“Oh look, Percy. Adorable. Pampooties.”
“A tight squeeze on my toes,” he replied as he danced a quick jig. “But I’ll get as much use as I can out of them.”
“Foolish old goat,” she said as she fumbled with the strings, yanked gently. “God. Who tied this up?”
She could not disguise her frustration, though Percy understood she was really aggravated with herself.
“Could you,” she said, “help me?”
He knelt beside her, and with his thick fingers, he untied the knots she had made. Then he waited beside her as she unclipped the single pin that held the diaper in place and peeked inside.
“A girl, Percy. It’s a she. She’s a she.”
“Now then.”
“But look. That black stuff. Right tarry. Like James. Don’t you remember?”
Of course I remember. He could not actually speak these words as the sorrow in his voice would upset her. How could he not remember his first son? No fatter than that skinned rabbit, still piled on the cutting board. So often, when he was alone in his shed, he would close his eyes, cup his hands together, and recall that weight, that warmth pressing against his palms. Limp legs resting on his forearms. Toes like bird claws. He had watched the body for hours, until the pink mottle began to fade, settling underneath.
“God, I’m so angry at myself.” Delia lifted her bad hand, let it knock down on the wooden arm of the rocker. “I can’t even clean her. How stupid could I of been?”
Percy sighed, felt the muscles around his heart slacken ever so slightly. He was relieved that something inside his house might finally ground his wife, when all her life she’d lived without forethought. Letting the forces tug her any which way. A leaf in the wind.
He laid a blanket in front of the stove, poured some warm water from the kettle in a bowl, and cooled it. Bony ankles clipped between his fingers, he swiped and swiped, folding the cloth over upon itself each time.
“Right stubborn,” he whispered. “But that’s the best I can do.”
“Is she okay? Shouldn’t she have woken up?”
“She’s just fine, maid. I just got a gentle touch is all.” He swaddled her in the blanket, handed her back to Delia, and the baby squirmed slightly, lips yawning into a perfect O. “Should I make a little pap?”
“Ah. Just a bit of the milk’ll be fine. Got a bottle this morning. Was going to make a custard. Surprise for you.”
“Far better surprise we’s getting now. Idn’t we?”
As evening spread its dull wing over the trees outside the kitchen window, Delia rocked slowly, humming, child like the comfort of a warm stone on her lap. Her child. And no one would ever suggest any different. Even though the girl did not come straight from her body, such accommodations were made frequently. No gossiper would dare prod a woman’s most tender bond, doubly so when that woman happened to be barren.
Percy smiled, chopped and browned the cut-up rabbit, added onions, salt, and covered it with an inch of water.
“Calm out,” he said. Calm in.
“Yes. Beautiful.”
On cue, the true night sky brightened, and stars began to wink.
“What do you think of Stella?” Percy asked.
“Stella? Who’s Stella?”
“For a name, Del.”
“Can you believe I’d forgotten about that?” There was a joyfulness tangled in around her words.
Deep within Percy, a mouth was beginning to form a toothy smile, creating a permanent inner fissure that was crammed with optimism. Risky, he knew, allowing that crack to develop, creating a sure nest for hope. But the air was so weighty with love, there was no other choice.
“Are you happy, Mother?”
“Yes,” she replied, revelling in the name he had used. “So happy I feels sore all over.”
chapter two
As a baby, Stella’s birth mother also made people feel sore all over. When Miriam Seary was only six weeks old, she gurgled and cooed constantly, curled her raspberry lips into a variety of crowd-pleasing expressions for visitors. The skin on her plump face was a spring snow, set off by a crown of butterscotch curls. “Some sweet,” second cousin Bea said, touching the baby’s hair. “You almost want to dissolve a lock or two, drink it.” Being the first child of an avid knitter, Miriam was always dressed smartly in caps and sweaters, booties to match. Neighbours called her stout pink digits irresistible, threatened to nibble them clean off.
