“By the looks on your face, little Percy, your thoughts is a far cry from holy,” John, the oldest, sniped. “Well, fellers,” he continued, “if you asks me, I’ll tell you something that idn’t holy. Plunking our arses on this bench, when ’tis a fine day calling us. Surely God don’t intend that.”
Though Percy shivered at the thought of disobeying, he rose as the others rose, made his way out the front door with them and into what their father affectionately referred to as, “Mother’s Newfangled Garden.” A mess of sturdy sheep laurel, cornflowers, wild asters, and phlox. Other flowers now dead, tangles of sleepy plants beginning to wither.
They stole past a group of men in painted chairs, bellies like balls rising and falling as they dozed in the afternoon sun. “Holy dreams, I’s betting,” John whispered.
Down the path and across the log that made a greasy bridge over the brook, the brothers reached the backend of Widow Samson’s yard. Her house was plunked in the very middle, blue clapboard, faded and crackled like a smashed robin’s eggshell. Jumping her rickety fence, they crept through the dry grass until they reached the rough trunk of her damson tree. “Say it ten times fast, b’ys,” John commanded, as the three younger boys whispered, “Samson’s damsons, Samson’s damsons, Samson’s damsons” over and over again. “Louder,” he cajoled. “Eyes like the hawk, but she’s deaf as a boot.” And louder they crooned, only falling silent when they shimmied up the tree, began the unlawful harvest.
Finding the branches heavy with sour fruit, they curled their backs into the elbows near the trunk, helped themselves, spit black slippery pits. The four of them gorged until their stomachs swelled, ached. “Shits tomorrow for the load of us,” John announced, and the middle two sniggered while Percy blushed. Then they stuffed their pockets, snapped whole limbs, dropped like cats to the earth below. Carted the works home, twigs, leaves and all.
When they displayed their trappings on the kitchen table, their mother did not smile.
Her voice was like jelly, quivering with anger. “On a Sunday of all days. Thieving on the Sabbath.”
“But–” John began.
“Don’t utter a word! When your father catches wind of this, you’ll all be lashed. And deservedly so.”
As though coached, Percy, head hanging, eased himself forward and murmured through purple lips, “Why, they was for you. To make something nice. For our family.”
She softened instantly, pinched his stained chin, said, “That’s nice, my darling. But what do you expect? She’ll be by for a drop of tea, and I’ll serve her up a jam made from her own fruit? You don’t suppose she’d be a mite bit suspicious?”
“Will you tell Father?” Percy’s teary owl eyes were on her now, pleading.
“I could. And every one of you deserves to have your backsides reddened until they’s raw, but I believes your intentions was nice, so I’ll make you boys a deal. If you’re up tomorrow before the crack of dawn and manage to surprise your father with the biggest load of kelp he’s ever seen – well, that just might fasten my lips right tight. In the meantime, you can spend the remainder of the afternoon with your rumps stuck to that bench and thinking about how good your lives is.”
Percy stepped back, marched straight to the bench and took his seat. As they moved past him, one brother knocked him, another yanked his ear, John struck him firmly on his crown with a fist, then grabbed his own backside, whispered, “Phew.” There was pride blossoming inside Percy’s small body. For once in his life, he was a hero.
The following night at supper, their father said, “’Twas a grand day. Never seen the boys work so hard, and now this lovely pudding. Was the widow by?”
Lifting the crumbly cake, Percy saw the illicit spiced fruit underneath.
“Mmm,” she replied, and began to chirp on about her day: paying the widow a visit, helping her pluck the stubborn feathers from an old white hen that was no longer a giver. “Stuck tight, those feathers. Poor old widow, fingers on her, already seen their best days, could barely get a grip. I finished it up for her, lit a small stick in her stove, and burned off every last trace of hair. Wind came up, though. My good Lord, if it didn’t coax every feather off the ground, into the air, scattering them hither and yon. Believe it or not, the widow wasn’t the least bit undone about the mess. Sat back, watched them dance through the air. ’Twas like a glorious dream.”
