“I think I br-oh-oh-ke my ta-aye-ayel-bone.” Sobbing now, as much from pain as from the embarrassment of her first proposal.
“For pity’s sake, Reverend, don’t just stare at her, help the poor child into the house.”
He plucked Delia from her landing pad, and as she rode along in his arms, she stole a glance up at his eyes, his nostrils, saw a watery dejection beginning to run down. Letting her head loll back, she was thankful now for the pain that wracked her. Without it, her shame would have brought her to her knees. Her response was revealing, and she was stunned by the hollowness that existed within her. She could not close her eyes, marry in blindness, even though inside, the Reverend was good and kind and patient and strong.
Delia never would have disclosed the details of the debacle to another, but Joanna was a talker, and there was no end to the line of willing listeners. The Reverend’s simmering affection. Delia’s fall from the heavens. Her shocking refusal to become his bride. A bruised backside, an injured ego. All fodder for teatime. And the banter increased when, after only a fortnight, the Reverend’s affection was transferred to a hard-nosed but eager girl named Matilda Button. She lived alone in a shack with her mother, her father having run off when she was a child. A scant six-week courtship, and the new couple married, first baby soon on the way. Though the gossip died down over time, Delia believed Matilda never quite got over it. That even though Matilda had wanted to marry the Reverend, perhaps somehow, Delia had bested her. Why would any girl have readily discarded the one thing Matilda was so eager to own?
Delia even recalled the wedding. When the Reverend and his bride exited the church, Delia was among the first to step forth, said with sincerity, “I wish you both every happiness.”
The Reverend nodded, shyly, sadly, but Matilda gripped Delia’s arm, pulled her close, had spat in her ear, “You’ll rot in hell, don’t think you won’t. Being a pig to the Reverend.” Delia had yanked her arm away, that side of her face flushed from the rage poured over it.
Kneeling now between the pews of Reverend Hickey’s church, Delia took the scrub brush in her hand, but paused for a moment, touched her left ear. When she thought of it, she could still feel the heat of Matilda’s spiteful words, like a curse on her skin. That nasty sentiment ricocheting about in her memory. Sometimes, she wondered about it, if her vanity had pushed her off course. Her life was so unlike her childhood predictions: fervent love, a dozen playful children, perpetually blooming goldenballs. There was goodness, yes, but Delia recognized her increased irritation as the years went by. Something vital was missing, within herself, with her relationships. Worst of all, she lacked the desire to investigate, as though a cavity within her was expanding, pressing out the desire for something more. And when Delia was exhausted (which she often was), stomach distended, foul-tasting gas repeating on her, she heard those words again. Maybe her entire life was marked by a gradual rotting. Maybe Matilda Hickey was right.
As she cleaned the church floor, she felt the disorientation return. Her hands, moving over the wet wooden planks were like a blur, and she slowed the rhythm until it almost stopped. She could hear the women, gossiping, and the formality of the conversation confused her. So many surnames, when on any other instance, they would be Anna and Ruth and Mary and, well, she wasn’t quite sure. Delia tried to shake away the fuzziness, decided that this would be her last outing with the First, the First, the . . . She could not remember the name of the group. Sitting back on her calves, she stared at the material of her good dress, criss-crossing pattern lifting into three dimensions.
She held the brush in her lap, and it dripped onto her apron. As she watched the grimy water pool in a fold of fabric, a gauze wrapped itself around her mind. She wondered if someone owned that peppery little dog, yipping and jumping amongst the grave markers. But why had it growled so fiercely? Did it see that something was wrong with her? Or, about to be wrong? Here puppy, she whispered, reaching for the dog, but her hand never moved. Instead, Delia fell straight forward, nose smashing, warm blood spurting forth. Prostrate upon the cleanest section of the church floor, she began to shake violently.
Mrs. Primmer noticed first – two well-spaced legs jutting out between the pews, splayed feet jumping off the floor like water on a stoked stove.
“Oh my,” Mrs. Primmer said, pointing. “Never seen no one clean like that before.”
“Queer, don’t you think?”
“I don’t believe she’s scrubbing.”
“Mrs. Abbott? Is you all right?”
“Mrs. Abbott?”
