by Vicki Delany
But then I got another lovely letter from Mrs. McKenzie (Mom!) and everything seemed fine again. Her letter said that she is getting the spare room ready for the baby and that her friends have given her clothes for a little one, warm sweaters and thick pants and a snowsuit and boots for the winter. (It gets extremely cold in Canada, I have heard.) Of course I don’t expect that we will be living with Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie for long. Just until Bob has our own home finished and ready for Shirley and me. And all the babies who will soon follow.
Chapter 17
For the first time, Scrawny looked at me. His eyes were narrowed to nasty slits. “I think you’re needed in the kitchen, lady.”
“Actually.” I found my voice. “No one has ever needed me in any kitchen. So you must be mistaken. Are you two friends of my mother? Thank you for coming to pay your respects.”
Jack looked at me, slack-jawed. Clearly he thought me quite ga-ga. Irony and sarcasm were no doubt concepts not to be found in his vocabulary.
I smiled my best business-cocktail-party-reception smile. “Did you have enough to eat? There’s plenty more.”
“Becky, you’re not helping,” Jimmy said, his voice low. “Please leave.” He balanced the shattered bottle in his right hand.
“One day, lady,” Jack said, “someone’s gonna put a fist in that big mouth.”
“We want to talk to your brother, that’s all,” said Scrawny, his fingers moving as he caressed whatever he held in his pocket. “You should go back into the house.”
“I don’t think that’s really what you want. To talk, I mean. But no matter. Now, I am particularly famous for my loud piercing voice, as I am sure you noticed. So if you gentlemen don’t leave right away I might have to actually start screaming. And that will be embarrassing for us all, won’t it?”
“Shut up, you loud-mouthed bitch.” Jack’s limited patience broke and he took one step toward me. Jimmy gripped the bottleneck tighter and stepped forward, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. He was half Jack’s size. Scrawny looked from each of us to the other; he was losing control, unsure of what to do.
I kept talking. It’s what I do best. “I’d rather you didn’t call me that, please. After all, we are here to pay our respects to my mother.”
“Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Jimmy. Look what we got.” Jason and his friend Matthew burst into the garage. Their faces were streaked with dirt, their eyes bright with excitement. Jason’s funeral suit was soaked and mud-splattered, and a jagged gash tore the fabric of his left pant leg.
Together the grinning boys held out a jar. A fat frog sat inside, looking none too pleased at being the center of attention. My sympathies were with the frog.
“Get outa here, boys,” Jack growled. “We got business here.”
The boys looked at him in confusion. The man didn’t want to see the big frog?
“Time to be on our way, Jackson,” Scrawny said. “Too many women and kids around to allow us men to have a nice polite conversation.”
Jack Jackson (could that actually be his name?) growled again but did as instructed. Scrawny pulled his hand out of his pocket and turned to leave.
“You tell the cops where she is, McKenzie,” he tossed over his shoulder, as he headed down the driveway. “Or it won’t be our fault what happens to you.”
He stopped, turned, and looked at me. “And don’t you be around, lady.”
Jimmy threw the neck of his beer bottle into the garbage with an inaudible sigh and a pronounced relaxing of his shoulders. “That’s a really great frog. But it won’t live long in that jar. You should take it back to the swamp, where it belongs. It’ll be happier living free. Don’t you think?”
“I guess,” Jason sighed.
“Time for dessert.” A smiling Jackie appeared, bearing a silver tray covered with a large assortment of squares, cookies, and slices of cake. “Dave said you two were catching up on old times, so I guessed that you wouldn’t come in for something as unimportant as food. Jason Warzak, what have you done to your suit?” She handed me the tray and sighed mightily. “Boys. What’s a mother to do?” The twinkle in her eye belittled the seriousness of her words.
“What on earth were those two doing here anyway?” she asked. “Heard about the free food, I suppose.”
“You know them?” I asked.
