The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

“I’m glad we’ve started talking,” I said. “It’s kind of funny, really.”

  “What is?”

  “I mean, you and I have exchanged all of about ten words since you moved here. Most of the time I wasn’t even sure you knew who I was.”

  “What are you talking about?” Milo sounded insulted. “I asked you to the prom!”

  “I know. But that doesn’t mean you know me.”

  Milo paused. “No,” he said slowly. “I guess not. Jules? Will you call me again? Soon?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I will.”

  chapter

  29

  Although one of the bedrooms upstairs still needed work, Sophie was intent on getting the front room on the first floor in shape first. It had a rectangular front window and wooden floors. A large chandelier, delicate as a jellyfish, hung suspended from the ceiling. Sophie and Lloyd had already prepped the floors and sanded the walls. She still needed to apply primer and a fresh coat of paint, build and install shelves, and put down some kind of new flooring.

  “Here,” she said the next morning, sticking a paint roller in my hand as we walked back from Perry’s. “The primer’s over there. You start on the back wall, and I’ll work on the front.” Breakfast had been a somber event; neither of us had said much or even made eye contact, and Sophie joked around with the weirdos from the Table of Knowledge, which annoyed me and made me feel left out at the same time.

  Working inside the house, though, was definitely an improvement from working outside. Not only were we out of the sun’s glare, but a roller proved to be a much easier tool to wield than a scraper. Sophie set up a radio, propping it on four old milk crates in the corner, and cranked the volume.

  I made a face as a strange-sounding country song came on, but Sophie started slapping the sides of her legs and singing along.

  “I shot a man in Reno,

  Just to watch him die…”

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  Sophie stopped swinging her hips from side to side. “Who is that?” she repeated. “You’ve never heard of Johnny Cash?”

  “No.”

  In response, Sophie walked over to the radio and turned it up even louder. The man’s throaty voice surged within the four walls.

  I moved my arm all the way up and then all the way back down again, just like Sophie had showed me. Straight, clean lines. No back and forth. No shortcuts. Lloyd and Walt were probably peering through binoculars over at Perry’s, just so they could tell me tomorrow what I was doing wrong. I wouldn’t put it past them.

  Sophie sang every word of the song right to the end, and then turned the radio back down.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Johnny Cash,” she said again, picking up her paintbrush. “The man is a legend. Plus, Dad listens to him all the time.”

  “I’ve never heard him in my life,” I said.

  Sophie stopped painting. “What’re you talk…?” Her voice drifted off. “Wow, I guess that was back in Milford. He used to listen to country music all the time. Constantly, almost. That’s how I got into it. He played Johnny Cash so much I memorized the whole album.” She scratched her head. “Yeah, now that I think about it, I don’t remember him listening to it at all once we moved to Silver Springs. Not even once.”

  I kept painting. More before-and-after information that still didn’t add up.

  “So what kind of music do you listen to?” Sophie asked.

  I shrugged. “Just stuff on the radio.”

  “Like what? Pop? Rock? Classic rock? What?”

  “I don’t know. All of it, I guess. Whatever’s playing. I don’t really have a genre of music I listen to.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Did you just say genre of music?” Sophie had stopped painting and was looking at me from across the room.

  “Yeah, so?”

  She blinked a few times and then turned back to her wall. “Nothing, I guess. Never mind.”

  Now I stopped painting. “No, what is it?”

  Sophie shrugged but didn’t turn around. “Sometimes I forget how smart you are.”

  “Because I used the word ‘genre’?” I paused. “Don’t you know what that word means?”

  Sophie turned around slowly. “Yes, I know what it means. It means a type of something. A specific subset or genus, if you will.”

  I was confused. “Well, if you know what it means, then why does my saying it make me the smart one?”

  “Because I don’t use that word in everyday conversation,” Sophie said. “You do.”

  “Whatever.” I turned back around. “You’re weird.”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “I am definitely a specific genre of weird.” She laughed. It was the first time I had heard her laugh since I’d arrived. It was a nice sound.

  I kept my face to the wall so she didn’t see me smile.

  We worked in silence for a while, the only sound the slurp of the rollers against the walls.

  “Okay, I have something,” Sophie said quietly about ten minutes later. “About Maggie. You said to just say things when they come, so here it is.”

  “Okay.” I could feel my breath catching in the back of my throat. “Go ahead.”

  Sophie was still facing her wall, painting with wide, steady strokes. “I don’t know if Dad still does this or not, but back then, he used to go into the office on Saturday mornings.”

  “He still does,” I said. “He likes to practice his closing arguments when there’s no one around.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sophie said. “Exactly. Okay, so it was a Saturday. Mom wasn’t feeling well or something, and he wanted to let her sleep in. But he had to go into the office. So he bundled Maggie and me up and took us with him.” She turned around finally, gesturing with the paintbrush as she talked. “He got us all set up with paper and pens, and even let me sit at his secretary’s desk so I could play with the phone and pretend I was grown up. I was thrilled. More than thrilled. I just remember being so happy that Dad had given me something that didn’t include Maggie. Something for me. Even if it was just pretend.” She paused, and settled her hand against her hip. “Maggie, though—she was about three at the time—caught on pretty fast that I’d gotten the better end of the deal. She ditched the pen and paper Dad had given her and started bugging me. She was hanging on my legs and whining to get up in the chair and play with the phone.” Sophie shook her head. “I remember being so aggravated. God, she just friggin’ annoyed the hell out of me. Always whining and needing and crying and begging.” She paused. “Fuck.”

