The Seary Line (27 page)

“I'll be damned,” Gus hollered as his shadow dimmed the doorway. His thin arms went up in exclamation, then settled on his oversized gut. “Got enough wood here to build a barn.”

“'Tis not all for the bowling,” Leander said, nodding towards the walls. “That's other stuff.”

“By the looks of things, you're fashioning enough to supply the entire island. No arse gone chairless – I bets that's your motto.”

“And a noble motto it is now, Gus.” Leander grinned as he glanced about his workspace. There was little room to move now, every cranny was piled with unfinished pieces, legs and spindles, pine shelves, poor quality fir crates he'd gotten from the general store to use as backing. In the fall, he would assemble everything, and with the help of Skipper Johnson, they would deliver the furniture to communities dotting the coast.

“Well, we best get a move on,” Gus said with conviction. “Don't want to be late. Give them all something else to complain about.”

“Oh, I doubts we'll be hearing any grumbling today. 'Tis too fine.”

Gus lowered his head, looked at Leander, bloodshot eyes in a yellowed face. “Has you forgotten I married Nettie? She's been whining since conception, my son.”

The garden party was organized to celebrate the completion of the first schoolhouse. Up until then, the children who attended school to learn the “three r's” did so at the parish hall, taught by Miss Eleanor Hickey (daughter of the recently deceased Reverend). Only about half the children attended their elementary lessons, and if either one showed particular promise for academics, he was sent off to live with an aunt or uncle in a larger community that had better resources. But the families had had enough, and with a dodgy promise of government funding, like darkness in their back pockets, the men set about building a two-room clapboard school. Everyone had worked on it, wood donated from the mill, generous gift of a pot-bellied stove from Fuller's store, steady supply of warm lunches to the workers, a dozen desks from Leander, more to follow when he could afford the time. George Hiscock made a cement slab for the front steps, date of completion indented in the front. A day of pride for Bended Knee.

Once the final coat of maroon paint covered the structure, there was a communal desire to make merry. In the field next to the school, someone had hacked the grass down to its earthy scalp. A row of picnic tables were carted over, covered with clothes, laden with dinner rolls, dishes of butter, pickled beets, a mishmash of plates. The air was heavy with the deliciously offensive odour of boiled cabbage, turnip, salt meat. A separate table was laden with a proud display of late summer pies, partridgeberry, apple, and blueberry.

The men talked, drank, and bowled while the women
finished preparing the meal. Even with his unsteady gait, Leander was the best bowler. Every time he knocked over all five pins, Harriet would be up on her hind legs, yip and leap into the air, back twisting as though she was trying to achieve even greater heights. After winning two games, the other men, Gus included, began to protest lightheartedly.

“I believes you done something to the set. Something that we don't know about.”

“'Tis in his foot. That skip.”

“That's a hop skip, if I ever seen one.”

“Bill, anyone knows the rules on a hop skip?”

“I reckons that's cheating, that kind of run up.”

Third game over, and Harriet howled once again, stood on her hind legs, scratched the air with her forepaws.

“Or, 'tis the dog.”

“Lucky charm.”

“Is lucky charms allowed, Gus?”

Leander smirked. “'Tis only the practicing, fellers. A few rounds with my boy here.” He pulled Robert to him, scuffled his sun-bleached hair.

“Well, enough is enough. Go wet your whistle while the rest of us has a go.”

Leander stepped out of the play, accepted a single prize: a pair of cups and saucers, a string of pinkish flowers just below the lip. A gift for Stella. Where was she? He scanned the field, and saw her. She was with the women and older girls, bustling about, aprons snug around waists. They had begun to serve up heaping plates to the men, small bites to the children, stealing pinches for themselves. He noticed her face was flushed, hair slightly unkempt, and every now and again, she paused to slap at blackflies that nipped at her neck. He smiled to himself. She looked most beautiful when she was flustered, overheated.

