Crooked Branch (9781101615072)

by Cummins, Jeanine

  “Oh, how I will miss you, my darling boy!” she said, and her voice was taut with an anguish that Ginny recognized.

  “Ah, now,” Ginny said, setting the untouched cup of water on the table, and reaching for her baby. “You’re all right. It’s not the end of the world, now, is it? You’ll hardly even remember us when you get to New York.”

  Alice Spring’s body tensed as Ginny lifted Raymond from her arms. Ginny watched her go rigid and pale. She straightened herself from the spine and neck, but her fingers went crooked and stiff. She cleared her throat, and contrived a grin with her teeth.

  “And anyway, you and Mr. Spring will have your own little one before you know it, when you’re reunited.” Ginny turned her back to Mrs. Spring for a moment, sheltered Raymond from the woman’s sight. “A little American, right?” she said, turning only her face to Mrs. Spring.

  Alice Spring’s smile twisted, her lips lurched. She stood quickly, and knocked the little stool out from beneath her. She didn’t bend to retrieve it, but Poppy stood up from beside the fire, and righted it onto its three legs.

  “Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Spring smiled down at her. Poppy didn’t respond. “Oh, I nearly forgot! How could I forget?” she said then, snapping her fingers. She lifted the flap of her cloak and reached inside. She drew out several small, brightly colored paper sachets, each tied with a gleaming ribbon. She handed the first to Poppy, who took it, but then plopped it down on the table. Poppy curled her fingers over the table’s edge, and set her chin there, between them, where she eyed the sachet suspiciously.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “They’re sweets,” Mrs. Spring replied, holding the other two sachets out to Maire and Maggie in the doorway. Maggie flew across the room at once, and snatched the gift from Mrs. Spring’s fingers. She tore into it.

  Maire took hers graciously in hand. “Thank you,” she said.

  Mrs. Spring nodded at her, and then bent down to convince Poppy, who looked up at her without lifting her chin from the table.

  “They’re called caramels,” Mrs. Spring explained. “And they came all the way across the sea on a boat, from London!”

  Poppy frowned.

  “They’re gorgeous,” Mrs. Spring said. “Try one.”

  “If they’re so gorgeous, why aren’t you eating them?”

  Mrs. Spring laughed. “Well, a lady has to watch her figure. You’ll know all about it when you’re bigger.”

  Maire’s mouth fell open a small bit, but she said nothing. She went back to the hearth, and set her unopened sachet down beside the fire. Raymond watched everything from his mother’s arms, unblinking.

  “Girls, thank Mrs. Spring for the lovely gift,” Ginny said.

  Poppy and Maggie both mumbled their gratitude while Mrs. Spring nodded in condescension. An uncomfortable silence descended on the gathered party then, and Alice Spring endeavored to chase it away.

  “I suppose it’s time I was on my way,” she said, clapping her hands together, and crowding in against Ginny in the doorway. She stood in close beside Raymond, and smoothed her hand over his forehead. She was holding her hat and gloves in one hand, and when she leaned in to kiss him, her hair grazed Ginny’s cheek. Ginny led her out through the doorway, and her daughters followed. Maggie was sucking on one of the caramels.

  In the yard, Mrs. Spring hesitated. She hadn’t said a word to Ginny about her husband, about Michael. As if Ginny was so far beneath her that Mrs. Spring couldn’t conceive of her grief—the way that Ginny couldn’t know how a bitch might suffer when she loses a pup. Death was so common among the Irish now that perhaps Mrs. Spring thought they couldn’t feel it anymore. Perhaps she thought they’d developed an immunity to suffering. In any case, her condolences were careless and cursory, and now here she stood in Ginny Doyle’s yard, with audacious tears in her eyes. Taking leave of Ginny’s child. For a moment, Ginny thought of plucking one of the larger stones from Maggie’s cairn, and hurling it at her. She just wished Mrs. Spring would leave now, quickly, while the impulse remained only in Ginny’s head, and not in deed.

