embarrassment as I pushed Archer aside and gave my attention to the kettle, now whistling and spitting on the stove.
My two oldest brothers, Albert and Borden, along with Hart, have long called themselves the “Holy Terrors of the Bay,” always pulling pranks to make me or Mother scream. Father even calls Hart his seventh son. On my thirteenth birthday, Hart hog-tied me while Albert and Borden threatened to lower me into the pigpen. Hart was over six feet tall by the time he was twelve. He started working for Father in the shipyard shortly after. He’d been on less than a month when he caught his left hand between a rope and a pulley and lost three fingers. Miss B. tried her best to save them, but they were a ragged mess. If it weren’t for that, he’d be off to the war with Albert and Borden. Instead, he’s stuck in the Bay, breaking his back, watching his ten-fingered brother sweet-talk and grab all the girls.
Precious came into the kitchen. “Mrs. Bigelow wants to know if you’ve run into trouble.”
Flustered, I answered, “Trouble?”
“With the tea?”
I set the pot, sugar and creamer on a tray and hurried out of the kitchen. “No, no trouble at all.”
The rest of the night I thought of Archer, wished he would come into the room, or that I’d find some excuse to get back to the kitchen. Maybe I’d ask him to tell me what he meant, or say that I wasn’t sure of what it was he had said and could he say it again? Maybe he’d come close, this time staying long enough that the smell of him would linger on my clothes, just long enough so I could go on thinking of him whenever I breathed, without having to mean to, without having to try.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, Grace Hutner was standing at the back door, pulling on Archer’s arm. “Lovely night for a walk, wouldn’t you agree, Dora?”
˜ January 20, 1917
We have finished Northanger Abbey. Despite the meddling of Isabelle Thorpe, all has ended well. Catherine marries Henry Tilney.
Miss B. has gone on, night after night, complaining about Dr. Thomas. “ Exact …How exact gonna do her anythin’? Ain’t no exact way to have a baby…like catchin’ snowflakes, she’s gone before you got it figured out… exact, in all my life…” Most of the time she follows these rants with her thoughts on “how we gots to handle him” and why. Her constant fretting makes me wonder if maybe she’d be better off if she just gave up.
I’ve cleared out the loft over the kitchen. With my old feather bed, wool blankets and a quilt, it makes for cozy sleeping. I had been sharing Miss B.’s bed, but it’s too small for the both of us, and if she’s indulged in a nip or two, she’s prone to rattle and snore. Now, with a lamp and my books (rather than hiding from Dr. Thomas), I like it up here, tucked away with strings of wrinkled apples and bundles of sage, catnip, raspberry leaves and rosehips. As in all the other nooks and crannies of her cabin, Miss B.’s got a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked away in the corner. It’s pasted on top of the horsehair plaster, along with crumbling wallpaper and old sections of newspaper. I look at her each night before I sleep, my own way of praying, I suppose. There, in the flickering light of my oil lamp, the Holy Mother smiles at me, her face framed in white roses, her hands cradling a small white dove with a glowing red heart. She stares at me, looking like she knows something I don’t.
Never mind what she knows. Never mind Dr. Thomas or Miss B. All I can think of is the word Archer Bigelow whispered in my ear, the word that sits in my wishes, working with the Devil to get me to believe that it might just be true. He said it. I didn’t imagine it. Lovely.
11
P RECIOUS HAS BROUGHT a new book, Dr. A.W. Chase’s Information for Everybody, to my attention. She smuggled it in the bottom of an egg basket and was panting with excitement by the time she reached Miss B.’s door. It’s not nearly as
My two oldest brothers, Albert and Borden, along with Hart, have long called themselves the “Holy Terrors of the Bay,” always pulling pranks to make me or Mother scream. Father even calls Hart his seventh son. On my thirteenth birthday, Hart hog-tied me while Albert and Borden threatened to lower me into the pigpen. Hart was over six feet tall by the time he was twelve. He started working for Father in the shipyard shortly after. He’d been on less than a month when he caught his left hand between a rope and a pulley and lost three fingers. Miss B. tried her best to save them, but they were a ragged mess. If it weren’t for that, he’d be off to the war with Albert and Borden. Instead, he’s stuck in the Bay, breaking his back, watching his ten-fingered brother sweet-talk and grab all the girls.
Precious came into the kitchen. “Mrs. Bigelow wants to know if you’ve run into trouble.”
Flustered, I answered, “Trouble?”
“With the tea?”
I set the pot, sugar and creamer on a tray and hurried out of the kitchen. “No, no trouble at all.”
The rest of the night I thought of Archer, wished he would come into the room, or that I’d find some excuse to get back to the kitchen. Maybe I’d ask him to tell me what he meant, or say that I wasn’t sure of what it was he had said and could he say it again? Maybe he’d come close, this time staying long enough that the smell of him would linger on my clothes, just long enough so I could go on thinking of him whenever I breathed, without having to mean to, without having to try.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, Grace Hutner was standing at the back door, pulling on Archer’s arm. “Lovely night for a walk, wouldn’t you agree, Dora?”
˜ January 20, 1917
We have finished Northanger Abbey. Despite the meddling of Isabelle Thorpe, all has ended well. Catherine marries Henry Tilney.
Miss B. has gone on, night after night, complaining about Dr. Thomas. “ Exact …How exact gonna do her anythin’? Ain’t no exact way to have a baby…like catchin’ snowflakes, she’s gone before you got it figured out… exact, in all my life…” Most of the time she follows these rants with her thoughts on “how we gots to handle him” and why. Her constant fretting makes me wonder if maybe she’d be better off if she just gave up.
I’ve cleared out the loft over the kitchen. With my old feather bed, wool blankets and a quilt, it makes for cozy sleeping. I had been sharing Miss B.’s bed, but it’s too small for the both of us, and if she’s indulged in a nip or two, she’s prone to rattle and snore. Now, with a lamp and my books (rather than hiding from Dr. Thomas), I like it up here, tucked away with strings of wrinkled apples and bundles of sage, catnip, raspberry leaves and rosehips. As in all the other nooks and crannies of her cabin, Miss B.’s got a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked away in the corner. It’s pasted on top of the horsehair plaster, along with crumbling wallpaper and old sections of newspaper. I look at her each night before I sleep, my own way of praying, I suppose. There, in the flickering light of my oil lamp, the Holy Mother smiles at me, her face framed in white roses, her hands cradling a small white dove with a glowing red heart. She stares at me, looking like she knows something I don’t.
Never mind what she knows. Never mind Dr. Thomas or Miss B. All I can think of is the word Archer Bigelow whispered in my ear, the word that sits in my wishes, working with the Devil to get me to believe that it might just be true. He said it. I didn’t imagine it. Lovely.
11
P RECIOUS HAS BROUGHT a new book, Dr. A.W. Chase’s Information for Everybody, to my attention. She smuggled it in the bottom of an egg basket and was panting with excitement by the time she reached Miss B.’s door. It’s not nearly as
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