by Joanna Scott
Hush.
Let her sing.
Sing for us, Sally.
Mmm-hmmm.
She had her eyes closed when a little boy climbed the platform, thrust his head and torso beneath the lower rail, and tried to reach far enough so he could skim his hand along the river. She didn’t see him swish his arm in an attempt to catch some minnows. And with the clamor of the city mixing with the rushing water, she didn’t hear the boy growling an invitation to the fish to come get caught, come on, you dummies.
But she didn’t need to hear the boy or see what he was doing to sense what was about to happen, or would have happened. Even without seeing the boy wriggle forward on the platform, even without quite knowing that he was there beside the bench, she became aware of the sensation of impending disaster. It was something between a dream and an idea, involving more presumption than apprehension. And though she continued to sit with her head tipped back, her eyes closed, her thoughts adrift, the prospect of danger caused her to shift her position and thrust her left leg to the side so the boy bumped against her ankle instead of falling from the platform.
Her eyes opened wide. She saw the dusky sky. Her first impression was of the universe’s infinite depth, and at the same time, sensing the boy’s weight against her leg, she understood in a flash that if she moved her leg, he would slip forward and plunge into the river. He would drown. No, he wouldn’t drown because Sally had already hooked her fingers through his belt loop and pulled him back to safety, away from the edge of the platform.
Oh, but wasn’t he a rascal, his mother said with the kind of saintly calm shared with the rest of Tuskee’s citizens, who could not be shaken from their general optimistic belief that everything happened according to a reasonable plan. As she gripped him by the elbow, pulling him gently to his feet, she explained to Sally that her son sure knew how to get into trouble. If she let him get out of her sight for a second, just one second —
“Fishy!” the boy was insisting, stomping his feet. Either he’d be allowed to catch one of those little fishies in the river, or he’d throw a tantrum.
Sally judged the boy to be about three, a couple of years younger than her own son.
“Once when he was a baby,” his mother was saying, “I couldn’t find him anywhere. He’d gone and crawled into the laundry basket and fallen asleep.”
“Fishy fishy fishy!”
“We had the whole neighborhood out looking for him,” the mother went on, brushing back the boy’s wet bangs. “You rascal,” she said, planting a kiss on his forehead. “We gotta get on now. Sweetie pie, say thanks to the lady. She saved you from a soaking. Say thanks.”
“Fishy.”
“Fishy to you,” said Sally.
“Have a nice day,” the mother offered in a plain, friendly manner.
“See you, then,” Sally replied. After they were gone, she sat for a while watching the river as its surface turned waxier beneath the darkening sky. The school of minnows had disappeared, though not for good, Sally was sure. The next time she came back, the minnows would be there, waiting for her. And she knew that though the current seemed to have slowed almost to a standstill and the water beneath the platform looked like a big block of ice, solid, with nothing inside, really the river was full of mysterious life.
Sally had arrived in the city of Tuskee in the late spring of 1952. She worked steadily at Potter’s Hardware through the summer, into the crisp fall days, and then through a winter that was colder than she was used to and yet more beautiful, with the streetlamps candy-striped with red ribbons, the pond behind the library crowded with skaters, a thick snow cover on the ground that lasted through to the beginning of March, and blustery winds that kept the clouds moving and cleared the sky to a crystal blue almost every morning.
With so few expenses of her own, she was able to save over five hundred dollars — this was on top of Mason Jackson’s money, which she’d come to think of as a fortune she was holding in trust. Having failed once to give it away, she couldn’t help but wonder whether, instead, she was meant to keep it. She never intended to spend it on herself. But in a strange way, all that cash, the whole lump sum of it hidden in a hatbox in the back of her closet, was of more use to her if it remained intact. It was a hedge against uncertainty. It was the foundation for the settled life she was going to lead.
