Unwed (Dovetail Cove, 1976) (Dovetail Cove Series)

by Jason McIntyre

  Likely, the speech rehearsed last night and this morning had been about abortion. About how God looked at sinners who dared to take life and death into their own hands. And about how Rebekah McLeod had no right playing God for this Mary Smithson person and how no one, including Gladys Troyer, or her troops was going to let some rich specialist from the mainland swoop in and take care of things, just because Bexy thought it ought to be ‘handled.’

  Bexy sat in her chair, an arm’s width from Mary behind her, who stood looking stunned and confused. “Don’t cry, Missa Cloud,” the girl said quietly, reaching a hand out to the older woman in the chair.

  Two arm’s lengths before her stood Gladys Troyer, out-of-breath and recovering from a speech she had nailed, at least in her mind. In Gladys’ ringside corner, the crowd of fifteen or twenty whispered and watched. No one said anything at a volume audible for all. The thin veil of mist had dissipated. The world seemed to expand into a vastness now. The air was fresh and crisp, smelling of leaves and decaying yards, more like fall than early January.

  Bexy wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. They’d seen her cry. This time, they had. But never again would she let them. And never again would she let Gladys Troyer, of all people, talk to her this way.

  She put the heels of each hand on the rims of her wheels. “We’re going for breakfast, now,” she said in a tight whisper to Mary behind her. She gripped the rims tightly and then she spun them. She tore forward on the damp concrete. Then she hollered: “Get out of my way, you bitch!” and she slammed into Gladys who had no idea what was coming and only had the time to get one defensive hand up.

  Bexy veered to the left at the last second. Gladys—behind wide, white eyes—fell away to the right, getting clipped by the oncoming locomotive of her former friend. One wheel thumped over the woman’s ankle. She screamed.

  Then she fell partially on the concrete but mostly in the slushy leavings of old snow and mud and grass. Her chin tore open. So did her hands. The shock of the cold ground bore into her.

  “Come on, Mary!” Bexy hollered back. “Let’s go.”

  The crowd parted. They were not the red sea, but the grey and black and brown, wearing their various spring and fall and winter coats. Startled and surprised, they had nothing to say as they finally broke off the concrete walkway and the concrete sidewalk, trampling into the wet and icy lawn. Bexy recognized their faces, knew every one of them. They’d trampled through her home on the day of Oren’s funeral. And in a way, they were still trampling on her turf.

  But Bexy McLeod was done being trampled on. She was charitable, sure she was. But she would help Mary Smithson and then she was done.

  The rest of these people could go to hell.

  5.

  The Highliner was not busy. But that wasn’t unusual for a Tuesday morning. Dabney Saum, the owner himself, trotted out to seat Bexy and Mary with a wan smile and no pleasant small talk. ‘Seat’ was a relative term, of course, as Bexy had brought her own. Dab pulled a chair away and buried it under a nearby table. He dropped two breakfast menus on theirs and set a couple of plastic water glasses out for them. “Back in a sec,” he said.

  The trip over had been long and painful. They’d caught the bus but held it up while the bus driver had to get out and haul Bexy up the stairs. Mary had watched helplessly. Then Bexy discovered she had no change. Just a quarter and a dime, not enough for two riders. “Don’t worry about it today, Mrs. McLeod,” the driver said. He was about the boys’ age and may have even gone to school with them, even though Bexy didn’t recognize him. By then, it had started to rain. That was good because it would clean up the dirt, mud, and snow—and it meant that temperatures were coming up. A mid-winter break from real winter could usually be counted on at least twice on the island. But it was bad because the women hadn’t brought raincoats or an umbrella.

  The bus driver dropped them closer to the Highliner Cafe’s front doors than he needed to but, apparently, he had some pity for them. Normally, Bexy hated pity but today she took it wordlessly, except for a warm thank you to the younger man. He smiled and squeaked the door shut before driving away.

  Bexy had been shaken for the first two-thirds of the bouncing drive, picturing over and over again how she’d railed into that Gladys Troyer. That awful thumping feeling and sound as she’d driven over the woman’s ankle. She could see the bloody hands and chin of the woman who she really had no bad feelings towards until this last week. She’d been indifferent to the woman, really until this week. But still, Bexy regretted her hasty exit. She hoped the woman’s ankle wasn’t broken. The idea that she’d done that to another human being—whether that human being had deserved it or not—made her feel queazy.

