A Summer to Die (9 page)

"I promise, Will," I said.

Finally Molly has stopped being a grouch. It was gradual, and I'm not even sure the change is a good one. She hasn't gone back to being the old Molly she was before she was sick. She isn't giggly, funny Molly anymore, full of smiles and ideas and silly enthusiasms.

I don't know what she is, now. A stranger, mostly. It's as if she has become part of a different world, one that doesn't include me anymore, or even Mom and Dad. She's quieter, more serious, almost withdrawn. When I tell her about things that are happening at school, she listens, and asks questions, but it's as if she doesn't really care much; she's only listening to be polite.

Only a few things interest her now. She spends a lot of time with the flowers. In the past, for Molly, flowers were things to run through in a field, to pick, to bury your nose in, to arrange in a vase on the table. Now, with Will's help, she's learning about them; she reads the books he's brought to her, and identifies the wild flowers she's found in the fields. She classifies them, labels them, arranges them in order in a book that she's putting together. It takes most of her time. She's very careful, and very serious, about her flowers. We don't dare, ever, to tease her about them.

It's as if she has become, suddenly, old.

The other thing that still interests her is the baby. She visits Maria often, and they talk and talk about the baby. Molly is helping Maria to make clothes for it; they sew together, and when she finishes something, Molly smoothes it with such care, folds it neatly, and puts it away in the drawer they're filling with little things.

Even Ben and Maria seem a little puzzled by the concern Molly has for all those tiny nightgowns and sweaters. Once I heard Ben say to her, "Hey, Moll. It's
already
going to be the best-dressed kid in the
valley. Quit sewing for a while, will you? Come with me to see if we can find some wild strawberries."

But Molly just smiled at him and shook her head. "You go ahead, Ben," she said. "Take Meg. I want to finish this. I want everything to be perfect when the baby comes."

Ben groaned. "Molly, don't you
know
what babies are like? It's just going to pee on those clothes. Why do they need to be perfect with that kind of future in store for them?"

Molly smiled at him and went on stitching.

And sometimes, for no reason, Molly is like a baby, herself. One night after supper, when it was raining outside, we were sitting in front of the fireplace. Mom was working on the quilt, Dad was reading, and Molly and I were just watching the logs shift and send sparks into the chimney as they burned. We had our pajamas on.

Suddenly, very quietly, Molly got up, went over to Dad, and climbed onto his lap. He didn't say anything. He just put his book down, put his arms around her, held her, and watched the fire. She put her head on his shoulder like a sleepy two-year-old, and with one hand he stroked the fine, wispy, babylike hair she has left.

I could understand, I guess, the change in Molly if she were still sick. But she isn't; she's perfectly well.
She is still taking the pills, and every few weeks Mom takes her to Portland to the hospital, for tests, to make sure everything is okay. Soon, the doctors said, she'll be able to stop taking the pills altogether, and then her hair will grow back. She'll win a beauty contest, the specialist told her, when she has her curls again.

Mom told us that at dinner, after they had come back from the hospital, and Molly just smiled, the casual and tolerant kind of smile that most people give to small children who say foolish things. But there was a time when it would have meant something to Molly, to be told she was beautiful.

Well, things change. I just have to learn to adjust to what they change to.

One morning early in June, my father came into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sighed. I was just finishing my breakfast and had planned to spend all of Saturday morning in the darkroom. I had photographed Maria by her kitchen window, and Will and I were experimenting with different kinds of paper for the finished prints. I could hardly wait to try printing Maria in different contrasts, textures, and tones.

But when Dad pouts a cup of coffee, sits down in the kitchen, and sighs, I know I'd better stick around because something's up.

"I just got a phone call," he said, "from Clarice Callaway."

"Are your books overdue?" I asked. "She's a real stickler about overdue books."

He laughed. "No, she and I have achieved a pretty good understanding about my overdue books. I wish that's all it were. She started the conversation by saying, 'I don't want to meddle, but—' You know what that means."

"It means she wants to meddle. Sometimes she starts with, 'I don't mean to be inquisitive, but—.'"

"Right. And that means she means to be inquisitive. I can see you have Clarice figured out, Meg. Well, this time she's upset about Will renting the house. She says the whole village is up in arms—which I assume is a Callaway exaggeration–because there are hippies living in Will's house."

"Hippies? What's that supposed to mean?"

Dad frowned. "
I
don't know. Ben has a beard, and I guess by Clarice's definition that makes him a hippie. But maybe you can shed some light on the things she brought up. Is it true that Ben and Maria are growing marijuana behind the house?"

I started to laugh. "Dad, of course not. They've put in peas and strawberries so far. Ben wants to plant squash, but he hasn't decided what varieties yet. And his tomatoes and beans go in this week."

"Is it true that they walk around nude?"

"Good grief, Dad. No, it isn't true, but even if it were, whose business would it be? They're out in the middle of nowhere. One afternoon Maria took off her shirt and lay in the sun. When I came along, she had her shirt off, and she asked me if I minded. I said I didn't, and she left it off for a while. She gets so hot and uncomfortable, because the baby's due soon."

"Well, that was another of Clarice's topics. Is it true that they're planning to have that baby by themselves, in the house?"

"Yes. But they've both been reading everything they can find about delivering a baby. Maria's doing all sorts of exercises, and they took a course together in Boston. And Dr. Putnam in the village has agreed to come if they need him."

Dad scratched his head. "No chance that they'll change their minds about that?"

"I don't think so, Dad. It's very important to them. They're really excited about doing it themselves, about having the baby born there in the house, instead of in a hospital. They don't like the impersonal qualities of a hospital. But the baby's important to them, too. They're doing everything they can to be sure the baby will be safe and healthy."

