Patience & Sarah (Little Sister's Classics) (15 page)

“Try me!” I say. (Yes, I need to be tried. How can I know, myself, until I am tried?)

“Let’s just stay like this,” you say. “Can’t we? I’ve been so happy. This is so much more than I ever thought a person could have. Why do we have to fight with each other, and ask for more? Who do you know that’s got more?”

Nobody. But I know someone who will have more, and it is I.

“Come tomorrow,” I say.

“Tomorrow! You’re busy all day, same as me.”

“In the evening.”

“It’d look – it’d call attention.”

“Don’t worry. Bring somebody. A sister.”

“I’d have to explain about us.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Then nothing could happen.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have to see you more. Every day.”

“You want me out on the road at night in the cold?”

“Yes!”

You bow your head. Are you hurt? Are you offended? I don’t care. You submit. I am not wrong about what that wave meant. You will be here tomorrow.

I say, “Tell them you need help with reading. Or else the truth. Either.”

You leave me. I feel the cold air like a sword where your warmth has been. You tear my whole front open when you cease to lie along it. My skin goes with you. I could bleed to death.

You are here. I make the proper exclamations and kiss, indifferently, the air beside your cheek. I turn to greet whichever sister you brought, who hangs back shyly in the dark hallway. “Come in, come in,” I say, and she does. It is your mother.

How can I bear her unease? I must end it. I set myself to warm and welcome her, cherish her. My mother-in-law unaware. When she is seated, trying to be no trouble, take up no space, I say, “We must have a fire in the parlor,” and though she says she’s fine, she’s cozy, goodness, I say, “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

I spread my fingers in your hair, saying, “Come help me. The kitchen’s good enough for
you
, but not your mother.” Again she says there’s no need, goodness, but I think she is flattered. I hope I detect it.

You with wood, I with coals, we go to the parlor, and to keep the cold breath of it from your mother we have to shut the door of course. I see your face in the glow of the coals. You make the fire.

I like you in these clothes, your work clothes, breeches and shirt. You are graceful in them. My lovely tall cat.

“Is it all right I brought her?” you murmur.

“Of course. What did you tell her?”

“I said you think I need more reading lessons.”

“And indeed I do think so, probably.”

I tilt my chin up for your kiss, but your lips are stiff and nervous. I slap, not hard, your bottom, saying, “Pay attention to what you’re doing. I won’t let you go till you make my toes tingle.” You try again. It’s no use. You are thinking of your mother.

“At least I have my memories,” I say, and though you try to keep me and explain, I go back to your mother.

I make tea for her and talk with her. We speak of seasonable and unseasonable. Then, to frighten you, I say, “Mrs Dowling, I wonder if I dare share with you a vice I learned at school? We can read another time. This evening I want to share with you.”

I think she is almost disappointed when the vice is only cards. She’s not as stern against vice as you seem to think.

I teach the two of you to play Hearts. You learn fast, she less so, but since she loves you she takes no offense.

“Was Sarah always so easy to teach?” I ask, knowing the answer is yes. I hope for stories of baby-you but get none. I think she can’t remember. If you were my little girl, I’d remember.

We sit at my small round parlor table. Studying my cards, I press your leg. You press back. The game is slow. Not knowing numerals, your mother must, at first, count spots. We are not impatient. We can sit this way for any length of time. You would kiss me now, no nonsense. But you wasted our chance and we have to wait.

I will know all of the other Dowling women before the winter is out, but I can’t imagine liking any better than this one. I like her strong body for making you and her big bosom for feeding you and her hands for petting and dressing you. I suppose they swatted you too. We will forgive them, because now they are spotty and veiny, newly innocent.

The game gets easier for her. Before we stop, I have the happiness of seeing her smile. She is enjoying herself. I have made her easy in my house.

Your leaving is not unbearable. Something social rises in me and helps. I touch the back of your neck once, lightly, with my fingertip as I help you on with your jerkin. Then I kiss your cheek and hers.

“We’ll read tomorrow,” I say.

I think I like it better this way than I thought I could. To work and play together, to be out of bed, almost behaving ourselves, gives us something we have needed.

There has been a storm all day. This morning it woke me, howling and pelting my windows with snow and sleet. It’s still going on, late afternoon, as strong as ever. Maybe stronger.

In the still-new pleasure of cozy solitude, I am sewing. How lovely to sew without a nag of guilt. (Edward has hired a girl, and I am simply Martha’s neighbor now, not her servant.) I am making firpins for you, which I measured you for from memory – one hand
here
and the other
here
is how far? The firpins will be bolder than I and touch you where I have not. They will caress your body all day, as my lucky ambassador – lieutenant – proxy – and at unexpected, inconvenient times you will remember to feel their touch, which is my touch, and your heart will pound. My heart is pounding at the thought. It is the sort of problem I like for us to have.

And you are in your father’s house, thinking of me, and damnation! You are thinking the storm’s so bad you won’t come tonight. You are thinking, in fact, that I wouldn’t
want
you to come, that I don’t expect you.

