The Women Who Raised Me

by Victoria Rowell

  Forever, I could return to this world and the permanent collage of impressions that became my stability and my happy childhood. I would walk through them blindfolded, knowing in my muscles and cells how long it took to run up the walkway to the front door of the farmhouse from Barley Road, or follow behind Ma through her vegetable garden, row after row, with her eyedropper, squeezing two or three drops of magic oil into the silk of each growing ear of corn. We strolled beyond, to the open field where we gathered to celebrate birthdays and cookouts. Against the moss-covered stone wall that ran the far border of Forest Edge were wild blueberry bushes, bursting with berries waiting to be picked.

  Before I could read and write, I could name flowers, birds, various types of reptiles, and every animal on the farm. Honeysuckle, spirea, forsythia, Japanese irises, roses, gladiolas, poppies, jonquils, peonies, lilacs, phlox, and crocuses all deserved a place of honor and bloomed from spring until our first fall frost.

  By scent alone, I followed the delicate fragrance of the Double Serringa blossoms, past our slate-covered well, into our massive barn, which held a museum’s worth of other people’s lifetimes, including a huge old organ with missing pedals and keys dominating the cavernous space. I would secretly steal away to play it as often as I could, standing on the tops of my toes, swaying back and forth. As I passed the chicken coop, the pig and lamb pens, down a deep gully en route to the frog pond, the soles of my sneakers gripped the tall grass to ascend to the other side. Before me was heaven all over again: an apple orchard.

  After climbing a tree and plucking an apple, I headed back, passing our incinerator as it choked and puffed on anything we could turn into ash. As I helped Agatha mix coffee grinds, eggshells, and the ash, she said to me, “This’ll put vitamins back into our soil.” I watched as she took such care, folding the mixture into the earth, as though preparing to bake a cake.

  I befriended every single chick that Sydney Heath, a neighborhood farmer who cut our fields and baled our hay, delivered, only to watch my grown-up pets condemned to die at the hand of Aunt Kay as she swaggered up the road from her trailer, hatchet in hand, like Brecht’s Mother Courage. Agatha’s firstborn, a tough, full-time factory worker and mother of five, had one thing to say as she hollered to all of us standing around, “You kids stand back!” Obediently, I inched away from the tree stump where the executions were held year in and year out.

  The cool and controlled Aunt Kay unleashed her rage by raising the axe high in the air, beheading one chicken after another, spraying blood onto my favorite Capri pants.

  Not our place to question the whys of the world or the ways of the farm, we knew what was coming next. My job was to sit there, in dusty pigtails, on the same crate the now dead pets arrived in, plucking their headless bodies. Sheree and I would take turns, striking matches until dusk, running the flame along the naked flesh, removing any remnant of eider, before I sadly carried the lifeless birds in to Agatha.

  Farm chores during these years became an extension of myself, like tying my shoelaces. Automatic. Wrapping copper pipes with electrical cord we then plugged into outlets to warm the pipes and keep the water inside from freezing. Securing plastic around windows. Stocking pens and sheds with food. Agatha had the most important job at the end of the day—making sure all the kerosene stoves were turned off.

  In an evening ritual, after supper, my sisters and I teamed up or divided duties. Endowed with cleaning tools that Grandpa had brought home from his days at the hospital, we attacked our responsibilities with a sense of purpose. A glorious mustached broom was put to use for sweeping the kitchen’s black-and-white speckled linoleum floor. I would jump astride the wooden base and use my fisted hands to nearly choke the life out of its neck while Sheree pulled me around the kitchen, sweeping as we played. Our irrepressible laughter competed with Agatha’s TV nightly news.

  “Any foolishness and there won’t be any dessert tonight” was her melodic warning. This was especially effective on nights when Agatha’s homemade strawberry ice cream, apple pie, or both were promised. Continued laughter provoked her to call out to us from the front room with a memorable Agathaism: “Enough is enough and too much is foolish.”

  Even when she was scolding us, the music of her voice, warm with love, never off-key, was backed by an orchestra of sound that played season in and season out at Forest Edge. It was the musical score of nature and the Rowell girls on the back porch doing renditions of the Supremes and our practiced choreography. It was the percussion of rain and thunder, drumming to accompany Agatha’s jazz piano, which she practiced on schedule one hour every day at dusk, sometimes singing standards like “Misty” with a bold, vaguely operatic abandon.

