Birds cried overhead, flapping grey wings, faded feet spread, ready to pluck. One swooped down near them, and Elise twisted her head to look upwards, then shrieked, fell backwards on the wharf. It swooped again, stole a crushed snail, then ascended, beak full. “You scared of a bird?” Robert said, his voice echoing beneath the wharf, rising up through the boards. “’Tis only a gull.”
When she heard a muffled giggle, Elise put her fingers to her cheeks, pressed. “That’s what you think.”
“That’s what I knows. Daddy told me. They’s called gulls. Gulls starts with the letter ‘G.’ And they loves to eat old fish and garbage. Garbage starts with ‘G’ too.”
“And little boys.”
“What? That don’t start with ‘G.’” “Them birds is right dangerous. Didn’t Daddy tell you that?”
Robert slid back over the wood, sat up, eyes wide. He was light-headed, and his chest ached from the release of pressure. “Nope, he didn’t say nothing about that.”
“Didn’t want to worry you, I’s guessing. Seeing as you’s still a baby.”
“I idn’t no baby.”
“But you’s a brat. And you don’t know nothing about birds. Can cart you right away if they gets the mind to do it.”
“What do you mean ‘cart me away’?”
Elise picked at the nail on her biggest toe, replied nonchalantly, “A hoard of them can come upon you, drive their claws into whatever they can get ahold of, your shirt, your skin. They idn’t fussy. And they’ll fly right up, and you’ll be gone.”
“Gone where?” Voice a little wispy now.
“How should I know?” She flicked a curl of nail into the sea. “Off to their nests, I suppose. Maybe they’ll feed you to their babies. Divide up the goods. Peel you up into bits.”
“Bits?”
“Someday, Mother’ll find your bones. When the old nests rots, and they falls out onto the ground. Skinny bones of a five-year-old.”
“I’s almost six.” Puffing up his chest.
“Don’t matter. And you knows what? I bet she wouldn’t even cry, Robert Edgecombe. Not one single tear. Now if you were Harriet she might, but she don’t care about you. She’ll be looking at your bones, and all she’ll be thinking about is what kind of soup she can make.”
Robert sniffed hard, eyeballed his sister, then tried to spit into the ocean. He never leaned far enough and the bubbly gob landed on the rolled-up cuff of his trousers. “That’s lies, Elise. All dirty lies.”
“I’s telling the truth.”
“No, you idn’t.”
“Honest to God.” She put her arms out, stared up at the sky. “Strike me down by lightning, oh Heavenly Father, if what I utters idn’t the pure truth.”
Glancing up. “You swears?”
“Right on Nanny Abbott’s grave.”
“I’s going to ask Mommy.”
“That you won’t then, you little brat. Else I’ll make sure those birds get you. Get you good, you little bugger. I knows what they likes, and you don’t.”
He stared at Elise, whimper suppressed, and when he saw the fat squawking birds circling above him, he wanted to run, push his face into his mother’s skirt, into Harriet’s protective fur. “Is I okay now?”
“Far as I can tell,” she said with a smirk.
They were silent then as they leaned back over the wharf, watched the murky green water. Within moments, a mottled brown shadow drifted over Robert’s makeshift hook, and he sucked in his breath. His hands were sweaty, but he didn’t dare lessen his grip on the string. When the glimmer of his hook disappeared, he yanked with all the force he could muster. Up flew a flatfish, an impressive tethered arc, then smack onto the dried bleached wood of the wharf.
White belly up, Elise flipped it over with her toe, bare foot to steady it, and she tore out the pin. Kneeling down beside it, Robert watched as its fin began to slowly ooze, and he dug for the handkerchief in his back pocket, daubed the redness away.
“They don’t feel nothing,” Elise said. “You’re wasting your time.”
“How do you know?”
She picked up the pin, a fleck of fin still attached, and she jabbed it in the fish’s stomach over and over again. “See? He didn’t even budge.”
“Huh. I guess you’re right.” And he smoothed the invisible holes with his finger, tried to pretend he hadn’t seen her do that.
