“So lovely to have a woman in the house,” Berta clucked as Miriam lay dinner plates around the sturdy harvest table. “A wonderful comfort to me, it is. A wonderful comfort.”
Miriam grinned, snorted lightly.
“Do you know I had nine sisters?” Berta continued as she dredged the last piece of damp fish in flour, slid it into the crackling pan. “No, of course you don’t,” she said. “Six passed on now, but you can imagine I was used to having women about the house. The chatter. Don’t seem right living with just a couple of men.”
Miriam nodded, said, “Uh-huh.” Then she plucked up the forks and laid them to the right of each plate.
“It’s to the left, dear,” Berta whispered, shaking a floury hand towards the table. “To the left.”
Miriam twisted slowly, grimaced, a spring forced to uncoil.
“Ah, never mind,” Berta said. She wiped her hands in her apron and returned to her fish fillets. The edges were slightly burnt, and she moved the pan to a cooler section of the stove. “The table looks lovely. You did a grand job.”
Moving swiftly around her kitchen, Berta placed a fluted dish of beet on the table, dumped the steaming boiled potatoes into a bowl. “Eldred is a nice man though. Real gentlemanly. Don’t know how that happened, considering the way he was raised. Mother had a streak in her, beyond mean. Used to beat the daylights out of him, always outside, just in case he lost control of hisself, I reckons.”
A sneeze erupted in the porch.
“Well, we’s all set.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just in time too. His Lordship is home.”
At dinner, Uncle sat at the head of the table, lifted his hands for the prayer. Afterwards, he cleared his throat, said to Miriam, “Have you met Eldred yet?”
She leaned over in an odd way, giggled as she glanced quickly at Eldred without moving her head. Uncle felt a distressing jolt of excitement over the meeting, and considered changing the seating so that if Eldred should gaze upon Miriam, the dreadful bulge on her back might not be so noticeable.
“We all knows who Eldred is,” Berta snapped. “I told her this morning.”
“He’s my best worker,” Uncle continued as he unwittingly adjusted his posture.
Berta’s eyes narrowed. “He’s your only worker.”
“That too, missus. And he plays the piano. Taught hisself.”
“She would’ve figured that out.”
“Folks come for miles around to listen to him. Sits right outside the window in the summers. Beautiful music. He’s got a lot of talent, he do.”
“Awfully chatty today, Father.”
“And he don’t always eat like that,” Uncle added, as Eldred hunched over in his seat, only inches between plate and mouth.
“That’s an absolute lie,” Berta shrieked. “Don’t heed a word that old man says. Eldred’s been like that since he come into this house. We tried to break him of it now, teach him right. But, well. Eats like he thinks someone is going to steal his food. I allows he looks even worse perched next to a pick and nibble person like myself.”
Uncle stared at his wife through watery eyes, kept his face calm while a sneer spread inside of him. That was one thing he always despised about his wife. She was not an honest eater. Every meal they shared, she poked at her food, scraped it across her plate. Each morsel would spend an eternity inside her mouth, chewed and chewed into paste, before being washed down with a dainty sip of water. But still, somehow when he was out of sight, she managed to cultivate and nourish a weight that frightened him. When they first married, he had craved those curves, cherished how each place on her body filled his empty hands, blurred his mind. Now those pounds threatened him, could smother him, make him vanish. Every night, while kneeling in prayer, he thanked the Lord above for the significant mattress bulge that separated them while they slept.
Berta looked up from her plate, stared back at him, and he felt her scrutiny like a mildewed cloth over his face.
“Just trying to make her welcome, missus,” he said.
“A moment to take a bite might be helpful, Father.”
The remainder of the meal was eaten in silence, other than Uncle’s constant humming – a necessary diversion he’d adopted years ago so that he wouldn’t hear his wife’s chewing, bovine teeth moving through fodder.
“Tea?” Berta asked, lifting the teapot, moving it towards Miriam.
“Yes, Missus Uncle.”
“Call me Berta, maid. Or Bertie. Anything’ll do.”