Now listen! Now listen here!

But you won’t listen. I’m like a fly in a bottle, buzz buzz. You don’t hear a thought I’m sending you. You are smug in my love and your belief that I care only for your comfort.

Oh what a maddening girl you are! You have the boots for it, the breeches, the long strong legs, everything but plain common sense and the ears to hear me.

I sigh. No use waiting till it’s even darker and even harder. Sigh. Put on extra woolen stockings. Knot the tops. Put shoes back on. Sigh. Put more stockings on over the shoes. Knot the tops. Extra petticoat. Oh, unkind Sarah! You could
leap
here, on your wonderful legs. And I’ll be trudging and toiling. Well. Scarf over chin and nose-end. Round and round. Shawl. Cloak. Hood up. Another scarf. Mittens. Lantern.

Trudge and toil, yes! This is an ice storm. The sky is falling. Fences are glazed, trees glazed. In short order,
I
am glazed. No traction for my glazed stockings. And now not even dim light from the sky. The tiny worthless dots my lantern sheds don’t even show my feet. Toil on, poor wayfarer, buffeted, tossed, a lonely fragile bark, whose only crime is a heart too loving.

No thanks to you, I gain your door. Your worthless dogs, asleep for the winter I suppose, don’t challenge me. I pound your door. No one inside can believe, of course, the testimony of mere ears. A knock on a night like this? Yes, you ninnies! I pound again. Who do you
think
it is? Who else
could
it be? Didn’t I tell you, I have to see you every day? I suppose you’re all huddled together in wonderment, preparing to delegate Big Ira to go see what that unaccountable noise is, that sounds so much like somebody at the door.

As I reach to pound once more, the door fades back from me and there you are. Not surprised. Your perceptions are improving. I can make you feel me through a door, even though not through a storm. One step at a time.

You are miserable. And you are right to be. Your whole hangdog figure drips guilt. Good.

I have friends in this house who are glad to see me even if you’re not. You and your father my stand over there and shift from foot to foot and wonder what to do with me. I am nevertheless well welcomed. I kiss your mother and then on reflection your sisters too, except Rachel. She is scowling at me.

“
Read
ing lesson!” I say, and I notice that I have never before heard my voice so cheerful.

But they will not hear of reading till I am rested and warmed. Two little ones (I must remember their names: Lucy and Katy) kneel and strip my icy stockings off. They are so innocent, reaching under my skirts, intent on stocking tops, never supposing I might find them forward. And I don’t. I chance a look at you while their hands explore my legs, but your father is beside you so I look into the fire and smile a very small secret smile, hardly more than a pleasant expression, which only you and he and Rachel will understand.

I should have brought paper. These girls need copybooks. They need slates. With a stick I write LUCY and KATY in the ash dust on the hearth. I write LIZZY. I write EMMA. They are in a row with their bottoms up, copying their names in the dust. I write MARY. Rachel would like her name, but not from me. She won’t ask and I won’t offer. She and I are very much alike. We are both in love with you. I may sympathize with her feeling and even grudgingly find a certain beauty in it, but I don’t think I’m obliged to help her with it. Why should she sleep by you, and I sleep alone?

I say, “Well, now, Sarah, I’m ready to hear you read.”

You bring out your Garvey. I sit behind you on a stool, following and correcting over your shoulder. You make many mistakes.

Your father says, “Not doing too good.”

I am afraid he is on the verge of violating the new unwritten law, that he see nothing and suspect nothing and foremost say nothing. He’s afraid of driving you away again, doesn’t he know that?

Serenely I say, “She’s doing very well. This isn’t the book we’ve been using.”

He subsides. We go on. I think you really can read better than this. I don’t know for sure. I do my part – I do not rest my chin on your shoulder, I do not put my hands on your hips.

Your mother says, “You better stay the night.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” I say. “Anyway, the storm is moderating, I think.” At which a gust full of pellets hits the house like a load of hay to make a liar out of me.

“You better stay,” she says.

I look at the little ones. Their faces are very flattering to me, all these eager pretty girls doting unconcealed. I do have an effect on the Dowling women. I imagine I could even win Rachel over, in time, if I cared to. She liked me well enough the day she brought Parson Peel’s letter over.

I look at you. You too want me to stay. The night could be pleasant. So much so that you might be willing to repeat it.

I say, “Thank you all the same, Mrs Dowling. I must get home.”

Their urgings continue, but I resume my not-yet-dry wraps and stockings, light my lantern, and set off. I have not exchanged a private word or a real look with you, but I hope I have told you, in a way you will believe and remember, that we will have a daily life. If you are too timid to have it beautifully, in Genesee, we will have it this way, in Connecticut.

You are angry about something. You come faithfully every evening, bringing a sister, but you do not help me to seize the little moments we might have. You do not come down cellar with me when I go for cider. You are always looking away when I try for your eye. At least, not being agitated, you show me how well you can read.