News from Heaven (6 page)

My mother set her basket on the table. “Don't bother with these. I guess we have enough.”

“
H
ow long is Melanie going to stay?” I asked my mother.

We were preparing Sunday dinner—roast beef, potatoes and carrots, a relish plate of pickled beets and my mother's vinegar cabbage, which we called chowchow. It was the standard menu for when the relatives came to dinner. For summer visits like this one, a platter of cut vegetables was added, whatever was ripening in the garden, but otherwise my mother made no concession to the season. Even today, maybe the hottest of the year, she didn't consider a barbecue or cold supper, to avoid firing the oven all afternoon.

“You never know with Melanie. You can't pin her down.” She opened the oven door. A wave of heat smacked my bare legs.

“But doesn't Tilly have school?” My own classes would begin in a week, an event I looked forward to with a mix of excitement and dread.

“Not for another month. The Florida schools start later. The heat, I suppose.”

The screen door slammed and my father appeared, still dressed in his church clothes. His sleeves were rolled above his elbows. Sweat rings showed under the arms of his white shirt.

“Makes sense, if you ask me.” He turned on the faucet and scrubbed his hands and forearms, streaked with farm dirt. My mother frowned but said nothing, just watched the filthy water pool in the sink.

I persisted. “A month, then?”

“Goodness, no. I'm sure Dan will want her back before then. A week at the most.”

My father raised his eyebrows. “A week is a long time.”

“Don't be silly. She's my baby sister. Who knows when we'll see her again?” My mother arranged tomato slices on a plate. “It won't kill Regina to share her room for a week. When I was a girl, we slept three to a bed, except for Carl.”

This was not new information. I'd heard my whole life that I'd been spoiled by having my own room. (My uncle Carl, the one boy in his family, had been similarly pampered, a privilege he'd apparently paid for by being killed in the war, long before I was born.) I was often treated to sermons on the value of sharing, wearing hand-me-downs, and waiting in line for the bathroom—lessons I, the first only child on either the Yahner or Schultheis sides of my family, had failed to learn. I didn't have the nerve to protest that I hadn't chosen to be an only, that my parents, who'd married late, were to blame. An eldest son, my father had spent his younger years running the Yahner farm, supporting his siblings and widowed mother. Even if he'd wanted to marry, my mother often said, where would he have found the time? Her own reasons for waiting were less clear and more delicate. Plain and awkward, she had always been a homebody. Because of her shyness, school had been torture; when she dropped out of the twelfth grade, her sisters were amazed that she'd lasted so long. My aunts agreed on this point: Peg was lucky to have found a husband, even one twenty years older. That was repeated throughout my childhood, so often that it never struck me as cruel:
Peg is lucky to have a husband at all.

My aunts—Rosemary, Velva, and Fern—were brisk, no-nonsense women who'd married in their teens and raised large families. Their children were grown now, with babies of their own. These grandchildren were the subject of much discussion.
Two and a half and still in diapers. Marcia lets him sleep in bed with her and Davis.
I can't see why he puts up with it.
Occasionally one of the aunts would notice that I was listening as I stirred the gravy or fetched bottles of root beer for the men.
Remember this when you have babies, Regina. Before you know it, you'll be toilet-training your own.
These comments thrilled and perplexed me. To my knowledge, no boy had ever looked at me twice. What made my aunts so certain that,
before I knew it,
one would want to marry me? Explain this, I wanted to say. Explain how it happens.

It seemed to me then, and still does, that my aunts were made by marriage, that every defining feature of their lives—the children and grandchildren, the canning and cooking and crafting skills each possessed—was intimately connected to that long-ago moment of being chosen. My uncles Wilmer, Dick, and Bill were like all the men I knew then, soybean and dairy farmers who spoke rarely and then mainly about the weather. Yet unlikely as it seemed, I accepted that these men had the power to transform. My aunts had been pretty, lively girls—one stubborn, one mischievous, one coquettish, according to my mother — though somehow all three had matured into exactly the same woman: plump, cheerful, adept at pie making and counted cross-stitch, smelling of vanilla and Rose Milk hand lotion. That I would someday become that same woman terrified me. My only greater fear was that nobody would choose me, and I would become nothing.

