Papa has always run the farm with a firm hand, selling blueberries and vegetables, milk and butter, chickens and eggs, cutting ice and managing the fishing weir for extra money. He’s always stressed the importance of saving. But now he seems willing to spend whatever this doctor tells him to in the hopes of getting well.
One Tuesday morning, about four months into the treatment, only an hour after Al and Papa have left for the weekly trip to Rockland, I hear a car door slam and look out the kitchen window. They’re back. Al has a grim look on his face as he helps Papa get out of the car. After taking him upstairs to his room, Al comes into the kitchen and sits down heavily. “Oh Lord,” he says.
“What happened?”
“It was all a ruse.” He rubs his hand through his hair. “When we got to Pole’s office, the whole building was shuttered. A few days ago, they told us, he was chased out of town by angry patients. A lot of people lost their shirts.”
Over the next few months, the severity of our situation becomes starkly clear. Papa’s two thousand dollars in savings are gone. We can’t pay our bills. More infirm than ever, Papa is listless and depressed and spends all his time upstairs. I try to be sympathetic, but it’s hard. Apples. The fruit that tempted Eve lured my poor gullible father, both seduced by a sweet-talking snake.
IT’S A CHILLY Thursday morning in October when Papa asks Al to carry his wheelchair down to the Shell Room. An hour later, a sleek four-door maroon Chrysler glides up to the house and a woman in a trim gray suit steps out of the back. The driver stays in the car.
Hearing a knock on the front door, I make a move to answer it, but Papa says gruffly, “I’ll handle it.”
From the back hallway I can hear some of their conversation: . . . generous offer . . . wealthy man . . . desirable shorefront . . . doesn’t come twice . . .
After the woman leaves—“I’ll let myself out,” she says and does; I watch out the window as she ducks into the backseat of the Chrysler and taps the driver on the shoulder—Papa sits in the Shell Room for a few minutes by himself. Then he wheels awkwardly into the kitchen. “Where’s Alvaro?”
“Milking, I think. What was that all about?”
“Fetch him. And your mother.”
When I’m back from the barn, Papa has wheeled himself into the dining room. Mother, who spends most of her time upstairs, sits at the head of the table, a shawl around her shoulders. Al troops in behind me and stands against the wall, grimy in his overalls.
“That lady brought with her an offer from an industrialist by the name of Synex,” Papa says abruptly. “Fifty thousand dollars for the house and land. Cash.”
I gape at him. “What?!”
Al leans forward. “Did you say fifty?”
“I did. Fifty thousand.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of money,” Al says.
Papa nods. “It’s a hell of a lot of money.” He pauses for a few moments, letting the news sink in. I look around—all three of us are openmouthed. Then he says, “I hate to say this, but I think it would be wise for us to accept this offer.”
“John, you can’t be serious,” Mother says.
“I am serious.”
“What an absurd idea.” She sits up straight, pulling the shawl tight around her shoulders.
Papa raises his hand. “Hold on, Katie. My savings have been spent. This could be a way out.” He shakes his head. “I hate to say it, but our options at this point are few. If we don’t take this now . . .”
“Where would you—we—go?” Al asks. I can tell as he stumbles over the words that he’s trying to assess Papa’s state of mind, wondering if he and I factor into it at all.
“I’d like a smaller house,” Papa says. “And with the money I could help you set up your own homes.”
We are all quiet for a moment, contemplating this. Except for the time with Walton—which seems to me now like a fever dream, hallucinatory and indistinct, unrelated to my life before or after—I have lived in this house like a mollusk in its shell, never imagining that I might be separated from it. I’ve taken for granted my existence here—the worn stairs, the whale-oil lamp in the hall, the view of the grass and the cove beyond from the front stoop.
Mother rises abruptly from her chair. “This house has been in my family since 1743. Generations of Hathorns have lived and died here. You don’t walk away from a house simply because someone offers to buy it.”
“Fifty thousand.” Papa raps his misshapen knuckles on the table. “We will not see an offer like this again, I can tell you.”