“Sure. Jack Jackson and Pete Hartman. Scum of the earth. Drifted into town years ago when their truck broke down on the highway and they never quite managed to do us all a favor and drift out again.”
“Did they know your grandma?”
“It seems sometimes as if Grandma knew everyone in this town.”
“Where do they work?”
“Keep out of it, Becky, please. They’re none of your business.” Jimmy scooped a handful of cookies off the plate. “Time for us to be going. I’ll get Aileen and we’ll say our good-byes. Thanks for doing all this, Jackie.”
We watched him go. I was left holding the dessert tray.
“What’s none of your business, Aunt Rebecca?”
I looked at Jackie’s thin, serious face and handed back the tray. “Jimmy thinks I insulted the big one, so he’s worried about me.”
“Well, don’t you get on their bad side. Jack’s as thick as two short planks, but Pete isn’t. Crafty as a fox that one.”
“Looks like people are leaving now. You’ll have a lot of dishes to do. I’ll give you a hand.”
We walked silently back to the house. The cloud blanket dispersed as night settled in, but the moon had not yet risen. With no high leafy trees to shade them, the harsh yellow light from the streetlamps shone far too bright, blocking any sight of stars on this clear night. That didn’t seem right. This far away from the crowded south, the show of stars should be wonderful. On the summer nights of my childhood we could sometimes even see the Northern Lights in all their haunting, colorful glory.
Cars pulled away from the side of the road, and loud good-byes and final condolences echoed through the dark street.
Old women and a few men filled the living room, gathered around my dad, who remained seated in the best chair, the one close to the unused fireplace. Deep lines were carved through the tough old skin of his face, and his eyes were moist and vacant. He held a delicate china teacup in one shaking hand. Jackie removed it with a silent smile.
In contrast the kitchen was full of chattering, laughing middle-aged women, washing and drying dishes, covering serving platters, rooting through cupboards in search of plastic containers, rinsing out the utility-size coffeepot borrowed from the church. The garbage bag under the sink, overfilled, had toppled over, and Liz bent over a mop to wipe brown mush off the floor.
“You must give me the recipe for that bean dip, Kay,” one woman said to another. “It was absolutely wonderful.”
“It’s so simple, you won’t believe it.” Kay rhymed off a list of ingredients.
The women watched me out of the corner of their eyes as if I was some strange exotic specimen. Catching sight of me, Kimmy squealed and dragged a heavily made-up woman wearing a short skirt and tight blouse out of the corner where she had been trying to stuff serving platters into a cabinet.
“Becky, you must remember Norma. Norma Fitzgerald what was.”
Norma managed to control her own enthusiasm. “Becky McKenzie.” She breathed a cloud of booze and cigarette smoke. “After all these years.”
It was an effort, but I politely refrained from waving my hand in front of my face. “So nice to see you again, Norma.” I was fast becoming a world-class liar. Despite popular misconception, lying is not a requirement in the world of business and corporate relations. But it sure seems to be a necessity when returning to the small town where one grew up. I remembered Norma well enough. One of Kimmy’s sycophants, always following the popular girls around with her tongue hanging out, desperate to be considered part of the in crowd. One step above lowly Becky McKenzie, who was totally out, Norma could be, and was, meaner and nastier than any Kimmy. The politics of th
e lives of teenage girls: a better preparation for the world of business than any MBA program.
“Isn’t it nice that Becky’s home again, Norma?” Kimmy said.
Norma nodded and forced a smile, but her thickly painted, dark eyes gave another message. One rainy November day I had come across her in the girls’ washroom during math class, the period right after lunch, sticking her fingers down her throat, too occupied to notice that the stall door wasn’t latched properly. I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks and my sides ached. And then, of course, I proceeded to tell the entire in crowd. Horrified, not at the act, but that she had been caught by nerdy Becky McKenzie, they ignored Norma for weeks. A trace of hostility narrowed her black-rimmed eyes, confirming that Norma remembered the incident as well as I.