“Yes, Missus Uncle.”
They sat at the table, steaming cups before them. Berta drew the hem of her skirt up over her bare knees to cool herself.
“Queer old day,” Berta said. “Hot like this.”
“Queer. Uh-huh.”
“Be cold soon enough though. So we shouldn’t complain.”
“Shouldn’t complain. Uh-huh.”
“Well.”
“Well.”
First Berta, then Miriam, blew ripples across her tea. Berta cleared her throat, slid to the edge of her chair, and spoke delicately, “Did you have a friend growing up, Miriam? A boyfriend, perhaps?”
Miriam stretched her arms out, yawned slightly. “Uh-huh, I did. Three of them.”
“Well, now. Three. Well. That’s something. I had a few when I was younger. No rush to settle now.” She lowered her face towards her cup, relished a steamy twinge of pain on the loose skin of her neck. “What was they named?”
“Ah. The three Billys.” Miriam pulled up her hem as Berta had done.
“Oh, imaginary friends. How sweet.”
“They was.”
“That’s nice.”
“I likes sweet.”
“Do you like that story? About the goats? And the bridge? I thinks I got it here somewhere in one of our books. We used to have quite the number of children here back in the day – God never gave us any of our own. They used to have the run of the place, they did. Never say it now though.”
“Noooooo,” Miriam giggled. “The three Billys. They wasn’t goats. But Miss Hood didn’t like it.”
“She didn’t, did she?” Berta replied with a smile, full face of wrinkles. “Maybe they was too gruff?”
“Maybe.” Miriam scrunched her eyes in similar fashion.
“How do you find Eldred?” Serious now.
“I finds him good,” Miriam replied. “He got a nice, ah, a nice, um, a nice mouth.” She began opening and closing her legs so that her thighs slapped.
Berta noticed. “Eldred is older, but I finds he’s young in his head,” she said, sliding back in her chair. “And I reckons I don’t see every side to him, if you knows what I means.”
Miriam nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“I just wants to tell you, you’ve got to watch the men nowadays.”
“All right. If you says so. I can watch.”
“Some of them got their minds in the gutter.”
“They do?” Eyes a little wider.
“Silver tongues.”
“What?”
“They’ll salt your brain.”
“They will?” Mouth open. “Best to steer clear.”
“Steer clear.”
“That’s a good girl. For listening.”
“Yes, Missus Uncle.”
And Miriam did. She listened to Berta for the rest of that year and through the long winter. In spring, it was harder. Miriam was no longer drowsy, and the smell of new grass poking through the earth, swells on the ocean, and crackled mud did something to her. She didn’t exactly look for Eldred, but when she came upon him in the loft of Uncle’s barn on a fresh summery day, she couldn’t bring herself to leave him either.
She had been in the garden, plucking an armful of wild purple lupines, when she heard a small noise like a snuffling piglet. She followed it into the barn, and it came from above. Pinching the flowers in the crook of one elbow, she took each step slowly, hoisting her enormous frame up a thin ladder that led to the loft above. In the dimly lit co
rner, she saw Eldred, kneeling over a bundled scrap of fabric. Miriam edged closer, aware of the creaking boards beneath her flat feet. She placed her hand on his bony shoulder, and he leaned backwards to reveal a panting tabby cat, two wet kittens, another mottled mass emerging from underneath the mother’s twitching tail. Eldred was sweating, face contorted. Panic lit up his eyes as though he himself were the expectant father.
They sat shoulder to shoulder on the hay-strewn platform, waiting. Eldred continued to snuffle, wiping his nose in his sleeve. Miriam, transfixed by the births, didn’t budge, breathed through her stubby fingers clamped over her mouth. When all of the blind kittens were licked cleaned and latched on, Eldred slumped, sighed and opened his mouth. His bottom teeth were blackened. Miriam was reminded of candy, and wanted to do something to make him happy.
This was the first time they’d been alone together. She nestled in closer, crushing the lupines that had fallen between them. Wet words in his ear. “Have you ever churned the good butter?”