  It was the sound of industry, the tapping of Ma’s red manicured fingernails against the keys of her dependable vintage Underwood typewriter as she expertly whipped off crisply worded business letters—in duplicate with a carbon between the two pieces of stationery—the contents pertaining no doubt to property and other legal matters or special requests to Child Welfare in Augusta on our behalf.

  On warm summer nights, parades of fireflies, mosquitoes, and moths clung to our screened-in porch, where grown-ups congregated to play cards ’til all hours—bid whist, the derivation of which seemed to belong to somebody in this dynasty. Raymond’s voice—often threatening—soared above the rest. Grandstanding, making sure that none of the other players ever stood a chance of “making books,” the critical component to winning this game, as he slapped his lucky card onto the table, saying to his wife, “We’re goin’ downtown, Francine!” The sun started to set behind the forest, as rows and rows of cornstalks, reminiscent of a silent audience, faced the porch. Animated voices called for another round of play mixed in with the clinks of cans, bottles, and ashtrays.

  Considered a threat due to Sheree’s allergies, our cat, Malty, was obliterated by a shotgun blast in the field. Later, my sisters and I buried pieces of Malty, a gravesite I still visit. During hunting season, it was not uncustomary to see deer, eyes bulging, strapped to the roofs of cars or hanging upside down from the pine trees that lined Barely Road, creating tiny rivulets of blood. It also wasn’t uncustomary for one of my foster uncles to bring his dead deer back to Lynn, Massachusetts, and hang the carcass from the second floor of his home in the projects and later consume the venison.

  And there was the terror my sisters and I felt when a man in a gray paratrooper’s jumpsuit, slightly disoriented, walked across our field in broad daylight while we were playing under makeshift picnic tables. With our foster cousin Joanie, we ran screaming into the house, desperate for Agatha’s explanation: “He must be from the government; they’re always coming around here wanting to talk to me about some foolishness—something about uranium on my property.” Needless to say, nobody could force Agatha to do anything.

  Acorns, peanuts, cranberries, huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, teaberries, apples, pears, and grapes all grew in abundance under Agatha’s green thumb. Also abundant on the farm were hornets, bees, bats, mice, spiders, and snakes—and that was in the house. Once a mouse I was rescuing bit my finger, drawing blood. In that simple experience, I learned that I could not save everything, and that everything didn’t want to be rescued. It would take me many years to apply this lesson to people. During an end of the summer ritual, I, along with five of Agatha’s grandchildren, painted our initials on the backs of turtles’ shells, using Ma’s fire engine red fingernail polish, only to watch our branded turtles disappear into the effluvium of the marshes. Waiting by the edge of the pond the following spring, with great expectation, I jumped up and down when my foster cousin Kevin exclaimed, “There goes Vicki’s turtle.”

  Never to be forgotten on a hot summer day was the cellar. Its distinct, pungent smell emanated from its dirt floor, luring me to carefully step down the uneven, warped stairs, clearing cobwebs along the way to my private cathedral. The natural cooling was lit by a single naked lightbulb and held a bounty that reminded me that we would neve
r starve—eggs in crock dots, canned vegetables, and jarred jellies were everywhere. During harvest season, I would climb into our potato bins and weed out the vegetables with potato rot, before dumping in freshly collected Russets from our burlap bags. I loved everything about farming—earthworms and ladybugs, the powerful freedom of pulling a radish from my Mother’s bosom, brushing it against my shorts and popping it into my mouth; the gritty taste of the soil. Agatha always said, “Dirt’s good for you—you’ll eat a peck a dirt a year.” I came to understand this meaning in a broader sense later in life. I loved the fertile honesty of moist soil between my hands and under my fingernails. It was life.

  Dirt came to mean two things: a source of good, never failing to give back, hence, providing nourishment. For me, later confounded by my rootlessness, destined to be a gypsy, the smell of wet soil would always remind me of home and that dirt was always mine to stand on.