  When Dab came back, he said, “Ready?”

  “Pancakes and bacon for Mary, right Mary?”

  Mary nodded exuberantly. “Yes, please!” she said.

  “Just coffee for me.” The perk on the Banatyne’s kitchen counter was likely still plugged in and burbling away at home. It would be hot for later, she supposed. She might need a lot more before this day was over. It was sacrilege for Bexy McLeod to leave the house with a countertop appliance plugged in. Toasters and kettles all needed to be checked and double-checked before a departure. That she hadn’t done so this morning spoke to just how frazzled this whole thing had made her.

  And that damned woman, Gladys Troyer!

  That grade A bitch had said some awful things. She hoped the gash on her chin would leave a scar! But then, a softer side of Bexy returned. No, it’s terrible to glee in such trouble. Terrible mostly because Bexy herself had wrought it. Gladys made her sad and hurt and then she’d lost her temper. It was no excuse, she told herself. No excuse at all.

  Dab called back from the kitchen. “Missa McLeod,” he said. “You sure you don’t want anything? It’s on the Doc. He called a little while ago and says he can’t make it. But he wants it on his tab. You better eat. We gotta hot stack and crispy bacon just ready now.”

  Bexy felt good all of a sudden. A little flush to her face that Doc had been so generous. “Oh...all right,” she called back to Dab without looking in his direction. “I’ll have the same as Mary here. Plus the coffee. Thanks, Dab.”

  “No prob, Missa,” he said, sounding vaguely like Mary did when she used Bexy’s title and last name. Saum was a German name, Bexy thought. Or Austrian. Dab had been in Dovetail for as long as she had but he’d kept a heavy slathering of his accent. It came out mostly when he was being informal. As Bexy understood, Saum had quietly built a little empire of stores and eateries. He had even gone into business with the Banatynes on a couple of things, if the rumours had been right.

  But that didn’t matter, not now.

  Nothing did. Just look after Mary, Doc had told her. And while Doc did the same for his poor, troubled wife, that’s just what she intended to do. Once accepted, Rebekah McLeod did not turn away from a commitment. She was in charge of Mary Smithson and that, as they say, was that.

  Pancakes came. Bacon too. And a glass of juice for the girl that Mary hadn’t ordered for her. Mary gulped it down and didn’t raise much fuss. Surely the man who’d taken Mary under his wing as his pet project and had treated tonsillitis and every other pregnant woman over the last 35 years out this way could afford a glass of juice for the girl. Either Dab knew of the town’s latest scandal (the pregnant retarded girl and her eccentric, wheelchair-bound benefactor) or he was just being kind. The girl certainly didn’t look pregnant. Unless the natural beauty springing from her otherwise saggy looking, acne-ridden face gave her away to the male half of the populace. But Bexy examined the girl as she devoured her stack of fluffy pancakes. She was looking exquisite. Her acne was clearing up and the redness of her cheeks—that almost looked like it might be a minor case of rosacea—had dissolved to create an even milky glow on her skin. With her crooked and gapped teeth hidden, she was, dare Bexy think it, not just pretty.

  She was beautiful.

  For a second time
in as many days, Bexy wondered if she was pushing the right agenda, where Mary was concerned. Was taking care of this for her, really the best way to go?

  The squawk of a chair on the tile startled Bex from her thoughts. The hand pulling it out from under their table was adorned with gold rings. She looked up. It wasn’t Doc.

  It was Father Frye.

  “May I join you?” he asked with a polite smile.

  “Depends,” Bexy said. “Are you going to shame me again?”

  “I think we can discuss this like adults,” Frye said taking a seat in the chair and eyeing Mary as if she carried a communicable disease. Mary kept eating, oblivious to the Father’s arrival.

  “I’ve already had about enough adult discussion for today,” Bexy said, glaring at him. She still hadn’t touched her breakfast, even though she was starting to feel the hunger creep back into her belly before Father Frye had appeared.