Once the child was born, Uncle had thought that would be the end of it. All his efforts, culminatng in one meeting, one subtle confrontation, the staggering possibility of exchanging a few words. But in the weeks that followed, he was paralyzed with misery, unwilling to move forward, unable to step back. Deep inside, he felt as though he was the butt of a cruel joke, and worst of all, he himself was the culprit. The perpetrator, in a sense, of a lifelong gag with neither punchline nor ripple of laughter. How could he have chosen so poorly? Now there was no son to carry on his name, no daughter to carry on his blood. Taking in those children had helped at the time, they were so needy and forgiving. But they had faded away, and in his old age, he had grown to resent each and every one of them. When he finally sensed their absence, it was so startlingly cold, it burned.
As summer began to wither, Uncle became preoccupied with his breathing, with the twitches in his muscles, the blue veins still full beneath his skin. He could no longer eat. Although he sat at the table during meals, he was unable to place a single morsel of his wife’s cooking on his tongue. He lost weight rapidly, and his clothes dangled from his scarecrow frame. Eldred began to stare at him with the same frightened expression he reserved for his shadow. Though he wanted to, Uncle was unable to weep. Instead, while weeds multiplied, blight disfigured, and animals ran rampant, he sat for hours on the flaking chair on his back stoop, two fingers constantly assessing the faint pulse on his wrist.
“You got to snap out of it,” Berta had told him. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This place is gone right to the dogs.”
Uncle sighed.
“Did you hear me, Father? Right to the dogs, I said. The crop is near ruint, and I can’t keep up with it all. Don’t know what you expects.”
Berta had had enough, and took it upon herself to meet Dr. Barnes directly at the boat when he arrived for his community visit.
“I don’t know what’s got into him,” she told the doctor. “Like he come face to face with his own ghost.”
Dr. Barnes took Uncle to the bedroom and asked him to sit on the bed.
“Can you tell me what’s troubling you? Your wife is awful upset.”
“My heart.”
“Your heart?”
“Yes.”
“Any discomfort? Sharp or dull pain?”
“No.”
“Shortness of breath?”
“No.”
“Light-headedness? Feel like retching?”
“No, sir.”
Dr. Barnes listened with his stethoscope.
“Your heart sounds plenty strong to me. Given your age.”
“’Tis dried up.” Uncle knotted his fingers into the crocheted bedspread.
“What’s that?”
“Shriveled.”
Dr. Barnes sat beside Uncle, placed his hand between Uncle’s shoulder blades. “I’m sorry to tell you, I don’t have a remedy for a shriveled heart.”
Resigned, Uncle blew a steady stream of air, sank deeper into the bed. “Good Doctor, I never supposed you did.”
Later that night, Berta awoke to find Uncle’s side of the bed empty, the sheets cold. Nighttime breezes danced across her face, and she left the bed, followed the trail of open doors. She found her husband outside in the garden wearing only his nightshirt. His bare feet were planted firmly in two trenches, feathery carrot tops growing in the row between his legs. His head was drooping backwards, mouth open. Above him, the sky was alive with the blazing of a million stars.
“Father,” she whispered, her words spanning outwards. “Father.”
She stepped closer.
“Father. Here’s your boots.” When she’d almost tripped over them in the porch, she plucked them up, clasped them to her chest.
He never turned, never spoke.
“Father. Is there something wrong? What did Dr. Barnes say today?”
Why did she repeat that word incessantly? Father. Mocking him over and over. His fatherless state.
“Did he tell you something?” Her voice now sounded as though it belonged to someone else. “Are you. . .are you dying?”
His head fell forward.
“I. . .I do believe I am, maid.”
At once she began to cry. Tears bursting through the years of dryness, shaking her momentarily, before a hollow calm settled in. “I figured as much. These past months. I idn’t blind.”
“I. . .”
She sniffed. “I did love you, Father. In my way.”
“Yes. I believes that.”
“You never wanted.”
“No.”
“I done my best.”
“I minds you did.”
“Did you love me?”
Silence.
“Did you love me?” she repeated, a little louder. “Ever?”