“Queer how a flatfish just sits, don’t you think,” she continued. “Don’t barely put up no kind of fight.”
“He did a bit.”
“Well, he’s not going nuts like some of them. Trying to get back to the water.”
“Give him time.” Robert stroked its cool damp back, touched its pair of neatly arranged eyes, pressed ever so slightly. “Maybe he’s a skipper.”
“Fish can’t be skippers, stupid.”
“Well, maybe he’s an old-timer. That’s what I meant.”
“Old or not, he’s not doing nothing. What kind of fish is that?” Foot drawn back, she offered up a swift kick, and the flatfish sailed out over the water, kissed the surface, and sank out of sight. Then, Elise strode off the wharf, and Robert grabbed his hook and string, skipped to catch up with her.
“Why’d you go and do that for?”
“Cause flatfishes is lame. That’s why. Squids is funner. Squirting you square in the face.” She laughed, then turned, held her finger up to Robert. A warning. “Don’t you go hauling up no more of them dumb flatfish. Stupidest fish in the sea.”
“You thinks?” Robert still had his handkerchief in one hand. He looked at the bloody streak in the cotton, put it to his nose, smelled pungent fishy metal. “Well, at least it worked.”
“What worked?”
“He got back to the water. Never had to do so much as lift his tail, and he got back to the water.” Robert balled up the handkerchief, jammed it into his back pocket. “Fooled you, he did.”
Elise was swift now, jaunting over the lacquered beach stones, braids bouncing. Over her shoulder, she glared at Robert, eyes like slits. “That’s dumb too,” she yelled. “Dumb and stupid. Gulls don’t like dumb and stupid, Robert. I’ll tell you that. They don’t like it. Not one teeny bit.”
On the day of the garden party, Leander took a moment to appraise his creation. He held a weighty bowling pin, eyed its fat belly, slender neck, curving crown. He ran his fingers over the slick coat of black paint, the thick white strip, cunning sliver of red. The sides were flawlessly smooth, base with the precise amount of instability, this individual pin a near exact replica of its four brothers. When they clanked together time and time again (Robert being the pinboy), the sound of wood against wood was joyful.
“So, Harriet. What do you think of my handiwork?” A triumphant howl was the response.
Leander reached down, patted Harriet’s head as she nudged his leg encouragingly. Though he admired his work, it was with some sense of embarrassment, a tinge of shame over how perfect it was. He had a gift with wood, he knew, recognized the bowling pins as he and Harriet strolled through the forest, when the five were still locked inside the trunks of maple trees.
Gus would arrive any moment, and the two men would cart the works to the yard by the new schoolhouse. Leander had constructed two sets, turned the pins and balls on his lathe, built lanes complete with gutters. Prizes had been donated: a silvery thimble, small china dish, paper bag of trout flies, a miniature wooden jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a fish (Leander had made this as well), and a pair of tall glasses, ideal for beer.
“I’ll be damned,” Gus hollered as his shadow dimmed the doorway. His thin arms went up in exclamation, then settled on his oversized gut. “Got enough wood here to build a barn.”
“’Tis not all for the bowling,” Leander said, nodding towards the walls. “That’s other stuff.”
“By the looks of things, you’re fashioning enough to supply the entire island. No arse gone chairless – I bets that’s your motto.”
“And a noble motto it is now, Gus.�
� Leander grinned as he glanced about his workspace. There was little room to move now, every cranny was piled with unfinished pieces, legs and spindles, pine shelves, poor quality fir crates he’d gotten from the general store to use as backing. In the fall, he would assemble everything, and with the help of Skipper Johnson, they would deliver the furniture to communities dotting the coast.
“Well, we best get a move on,” Gus said with conviction. “Don’t want to be late. Give them all something else to complain about.”
“Oh, I doubts we’ll be hearing any grumbling today. ’Tis too fine.”
Gus lowered his head, looked at Leander, bloodshot eyes in a yellowed face. “Has you forgotten I married Nettie? She’s been whining since conception, my son.”
