The Cape Ann (11 page)

I thought that God didn’t always use good judgment in the way He ran things. If Mama or Grandma Browning or Grandma Erhardt were running the world, they would never entrust a baby to a big bird.

“After school is out, I think I’ll take Lark and go stay with Betty until the baby comes,” Mama said.

“Can’t your mother go?” Papa wanted to know.

“With her broken ankle?”

“I forgot.”

I was excited at the prospect of going with Mama to Aunt Betty’s. For one thing, I would not have to worry about my fingernails and the cemetery while I was away. How many Mondays would we be gone? I wondered. Already I feared next Monday. I had been sore on my bottom all day at school. At recess I stayed away from the slide and even the swings.

Biting my nails was “a nasty, unattractive habit.” I was willing to admit that. And it ruined the appearance of my hands. I could see that that was true. I yearned for long, shapely nails like the ladies in magazines had. Mama had said she would paint them with pale pink polish if I let them grow. I dreamed of resting my chin on the palm of a hand with long pink nails and having strangers remark to Mama, “Your little girl has beautiful hands, such long nails. She should be in a magazine.”

I couldn’t figure out why I bit my nails. I did it without thinking. Suddenly I would find my fingers in my mouth and not know how they came to be there. Papa found this hard to believe.

Papa wanted girls and ladies to be pretty and obedient and holy. That didn’t sound unreasonable, even if it was impossible. I got down from the crib and tiptoed to Mama’s bureau for a handkerchief. In the mirror I caught sight of my face, puffy and red from crying. My mousy hair hung in defeated remnants of what had early in the day been curls. I looked like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters.

But I was going to Aunt Betty’s, and while I was there, I might turn pretty. I ardently believed in such miracles. One time I asked
Mama if she believed in miracles, and she said, “Oh, yes. That’s how God holds our attention.” Then she’d added, “It’s just the kind of cheap trick I’d pull if
I
were God.”

“What does that mean?” I’d asked.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Forget I said that.”

But I didn’t forget. I memorized her words. When someone said something that I didn’t understand, something that I wanted to remember until I was old enough to understand, I memorized the words or I
used
to memorize the words. Now I printed them in the back of my first confession notebook. Once in a while I read them, just to see if I understood yet.

When she had washed the supper dishes and emptied the slop pails, Mama took me to the toilet before getting me ready for bed. Crossing the waiting room, I kept my eyes on the floor. I didn’t want to look at Papa or have him look at me.

“How long before we go to Aunt Betty’s?” I asked as Mama helped me into my nightie.

“About a month.”

“That long?”

“Time will go by fast. Remember, the Knights of Columbus picnic is coming. If it’s hot, you can go swimming.”

“My old bathing suit is too small.”

“Then we’ll get a new one.”

I hugged her so hard, she said I was squeezing the pudding out of her.

“Will you read a story?”

“What do you want to hear?” she asked.

“The Man of the House.”
That was the story about Phillip, who wore brown corduroy knickers and a brown Eton jacket, and sat on the window seat waiting for his father, who was fighting the Hun.

“That one again? Wouldn’t you like a new one?”

“No.” I closed my eyes and saw Phillip’s house by the sea, a stone bench in the garden. And there was Phillip in the nursery, sitting in the window seat. “Doesn’t that sound like our house, Mama?” I asked, but fell asleep before she could answer.

In the deepest part of the night, Papa shook my shoulder and said, “You’re still biting your fingernails. We’re going to the cemetery.” I had on a new bathing suit, and I shivered as we stepped out
into the night. No one was stirring in Harvester except me and Papa, bouncing along in the pickup.

Papa turned off the main road and drove up to the gate of the cemetery as he had done before. But this time when he dragged me out, he hauled me up to the gate, lifted the latch, and marched me in.

Straight through the cemetery we hiked, between tall headstones and pious trees, grown sinister in the dark. I howled like a banshee and tugged to free myself, but Papa stepped along without hesitation, paying no attention. At the far end of the cemetery, where a fence separated the graves from cornfields, he let go of my hand.

“Stay here till your nails are long,” he said, and turned away.

I screamed and ran after him, but he was gone. In a minute, I heard the pickup’s engine.

