by Lesley Crewe
“You choose. You’re the mother,” Annie said.
Lila reached for the marmalade kitten with white feet. “I saw her first, so I’ll take this one.” She held the tiny kitten up to her chin. “You’ll be all right, Boots.”
Annie took the orange and white one. “This is Squeak, because she’s squeaking!”
“They’ll be all right, won’t they?” Lila asked. “They’re so small.”
“I’ll tell you a little story,” Mom said. “When I was born, in 1898, I weighed only two pounds.”
“Two pounds?” Annie said. “I weighed seven pounds when I was born.”
“I was so small that my arm fit inside my father’s wedding ring, and he could hold me in the palm of his hand.”
Annie’s and Lila’s eyes got huge.
“My mother wrapped me in cotton batting and put me in the warming oven.”
Annie swivelled to look at the warming oven over the coal stove. “In there?!”
“It was warm and quiet and dark. I must have thought I was still in my mother’s womb. So remember, it’s not how big you are that makes you strong. Your heart is a mighty thing.” Mom rose from her chair. “Your babies are going to need feeding. I’ll warm some milk and you two get a box and make a comfy bed for them. There are old towels in the porch you can use.”
After that, Lila was over all the time, but it was hard to say goodbye to her at night. Annie knew she didn’t want to go home to Mrs. Butts and leave Boots behind.
And then Annie noticed that whenever Lila thought she wasn’t looking, she’d sneak a cookie or a muffin from the racks of goodies cooling in the pantry. Her mother brought it up one day as she peeled apples at the kitchen sink. Annie was behind her at the table, struggling to do her homework and hating every minute of it.
“Annie, have you noticed Lila losing weight?”
“No.”
“I think she’s looking a little peaked.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like maybe she’s not feeling well.”
“She’s good.”
Mom put down the peeler and sat across from Annie. “I noticed some of my baking disappearing and I thought it was David but when I asked him, he didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Annie didn’t want to be a tattletale, but the worry on her mother’s face alarmed her.
“Sometimes Lila and I take a few cookies.”
“Are you sure it’s not just Lila?”
Annie nodded, but she could tell her mother didn’t believe her.
“I think Lila’s hungry.” Mom chewed on her thumbnail, deep in thought. “I have a secret mission for you. Do you think you can handle it?”
When Annie asked Lila if she could come over to her house for supper, Lila looked unsure and said she’d have to ask Mrs. Butts. Annie had only ever been in Mrs. Butts’s porch. She never invited children in like some of the other women on the street.
The two of them walked into Bertha’s kitchen. Annie looked around, stunned. There was a mess everywhere, on the counters and the floor and the table. Even the cupboard doors were open, revealing chaos inside. Annie’s stomach felt funny.
“Where is she?” Annie whispered.
“She’ll be in the parlour on the couch,” Lila said.
The girls crept down the hallway. There were books and newspapers in piles everywhere. Annie thought she was in a dream and her mouth went dry. When they entered the parlour she grabbed Lila’s hand. “Is she dead?”
Mrs. Butts was sprawled on the sofa, with her mouth open and spittle running down the side of her mouth.
“No. She likes to sleep.”
Lila approached her guardian. “Mrs. Butts? Mrs. Butts? Can Annie stay for supper?” When she didn’t respond, Lila reached out and touched her on the shoulder.
Mrs. Butts woke with a start and struggled to sit up. “Who’s there? What time is it?”
“It’s me. Can Annie stay for supper?”
“No.”
“But…”
“I said no…oh, Annie, you’re here.” She gave a nervous laugh and tried to straighten herself up, while reaching for the nearly empty glass on the side table. “I didn’t see you. Well, I suppose it’s all right if Annie stays. You’re over at their house all the time.” Mrs. Butts drained the glass. “Play upstairs until supper is ready.”
Annie was more than glad to escape that room. She followed Lila upstairs.
“There are three bedrooms up here, but I’m only allowed in my room.”
They crept down the hall. One of the bedroom doors was open, and when Annie glanced inside, she saw Mr. Butts fast asleep across the bed with his work clothes on.
This was all wrong. Annie shivered and kept close to Lila. They reached her room and Lila closed the door behind them. The bedroom was gloomy and not very nice. There were no toys and her bed had a grey wool blanket on it. There was a bureau and a chair, but the rest of the space was taken up with boxes and unwanted items that were piled in the back corner. They crawled up on the bed together.
“This is my room.”
“You don’t have a lot of things.”
“No. I had to leave most of it behind.”
Annie couldn’t imagine leaving any of her possessions behind.
“I do have this.” She moved her pillow aside. There was a small brown bear and a nursery rhyme book. “My mom used to read me this book.” She opened the pages and a photo fell out. Lila passed it to Annie. “That’s my mother and me.”
Annie looked at the small picture of a pretty young woman holding a baby. She was looking at the baby and smiling. The baby had her hand on her mother’s cheek.
“Your mom is very pretty.”
When Annie passed it back, Lila looked at the picture.
“Where’s your dad?”
“I don’t remember him. Your dad is nice.”
“Is Mr. Butts nice?”