The garden party was organized to celebrate the completion of the first schoolhouse. Up until then, the children who attended school to learn the “three r’s” did so at the parish hall, taught by Miss Eleanor Hickey (daughter of the recently deceased Reverend). Only about half the children attended their elementary lessons, and if either one showed particular promise for academics, he was sent off to live with an aunt or uncle in a larger community that had better resources. But the families had had enough, and with a dodgy promise of government funding, like darkness in their back pockets, the men set about building a two-room clapboard school. Everyone had worked on it, wood donated from the mill, generous gift of a pot-bellied stove from Fuller’s store, steady supply of warm lunches to the workers, a dozen desks from Leander, more to follow when he could afford the time. George Hiscock made a cement slab for the front steps, date of completion indented in the front. A day of pride for Bended Knee.
Once the final coat of maroon paint covered the structure, there was a communal desire to make merry. In the field next to the school, someone had hacked the grass down to its earthy scalp. A row of picnic tables were carted over, covered with clothes, laden with dinner rolls, dishes of butter, pickled beets, a mishmash of plates. The air was heavy with the deliciously offensive odour of boiled cabbage, turnip, salt meat. A separate table was laden with a proud display of late summer pies, partridgeberry, apple, and blueberry.
The men talked, drank, and bowled while the women finished preparing the meal. Even with his unsteady gait, Leander was the best bowler. Every time he knocked over all five pins, Harriet would be up on her hind legs, yip and leap into the air, back twisting as though she was trying to achieve even greater heights. After winning two games, the other men, Gus included, began to protest lightheartedly.
“I believes you done something to the set. Something that we don’t know about.”
“’Tis in his foot. That skip.”
“That’s a hop skip, if I ever seen one.”
“Bill, anyone knows the rules on a hop skip?”
“I reckons that’s cheating, that kind of run up.”
Third game over, and Harriet howled once again, stood on her hind legs, scratched the air with her forepaws.
“Or, ’tis the dog.”
“Lucky charm.”
“Is lucky charms allowed, Gus?”
Leander smirked. “’Tis only the practicing, fellers. A few rounds with my boy here.” He pulled Robert to him, scuffled his sun-bleached hair.
“Well, enough is enough. Go wet your whistle while the rest of us has a go.”
Leander stepped out of the play, accepted a single prize: a pair of cups and saucers, a string of pinkish flowers just below the lip. A gift for Stella. Where was she? He scanned the field, and saw her. She was with the women and older girls, bustling about, aprons snug around waists. They had begun to serve up heaping plates to the men, small bites to the children, stealing pinches for themselves. He noticed her face was flushed, hair slightly unkempt, and every now and again, she paused to slap at blackflies that nipped at her neck. He smiled to himself. She looked most beautiful when she was flustered, overheated.
Elise and Robert were yanking at his shirt, nudging him. In the far corner of the field, the younger members of First Ladies League were churning ice cream. Old Man Morris had offered up the last chunks of ice hidden under sawdust in his barn, and cream was collected from the many cow owners. A donation of sugar from Fuller’s General Store, and ice cream was the result.
Leander dug into the pocket of his trousers, retrieved a nickel. “Here you go, you little beggars,” he said with a smile. “Two each.”
“What about the last penny?” Robert said. “I wants to keep it.”
“I’s the oldest,” Elise squealed. “I gets it.”
“Lardie,” Leander said with a smirk. “You two sure don’t need no schoolhouse. You got your rithmetic all figured out.”
“Well?” they chorused.
“Weeeelllll, last one is for Harriet. A scoop for my youngest.”
Elise cut her arms across her chest. “I’m not feeding no dog. Folks would laugh at me.”
“And so what if they does?”
“I’ll do it,” Robert announced.
“Then you shall be in charge of the nickel.” Elise scowled. “You better not drop it in the grass, Robert. And lose it.” They began to run towards the ice cream table, Elise taking the lead. Leander laughed at her annoyance when she yelled back at Robert, “And you needn’t think I’ll stand next to you. Not with you feeding that dog.”
