Almost Eden (5 page)

F
irst thing after breakfast on Monday Dad made us go apologize to Reverend Funk and Mrs. Funk. They were pretty forgiving. Being who they were, they sort of had to be. I mean, forgiving others their trespasses is in the Lord’s Prayer and everything; it’s practically a commandment.

At first I think they were surprised to see us but Reverend Funk invited us in all the same. “How’s it going?” he asked.

I almost blurted, “On two legs, like a gander,” which is what Dad said all the time when someone asked him how it was going. I bit my tongue just in time, but I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep the giggles inside.

“Fine, thank you,” said Beth. We weren’t even in the house yet and she was giving me a dirty look. She handed
Mrs. Funk the coffee cake we’d made. “This is for you. We’re terribly sorry about what happened.”

“Beth baked the cake,” added Lena. “And me and Elsie made the icing.”

“You mean, ‘Elsie and I made the icing,’” Beth corrected her. Beth was all the time trying to make us speak English properly so we wouldn’t sound like country bumpkins. She had her work cut out for her.

“No you didn’t,” said Lena. “Me and Elsie did.”

Reverend Funk had a good chuckle. Beth should’ve known better than to try and make us look good.

Mrs. Funk held the cake out in front of her like it might jump into her lap or explode or something.

“How nice.” She smiled at Lena. “I’ll just put this in the kitchen.”

I’d never been in the home of a man of God before. There wasn’t a thing out of place in the Funk’s house. Not a speck of dust. The vacuum lines in the carpet didn’t cross each other even.

Immaculate
was a good word to describe the living room. For sure the rest of the house was the same. Like the Funks were maybe expecting Jesus to pop in for a visit. All ready for the second coming.

I perched on the edge of the sofa so I wouldn’t get the cushion dirty, and tried to tuck my bare feet out of sight and not squirm too much. At first I worried Mrs. Funk would offer us a piece of Beth’s coffee cake. No matter
how careful I was I knew I’d leave crumbs all over her spotless carpet. But she never offered, which was a relief.

“We won’t stay long. We just stopped by to apologize.” Beth nodded at me.

I cleared my throat. I’d practiced what to say on the way over. “I’m sorry I was fighting with Lena and that we crashed into you. It was a dreadful accident.” Beth had told me to leave out the “dreadful” part, but I thought it was just the right word for the occasion. Anyways, who knew when I’d get to use it again?

“And I’m sorry I fell on top of you,” Lena said. “I didn’t mean to.”

“We hope you weren’t hurt.” I added that bit because I thought it helped show how sorry we were, even though Mrs. Funk couldn’t really be hurt since the flower bed was pretty soft and Lena was still small yet.

“Apology accepted,” Mrs. Funk sniffed.

Reverend Funk thanked us. He said he thought we’d all learned a valuable lesson about working out our differences and respecting each other’s feelings, rather than resorting to physical force. “Demonstrating Christ’s love in our daily lives begins within our own families.”

“Would you lead us in asking for God’s forgiveness?” asked Beth.

Holy Moses. If you ask me she was laying it on a little thick. Besides which, I’d already prayed for God’s forgiveness on my own. But no one asked me, and Reverend
Funk was sure glad to be asked. Before I knew it there we were, kneeling in the Funk’s immaculate living room. The reverend put one hand on my head and the other one on Lena’s.

“‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,’” he prayed. I bowed my head. With his hand on it there wasn’t much else I could do. I kept my mouth shut and tried to listen to what he was saying, but all the time I was thinking that I wanted to get the heck out of there. I knew I should feel close to God and everything, but I guess there was something wrong with me because I didn’t. I felt about as far away from God as a person could get. My neck hurt by the time Reverend Funk said, “Amen.”

“It must be hard for you girls with no mother at home,” Mrs. Funk said, smiling a tight little smile. “I can understand how you might have trouble coping, Beth, with so much responsibility for the house and your rather, uh, rambunctious younger sisters.”

It wasn’t like she’d said anything we didn’t know already. But the way she said it, talking down her nose like, made it sound like Lena and I were beetles of some kind. The rambunctious dungbugs. I wanted to crawl under the sofa. Except probably it was so clean under there I wouldn’t be able to find any dirt to hang out with.

“Elsie and Lena help quite a lot with the housework. Elsie is even painting the garage,” said Beth.

“Really.” Mrs. Funk raised one eyebrow at me.

I was so stunned by what Beth said I forgot to be insulted by Mrs. Funk’s eyebrow. I even grinned a little. Beth’s cheeks were turning a real nice shade of pink, but she sat with her back stiff and her chin in the air. Wonders never cease, my mom says.

When we left, Reverend Funk said he’d be sure to remember our mother in his prayers. “Take comfort in knowing He is with you. Leave your troubles in the hands of God.”

One thing for sure, with all the praying going on for Mom, sooner or later God was going to have to do something.

“Well,” said Beth, as soon as we were out the door, “that went pretty well, don’t you think?”

I was so glad to be outside breathing fresh air I could’ve hugged her. I lifted my face and arms up to the blue sky and felt the warm sunshine soaking through to my cold bones. “It went on two legs like a gander,” I said.

Beth sighed. “Reprobate.”

I didn’t have a clue what she meant, and even though I knew it couldn’t be anything good, I decided to let it go because of the way Beth stuck up for me with Mrs. Funk. But I made a mental note to look up
reprobate
in the dictionary.

“If they come to visit us again I’m hiding,” said Lena.

I’d bet my last nickel that the reverend and his wife
wouldn’t come anywhere near our place for a long time. “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll race you home.”

We ran all the way. Beth and I let Lena win.