No response, and while the other women squashed together slightly, Mrs. Hickey took charge. She marched through the church, grabbed Delia by the ankles, flipped her over with one twist, and yanked her out into the centre aisle. Delia’s skirt slid up around her waist, and Mrs. Hickey jolted slightly when scarlet ribbons were revealed, each neatly knotted, attaching loose fitting hose to a garter belt.
The ladies clustered around. “What’s wrong with her?”
Mrs. Wells took a deep step backwards. “’Tis like the devil got hold to her.”
“Don’t be daft, woman,” Mrs. Hickey hollered. “She’s having a fit, is all.”
“A fit?”
“Yes, a fit. Give her room. She’ll come out of it. My mother used to . . . Oh, never mind.”
Delia was still there, hiding somewhere within her own body. In the distance, the women were there, a handful of woodpeckers thumping their beaks against a weakened stump. The sound echoed within her, in time with her skull, as it vibrated upon the sudsy floor, striking it over and over again.
But the tapping soon grew dimmer, replaced by a pleasant silence. Quiet now, the birds must have tired of their pointless work, taken flight. She thought she felt the soft flutter of their wings upon her face. A watery darkness rose up among the gnarled roots, covering the forest floor where she lay. Floating, bobbing in the waves, she was with her father and mother now, resting on the floor of his dory, Delia’s Dream. Her mother was balanced on a board that traversed the boat, a blood-red handkerchief covering her head and fastened underneath her dimpled chin. “What are you doing down there, little miss,” her father said to her. “Old lazy bones.” And she managed to kneel, the boat shaking her.
Leaning out over the edge of the boat, she felt the strain on her face, her mother behind her, yanking her hair, fashioning tight braids. She listened, her father grunting as he hauled in his net, hand over patient hand. And then she saw it, a boot, a bare foot, a child’s calf, oozing up over the side of the boat. Her family, entangled in the brown wet mesh: Percy, Amos, Stella. She thought to embrace them, but her hands were pinned to her sides. No rush, her father said, I idn’t done yet.
Someone else was in the netting, sliding up, the person’s weight dragging the lip of the boat dangerously close to the vast sea. Who would it be? Percy’s mother? A ghostly woman with light passing through. Amos’s biological father? A faceless seaman, heavy jawed, and smirking. Perhaps that little dog, wanting to be with her after all? Guess again, her father said.
And then, she was there, standing amongst her family. Leaning, bewildered expression, jiggling vat for a torso, wet gauzy dress exposing a milk-laden chest. Miriam Seary. The fertile woman who had run from Uncle’s house three days after Stella was born. They claimed she disappeared, leaving only the palpable threat of when she might return.
Pain pricked the muscles around Delia’s eyes, making it practically unbearable to witness the lot of them, bobbing before her, together. Then, before she could turn away, vibration turned their edges to haze, and they melded into one.
“Get me water,” Mrs. Hickey bawled.
“But we don’t got no water.”
“Only this.” Pointing to the wash bucket.
“She can’t drink that.”
“God, no.”
“Is you that daft, Patty?” Mrs. Hickey cried. “’Tis not to drink.”
“What then?”
“Throw it in her face.”
&
nbsp; “What?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Look! She’s moving across the floor.”
“Like she’s trying to get to the door.”
“Remarkable.”
“Should we stop her?” Mrs. Primmer questioned, sloshing bucket in her hands.
“She might leave.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“The water.” Mrs. Hickey. “Quickly.”
“I can’t.”
“Throw it.”
“Is you sure?”
“Throw it!” No-nonsense screech.
And Mrs. Primmer did. Dirty water splashed across Delia’s upper body, soaking her collar, pushing back the handkerchief that covered her head. Filth clung to her face, filled her nose, a tangled clump of hair caught in her eyelashes.
Inside the jittery boat, an iridescent bubble began to form, emerging from Stella’s open mouth. It grew and grew, covered them all, except for Delia. She was trapped on the outside and began to panic, knowing that she had reached a point where everything might be lost. Pressing against the bubble with every ounce of her might, her face wet, body straining, straining, she felt an unearthly pressure against her own flesh. I don’t want this. I’m not finished yet. Where is that dog? But the boat collapsed, bubble exploded, and her soul burst forth. A lifetime scattered like brilliant stardust upon the calm black sea.