The aunts and uncles arrived promptly at two, a strange time to eat a large meal—too late for lunch, too early for supper—but this was a Schultheis Sunday tradition. After spending all morning in church, the hostess needed a few hours to get the cooking under way.

“Hi, stranger,” said Aunt Velva, giving Melanie a squeeze. “Didn't you look pretty this morning? I just love that white dress.”

“Thank you.” Melanie winked at me over Velva's shoulder. She had borrowed the dress from my closet, after coming to the breakfast table in a printed sundress that tied behind her neck like a halter top, leaving her back and shoulders bare.

“Melanie, you can't,” my mother had protested.

Melanie shrugged. “It's this or blue jeans. It's the only dress I brought.”

“Wear something of mine,” my mother suggested, though nothing in her closet was likely to fit. She wasn't fat but tall and large-boned, with broad hips and shoulders. “Or Regina's.”

“I don't mind,” I said. “You're welcome to wear anything you like.”

Melanie followed me upstairs. “I forgot all about church,” she said with a conspiratorial laugh, as though this were a private joke between us. “Honestly, I haven't been in years.”

I stared at her in wonderment. It's hard to credit now how exotic I found this, as if I'd just discovered that Melanie could fly. “Really? Never?”

“Nope. And God hasn't struck me dead.” She threw open my closet door and rifled through the dresses and blouses, stopping to admire a skirt I'd made that summer. “This is pretty, but I don't think it will fit.”

“You're skinnier than I am,” I said, though that didn't describe it. Melanie had small breasts, a narrow waist, sharply curving hips. My body had the same features, or was beginning to, but these were recent developments. I wasn't used to seeing myself that way.

She gave me a playful shove. “No, silly. We're the same size. You wear your clothes too big.”

I blinked. My mother bought patterns in size fourteen when she could have worn a twelve. I'd never realized I did the same thing.

Melanie chose a simple white dress that I'd never liked, feeling exposed by its plainness. I turned my back politely as she untied her sundress. “You'll need a slip with that,” I told her, digging through a bureau drawer. I couldn't bring myself to say, You'll need a bra.

Now she had changed back into blue jeans, though the rest of us were still in Sunday clothes. Even Tilly wore the dressiest outfit Melanie had packed for her, a denim skirt and blouse.

“And who is this little princess?” Aunt Fern asked, patting Tilly's head. “Honey, we're so happy to have you here. We've been hearing about you for ages.”

That was a blatant untruth. Though Melanie's name came up often in family conversations, no one ever spoke of Uncle Dan, let alone his daughter.

Tilly blossomed under the aunts' attention, guzzling cream soda and eating Velva's lemon drop cookies. Watching her, I felt lonely for my childhood, when the aunts had been at the center of my small universe. I had especially adored Elsie, the oldest aunt, who, until she died of kidney failure, had spoiled me with small presents—knitting needles, beautiful buttons—prompting protests (
You shouldn't have
) from my mother. Recently the aunts had become less interesting to me, their company less dear. They had always fussed over me, the youngest of the girl cousins, but it was no longer the type of attention I craved. I wanted them to notice the ways I differed from JoAnn and Prudence and Theresa and Ruth: my love of reading, my high marks in school. Of course, those differences weren't visible, and I was too shy to speak of them. But at the time that didn't occur to me.

T
he fair opened on a Monday, with a horse show and equipment expo, nothing I cared about. Tuesday would be barn games and harness racing; Wednesday, the milking contest and tractor pull. This year I begged off, complaining—in whispered tones, to my mother—of menstrual cramps. “I'll be better by the weekend,” I told her. The most popular events would be held then—the Beef Cattle judging, the aerial show. Saturday night was the grand finale, an outdoor dance with a live band on the stage behind the Ag Hall.

We drove there in the pickup, my father, Melanie, and I. My mother had gone ahead of us, taking Tilly with her, to sell baked goods and preserves at the Church of the Brethren tent. My father left us at the main gate and we wandered into the Ag Hall, past booths showing pies and needlecrafts, macramé and ceramics, hooked rugs and intricately pieced quilts.