I tried to find the gate, but among hundreds of headstones and monuments, trees and peony bushes, I lost my way, finally sinking down on a cold bench and burying my face in my hands. In the inky shadows around me, animals glided through the grass, soundless but for the whisper of their feet. Something cool and smooth slid across my instep.

As I bolted, the earth fell away, and I tumbled down and down, into an open grave with water standing in the bottom. Bathed in slime, I heard from above a laugh much like Papa’s, but when I turned to look, a leering face hovered at the rim of the grave, shrieking, “Everyone knows!”

After a long time, I peered between my fingers. The face had disappeared. Scrabbling up the side of the grave, I pulled myself out onto the grass.

A dawn breeze from the west churned the trees and coaxed the lilac bushes to dance. A great whispering passed among the willows and even the stone angels took it up: “Everyone knows.”

Less than fifty yards distant was the gate, and beyond, the outline of Harvester beckoned. In the east, flames were creeping over the horizon. Above, the sky was clear and a most remarkable cornflower blue.

In the distant sky to the southeast, a lone bird appeared, enormous, bigger than a swan or goose. The corners of a sheet or blanket were gathered into its beak!

Hadn’t Mama said that the stork carried babies that way? I was seeing a baby delivered to someone. Probably to Aunt Betty. She was the only person I knew who was expecting one.

I stopped in the road to watch it pass. But something was wrong. One corner of the blanket had slipped from the bird’s beak. A second appeared to be giving way. If I ran hard, out into the field alongside the road, I could be there to catch Aunt Betty’s baby.

Scaling a rickety wooden fence, I started across the unplowed field. Then something happened to my feet. They grew to the size of watermelons.

The bird was close. I could hear the baby cry. The fabric was slipping. A small hand waved, appealing to me. But my feet would not budge. Stretching out my hands helplessly, I watched in horror as the baby fell through the cornflower sky.

I didn’t tell Mama about the dream. All day I was heavy with it. At recess I couldn’t pump up properly on the swing. Jumping rope, I tripped time and again.

After school I went out selling tickets to the Knights of Columbus picnic. Plodding from house to house, knocking on doors, reciting the same old tale of games and prizes, I found it hard to smile and show the enthusiasm Mama expected. The baby, its little hand waving to me, filled all the space behind my eyes and in my heart. It was fortunate that the customers were more enthusiastic about buying than I was about selling. Returning home, I had only three tickets remaining in the envelope, and Mama was pleased.

“Didn’t I say you’d be a wonderful salesman?” Mama asked, putting the envelope in the cupboard for tomorrow. “Set the table. It’s almost supper time.” Mama was in a happy mood, humming in her random, no-tune way as she checked the baked potatoes.

“What’s that?” I asked, laying out the silverware beside the plates, fork on the left, spoon and knife on the right. Tacked to the wall above the kitchen table was a chart with the alphabet set out in rows. But the letters were all mixed up.

“That’s a typing chart. I sent away for it. There’s a book that goes with it. I’m going to learn to type.”

“You’re going to teach yourself?”

“The book says it’s easy.”

I folded paper napkins and put them under the forks. “Why do you need a chart? The letters are on the typewriter keys.”

“Because you’re supposed to learn to type without looking at
the keys, the way Papa does. Haven’t you noticed how he never looks at the keys?”

“How long will it take?”

“That depends on how much I practice.”

“What’re you going to type on?”

“Art Bigelow gave me that old typewriter that was in the office. He said they were going to get rid of it anyway.”

“Why do you need to know how to type?”

“You never know when it might come in handy.”

Secretaries
knew how to type. Knowing how to type was a glamorous and exclusive thing, like owning a set of encyclopedias or suitcases that matched. The image of Mama typing, knowing where the keys were without looking, sent a thrill through me. This was a person I didn’t thoroughly know, a person who had ideas I would never have guessed at. It was a little frightening.

Handing me a bowl of carrots, Mama gave me a sort of sideways glance and smiled, all the while humming something which only accidentally sounded like “Jeepers Creepers.”

LATE THURSDAY AFTERNOON, AS
I was selling the last of my tickets to Dr. White and his nurse, the sky began to lower and by the time I reached home, the first drops of rain were wetting the brick platform in front of our door.

