Rush Home Road

  Addy nearly vomited when Hamond’s sock was removed. Martin Baldwin escaped downstairs to his apartment and put his music on loud. Mose stared at Hamond’s foot in surprise, for there was no blood at all but a two-inch crevice where the dresser had implanted itself. His bones were broken for certain and his toes were starting to swell and turn blue. They all knew he’d have trouble walking for the rest of his life, and he did.

  Nothing much to be done for a broken foot. Mose carried Hamond all the way home and they laughed later at what a sight they must have made. Especially Hamond, for in Mose’s mind it was one man carrying his injured friend, but in Hamond’s it was a white man carrying a black man. Samuel wept as he helped ease his father into the bed. Mose and Hamond both pretended not to notice as they thought it unseemly for a man to cry.

  Mose made Samuel promise to look in on his Aunt Addy each day while he and Chick were gone. Mose knew Addy wasn’t coming on the train. The look of her when he’d come in the room had frightened him as much as Hamond’s screaming. In fact, after Chick finally fell asleep, he spent the better part of the evening begging Addy to stay, convincing her she was too sick to travel and, most of all, insisting she could not and should not bring her illness into his dying mother’s house.

  Addy had not the strength to argue and knew in the end he was right. Then Mose decided that he was staying too. He was suddenly afraid for his wife’s health and gripped by a feeling he shouldn’t leave her at all. She had to do the convincing then, and remind Mose of all the money they’d spent on the tickets. She urged him to go for the sake of his mother, and for Chick. “Go, Mose. Think of Chick. Think of how she wants to see the ocean. I’ll be fine. I got Samuel and Ben to come and look after me. And Mrs. Yardley and the Baldwins too.”

  “I’m gonna miss you though, so much,” Mose said, and recalled his shame for Samuel when tears formed in his own eyes.

  “What’s this?” she asked, quietly moved by his tears. “You’re used to not seeing me. What’s wrong, Mose?”

  “This is…different.”

  She pressed her fever-hot lips to his forehead. “I’ll miss you too. I always do. But it’s Chick I’m thinking about. I haven’t been separated from my baby girl for more than four or five hours in all the years she been alive.”

  “I’ll take good care of her.”

  “I know you will, Mose. You’re her good, good Daddy. Besides, I’m more worried about me missing her than her missing me. I’ll be just sick from missing you both.”

  There was no tantrum, as Addy’d secretly feared, when she told Chick the next morning she was too sick to come along. “Just me and Daddy?” Chick asked.

  “Yes, Chicken, but it’s only for one week and then you’ll be right back here and you can tell me all about the train and about what Nova Scotia looks like and all about Nana Mosely too.”

  Chick nodded and looked deep into her mother’s eyes. “You gonna die, Mama?”

  Addy was shocked by the question. “No. NO! Why would you ask such a question as that?”

  Chick shrugged, looking too sad to cry. Mose had already taken Addy’s clothes from Poppa’s little suitcase, which considerably lightened his load. Addy smiled at Chick. “You suppose your Nana like to see your special doll?”

  The porcelain doll was removed from her satin box so seldom that Chick had never even named her. She never dreamt her mother’d allow, let alone suggest, such a thing. “She can look out the window,” Chick said, clapping.

  She seemed so grown-up, Addy’d recall when she pictured Chick standing in the doorway with her hand in her father’s. She was wearing her good coat and hat, cradling her doll like an infant. She had a look on her face that said she’d changed, grown from one person to another all in a day, like she finally understood she couldn’t always have her way. Addy’d been too weak to rise from the bed but had hugged Chick till the poor child lost her breath. And she’d let Mose kiss her mouth, too, though she’d said he really shouldn’t.

  Mose paused at the door and smiled, saying, “Don’t you have yourself too good a time without us.”

  Addy cleared her throat a few times because she didn’t want to start bawling and get Chick upset. “I won’t,” she said, and waved.