But even though Miriam was adored, people sensed she was bound for a luckless existence. Amongst themselves, they prophesized, God don’t offer up that kind of face without robbing you of something else. ’Tis only fair. Miriam’s mother and father never heard a breath of the murmurs, and they continued their praise, stared at Miriam with jaws agape, chests clutched, toothy smiles plastered across their faces.
Scrunched-up Aunt Opal, settled in the rocker beside the cradle, felt a constant irritation over the chitchat. She believed it was un-Christian-like for her niece and husband to spend so much time admiring the product of their own loins. The heights of conceit. Evil vanity. And so, Aunt Opal decided to cut through the drivel with a dire prediction. After swirling the empty cup of tea she was holding, she peered in and saw the leaves clumped together in a dark dot at the very centre of the base. Though this meant nothing to her, she held it up, announced with thinly veiled satisfaction, “Just as I thought. No good’ll come to that child. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
And old Aunt Opal was right. When Miriam was nine months old, Uncle Charlie had the drunken notion to play a rousing game of birdie with her. Just as his niece was reaching peak altitude during her inaugural flight, Uncle Charlie’s belly began to sputter and spew, and he redirected his hands to his heaving abdomen. Down, down little Miriam flew. All four wings outstretched, but still, she landed squarely on her precious downy head. Two of her vertebrae were crushed and she lost consciousness for a nerve-wracking number of minutes. Grabbing her up, her mother placed a hand on her head, sweet brown curls overshadowed now by bulbous swelling, purple bruising on a compressible skull. She survived the tumble, but when her back healed, she was left with a noticeable hump, a persistent crook in her neck. And soon after, people began to notice the babbling had ceased, a smile could not be coaxed, and Miriam Seary grew prone to staring off into sideways space.
Miriam’s parents were never the same. Her mother fell into a deep unyielding depression, and she faded away to nothingness, died when Miriam was six years old. Her father’s despair was similar, though grittier, sloppier, and he was soon reunited with his wife when his liver grew scarred beyond repair. Now alone, the care of Miriam fell to a handful of gracious relatives. She started out with Nanny Joyce, then moved to Aunt Alfreda’s, next on to Auntie Margaret’s, and finally, she resided with second cousin twice removed, Fern. Kind people, all of them, but it always came down to the same thing. She wasn’t a bother, really, but simply a distraction within the family. Attracting unwanted attention. A disagreeable disturbance. And after a reasonable amount of time had passed, a time when tongues were less likely to wag, Miriam was helped to find other accommodations.
During her teenage years, she was lucky enough to be taken in by a blissful, but deeply faithful elderly widow named Verna Hood. Miss Hood was one of the few in her community who owned two cows, and she traded both milk and butter for provisions. At once, she explained to Miriam that her cows were renowned for producing the sweetest milk and the smoothest butter. According to Miss Hood, a few gentle words to her animals and the Lord’s grace were the reasons behind it.
On her second day there, Miriam learned to perch on the edge of a stool, reach beneath one of the old girls, and slide her pinched fingers down the tough teats. She enjoyed the sound as warm milk splattered off the bottom of the tin, sometimes splashing up onto her cheek. Her curved back made this a perfect task for her as she never had to hunch or lean. Miss Hood told her she was also well suited to floor-scrubbing, weeding, peeling potatoes, dusting
, but milking the old girls remained a favourite chore.
On her third day there, Miss Hood showed Miriam how to churn butter. For several days, Miss Hood collected the cream that floated to the surface of slightly soured milk, and she emptied it into the churn. She directed Miriam towards a chair, and Miriam sat and nestled the wooden barrel between her solid thighs. Gripping the wooden plunger, she tugged it up, then shoved it down again and again until the plunger felt heavier and Miss Hood nodded, “You’re getting close, maid.”
Miriam’s bands of muscle were tireless. She churned butter every three days without complaint. Her shoulders grew broader and her hands roughened. She churned the bright yellow butter of summer when the old girls ate grass, and the sallow cream of winter when the old girls survived on hay. Miss Hood showed her how to squeeze the juice from a grated carrot into the churn to brighten up dull winter butter. “My customers likes it better,” she had confided. “Though it tastes just the same.”