  I had stopped painting, turning away from the wall to listen. Sophie’s head was low between her shoulders. “You were just a kid,” I offered. “Kids get aggravated by stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, but I smacked her.” Sophie said. “Hard.” Her voice shook. “Right across the face. Right against her little cheek.” Her lips trembled, and she bit the bottom one with her teeth. “I’ll never forget the look on her face. It was just a split second, right before she started screaming, but it was like everything inside of her sort of crumpled. Like I’d stepped on her or something. Crushed her.” Sophie looked down at the floor. “It was the first time I realized that she really loved me. I mean, to make her crumble like that.”

  I didn’t like what Sophie was saying. I listened with one ear as she described Dad charging out of his office, demanding to know what the fighting was all about, and then sequestering both girls on opposite sides of the room. For the first time, I wondered if I really wanted to know what had happened to Maggie all those years ago.

  “Were you ever mean to her like that again?” I asked.

  “I never hit her again,” Sophie said slowly. “But I could’ve been a lot nicer to her too. There were other times…” She stopped, her voice drifting off. “More times, I mean, when I just acted like a jerk. You know, not playing with her, ignoring her when she tried to get my attention.” She winced, remembering. “God, she was always trying to get my attention. Sophie! Sophie! Sophie!” She tur
ned around suddenly, ashamed, and dipped her brush back into the can of paint.

  I watched her arm move up and down the wall with a new kind of force, the muscles in her shoulders straining as she applied another coat of paint to an already finished section.

  I turned around then, and did the same thing.

  chapter

  30

  I was in seventh grade when the call came about Goober’s birth. Sophie had been out of the house for almost five years by then, and her visits home—which were already occurring less and less—had dissolved into long, drawn-out screaming matches, mostly with Dad. I remember how long it took to get to the hospital. And how silent it was in the car.

  Sophie seemed startlingly skinny when we saw her, especially since she’d just had a baby. Her bare arms looked bony sticking out of the blue hospital gown, and when she got up at one point to shuffle to the bathroom, I could not make out even the smallest curve of a belly. Her face was unnaturally pale too, as if the blood had drained out of it, and her lips were dry and cracked. She was happy to see us, though, and cried a little when Mom hugged her.

  The nurse brought the baby out of the nursery, wheeling her into the room in a big plastic bassinet that had been set atop a metal cart. I remember thinking she was not very cute. In fact, she was kind of squished looking. Still, I cooed along with Mom and Dad as they bent over her, trying to wiggle their index fingers into her tightly closed fists. Sophie leaned her head against the pillow and watched them tiredly.

  After an hour or so, Mom and Dad left to get some lunch. I stayed with Sophie, not ready to leave her just yet. She patted the side of her bed and I scooted up next to her. “I’m glad you’re here, Julia.”

  “Me too.”

  “How’s school?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “What about your classes? How’re they going?”

  I had all As, but I didn’t say that. “They’re all right. I like my math teacher. He’s cute.”

  Sophie grinned. “I had a cute math teacher once. In tenth grade.” She leaned her head back against her pillow. I could see the veins beneath the skin of her neck. “God, that seems like so long ago.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  She lifted her head. “Yeah, I guess it was.” There was a pause as she looked over at Goober sleeping soundly in her bassinet. “Can you believe I’m a mother?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I’ll get used to it.” I started to ask about Goober’s father, but something inside told me not to.

  “Do you think I’ll be a good one?” Sophie asked.

  “A good what?”

  “Mother,” she said. “A good mother.”

  “Well, yeah. Sure. You’ll be great.” I reached out and pulled the bassinet a little closer to the bed. “Besides,” I lied, “she’s so cute.” I looked back over at Sophie, and was startled to see her eyes pooled with tears. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel anything,” she whispered. A single tear rolled down her face as she spoke. “Nothing.” I was too afraid to ask her what she meant. Sophie kept talking, her eyes wide and unblinking, as the tears leaked out. “You know that rush of love you’re supposed to feel when you look at your baby for the first time?” I nodded dumbly, although I had no idea what she was talking about. “I haven’t felt it, Julia. Not once. Not when they gave her to me to hold after she first came out, and not after they cleaned her all up and gave her back to me.” She stared vacantly into the basket. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered.

  “Nothing.” I could think of nothing else to say. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

  Suddenly, as if someone had shaken her, she blinked, and then pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Oh my God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just said all that. I’m so sorry. I have all these hormones swimming around inside of me right now and…” The color had come back into her cheeks, a deep flush of pink that started at the bottom of her throat and made its way up. She flattened her hands against the sides of them, as if to stop the heat from rising. “Agh!” She uttered a funny little scream. “I’m sorry, Jules. Really. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay.” I turned back toward the bassinet, because her apologies made me feel embarrassed. There was no need for them, but she did not understand that.

