Our Only May Amelia

by Jennifer L. Holm

  And he did.

  He brought me here to Uncle Henry and Aunt Feenie’s house in Astoria. They had not come to the funeral on account of not getting the bad news in time. I cannot remember how we got there, only that I was cold through to my very bones, cold as the ground where Baby Amy lay. Wilbert says he thought he’d lost me, that he’d watched the light go out of my eyes when the horrible words left Grandmother Patience’s mouth. Somehow Wilbert convinced a gillnetter to take us across the Columbia in his bateau, the tide against us, the river so full of ice and the wind blowing so hard that he could barely see. Later they told us that it was a miracle we even made it across.

  I imagine we must have been quite a sight on that cold winter day, us two children showing up in the dark, half frozen to death, me wearing Wilbert’s coat having thrown mine off me and he frozen straight through from not having his coat to wear seeing as it was supposed to be warming me but not doing a very good job of it at all.

  Uncle Henry answered the door when Wilbert knocked and he didn’t blink twice to see two frozen children standing on his porch as if they had a right to be there, I swear I do not think anything shocks my uncle. He just said Feenie I believe we have got some children here for supper, best set out the extra plates.

  Aunt Feenie came to the door, took one look at me and Wilbert, what a sight we must have made, and said Dear Lord children what on earth has happened?

  And then I guess I fainted.

  When I woke up I thought: I am in heaven. It was so warm and there was such a beautiful sweet voice talking to me, I was certain I was in paradise after all, but when I opened my eyes I saw that it was Aunt Feenie and I was in the most glorious bed, and she was bathing me off with warm water and rose soap and she said, Child don’t you try to speak to me now you just rest, just close your eyes and rest and after a time I did just that.

  The second time I woke up I heard someone screaming as if they had been killed or worse and I said to myself, Who is that poor soul screaming like that, as if their skin is being ripped off or something horrible I cannot imagine what and then all of a sudden I was being shook and I heard Wilbert saying Wake Up May Wake Up May and I realized it was me who was screaming. It was me.

  After that Wilbert spent the night with me, burying us both beneath a nest of quilts, holding me tight, rocking me as if I was Baby Amy and saying over and over, May Amelia Jackson don’t you give up on me, you hear me May, I am not about to stand for it, you come back to yourself and me, do you understand me?

  And then he rubbed my back, rubbed it warm and soft like he used to when we were small children and learning our alphabets, wrote my name on my back, a long swirly cursive M, a floppy A, a show-off hook of a Y.

  And finally after a very long time I said I did not kill Baby Amy I did not she just fell asleep and didn’t wake up, I didn’t kill her Wilbert.

  He just said I Know May.

  I know.

  I’m not going back, I say.

  It is the first time I have spoken to Aunt Feenie since us children showed up on their porch.

  Uncle Henry and Aunt Feenie exchange a glance. Wilbert has told them what happened on the Smith Island.

  But May, Aunt Feenie says in a gentle voice. My kind gentle aunt.

  I’m not, I say.

  And that’s that.

  Pappa shows up on the porch and Aunt Feenie answers the door when he knocks.

  We have been here one week.

  He says, Morning Feenie, I come for my children.

  Pappa doesn’t look so good. He is real pale and looks older than I ever remember him but maybe that is just because I feel so old now myself. I remember Pappa saying he hoped that Mamma didn’t have another girl, on account of me.

  I knew no good would come of Mother living with you Jalmer, Aunt Feenie says, shaking her head. The child doesn’t want to go with you. She wants to stay here. I discussed it with Henry and we’ll be happy to keep her on for a spell.

  Feenie, I don’t think Alma’s gonna be none too pleased about this, Pappa says.

  Aunt Feenie puts her hand on my shoulder and says, The girl needs to mend. Let her stay Jalmer.

  Wilbert says it must have been the shine to my eyes that made Pappa give in so easily. He says I had the look of the young widows of drowned gillnetters.

  Pappa doesn’t say anything; he just stares at me like he doesn’t know what to do with a good-for-nothing girl like me. Finally he says, Well if that’s what you want May Amelia. Come on Wilbert we’ve got work waiting for us on the farm.