To the boys and their father, it barely mattered what she said. It was the lilt of her voice that captured them, made them chew slowly to prolong their meal. Her words were a harmony that filled every corner of their home. Making them forget the hardship of the day. She chirped about dipping candles, the secret ingredient in her steamed bread pudding, how she felt like a twirling child when she stared at the wonky lines of her log cabin quilt. She shared her life as a woman – a curiosity so beyond their world of muscle-work, it transformed even the most banal of her stories into something rich and exotic.
When she died in childbirth the following spring, a bitter stillness seeped into the home, uprooted every scrap of humour, of joy, and guarded the space with cold passion. At first the quiet was sharp and unbearable, but after a while the five of them grew accustomed to it. Over the years, they developed a system of nods and mumbles, and eventually, if a word was accidentally spoken, it was met with distain. Even the flowers fell silent, and Percy could no longer hear the buds bursting outside his window during a spring evening. He had imagined early on that they drooped and died because the gardener had abandoned them. Not until he fell in love did he consider that perhaps they were all so desperate for life, they had no choice but to choke each other out.
Percy’s three older brothers left, first chance that presented itself. Married as soon as they were able to earn a living. But Percy lingered, bound somehow to that dour, soundless man who was his father.
He was nearly forty years old when he met Delia. Even though he remembered it very clearly, he rarely thought about their first acquaintance. Not because it was upsetting, just the opposite, actually. Bringing it out into bright light and replaying it gave him such pleasure, he only did so on special occasions. He feared wearing it out. Fondness enveloped their second meeting as well, but he was more carefree with this instance, would conjure her words frequently, and after all these years, still feel the scratch of his excited shyness. “You got to be the pastiest man I ever seen,” she had said when they met on the road, day of drizzle. “Surely you’ve been living under a rock.” Throat dry, but skin soaked, Percy nodded yes.
He remembered, too, the moment when he told his father that he too was getting married, leaving their home. His father had been hunched over his meal of boiled potatoes, boiled fish, shoveling the scalding food into his mouth. Conversation, Percy believed, kept the mouth alive, and it was clear to him as he watched steaming forkfuls enter that pinched oval in his father’s face that the man’s mouth was numbed, ignorant to any sort of pain. But Percy’s was not, and he spoke clearly. He saw his father cringe at the sound of Percy’s voice, but the old man did not look up, never met his eyes. Nothing but a sullen nod. And that was the end of that.
Delia waited at the front gate. As Percy walked towards her, he never glanced over his shoulder, never once looked back. And though he honestly wished it were different, through his shirt his spine could tell, there was no set of eyes gazing at him. No one was going to miss him. Even though some part of his father was still rattling around inside it, his childhood home was essentially dead.
Percy felt warmth spread out inside him, like hot jam filling a cold jar. This did not emerge from the memory of his father, but of Delia, waiting for him, in a navy dress, white piping around the pockets. She had been waving to him as he came around the corner, and in his mind, this was not so much a greeting, but a clearing of the air. Waving away his sadness, making room for hope.
Percy’s reminiscing was interrupted by squawking, shrieks rising up from the beach. He could tell by the tone there was no danger, these were only the interming
led squeals of delight and irritation. He walked to the head of the cliff to watch his children.
With thumb and forefinger, Amos was snapping bubbles along a strand of seaweed. Beside him, Stella was attempting to do the same, and she puffed with effort, cheeks smoldering.
“Why can’t I do it?” she cried, then dropped the seaweed, stomped on it. When her shoes smeared green paste over the rocks, she slipped and fell, knees crunching against cold stone.
“You’re a girl, that’s why.”
“So?” Spite damming up the flow of tears.
“Girls’ll never be as strong as men. No matter how hard they tries.” A mocking tune in his words.
She lunged at Amos, arms swinging, while Amos danced left and right, easily avoiding her punches.
