by Alice Munro
Then a year later a baby girl appeared, and there was another fuss but more subdued than with the first one.
Up until the time of the first baby I had not been aware of ever feeling different from the way my mother said I felt. And up until that time the whole house was full of my mother, of her footsteps her voice her powdery yet ominous smell that inhabited all the rooms even when she wasn’t in them.
Why do I say ominous? I didn’t feel frightened. It wasn’t that my mother actually told me what I was to feel about things. She was an authority on that without having to question a thing. Not just in the case of a baby brother but in the matter of Red River cereal which was good for me and so I must be fond of it. And in my interpretation of the picture that hung at the foot of my bed, showing Jesus suffering the little children to come unto him. Suffering meant something different in those days, but that was not what we concentrated on. My mother pointed out the little girl half hiding round a corner because she wanted to come to Jesus but was too shy. That was me, my mother said, and I supposed it was though I wouldn’t have figured it out without her telling me and I rather wished it wasn’t so.
The thing I really felt miserable about was Alice in Wonderland huge and trapped in the rabbit hole, but I laughed because my mother seemed delighted.
It was with my brother’s coming, though, and the endless carryings-on about how he was some sort of present for me, that I began to accept how largely my mother’s notions about me might differ from my own.
I suppose all this was making me ready for Sadie when she came to work for us. My mother had shrunk to whatever territory she had with the babies. With her not around so much, I could think about what was true and what wasn’t. I knew enough not to speak about this to anybody.
The most unusual thing about Sadie—though it was not a thing stressed in our house—was that she was a celebrity. Our town had a radio station where she played her guitar and sang the opening welcome song which was her own composition.
“Hello, hello, hello, everybody—”
And half an hour later it was, “Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, everybody.” In between she sang songs that were requested, as well as some she picked out herself. The more sophisticated people in town tended to joke about her songs and about the whole station which was said to be the smallest one in Canada. Those people listened to a Toronto station that broadcast popular songs of the day—three little fishes and a momma fishy too—and Jim Hunter hollering out the desperate war news. But people on the farms liked the local station and the kind of songs Sadie sang. Her voice was strong and sad and she sang about loneliness and grief.
Leanin’ on the old top rail,
in a big corral.
Lookin’ down the twilight trail
For my long lost pal—
Most of the farms in our part of the country had been cleared and settled around a hundred and fifty years ago, and you could look out from almost any farmhouse and see another farmhouse only a few fields away. Yet the songs the farmers wanted were all about lone cowhands, the lure and disappointment of far-off places, the bitter crimes that led to criminals dying with their mothers’ names on their lips, or God’s.
This was what Sadie sang with such sorrow in a full-throated alto, but in her job with us she was full of energy and confidence, happy to talk and mostly to talk about herself. There was usually nobody to talk to but me. Her jobs and my mother’s kept them divided most of the time and somehow I don’t think they would have enjoyed talking together anyway. My mother was a serious person as I have indicated, one who used to teach school before she taught me. She maybe would have liked Sadie to be somebody she could help, teaching her not to say “youse.” But Sadie did not give much indication that she wanted the help anybody could offer, or to speak in any way that was different from how she had always spoken.
After dinner, which was the noon meal, Sadie and I were alone in the kitchen. My mother took time off for a nap and if she was lucky the babies napped too. When she got up she put on a different sort of dress as if she expected a leisurely afternoon, even though there would certainly be more diapers to change and also some of that unseemly business that I tried never to catch sight of, when the littlest one guzzled at a breast.
My father took a nap too—maybe fifteen minutes on the porch with the Saturday Evening Post over his face, before he went back to the barn.
Sadie heated water on the stove and washed the dishes with me helping and the blinds down to keep out the heat. When we were finished she mopped the floor and I dried it, by a method I had invented—skating around and around it on rags. Then we took down the coils of sticky yellow flypaper that had been put up after breakfast and were already heavy with dead or buzzing nearly dead black flies, and hung up the fresh coils which would be full of newly dead ones by suppertime. All this while Sadie was telling me about her life.
I didn’t make easy judgments about ages then. People were either children or grown-ups and I thought her a grown-up. Maybe she was sixteen, maybe eighteen or twenty. Whatever her age, she announced more than once that she was not in any hurry to get married.
She went to dances every weekend but she went by herself. By herself and for herself, she said.
She told me about the dance halls. There was one in town, off the main street, where the curling rink was in the winter. You paid a dime for a dance, then went up and danced on a platform with people gawking all around, not that she cared. She always liked to pay her own dime, not to be beholden. But sometimes a fellow got to her first. He asked if she wanted to dance and the first thing she said was, Can you? Can you dance? she asked him bluntly. Then he would look at her funny and say yes, meaning why else would he be here? And it would turn out usually that what he meant by dance was shuffling around on two feet with his sweaty big meats of hands grabbing at her. Sometimes she just broke off and left him stranded, danced by herself—which was what she liked to do anyway. She finished up the dance that had been paid for, and if the money-taker objected and tried to make her pay for two when it was only one, she told him that was enough out of him. They could all laugh at her dancing by herself if they liked.
