“Maybe I was angry, that you had your mother and mine was gone. Weren’t even allowed to mention her name. Had to pretend she weren’t even real. I thought you had everything.”
“What? Is you codding me?” Stella blew air out through pursed lips. “If ’tis any comfort, I don’t even think she could stand me.”
“What?”
“Mother. I don’t think she gave me much mind.”
“Don’t say that. ’Tis not true.”
“Maybe it’s not. But that’s what I thinks sometimes. She never ever said.”
“People don’t need to say stuff. It’s what they does that matters.”
“Well, she never done nothing either. As far as I minds. Seems like she’s been gone forever. Sometimes it seems like she was never there at all. Like I imagined her or something.”
“Don’t say that, Stella.”
“All right.” She leaned her head against the wall of the hole, sniffed hard to clear her nose. Several minutes passed.
“No. You can say it. I don’t want you to stop talking. I don’t like to hear myself breathe.”
“Oh.”
“Talk, Stella. Say whatever you wants.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking you to do.”
Stella pressed her mittens to her nose, mumbled, “I was scared of her.”
“How do you mean?”
“I was afraid to touch her. Hug her. I wanted to sometimes though.”
“Yeah.”
“Thought I would hurt her. I used to dream over and over again I had big muscle arms and I squeezed her so tight. Damaged her right bad.”
“Oh.”
“And that she was dead.”
“I don’t think you could do that, Stell.”
“Sometimes I got myself convinced that I was in the church with her, and somehow it was me. Me that done it.”
“You weren’t. . .you weren’t even close.”
“I don’t know. I guess I was afraid to even love her. Had myself convinced she didn’t even like me. To make it easier, I suppose.”
“She loved you, Stell. I knows it.”
“How do you know?”
Amos let the cigarette drop, saw it bounce, then die. “Because I used to watch her, that’s how. Watch her watching you. She’d always be staring at you when you were doing something with a needle, or trying to knead bread with those skinny little arms. Sewing up the arse of Father’s trousers. She’d watch you. And. . .”
“And what, Amos?”
“That was the only time she ever really looked content. Happy. She looked happy when she was watching you.”
Stella rubbed her eyes, reddening them with the itchy wool. She yawned and shuddered. “I’m tired, Amos.”
Amos moved the lantern back, illuminating the darkness behind them. “I knows,” he said and shimmied out of his coat. “Lean here, maid. You can rest against me.”
She laid her cheek against his shoulder, and he tucked his coat over her knees. “Thank you, Amos.” Red mittens laid gently on his forearm, and he patted her hands. When he heard her breathing regulate into soft shallow puffs, he let his face fall, rest on her head. He could smell the salt air trapped in her hair, no sweeter scent in the entire world. Barely audible, he said, “I love you, Stella. I hope you knows you’re my star too.”
Amos never slept. He waited for morning, barely blinking, staring until he could distinguish the sea from the sky. Dead cold had stiffened him, numbed his fingers and neck. Beneath woolen clothes, his damp skin had shrunk against his body, and he felt smaller, wished he had just one more day to grow back to his regular size. But when the edge of the sky flushed pink, urged out the grey night, he understood his time was up. He nudged Stella, told her they needed to go home.
They traipsed over the beach and climbed the slippery hills that led to the pathway between the Jenkins’ and Smith’s farms. Stella tripped, clutched handfuls of long lifeless grass to pull herself up. And it held tight, saved her the fall.
As he watched her yank at that grass, Amos thought about the many elements of the earth, and decided they were female. The sea, the sky, the soil, the plants. All generous. So willing. And even though he viewed himself as being a decent man, he knew in the months ahead he was going to crawl over the earth and violate her. Abuse her nature. He thought of the war as noble havoc, played out upon the surface of a beautiful woman. Who really owned her anyway?
They reached home, and Amos entered to retrieve his things. His father was seated in the rocker, face so puffed with sadness, it pained Amos to look at him. But he went, stood before his father, took his hand and shook it firmly.
