to act properly there, too.”
On the Grimond’s front porch, the door opened to reveal a drab Erica Grimond. She stared at them with saucerous eyes. Hanna wore a featureless dress much like Erica’s, gray and unadorned, tight about her neck and hanging straight to her shins. Her mother had purchased it and more like it the day before, at the end of their drive back from San Francisco.
“Please come in,” Erica said blankly, standing aside. Hanna’s mother entered followed by Hanna, who kept close behind her and careful to maintain her posture.
Mrs. Grimond swept into the room wearing a taupe blouse and bright red toreadors. Hanna thought the pants made her look hippy, but said nothing.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” she said to Hanna’s mother. “What are these?”
Hanna stepped forward and offered the plate. “I made cookies.”
Mrs. Grimond raised her eyebrows and grimaced at Hanna’s mother
as though a tad embarrassed for her. Hanna’s mother pinched the back of Hanna’s arm. Hanna receded like a touched snail returning to its shell.
“I hope you like chocolate chip,” Hanna’s mother said.
“Of course,” Mrs. Grimond said. Then, to Erica, “We’ll have cookies with our coffee.” She looked to Hanna’s mother. “And sandwiches after?”
“You shouldn’t have.”
Erica took the plate from Hanna and went soundlessly to the kitchen, her soft flat shoes like moccasins on the carpeted floor. Hanna’s mother pushed her by the arm. Hanna followed Erica’s path, looking backward at the women as they took their ease on the living room couches.
The kitchen’s heavy swinging door completely cut them off from the rest of the house. Coffee already brewed, Erica deftly poured two hot blacks into tasse à café cups. A service tray with saucers and cubed sugar in a bowl stood ready on the counter. Erica saucered the coffees and filled a creamer with half-and-half from the refrigerator.
“Are you going to help?” she finally said to Hanna.
Hanna jumped. “Of course!”
Erica pointed at the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. “I need a salad plate and two smaller plates.” She pointed to the countertop. “Fold two napkins. And there’s a thin vase in that cabinet. We’ll add a flower from the bunch.” A spray of yellow daisies cheered up the kitchen from their perch over the sink.
Hanna instinctively prioritized. She retrieved the flower vase first. Long-necked with a bulbous base, like an elongated gourd, Hanna added cold water, then selected the best daisy she could find in the bouquet. She looked through drawers for a pair of scissors to trim the daisy’s stem. When it was prepared, she turned and realized, red-faced, Erica had finished the other tasks, folding the napkins and plating the chocolate chip cookies. Erica stood in the center of the kitchen, lips crimped, smoldering while Hanna dawdled with the flower.
