The Keening

by A. LaFaye

  The sea had taken all my anger and whipped it into a gale, filling the waves with my grief and crashing them into the shore over and over until nothing remained. Hollowed, only my wet clothes weighed me down as I climbed the cliffs.

  The house looked like a lantern all lit up in the gray mist of the storm. News of Mater’s death had reached the Bradleys. Now they had come. I wanted to be alone. Curl up under the downy covers Mater had made for me with flannel backing so soft it felt like sleeping in furs. But they heard me come in the front door and rushed around me like I’d come in bleeding instead of wet.

  “Oh, child,” Granny Bradley cried, “you’ll catch the fever that killed your mater.” They spun around me—a storm of noise—bringing blankets, warm tea, and bandages for my skinned knees.

  Riding on the sound of their words, I drifted back to the dawn of the funeral march. To the shadow that’d passed through our house. In my mind’s eye, it’d taken on the form of a man with skin as pale as the underbelly of a fish, eyes sunken and black, lips blue with death—waiting in the dark corner of the room.

  Granger howled as he paced the floor among us, fearful of all the clatter. Or did he sense that spirit lurking?

  I heard my uncles shushing Granny, then saw her face leaning toward me, round, pale, and wrinkled like Pater had carved it from a cabbage. “Lyza.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Where is your mater?”

  “Abner Island. Next to Grampy.”

  “He buried her?” Uncle Garrett yelled, standing up to stare at his brothers for their reactions. Fenton looked stricken, like he might fall sick at any moment. Marl just rubbed his bushy eyebrows with the heels of his hands.

  Granny slumped into the window seat next to me with a sigh. “Not even a proper funeral.”

  I didn’t speak. I hated to talk about Pater in front of them. Mater had stopped visiting her town folks on account of the way they swarmed like a pack of dogs, snarling and snapping about Pater and his fit-for-the-farm ways. They meant Elysian Fields. Granny and Mater’s brothers were forever saying awful things about Pater, so Mater stopped visiting. And no one ever came to the house. Oh, Granny might come to the end of the point and ring our bell to ask Mater to come for a walk, but none of them had ever come into the house.

  Until Mater died.

  Now they all wanted to be inside. I laughed, remembering Mater muttering as she peeled apples into long swirls, as if once she’d started peeling she couldn’t stop until she got to the core. She said, “You know, it’s such a wicked, cruel ritual. Folks gathering in your house after you’re dead. Talking about all the things they never said to you. What gives them the right? If they didn’t have the strength to say it to your face, then they should be forced to swallow it until they meet you soul to soul on the other side. Why should they get to feel better after you’re dead?”

  I’d shrugged, trying my hand at apple swirls and coming away with wet little lumps that looked like slugs.

  “You know.” Mater shook her knife at me. “That’ll probably be the only time my family sets foot in this house.” With a snap of her wrist, Mater sent the knife straight into the window frame. “I’ll be dead. And they’ll come in this house like they’ve got a right. I hope Evan keeps the doors locked.”

  Pater had done one better. He’d carried her away.

  But they still came. And it made me mad enough to keep quiet about Pater.

  “Lyza?” Granny shook me. “Your uncles and I are going for Pastor Dempsy.”

  “No.” I stood up, letting the blankets fall. Heading to the door, I said, “Mater never went to church. She didn’t even like Pastor Dempsy. If you want a funeral, have it at your own house.” I opened the door.

  “You’re talking nonsense, child.” Granny came toward me.

  I pointed to the back stoop. “Nonsense is having a church funeral for a woman who hated them.”

  “My Lord.” Granny covered her mouth and began to cry.

  Hugging her, Uncle Marl said, “It’s all right, Mother. Grief’s got her good sense.”

  “What about you?” Uncle Garrett frowned at me, pulling on his rusty-looking beard. “Who’s going to take care of you?”

  “Yes, manage the house and the affairs,” Fenton added, waving his hand around.

  Looking over his mother’s head, Uncle Marl said, “I don’t think your pater knows how to make change for a dollar let alone pay a bill.”