“Youngsters!” A few strides, boots dragging over the rocks, and he was between them. “Never fight amongst yourselves, you hear me?”
“It idn’t fair. Boys can shave their heads if they wants, wear whatever they likes, do whatever they likes, and look at me?” She yanked her braids, hauled up the leg of her trousers to display lisle stockings. “Itching the legs right off me.”
Percy’s voice was firm. “Don’t bemoan what you is, Stella. Some things you can’t change.”
She growled quietly, but complied. “Yes, Father.”
“God knows girls is wonderful creatures.”
“Yes, sir.”
He squeezed Stella’s skinny upper arm, then knocked her on the head, winked. “Besides, sometimes being strong got nothing to do with muscles. Do you understand me?”
She shrugged, and he said, “Someday you will, maid. It’s all right in here.” He tapped his chest. “Rolled up tight like a supper bun.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Now then,” Percy said, clapping his callused hands together. “How’s about one more load? Shouldn’t take a minute with my two best workers.”
“I’ll fill my bucket first,” Amos cried.
“That you won’t,” she hollered, and she was right. Fluttering hands scooped the slippery kelp, jammed it into her bucket. Task complete, she leaped up, arms in the air, brazen white belly exposed to the damp salt air.
Amos sniffed, said, “No fair,” even though it was.
As Percy carted the buckets up over the hill, he turned to watch them once again, unflinching as the rusty metal handles cut into his palms. Together, they skittered across the beach, and the ocean seemed to mimic their glee, painting the stones grey-green as its wet fingers darted and poked, watery voice singing quietly.
For these children, that stretch of land contained a treasure trove of toys. They smashed empty sea-urchin shells, picked at the edges of a withered jellyfish, skimmed slender rocks across the rippling water. Crouching near a miniature salty pool, they discovered secret life tucked among the rocks. Percy watched their small faces, mesmerized expressions. He could not hear them exactly, but knew the words they were chanting as they held the tiny black coils close to their mouths. A childish threat of sorts:
“Snailie, snailie, come out of your hole
Or we’ll beat your mother black as coal.”
Percy laid the buckets at his feet and placed a hand over his heart. A tender spot had formed beneath his breastbone, likely caused by a perpetual emotion now residing within him. Though the onlooker might not guess, Percy was a man who was filled with joy. Cavernous holes, formed when he was a child, were now brimming. But instead of lifting his soul from his shoes, it stifled him, this unnatural sensation.
“Hey, Dad,” Stella cried. She was standing on a wet rock that jutted out into the sea. “Look! The frog is rolling in.”
He smiled inside, looked out on the horizon and saw the grim clouds creeping forward. When Stella was very young, she mistakenly used the word frog for fog. No one ever corrected her, and even though she now knew the difference, they still continued to use the word amongst themselves.
“Yes,” he responded. “It’s going to get froggy.”
As contentment continued to settle, Percy choked on a silent fear. It was the fear of absence, of loss, and the pain he knew would rise up in its place. He sensed this progression was inevitable, braced himself against that morbid understanding. And as he watched his children play and once again reflected on the love for his wife, he cracked open the door to emotion. A gust of hollow bliss kissed his face, then damp terror, balled-up at the core, snuck up from behind and slapped him.
chapter four
Mrs. Delia Abbott, newest member of the First Ladies League, smoothed the starched gingham of her dress, checked the position of her collars, then opened the peeling gate that led to the clapboard church. Her shoes felt loose as she stepped onto the grounds, but when she glanced down, her laces were still snuggly tied. Just nervous, she decided, and her stomach was too: it bubbled and churned, panicked in shots of searing heat. Percy hadn’t helped matters much – being so angry when she’d left. Telling her she was foolish to overdo it. Just because she had a thimbleful of energy these past few weeks, why waste it trying to please a gaggle of unpleasable women? After all, had they really asked her to join? He’d made her admit it in front of frowning Stella. No. They hadn’t.