Elise and Robert were yanking at his shirt, nudging him. In the far corner of the field, the younger members of First Ladies League were churning ice cream. Old Man Morris had offered up the last chunks of ice hidden under sawdust in his barn, and cream was collected from the many cow owners. A donation of sugar from Fuller's General Store, and ice cream was the result.

Leander dug into the pocket of his trousers, retrieved a nickel. “Here you go, you little beggars,” he said with a smile. “Two each.”

“What about the last penny?” Robert said. “I wants to keep it.”

“I's the oldest,” Elise squealed. “I gets it.”

“Lardie,” Leander said with a smirk. “You two sure don't need no schoolhouse. You got your rithmetic all figured out.”

“Well?” they chorused.

“Weeeelllll, last one is for Harriet. A scoop for my youngest.”

Elise cut her arms across her chest. “I'm not feeding no dog. Folks would laugh at me.”

“And so what if they does?”

“I'll do it,” Robert announced.

“Then you shall be in charge of the nickel.” Elise scowled. “You better not drop it in the grass, Robert. And lose it.” They began to run towards the ice cream table, Elise taking the lead. Leander laughed at her annoyance when she yelled back at Robert, “And you needn't think I'll stand next to you. Not with you feeding that dog.”

He went to find Stella, stood behind her as she took a break from serving. Wrapping his arms around his wife, he glanced out over the field, saw men bowling with perfect
pins, children chasing each other, treats locked in sticky fists, neighbours eating food from their own fields, the smooth ocean in the distance, like God's looking glass. Leander put his mouth to her tiny ear, surprised by how his voice choked slightly. “Look around, maid. Can't you feel it? There's some magic here.”

“Shush now,” she replied. “Don't go jinxing it.”

“I can't help myself. Our little part of the world. So far away from everything. But 'tis all here, my love. Every single thing we needs is right here.”

Nearly forty years had passed since Uncle had crossed over. When he died, his devoted widow, Berta May, thought she wouldn't be long for this world. Wasn't that the way it often worked? One half of an eternally bound couple moved on, and within a ripple of time, dragged the other half with it? But that hadn't happened. Berta was still fully alive, and every morning when she awoke, glanced about the same wallpapered room, she placed a wrinkled hand on her chest and felt a jab of disappointment with the rhythmic thump beneath. Why hadn't she been called?

Though she would never admit this, her sourness was partly related to the well-respected midwife who once lived just north of her. Berta had heard all about Miss Cooke and her tangled history with Uncle. Though no one had mentioned it in decades, Berta had never forgotten it. In his youth, Uncle had been bound to another. He had sworn his undying love for Miss Cooke. How shocked everyone was when he took up with a fifteen-year-old (that being Berta) without as much as a goodbye to Miss Cooke. Then
he married her no less (that still being Berta). Miss Cooke had been side-swiped, they said, and her heart never recovered. “Sure, they was like a pair of yoked oxen. Trussed up since they was running around with their arses hanging out.”

Berta was already married when she learned this rather crucial tidbit of information. At the time, she'd pretended to brush it off, but to tell the truth, the knowledge that she was a haphazard selection, a second choice, had sliced the magic from her union like a sickle through spring grass. To make matters worse, Miss Cooke had given up the ghost only weeks after Uncle had moved on. At her funeral, the older folks were nodding towards Uncle's marker, the upturned dirt, healthy mound. Murmurs that Berta couldn't quite make out. All a slap in the face, the suggestion that the two close deaths were anything other than coincidence. Wasn't she the woman who had tended to that cantankerous goat for close to fifty years? Maybe a few more. She'd given up the count. “It weren't easy, believe you me,” she whispered. “He weren't easy to live with.” But no one was listening to her. And now, in his final statement, as he pulled his once-promised towards him, Berta May was left to suffer Uncle's last squirt of spite from beyond the grave.

Since Berta had turned the big one hundred, she rarely left her home anymore. While several ladies from the church had made her a fruitcake and brought her a lovely packet of fragrant white soap to mark that particular birthday, she feared they were secretly mocking her. So old now, dried up, and clearly unwanted. By the holy feller upstairs or anyone else. And she hustled them along. Never offered them a slice of the cake. Birthdays to follow were promptly ignored.

