The Seary Line (32 page)

When he thought about her, he imagined her as a sea urchin. Beautiful when he discovered one in the blue water, painful if he stepped on it, easy enough to injure if he turned it over and prodded. How could these boys, on the cusp of manhood, ridicule someone like that? Crushing her, heavy rubber boots, without even noticing how wonderful she could be. If she wanted.

As the months passed, even after the talk moved on to someone new, he could not erase the voices of those boys, their glassy excited eyes, the smug curling lips of the one who no longer needed to say a word. And his anger festered, in his arms, his shoulders. Hovering just over his heart.

When the yearly bonfire arrived again, Robert skulked about, a good distance from the shrieking girls, lurking boys, Farmer Johnson's pitchfork full of potato stalks ready for the throwing. He did not take his eyes off Lewis Hickey, the boy who had damaged his sister, driven her away. When he noticed Lewis wandering off, young Alice Stomp following behind, Robert's anger dropped down into his fists. He left the crackling, the burnt air, walked aimlessly along the beach, hurling stone after stone into the sea. But his anger would not be so easily mollified by punishing the waves. And so, the next evening, his feet had direction. He found a spot along the path on the inside of a curve, squat down, smoked three cigarettes in silence.

He was surprised at how easy it was to overtake Lewis. Bursting out from between the two pine trees, feet still in the barren blueberry bushes, Robert clutched Lewis's coat, shoved him backwards into the muck. Lewis tried to spring up, but Robert struck him in the stomach with his boot. Curling on his side, Lewis emitted a sharp squeal, wrapped his arms around his waist. Robert tumbled onto Lewis, his fists flailing, punching again and again, knuckles driving against cheeks, against lips, against bone, until strands of bloody spit flew from his fists like ballooning spiders. Sitting on his chest now, Robert pinned Lewis's upper arms with his knees. Air sputtering out of pressured lungs.

When Lewis began to weep, chant, “I's sorry. I's sorry,” Robert eased himself off, shook his fists, then pressed them to his mouth, blew. He stared down at Lewis's face, witnessed the handiwork of his anger, the parts split open, other parts shocked closed.

“You good for nothing blood of a bitch. Dirty. Rotten. I should send you to hell where you belongs.” And before leaving, he stomped on Lewis's right hand, the hand that had touched his sister, drove it down into the mud and buried it.

As he walked home, Robert whistled. He thought of the well-worn pages of his Captain Marvel comics, and he couldn't help but place a hand on his favourite navy wool sweater, envision the invisible lighting bolt that must be there. Justice done. “Shazam.”

Just a year after Elise married, Stella made her second trip to St. John's to visit her only daughter. She decided to journey there after receiving a telegram from Elise. There was no mention of an invitation, but based on the circumstances, Stella assumed she was wanted and needed. She used the phone in Crane's grocery, told her son-in-law she'd be arriving in two days. After all, Elise had just given birth to a baby, five pounds, seven ounces.

Stella packed a few items in her carpet bag, folded tissue paper around matching booties and sweater, and laid those on top. George Parsons took her across the harbour in his trap skiff, and from there she arranged for a taxi to bring her to the station. Several hours of jostling on the train, and when she stepped off in St. John's, Elise's husband, Joseph Lane, was waiting there, leaning on his shiny Morris Minor, dour expression constant.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Joseph.”

He opened the door for her, held her elbow as she eased herself in. “Thank you, Joseph, I'm fine,” she said, perhaps too curtly. She had not yet reached the age when she felt an
elbow hold or a hand hold or even a hesitant glance was required. Let alone from someone who looked nearly as old as she was. Joseph, although he was only in his early forties, had a full head of silver bristly hair, hollow cheeks, eroded eyes. His skin was wrinkle-free though, and Stella determined that was because he had never smiled. Not that she'd ever seen, anyway.

When she arrived at her daughter's home, the bungalow was dimly lit, damp, and surprisingly quiet.

“Elise is in bed.”

“Of course she would be,” Stella replied.

Joseph deposited her bag on the kitchen floor. “Can you fix yourself something?”