  “Get out!” I wanted them gone before this turned into another attempt to have Pater packed off to the farm.

  Granny snapped her head up, shouting, “You should not talk to your elders in such a manner, young lady!”

  Before I could say a thing, Uncle Marl ushered her to the door. “Let’s go, Mater.”

  “She’s upset,” Fenton said, patting his mother’s back.

  Following them all out the door, Garrett said, “Give her time, Mater. She’ll come round asking for our help.”

  “And we’ll gladly give it,” Fenton stepped back toward the house as if a nagging thought had turned him. “Lyza, there’s something else.”

  What else could matter now?

  Uncle Garrett took Fenton’s arm. “Not now, Fenton. She has enough to deal with.”

  Fenton looked at me, long and sorrowful. What more could they add to the weight on my shoulders? Did Mater leave a bill unpaid? Were there others who’d come out against Pater? Fenton didn’t say. He simply followed his brothers and his mater to the car, which they’d left on the road for fear of the deep ruts in our drive.

  I closed the door on them and whatever new troubles they’d dragged in through the mud. I could practically hear Granny Bradley going on about how Mater’s soul would be wandering forever if they didn’t give her a church burial.

  Hugging Granger for comfort, I remembered the battle over Mater attending Grampy’s funeral.

  “It’s God’s way, Mayra. He insists we bury our dead with respect,” Granny said, gripping the back of Grampy’s chair at their kitchen table.

  “Which commandment is that in, Mother?” Mater asked, spinning her teacup by the saucer. “Was there some fine print under ‘Thou shalt not kill’ that I missed?”

  “Stop that, Mayra.” Granny set her jaw. “I won’t have you mocking the Lord’s Word in my house.”

  “I’m not mocking His Word. I’m mocking the way people use it. As if their way of seeing things is the only way.” Mater stood up, put her shawl over her arm, then went to the back door. “Pater’s soul is safe on its journey. And it has nothing to do with you or me. Pater made his peace with God an age ago. A funeral’s just for your peace of mind. And mine’s quite peaceful already.”

  And out she went, leaving me like a piece of laundry alone on the line in an icy wind. Granny stood between me and the door.

  And she knew it. She turned to me, saying, “What do you think, Lyza?”

  “Pater says funerals make the living feel better about death.”

  “That sounds sane enough.” She seemed shocked. “But we need to pay our respect by burying him proper.”

  A thought hit me, so I said it out loud. “I wonder if they had a funeral for Christ?”

  “The Good Book doesn’t say, but I’m sure they did.”

  Being sure. That’s what Mater had meant. Everyone felt so sure they knew the answers that they held other people to them too. What right did they have to do that? No right at all. So Mater, Pater, and I honored Grampy in our own way.

  That night we stood on the edge of the cliff, kites in our hands, made after a fashion like those Grampy sold to city folks who came up for a bit of wind and sea. Letting our kites fly up into the wind, we all shouted, “Happy journey!” Then we let go.

  “Happy journey, Pater,” Mater whispered as she held my hand.

  And now, as I sat there with my back against the door, I wished her the same, my thoughts following those kites as they rose up into the clouds.

  Worth Going Back For

  The stillness of the house frigh
tened me. The blowing rain attacked the house from all sides, but it didn’t disturb the silence within. Wandering the rooms with Granger close behind me, I found myself opening all the doors, even the closets, touching what had been Mater’s.

  The book she hadn’t finished in a spine-up tent on the table by the parlor fireplace; the towel she’d looped through her belt while helping Pater cook; the shirt and pants she’d thrown over the back of the fire-side chair to wear that day.

  Slipping off my wet nightdress, I pulled on Mater’s clothes, rubbing my arms to feel the crispness of the shirt, drawing the collar over my nose to breathe in her scent—the faint hint of fall leaves, with a bitter twist of cumin.

  A knock at the window felt like glass breaking inside me—my nerves nothing but shards. I spun to see Jake, wet and pale. I raced to the door to let him in. He stood at the edge of the house, looking drenched and ragged, ready to be washed away in the rain.