  Wilbert looks at me and says, Please Pa I’d like to stay here with May and look after her. She’ll be so lonesome without me. Let me stay.

  Pappa sighs real heavy, as if his own heart is breaking or something and I don’t know, maybe it is. I never knew how to figure Pappa none too good. He just looks between Wilbert and me and says, Well fine then. You keep an eye on May Amelia for me and your ma.

  Then Pappa turns to my uncle and says, Henry, I’d be much obliged if you could find my boy here some work in town so he can earn his keep.

  He can help on my ship, Uncle Henry says, we’re short a hand.

  Thank you kindly Henry. I’ll have Ivan and Alvin bring up your things, children, Pappa says. Be sure and come home and see your Mamma by and by, she’ll be missing you but I suspect your Aunt Feenie is right and it won’t do any harm for you to ride out the winter here.

  He leans forward as if to give me a hug but I back away, until I am pressed up against Aunt Feenie’s skirt. He sighs sadly and gives me and Wilbert a pat on the head and walks back downhill to the docks.

  I say, Wilbert, I will never go home. I will never forget what happened on the Smith Island.

  Never.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Things I Have Seen

  The things I have seen since I have been in Astoria could fill a book or a dream.

  Every morning me and Wilbert go exploring all over town, looking for adventures. We take shortcuts through back alleys and all. Keep an eye out for smugglers and no-good Chinamen shanghaiers Uncle Henry always says. The smugglers and shanghaiers are exactly the reason we go looking and exploring around Astoria, ’cause there are smuggler dens everywhere—it’s just a question of finding them and finding their treasure. Black Jake the Negro Sailor is rumored to have hidden out in a den somewhere in the basement hideaways of Astoria’s taverns.

  Uncle Henry says that Astoria has the most saloons and taverns of any town in Oregon, that it is the most decadent town between San Francisco and Seattle. There are honky-tonk theaters and scandalous dance halls, and Wilbert tells me that you can pay with a salmon to get into them to see a show if you have no money.

  There are lots of taverns in town and three of them set on the same row near the docks. All the boys who work the docks go and sit a spell in them after they get off the boats. It’s where the gillnetters’ and oystermen’s wives go to find them. Uncle Henry says it’s a darn-fool thing to spend time drinking with stinking sailors when you have a woman waiting at home for you.

  There are not so many women here in Astoria, not even many Chinook women. Some of the boys send advertisements back east, to Boston and Nova Scotia too, ’cause there’s plenty of Finns up that way. They write things like: “Bride wanted on frontier. Will pay for travel. Send picture.” Aunt Feenie says the poor men are desperate for a good woman to look after them, and who can blame them? Wilbert tells me that Astoria is filled with nothing but hopeful bachelors.

  Wilbert works on Uncle Henry’s ship only a few days a week, so he has plenty of time to spend with me. I love living with Uncle Henry and Aunt Feenie here in Astoria. Aunt Feenie’s cookie jar is always full. And for once I don’t have to worry about a herd of brothers, and disappointing everyone because I am a no-good girl always getting into trouble.

  It is only Wilbert and me and it is just fine.

  In the afternoons we go down to the docks and get fritters from Mariah’s Tavern.

  Some
times I’ll help out in the kitchen with the cooking when Mariah’s short a hand, just cutting up vegetables and whatnot. She’s a good cook, Mariah. Uncle Henry buys her all sorts of spices on his voyages, and so when she gets to cooking, things have a lot of flavor. She can cook oysters twelve different ways: fried, baked, fricasseed, poached, stew, soup, pies, you name it. I get a mite sick of all the oysters after I’ve worked with her. But the corn fritters are so very good, all hot and fresh and greasy. Why just thinking about them makes me hungry.

  She gives Wilbert and me a basket and we set in the big hot kitchen to eat. Mariah’s white hair is in its long slender braid with a red ribbon and looks real pretty. I don’t think she looks scandalous at all.

  Do you keep your money on your leg? Wilbert asks. ’Cause that’s what Everybody says.

  Mariah kicks out her leg and gives it a good shake.

  Hear any coins rattling? Mariah asks, jiggling her leg.

  No, we surely do not.

  Well then, I guess Everybody is wrong, she says.

  I’ve had something on my mind for a long time.