“You see?” Mrs. Hickey said. “Right relaxed now, she is.” Crouching down, she ran a slow hand along Delia’s slender calf, quietly assessing the extravagance of the hosiery. “It worked.”
The ladies leaned in, wanting to see her.
But Delia Abbott was already gone.
chapter five
“Start off with a scant cup of sugar,” Matilda Hickey explained. “Then a few eggs, and give it a good beating.”
Mrs. Hickey was beside Stella, a bowl and several ingredients on the table before them. Except for the Reverend, they were alone. Ever since Delia had died, Mrs. Hickey had been dropping by, “to ease the pain of the family,” she said. But these engagements did nothing to dig out the misery that had urgently put down roots several weeks earlier. They only served to agitate everyone. Whenever Amos and Percy heard the shrill squeal of Mrs. Hickey’s voice, they left through the back door. Before she arrived today, they were having a silent dinner, each pushing cold food around a plate. Then the breeze carried in the sound of clipping heels, news of some local scandal spilling from a wide mouth. Amos and Percy dropped their forks, scraped back their chairs, darted like wild animals in the echo of gunshot. Stella had no choice but to stay put, poke the plates of fish and boiled potatoes into a cupboard lest the Reverend and his wife suspect abandonment.
With each visit, Mrs. Hickey taught Stella to prepare a dessert that would never be eaten. Stella always insisted she take a bowlful or plate of whatever they made, but Mrs. Hickey wouldn’t hear of it. Appetite was scarce, and so, after the squares or puddings or biscuits sat under a tea towel for several days, Stella would place them on the back stoop before going to bed. A stray mongrel, most likely, would wander by in the darkness, lick the platter clean.
While Mrs. Hickey explained measurements and sifting and folding in, the Reverend settled in a chair by the woodstove, Bible opened on his lap. Every now and again, he would pause his reading, spend a few moments describing the good Lord’s healing power or His ultimate plan, but there were no listeners. Stella’s ears were occupied with the incessant nattering of Mrs. Hickey, and there was no chance for the return of Amos or Percy. Amos was somewhere outside pacing up and down the laneway, and Percy was back among his thinning trees, hacking down every spruce within the swing of his axe. Lack of an audience did not hinder the Reverend, though, and he continued his mini-sermons unabated.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” he droned while flipping to another page. “Though it don’t feel like that now, I knows.”
“Don’t knock the top off it, girl,” Matilda said, huffing. “You cracks it like this.” She knocked each egg on the side of the table, broke open the shells, raising her arms in grand gestures as the contents plopped into the bowl.
“Oh,” Stella replied, taking the wooden spoon. Not trusting her tongue to be polite, Stella spoke very little. She didn’t want Matilda Hickey there, her queer energy buzzing about inside the home, irritating its very walls. But Stella had no choice. The woman had made every effort to save her mother, and Stella was required to show her respect. “Let her try to teach you something,” Amos had said. “It idn’t going to mar you beyond repair.” But Stella hated it. When Matilda moved, the wind that came off her smelled stale, like wet dog doused in rosewater. And her voice was torturous, sharp rocks knocking together, kik kik kik, kik kik kik, over and over again.
“Go on, girl.” Mrs. Hickey nudged Stella. “Feels real good to give it a beating. Knock a bit of sense into those old eggs.”
When Stella stirred vigorously, membrane slopped out onto the countertop. Mrs. Hickey tsk-tsked, then leaned in around her, and with practiced fingers, scooped up the egg white, tossed it back into the bowl. Licking sugar and slime from her thumb, she mumbled, “Bit of raw egg never hurt no one.”
Reaching around for the stale bread, Mrs. Hickey brushed Stella with her full-larder-of-a-chest. She grabbed Stella by the shoulders, said, “Not much meat on you, girl. You’ll fill out though, once you gets a bit older. You bet. Sure, take a gander at me.” She pinched her rolls, smiled. “I was no thicker than a piece of shoestring when I was your age. ’Tis love that makes you fat. I believes that, I do,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the Reverend. “True love makes you pack on the suet.” Dark soggy laugh.