  Random images: me busily redecorating the woodshed, arranging the anvil and other tools, staining furniture, bewildered adult onlookers, my first attempts at interior decorating. Ma’s Easter egg hunts in the garden amid dead cornstalks and rotten pumpkins. Weeding diminutive carrot plants taught patience, lessons of transformation when green tomatoes, wrapped in newspaper, turned the Big Boys red. Chopping and mixing hay with manure—spreading it across the garden. My bullish stubbornness, wanting to help the family soften brittle linoleum, resulted in me burning my arm badly against our four-foot kerosene stove in the process; Agatha’s African folk remedy was in the form of a cooling black salve.

  Snow, ice, cold. Frozen pipes. Frozen toilet water. Clean laundry hung out to dry in winter, freezing in shapes like Christmas ornaments hanging on the line. Icicles kissing snowdrifts outside our windows. The wooden fences in the field bent sideways by wrathful winds and storms. Winter nights so black they were blue, pierced by a blanket of stars, then punctuated by the Big and Little Dippers. The resilient emergence of the sun on a Maine winter day, dressing the world in blinding crystallized beauty. En route to the pond after it had been tested for safety, my secondhand skates slung over my shoulder, I avoided sliding on an icy patch of ground before reaching my destination. We all skated on faith, especially Sheree, who was either naturally gifted in this arena or simply unafraid of falling. Me, I looked for assistance in my determination to learn, grabbing onto anything for support—a spray of cat-o’-nine-tails or a jutting branch, anything to avoid hitting the ice. I skated poorly, my ankles rolled in, until I couldn’t feel my toes and headed back to the house; Sheree, on the other hand, could skate all day long. As I trekked back, with every step sinking at least one foot into the snow, I thought about Grandpa and his big snowshoes still stored in the woodshed, how vestiges of him were preserved everywhere.

  Memories within memories: Expeditions to Fernald Shores for swimming in the lake and skipping rocks; a quarter per person, cars filled to the gills, the chassis scraping against the bumpy path. The way Ma predicted the weather, saying, “Here comes an electrical storm; better unplug the television.” The way Ma said, “Shhhhhh, my stories are on.” This was her only indulgence, her only distraction from real life. The two lambs I raised since birth escaped death yet again due to an over-booked slaughterhouse. I would burst into the house after school desperately hoping for another day of grace for my lambs. I took a chance and approached Ma, filled with angst. In a controlled whisper, I asked, “Where are Ruth and Joanne?” I had named them after my favorite actresses on the TV show Laugh-In. Agatha’s eyes stayed hypnotically fixed on the RCA, not blinking a lash, and replied, “Go look in the deep freezer, sugar.” Already knowing the answer, tears began to well up as I slowly walked through our house toward the pantry. I took a deep breath before lifting the heavy metal lid of the freezer. A waft of frozen air obscured my view before clearing, then there, all neatly wrapped in white butcher’s paper, were my pet lambs. Becoming weak, I let the lid slam shut and ran up to the attic where no one could see or find me. Beneath a window on a chair was Patti Page, exactly as I had left her. Her voice, always dependable, expressed everything I was feeling from our 1940s Crosley record player.

  One of Agatha’s outlets—which she turned into a kind of meditation—was ironing. She had a professional expertise in laundering and pressing clothes, which she acquired as a young girl when her family took in washing for wealthy clients on Beacon Hill and on the Cape. This meant that laundering at Forest Edge was a major to-do, an art, with conservation of the water supply from our artesian well being of the utmost importance. Mesmerized, I watched the laundry move smoothly through the rollers of our round 1940s-era washing machine that stood on four legs. Everything was hung out on the clothesline to dry. Ma, with a healthy supply of wooden clothespins in her pocket, signaled when it was time for me to haul the cumbersome ironing board from the pantry. A piece of wood four feet in length, wrapped one hundred times in white sheets—with character-building burn stains—held in place by safety pins, it went into position between a makeshift countertop and a kitchen chair. She swung into action, mixing the starch herself, dipping her big hand into the filmy liquid, flicking it from her fingers onto the clothes. Agatha showed me how she wet her index finger and touch it against the face of hot iron with lightning speed, before grasping it and bearing down—committing her whole body into the gentle rhythm of pressing. Blouses, shorts, linens, even my underwear. I could appreciate how Agatha turned something that was labor into an art. She taught me the dance of ironing, as well as the Zen of it.