He went to find Stella, stood behind her as she took a break from serving. Wrapping his arms around his wife, he glanced out over the field, saw men bowling with perfect pins, children chasing each other, treats locked in sticky fists, neighbours eating food from their own fields, the smooth ocean in the distance, like God’s looking glass. Leander put his mouth to her tiny ear, surprised by how his voice choked slightly. “Look around, maid. Can’t you feel it? There’s some magic here.”
“Shush now,” she replied. “Don’t go jinxing it.”
“I can’t help myself. Our little part of the world. So far away from everything. But ’tis all here, my love. Every single thing we needs is right here.”
Nearly forty years had passed since Uncle had crossed over. When he died, his devoted widow, Berta May, thought she wouldn’t be long for this world. Wasn’t that the way it often worked? One half of an eternally bound couple moved on, and within a ripple of time, dragged the other half with it? But that hadn’t happened. Berta was still fully alive, and every morning when she awoke, glanced about the same wallpapered room, she placed a wrinkled hand on her chest and felt a jab of disappointment with the rhythmic thump beneath. Why hadn’t she been called?
Though she would never admit this, her sourness was partly related to the well-respected midwife who once lived just north of her. Berta had heard all about Miss Cooke and her tangled history with Uncle. Though no one had mentioned it in decades, Berta had never forgotten it. In his youth, Uncle had been bound to another. He had sworn his undying love for Miss Cooke. How shocked everyone was when he took up with a fifteen-year-old (that being Berta) without as much as a goodbye to Miss Cooke. Then he married her no less (that still being Berta). Miss Cooke had been side-swiped, they said, and her heart never recovered. “Sure, they was like a pair of yoked oxen. Trussed up since they was running around with their arses hanging out.”
Berta was already married when she learned this rather crucial tidbit of information. At the time, she’d pretended to brush it off, but to tell the truth, the knowledge that she was a haphazard selection, a second choice, had sliced the magic from her union like a sickle through spring grass. To make matters worse, Miss Cooke had given up the ghost only weeks after Uncle had moved on. At her funeral, the older folks were nodding towards Uncle’s marker, the upturned dirt, healthy mound. Murmurs that Berta couldn’t quite make out. All a slap in the face, the suggestion that the two close deaths were anything other than coincidence. Wasn’t she the woman who had tended to that cantankerous goat for close to fifty years? Maybe a few more. She’d given up the count. “It weren’t easy, believe you me,” she whispered. “He weren’t easy to li
ve with.” But no one was listening to her. And now, in his final statement, as he pulled his once-promised towards him, Berta May was left to suffer Uncle’s last squirt of spite from beyond the grave.
Since Berta had turned the big one hundred, she rarely left her home anymore. While several ladies from the church had made her a fruitcake and brought her a lovely packet of fragrant white soap to mark that particular birthday, she feared they were secretly mocking her. So old now, dried up, and clearly unwanted. By the holy feller upstairs or anyone else. And she hustled them along. Never offered them a slice of the cake. Birthdays to follow were promptly ignored.
Many afternoons she sat in the chair near her bed, a worn afghan unfolded over her legs. She wasn’t tired, and had no need for rest; she had simply run out of things to do with the ample hours in her day. As she sat there, she focused on the changing seasons in the garden beyond. She had told herself she would be gone by the time the goldenballs bloomed, then when they nodded in the salty air, she adjusted her expectations, and determined death would arrive before the oak tree turned fiery in the autumn. No such luck. Perhaps before the boats were hauled up on the shore, flipped, peeling bottoms exposed to icy November showers. No. I’m here. Before the final leaf was sucked away by the wind? She waited and waited, watching that withered leaf, teasing her. A bitter snowstorm, blocked her view, and when the sheet of white settled down over the yard, her death leaf was gone. And still, she wasn’t.
Berta was now the oldest person in Bended Knee, and she needed no help to walk or cook or traipse out to the outhouse on a fine, clear day. In fact, since Uncle’s passing, many of the discomforts she had complained about so frequently had left her. Her hips, gassy belly, ingrown toenails, watery hearing. She was confused, but this was not due to any trace of senility. She simply couldn’t comprehend why she was lingering. Had she done something wrong? Did she need to make amends?
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