  Go now, Ginny thought. But she lingered. Twice, she turned in circles, and then drew in close again to gaze at Raymond. Ginny’s daughters watched as Mrs. Spring affixed her hat over her careful hair. She stuck a pin through one of her plaits, and then dropped her arms to her sides. Poppy was holding the scarlet gloves. She was petting them. She handed them back to Mrs. Spring, who pulled them delicately over her pale knuckles. There were tiny pearl buttons at the wrists. When there was nothing left for her to dawdle over, she finally squared her shoulders and sighed.

  “I guess I’m off, then!” There was a split in her voice.

  In the yard, the stink of the blight seemed to have gotten stronger just in the space of minutes. Ginny could taste it in the back of her throat. Alice Spring’s face was creased in the sunlight; a line of frown ran down her forehead and her nostrils flared.

  “Good-bye, then!” She kissed Raymond once more, and Ginny thought the smell of her perfume would linger over him, that it would never go. “Take care of your mummy and your sisters!”

  Ginny hoisted him onto her shoulder, and Mrs. Spring rubbed his back. “Safe journey,” Ginny said, but she couldn’t muster a smile for the traveler. She just wanted her gone. Gone.

  Alice Spring nodded, and whirled around to face the ridge, but before she could go, Maggie piped up.

  “Sweets won’t do us any good,” she said, stepping out away from her sisters and mother.

  “What’s that?” Alice Spring turned, but only slightly.

  “Maggie!” Ginny snapped, but she ignored her mother, and went toward Mrs. Spring.

  “Our crop is rotting in the field, missus,” Maggie said. “My father is dead, and now my mam has no job because you’re leaving.”

  Ginny could feel a blush creeping over her neck, but it wasn’t shame, or at least not for Maggie. Maybe it was shame for herself, because all her daughters were braver than she was. Alice Spring was blinking furiously.

  “That baby can hardly take care of us if there’s no food to eat, can he?” Maggie taunted. “If you like my brother, if you want him to survive, you should give him some money, some food. Not sweets. Not stupid books with pictures of pigs wearing shoes.”

  Maggie was folding her thin little arms across her chest. Behind her, the cairn was so much taller than she was. Ginny wondered how she had got the rocks up that high, if she’d had to scale her own mountain to balance the uppermost ones on top. Raymond’s hurley bat was usually stored in the shed, but now it was propped against the base of the cairn. Michael must have gotten it out when the weather started to warm, before the harvest. Before the fever. He might have played a bit of hurling with the Fallon lads. Ginny wondered if he was as good a shot as his father. She had wasted so much time at Springhill House. She had missed so much. All for nothing.

  Mrs. Spring was at a loss, but only for a moment; she recovered herself quickly. “Of course.” She looked at Ginny, and then back to Maggie. “I’m sorry, I didn’t . . . I just . . .” She was shaking her head.

  Maggie shook hers, too, and then turned and walked back inside. Maire followed her, but Poppy stayed beside her mother.

  “Of course, I should give you some money,” Mrs. Spring stammered.

  There was a time when Ginny would have protested. Now she only lifted her chin.

  “I could be Raymond’s benefactor,” Mrs. Spring explained to herself, warming to the idea of her own generosity. She smiled. She was pulling off her gloves again. “And then one day, when he’s bigger, perhaps he can come and visit old Auntie Alice.”

  Ginny nodded. “Perhaps.” Her heart was barely beating. “Or it may be you’ll come back.”

  Folly.

  No one ever came back.

  “Or . . .” Mrs. Spring turned fully back to face Ginny now. Her cheeks were beg
inning to flush. There was an eruption of excitement across her features. “Oh, Ginny!” she said, and she gripped Ginny’s arms where she was holding Raymond. Ginny could feel the fingers digging hard into her flesh. “Ginny, I could take him with me. Yes! Let me take him to New York.”

  And now the pounding came into Ginny’s heart like mad, a deep booming, thundering thud. “What?”

  “Think of it, Ginny.”

  “Poppy, go inside.” Ginny shooed her daughter away from her skirt, tousled the back of her head. “Go on.”

  “Think of the life he would have with me, in New York City. He’d be so well-off. I would take care of him as if he were my very own, you know I would. You know how I love him so. He could have an education, everything. He could have everything.”