  It had been a surprise to all of them when Chick ran back into the room and pressed the porcelain doll into her mother’s shivering arms. “I got my Daddy for company. You have her, all right, Mama?”

  Addy did cry then, and squeezed Chick again and whispered, “I love you so much, Chicken.”

  THE TRAIN HAD BEEN late from Windsor to Chatham and they’d lost an eternity switching tracks after London. Mose and Chick had been travelling for well over five hours and were still miles away from Toronto’s Union Station, where they’d meet the connecting train that would take them on the longest leg of their journey. Mose was worried they’d miss the second train and wondered if they could impose upon Olivia and her husband, whom he’d met only briefly, to put them up for the night.

  It was hot on board and Chick had been restless and whiny from the start. “How much longer?”

  “It’s a long, long way, Chicken. Be quiet now, so you’re not disturbing other passengers.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “There’s an apple in my coat pocket.”

  “I already ate a apple.”

  “Eat another.”

  “I don’t want a apple.”

  “Chick.”

  “I want Mama.”

  “Chicken.”

  “I want to see Uncle Hamond and Sammy and Ben.”

  Mose had not been so confident as Addy that they’d seen Chick’s last tantrum. He looked around the train and wondered what he’d do if she started up just now. His eye caught the landscape flashing by. He knew the route and he knew definitely that they were approaching the trellis over that wide river whose name he couldn’t recall. We’re moving too fast, he thought. They’re trying to make up for lost time and they’re moving too fast.

  Chick looked out the window and saw the train was about to cross water. Don’t be afraid, she told herself, and shut her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at the bare arms of herself and her father, side by side on the armrest. As if it was the first time she’d noticed, she said, “Look, Daddy. I am darker and you are lighter.”

  Mose looked down at their arms and nodded. A thought flashed across his mind, and like a shooting star, where if you were a practical person you had to ask yourself did you really see it, Mose thought of Hamond Ferguson’s broken foot and the way Hamond’s big toe and second toe were joined by a bird-like web of brown skin. He decided that, like the shooting star, he had not really seen the web of skin at all. He looked down at his beautiful daughter—“Peas in a pod” is what Addy’d always called them—and said, “Your skin is beautiful.”

  She smiled at him. “And Mama’s too.”

  Mose nodded, gripping her hand in his, and would have said, “Yes, Chicken,” except at that moment the speeding train jumped the rail and left the tracks. The passengers, including Mose and Chick, died instantly, as the impact of the locomotive with the water was severe. It took only minutes for the river to drag the big train down.

  ADDY WOKE BEFORE DAWN, not with a premonition or sense of doom, but because she’d already slept ten hours straight and couldn’t sleep any more. She smiled, imagining her husband and daughter side by side on the train. They’re near Quebec City by now, she guessed. She remembered Mose last week, urging her to reconsider a move to Montreal. A porter friend named Rufus had opened a nightclub there called Rockhead’s Paradise, a place where, Mose had kissed her and whispered into her ear, “We could dance all night long.” Addy’d laughed at that because they had never danced all night long and hadn’t danced at all since their wedding. Maybe she should reconsider Montreal, Addy thought. She was surprised to hear a knock at her door before breakfast. She read the words on the telegram that Mrs. Yardley brought up, then read them again, and again, and still she di
d not understand.

  Hamond’s younger son, Samuel, would carry his father to William Street and heft him up the three flights of stairs, neither man feeling ashamed of his tear-stained cheeks. The three would sit in silence, Addy feverish, shivering, and numb, praying that Mose and Chick would rise from the dead.

  The bodies of Addy’s husband and daughter were never recovered. She imagined them, especially in those first few weeks, walking on the bottom of some silty lake or pond, meeting up with L’il Leam and Chester Monk, saying what a coincidence it was they all lost their lives to the water. Or she’d imagine Mose and Chick racing each other up the stairs to their apartment, drenched like they got caught in a spring rain, not caring they were soaked, thinking it was funny everyone believed them drowned. They’d be with her always, Mose and Chick. Not like some of the others, but steady and quiet and small, sitting alongside her, coupled like train coaches, connected by that invisible cord.