“Wait. Look at that,” Melanie said.

The winning quilt hung against a makeshift wall, a blue ribbon pinned to its corner. The pattern was classic, an eight-pointed star on a white background, surrounded by a jagged border. It was the border that was most difficult to execute: sixteen sharp points, folding out from the original star like a paper snowflake. The design was pieced with snippets of blue fabric—ginghams and plaids and paisleys and sprigged muslins, all in shades of blue.

“It's beautiful,” Melanie said. She ran her hands over the quilt, admiring the delicate stitching. Only then did I notice the name on the entry tag.

“That's Mom's. She makes one every year. It's an old pattern. Broken Star.” I stared at the quilt, ashamed that I hadn't recognized it. For most of the summer, my mother had spent evenings alone in her sewing room. She'd been working on the quilt for months, and I had never bothered to take a look.

“Peggy's amazing,” Melanie said softly. “She can do anything.”

This stunned me. I had never thought of my mother that way.

Over Melanie's shoulder, I saw a group of boys trotting through the expo hall. “Pretend like we're talking,” I told her.

“We
are
talking.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Why? Did you see somebody you know?”

“Those boys are in my class. Don't look.”

“I won't.” She leaned toward me as if whispering something in my ear. Then she laughed loud and bright, a perfect imitation of the town girls in my class.

The boys approached us. “What's so funny?” said the tall one, Darren Wolf. For two years he'd sat in front of me in homeroom, the luck of alphabetical order. I knew all his shirts, how the rear seam followed the shape of his shoulders, how his blond hair curled over the collar. I couldn't recall him ever looking at me or saying a word.

“None of your business,” Melanie said tartly. “Gina, don't tell them.”

“Hi, Regina,” said the other boy, Philip Schrey. We were in the same geometry class. I was surprised he knew my name.

“Regina,” said Darren Wolf. “Is this your sister?”

“Sort of,” Melanie said.

“Do you go to Bakerton?”

“Did. I graduated.”

Darren Wolf nodded as though he'd suspected as much. “You girls going over to the dance?” he asked, though he was clearly asking Melanie.

Yes, I thought. Just say yes.

“In a minute,” she said. “We're waiting for some people. We'll see you over there.”

“Okay, then,” said Darren Wolf.

“See you,” said Philip Schrey.

When they were safely away, Melanie grabbed my hand. “Do you go to Bakerton?” she asked in a gruff voice.

We both shrieked with laughter.

A
ugust cooled into September. A dusting of yellow appeared on the trees. Each morning I trudged down the lane to wait for the school bus. Some nights I had long conversations with Philip Schrey, who'd asked for help with geometry homework and had begun calling me on the phone. Usually my mother answered. She handed me the receiver without comment but later peppered me with questions:
Who's that boy? The same one as before? Why does he keep calling?

It's just homework,
I said. But these phone calls—the waiting and planning, the delight when they occurred and the crushing disappointment when they didn't—occupied all my attention. Asleep or awake, I was thinking of Philip Schrey. My dreams were full of ringing telephones.

One morning I woke to find Tilly's bunk empty. Downstairs I found my mother at the stove, frying eggs and bacon. Fresh coffee bubbled in the percolator.

“Where's Tilly?” I asked.

“She's spending the day with Fern. Melanie, breakfast!” she called, scraping eggs onto a plate.

I heard loud footsteps above, the clatter of Melanie's wooden sandals on the stairs.

“Good morning!” she said breathlessly, giving my shoulder a squeeze. To my astonishment, she was fully dressed, a poncho slung over her arm. She sat at the table and tucked in to her breakfast.

“Regina, drink your milk,” my mother said. I noticed then her high color, her cheeks flushed with agitation or excitement.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“We're going to Pittsburgh,” Melanie said.

“You and Mom?” To my knowledge, my mother had never been to Pittsburgh in her life.

In my half-asleep state, I watched Melanie eat, stung by the unfairness of it all. Once, as a little girl, I was allowed to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve, to watch the celebration on television, but I fell asleep before eleven. I awoke hours later in my own bed, where my father had carried me. I lay awake until sunrise, fuming at the injustice, heartbroken that I had missed my chance.