“I'm fine, Joseph.”

“I have to get back.” Joseph was manager of Tucker's Grocery at the end of their street. Even though it was only a stone's throw away, he refused to walk. Drove his buffed car the half-block, parked it directly to the left of the entrance, while the owner, whenever he was there, parked to the right.

“Don't worry about me.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Goodbye, Joseph.”

Stella remained standing just beyond the kitchen doorway even after she'd heard the car rumble and recede. Her new navy coat with the shoulder tucks remained on, purse still clutched in glove-covered hands. Joseph had been staring at her purse, and she couldn't help but picture how she might have looked to him, like an aged, slightly frumpish, uncertain woman. And after nearly a full day of traveling, that was mostly how she felt.

Now that she'd arrived, she didn't want to remove the coat that covered her back, had peculiar misgivings about laying down her purse. Already the linoleum flooring felt cold and foreign through her stockings. An unpleasant
stickiness as she lifted her left foot, then her right. She wanted her slippers, those whimsical pink ones, knitted, with pompoms. Elise would grimace at the sight of them, Stella knew, and would suggest she buy something
suitable. Suitable slippers. A suitable hat. Suitable gloves and purse
. But when she tugged them on over her bony feet, she began to relax.

Stella went to her daughter's room, stopped at the threshold and peered in. Elise's eyes were closed, mouth parted. Instead of disturbing her, Stella returned to the living room, layered up torn paper, splits, dry junks in the fireplace, and struck a match. In the kitchen, she placed the kettle on the stove, listened until it just began to hiss. Second smallest beige canister had “TEA BAGS” written across it, and Stella pried open the tin lid, plucked one out. She couldn't get used to a tea bag. It was too convenient. The user, she thought, was deprived of the pride that accompanied a clean pour – a flurry of black flecks in the pot, not a single one in the cup.

Stella lifted the metal chair, orange vinyl seat, and seated herself, nibbled at lemon creams, slurped the tepid tea.

“Is that you, Mother?” Her daughter's voice was low and urgent.

“Yes, 'tis me.”

“What are you eating? I can hear you all the way in here.”

Stella laid down her biscuit, wiped crumbs from the moist corners of her mouth. “Just a lemon cream.”

“Surely you could find something better than that.”

She ran her fingers over the cold tea bag, then pinched it until it sat in a pool of auburn liquid. “I'm not much hungry.”

Elise never responded, so Stella went to her daughter's room, sat in the wooden chair beside her bed.

“I made Joseph fill up the fridge, Mother. I don't want to see you acting like we're poor, without a bite in the house.”

Stella slid back in the chair, pressed herself into the spindles, felt the beads in the wood against her spine. Leander had made it many years ago. And this sturdy chair offered up some comfort, when she sensed a childish homesickness beginning to curdle the very pit of her stomach.

“Well?” Elise continued. “Why don't you go make a decent sandwich? There's bologna and mustard. Good bread.”

“The train.”

“What? It couldn't have been that bad. I've been on it myself, remember, and I never minded it in the least.”

On the train, there was a man seated across from Stella, his knees occasionally gracing hers when he shifted (which was often). She decided, perhaps inaccurately, that he was a pig farmer, partly from his rough hands and leather face, and partly from his smell. Although his hair appeared freshly washed and his clothes were unstained, there was a vile odour of butchery in the air surrounding him. Faint, but it made her think of clotted blood upon a sun-warmed barn floor, those dizzy moments before someone would sluice it away with buckets of water. Stella refused to cover her nose for fear of appearing impolite. The gentleman looked so pleasant after all, though it made Stella light-headed when he dandled his young son on his knee.

“My stomach isn't settled.”

Elise frowned. Even though her colour was drained from the birth, Stella couldn't imagine any weakness within her. She had her own way of doing things and never deviated. As an adult, Elise had become the type of woman who never wore a scarf to church and scoffed at the notion of fixing herself up before her husband came home.

