by L. E. Waters
Without even wiping my mouth or even sure I can stop the volcanic stream—I run to find her. I fly by Robert’s room and don’t see him in it. I’ve never been to Jane’s bedroom, but I’m always looking down to the end of the hall where the large four-post wooden bed stands in the center of the room, curtains billowing out when she leaves her windows open. Windows are not open today. Someone has left a candle on the bedside table, and an older woman mixes a concoction with her back turned, so she doesn’t see me enter. Jane looks even lovelier in death’s peace. I rush to her side, and the older lady nearly drops the jar she clings to with shaking hands.
“Boy, what are you doing here?”
I don’t even answer her. She won’t understand that Jane thought of me like a son. She won’t understand why I have to see her. She lies there with the peace of an angel. They crossed her hands across her chest and there is no trace of death on her sweet face.
“She’s just sleeping!” I reach out to touch her and I’m met with a faint stiffness that confirms the truth. Her skin whispers to me with a chill, I am gone, Edgar. I throw myself over her, and tears run out onto her beautiful mallard-green dress.
They have to forcibly remove me. I don’t even remember who pries my hands from her bed sheets. Don’t know who jabs me in back to free me from the door I cling to. Who stuffs me in the carriage and brings me home. I don’t care about Mr. Allan’s embarrassed looks or Fanny’s faint when she hears me scream. But it must have been the doctor who makes me sleep with a noxious wet handkerchief. Sleep takes over my eyes as I still try to flail, yelling, “Jane,” once more before darkness wins.
That day not only creates a Jane-less house but also a Jane-less world. A world without a spark of care. The spark that flashes and registers true affection—the spark missing in the eyes of those who watch over me. Mr. Allan keeps me from going back to their house and also from the funeral, which takes place on a grey winter’s day. It mirrors the grey in my soul, but Jane would have wanted the sun. However, he can’t keep me from her forever. After the embarrassment of my tantrum has passed, Mr. Allan leaves his watch at the door, and I slip out and head to her. The freshly dug mound can be seen from the iron gates of the cemetery, and they chose a quiet corner of the graveyard as their family plot. The moss is like sponges under my hard shoes, sinking deep into a land eager to claim me, already swallowing everything dear to me.
Her tombstone, newly etched with a winged angel above a name—a name that shakes my reality—Jane Stanard. No, it can’t be. Tears blur the greedy angel that possesses her and keeps her from me.
JANE.
The name lashes out at me, cutting me into further pieces on the upturned soil that consumed her. This is when the place becomes sacred to me; the moment I connect to where she is now. Forever.
No one knows I sleep there at night. No one knows I come there every day at dusk for weeks. I only leave to avoid the cemetery caretaker who begins his grim work early but fortunately, leaves early as well. I spend my birthday with her, remembering the day a year ago where she brought the glowing cake out to me. One rushed year is all I had with her. I should have known she would leave me so soon. Nothing good can stay.
Twilight is our time, where I still talk to her and read to her from my journal. Imagining her memorized reactions, as the birds chirp and chipmunks gather, oblivious of the mournful harvest they reap. Had anyone known of my nightly appointments, what would they think? Robert, who never comes here? Never a flower left at her grave. She is just set here like a seed, and I’m the only one who watches to see if it flowers. I resent the grass that returns on her mound, screaming to me how time passes and continues on, covering up what we fear the most: the harbinger of our own mortality.
I pick each budding blade and fling it off to the moss. Did anyone even notice how fresh her grave remains? How well I keep her memory alive? Stopping time and disintegration. Everyone will see her when they enter the yard. No one will overlook her as just a stone. The outline of her body still outstands, a three-dimensional being still. Jane is still there.
Chapter 9
I care little for school or being in the house. I stop speaking to Robert all together. Usually grunts and nods are all I muster for Mr. Allan or Fanny, which results in curses from Mr. Allan and tears from Fanny. I only care about those little blades of meddlesome grass and writing poems that will make her smile upon me like she had months ago. I drift out the back door again for my evening appointment when the porch door slaps again moments after my departure. I turn around to see Fanny, lifting her skirts high to keep from getting them soiled on the high spring grass.
I call to her, “What are you doing out?”
“I think I should be asking you that question.” She gives me an uncomfortable smile. “Can’t a mother go for an evening walk with her son?”
She has never said those words before, but they roll off her tongue so smoothly. I try to cover any awkwardness I feel from its reception. “It’s just that you usually don’t go outside.”
She tucks her thin arm under mine and pulls me forward. “I think I might finally be getting better. I haven’t had a headache or belly ache for days.”
Part of me lifts with her unexpected optimism until her next comment.
“I came out here to talk to you, Edgar. I know where you’ve been going at night. Thankful has followed you.”
I drop her arm right away since I can tell by her worried tone where she is headed with this.
“Edgar, it isn’t right to frequent the dead. If other—”
“I don’t care what others think—”
“If Mr. Allan knew about this I fear for what he would do.”
“So you haven’t told him?”
She blurts out, “You’d surely know if I did. Edgar, he would put you out of the house if he knew you were sleeping in the cemetery, on a school boy’s mother’s grave.” She whispers this last part like gossip in church.