Lila shrugged. “I don’t know, he doesn’t talk to me, but he’s not mean or anything.”
“Is Mrs. Butts mean to you?”
Lila put her mother’s picture back in the book before she answered. “She doesn’t hit me, but she likes to yell. And sleep.”
“So what do you do in the evening?”
“This.”
Lila reaches down under her bed and takes out a pile of paper, labels, envelopes, and old school notebooks. “These are my friends.”
On every scrap of empty space were pictures of animals, people, and landscapes. “These are places I want to go and these are the things I love.”
“That’s me!” Annie laughs at the picture of herself hollering out her bedroom window. “And there’s Davy by the woodpile! I wish I could draw like you.”
“And I wish I could talk like you.”
The girls were eventually called down for supper. It was the biggest shock of all. There was no tablecloth or place settings at the kitchen table. It looked like Mrs. Butts had swept aside some of the clutter to provide them with a small space to eat.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Mrs. Butts?” Annie asked.
“I eat later.”
She served them bread with butter and brown sugar. Lila quickly ate hers up, but Annie couldn’t choke hers down and offered it to Lila.
When it was time to say goodbye, Lila waved from the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Annie ran up her back stairs and threw open the door. The smell of roast chicken hit her in the face. The racks of cooling bread rolls only made it worse.
Her mother turned from the stove. “Annie! What’s wrong?”
Annie ran and put her arms around her mother’s apron. She hid her face in the warm and fragrant scent of her mother, that familiar and reassuring constant in her life.
Her mom touched her forehead. “You’re b
urning up.” Annie began shivering so hard her teeth rattled and she saw coloured spots in front of her eyes.
After that she remembered things out of sequence; her father came into her room and pressed a cool cloth on her brow, her mother wiped her down just like she did with the kittens. She cried out for Squeak, and David put the cat on the bed. Annie didn’t know if it was day or night. Her mother lifted her head and spooned beef broth into her mouth. She made her drink, even when she didn’t want to.
And then she fell into a deep sleep.
When Annie awoke her mom was sitting beside her on the bed, rubbing her hair.
“Hello, sleepyhead. Do you feel better?”
Annie nodded, but she didn’t feel like getting up. It was as if her limbs were made of rubber.
“You had a bad fever, but it’s broken now, and you should feel better in a couple of days.
Annie nodded again.
“I have something for you.” Mom reached over and took a handmade card from the top of the bureau. “Lila made it for you.”
The card was covered with drawings of flowers. It made Annie happy, and then she remembered.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can Lila live with us? Please? Please?”
Though Annie’s parents didn’t say yes to her request, it was obvious they were putting their heads together to sort something out. Every time Annie walked into the room, they stopped talking. And Lila was invited for supper every night. Mr. and Mrs. Butts didn’t seem to notice. Mom even asked Lila to come home with Annie for lunch on school days. She also made Lila take a colourful quilt to put on her bed and an old jewellery box to put treasures in.
David kept an eye out for her, too. One weekend, the neighbourhood kids gathered in the field to play scrub. Lila didn’t know the rules, so David explained that you were meant to hit the ball, and run to first base and return before the ball was thrown back. When Lila was the pitcher she hit an older boy with the ball, which was perfectly legal. He got mad and told her she should go live in the poorhouse since she was a dirty mongrel anyway.
David punched him in the mouth.
Annie had never seen her brother hit anyone before. She was impressed. And then he did it again the very next day in the schoolyard.
She and Lila and a few other girls were playing hopscotch in the dirt. They each held a flat piece of brick to throw on the squares they’d traced out with a stick. Annie saw David marching away from a pack of boys. He looked mad.
“Your pa’s a stinkin’ Red!” one of them yelled at him.
David turned around and ran up to the kid and knocked him to the ground, but his opponent was big and he soon had David on his back. The other boys gathered around and urged them on.
Annie ran to the circle of screaming boys. “Get off him!” One of them pushed her away. She couldn’t see what was happening. And then the crowd went instantly quiet and moved off. David had a black eye and a bloody nose. The janitor reached down and grabbed both boys by their collars. “That’s enough of that. The rest of you, get back to your own business.” He hauled David and his enemy into the school.
Annie and Lila waited for him after school, but when he came out, he didn’t even look at them as he hurried past.
“Davy! What happened?”
Annie tried to catch up to him, but Lila held her back. “Leave him alone.”
That night, Annie was sent to bed at her usual hour, but she lay awake trying to listen to the murmuring coming from the parlour. Her parents always went there when something was serious, so Annie was sure she was missing something good. She crept out of bed and crouched down at the top of the stairs. If she stayed very still she could just make them out.
“But I don’t understand,” she heard Davy say.
“I’m opposed to being a Liberal or a Conservative and in this part of the world if you’re an anti-capitalist you might as well be a Communist. Being a Red is another name for it. I can tell you quite emphatically that I am not a Communist, but I do believe that everyone deserves a fair shake. I don’t think it is right that the big dogs of the world are out to eat the little dogs. This town and surrounding communities are suffering because the men who run the coal mines and the steel mills can’t find the moral strength to share their wealth with the people who work for them. I believe that is unfair and wrong. Everyone deserves the same rights, regardless of their station in life.”