He mumbled something, but Amos never understood. Sliding his hand out from the sandpaper grip, Amos said, “I’ll be home before you knows it, Dad. After the war is done.”
“That you will,” his father replied.
Their eyes met briefly, and with that gaze, Amos asked his father one hundred questions, and every one was answered. And Amos was able to see the debilitating depth of his father’s emotion, a continual pelting rain. Though he wanted to, Amos was unable to fathom a response, and so he stretched, tried to straighten his back. He nodded at his father, shook his hand once more, and walked out the door.
Stella waited at the front gate, leaning over the sharp pickets, eyes droopy. Gales peeled off the sea, snapped her scarf, and she covered her ears with her mittens.
Amos stopped when he reached her, said, “Do you want to see something?”
She stood. “All right.”
Dropping his bag by the fence, he unbuttoned his left breast pocket and withdrew a scrap of fabric.
“Here.” He handed her a clean white square of cotton, tatted border in a mix of navy and baby blue.
“That’s real pretty. A handkerchief.”
“My mother made it.”
“Your real mother?”
“Yup. ’Twas in with the stuff I came with. That old trunk. I stole it, hid it away for myself, before everything was gotten rid of. Given to other families.”
Stella unfolded it, laid it open on her mitten. “Oh. ’Tis lovely, Amos. Best put it back.”
But as she reached her arm out to give it back, a bitter wind tore down the laneway, swiped the flimsy fabric from her open hand, and made away with it. Amos and Stella jumped to catch it, banging their chests together, but the wind lifted it higher and higher, forcing it to weave and dance as though it were enjoying itself. Towards rooftops, past smoldering chimneys, until it vanished against the cloudy sky.
“Oh God, Amos.” Tears shot out from Stella’s eyes, and she collapsed beside the fence. “I’s so sorry. I hates myself, I do. How could you have someone so stupid for a sister? Now you don’t got nothing left.”
Amos crouched beside her, swallowed hard. “Don’t cry, maid. That’s not true at all. I got plenty left, don’t you think no different. I got a ton of stuff in here.” He thumped his chest, right at the unbuttoned pocket.
Stella wailed and wailed, buried her face in cold crisp folds of her skirt.
“Plenty of stuff. Who knows, I might have made it all up, but it still feels right real to me, and that’s all that counts, right? Whatever feels real.”
Rubbing her back, he whispered, “Say it, Stell.”
He stayed beside her, holding her, waiting for the shaking to subside. But when he noticed a handful of shadowy figures skulking down the lane and out onto the road that led to the docks, he had to leave her, even though she was still shaking. He stood, unlatched the gate.
“Be good,” he said, and let his fist fall gently on her head. “I’ll be back before you knows it. Keep my supper warm.”
Stella did not stand and turn towards her brother, could not watch him walking away. She listened though, and heard what she thought was the saddest sound. A pair of heavy tired feet, leaving home.
In the months to follow, she received several letters from Amos, but the one she treasured most was the follow
ing:
Dear Stella,
I am listening to the rain, and it seems to fall much more softly here. Without guts, almost like it’s scared to make too much of a noise. That sound makes me think of home, and the raucous rains that we gets. I miss that – rain with lots to say. And you, of course. You, with lots to say.
Someday, after the war, I’d like to bring you here. The countryside is grand, and I bet you would like it. Parts are similar to home, like the fields, and the smell of bread when you walk by a farmhouse, herds of goats, but it’s different too. You know that the loveliness is a bit of a trick. I won’t try to describe it, I’m no good at that sort of thing. You will see, one day, when the horizon is more honest.
Even though I knows you might be, don’t worry yourself about me, Stell. My spirits is good, and my legs is strong. Thanks to your knitting, my feet is wonderful warm. I could’ve sold my fine wool socks a dozen times over, but I never gave it a single thought. There is decent food and plenty of it. Too much, in fact. I’m not the same skinny feller that left you. Today, me and the men shared a jar of strawberry jam, and it tasted like heaven.