As the months passed and the pregnancy began to show, she found herself enjoying her solitude more, though not because she was ashamed of her condition; if shame ever occurred to her, it was only as an idea to consider briefly and dismiss, something to send away from Tuskee while she stayed on. She was grateful to have purposeful work that put her in contact with people each day. And it helped to know that she had a good friend in Penny and could count on being invited to join the Campbell family for holiday meals. But she was happy just to sit by herself at the window of her apartment watching snowflakes collecting on the sill while she thought about the child growing inside her.
She felt certain she was pregnant with a girl, and when she thought about what to name the child, she didn’t even consider names for boys. At first she decided she liked the name Judy, in honor of Judy Garland. But the next day she changed her mind and settled on Francesca. She went on to consider that Winifred was a fine name. And how about the names of her sisters, Trudy or Laura, or even her own name? How about Millicent? Now that was a name with stature! And really, there was nothing to compare with the friendly, inviting name of Brenda. Or maybe Phyllis or Carol, Daisy, or just plain Sue? All the names available were like candies on display. She’d choose one and give it to her child, her little girl, who with her fluttering presence was the reason Sally didn’t mind the evening solitude, why, with the dark sky spilling snow, the shop below her apartment closed for the night, the intersection of Mead and State below her window empty of all activity, she didn’t feel in the least bit lonely.
Close to term, she settled on the name Rebecca, but she managed to forget this in the hospital during the rush of her quick, searing labor, and in the first minutes after the birth of her child — the daughter she’d been expecting — Sally knew that she had to be called Penelope, after her friend who had first welcomed her when she’d stepped off the bus.
Penelope Mole, born at 6:31 a.m., March 17, 1953, in Tuskee General Hospital.
But good Lord, wasn’t she the funniest-looking child anyone had ever seen! So ugly with her big, swollen eyes bunched shut and her fat lips and her wet cap of hair that the nurse declared her the next Miss America out of pity, failing to foresee that the infant’s lopsided proportions would gradually shift and settle neatly into place, and the girl would develop into such a startling beauty that strangers, men and women alike, would stop in their tracks and stare as she passed.
And that’s just what Sally did. She stared as the infant settled in her arms, not quite believing that the funny, wonderful creature was hers, marveling until marvel became an inevitable aspect of their interaction, implicit and constant. Even if she didn’t speak of it, she’d often feel it, marveling at the child’s sheer presence in the world. And now and then she’d wonder if she would have felt the same for her son, her firstborn, if she’d just given him a chance.
She had every intention of writing to her family in Tauntonville and telling them that she had a new daughter. But in the letter she sent them on March 28, 1953, she didn’t mention Penelope. She expressed the hope that her parents and brothers and sisters were all in good health. Spelling raspberry without the p, she announced to her mother that she missed her jam so much that she was going to try to make a batch herself come summer. She went on to ask her little brother Clem if he was behaving himself. She directed her little sister Laura to pay attention to her teacher, and she wondered if she had a sweetheart yet. She said that the fairy in the new movie Peter Pan reminded her of Tru. Sally asked Tru if she remembered the night long ago, before she became sick, when Tru had a dream that she could fly. For many days afterward, she tried to fly. She jumped o
ff the bed and she jumped off the fence and she jumped from the loft. Did Tru remember? She flapped and flapped her arms so hard there were times Sally thought her sister just might fly, but then splat, down she’d come, every time.
Sally went on to write that she found it hard to believe Tru was all grown up. She wondered if Tru was thinking of marriage. Sally assured her that she would find a nice and suitable young husband.
She hoped there were no worries about the rain this year and pointed out that the almanac predicted it would be a good year for corn. She told her parents that she went to church regularly and worked hard at her job at a store in town, though she didn’t say which store. She assured all the members of her family that they were in her prayers every day, and she wished them good health and happiness. She noted that she was enclosing a gift of money for her son. She signed the letter, Your loving daughter Sally.
After sealing the envelope, she picked up her baby, who was blinking contentedly at the ceiling light, lying on her back on an alphabet quilt Mrs. Campbell had given her. Sally whispered nonsense to her, putting together any meaningless syllables that came to mind: Nutter-butter or humf-fafa or lubadubdubdub.