She tugs at her dress, her jaw clenched, the veins on her neck like rivulets of water. I have never seen the two of them in conflict like this. “This is my house, not yours,” she says fiercely. “We will stay on.”
Papa’s face is grim, but he doesn’t speak. Mother is a Hathorn; he is not. The conversation is over.
Papa will spend the next fifteen years confined to a wheelchair in a small room on the ground floor of the house he was so eager to sell, rarely venturing outside. Al and I, with the help of our brothers, will scrape and save, learn to live with even less. We’ll manage, just barely, to save the farm from bankruptcy. But sometimes I will wonder—all of us will wonder—whether it would have been better to let it go.
IN JULY OF 1921 Sam, laughing, gathers our family together in the Shell Room. Clasping the hand of his bespectacled choir-leader girlfriend, Mary, he announces that he has asked for her hand in marriage.
“Of course I said yes!” Mary beams, holding out her left hand to show us the modest engagement ring she inherited from her grandmother.
This news isn’t a complete surprise: the two of them met in Malden, where Mary grew up, when Sam stayed to work for Herbert Carle, and have been together for several years. I watch as he moves closer and whispers something, as she blushes and he brushes her hair behind her ear. “I’m so happy for you both,” I tell them, and though I feel a pang of sadness for myself witnessing their casual intimacy, I mean it. Dear kind Sam deserves to find love.
Sam and Mary’s wedding is held on the “lawn,” as Mary calls it, though we Olsons have never thought of it as anything but the field. Al and Fred build a pergola and set up two rows of twenty chairs borrowed from the Grange Hall. Over several days I bake rolls, blueberry and strawberry pies, and a wedding cake, Sam’s favorite: lemon with buttercream frosting. Mary wears a lacy dress and veil; Sam is dashing in a dark gray suit. A three-piece band from Rockland plays on the bluff above the shore, where Fred has organized a clambake at the water’s edge.
After their honeymoon, the newlyweds move into our family homestead to save money for a house of their own. I like having another woman around, particularly one as young and friendly as Mary, who is solid and kind and laughs easily. She is good company in the house, helping me cook and clean.
Sam and Mary settle into a bedroom on the third floor, away from the rest of the family, and soon enough, Mary is with child. Unlike Ramona—as reported in her letters—she has no morning sickness. We sit by the hearth as she knits blankets and I sew frocks for the baby, talking about the weather and the crop yield and the people we know in common, such as Gertrude Gibbons, who was married recently herself. (She sent an invitation to the wedding, but I didn’t go.)
“That girl’s got some border collie in her blood. Can’t help herding and nipping. But she’s all right,” Mary says.
The image makes me smile, both because it’s exactly what Gertrude does and because Mary says it so matter-of-factly, without rancor. I don’t mention my waspish comment to Gertrude at the dance. It’s hard to feel proud of that.
MONTHS LATER, WOKEN in the middle of the night by a low moan, I lie in the darkness of my bedroom, my breathing the only sound. Sitting up, I strain to listen. Minutes pass. Another moan, louder this time, and then I know: it’s time for the baby to be born. I hear Sam’s heavy footsteps down two flights of stairs and out the front door. The Ford engine revs; he’s on the way to get the midwife.
I
bend and unbend my legs, as I do every morning, and carefully swing them over the side, holding onto the spindle frame as I reach for my dress on the peg on the back of the door. In the darkness I pull on stockings and lace my feet into shoes, then make my way downstairs, leaning on the banister. Papa is in the foyer in his wheelchair, bumping around, muttering under his breath in Swedish, trying to navigate the doorways to get to the kitchen. He must’ve roused himself from bed, a task Al usually helps him with.
I fill the kettle from the urn of water on the floor, fire up the Glenwood, and take out oats for porridge and bread for toast as the sun rises in the sky. After some time, I see the car pull up in front of the house. The midwife steps out, carrying a large tapestry bag. Then the back door opens and Gertrude Gibbons emerges. What is she doing here?