  “Yes, I heard about the...altercation...at the Banatyne mansion today,” he said, a note of distaste colouring his words. “It’s really too bad. Mrs. Troyer was taken to the clinic across the street. I understand she has a small fracture. Not to mention a number of wounds from the war you two waged.” Frye moved the silverware at his place setting away from him and leaned forward. “Let me make something clear, Mrs. McLeod. I do not condone her vigilante behaviour. We won’t have sign-toting strikers marching in circles. Not in front of my parish. What we will have is a calm, rational discussion about how best to solve this...problem.” He blinked his eyes as if the next part he was about to deliver should be said in secret. “But I don’t believe discussing it in front of the child is most beneficial.”

  Mary didn’t seem to hear the Father. She kept eating. She was enjoying her pancakes and bacon, perhaps a rare treat for her. But she made a funny face. From across the table, Bexy heard the audible crunch. It was more than bacon that made that noise. Mary stopped chewing. She reached in to her messy, overfilled mouth with two pinching fingers. She retrieved a tiny, yellow tooth. This one was more than the stump, more than a big fragment. It was the entire bulbous, dirty top wearing a dirty crack. It was the grey middle and the long, twisted, bloody roots, still dripping bright red onto Mary’s plate of food. It looked like it would have hurt to come loose but Mary only smiled. She placed it on the edge of her plate, careful to avoid her syrup. Then she looked down at it still beaming. Bexy could almost read the girl’s mind. She was thinking about smooth stones...and the toofairy.

  Bexy spoke. “It’s really too bad about Mrs. Troyer’s bad fall. I feel just awful about that. Really I do.” She leaned forward herself now and looked directly at the Father.

  “But I’m more upset about this ‘problem’ you speak of. You see, the ‘child’ needs our help. She is alone. She is unwed, she has special needs. Needs that no one is going to help her with. That tooth she just pulled out of her mouth? The doc has never seen anything like that in all his years of delivering term babies on this island. Full-term, half-term, over-term. Sick mums, healthy mums. The ‘child’ is having a baby, one that might be doing her in. The ‘child’ is in need of a resolution. I cannot sit idly by while she is put in danger. And, guess what, even if she isn’t? Even if this baby comes and is perfectly fine, Mary Smithson is not equipped to raise it.”

  Frye began to speak but, Bexy, who was on a roll, stopped him dead. “You know what I think? Do you?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. Father Frye had likely never been talked to in this way, not in his whole career—or his whole life. “I think you’re just pissed off. Yeah, that’s it. Troyer and all the rest are jealous and mean because I’m still standing—well, sitting here. And you? You’re pissed off that I have the gall to help this poor girl. She has something you thought might be yours. And, no, I’m not accusing you of gifting things of impropriety. Not at all. But, your whole time here, all you wanted was to build the biggest, bestest church in the land. Better than the Lutherans’, better than the Presbyterians’, even better than the new upstart, oh those Zionist heathens, you might say. Yer mad that I left for a time, aren’t you? Admit it. I left to help them build a bigger, better sanctuary than St. Dom’s. It went badly because of the Smythes...but I did it with nothing but charity in my heart…and I found thousands and thousands of dollars on this island that you couldn’t tap. Not with all the sermons in a hundred years of Sundays.

  “And then! Oh dear! The two richest people on this island, somehow, against all odds, this ‘child’ gets their house. Some maid has their farm. And St. Dom’s—you—didn’t get a sniff at any of that dough. You’re pissed. You are.

  “Now, Father, you took an oath of the cloth to be alone. You have a job to do. I had ‘alone’ thrust upon me. By the good Lord himself, I once believed when I was in the thick of this church you’ve built. Mrs. Banatyne, she was alone too, and maybe she couldn’t hack it, I don’t know. But I doubt it was her choice. And the doc, he may or may not have ‘alone’ thrust upon him in the coming months—or maybe weeks. I hope to hell he won’t experience that. Because it IS hell. But I think he will.

  “Now Mary here, she hasn’t lost a husband. She hasn’t. But she’s lost a hell of a lot more than you have. And I know that this is going to affect her. She may feel this loss the rest of her life. But, God help me, I will not let you use the lofty church to defend a course of action that would rob her of everything else. She deserves a life. The rest of us have had ours stolen. Or we’ve given them up. She can’t have it stolen from her. It’s not fair. I won’t let it happen. And you and your...parish...can take a flying leap. You’re not in charge. Not of Mary. Or me.”