  Images compete for attention in my memory. Trekking into the woods with adults out front, kids in the back, blurring the lines between chores and fun, we were going blueberry picking. Dressed in my striped Capri pants, floral ’60s shell, and my red Keds, I took precise, even-paced steps, making sure that I had my necklace—a long piece of twine attached to an empty Chock full o’Nuts coffee can that would hold the blueberries. I treaded in single file, avoiding the oil on the pretty, shiny leaves reaching out to lick my legs—poison ivy—me sniffing the air that was thick with the fragrance of decomposing plants, ripe fruit, and the undeniable scent of dead animal.

  Keithie, Agatha’s grandson, began to whistle, and the irrepressible beauty of his birdcall echoed throughout the woods. Over our laughter I heard a whip-poor-will singing out its own name and cupped my hands on either side of my mouth to answer back, “Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will!” Lori, then eight years old with a delicate constitution, rolled her eyes at my birdcall and teased, “You’re weird,” as she continued on. I wondered why wanting to communicate with nature was weird.

  Wishing she could be anywhere else besides picking blueberries in the woods, Sheree shrugged me off, saying, “Don’t ask stupid questions.” Where one half sister was usually quiet and aloof, the other was a rebel, her anger and hurt simmering just below the surface—normal reactions for a foster child, but made much worse by the harsh punishment she received from Raymond, Agatha’s youngest son, a sanctioned and terrifying disciplinarian.

  I was eating handfuls of berries at a time, turning my tongue and teeth purple—bugs, stems, and all of nature in my mouth simultaneously. Agatha had promised blueberry pies, provided that everyone came back with a full can. We knew the chiding would be relentless if we didn’t oblige. This went for young and old. No exceptions.

  Just outside the clearing, tucked behind waxy green leaves, I spotted a solitary Lady’s Slipper. She was pink with arresting beauty. I moved closer, transfixed by her long-stemmed neck and translucent bloom, as the group traveled on. My first impulse was to pluck the rare orchid. I refrained only because Agatha had once told me, “It’s against the law, sugar, she’s a rare flower.” Still, I wondered who would see me out there in the middle of the woods alone. I was saved from the temptation by a booming call from one of the adults, “C’mon, let’s head back,” and off I ran to catch up.

  My can was full; the twine cut into the sweaty nape of my neck, and mosquitoes were starting to nip, drawing blood on my ankles and
shoulders. I watched the sun begin to fall and imprint a mighty new concept in my being—it was the idea that the appreciation of a thing of beauty like the Lady’s Slipper or the rich memory of that day was something that no one could take away from me. What I felt, saw, recognized, and remembered all became part of the true treasures of these years at Forest Edge.

  From this revelation I acquired an enduring appreciation for the incredible foliage that changes with the seasons. The different types of trees appeared to be fancy ladies in dress-up clothes, like me going through Ma’s closet, thick with the smell of her favorite fragrance, Chantilly, trying on her collection of ’40s department store shoes and hats. With her old pedal-driven Singer sewing machine, she managed to create a wardrobe for herself by purchasing patterns and sometimes creating her own, making elegant, tailored dresses, evening wear, suits, costumes, and even coats. A wool skirt she made me for the first grade became a part of my keepsake collection, as would many things I collected from Agatha, including Robert Armstead’s rock collection and the hand-painted metal box he had kept them in.

  Of course, New England foliage is legendary, but Maine is without rival; in the autumn when the colors were so vibrant, I insisted on saving my favorites by taking each special leaf, placing it between two sheets of wax paper, then using a warm iron to seal it into immortality. Midday walks with Ma down Barley Road into a panorama of bursting oranges, reds, yellows, and browns were stolen moments to hear stories as I kept my eyes on the ground looking for the most vividly colored fallen birch, oak, and maple leaves, understanding that they would soon fade and crumble, eventually becoming one with the soil, bringing new life in another season.

  On such a walk one fall day, about a half mile up the road, Agatha paused and pointed at the Amadon farmhouse, recalling how she once had heard someone or something moaning, loud enough to give her cause for concern. She had to investigate.