“All in Christ shall be made alive,” the Reverend mumbled through his rust-coloured mustache.
Though Stella wasn’t paying attention to his recitations, she could not help but stare at the Reverend from time to time. Judging solely by the top of his head, a mourner might take comfort in the purity of his downy white hair. But when the Reverend showed his face, that comfort would surely transform into uneasiness. His skin seemed to dislike the very bone beneath it, had fallen significantly, hung on either side of his jaw in fleshy dimpled jowls. Acne scars, a reminder of what once must have blighted his cheeks, had slid off his face, now colonizing his neck. His flesh reminded her of cold chicken broth, and it quivered when he spoke. Stella speculated on how he might have looked as a young man. Even with the pulling and tightening, the sunshine and bright hair her mind offered him, she determined that face still would have been mighty unpleasant.
Glancing up, he caught her staring, said, “That was Corinthians. If you wasn’t sure.”
“No,” she replied after a moment. “I wasn’t.”
There was something in his expression when he looked at her, as though he were steeling himself against her tacit criticism. It made her believe he knew what she was thinking, and he knew there were others who had thought the same thing before. Blushing, Stella turned back to the eggs, focused on Mrs. Hickey’s elbows, appearing and disappearing as she sawed through the bread.
“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Hickey replied, as she continued slicing. “Now a cup or so of cream or milk, then soak your old bread. Handful of raisins if you got them. Pay it no mind if you don’t. A grating of nutmeg, if it suits your fancy, or your daddy’s fancy.” The bread was tough. Mrs. Hickey began to sweat as her arm worked the knife, but she did not grow winded.
“’Tis hard work, but we mustn’t be wasteful. Only heathens is wasteful, if you asks me. Going ’round with the Reverend like we does, I sees all kinds of good food heaved out for the animals. Pigs never had it so good. Stuff folks could eat themselves, I allows. Back when I was girl, we was a might more sparing. No shame in being frugal, you knows. A lesson you should learn young, and I guarantees it’ll serve you well your whole entire life.” She talked nonstop as her pudgy fingers pressed the bread beneath the cream, drowning each piece.
“Yes, Mrs. Hicke
y.”
“And that’s all there is in the making of it. Bread pudding. After that, you puts it into a Bane Mary and cooks it.”
“What’s a Bane Mary?”
“Nothing as highbrow as it sounds, girl. ’Tis French for a custard bath or a water bath or something. You puts the pan with your pudding into a thing of hot water. That way it don’t come out all lumpy.”
“How long do you bake it?”
“That’s the same silly thing I used to ask when I was your age. My mama, God rest her soul, always used to say, you keeps it in ‘til ’tis cooked, girl, and not a minute more. And I says that’s sage counsel.”
“All right.”
“You’re the woman of the house now,” Mrs. Hickey said as she leaned over, placed the pudding in the oven. “Though I reckons you’ve been that way for a while now, considering the state of your poor mother.”
“For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable and he shall be charged. I means we shall be changed. Changed. That’s Corinthians too.”
“Right, my darling. You knows just what to say.” Mrs. Hickey wiped her hands in her apron, smoothed her faded frizzy hair. “We best be getting along, Reverend. Still got to stop in and see to the Vokeys.” Then to Stella, “Next time, if you likes, I’ll show you how to make a grunt. But you’ll need to pick some berries.”
Stella leaned against the counter, arms folded across her narrow chest. She was beginning to reconsider. Maybe this wasn’t so horrible, Mrs. Hickey here, taking up space. Her commanding presence masked the gloom, and for a few hours, that colossal woman managed to push out the emptiness. Especially this room, for the kitchen was Stella’s mother’s room. This is where she had lived out most of her adult life.
Not that her mother had enjoyed it, Stella had long ago decided. And as the years went by, her mother made even less effort to hide her general displeasure. Even when she was asleep, the room snored with contention. There were rare occurrences when the conflict was playful, moments when Stella could imagine what life had once been like between her parents. But most often, she was tetchy, complaining about sunlight, the bland meal before her, the stain of squashberry jelly. Who had dared let it drip on her daybed quilt?
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