When I’m waiting, sometimes I dredges up the talk we had that night in God’s Mouth. The patch is more precious than the hole. Do you remember? And I want you to know that I don’t got neither hole to think of. Never did and never will, maid. That’s the pure and utter truth. I listens to some of the other blokes’ stories, and I knows I been blessed beyond. If you can do me a favour, when the time presents itself, please tell that to our father.
Remember me, until you see my old mug again.
Love, your brother,
Amos
P.S. Is you still keeping my supper warm?
Two weeks after this last letter, Stella and her father received word that Amos Abbott, aged 18, had been killed in the line of duty. With great honour, he died on the frontlines, shot by a near-mirror-image of himself. Stella did not weep, collapsed inside. You lied, she thought. You lied to me. She imagined his body, bloody, stuck face down in the icy muck of a trench. His last breath would smell like a rusty iron pan, and the air would emerge not through his mouth, but the holes in his torso. A riddle of holes. She could see them clearly. But knew no kind of patch in this cruel world would fix them.
chapter seven
Leander Edgecombe climbed the rickety ladder leaning against the side of the Abbott household. He had made this ladder especially for himself, the rungs very close together. That way, he could hop up with one good foot, rather than step with two.
He held tightly with his right hand, and hoisted a chair with his left. This chair was made from knotty pine, and the joints were seamless, edges smooth, spindles a lively mix of beads and grooves. With seafoam coloured paint, he had given the chair three thick coats. The legs were uneven, back shorter than front, as he wanted it to sit flat on the sloping roof that overhung the porch.
As he positioned the chair, Stella came out to watch him.
“If you asks me,” she said, “’tis a waste of a lovely piece of furniture. All that colour will burn up, peel off like old skin.”
“I don’t heed one word you says,” he replied, and smirked down at her. “Anyone who passes by’ll know that a furniture maker lives here.”
“Everyone knows now anyways, they don’t need no chair to tell them. But, suit yourself. Long as you sweeps up the flakes.”
He laughed, pulled nails from his pocket and held them between pinched lips. Chair in place, he asked Stella to hand him up the hammer. He then nailed each leg firmly to the roof, shook the chair to ensure it couldn’t budge. Satisfied, he clambered back down, stood back several feet to admire his handiwork.
“Come,” he said, and Stella stood beside him. He wrapped his arm around her waist, squeezed her. “What do you think now?”
She smacked his chest. “I thinks the same as I did before, of course.”
Leander looked at his wife, pressed his face into her hair, dampened by the heavy mist. They had been married two full years now, and Leander would say these years had been the easiest of his life. Getting there was a struggle though. He had asked her a dozen times to marry him, and she had always refused. But from very early on, he knew she was the girl for him, and he would never say this aloud, but his foot told him so.
Ever since he was born, his bad foot ached. A constant dull throbbing, as though blood were trying to push its way into hardened places, plump up withered flesh. Only when he was searching for someone or something did the ache lessen. And he was good at that, finding things. As he neared the misplaced item, his foot actually felt normal – not normal enough to walk on, but normal in that he might forget the discomfort.
By chance, he discovered that whenever he was close to Stella, he forgot about his foot. As though she was perpetually lost and wandering, and he was the one capable of finding her. And when he was with her and the pain disappeared, there was room for other emotions, room for laughing, love, singing a jaunty tune.
Even though he knew they were meant for each other, he was beginning to believe that convincing Stella was an impossible task. That changed though, one afternoon, almost nine years ago, when he saw her in her vegetable garden. She was crouched down among the cabbage leaves, still wet from morning dew. The plants were young and tender, and had yet to form a substantial head. Baby slugs were nibbling away, leaving telltale holes and tracks of slime. Stella was lifting and examining each leaf, picking off the freeloaders, dropping them in an enamel bucket.
“Dirty work,” Leander said as he neared her. “Yes, ’tis. And I idn’t afraid of it.” She looked up, squinted with the early sunlight, one eye closed.
Leander moved to block the rays, said, “I got something for you.”
“Whatever you got, I don’t want no part of it.”
But he dropped it in her lap anyway, and he never could have anticipated her response. She stared at it for a moment, mouth agape, as though it had been a snake he’d tossed. Then, she snatched it up, pressed it over her face, and began to moan.