"Well, I guess I can try to convince Clarice of
that. So that leaves only one thing. They
are
married, aren't they?"

I stirred the last soggy Rice Krispies in the bottom of my bowl. "They love each other. They talk about being old together, sitting in rocking chairs on their porch, and what it will feel like to kiss each other when they have false teeth and bifocals."

"That's not what I asked. Are they married?"

Funny how Rice Krispies stick to a bowl when they're wet. I really had to pry them loose from the sides of the bowl with my spoon. "I don't think so, Dad. Maria doesn't wear a wedding ring, and her last name is different from Ben's."

My father winced. "That's what I was afraid of. I don't quite know how to deal with that one. And Clarice has already called Will's nephew in Boston. Well, maybe you should talk to Ben and Maria about it, Meg. They might as well be prepared."

Great. What was I supposed to do, go tell my friends who were going to have a baby next month that I thought they ought to get married? What business was it of mine?

Still, my father was right. They ought to know what was going on. I gave up my plans for working in the darkroom that morning. Ben and Maria had asked if they could see some of my photographs, so I took the ones I'd done of Will, and two that I'd just finished of Molly. She hadn't even noticed my
taking them; she'd been sitting on the front steps, working on some of her wild flowers. With Will's help, she'd mounted each of the flowers she'd pressed, and labeled them with their Latin names. One of the pictures showed Molly holding a blossom of Queen Anne's lace up against the sunlight; both she and the blossom were in silhouette. The other photograph was of her bent head, with what was left of her curly hair falling down over her face as she arranged some tiny flowers on a page.

Ben and Maria were hanging sheets and towels on the clothesline behind their house when I got there. They did their wash together every Saturday, using an old wringer machine that they'd bought at a garage sale. Ben always teased Maria that if she didn't have the baby on time, he would put her through the wringer and squeeze it out; just thinking about it makes my stomach lurch, but Maria thought it was funny.

"Hey, Meg!" Ben called cheerfully when he saw me coming. "This time next month, we'll be hanging diapers!"

"You mean
you'll
be hanging diapers," laughed Maria, as she snapped a wet dish towel into the air to get the wrinkles out. "
I'm
going to be lying in bed, being waited on. Having tea brought to me on a tray, while I recover!"

Knowing Maria, I didn't think she was going to be spending much time in bed recovering. She'd probably be up and around the day after the baby arrived, sanding the floors, building a bookcase, making raspberry jam. I talked her into letting me help Ben with the rest of the laundry, and she went inside to make a pot of tea.

We sat around their little painted kitchen table and shared tea with fresh mint in it. I took out the photographs to show them. They loved the ones of Will, because they love Will. But the two of Molly were better. They thought that, and I could see the difference, too. Partly it was because I have been learning so much from working with Will; partly it was because I was using his German camera now. He had taught me to use the different lenses; I had shot these two of Molly with the 90mm lens, and I'd been able, that way, to do it from a distance, so that she hadn't known I was doing it. The look on her face was absorbed, preoccupied with her flowers; the fine lens caught the sharp outline of sunlight on her hair and the shadows across her face and hands.

"I asked Molly if she wanted to come with me this morning," I explained, "but she wasn't feeling well. She said to say hi, though, and to see how you're coming with the cradle."

Maria grinned with pride and pointed into the living room, where the cradle stood, finished. It
glowed with wax; folded over one side was a soft yellow crocheted blanket.

"Meg," asked Ben hesitantly, "what's wrong with Molly?"

I told them about her illness, about the nosebleeds, the hospital, the transfusions, and the pills that were making her hair fall out. They were both very quiet. Ben reached over and ran his hand gently over the top of my head. "That's rough," he said. "That's very rough."

"Well," I explained, "it's not that big a deal. And she's lots better. Look." I pointed to one of the photographs. "See how round her face is getting? She's gained ten pounds since she came home from the hospital."

Maria poured more tea into our cups. "I'm glad we came here, Ben," she said suddenly, "for Molly. She's so excited about the baby."

That reminded me why I had come to see them. "Ben? Maria?" I said. "You know the little church in the village?"

"Sure," Ben said. "The white steeple. It looks like a postcard picture. Why? You going to photograph it?"

"No," I said. "But last Saturday, when I was in town with Mom to buy groceries, there was a wedding there. It was really neat. The bride came out and threw her bouquet from the step. The
bridesmaids all had light blue dresses on, and—" I hesitated. "Well, I don't know. It was just nice."

Ben and Maria were both making faces. Ben is quite good at making faces; he screwed his mouth up sideways and crossed his eyes. "Weddings," he said. "Yuck."

Maria rolled her eyes and agreed with him. "Yuck," she said.

"
Why?
" I asked. "What's wrong with getting married, darn it?"

They both looked surprised. "Nothing's wrong with getting
married,
" Ben said. "It's weddings that are so awful. What do you think, Maria, shall we show her?"

Maria grinned and nodded. "Yeah," she said. "She's a good kid."

Ben went into the living room and took a box out of the closet. He brought it back to the kitchen table and set it down. He leered, fingered his beard, and said in a diabolical voice, "Ya wanna see some feelthy pictures, lady?" Then he opened the box.

I started to laugh. They weren't bad photographs; in fact, technically, they were very good photographs, even though I'm not crazy about color.

But they were
awful.
And they were of Ben and Maria's wedding, for pete's sake. They were in a thick white leather album that said
Our Wedding
on the cover in gold letters. And I could see, while I
looked at them, what Ben and Maria meant about yucky weddings.