  Did you shanghai my brother Matti to the Orient? I say.

  Mariah just shakes her head at me and laughs and says, Why Miss May, I’ve been on real good behavior these days, I don’t fancy the law coming after me. I’m not in the shanghaiing business anymore.

  Wilbert says, Well, you should give the sheriff some of these here fritters and he won’t bother you none.

  Mariah laughs and says, The sheriff does have a taste for my fritters.

  A mangy dog smells the fritters and starts howling in hunger at the back door of the kitchen. Mariah walks over and tosses it a fritter.

  Hush now puppy, she says.

  Mariah’s not a bit like any of the stories. She’s always laughing and happy to help out someone who is down on his luck. And she’s always feeding us children. I know that she was supposed to have killed her husband but now I think it is just a tall tale. Mariah couldn’t have killed anybody.

  What’s it like being a widow? I say.

  Being a widow has its advantages, May, what with not having to look after some man all the time and cook his meals and tend to his mending.

  Yeah, I say. Since we’ve been with Uncle Henry I don’t have to take care of the farm or mind my brothers or cook for all the boys every night or anything.

  We’ve had similar experiences I think then. My husband’s been gone ten years now.

  I say, My sister’s dead.

  Yes, I heard your sister died. Henry told me. I’m terribly sorry.

  Her name was Amy, I say. Amy Alice Jackson.

  That’s a lovely name.

  I picked it out myself.

  Well then, Mariah says, that’s certainly something.

  Mariah puts her elbow into the stirring.

  But I don’t miss her, I say.

  You don’t? says Mariah.

  Not really. She was just a baby.

  Oh, I see.

  Wilbert doesn’t say anything—he’s too busy eating the fritters. He’s got grease dripping down his chin.

  You know, Mariah says casually, my husband’s been dead for a long time but I still miss him.

  You do?

  Sure I do. He was a good man. I loved him.

  I remember how sweet Baby Amy smelled and how she used to gurgle up at me.

  I guess I sorta miss Amy, I say.

  You know May, Mariah says, it’s okay to miss someone you love after they’re dead.

  I won’t go back home, I say.

  Why is that?

  Because Grandmother Patience says I’m the one who killed Baby Amy.

  Well May, both you and I know what the real truth is, don’t we?

  I remember Baby Amy’s soft silky hair and how she would blink up at me with her wide, trusting eyes. I shake my head ’cause I don’t know any truth at all, only that Amy’s dead and buried and in the cold ground.

  Mariah says, And you know what, I’d bet anything that Amy knows too and that’s all that counts.

  But my heart feels so sad it nearabout breaks. Baby Amy is gone forever, and all because of me.

  Without any warning at all, Ivan and Alvin come to visit. They’ve brought my things in a small trunk with leather straps.

  Mamma’s packed my warm winter sweater inside and Susannah. Lying next to Susannah is a new outfit that Wendell has sewn for her, a pirate suit.

  Wilbert says, Susannah will look very fierce indeed in the pirate outfit.

  I expect she will Wilbert, I say. She is a very fierce doll you know. And I’ll braid her hair in the Chinook way and then she’ll be even fiercer.

  Are you gonna flatten her head like the Chinooks do May Amelia? I’ll fix you up a plank board to tie to her head, Wilbert teases.

  The Chinooks flatten the heads of their babies when they are small. They put the infant between two planks and then the baby’s head grows all pointy like. Uncle Henry said Old Man Weilin told him that only the royal Chinooks flatten the heads—that it’s a mark of royalty. It seems mighty strange to me. I would never have let anyone try and flatten Baby Amy’s head.

  I say, But Uncle Henry doesn’t the baby’s head get all mushed up?

  That may be May Amelia but they seem like mighty smart folks to me, I expect they wouldn’t go mushing up their heads if there wasn’t a darn good reason.

  Ivan and Alvin stay the night and Aunt Feenie cooks a real good supper, all sorts of treats. It’s odd indeed to see Ivan and Alvin setting here at the table with Wilbert and me and Uncle Henry and Aunt Feenie.

  So how’ve you been May? Alvin says.

  Me and Wilbert have been fine. Astoria’s a real exciting place to live, I say. There’s all sorts of things to see here.

  There’s things to see in Nasel, Ivan says.