Many afternoons she sat in the chair near her bed, a worn afghan unfolded over her legs. She wasn't tired, and had no need for rest; she had simply run out of things to do
with the ample hours in her day. As she sat there, she focused on the changing seasons in the garden beyond. She had told herself she would be gone by the time the goldenballs bloomed, then when they nodded in the salty air, she adjusted her expectations, and determined death would arrive before the oak tree turned fiery in the autumn. No such luck. Perhaps before the boats were hauled up on the shore, flipped, peeling bottoms exposed to icy November showers.
No. I'm here
. Before the final leaf was sucked away by the wind? She waited and waited, watching that withered leaf, teasing her. A bitter snowstorm, blocked her view, and when the sheet of white settled down over the yard, her death leaf was gone. And still, she wasn't.

Berta was now the oldest person in Bended Knee, and she needed no help to walk or cook or traipse out to the outhouse on a fine, clear day. In fact, since Uncle's passing, many of the discomforts she had complained about so frequently had left her. Her hips, gassy belly, ingrown toenails, watery hearing. She was confused, but this was not due to any trace of senility. She simply couldn't comprehend why she was lingering. Had she done something wrong? Did she need to make amends?

Whenever she considered the need for amends, her thoughts always circled around to that tiny baby who was born in her house. And lately, they circled often, as Berta, throttled with free time, continually replayed the birth, the aftermath. With knowledge that only a hundred plus years could offer, Berta now understood that she had stolen something from that baby. And the mother as well. A moment. That's all it was. A single moment. But at the time, it had meant so much to Berta, and she found the moment irresistible. Wanted so badly for it to belong to her. Now, she was certain that single act of thievery held her in a state of
suspension, not moving forward, unable to move back.

Some days, while Eldred tapped out a harmony on the piano, Berta would go into that cramped bedroom and perch herself on the edge of the bed. Though the bed had not been used in decades, it was still neatly made, and Berta knew if she tore back the sheets, she could identify evidence of the birth. Sometimes she did this, just to make sure it really happened. And she viewed the faded earthy stains, a large mark in the centre, several smaller blots creeping down over the side of the mattress. That was how Miriam Seary, no more than a girl herself, had pushed the baby out, right at the very edge of the bed. One foot on the floor, another foot pressed squarely against Berta's hip.

No other child had ever entered the world in Berta's home. Stella Abbott, now Stella Edgecombe, was the first and only. While Berta and Uncle had had many children reside there over the years, helping out on the farm, minding the animals, the fleeting presence of this baby was different. When Berta had touched her for the first time, the baby was still streaked with blood, and dull white cream still resided in the crevices around her neck, under her arms. Once the cord had been severed, it was Berta who plucked up the child, swaddled her. Miss Cooke was occupied, massaging Miriam's fleshy near-empty abdomen in order to help finish the job, and Miriam was lying back, hands up and shaking in the air, crying. Without a word to either of them, Berta stood, cradled the baby, and crept away.

In the privacy of her own room, she sat on the bed and stared at the newborn. She marveled at the perfection of the pug nose, the ears like the tiniest clam shell, fringe of feathery hair. She felt certain that God was right there in the room, existing in the baby's expression of pure, blessed serenity. Berta reached out, nervously, touched a dry finger
to one pink cheek. As soon as the finger grazed the skin, the baby's lips opened into an eager O, head knocking side to side, searching. Berta felt a sudden rush of elation within her chest. Before her mind could register, her hands were unbuttoning the front of her dress, exposing the purposeless contents. Released, her fat old breasts hung down, divided, as though they were at odds with one another, independent, unwilling and showing it. But Berta ignored their defiance, lifted and positioned, guided the baby's mouth onto a wizened nipple. Why should she be denied this one simple experience of womanhood? When she felt the certain pinch of suction, Berta leaned back against the headboard, closed her eyes, and pretended this was her holy child, a miracle, still warm from her own insides.