After Miss Hood had worked the butter with a paddle, removed the buttermilk and rinsed the contents with cold water, she produced several tin moulds. Miriam pressed the butter into the moulds. “Work out the air,” said Miss Hood, “or they thinks we’s cheating them.” Removing the false bottoms, Miriam tapped pats of butter in the shape of miniature rosettes onto a plate. Miss Hood would place a pat on every cube of butter she produced, and saved the remainder for herself. So perfect, Miriam thought as she placed a whole pat on her tongue, let the grease melt and coat her insides. “Go ahead, dear,” Miss Hood said as Miriam reached for a second pat. “I believes butter’ll heal whatever ails you.” Then, under her breath, she added, “Well, maybe not everything.” Miriam had been curvy when she arrived at Miss Hood’s, solid hips, hefty breasts, but when she discovered her cavernous fancy for butter, her weight began to balloon.
Miss Hood might have supposed that Miriam was a hard worker and that was why she churned butter so religiously. But while Miss Hood would have been partly right, she was mostly wrong. Miriam would never have been able to articulate it, but that gentle motion of churning had awakened something in her. The rhythmic vibration that rippled up through the flesh in her legs had settled somewhere down there, and she dreaded the moment when the plunger would stick, the cream already transformed. Sometimes Miss Hood would have to pry the handle from Miriam’s hands, saying, “My goodness, child. You’re all flushed. Quite the job, this is.” And Miriam would pant, “Uh-huh.”
Miriam liked to stay very close to home, but as she got older, Miss Hood encouraged her to run errands. Once, when Miss Hood sent her to the general store for molasses and flour, Miriam was stopped; a group of young men blocked the door. They were the three Billys: Billy Targate, Billy Gosse, and Billy Keilly. Neither Miriam nor Miss Hood knew much about the three Billys, though around the cove they were often referred to as “bloody rabble-rousers” or “the agitators.”
“My, aren’t you a pretty little girl,” one snickered.
“Little girl?” howled another.
“She looks right like a proper lady to me.”
“Lovely, grand,” said the third after a low shrill whistle.
“Now, fellers,” the storeowner cautioned. “Leave the Seary girl alone. And get on about your day. This is a business, not a hang-out.”
A curious pride sprang up inside Miriam. She was scraping the five-foot mark, and as she passed through the cluster of men, one holding open the door, she tried her best to straighten out her hump. After that, she was eager to run errands, and Miss Hood began to joke, saying Miriam was doing fine after all with three handsome gentlemen suitors at her beck and call.
They were always there. At the general store. Sometimes, as she passed amongst them, they would poke her in the chest, run a hand or two down over her rump, but it was only in fun. They were always smirking and Miriam liked that. Liked that a lot.
One summery afternoon, they asked her if she would like to go for a walk. Even though Miriam had heard of this before, remembered when her cousin Sally went for Sunday walks with a brown-haired boy, she was still unprepared for the thrill that rushed in. They led her through a thicket of leafy dogwood trees and out into the middle of an overgrown field of wild grass. The Billys crouched down and patted a flattened area for Miriam.
“We idn’t going grassing, is we?” Miriam asked. She understood from overhearing conversations between her cousin and aunt that strolling was fine, but grassing was naughty.
Bursts of laughter erupted from the three Billys, they smacked their legs.
“Christ, she’s a card,” they said amongst themselves. “Grassing. Is we going grassing, she asks. She idn’t blunt, is she?”
Miriam watched the spectacle. It was the first time she recalled being so funny, and so she sang through her crooked smile, “A grassin’ we will go, a grassin’ we will go. Hi ho the dairy oh, a grassin’ we will go.”
More laughter, and Billy Targate rolled backwards onto the knobby ground, his watery eyes almost crossed.
Billy Gosse wiped his face and cleared his throat. More serious now, focused in on Miriam. “What do you like to do, missus? You knows, to have a bit of fun.”
She paused, stuck her tongue out onto her bottom lip. “I loves butter,” she said, and then blushed. “Milking the old girls. Churning up the cream. Churning.”