The other dance hall was just out of town on the highway. You paid at the door there and it wasn’t for one dance but the whole night. The place was called the Royal-T. She paid her own way there too. There was generally a better class of dancer, but she did try to get an idea of how they managed before she let them take her out on the floor. They were usually town fellows while the ones at the other place were country. Better on their feet—the town ones—but it was not always the feet you had to look out for. It was where they wanted to get hold of you. Sometimes she had to read them the riot act and tell them what she would do to them if they didn’t quit it. She let them know she’d come there to dance and paid her own way to do it. Furthermore she knew where to jab them. That would straighten them out. Sometimes they were good dancers and she got to enjoy herself. Then when they played the last dance she bolted for home.
She wasn’t like some, she said. She didn’t mean to get caught.
Caught. When she said that, I saw a big wire net coming down, some evil little creatures wrapping it around and around you and choking you so you could never get out. Sadie must have seen something like this on my face because she said not to be scared.
“There’s nothing in this world to be scared of, just look out for yourself.”
“You and Sadie talk together a lot,” my mother said.
I knew something was coming that I should watch for but I didn’t know what.
“You like her, don’t you?”
I said yes.
“Well of course you do. I do too.”
I hoped that was going to be all and for a moment I thought it was.
Then, “You and I don’t get so much time now we have the babies. They don’t give us much time, do they?
“But we do love them, don’t we?”
Quickly I said yes.
Sh
e said, “Truly?”
She wasn’t going to stop till I said truly, so I said it.
My mother wanted something very badly. Was it nice friends? Women who played bridge and had husbands who went to work in suits with vests? Not quite, and no hope of that anyway. Was it me as I used to be, with my sausage curls that I didn’t mind standing still for, and my expert Sunday School recitations? No time for her to manage that anymore. And something in me was turning traitorous, though she didn’t know why, and I didn’t know why either. I hadn’t made any town friends at Sunday School. Instead, I worshipped Sadie. I heard my mother say that to my father. “She worships Sadie.”
My father said Sadie was a godsend. What did that mean? He sounded cheerful. Maybe it meant he wasn’t going to take anybody’s side.
“I wish we had proper sidewalks for her,” my mother said. “Maybe if we had proper sidewalks she could learn to roller-skate and make friends.”
I did wish for roller skates. But now without any idea why, I knew that I was never going to admit it.
Then my mother said something about it being better when school started. Something about me being better or something concerning Sadie that would be better. I didn’t want to hear.
Sadie was teaching me some of her songs and I knew I wasn’t very good at singing. I hoped that wasn’t what had to get better or else stop. I truly did not want it to stop.
My father didn’t have much to say. I was my mother’s business, except for later on when I got really mouthy and had to be punished. He was waiting for my brother to get older and be his. A boy would not be so complicated.
And sure enough my brother wasn’t. He would grow up to be just fine.
Now school has started. It started some weeks ago, before the leaves turned red and yellow. Now they were mostly gone. I am not wearing my school coat but my good coat, the one with the dark velvet cuffs and collar. My mother is wearing the coat she wears to church, and a turban covers most of her hair.
My mother is driving to whatever place it is that we are going to. She doesn’t drive often, and her driving is always more stately and yet uncertain than my father’s. She peeps her horn at any curve.
“Now,” she says, but it takes a little while for her to get the car into place.
“Here we are then.” Her voice seems meant to be encouraging. She touches my hand to give me a chance to hold hers, but I pretend not to notice and she takes her hand away.
The house has no driveway or even a sidewalk. It’s decent but quite plain. My mother has raised her gloved hand to knock but it turns out we don’t have to. The door is opened for us. My mother has just started to say something encouraging to me—something like, It will go more quickly than you think—but she doesn’t get finished. The tone in which she spoke to me had been somewhat stern but slightly comforting. It changes when the door is opened into something more subdued, softened as if she was bowing her head.
The door has been opened to let some people go out, not just to let us go in. One of the women going out calls back over her shoulder in a voice that does not try to be soft at all.
“It’s her that she worked for, and that little girl.”
Then a woman who is rather dressed up comes and speaks to my mother and helps her off with her coat. That done, my mother takes my coat off and says to the woman that I was especially fond of Sadie. She hopes it was all right to bring me.
“Oh the dear little thing,” the woman says and my mother touches me lightly to get me to say hello.
“Sadie loved children,” the woman said. “She did indeed.”
I notice that there are two other children there. Boys. I know them from school, one being in the first grade with me, and the other one older. They are peering out from what is likely the kitchen. The younger one is stuffing a whole cookie into his mouth in a comical way and the other, older, one is making a disgusted face. Not at the cookie stuffer, but at me. They hate me of course. Boys either ignored you if they met you somewhere that wasn’t school (they ignored you there too) or they made these faces and called you horrid names. If I had to go near one I would stiffen and wonder what to do. Of course it was different if there were adults around. These boys stayed quiet but I was slightly miserable until somebody yanked the two of them into the kitchen. Then I became aware of my mother’s especially gentle and sympathetic voice, more ladylike even than the voice of the spokeswoman she was talking to, and I thought maybe the face was meant for her. Sometimes people imitated her voice when she called for me at school.