“I
’m thinking about becoming a vegetarian,” I told Dad and Beth at lunch the next day, “so I’ll need some stuff from the grocery store.” Grandma was there, too. She’d come over because she said our windows needed a good washing.

I’d written out a list: nuts, macaroni and cheese, pork and beans (without the pork), fruit, yogurt, ice cream, chocolate bars–stuff like that. We had lots of vegetables in the garden already, so I didn’t need to put any on the list.

“Think again,” Beth said, handing the list back.

“Daaad.”

“Don’t be silly, Elsie. Eat your lunch.” He didn’t look up from his newspaper even.

Lunch was Klik and lettuce bunwiches with carrot sticks and the leftover chocolate cake from Auntie Nettie. I took the lettuce out of the sandwich. “I told you, I’m
giving up meat for a while. Bread, too.” The piece of limp lettuce didn’t look all that appetizing, but I chomped down on it to make a point.

Beth snorted. “Since when?”

I ignored her. “This is all healthy stuff. Mostly, anyways. See, Dad?” I shoved the list in front of his nose. “Don’t you want me to eat healthy? Especially when I’m working so hard?” I was working hard. I’d used the wire brush Dad had given me to scrape loose paint off the garage siding all morning.

“How did you get a cockamamie idea like this in your head?” Dad sighed.

I shrugged, wondering what to say that wouldn’t be a lie exactly. “I want to try it. Can’t I try it for awhile even?”

Grandma’s beady little eyes were even beadier than usual, watching me close.

“You’ve got a screw loose if you think I’m going to make special meals just for you,” said Beth.

Beth had used up any good feelings I had left over from yesterday. “I’ll make my own meals. Promise.”

“It’ll take us all summer to eat what we have already.” Dad nodded at the piles of food on the counter that church members and neighbors and relatives had brought over in the last two days–
platz
, cookies, cakes, buns. There were casseroles,
hollopchee, varenika
, and at least three pies in the freezer. It was enough to make me wonder if there was maybe a commandment I didn’t know about that said you had to bring food to your neighbors when someone
was sick. Only problem was that most of it had meat in it. Or else it was bread.

I was desperate. “If Mom was here she’d buy me this stuff,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

Grandma shook her head. Dad stared at me over top of his paper; He stared for a long time. “Do what you want,” he finally said.

“Thanks, Dad!” I gave him a bear hug, carefully avoiding his whiskers.

“Unbelievable,” Beth muttered.

She was such a sore loser, even though I knew using Mom like that was sort of dirty pool. Only I didn’t have a whole lot of options. I poured a glass of milk and piled my plate with cheese, carrot sticks, and fruit. Grandma got up to cut the chocolate cake for dessert. I asked for an extra big piece.

“I thought you were giving up bread,” said Beth.

“This is cake.”

“Cake is bread,
dummkopp
.”

She must’ve been too ticked to even think of a good insult. “It is?” I looked at Dad.

All he did was shrug. “Leave me out of this.”

Beth couldn’t wait to gloat. “Any grain or anything made with grain or flour counts as a bread.” She started counting things off on her fingers. “Cookies, muffins, cake, pie, donuts, pancakes, rice, macaroni–”

“Macaroni?!” Who knew? She had to be pulling a fast one on me.

“
Nah, meyahl
?” said Grandma quietly. “Lying has short legs, not? It doesn’t get you very far. By now you should’ve learned yourself that much.”

“I never lied.” Maybe I hadn’t told the whole truth, but I’d never lied. Not today anyways.

Beth grabbed my list and crossed off at least half the stuff on it. “Still think you’re going to give up bread and meat?”

I thought about throwing my glass of milk in her smug ugly face. “I hate you,” I muttered and stomped out the door to eat in the sunshine.

So much for getting along with Beth. I could practically feel God frowning at me.

Outside Tommy rubbed up against my arm, nosing at my plate. “This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, Tom-cat.”

Tommy didn’t give a care about my troubles. He sat on his haunches beside his empty saucer. “
Meow
,” he accused me. Rats. I’d forgotten to feed him. Again. I dumped half my milk in his saucer and chewed on a carrot stick.

Lena followed me out to the porch with a huge piece of chocolate cake. “Dad says we can go swimming again tomorrow. My sunburn is almost better.” She shoved a forkful of cake in her mouth.

“Mmmmm.” She smacked her lips. “
Schmack gout
”

Why couldn’t I have been an only child?

I didn’t even feel bad later when Beth went out for groceries and I used her razor to practice shaving my legs. It
was going pretty good, too, and then Lena started banging on the bathroom door, which you bet I’d remembered to lock.

“I’m in here!” I yelled.

“Hurry up! I have to go!”

“Just get lost for once! I’m busy.”

“I have to go nowww! Pleeaase! Let me in!”

She kept banging and yelling and the more she banged and yelled, the faster I went and the madder I got. Before I knew it I’d sliced a nice big chunk off my shin. The blood started to pour out of the slice and Holy Moses, it stung like crazy when I washed it off, enough to bring tears to my eyes.

By now Lena was crying outside the door and I would’ve let her in already, except my leg was still gushing.

I let Lena in as soon as I could. “All right already. I’m finished.”

Her face was a blotchy mess. “I couldn’t wait,” she mumbled.

Fuy.
So it goes. “Why do you always have to wait until you can’t hold it?”

She just stood there, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand.

“Never mind. Take off those shorts already.”

While she cleaned herself up and changed clothes I rinsed out the wet ones and washed the floor. Lena went back outside to play and I went back to scrubbing the garage siding with one shaved leg and one hairy leg
because there wasn’t enough time to finish the job before Beth got home.