I run from her at this point, even though she yells, “Edgar,” down the road. I clean up the mound by the time Fanny hangs on the fence, exhausted from the only exercise I have witnessed her take. The dirtiness and shame she now brings with her sullies what I share with Jane in this now loving spot—the surroundings, suddenly graying and rotting, making the solidness of the mound turn hollow and dusty. Jane is dead. Rotting beneath me, rotting all the while.
I cry again. Strangely, I haven’t cried all the nights in the cemetery, but I howl like an abandoned baby. Fanny wraps her frailness around me and tugs me home. By the time I quiet, Fanny says, “Edgar, dear, I know my illness has made closeness difficult for us. But I would especially like it if you would call me Ma from now on.”
I look at her delicate face, lacking spark but resonating love at that moment. “I would like that very much…Ma.”
She smiles immediately at the word, but the word tasted metallic and came out sharp. Much sharper than I imagined if I had said it to Jane when I should have.
Reaching the edge of our estate, the slaves’ huts glow from within with tired asylum. Fanny pulls her shawl up around her shoulders and says, “Now, not a mention of this to Mr. Allan or anyone. And Edgar, please stay out of the cemetery. It is no place for a young man.” She tousles my hair. “Now let’s go have a big bowl of strawberry ice cream for supper!”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The next morning I wake up, grab my journal to finally read to Fanny but stop as soon as I see she is in her sickroom again. I slink into the room, but Thankful brings her hand to her lips. She shuffles me out of the room and whispers in the hall, “Miss Fanny has taken mighty ill. The doctor’s been sent for, so you should run along outside so as not to disturb her.”
I creep out the back door, holding it from slamming. I start to make my way to the cemetery but change roads and make my way to the shining river with my journal and pencil in hand.
The steam ships bring their cargo up and down the sleepy river, the rhythmic slap of thei
r paddle wheels in the water interrupted occasionally by a happy whistle when other ships draw too close in crossing. I sit on the stone wall in front of the bustling town center. Sundays are the time for all those from the scattered districts of the city to gather under the excuse of religion. Ladies— corseted, bustled, and bowed—stand in circles as their decorated children run free, chasing each other down roads and across streets, as mothers take no notice of carriages crossing dangerously near.
A young boy surprises me on the wall. “What are you doing?”
I squint, since he is only an outline with the bright spring sun behind him. Before I can answer, the outline of a taller person hovers above the boy and pulls him off the wall. “Alexander, stop bothering strangers.” Her voice rolls on the wind to me.
I put a hand up to be able to see the face such a voice sang from and can hardly say the words to try to halt her. “He wasn’t bothering me.”
I stand up to turn my back to the sun so I can see her beautiful face. Such beauty! Hair like Ma’s, with a hint of a curl, tied back with a satin ribbon under her poke bonnet. Eyes, large and sparkling like Jane’s, but with a sea-green shine.
My gaze is distracted by the small boy, who stares up at me and asks, “What are you writing in that book?”
Ah, the one thing I don’t want to discuss. “I was drawing the ships.”
The boy of course lunges forward to look, and I hold my book high above his head. “They really aren’t very good.”
The girl, around my age, pulls the boy away as he’s getting ready to jump for my journal. “Let’s go back to Ma.”
“Wait, I must have your name.” I don’t have time to think of a subtler way of requesting.
She glances toward her mother, but answers, “Sara, but everyone calls me Elmira.”
“But you are far too beautiful for either name.” She looks away but smiles, revealing a sweet little gap between her front teeth. “I will have to think up a more suitable one for you.”
Her brother sneers and runs off, but Elmira remains at a safe distance. “You’re the boy who swam the river.” She doesn’t ask; she is sure who I am.
“Last summer. Were you there?” The thought of her watching thrills me. I’m never happier I had performed that day than now. I would jump into the water right now if she just asks.
She nods. “Your picture was in the paper.” I can see curiosity in her eyes. “Was it difficult at all?”
I think of the sunburn, the pain in my muscles that lasted for days after, but of course I can only answer her one way. “I could have swam another mile if the sun wasn’t going down.”
Her eyes light up. I worry how I can keep her here longer.
“I am studying to be an artist.” Not far from the truth. “I come here to draw the ships.” We both look out to the river. “I was hoping you would be able to pose for me. It would be a big help to me.”
She glances off toward her mother, still gossiping, and decides with a quick nod. “Only until we have to leave.”
She sits gracefully on the end of the wall, with the ships drifting behind her. I pray with all my might that some form of artistic genius will suddenly come to me, and I can impress her with my drawing. I hope the lines and shadows will tumble onto the page the same way my words and sounds do. What a perfect way to study her. She blushes and looks out to the river as I commit her to memory.
“Will I get to keep this drawing when you finish?”
“That doesn’t seem very fair. Whenever you wish to see your face you have it in your mirror.” She giggles slightly as I continue to sketch, but a strange cloud of déjà vu hangs over me. Had I wrote it in a poem before? Had I said that in a dream?