In a letter dated April 17, 1953, she wrote again to her family, hoping that they were in good health and wishing a happy Easter to each and every one. She said she hadn’t forgotten that Loden’s birthday was on the twenty-first and Laura’s birthday was two weeks later, if she was counting correctly. She enclosed small presents for them, a locket for Laura and a wooden tie clip for Loden, both of which were small enough to fit in the envelope. She guessed that Loden had moved out of the house and started his own family by then, though she didn’t put that in the letter.
She wrote that she’d read about the development of a polio vaccine, and she wondered if that might mean they would soon have a medicine to strengthen Tru’s legs, and she wouldn’t need her brace anymore. She named all the members of the family in order of age — Father, Mother, Loden, Tru, Laura, Clem, Willy — and assured them that they were in her prayers. She noted that she was enclosing a gift of money for them to save for her son and thanked them for looking after him.
After she’d sealed the envelope she picked up her baby and recited an old rhyme that came suddenly to mind, a simple rhyme for counting: Goody goody two shoes. Three shoes, four. Five shoes, six shoes, seven, and more.
She wrote to her family to wish them a happy Fourth of July. She hoped that they were enjoying good weather and good health. She predicted that the corn would be knee-high by the end of the week, and the raspberries would be ripening. She spelled raspberries without the p again. She wondered if her mother remembered, as she did, the time they thought there was a dog in the bushes, and her mother went out to chase it away, but when it came out into the open they saw that it was a bear. Her mother ran up on the porch as the bear waddled back into the woods all full and fat from the berries it had gorged on. They were sure mad to lose those berries, but they laughed. Did they all remember how they laughed?
It was so long ago, she wrote, so much has happened since. She enclosed a gift of money for her son and signed the letter, Your loving daughter Sally.
She pressed the moist stamp onto the envelope and then picked up Penelope, bouncing her on her lap, reciting, Monday is a Monday, Tuesday is a brick, Wednesday is milk shake nice and thick, Thursday is a fairy tale, Friday is a lark, Saturday’s a’passing, Sunday in the park.
She wrote a letter to her family in August, and then again in October, November, and December. She sent presents for their birthdays and Christmas, and she enclosed a portion of her earnings to give to her son. Without going into specifics, she assured her family that everything was all right. Better than all right, she wrote, not counting what you read in the newspaper these days.
She always included a return address, though she didn’t really expect her parents to contact her. She convinced herself that she didn’t care whether or not they replied. She wasn’t going to waste the rest of her life waiting to hear back from them.
But, oh, if those Werners only knew the truth; if they could have seen chunky, funny-looking Penelope, who grew chunkier and funnier-looking before she began to grow beautiful. Surely the sight of her would have softened their hearts.
Her fat cheeks fattened into two stuffed pouches, and her eyes had the startled, sparkling glare of a raccoon caught in a lantern’s glow. She sucked her thumb with great energy; upon discovering her feet, she took to chewing on her big toe. She was smiling before she was a month old, and her proudest smiles accompanied her juiciest farts.
She went to work with Sally and lay contentedly in a cradle that Mr. Potter had set up for her, charming the customers who bent down to have a look, gurgling and cooing sweetly. So what if her proportions were odd? Odd was cute when it came packaged in a splendid little girl. It didn’t matter to the people of Tuskee that her mother didn’t have a marriage license to make the child legitimate. Legitimate wasn’t a word in the local vocabulary. Neither, as far as Sally could tell, was sinner or shame or bastard.
Come to think of it, there were a whole lot of missing words. While Sally swept the aisles at the end of the day, she’d make a mental list of familiar words she never expected to hear in Tuskee: catastrophe, gloom, horror, damnation, humiliate, massacre, vile — and whore, of course, she’d never hear that around here, or slut, not because such words were forbidden, but because they simply weren’t available for common conversation.