Thankful not to have to play at being friends, I turned to Jackie. “You have more than enough help here. It looks like Dad is ready to pack it all in. I should be getting him home.”
“I’m sure he’s comfortable where he is.” Shirley walked in from the deck, her arms laden with glasses, teacups, and plates. “Surrounded by all of his old friends. But if you want to leave…”
“In my opinion, whether you want it or not, I don’t think he’s comfortable at all. He’s just buried his wife of more than fifty years and the poor man is quite worn out.”
Shirley placed her load carefully on the countertop, squirted a stream of yellow dishwashing liquid into the sink, and turned the tap sharply to hot. “Well, my opinion, having seen the man every day for the last fifty years, is that he is quite happy in his circle of friends and that we should leave him be until they have all left.”
“Jesus Shirley, lighten up.” Once again the assorted friends scattered, but this time they moved not quite out of range. Kimmy and Norma retreated to the hall but no further, and there they stood, practically horizontal, their heads leaning into the kitchen in order not to miss a single word. “I said he looks tired, that’s all. And he does.”
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t swear every time you open your mouth.”
I stood in the center of the ceramic floor, beside the wooden butcher’s block, gobsmacked. “My language is hardly the issue here. And this isn’t the right time to get into the real issue, whatever you may decide that it is.”
“And when would be the right time, Miss High-and-Mighty, Miss Big-City Girl? Sorry, I should have said Big-City Woman.” She threw a glass into the sink and turned to face me. Rage mottled her thin face; her eyes had narrowed to hostile slits.
“You come dancing in here after thirty years and everyone is so happy to see you. Good old Rebecca. Isn’t she clever, isn’t she beautiful? Hope River’s success story. Well some of us have stayed here to look after what’s important. Our family. How much did that suit cost you anyway? More than my husband makes in a month, I’ll bet.”
“We don’t really want to talk about your husband’s salary right now.” I tried to make the comment light, friendly. I failed.
“You think you can laugh at Al? Al’s a good man. So he’s out of work right now, lots of men are. He’ll get a job, come tourist season. We had to get married. So what? It’s worked out, hasn’t it? Better than your marriage did, anyway.”
I saw red. I gripped the edge of the butcher’s block. It was good wood, the grain straight and smooth beneath my fingers. “My husband is dead, you stupid bitch. And don’t you dare imply that it was my fault.”
“I didn’t say anything about fault. I said that because you’ve made a mess of your life, don’t come back here trying to mess up ours.”
A cloud of acid rage covered my eyes and filled my heart, and I lashed out. At the edges of perception I could almost hear the silent gasps of our eager audience, feel them stretching forward so as to not miss a single moment. “Like I would even be bothered to interfere in your petty, insignificant life. That would surely—ha! get it?—surely, be too stupefyingly boring for words.”
“Stop this, right now,” Jimmy stepped between us, his eyes dark with anger. “You two are putting on a display for the whole town.”
The crowd behind me shuffled and turned to discussing other topics.
“You told me you were leaving,” I snapped.
“I wanted to, but Aileen said we should stay and help clean up.” He nodded to the dining room door, where his wife stood with a pile of dirty plates and an embarrassed grin.
A high voice snickered. I whirled around. “Don’t you people have anywhere to go? Something exciting must be happening in Hope River on a pleasant night like this. Raccoon shooting or raiding the town dump come to mind.”
“Aunt Rebecca.” A strong, cool hand took my arm. Jackie smiled into my face: She is the only one in my family who even approaches my height. “You’re absolutely right. It’s time Grandpa went home. Can you help him, please?”
I recognize applied psychology when I see it. And I was glad to see it. “I would be happy to. I wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome here. Good night Jimmy, Aileen, ladies.” Head held high, I stalked out of the kitchen.
“Mother!” Behind me Jackie hissed at Shirley. “You were so out of line!”
In a re-enactment of the parting of the Red Sea, the crowd of eager onlookers dispersed as I passed into the living room surrounded by a virtual roar of good-byes, coat-gathering, and the sound of the front door slamming.