  Myrtle And Box

  THE DELIVERY MAN HAD COME and gone before Addy thought to check the box. The eggs were in there, and the apples, though they were a sorry-looking dozen and not the tart kind that worked best. Why hadn’t she done this in the fall like she’d planned, when the apples were crisp and sour? She knew before she set the water on the stove it wouldn’t be the best batch she’d made. Apples in April been sitting in cellars too long or they come from other countries, she thought, sniffing a core. She remembered her mother used to garnish with myrtle or box and she’d told the man on the phone, “It’s a shrub. Used to be called whortleberry too. And box is an evergreen. You have something like that in your garnishes section?” But the man had misunderstood and just put her groceries in a box instead of bags.

  It was a beautiful spring day, the kind that fooled a person into thinking summer’d be along shortly. Truth was there’d be another snowstorm before the fresh leaves unfurled and, like almost every year, the daffodils would get buried, their short pretty lives blighted by white. After that there’d be the days of rain and Addy’d be reminded why hers was called mud lane.

  Sharla’d been outside playing with Lionel and Nedda and was annoyed to be called into the trailer. “We’re playing though, Mum.”

  “You’re not going near them cows back there, are you?”

  “No,” Sharla lied.

  “You’re not throwing stones at them cows?”

  Sharla wondered how her Mum Addy could have seen when not one window in the whole trailer faced the pasture. “We won’t.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Can I go back out?”

  “Later you can go out. Right now me and you are gonna make something.”

  “Make what?”

  “A special dessert.”

  Sharla smiled and warmed to the notion of staying inside. “What special dessert?”

  “It’s a dessert my Mama taught me how to make and her mother taught her how to make it and her mother taught her.”

  “Is that a great-grandmother?”

  “That’s a great-great-grandmother and I bet it goes back even farther than that.”

  “Is it cake?”

  “No it’s not cake, Honey. It’s more special than cake,” Addy said as she checked the stove. “It’s a dessert made with apples.”

  Sharla tilted her head. “Apple snow?”

  Addy turned from the stove, trying not to appear startled. “How do you know about apple snow?”

  “You made that for Poppa. ’Cause of no teeth.”

  Addy cleared her throat and set the big strainer in the sink. “’Member what I told you about waking me up when I get to talking like that?”

  Sharla nodded. “You were awake though. You were sitting right there,” she said, pointing to the kitchen table.

  “I was awake?”

  Sharla’s chin bobbed up and down. “Mmm-hmm.”

  Addy’s stomach dropped as she wondered what else she’d said. “I was awake and I was talking about Poppa?”

  “Poppa wasn’t your Daddy though.”

  “No he weren’t.”

  “And you did not want to get married to him.”

  Addy cleared her throat again but she couldn’t relieve her panic. “If I was talking about Poppa like that, I was not awake, Sharla. I want you to wake me up when I get talking like that. Shake me a little. Or pinch me hard. Don’t let me go on, Sharla.”

  “I did, Mum. I said, ‘Wake up, Mum Addy.’ And you said, ‘I am awake, Child. I’m just remembering Poppa is all.’”

  The apples in the pot were rolling with the boil. They wanted to be soft but not mushy. Addy watched them carefully, confident she’d know by the look of the fruit the precise time to take them out. “I say anything about Riley, Honey?”

  “You said Riley like to walk around with money in his pocket acting like a rich, rich man.”

  Addy nodded and was glad she hadn’t spoken more intimately about Riley Rippey. She even smiled, thinking that was true about him acting rich. She wondered where Riley was now, if he was in this world or the next.

  “And you said that Camille Bishop had herself some nerve.”