  Ginny was shaking her head. She was shaking. Mrs. Spring’s face was so eager, so awful and pleading, all screwed up with some voracious kind of hope. Ginny could see all of Mrs. Spring’s bottom teeth. Her tongue poking out, her eyes wild. Ginny felt the weight of Raymond’s little head against her shoulder.

  “I can’t.” Ginny shook. “I can’t.”

  Alice Spring tightened her grip on Ginny’s arm. Her voice tilted and dropped, reached an unholy pitch.

  “I will pay you for him,” she said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NEW YORK, NOW

  Jade and I sit across from each other studying our enormous seventeen-page diner menus. Emma is asleep strapped into her car seat, safely tucked between the booth and the table, and Max and Madeline are strapped into matching sticky high chairs at the end of our booth. I’m trying not to be a germ-prude, but Max is chewing on the corner of Jade’s menu, which is totally grossing me out. How many people have sneezed on that menu? I shudder.

  “Ah, here we go,” Jade says, flipping the page. “Vegetarian Delights.”

  Max flails his arm as his mother turns the page, but then he patiently guides the peeling corner of the new page into his slobbery mouth. I guess I’m cringing because when Jade glances up at me, she looks at her baby, and says, “Max, ew, don’t chew on that.”

  Max turns purple with rage and begins to scream.

  “Wow, that is impressive,” I say. “Did you see how he changed colors?”

  But Jade is not listening. “Okay, okay, fine,” she tells him, and she hands him back the menu. “But don’t come crying to me when you have mouth ulcers.”

  Madeline sticks her finger in her brother’s ear.

  “What are you gonna get?” Jade asks me.

  There are so many terrible, terrible deep-fried, cheese-drenched choices. How’s an ex–food writer to choose?

  “I think maybe just a burger,” I say casually, though I am practically paralyzed by the sheer quantity and variety of the burgers on offer. Pizza burger? Texican burger? What even is a Jumbo BBQ Crunchburger Deluxe? I’ll have three of those, please.

  “Yeah,” Jade says, “maybe I’ll try the veggie burger.”

  Poor Jade. She closes her menu and relinquishes it to Max.

  “So what’s new, how’s work?” I ask.

  “Ah, it’s the same old thing, it’s fine. But I wrote almost a whole chapter of the new book today, after lunch.”

  “Wow, that’s great,” I say, with some measure of actual envy. Not that I want to work for a bunch of self-important douchebag lawyers, or commute on a bus and two subways every day with twin babies, but you know—the writing part.

  “Yeah, it’s cool,” she says.

  And then there’s an awkward moment when we have nothing to say to each other, and I fear that our burgeoning friendship was all an illusion, that I imagined the whole thing because I’m so lonesome and pathetic.

  “How about you?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Yeah, you know. We had a pretty exciting day. Emma pooped twice.”

  Jade whistles, and the twins both snap their heads up to look at her. “That is exciting.”

  “Yep. The second time, there was so much poop I had to change her entire outfit, and throw out the onesie. It wasn’t salvageable.”

  “Love those poops,” Jade says knowingly. “Those are the best.”

  The waitress is approaching, so it’s probably time to can the poop-talk.

  “You ready to order?” Her pen is poised over her tiny notepad.

  “Yeah, I’ll have the veggie burger,” Jade says, as she tries to pry Max’s little fingers from the wet menu. He starts to howl. “You mind if he keeps it?”

  “Nah, that’s fine,” the waitress says.

  “Cool.”

  “How ’bout you, hon?” she asks, turning to me.

  “What’s on the Jumbo BBQ Crunchburger Deluxe, exactly?” I ask. I am equal parts mortified and titillated as this question escapes my lips.

  “Oh, it’s a half-pound burger, with cheddar cheese, bacon, and barbecue sauce, and then some crispy fried onion rings on top. And it comes with cheesy waffle fries and a side of guacamole.”

  Oh my God.

  “That,” I say, without shame. “I’ll have that.”

  I snap my menu shut and hand it to her. Jade’s face looks like mine did when I noticed Max chewing on the menu, but I do not care. It has crispy onion rings on top. For the love of God!