My father sat amid his circle of old friends, most of them unaware of the drama they’d missed in the kitchen. Conversation and reminisces ebbed and flowed around Dad. He sat by the fireplace, as oblivious to conflict raging around him as if he were the eye of a hurricane or a whirlpool.
“Ready to go home, Dad,” I bent over him.
The old ladies rose to their feet in a wave of concern. The old men, fewer in number but no less vocal, waved their hands and snickered at the very idea that Bob might be ready to be taken home and put to bed. Like a puppy, or an overeager child after a birthday party. I held my father’s arm as Aileen slipped his coat over his shoulders, and we walked out into the night.
I had parked the SUV on the street, knowing that getting out of the driveway would be a nightmare of organization, finding the keys for this car, locating the owner of that. A cat sat under the nearest streetlight, watching us. This street was trying hard to grow up to be a big-city street, but I could hear the mating cry of the crickets in the long grass behind the houses and the bellow of frogs from the woods beyond.
“A nice party,” Dad said as I held the passenger door open for him. He hesitated at the step. The SUV wasn’t designed with seniors in mind. I gripped his arm firmly and helped him clamber up. “Your mother would have liked it, Becky.”
“Yes, she would.”
“Nice of Jackie to invite all of your mother’s old friends.”
“Yes, it was.” I climbed up into my own seat and started the engine. The headlights caught a raccoon crossing the road on the way to Jackie’s house in search of party residue. He was huge, fat, and arrogant and barely gave my car a sideways glance or let me think that I was inconveniencing him in the slightest. I watched him waddle into the darkness at the side of the house before pulling away.
“Too bad she missed it.” Dad chattered on as I maneuvered the big vehicle out of the narrow streets. “I’ll tell her all about it, of course. But I won’t make it out to sound quite as nice as it was. So she doesn’t get jealous, you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Not that Janet is ever jealous of anyone’s good fortune.”
“No.”
“I’m gonna suggest that we drive out to Joe Armstrong’s place tomorrow. He’s been laid up with a broken leg, you know. His wife, Margaret, and Janet were always the best of friends.”
I remembered a Joe and Margaret; they’d lived not far from us when I was growing up. The Armstrongs have been dead twenty years or more. Killed in a head-on collision on the way to the hospital to visit their newest grandchild, Mom had written to tell me. I don’t know anything ab
out psychology, but at a guess, I’d say that his mind had simply shut off the overflow of emotion caused by Mom’s funeral, and the only way he could cope was by unconsciously pretending she was still around.
It was so sad.
Dad talked as I drove, about plans for tomorrow’s visit to the Armstrongs, and worries as to if he should buy a piece of property, located I didn’t understand where. As we drove up to the house, and I helped him out of the SUV, he talked about Jimmy, wondering if he would be able to find a good job having quit school so young.
Chapter 18
Diary of Janet McKenzie. September 14, 1946
At last I am here. On this huge ship. It is all quite horribly frightening but exciting at the same time. Imagine me, on the Queen Mary. I remember when I was a tiny girl, looking at a magazine with a beautiful picture of the Queen Mary. Someone royal was boarding her, but I don’t remember who.
It wasn’t like this for her, the Royal, I’m sure. There are so many of us. Women just like me, some with babies, some with older children, some on their own. Everyone seems quite frightened. Like me. Shirley has a touch of a cold, not much of one, ordinarily not any kind of a worry, but I don’t want her crying and acting up on the ship and upsetting the other women.
It came quickly, this order to get ready for the trip to Canada.
I am so frightened—I have forgotten his face. I don’t know if I will recognize my own husband.
Mr. Fitzpatrick sent his motorcar again. Not Bert this time, instead Albert Grady drove. Albert, not yet twenty years old, with half his face burnt away. Everyone in town knows that Elizabeth McCallum, who he was engaged to practically since they were in the cradle, took one look at his ravaged face, fainted dead away, and caught the next train to London.