When Papa came home to supper, he announced, “I called Joe Navarin and he said I can come over and hunt night crawlers.”

“Can I come?” I asked quickly.

Papa looked at me speculatively. “Do you promise not to start whining to come home the minute we get there?”

“I promise.”

“If you start whining, I won’t take you again.”

Joe Navarin, who owned the Sinclair gas station and bought four tickets for the Memorial Day picnic, lived at the edge of town in a house that sat on a half-acre lot. When it rained Papa sometimes went to gather night crawlers from Mr. Navarin’s yard,
which teemed with them during a good downpour. Papa had never taken me. He was afraid I’d get cold or start to fuss before he had enough worms.

I didn’t have a real raincoat, but Mama had a jacket that kept off the rain. After dinner she got it out, buttoned it on me, and rolled up the sleeves until my hands stuck out. From a box under her bed, she retrieved my buckle-up galoshes and put those on me.

As she did, she inquired, “What happened to your shoes? They’re torn here on top.”

“Mrs. Grubb’s dog.”

“That yappy little devil?” She fastened the buckles. “What about an umbrella, Willie?”

“No umbrellas. You can’t hunt night crawlers with a flashlight in one hand and an umbrella in the other, for God’s sake.”

From the freight room at the other end of the depot, Papa fetched a couple of minnow pails and a shovel. His fishing and hunting gear were kept stored in the freight room. “We’ll drive out Cemetery Road and dig up dirt for these,” he said, handing me the pails.

Cemetery Road. I looked at Mama. Her face did not reveal any awful knowledge. She was calm and smiling. But Cemetery Road? Why there? Why not Red Berry Road or Sioux Woman Lake Road?

I was silent climbing into the pickup. Of course Papa wasn’t going to leave me in the cemetery, especially not in the rain. The darkness and confusion, the listening, waiting animals gathered silently around, all the dream images fluttered in my brain like frantic moth wings. I huddled deeper inside Mama’s jacket.

On the left was the unplowed field where I had tried to catch Aunt Betty’s baby. I looked quickly, then turned away. It was wrong to tempt whatever dark forces created bad dreams. What if I were to look up now and see a baby falling through the sky? I closed my eyes tight. Could a person try to run and find that their legs wouldn’t move, that their feet were nailed to the ground? What if the stork dropped the baby in the field behind Aunt Betty’s house? It was an unplowed field much like this one. What if I were there, and I couldn’t run?

Papa pulled the truck over onto the shoulder and killed the engine. “We can get our dirt here,” he said, jumping down from the cab and removing the shovel and pails from the back. We were a good hundred yards from the cemetery drive. Thank God for that.
Papa helped me down and handed me the flashlight. “Hold this where I dig,” he told me.

There were worms here, too, in the grass and crawling across the road. “Should I get those worms for us, Papa?”

“No. Leave them be. We’ll get bigger ones at Joe’s.”

I stood with my back to the plowed field, holding the light, the rain falling, steady and gentle, on my shoulders and on the old fishing cap of Papa’s, which Mama had clapped on my head as I was going out the door. When the pails were half-full, Papa lifted them into the back of the truck and we headed for town, the windshield wipers slap-slapping the rain from our view.

Papa pulled into Mr. Navarin’s long driveway. We didn’t stop at the house. We’d come for the worms, and we set to work hunting them. Papa walked, carrying his pail. He was right about the worms. They were everywhere and they were huge, a foot or so long many of them, and as big around as my fingers. I held the flashlight in my left hand and snatched up the struggling worms with my right, tossing them into the pail.

I was reminded of dreams in which, gazing casually at the ground, I’d spy money in the grass. Falling to my hands and knees with great excitement, I’d gather up the coins and stuff them into my pocket. The more I found, the more appeared. I began to plan all the things I would buy: a big, red tricycle for me, a fur coat for Mama, and a fishing boat for Papa. I put the money in the cut-glass vase from Aunt Essie on top of the sideboard in the living room and told myself that when I woke in the morning, I’d get it and show Mama. How thrilled she would be. Several times it had happened that the dream was so real that when I woke, I ran to the vase and couldn’t believe there was no money in it. But this was no dream, I was pretty sure.