“Look who I found,” Sam says, stepping into the kitchen. “Mary thought it might be useful to have another set of hands.”
“How are you, Christina?” Gertrude says, just behind him, smiling brightly.
“I’m fine, Gertrude,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral. We haven’t seen each other since that long-ago dance, and it feels stiff and awkward between us.
“I know you have difficulty with those stairs, and your mother isn’t well,” she says. “I’m honored to fill the gap. Where is dear Mary?”
When everyone has trooped upstairs, I step out into the cool air of the backyard, shadowed at this early hour by the house. Al has been plowing the garden plot, and the dirt smells fresh and damp from yesterday’s rain. Tessie neighs in a distant field. Lolly winds between my legs, pressing against my calves. Sinking onto the stone step, I pull her into my lap, but she yowls and slinks away. I feel low, heavy, weighted to the earth. Earlier in the spring a birth announcement arrived from Ramona and Harland: a girl named Rose, seven pounds, nine ounces. In June, Eloise married Bill Rivers, and Alvah eloped with Eva Shuman a few weeks later. I’m glad for Sam and Mary, for all of them, but every ritual—weddings, births, christenings—reminds me of how alone I am. My own life so barren in contrast.
Tears well in my eyes.
“Why, there you are!” Glancing over my shoulder, I see Gertrude’s face cross-hatched in the screen. “I’ve been looking for you all over. The midwife doesn’t need me at the moment. She says Mary is a natural.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, hoping she didn’t see, but nothing gets past Gertrude. “What on earth is wrong? Are you hurt?”
“No.”
She tries to open the screen, but I’m sitting in the way. “Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Can I come out there?”
The last thing I want to do is explain my tears to Gertrude Gibbons. She is here out of curiosity, after all, and boredom, and her endless desire to know what’s going on. “Please, just give me a minute.”
But she will not. “Mercy, Christina, if—”
“I said,” I tell her, my voice rising, “leave me alone.”
“Well.” Affronted, she pauses. Then she says coldly, “I was coming down to help with breakfast. But I see you have let the fire go out.”
I stand up unsteadily. Then I yank open the door, startling her, tears clouding my vision. I lurch into the kitchen. My awkwardness irritates me even further; everything is a blur, and Gertrude is looking at me in her usual obtuse, judgmental, pitying way.
I hate her for it. For seeing me clearly, for not seeing me at all.
I careen through the pantry, forcing her to step back against the wall. I want to be upstairs in my bedroom, with the door shut, but how can I navigate the stairs without her watching? And then I realize I don’t care. I just need to get there. Leaning against the wall, I pull myself along the hallway until I reach them. I use my forearms and elbows to hoist myself up the narrow stairs, stopping to rest every few steps, knowing that Gertrude is listening to every grunt. When I reach the landing at the top, I look down. There she is, standing in the foyer with her hands on her hips. “Honestly, Christina, I do not under—”
But I won’t listen. I can’t. Turning away, I wrench myself along the floor to my bedroom, where I kick the door shut behind me.
I lie on the floor of my bedroom, breathing heavily. After a few minutes, I hear footsteps plodding up the stairs.
Then a rap on the door.
“Christina?” Gertrude’s voice is laced with affected concern.
Scooting backward I grasp the bedpost, then turn around and heave myself up onto the mattress, trying to slow my pounding heartbeat. Her presence on the other side of the door radiates a nasty heat; I am flushed with it.
Another rap.
“Go away.”
“For mercy’s sake, let me in.”
There’s no lock. After a moment, I watch the white porcelain knob turn. Gertrude steps into the room and shuts the door, her doughy face pinched with pantomimed worry. “What is wrong with you?”
I wish I could dart around her, but my only recourse is words. “I did not invite you here.”
“Well, your brother asked me to come. Honestly, with three of you infirm in this household I should think you’d be grateful for it.”
“I assure you, I am not.”
For a moment we glare at each other. Then she says, “Now listen. You make breakfast for this family every single day of the year. You need to pull yourself together and prepare some food right this minute. Why are you being so hateful?”