  “So tell me more about your family,” I say, mostly to distract us both from the abomination of food I have just ordered. “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “I have a half sister, but she’s much younger than me,” she says. “She’s eight, and still at home with my crazy mom. Poor thing.”

  “Oh, you have a crazy mom, too?”

  “Totally.”

  “Like what kind of crazy?”

  “Like, she doesn’t know who my dad is, crazy.”

  “Oh.” That’s not really the sort of crazy I expected.

  “Yeah, she was a real party girl and got pregnant with me when she was super young, but she didn’t let me slow her down. We just partied together,” Jade laughs. “She was kind of a groupie for a couple different bands in the late eighties. My dad might be some famous has-been.”

  The late eighties?! Good God. I might be closer to Jade’s mom’s age.

  “I don’t think I had a full night’s sleep in my life until Paul and I moved to New York,” she says. “Mom has hot pink hair. Thinks she’s Cyndi Lauper.”

  “That is . . . wow,” I say profoundly.

  “Yep. What kind of crazy is your mom?”

  Well, after that, she sounds kinda boring. “You know, maybe she’s not totally crazy, just . . . normal mother-daughter stuff, I guess. She drives me nuts.”

  “Yeah,” Jade says, but she’s not really letting me off the hook. “How?”

  I glance down at Emma, like I shouldn’t be talking about it in front of her. “Well, for one thing, she’s super sociable,” I say. “Everyone loves her. She could talk to the wall, you know the type?”

  “Sure,” Jade says. “Paul was a bit like that. Whenever we went anywhere, he got us free upgrades.”

  “Yeah, she’s exactly like that. Everyone thinks she’s their best friend because she talks nonstop. And she’s a great storyteller. Everyone loves her stories. She’s funny. But you can’t get a word in. And the thing is, with all that talking, she doesn’t actually say anything.”

  “Ah,” Jade says, but something in that syllable sounds like she really knows. She understands. She has taken a sugar packet from the bowl, and is flicking it back and forth.

  “She’ll tell you about the most mundane, trivial shit,” I say, “but then she’ll neglect to mention that my dad had chest pains last week, and had to go for an EKG. It’s insane.” I can feel my whole body tensing as I talk about it, even though I wonder if it sounds insignificant compared to Jade’s slutty rocker-mom.

  “So she’s one of those people who glosses over all the important stuf
f?” Jade says.

  “Exactly.”

  “And she fills in every conversation with fluff, to preempt you from trying to talk about anything real?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because talking about real stuff, like fears or feelings, would make her uncomfortable?”

  “I guess so,” I say.

  “You’ve never tried it?”

  “Tried what, talking to my mom about fears and feelings?”

  “Sure, why not?” she says, ripping open the packet of sugar and dumping it into her iced tea.

  “Talk to my mom about fears and feelings,” I say again, because it is the single most absurd suggestion anyone has ever dared make to me.

  “You could try asking her about it,” she says. “You never know.” I watch her sip her iced tea. She smacks her lips. “I’m just saying, usually when people are like that, there’s a reason.”

  I pick up my own glass, and stir the ice with my straw.

  “There’s usually some super-deep reservoir of hurt under there that they’re trying to hide,” she says. “And they spend their whole life doing jazz-hands so that nobody will notice the gushing wound of pain behind the curtain.”

  I sip through my straw, and try to be open-minded. I hope Jade doesn’t use phrases like gushing wound of pain in her trilogy. Can we still be friends if it turns out she’s a terrible writer? She’s so smart. I try to consider her philosophy, but end up shaking my head.

  “I don’t think my mom has a gushing wound of pain.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe not.”

  The swinging door from the kitchen opens, and the waitress backs out with our plates. My Jumbo BBQ Crunchburger Deluxe is approaching. I can smell fried beef and cheese and bacon. I can hear angels singing.

  After dinner, I can hardly move. I have to waddle down the diner steps to where we have parked our strollers. I have eaten so much that my scar feels taut, stretched.

  “I think I need to walk for a while,” I tell Jade when we get to our street. “I probably need to walk for like seven weeks, to work off that dinner.”

  “That was some burger,” she admits.