He stepped back, sunlight flooding her face again. “What is it, maid? Did I do something wrong?”
“Where did you get this?” Her voice was thin and face drawn. He could not decide whether she was angry or miserable or both.
“To be honest, I found it,” he replied. “Few winters back. On the path out to the woodpile. I gave it to Mother, and she washed it and ironed it. Says the tatting is real fine work. Don’t you like it?”
Stella never responded, jammed the clean white handkerchief with the baby blue lace edging into the pocket of her apron and strutted past him. The screen door of her house creaked open and slapped shut. Leander stood in the garden, confused beyond, then looked in the bucket, grimaced when he saw the seething bodies. Bucket in hand, he went to the shed, poked around until he found a wooden box of coarse salt, sprinkled a handful over the slugs. After an initial frenzy of curling and flipping, they began to burn. Leander laid the bucket on the step to the shed, walked away.
Four months passed before he mustered the courage to ask again. Christmas time, and he was mummering at the Abbott household. Sheer fabric over his face, woman’s hat and dress, festive spirits coursing through his veins. He hauled Stella up from her chair, hopped around trying to dance, leaned hard on her shoulders.
“Well?” he whispered in her ear. “What do you say?”
“To what?”
“You knows, getting married.”
She stepped back, eyed him with a sideways glance. “Now how can you expect a girl to marry a stranger? And one dressed like a woman at that.”
He tore the veil from his face, knocking off the hat. “’Tis only me, maid.”
When she smirked knowingly, he blushed, the heat making him wish for the veil again. But she teased no longer, nodded her head and had offered the few spoken sparks that exploded the revelry. “Yes, I believes I will, Leander Edgecombe. I believes I will.”
“You best get in,” he said as he lo
oked at the churning sky just above his newly fixed chair. “Storm’s a coming.”
“You too,” she said.
“Nah. I got stuff to do in the shed.”
What was once Percy’s miniature red shed was now a grand workshop. Leander and his two younger brothers had taken off the back, extended the structure up over the rocks, so that inside he had two work areas on different platforms. With beach stones and mortar, they had constructed a fireplace where Leander burned leftover scraps of wood, shavings and sawdust.
“All right.”
“I’ll light a small fire to cut through the damp. If you got mind to join me. Any thoughts on a cup of tea?”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of thoughts,” she replied.
“And?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
She answered the same way every time. And he knew in a few minutes she would be tapping the door to the shed with her foot, holding a tray weighted with lassie bread, steaming pot with knitted cozy, two matching cups, hers with the tiniest chip on the rim. She would enter, lay down the tray on a sawdust-covered bench, prepare his tea. Then, she would sit on the only chair with a cushion, pick up the container that held the milk, and spend the next minutes fishing out flecks of yellowish cream with a small silver spoon, sucking it clean. She would watch him as he turned a length of wood, and every time he winced, she winced too. His hip ached as he pressed down on the pedal with his gimpy foot. No doubt from the stress of guiding something useless.
Finished with the cream, Stella would talk and talk. In her steady voice, she would tell Leander about her day, the community news, the supper simmering on the woodstove, the state of the vegetables, her favourite red hen, her father’s health. And Leander would listen as he worked, turning her words into the wood, pressing harder with the chisel at the tense moments in her story, lighter when she spoke of someone’s sadness. In the end, he would look at the spindle he had turned and see a wooden record of their afternoon together.
Sometimes he wondered about the emotions trapped in a chair after it was completed. Once he had formed the spindles for the back of a rocker in the weeks following the death of his younger sister’s fourth child. Born hours after Nettie Rose had tumbled on the icy laneway. A daughter, the size of Stella’s palm. She knew, because she had held it. Stella told Leander about the baby, the covering of downy hair, sealed baby bird eyes, wide lipless smile on a fat free face. She described the cool hollowness in the room, like a window was opened, though neither one was. He turned all of this into the spindles of the rocker. Laid it down in deep, sad grooves.
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