  Red-faced, and sweating, Bexy finally stopped talking. Her volume had risen considerably. Her strident voice had not reached a shouting level but it was plain to everyone in the restaurant what her feelings were.

  No, Father Frye had never been talked to this way. His face was as red as Bexy’s. He sat across from her in steaming silence, his eyes frosted in contrast to his boiling complexion. But he didn’t open his mouth again. Not yet.

  Bexy wasn’t quite finished.

  “The bottom line is this, Father,” she said. “You have no say in the matter. A specialist from the mainland is arriving tonight. That’s right. Tonight. And when he’s through, that’s that. Your church, your God, can’t stop this.

  “Now,” she said, changing her tone back to the pleasant, conversational one that ladies of Gladys Troyer’s stature depended on in their daily lives. “Leave us in peace, Father. You likely have a group of your followers to calm. And I would like to eat my pancakes before they get cold. Good day to you, sir.”

  She picked up her knife and fork in one hand and the syrup carafe in the other and began to pour.

  Not unlike Gladys Troyer had looked an hour earlier on the front walk of the Banatyne house, Father Frye got up from his chair. It gave the room a nearly identical squeak as it did when he’d sat down. His response was the growl of a threatened animal. “Just you wait,” he said. “This isn’t over, Mrs. McLeod.” He pressed her husband’s name like Mrs. Troyer had, like it was a profanity he didn’t want on his tongue.

  He started away, buttoning up his coat and placing his hat on his red, balding head.

  “Not by a long shot,” he added. Then he stalked off to the door and left.

  6.

  Doc came by the Highliner looking flustered. He piled the two women into his car, yet again, and headed for the Banatyne house. The posse had disbanded by now. Even their footsteps pressed into the front lawn were gone, as most of the snow had melted. The blood left on the walk from Mrs. Troyer’s hands and chin had been cleansed away by slush turning to pure water across the sidewalk.

  Bexy begged Doc to stay for a while. She was exhausted, she told him, and could use a nap if she was to look after the girl in her right mind for the rest of the day. It might be a long night, she reasoned. If the mainland specialist came as scheduled and performed the procedure tonight.

  “Oh, he’ll be here,”
Doc told her. He played board games with Mary while Bexy laid down in the girl’s room. She couldn’t sleep at first, only stared at the busted screening through the smeared glass of the window. But a while later, Doc touched her shoulder and woke her with a small start. “You’ve been sleeping for three hours. I really have to go and check on Aggie.”

  Rubbing her face, Bexy said, “Go. I’ll make dinner.”

  Doc left with little fanfare from Mary who was now sitting cross-legged in stunned silence at the flashing TV.

  They had skipped lunch. Apparently, Doc had given Mary a snack of crackers and cheese, apple slices, and milk and that had held her over.

  Bexy washed her face in the bathroom sink, then wheeled into the kitchen and got started on a Texas scramble. The veggies in the drawer at the bottom of the fridge teetered on the brink of heading south so she was careful what went in. Some cheddar, after cutting away the mould, only the stems of white mushrooms that had otherwise blackened, green peppers—also carefully salvaged.

  She called Mary who came in and sat down to eat.

  After some time, Mary said, “Missa Cloud?”

  “Yes, dear?” Bexy said, still groggy from her extended nap. She’d have real trouble getting to sleep tonight, she just knew it. Somehow she thought she’d be up late anyway.

  “What’s ‘unwed’?”

  Bexy sighed. She knew Mary had been listening this morning at the Highliner, knew, in fact, that the girl had heard and understood most of what was going on the last few days. She was not as dumb as everyone thought.

  “It’s, uhm, it’s when you don’t have a husband. Or, if you’re a man, you don’t have a wife.”

  “Oh.”

  Mary ate another bite. So did Bexy.

  Then Mary said, “You told Father I’m ‘unwed’.” She stopped chewing and swallowed hard. “But I’m not.”

  “You’re not what, sweetie?”

  “I have a huz-bend.”