Baby

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—from “Dirge Without Music”
Edna St. Vincent Millay

The memory is this: a blue blanket in a basket that pricks her bare legs, and the world turning over as she tumbles out. A flash of trees, sky, clouds, and the hard driveway of dirt and gravel. Then she is lifted up and up and held tight. Kind faces, she remembers, but that might be the later memory of her imagination. Still, when the memory comes, sometimes many times a night and in the day, the arms that hold her are always safe
.

In the evenings my father danced. All day long he was quiet and stubborn, the editor of the island newspaper. But in the evenings he danced.

Lalo Baldelli and I sat on the porch swing, clapping our hands over our ears when the six o’clock ferry whistle blew, and inside, as always, my father began to tap-dance on the coffee table. It was a low, tiled table, blue and green Italian marble. My father loved the sound of his taps on the tiles. He danced every evening before dinner, after his six crackers (Ritz) with cheddar cheese (extra sharp), between the first glass of whiskey that made him happy and the second that made
him sad. He always began slowly with “Me and My Shadow,” then “East Side, West Side,” working up to Lalo’s favorite, “I Got Rhythm.” Wherever he was, Lalo would come to our house before dinner so he wouldn’t miss my father’s wild and breathless “I Got Rhythm” that finished with a flourish, hands stretched out as if playing to a large audience. Lalo was the only one who applauded, except later, of course, when Sophie did.

There was a rhythm to the rest of my family too. When my father began to dance my mother would come out of her studio, covered with paint if her work was not going well; and Grandma Byrd would come up from her afternoon nap, her hair untouched by sleep.

Today my mother came out onto the porch, carrying a silver bowl that held batter for a cake that would never be baked. She carried spoons for Lalo and me, and the large wooden one for herself.

“You’ll like this, Larkin,” she said to me, handing me a spoon.

“What kind?” asked Lalo, peering into the bowl.

“Spice,” said Mama.

“That’s much better before it’s baked,” said Lalo.

Mama smiled at him.

“You bet,” she said, taking a huge spoonful, then handing us the bowl.

Mama was covered with flecks and smears of paint, and I could tell by the colors what she was working on. The island. Blue for the water of the island ponds and the sky and the sea; green for the hills—light green for the meadows and fields, dark for the stands of spruce. Mama was a walking landscape. That meant trouble, more paint on Mama than on canvas. That meant she was restless. Mama saw me looking at her clothes.

“I can’t concentrate,” she said, her voice flat and unhappy.

The porch window behind me opened.

“Are you eating batter?” Byrd asked.

“Spice,” said Mama and Lalo at the same time.

The window closed, and we heard Byrd slide open the mahogany pocket doors to her room. She appeared on the porch with her own spoon.

Lalo offered her his seat.

“My dear,” she murmured, and sat, holding up her hand in what Mama called her queen’s wave.

Byrd grew up in a grand house with pillars and many porches, and could have been a queen. She was seventy years old with white hair piled on her head, and rows of neck wrinkles like necklaces.

Byrd said often that she was pleased to have all her faculties. Once, though, after an island party and some punch, she called them facilities, and some townspeople still believed that she had many bathrooms in the house and that she loved them all. Lately she had discovered fancy stockings. Today they were black with jewels that sparkled as she moved. The jewels worked like little prisms, tossing light around, causing spots to tremble on the porch ceiling.

“Great socks,” said Lalo, making Byrd laugh.

“Stockings, Lalo,” she corrected him. “One day you may live off island, you know, and you’ll see things you never dreamed of. Including patterned stockings.”

Lalo looked at Byrd, horrified, his spoon halfway to his mouth.

“Not me,” he said. “I’ll never leave this island. Everything is here.”

Mama smiled wistfully.

“Almost everything,” said Byrd. She sighed. “But I do miss—” She stopped suddenly, and I looked at her, waiting for her to say what I knew she missed. What
I
missed.

Mama turned to look at her, too, her eyes sharp and sad at the same time. Then Mama’s expression changed as she looked up at Papa, who stood at the doorway, his face all flushed from tap-dancing.

“What?” asked Papa, out of breath. “What do you miss?”

“Something,” said Byrd lightly, her tone changing. “I don’t know just what, but I miss something.”

“I know,” said Mama. “I’m restless. Tomorrow the last summer ferry leaves. And then?”

“We get the island back,” Papa said, “and everything will be quiet and peaceful and all ours.”

“Excitement,” said Byrd suddenly, her face bright with memory. “We need something new and exciting to happen.”

“Like dinner?” suggested Papa.

“Oh!” Mama jumped up so quickly that the porch swing almost toppled Byrd. “The pot roast is done. Here.” She gave the batter bowl to Papa.

“What was this?” he asked, sampling it.

“That was dessert, dear heart,” said Byrd. She got up very slowly. Then, with a quick smile and a sudden shake of herself, like a wren, she went inside.

“Such excitement,” said Papa softly. Then he looked at us. “This is enough excitement.” There was a pause. “Isn’t it?” he added, asking himself the question.

We ate dinner as the sun set; candles on the table, the dinner a yearly celebration that tomorrow the island visitors would leave. The seasons on our island rose and fell in a rhythm like the rise and fall of the tides. Autumn was ours with quick colors, leaves flying until they were gone and we could see the shape of the island. The land rose and fell, too, from the north point where the lighthouse stood, curving down into valleys like hands holding pond water.

Soon winter would come, the winds shaking the windows of the house, the sea black. Herring
gulls would sit out of the wind on our porch, watching for spring that would come so fast and cold, we would hardly know it was there. Then summer, visitors would come off the ferry again, flooding us, the air heavy with their voices. And again, at summer’s end they would be gone like the tide, leaving behind small signs of themselves: a child’s pail with a broken handle, a tiny white sock by the water’s edge. Bits and pieces of them left like good-byes.

Suddenly, as we ate, a gull flew low over the house, its crazy shriek startling us. We looked up, then at each other. Nervous looks and laughter. But there was nothing to be nervous about on that day.

It was the next day, after the last ferry took the summer people away, that it happened.

Puffs of wind came off the water, sending Lalo’s hat flying down the beach. He ran after it, small sprays of sand sent up by his feet. A kite whirled and dipped, suddenly plunging into the water. There was a group sigh behind us, summer tourists on the porch of Lalo’s parents’ hotel. They stood like birds on a line, their bags all packed, faces red, noses peeling from summer sun. Summer’s end.

“Lalo!” Mr. Baldelli called from the porch, and we ran up to carry bags to the hotel truck, hoping for tips.