“Uh-huh.” Nodding.
“Sometimes when I’s helping Miss Hood, I gets it on my hands, and I licks my fingers.”
“She likes licking, fellers,” Billy Keilly said, but Billy Gosse swatted him on the back of his head, said to Miriam, “Churning, hey?”
“Uh-huh.”
Billy Gosse chewed skin from the cuticle on his thumb, spat the fleck over his shoulder, and eyed the blood that flooded his nail bed. “Might you want to try a different way to churn now, missus?”
“Umm.”
“A real special way?”
“Umm. All right?”
“The best butter in the world is when a feller churns with a missus. Did you know that?”
Miriam shook her head.
“Well, ’tis true. That makes the sweetest butter.”
“Miss Hood’s butter is right sweet. She makes butter flowers for me to eat. And I loves them.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you want to make some other butter?”
Miriam nodded. “I loves butter.”
“You can count on us.”
“We’ve all done this hundreds of times,” Billy Keilly announced just before receiving a second, sharper swat.
Miriam nodded again.
“But to make this special butter, you got to lie down. Can’t churn sitting up, maid.” Guffaws.
As Miriam leaned back on her elbows, he flashed her a wet grin, and she did the same without even realizing it.
“You got to go like this.”
She did.
“And haul down those.”
And she did that too.
One of the Billys climbed on top of her while the other two watched intently. He began to move his hips, using what he explained was his own personal plunger. She spread her arms out, let her fingers wander through the cool grass on either side of her body. It all began to make sense. Those feelings she had when churning for Miss Hood, now churning with a Billy.
“This is hard work,” he said as he grunted. “Churning. Churning.”
“I loves butter,” Miriam cried out shortly after the second Billy began his work. “Oooo. Butt-errrrrr.”
Over that summer, Miriam couldn’t quite understand what had happened to her, what was happening to her. Her hair lost its soft curl, she developed strange bruises upon her bottom and thighs, and her lips were often chapped. Plus she had a powerful ache in her hump that was never there before.
Miss Hood never took the time to address the summer romps, simply announced one day that Miriam was going to leave. “That business. ’Twas bound to happen,” she said, as Miriam placed her neatly
folded belongings into her dead mother’s trunk. “Bound.”
Not long afterwards, Miriam Seary landed on the doorstep of Uncle and his wife Berta. They had long since given up taking in orphaned or unwanted children, but Berta had expressed the desire for additional companionship, another woman about the house, and Uncle had readily agreed. Though the girl had had some troubles, she said, Berta’s cousin described Miriam as being a quiet, hard-working woman who was eternally pleasant.
Miriam was nearly twenty-three when she pressed her bulk into the closet-sized room on the main floor of Uncle’s home. This presented an immediate problem as Miriam’s body was composed of a significant amount of material. Mounds and mounds of it. After butter, her second love was sugar. She revered it, sucked her fingers and jammed them into the middle-sized canister as often as she could without getting caught. One of the things she missed most about living with Miss Hood was the sticks of candy the Billys used to offer her after they churned. Either mint or lemon flavoured, a green or yellow swirl would always give it away. Sometimes they were sticky from being sampled, but tasted just fine nevertheless.
Though she didn’t notice, Uncle’s face adopted a severe look when he first saw her. A woman of such mass and twisted proportions would be little help on the farm, he decided. She was even larger than his wife. Very likely she would consume as much food as all of them combined, and he knew he would smell her sweat in the summer heat just as he smelled his wife’s – all things that turned his sensitive stomach – but he kept his inner eye on his most coveted wish and did his best to accept all that she was.
Uncle was in the porch washing his muddy hands when he heard Berta speaking to the new girl. Uncle envisioned his wife’s words as rotting leaves of cabbage and, as he lathered brown soapy scum between his fingers, he imagined hoeing them into the ground. So many years of scolding he’d endured, every move berated. Over the course of their marriage, everything had become his fault – even the weather, which never seemed to satisfy her. He rinsed quietly, dried on an old rag, and peered through the door left ajar.
The Seary Line Page 3