  “You want to hold her?” Sophie asked behind me.

  “Can I?”

  “Of course you can.” Sophie pulled the bassinet over until it was even with her side of the bed. She lifted Goober carefully with two hands and then placed them in the cradle of mine. I couldn’t believe how light she was. It was like holding a loaf of bread. Goober stirred a little as the transition was made, and scrunched up her nose, but then she settled back down again and the wrinkles disappeared from her face. Her skin was as smooth as a petal and deep pink. Tiny eyelashes stuck out like the edges of a feather, and her lips were shaped like a heart.

  “Wow,” I whispered, looking back over at Sophie. “She really is adorable.”

  But Sophie was looking past me, out the window, at something I could not see.

  chapter

  31

  Sophie got a phone call around four o’clock that afternoon that made her face go pale. “What is it?” I asked. We were still painting and I had paint everywhere—in my hair, on my arms, even on my face.

  She snapped her phone shut and shook her head. “Oh, nothing. Just some stupid stuff with the bank. I still have a bunch of papers to sign for the house.” Her eyes swept the room as if looking for something. “Listen, let’s stop for today, okay? I’m gonna have to go up to Rutland for a little bit. It’s only about twenty minutes away, and it shouldn’t take long. Will you be all right here without me?”

  “Well, yeah. Of course. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  She shook her head again. “It’s nothing. Seriously. Don’t worry about it.” She glanced out the window. “I’ve been using Jimmy’s truck when I need to go places, but it’d be great if I could just take the Bug now. You mind?”

  “The keys are in my suitcase,” I said.

  She roared out of the driveway, spewing dust and pebbles beneath her tires. I watched until the green car made a left at the light, and then I went back inside the house. I pulled off my dirty clothes and got into the shower. Sophie’s shampoo did nothing to erase the paint spatters from my hair. I leaned forward, examining the sullied strands in the mirror. It looked like I had a really terrible case of dandruff. Ugh. And my eyebrows were a mess, thick and stiff as barbed wire. I opened the mirror, poking around for a pair of tweezers. There was a tall bottle of pink Barbie shampoo, several packets of matches, a tube of toothpaste, and some dental floss. That was it. I shut the mirror. Of course Sophie didn’t pluck her eyebrows. She probably didn’t even own a tube of lipstick.

  I leaned closer to the mirror again, examining the rest of my face. My skin looked a little more tan. My cheeks were fuller too, probably from all the pancakes I’d been eating at Perry’s. There were dark circles under my eyes—most likely from my lack of sleep the night before—and a few blackheads on my nose. Still, not terrible. Even with the barbed-wire eyebrows and paint-speckled hair.

  I got into clean clothes and brushed my hair. A tiny pot of blackberry lip gloss was in the bottom of my suitcase. I slicked it over my lips and rubbed them together.

  Good enough.

  I headed out the door.

  Everything seemed to slow down inside as I stood in front of the yellow house again—my heartbeat, the chattering inside my head, even the pulse in my wrists. My breathing became more measured, my anxiety a non-issue. The name of this street was Furnace Road, which puzzled me. If I’d had anything to say about it, I would have called it Shady Tree Lane. Or maybe Maple Leaf Drive. Something pretty and delicate. Something alive and beating.

  Aiden was working behind his wheel when I walked up the lawn. His hat was down low over his eyes, and one Converse sneaker tapped out
a beat as he swayed slightly with the spinning clay. He stopped when he saw me, and turned off the motor.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re becoming a regular.”

  I winced, taking a step backward. “I shouldn’t…I mean…”

  “Hey, relax,” Aiden said. “I was just making an observation. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He reached out suddenly and, with a swipe of his hand, crushed the small clay shape in front of him.

  I gasped. “What did you do that for?”

  “It’s no good,” Aiden said. “I didn’t get it centered right.”

  I held out my hand. “Can I try?” Aiden looked up in surprise. “I mean, if it’s okay with you.”

  “Have you ever worked on a pottery wheel before?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Aiden hesitated and then got up from his seat. “Okay.” He scraped the mound of clay off the wheel and kneaded it for a few minutes, then handed it to me. I held it in my hands, trying to get used to the feel of it against my skin. It was surprisingly dry—and heavy. Not very pliable either. I could feel the muscles in my forearms flexing as I squeezed it, the tips of my fingers pressing until they turned white. “That’s it,” Aiden said as I worked it back eventually into a mound. “Now put it on the wheel and see if you can get it centered.”

  I nervously glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and sat down on the little stool. My feet touched a corner of the magazine pile and the wheel was at chest height, directly in front of me. I reached out and pressed the clay down on the wheel.

  “Okay, wait,” Aiden said. “You can’t just set it down all dainty like that. It’s got to be attached to the wheel. Really stuck on. Pick it up and try again. And this time, bring your arms up and really fling it down. Use your whole body.”

  “Fling it down?” I repeated. “Won’t I break the wheel?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. It’s built for that.”