  Addy caught her breath. She could remember none of it. She’d been preoccupied lately, thinking about her life, her past, but she could not remember talking out loud, especially not with Sharla in the room. She knew she should go see Dr. Zimmer just as she knew she couldn’t. He’d tell her she was losing her mind, for what else could it be? They’d take Sharla away and then what? Addy wondered if she ought to try to collect her strength and make her way over to Krystal Trochaud’s trailer and ask if she’d heard from Collette. She thought she might try Reggie Depuis again and see if the past year brought on any change of heart. She even wondered if Warren and Peggy Souchuck were having trouble conceiving and might love a child that was not their own. Addy tested the softness of the apples and prayed to keep her mind.

  The apples were done. Addy found her burned-up old oven mitts and began to heft the pot of boiling water to the strainer at the sink. It surprised her and made her wonder how long it’d been since she made the dish, when she had not the strength to lift it.

  “What’s wrong, Mum Addy?”

  Addy used a slotted spoon to lift the apples from the water and set them in her big bowl. “Just a little heavy is all,” she said, and brought the bowl to the table.

  “Does the skin stay on?”

  “No. That’s the next thing to do. Once you got the apples boiled soft. Be careful ’cause it’s hot. Prick that flesh with your fork and feel how it feels. Soft, but not too soft.”

  “Soft but not mushy.”

  “That’s right. That apple doesn’t want to cook down to juice. It wants to stay meaty enough you’re gonna taste the fruit when it’s said and done. Now I like to run them under cold water just a minute so they’re not so hot to peel and core. My Mama never did that, but she had so many calluses on her fingers she could use her bare hands to stoke the fire.”

  Sharla’s little tongue found its place on her lower lip when Addy set half the apples in front of her and said, “Now you just pull the skin off like this. See. Just like that. Good girl. That’s right. You got a knack for it.”

  “What’s a knack?”

  “Means you got a special skill at doing something. Means you take to something fast. Now after you get all the skin off, you cut it in half. Not you, Honey, me. You’re too young to use a big knife. See, you cut it in half and you take that spoon there and you just scoop out the core.”

  “Like that?”

  “That’s right. Like scooping seeds out a muskmelon.”

  “I hate muskmelon.”

  “Get all the seeds out, Honey. All the seeds and all the core bits.”

  “Like this.”

  “That’s it. Now set it down in the bowl there.”

  When they’d finished peeling and coring the rest of the apples, Addy clapped her hands. “I should have taught you this recipe years ago, Baby. Should have made it in the fall though. These apples b
een in the cellar too long. Your Daddy’s gonna be so pleased when he gets home. Don’t get a special dish like this on the train. ’Specially not one made by his good girl.”

  Sharla said nothing as she watched the stiff hands measure the sugar and pour it over the apples. She knew Mum Addy was confusing her with her own little daughter, Chick. It was happening more often, and though Sharla’d been frightened the first few times, now she just pretended along. Chick had a Daddy and three Uncles who loved her and was a good person to pretend to be. Sharla was confused by the pretending though, and knew it was not a game. She also knew her Mum was not sleeping like she claimed to be later, for she was standing and moving and talking too. Times like this, Sharla could do nothing but wait until her Mum Addy came back from wherever it was she went.

  “Now,” Mum continued, “I remember Claire Williams used to shake her head when she saw Mama like to beat the egg whites before she beat the apples and sugar but that’s how I like to do it too. I don’t believe it affect the flavour too much if you like to do it backwards, but that’s for each person to decide. Now watch this, Chick. Are you watching? Watch, because you’ll do the next one. You crack the egg on the side of this clean bowl. Not the one with the apples in it because you can’t beat them all together at once. Might as well throw the whole of it out if you try. I did that once by accident and my mother make me set a whole new batch in cold water over the fire.”

  Sharla watched her Mum Addy crack the egg on the side of the large bowl and open it carefully, not letting anything but the clear Jell-O-y part spill out.

  “Just back and forth like this and the yolk will separate from the white. You don’t want to let any yellow in the bowl. Not even a drop. Not even a speck.”

  “Why though?” Sharla asked.

  “Because you won’t get a good whip,” Mum answered, not looking up. “You just want the whites, Chicken.”

  “Why they call it whites when it’s see-through?”