The woman she was talking to and who seemed to be in charge was leading us to a part of the room where a man and a woman sat on a sofa, looking as if they did not quite understand why they were here. My mother bent over and spoke to them very respectfully and pointed me out to them.
“She did so love Sadie,” she said. I knew that I was supposed to say something then but before I could the woman sitting there let out a howl. She did not look at any of us and the sound she made seemed like a sound you might make if some animal was biting or gnawing at you. She slapped away at her arms as if to get rid of whatever it was, but it did not go away. She looked at my mother as if my mother was the person who should do something about this.
The old man told her to hush.
“She’s taking it very hard,” said the woman who was guiding us. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.” She bent down lower and said, “Now, now. You’ll scare the little girl.”
“Scare the little girl,” the old man said obediently.
By the time he finished saying that, the woman was not making the noise anymore and was patting her scratched arms as if she didn’t know what had happened to them.
My mother said, “Poor woman.”
“An only child too,” said the conducting woman. To me she said, “Don’t you worry.”
I was worried but not about the yelling.
I knew Sadie was somewhere and I did not want to see her. My mother had not actually said that I would have to see her but she had not said that I wouldn’t have to, either.
Sadie had been killed when walking home from the Royal-T dance hall. A car had hit her just on that little bit of gravel road between the parking space belonging to the dance hall and the beginning of the proper town sidewalk. She would have been hurrying along just the way she always did, and was no doubt thinking cars could see her, or that she had as much right as they did, and perhaps the car behind her swerved or perhaps she was not quite where she thought she was. She was hit from behind. The car that hit her was getting out of the way of the car that was behind it, and that second car was looking to make the first turn onto a town street. There had been some drinking at the dance hall, though you could not buy liquor there. And there was always some honking and yelling and whipping around too fast when the dancing was over. Sadie scurrying along without even a flashlight would behave as if it was everybody’s business to get out of her way.
“A girl without a boyfriend going to dances on foot,” said the woman who was still being friends with my mother. She spoke quite softly and my mother murmured something regretful.
It was asking for trouble, the friendly woman said still more softly.
I had heard talk at home that I did not understand. My mother wanted something done that might have had to do with Sadie and the car that hit her, but my father said to leave it alone. We’ve got no business in town, he said. I did not even try to figure this out because I was trying not to think about Sadie at all, let alone about her being dead. When I had realized that we were going into Sadie’s house I longed not to go, but didn’t see any way to get out of it except by behaving with enormous indignity.
Now after the old woman’s outburst it seemed to me we might turn around and go home. I would never have to admit the truth, which was that I was in fact desperately scared of any dead body.
Just as I thought this might be possible, I heard my mother and the woman she seemed now to be conniving with speak of what was worse than a
nything.
Seeing Sadie.
Yes, my mother was saying. Of course, we must see Sadie.
Dead Sadie.
I had kept my eyes pretty well cast down, seeing mostly just those boys who were hardly taller than I was, and the old people who were sitting down. But now my mother was taking me by the hand in another direction.
There had been a coffin in the room all the time but I had thought it was something else. Because of my lack of experience I didn’t know exactly what such a thing looked like. A shelf to put flowers on, this object we were approaching might have been, or a closed piano.
Perhaps the people being around it had somehow disguised its real size and shape and purpose. But now these people were making way respectfully and my mother spoke in a new very quiet voice.
“Come now,” she said to me. Her gentleness sounded hateful to me, triumphant.
She bent to look into my face, and this, I was sure, was to prevent me from doing what had just occurred to me—keeping my eyes squeezed shut. Then she took her gaze away from me but kept my hand tightly held in hers. I did manage to lower my lids as soon as she took her eyes off me, but I did not shut them quite lest I stumble or somebody push me right where I didn’t want to be. I was able to see just a blur of the stiff flowers and the sheen of polished wood.
Then I heard my mother sniffling and felt her pulling away. There was a click of her purse being opened. She had to get her hand in there, so her hold on me weakened and I was able to get myself free of her. She was weeping. It was attention to her tears and sniffles that had set me loose.
I looked straight into the coffin and saw Sadie.
The accident had spared her neck and face but I didn’t see all of that at once. I just got the general impression that there was nothing about her as bad as I had been afraid of. I shut my eyes quickly but found myself unable to keep from looking again. First at the little yellow cushion that was under her neck and that also managed to cover her throat and chin and the one cheek I could easily see. The trick was in seeing a bit of her quickly, then going back to the cushion, and the next time managing a little bit more that you were not afraid of. And then it was Sadie, all of her or at least all I could reasonably see on the side that was available.