If Sally was judging correctly, the language spoken in Tuskee didn’t provide an opportunity for slander. How lucky she was to have found her way to this haven, where she was free to carry on her life protected from the world’s dangers, to work and raise her child here, to talk with friends, to point a customer in the direction of a ladder or a garden hose, to be useful, to nurse her baby and quiet her when she cried.
Coaxing her, Shhh, don’t you cry.
Persuading her to Go to sleep, my little baby.
Promising to give her all sorts of treasures when she woke — pretty horses, mockingbirds, golden rings, shortening bread.
And wouldn’t you know, one humid day late in the summer, when the sticky heat was making Penelope uncomfortable and her whimpers were building up to wails, Sally Mole heard herself singing. She’d probably been singing aloud to her baby for weeks, and she just hadn’t thought to listen to her own voice. But now she heard herself singing to soothe Penelope when she was irritable.
She sang, It’s simple to wish. She sang, Darlin’, won’t you walk with me. She sang to cajole her daughter out of a fuss. She sang to make her giggle. And once, months later, without thinking, she sang to Penelope in the hardware store. It was a song Sally had read as a verse in a children’s book, an homage to the Cheshire cat, his saucy manner and lingering smile, and Penelope liked the melody Sally had made up so much that she clapped her hands together to beg for more. So Sally sang it again, Grinning his grin and fading away, grinning and fading away, away, away, and again, away, away, away, and again, noticing only after she’d whirled around, twirling the baby, that two men were standing at the end of an aisle watching her, listening to her sing. And the sight of them brought to Sally’s mind words that were supposed to be absent from Tuskee, reminding her that she’d had a good reason for swearing off singing forever.
“That’s a dandy song,” said one of the men, a young man in a droopy tweed cap.
The other man, older than the first, perhaps his father, took the frayed, unlit stub of his cigar from his mouth, and said, “Don’t mind us. You go ahead and sing.”
“No, that’s enough,” said Sally, more angrily than she’d intended, drawing from the baby on her hip a grunt to express her dissatisfaction and then another grunt to indicate that she would burst out crying if her mother didn’t resume her song.
“Quiet now,” Sally said to her, truly an outrageous direction from the point of view of the baby, who might not have understood the exact meaning of the words but must have
sensed that her mother was signaling that she would no longer comply with her daughter’s simple desire. Penelope’s frown bunched her whole face into an expression of despair, and she erupted in a sobbing frenzy. All Sally could think to do was to whisper a promise that she’d sing to her later.
For a moment Penelope fell silent and peered at her mother suspiciously.
“She wants you to sing is all,” observed the younger man.
“Go ahead and sing for her.” The older man offered this more as an expectation than a suggestion; he inserted his cigar stub back between his lips and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for Sally to continue. But Sally wasn’t going to continue, and Penelope, sensing this, burst out crying again.
“Can I help you find something?” Sally asked, raising her voice above her baby’s wails.
“We’re looking for…”
She thought she heard him say gadget. He corrected her: he was looking for a gasket, a graphite gasket.
“A gasket, you say? Okay then, let me think, graphite gasket. Graphite, you said. Right, yes, okay, down there, next to the boiler tape…”
As the men disappeared down the aisle, Sally bounced and swayed her screaming baby. When the motion didn’t comfort her, she whispered the words of the song into Penelope’s ear. When that didn’t work either, she opened the door and stood on the threshold, soaking in the brisk, bright cold of a January day, hugging her daughter close to keep her warm.
She had to raise her voice to be heard above the slur of tires on slushy macadam, the rattle of a bus’s engine, the chimes outside the gift shop across the street. She sang to her baby, fading away, away, away, loudly, nearly bellowing the words away, away, away. And as she sang, a woman passing by, bundled in a wool coat and braided scarves, picked up the melody and hummed it as she continued down the street.
Penelope’s smile suggested that her pleasure came more from manipulating her mother than from listening to her sing, but her mischievous delight was contagious, and Sally felt it, too, and she liked the way the tune was returning to her as an echo, hummed by a stranger.