  Astoria’s nothing like the farm, I say.

  That’s for sure, says Wilbert.

  Do you miss Nasel? Alvin asks.

  Is Mamma better? I say, changing the subject.

  Yeah, says Ivan.

  That’s good.

  Why don’t you come home, May? Alvin says.

  ’Cause we like it here fine.

  Don’t you miss Mamma and Pappa? Ivan says.

  No, I lie. Why is he nagging me?

  Don’t you even miss me and Ivan? Alvin says.

  No, I lie again.

  May! Wilbert says, and shakes his head.

  Well I don’t, I say. I don’t miss anything. I got plenty of things to do right here in Astoria, plenty of folks to see. Why there’s nothing to see in Nasel, nothing but cows and farms and logs and a herd of useless boys. I was never happy to be there.

  Alvin grits his teeth and glares at me. He doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the night.

  And neither does Ivan.

  After supper Uncle Henry brings us children into his study, opens a camphor wood chest decorated with carvings, and takes out his navigating maps and charts. He spreads them out on the table and shows us how he sailed around the world to China and around the Cape Horn and nearabout everywhere so far as I can see. Ivan and Alvin don’t pay attention to Uncle Henry—they’re too busy glowering at me.

  Aunt Feenie comes in and laughs at us, saying, Henry are you telling these children tales or truths?

  Ever the truth Feenie, he says, and goes and gives her a kiss on the forehead. I cannot remember Pappa kissing Mamma like that. When I think of Pappa, all I remember is a scowl.

  You children listen to what your Uncle Henry says but only believe half of it. He is a teller of tall tales.

  Now that is simply an exaggeration, a real slur Feenie, Uncle Henry says.

  Aunt Feenie wags her finger at Henry and says, Now my fine Neal McNeil did you tell them how you carried me off when I was but a girl of sixteen?

  And a bonny lass your aunt was children, full of fire. Why, I took one look at her and knew she was the one for me.

  I tell you May Amelia, beware of men with silver tongues, Aun
t Feenie says. This devil here swept me clear away from all my friends and family in Finland and brought me to the wilderness, left me to go crazy on the Smith Island. Knappton was the closest town and was full of only bachelors and vagabonds, not a woman to be found. I tell you I was the lonesomest person on earth, even when Henry was in port.

  I am trying to ignore the twins. But those no-good brothers of mine are doing a pretty good job of staring me down.

  But your aunt had a fine hand with knitting the gillnets, didn’t you, dearling? Uncle Henry says. When I was out at sea, your sweet aunt here would take pity on the poor bachelor gillnetters and take in some of their nets to knit and mend, since they had no wives of their own. Those gillnetters worked hard. They would go out on a Sunday night, come back on a Wednesday morn, leave again in the evening, and not be back home till Saturday night.

  Wilbert yawns widely.

  All right Henry, enough of your tales, these children need to be in bed. Ivan and Alvin have got to be up early to catch the boat back to Knappton.

  Ivan and Alvin don’t even look at me, they don’t even say good night.

  When Wilbert and I are in bed, Wilbert says, Ivan and Alvin are pretty upset at you, May.

  I suspect they are, I say. But I don’t want to go home Wilbert.

  Wilbert nods his head. He knows my heart.

  But the next morning there is no boat to be caught back to Knappton. The temperature dropped and the Columbia has frozen up like a sheet of glass. Me and Wilbert go ice-skating for hours on end, skating around the big ships moored on the docks, frozen to the rails. The ice is thicker than a child’s fist. It is quite a sight to see all the ships frozen in the water. Ivan and Alvin just sit and stare at us from the docks. They’re only speaking to Wilbert now, not to me.

  Ivan and Alvin are lucky indeed that they have relations to stay with in Astoria, because many of the homesteaders who had taken the boat into Astoria to get provisions are trapped and cannot get back home.

  And worse, Uncle Henry says, trapped knowing that their kin might be getting very hungry.

  After four days of solid ice, folks are getting plain on desperate it seems, what with worrying about their kin, and so Captain Jordon who runs one of the boats, the Gleaner, announces that the ice has thawed enough to make the trip to the various homesteads and that all those folks who want passage are to show up at the docks at dawn.