She chuckles. “I wouldn’t have sat still for so long if I knew it wasn’t going to go home with me.” Even she reacts to the strangeness in the air as her smile fades.
I must have dreamt this before, some glimpse of the future moment where I would meet Elmira. She begins to stir, and I hurry to finish the drawing as her mother calls to her from across the street. She runs to look over my shoulder, and I surprise myself with a beautiful picture of young girl with a large lace bonnet in a field of tall grasses and wildflowers with the same charming space in her teeth. Who is this?
I panic for a moment. Who have I been drawing all this time?
Elmira gasps. “I adore it! It doesn’t look like me in the slightest, but the drawing is exceptional.”
“Elmira!” Her mother shouts, starting to cross the road with three boys in tow, from my age to the smallest one who brought me Elmira.
“I’ll be here again next Sunday. Sneak away from your mother, and I’ll draw you next time, I promise.”
She spreads a smile that makes my stomach flip. “You did this to tease me, Edgar.”
She remembers my name. She runs off to keep her mother from approaching further. I look back down to the strange girl in the drawing, not strange, there’s actually something familiar about this girl. A memory on the verge of being remembered.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I wake up with the dawn that Sunday and even though it would be half-a-day until I might see her, I dress, grab breakfast and run out the house before Mr. Allan or Fanny can intrude upon my day. Nothing can keep my excitement at bay, not the dreary weather, not the walk to town, not any shadowy memory of Jane. Today I will see Elmira again. Elmira…I will have to think of a better name. Honora maybe? No, the name left a bad taste in my mouth. Anna? No, too plain. I will have plenty of time to think upon it.
I’ve the distraction of my journal, but since, in my haste, my pencil slipped out, I’m stuck revising my poems. Finally, the sun is in mid-sky, behind thick cloud cover but there nonetheless. But where is Elmira? A panic surges through me. Have I scared her off? Or what if her mother didn’t like my un-chaperoned attentions? If she still shows, I must be more aware of how we appear to others.
“Edgar,” I hear from somewhere. I look all around me but see people too far away to be calling to me. “Edgar!” The voice is nearer and seems to be coming from in front of me. I peer over the stone wall along the bank of the river and, sure enough, there is a young girl crouched behind it.
“Elmira?” I can’t hide the smile that rebels against all composure.
She giggles. “This is the only way I could come.”
I throw my leg over the wall and hop down beside her, journal still in hand. I sit down against the wall and her eyes question me.
I ask, “Do you want to go somewhere else?”
She considers the riverboats. “No one we know will see us, right?”
The men on the canal boats seem to care little about us while they puff on their pipes and walk about the ship. “I think we’re safe.”
She relaxes and slides an arm’s length away from me. My heart cannot slow down.
“Can you draw me from here?”
I shake my head. “You need to come a little closer.”
She inches over, closing half the space between us, coming so near I can smell the gardenia from her hair or clothing. I take deep breaths so I can somehow capture it. The sun breaks through the clouds for a moment, warming my skin and hair. She waits for me to open my book and I laugh. “I lost my pencil somewhere.”
She reaches out to swat my arm. “Why’d you make me come closer then?”
“I had to try.” I laugh again, but she moves back to her horrid distance. It gives me time to take all of her in. She clearly has primped for the meeting. Her clothes are fancier and her hair tidier, in an elaborate high braid. Her eyes match the color and gleam of the sun shining through the wake made by passing paddleboats. The waves slap up against the bank rhythmically.
She gathers up some stones around her and skips them across the surface of the water, one by one.
“How did you do that?” I move closer.
“It’s easy. My brother taught me how.” She shows me how she holds the rock, flat between her thumb and index finger an
d flips her wrist low. The stone hops across the waves twice before sinking. I try it myself with dozens of rocks and only have it hop on the last one. I give up but stay right beside her. She throws out her last rock.
“That one skipped five times!” I say, but I turn to see her with my open journal. I grab for it, but she runs off, farther down the river where the wall is so high it’s well above our heads. I catch up to her quickly, although she is extremely fast for a girl. She climbs up one of the supports to the bridge and starts reading. I try to get to her, but the perch she is on is narrow and all I can do is get up beneath her, futilely reaching for the journal held far too high out of my reach. Instead, I study her dainty boots, laced up to silk stockings, hidden under layers of petticoats and blue dress. I want to bury my face in the crispness of her starched skirts, as though they are a pile of warm laundry, fresh from the sun. Before I know it, she backs down.
“You haven’t been sketching boats.” I can’t tell if she is angry.
“I just come here to dabble with some words.”
“These poems are truly lovely.” I study her face, which seems to display surprise, not superficiality.
“I think my portrait of you was by far my best work.”
She giggles and brings the sketch up to her face to compare the poor likeness. “I’m relieved you have other talents.”
She slaps the journal back into my hands and runs farther past the bridge to a sandy bank of the river. The sun is hot now, unhindered with clouds. She proceeds to unlace her shoes and I search around to see if anyone is watching. Seeing no one, I remove my own shoes and happily observe her peel off her off-white stockings. We dangle our feet in the water.
“I must have met you before?” I ask, hoping she’ll remember.