As she stepped onto the gravel path, Delia considered how she liked the grounds of the church much more than its hollow interior. Every Sunday, mind-numbing work was set aside, and people found a moment to exhale, the space to ponder their past. When they congregated in the church, their communal air was so sore with emotion – over dead babies, drowned husbands, blighted crops, and empty nets –the damp wooden walls would almost weep. With all that despair billowing upwards, Delia imagined that one day, the entire roof might blow off.
Outside the church, though, there was a gentle calm. A well-tended graveyard bordered the walkway, and there was serenity in its neat rows of mounds and dips, lines of painted crosses. Pure and absolute peace.
Delia took a deep breath, tried to draw that sentiment into her lungs. Then she noticed a mangy crackie among the grave markers, snapping its jaws at blackflies overhead. Dancing and jumping, the dog was the picture of unfettered joy, and Delia smiled when she came closer. She could take a lesson or two from that dog. It didn’t care that its matted fur clung to its ribs or that flies were not the meal it craved. A simple life, appreciating what was available, and that was enough. Maybe on her way home, she would try to lure it along. See what Percy would say. Shabby, yes, but she could tell it was full of boundless optimism, just by the way it waggled its behind mid-air trying to gain height.
Though when she passed by, the dog’s demeanour changed. It froze stock-still, locked its shiny brown eyes on the air that surrounded her. She paused for a moment, held out her palm, offering a scratch behind the ears. “Here, puppy.” But the dog backed into the shrubbery, fur puffed into a mane, a snarling show of yellow teeth. “Angry too?” she mused. “Were you talking to my husband?” And then she reached for the wooden railing, mounted the stairs in her uncertain stride.
“Well now, don’t Mrs. Abbott look lovely,” Mrs. Hickey announced when Delia entered through the open door.
“All ready for Sunday service,” Mrs. Cable said tersely. “Though we’s only cleaning today.”
Delia reached up, touched the damp wire rollers underneath the polka-dotted handkerchief that covered her head. Shame, a hidden spring of it, quickly broke through the surface and flooded her. Who washes her hair before cleaning a dust-riddled church? Who wears a good dress? Someone who doesn’t know better, she decided. These were errors, and she now wished, in that moment of budding pride, she had not accepted when Reverend Hickey meekly suggested she join the church group. “Long overdue,” he’d said. Oh, the glee in her voice when she blurted “yes,” then how it drained away when she noticed the expression on the puffy face of Mrs. Hickey, the Reverend’s wife. Her lips were pinched with displeasure, her wet eyes rolling, like two cloudy glass baubles floating in vinegar.
“Idn’t going to get cleaned by gawking at
it,” Mrs. Hickey bellowed up towards the rafters.
“That’s right,” Mrs. George replied. “A good scrub before the Lord comes in. Lots of burden to lay down this week.”
At once, Delia wanted to run back home, hide in the outhouse, lean her head against the splintery wall, and listen to the scratchy sound of spruce trees, intoxicated by summer sun. But instead, she began to collect worn prayer books, stack them on the rickety table near the back door. Slight dizziness had settled on her shoulders, and when looking downwards, she thought the floor appeared slanted, buckled in places. All the stress of the week, she decided, what with the fire.
“Could’ve been the lanterns,” Mrs. Primmer said. “Something as simple as that.”
“Got my doubts,” Mrs. Hickey replied. “My bet’s on that Johnny Bent. Smokes like a tilt, he do.”
“Men just don’t heed that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Burden.
“Sure, a flick of ash on a bit of tinder. That’s all it takes.” Mrs. Wells now.
“A shame.”
“A real shame.”
“What about Fred Batten?”
“But he never smoked a day in his life, maid.”
“Don’t matter. He drinks like a fish. Every second day I sees him hauling up the lane, falling all over hisself.”
“And the temper on him!”
“Hilda got no control over him. So drunk, he gets right wild every time.”
“A decent woman wouldn’t let him out through the door.”
“A decent woman would never of let him in.”
“Got no business bothering the men, he don’t.”
“And look what happens. No good.”
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