A harder silence now.
A small cry from somewhere, from her own throat? Bitterness now seeping in, taking hold as she snarled, “I might have known.”
She dropped the boots in the dusty earth, turned to walk back towards her house. She had already pictured the ending, but it was nothing like this wearying depletion. No, she assumed her change in status would be almost instant, and that she’d wear her newfound widowhood like a fashionable dress. She even considered that such an interruption in her marriage might even suit her complexion. But instead, she felt older, more worn than ever before. The girl that had always lived within her was long gone. At least I was a good wife, she thought. I was that.
The air was heavy the following morning, swollen with a dampness that bent the hay, curled the leaves, and distorted the line between ocean and air. Uncle tucked his undershirt and his loose plaid shirt into his trousers, tightened his suspenders. He felt a chill glide through him, and he appreciated it.
“Take your coat,” Berta had hollered as Uncle rustled about in the porch. She lifted her hands, coated in sticky dough, leaned her head out though the door. “She’ll cut you today. The wind.”
Uncle took a cardigan from the hook, stretched from a summer of hanging, elbows still frayed. He walked down over the rocky slope lined with those painted beach rocks. Every time he passed by them now, they called out to be noticed, and it aggravated him. As he turned onto the lane, each step was a struggle. He had lost some sensation in his feet. His hands too were numb, so he kept them tucked into the front pockets of his sweater. Along the way, he paused many times.
He could smell the vinegary cabbage pickles as he walked up the weedy path to her home. The screen door was propped open with a junk of wood, and he watched her for a moment. Miss Cooke, Annabelle, was standing near a counter, her back to him, spooning the pickles from a large pot, steaming glass jars accepting them with a satisfying gulp. Then, even though he hadn’t shifted his weight, the stoop creaked, announcing his presence.
She made no move to stop him when he eased through the door and walked in. He sat at her table, and waited for her to finish. Scraping the pot, she topped up the last jar, wiped each one with a damp cloth, and flip
ped up the glass lids, snapped them shut with the metal lever. Then she cleaned her hands, dried them in her apron, a black fabric, stark white flowers embroidered around the edges.
Still, she never spoke, and busied herself making tea. Uncle couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her – only parts of her – the small puff on the shoulders of her dress, her narrow back, calves, unblemished shoes, and trim ankles. And then his mind spat up an image of his wife’s ankles, almost splitting their seams, her kitchen shoes, so distended, bunion feet bulging.
She laid a cup of tea in front of him, and his hands went for it. There was something different in her face now, a hint of pity, and he did not find it unpleasant.
“What do you want here, Willard?”
“I don’t know,” he said. And he honestly didn’t.
But he did know what had pointed the way. The event that had rudely driven him into foul discontentment. He knew. Precisely. Something so small, so insignificant, if he told her now, she would surely think him senile. In fact, he wondered about that himself, if he was slowly going mad.
It happened in the springtime when he was bringing in armloads of wood – Uncle noticed an enormous brown scale adhering to the underside of one junk. A cocoon of sorts, he thought, and he set the log aside. Every few days he would lift the log and peer at the brown fuzzy patch. Sometimes he would stroke the tough exterior with his finger, marveling at the level of protection the insect had created. He was curious what would emerge, and checked the progress frequently. But nothing happened.
Uncle knew something about the life cycle of the creatures sharing his farm, and he decided he had given the insect plenty of time to hatch. One afternoon, when he was alone, he bent down on his knees, took the log in his hands, and peeled away the cocoon. Larger than a thumbprint, he placed it on his palm, turned the fibrous bundle over and over. Ingenious, he thought, sealed completely shut, no escape route. Uncle tugged away the tough layers, felt a pang of disappointment when there was only a shelled creature inside, development arrested. Then, when he pinched the shell gently, it exploded, shooting liquid, the brilliant colour of spring grass, across his hand, up over his wrist, onto his chin. He threw the casing and the stringy casket as far as he could, swiped the watery remains of the insect on his pant legs.
The Seary Line Page 4