Annie couldn’t understand what her dad was saying except for one part about dogs, so she crept back to bed and snuggled with Squeak.
Mom’s sister Muriel ran in the door the next morning while she and Davy were having breakfast. “You’re not going to believe it. You know Mrs. Mackinnon up the road, the one who pretends she’s such a good housekeeper that she has her washing out on the line at the crack of dawn? Someone saw her putting it out after midnight. Wait till this gets around. The old biddies in church will have a field day!”
Then she ran back out again. Aunt Muriel was always doing things like that.
The trees turned brilliant shades of red, orange, and gold that October. Dad said it was because the nights were cold. Then he asked who would like to go to Round Island to see the autumn colours.
Round Island was about fifteen miles outside of town towards Mira. The Macdonalds had a bungalow there, a small cabin with an outhouse, nestled in a grove of spruce and fir trees. It wasn’t very big, but what it lacked in space, it made up for in location. The beach was only a quick run down the path and through the cow pasture by the Dillon farm. Mira Bay was where Annie and David swam and played in the summer months, and it was their favourite place on earth.
David, who was in the porch bringing in some wood for the fire, poked his head around the door. “Are we taking the train?”
“No, I thought I’d borrow Uncle Howard’s car.”
“Great!”
Annie and Lila were helping Mom cut out cookie dough. “Can Lila come too? I can’t wait to show her everything.”
“Of course she can come,” Dad said. “I’ll let Mrs. Butts know we’ll be gone for the day.”
Annie couldn’t think of what occasion warranted a long drive on a chilly October weekend. They usually only went to Round Island in the summer. And to go in Uncle Howard’s 1934 Ford Deluxe was beyond exciting.
The drive out to the country went quickly. Annie and David played their favourite game. David explained it to Lila. “If you see a cow, you say ‘Have it.’ If you see a horse, you say ‘Got it.’ If you make a mistake you lose all your have its and got its.”
When they drove past Port Morien, Mom told Lila the body of water to the left was called Cow Bay. Lila said “Have it!” Annie didn’t think that should count, but her mother thought otherwise.
They drove through Black Brook and Homeville and finally Round Island. When Dad turned down the dirt road and parked the car by the bungalow, Annie couldn’t contain her excitement. She wanted to get out first and scrambled past her brother onto the car’s running board and hopped off into a pile of dead leaves.
The air smelled exactly the same, that wonderful mixture of pine, fir trees, damp earth, and a clean salt breeze.
The shingled white cottage with yellow shutters was cozy, nestled into a grove of very tall spruce trees that kept it hidden from the road. It had a white picket fence around two sides, with a pretty trellised gateway leading to hedges of wild pink roses that bloomed early every summer. Mom always cut them when they were still buds and the roses bloomed in the green glass bowl on the fireplace mantel. Whenever Annie smelled wild roses, it brought her right back to this place.
The cottage wasn’t winterized, so it was very chilly when they opened it to show Lila inside. The kitchen had cupboards and a sink to the right, a wooden table to the left under the window, and a stove on the opposite wall. There was also a compact, cast-iron, cylinder-shaped sto
ve called a Warm Morning. This provided the heat in the early hours. Her parents would shake out the ashes from the tray at the bottom, open the lid, and put in paper, kindling, wood, and finally coal to keep the fire steady.
The main room of the cottage had lots of windows and three small bedrooms off of it, the doorways covered with cloth curtains to the floor. The middle room had bunk beds, and this is where Annie took Lila. They had fun bouncing on the bottom bunk, but didn’t stay long because the beach beckoned.
The three friends ran down ahead of the adults, through the cow pasture, and over the creek that meandered down to the beach. They ran up to the edge of the field and saw the endless shoreline that edged Mira Bay. A perfect beach filled with dark, wet sand and then dry, white sand amongst the grasses and vegetation near the top of the field that flanked miles of muted blue, grey, purple, and green rocks.
The water was a steely blue and very choppy. The wind whistled past them and made it hard to hear each other. They held out their arms and the wind kept them upright. Their hair blew every which way. By the time her parents arrived, Annie’s ears and nose were cold. But that didn’t stop her from flinging herself down past the rocks and to the water’s edge. She dodged the waves as she beckoned for Lila to join her. David was already jumping the creek that divided the beach to the right. That creek with its bubbling water provided hours of entertainment for kids in the summer months.
But Lila stayed near Annie’s mother. Annie knew that Lila wasn’t as adventurous as she was. It was frustrating at times, always trying to push her to do something. Lila liked to have fun, but there was a hesitation before she knew exactly what was expected of her. Mom told her that Lila had a difficult life and that that changes a person. So Annie made up her mind not to get impatient, but it sure was hard.
Finally, Dad whistled for them to come back, and David and Annie raced each other up to the bluff where her parents and Lila stood.
Mom patted her arms with her gloved hands. “Goodness, it’s cold.”
“Let’s go.” Dad turned and walked with his long stride towards the cottage.
“I’m hungry,” David announced.
“That’s good,” Dad said. “We’ve been invited to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s house for lunch.”