I’m not sure I understand it myself. But my flinty anger feels good. Better than sadness. I don’t want to let it go. I cross my arms.
She sighs. “We are about to welcome this wonderful new life—this baby! I’m sorry to be blunt, but you are acting like a child. Maybe nobody else is saying this to you, but I assure you they’re thinking it.” She runs her hands down the bedspread near my leg, smoothing the wrinkles. “Sometimes we all need a good friend to tell us what’s what.”
I flinch from her hand. “You are not a friend to me. Much less a good friend.”
“Why . . . how can you say that? What do you mean?”
“I mean that . . .” What do I mean? “You take pleasure in my misfortune. It makes you feel superior.”
Her neck reddens. She puts a hand to her throat. “That is a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s how I feel.”
“I invited you to my wedding! Which—let me remind you—you did not attend. Nor send a gift.”
I feel a little twinge. I’d forgotten about the gift. But I’m in no mood to apologize. “Let’s be honest, Gertrude. You didn’t want me at your wedding.”
“Do not presume to know what I want or don’t want!” she says, her voice rising in a hiss. Then she pokes at the ceiling and puts a finger to her lips. “Shh!”
“You’re the one raising your voice,” I say evenly.
“Christina, this is foolishness,” she says, suddenly imperious. “No doubt it was devastating for you, what happened with that man. Walton Hall.” Hearing his name on her lips makes me shudder. “But it’s time to move on. You have to stop stewing in your misfortune. Don’t you wish the best for your brother and Mary? Now let’s forget this ever happened and go make some food for those hungry people.”
Bringing up Walton is the final straw. “Get out of my room.”
She gives a little disbelieving laugh. “Why, I—”
“If you don’t leave my room this minute, I swear I will never speak to you again.”
“Now, Christina—”
“I mean it, Gertrude.”
“This is outrageous. In all my days . . .” She looks around as if some unseen presence in the room might come to her aid.
I shift on the bed, turning my body away from her.
She stands in the middle of the floor for a moment, breathing heavily. “You have a very cold heart, Christina Olson,” she says. Then she wrenches open the door and walks out into the hall, slamming it behind her. I hear her hesitate on the landing. Then heavy footsteps down the stairs.
r /> Muffled voices. She is speaking to Papa in the dining room. The screen door opens with a creak and swings shut.
WHAT PROMISES I make, I keep, Walton once said. His words were empty, but mine are not. Despite the fact that we live in a small place and are bound to run into each other, I keep my promise to Gertrude Gibbons. I will never speak to her again.
By the time my nephew—John William, given his grandfather’s American name—is born on the third floor a few hours later, I’ve made my way downstairs to the pantry, where I wash my face with a cool cloth and tame my hair with a horsehair brush. I coax the fire back to life and lay a table with sliced turkey and pickled beans and fried apple cake. When my brother Sam places the small bundle in my arms, as warm and dense as a loaf of bread fresh from the oven, I look down into the face of this child. John William. He stares up at me intently with dark eyes, his brow furrowed, as if he’s trying to figure out who I am, and my melancholy lifts, lightens, evaporates into the air. It’s impossible to feel anything for this baby but love.
THORNBACK
1946–1947
Only traces of white remain on the sun-bleached, snow-battered clapboards and shingles of this old house. Inside, wood smoke, fuel oil, and tobacco have darkened the wallpaper. Sometimes it feels as if Al and I are living in a haunted house with the ghosts of our parents, our grandparents, all those sea captains and their wives and children. I still keep the door between the kitchen and the shed open for the witches.
Ghosts and witches, all around. The thought is oddly comforting.
Much of the time, these days, the house is quiet. I’ve come to think of silence as another kind of sound. After all, the world is never totally silent, even in the middle of the night. Beds creak, a wolf howls, wind stirs the trees, the sea roars and shushes. And of course there’s plenty to see. In springtime I watch the deer, noses to the wind, trailed by speckled fawns; in summer rabbits and raccoons; in autumn a bull moose loping across the field; a red fox vivid against December snow.