  “Come in!”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  Afraid of the influenza like everyone else. And who wouldn’t be after all it had taken from this world? The pain of my loss became suddenly sharp.

  “She died, Jake.” That’s all I could say.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  I wanted his words to mean more than the rain that drowned them out, but what could words do against something so final as death?

  “I can’t stay,” he said. “But if you go to Portland, I’ll go with you. I need to go with you like you promised.”

  What did I care of high school exams now? I couldn’t leave Pater. Why would Jake even think of such things? The water had soaked into that boy’s brain. “Get out of this storm, Jake. Go home.”

  He started running, looking all blurry in the rain. “I’m sorry, Lyza! So sorry!”

  Just seeing him all wet and cold made me shiver.

  Stepping to the fire, I threw my nightdress in and watched it smoke and burn, steam rising through the flames. I thought of the fire I’d left for Pater. He wouldn’t feed the flames. He didn’t have clean clothes. The cabin didn’t have food. Pater needed me, but would he let me help? Even Mater had to trick him into letting her help.

  The metal whine of the weather vane above filled my head with the sound of Mater tuning her cello on the rocks beyond Pater’s workshop. The cello was such a beautiful lure to draw Pater out and make him eat. Pater’d wander out to hear her play. And when she’d trapped him in her notes, she’d rush up to get between him and the workshop door, saying, “Time to fill in your own face!” She’d rub his hollow cheeks and he’d laugh.

  If she was in a hurry, she might throw rocks at his studio door. I’d seen her fire them so rapidly that she’d hit him in the forehead because he opened the door mid-throw. Cooking food on the brick stove they built down there worked sometimes, especially if she roasted pumpkin seeds in garlic butter. Pater loved pumpkin seeds.

  He’d come out of the studio, pale, slow, and covered in dust, but he’d always stop to press his face into the side of Mater’s. Not kissing her, just touching her and pulling in her smell.

  “Worth coming back for,” he’d say.

  Mater’d lean into him, laughing.

  Standing by that fire in our empty house, I feared I wasn’t worth coming back for.

  Pater Adrift

  Packing food and clothes into a crate, I left a window open for Granger to come and go, then headed out to the island in the true darkness of night, the sea settling after the storm, the water frothy but calm.

  I found Pater at his post, wedged into the corner, clothes stiff with dirt. He rubbed the quilt on his lap. “Do you think she would’ve preferred her quilt? Maybe the furs are too warm for her.”

  He stared at the door, his eyes blank and searching. I recognized that look. Pater could drift in his search for a new face for days, even weeks. He’d sit for hours, staring. At meals, Mater’d put warm food in front of him, then wrap her arms around him, trying to rub the life back into his limbs. When he slept, nightmare searches drove him to walk the cliffs. I often feared they’d lead him right over the edge one night.

  Perhaps if I knew more about the place he traveled to in his mind, I’d find a way to guide him home again. Bring him into my boat and row us both ashore.

  Sitting on the bed, I asked, “Pater, where is Mater?”

  “Coming.”

  “From where, Pater?”

  “Where they all go.” Pater blinked, then frowned. “I need stone. Alabaster is too white. Your Mater had such beautiful tan skin. Maybe I’ll use some nice sandy granite from Vinyalhaven.” He slid off the bed, then started unpacking the crate as if I’d just returned from the store. He set to making dinner. I stood back, wondering how he traveled so quickly into the real world from that far-off place he drifted into.

  Pater could be so ordinary—sitting at the table, eating corn bread and beans, asking me to pass the butter. Then in a flicker, he’d throw a glass of milk in his face and laugh, as if he was surprised to be wet. Like an illusion card, Pater had two faces—a sane one and a crazy one. And in a milk-throwing flash, he’d turned the crazy one to face us.

  Did that mean he was insane? In times of fear, I almost believed it did.

  As a child, I had nightmares about men from the farm coming for him in the night. In their dark denim pants, flannel shirts, and heavy lumberjack boots, holding out blankets like nets, they’d surround him, wrapping him again and again until he couldn’t move. Mater shouted, beating them with her fists, but they lifted Pater like a log and walked out the door. Pater never said a word, just stared off, searching for another face as they walked away with him into the night.