During Stella's last trip to St. John's, she had noticed that Elise rebelled in insignificant ways, insisting on using only cake mixes, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, smoking while sitting on the toilet (something Stella had seen quite by accident due to a partially open bathroom door). Her tendencies made little sense to Stella, but she tried her best not to comment. “I can see your eyes rolling,” Elise would holler. Or, “Must you scowl at everything?” By the end of the two weeks, Stella was afraid to blink or twitch in front of her daughter, lest she be accused of being condemnatory.

“Can you hand me my cigarettes?” Elise asked. “In there.”

Stella reached into the night table drawer, found the package amongst tubes of lotion, a handful of wrapped candy. She handed Elise a cigarette, laid the remainder next to a framed black and white picture of Joseph's car. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. Got matches under my pillow.”

In the telegram, Elise had not made mention of the baby's name or even if it was a boy or a girl. In the two days before she left to visit, Stella avoided going outside. What if someone asked about her first grandchild, what would they think if Stella was unable to answer such simple questions? All Stella knew was that the baby was born with dark serious eyes at the stroke of midnight between September 21st and September 22nd.

Stella cleared her throat. “Where's the baby?” she ventured.

“In her room.”

“Her?”

“Yes, Mother.” Elise took deep drags from the cigarette, tipped the ashes in the green glass dish she held with her left hand.

“Oh.”

“What else would she be?”

“You never mentioned it.”

“I surely did, then.”

“Perhaps, you did. I must have missed it.” Stella tasted acidity on her tongue from over-steeped tea. “Did you name her yet?”

“Did I not mention that either?”

“Not that I minds.”

“We've called her Summer Fall. Summer Fall Lane.”

“What an odd name,” Stella said, though she had tried to say “nice” or “lovely.”

Elise responded curtly, “Not what you would've chosen, Mother, but now it's not your choice, is it?”

Stella opened her mouth to respond, but was unable to correct herself, unable to clarify the miscommunication. Instead, she replied, “It's just not a regular name.”

“Who wants regular?”

“What's wrong with regular?”

“As always, you miss the point.”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

“My point exactly, Mother.” She stubbed the cigarette in the overflowing plate.

“Do you want me to clean that?”

“No. I imagine I'll want another any second. Maybe sooner.”

“Oh.”

Elise picked up the butt, used it to crush each clump of ash, then she handed the mess to Stella.

“I would like to understand,” Stella said slowly, as she laid the plate on the night table. “Can't you try to explain it a little better? About her name?”

“Summer is beauty, but it withers.” A sigh that sounded like effort. “Pride cometh before the fall, and all that stuff.”

“Oh.”

“I want my daughter to be humble.”

“Humble?” Stella shook her head. “I don't think you can make someone humble with a name. I don't think a name's got much to do with the way a person is.”

Elise pressed her head into her pillow, further squishing her deflated beehive, and stared up at the ceiling. “You could be right. They named you Stella, and you're far from a twinkling light.”

Stella sniffed now in an attempt to hide her confusion. How was it that every time she spoke with her daughter, her words were somehow twisted, as though they were falling from her mouth independent from her mind's direction? And in the rare moment when they emerged intact, they were warped by forces beyond.

Moaning, Elise lifted her elbows from her sides, said, “My chest feels like it's going to bust open.”

“Cabbage leaves.”

“What?”

“Put cabbage leaves in your brassiere. Works like a charm.”

“Surely you're joking, Mother.”

“We always done it. Back in the day.”

“If you hadn't noticed,
the day
was a long time ago.”

“Not that long.” Stella examined her fingernails. Once smooth and even, now they were ridged, a little ragged. A few months back, Nettie had suggested she try some clear polish, and right now, it seemed like a good idea.

“That's all I needs, Joseph coming round, gets a whiff of me, thinking I've got a jig's dinner down my shirt.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I will.”

Stella sighed. Did she have nothing of value to share? No piece of advice or tidbit of information to pass on? Sometimes she wondered how she'd gotten to this point in her relationship with her daughter. She was the annoying appendage, useless, but present nonetheless. An image of a limp foot came to mind, and Stella thought again of Leander.