  A silly child’s dream, but it held a lot of truth. I grew up fearing Pater would one day disappear. Drift off somewhere even Mater couldn’t reach. And now with Mater gone, I feared it all the more.

  Pater cooked spaghetti for dinner, but he didn’t eat it. He only took noodles out of the bowl and shaped them on his plate—whales, flowers. Then, one noodle line at a time, he formed Mater’s face, right there on the table, right down to the scar that rose up like a second left eyebrow and disappeared into her hairline.

  Pater traced it with his finger. “The line that Marl drew between them with a knife.”

  Mater always told me she’d gotten it falling through a window when they were roughhousing as kids. Rubbing it, she’d say, “If you want to be treated like a boy, there’s nothing better than having a twin brother who wished you were one.”

  Pater looked surprised to find bread on the table. Plucking up a piece, he swirled it into a long roll, then stuffed it into his mouth.

  “Uncle Marl cut Mater?

  Humming while he munched his bread, Pater rearranged Mater’s face into the sea. I waited, hoping he’d come back to the story he’d started when he finished chewing.

  Once he’d finally swallowed the bread, he started making circles.

  “Pater, you said Uncle Marl cut Mater with a knife. How’d it happen?”

  “Me.”

  “What?”

  Concentrating on his circles, Pater bit his tongue.

  He sniffed, then told the story straight, with all the tiny details that allowed me to travel with him to the tavern on the Eastgate Pier, the Rusty Nail, its old metal sign forever whining as it swayed in the sea breeze.

  The three of them stood out front, the wind tossing their hair and their voices.

  “Not getting married?” Marl shouted, wiping his knife on his coat sleeve. The Rusty Nail would fry up any fish you brought in, but you had to gut it first. They had a butcher block and a garbage bin out front for customers to use.

  “I didn’t say that,” Mater answered, the strings on her shawl blowing in the wind. “I said we’re not being married in a church.”

  “Why not?” Marl asked, flipping the fish he’d cleaned for their supper.

  Pater stood back, his eye on the knife.

  “Why? All the expense. The empty routine. Nosy people
whispering under their breath.”

  “Because you’re marrying a fool!” He pointed the knife at Pater.

  Pater noticed how much a knife looks like paper when you stared at it edgewise—hardly scary at all.

  Mater tilted her head back, shouting,” Use that word once more and you’ll be eating that fish raw!”

  “All right. I know you won’t be talked out of staying with that man, but why, for God’s sake won’t you do it proper? Marry him in a church with God as a witness.”

  “It’s impossible to do anything without God as a witness. That’s why we had our own ceremony at home.”

  Marl went stone still, then said real slow, “Home?”

  “We bought a place out on the point.”

  “With what?”

  “Pater’s boat money.”

  “Boat money!” He shook the knife at Mater.

  From the side, a knife looks like a tooth, the tooth of a whale so enormous it could swallow you without realizing what it’s done. That’s how Pater saw it, and he stepped closer.

  Marl kept waving the knife in Mater’s face. “You have no right to use that money for a damn house. It’s meant for a boat. My boat.”

  “Money goes to the first child. It’s a tradition. You seem fond of traditions, Marl. Why’s this one upset you so?”

  “You’re . . . you’re not even a fisherman!”

  “A good reason not to use it on a boat.”

  “Don’t mock me, woman.” He pointed with the knife.

  “Knives cut,” Pater said.

  “Shut up, idiot!”

  Mater slapped Marl. Her shawl dropped off her shoulders and you could see as plain as a seagull on the rocks, Mater carried me inside her belly.

  Marl stepped back. “You’re bringing a child into this world with that thing for a father?”

  Mater grabbed the fish in a tight fist, then lunged at Marl. Panicked, Marl threw up his knife arm to ward her off, cutting her across the forehead.

  Mater gripped her head with a scream as Pater rushed up, kicked Marl in the wrist, sending the knife flying. He gave Marl such a shove that he stumbled backwards and fell right off the edge of the pier.