Mother Lode (22 page)

Grateful that she’d been
brave enough to say she’d erred, he found something frightening
about it too. It was as though the lamp that led the way had been
extinguished. He had trusted her implicitly, even when he was angry
with her. Now he saw her for the first time, not as the idol he
worshipped, but
equally fallible,
small and pathetic
.

He was quiet for so long, she rose to leave.
“I think we’d better stop our. . .education. For the time, at
least. Perhaps I am not a suitable teacher for you.”

She waited mournfully for a response,
received none and left the room.

A cacophony of voices rang through his
head.

She apologized. Forgive her, you dog!

How could she have shamed
me so? For something normal
?

Is it wrong, or not?

And the biggest one of
all, that brought the angry tears: Why did she come back and break
the
Golden Bubble
? He didn’t see how they could continue their voyage into the
inner world now. There was no one at the helm
.

For days the rain came down unrelentingly.
Mirroring Jorie’s mood, it made everything muddy, brought a
bone-chilling dampness into the house that no fire could temper. It
was the ugliest fall he could remember: dark clouds swirled in the
angry skies and the merciless winds brought the maple leaves down
before their glorious colors had played their hour upon the
trees.

His mother carried on with a distant
dignity, but there was no closeness between them. The gap between
them grew like a great yawning abyss. He realized he’d made an
irrevocable choice that day in his room. She had waited, humbled
after her confession, and he had not absolved her. She would not
come to him now and beg for his understanding. And he could not
bring himself to cross the gorge to meet her, though the pain was
nigh intolerable.

Even the hills, so healing and peaceful to
him were being punished by the gods. Usually, when the waters of
heaven were so violently unleashed, the storm lasted only a few
hours. Now it seemed the torrents would never end, and Jorie
wondered who would build the next ark. Certainly he would not be
among the chosen.

He did his chores with alacrity, and sought
his own company as quickly as

possible. But here he was miserable too.
Looking for diversion, he tried to re-read

books he’d once loved. Impatiently, he’d
discard them after a chapter or two. Dissatisfied with his
drawings, he threw them in the fire. His inner world was shattered;
the outer was nothing without her. Again he was walking on broken
glass, but this time it was shifting beneath his feet.

When he could stand it no longer, at the end
of the most confining week, he put on his oil slicker and forged
his way in the dark out into the driving rain, seeking to spill his
explosive feelings. Tramping up the hill and slipping in the mud,
he was beaten unmercifully by the water that slashed at his face,
mingled with his tears. Reaching the birch copse at last he threw
himself down on the ground and wept into the earth. His sobs,
absorbed by the storm, made no sound. A feeling of total
insignificance overcame him, a tiny speck unnoticed in a vast
uncaring universe. When he was spent, he rolled over on his back
and let the rain slash at his face. It was the only clean thing in
this world.

Exhausted, he rolled over on his face again
and fell asleep. He didn’t care what happened to him; it was hours
later before he awoke from a stupored sleep and dragged himself
through the rain back home.

Catherine, believing him to be asleep in his
room, had made no search. It was not until the next day when he
didn’t come down for breakfast that she went up to rouse him and
found him feverish. When she saw the heap of wet and muddy things
on the floor she surmised where he’d been.

“Good Lord, lad, have you lost your senses?
Out in that misery last night to catch your death? How long were
you gone?”

Jorie shook his head, tried to say
something, gave up.

She could see he was ill, his teeth
chattering and chills shaking his crumpled body. She insisted he
come down by the fire and have a hot soak in the copper tub.

She hurried into the kitchen. “Helena, build
up the fire. Jorie’s chilled to the bone.”

When all was ready, Catherine helped Jorie
down the stairs. He saw the housekeeper.

“I can’t go in with
her
there.”

It was too late. Helena came to the doorway.
“Begod and bejasus, Look at you, with a face like you’d seen the
deevil himself. Puts me in mind of — “

“Just pour the water in the tub,
Helena.”

“Oh, I was just havin’ a bit ‘o fun,
mum.”

“Well, now’s not the time. Go tend to his
room, please.”

“Will I be doin’ the wash?”

“Just go, Helena.”

The woman left and Catherine seated Jorie on
a chair, where she proceeded to remove his nightshirt and help him
into the steaming water.

The tub being small, she dipped a small
blanket in it and wrapped it around his shoulders. When it cooled,
she repeated the process.

“Better get out now,” she said when the tub
water cooled, “before you catch a worse chill.”

Helena had removed the muddy clothes and
changed his sheets. Catherine helped him back to bed, fearing
pneumonia. Retrieving the feather comforter from her own bed, she
tucked him in tightly, bringing it up to his chin.

When she’d done with that she prepared him a
pot of hot dandelion tea, which she urged him to drink, against his
protests.

Not wanting to leave him, she was yet uneasy
with conversation, and lapsed into telling him the old silkie
stories again. They had a soporific effect, and at last he
slept.

Doctor Johnson confirmed he had pneumonia.
He prescribed mustard plasters, came daily, checking his fever,
administering medication, but the best medicine came from the
visits themselves. They often lasted an hour or more.

“You can hear the wolves at night, in the
winter, howling up in the hills. I think they’re very lonely,
sir.”

“And hungry.”

“I found an injured cub once up in the
copse. She was shot for the bounty, I’m sure.”

“What did you do?”

“I cleaned her wound, and took scraps to her
every day. She’d lick my hand. But one day, when I came, she was
gone. Probably the bounty hunters had gotten her.”

“Animals knows better than we when it’s time
to move on.”

“Do you think she might have survived?”

“I think it quite possible.”

Jorie had worried all week whether he dared
broach this most difficult of subjects with the gentle doctor.

“Could you tell me something about — human
reproduction?”

“What would you like to know?”

Jorie flushed.

“Where babies come from?” the doctor asked
gently.

“No, I know that much. How it all works —
the organs and such.”

“I’ll bring you a book on anatomy. Would you
like that?”

Jorie hesitated.

“Was there something specific, son?”

He blurted it out.
“Sometimes — it gets
stiff
.”

The doctor nodded. “Oh, I see. Yes,
yes.”

Jorie coughed. “Is it, is
it . . .
natural
?

“Oh, yes. Yes, that comes with
adolescence.”

Jorie wished the doctor
would say more about this, and tell him
what to do about it
, but he just
smiled in his understanding way.

“I don’t know.” Jorie stammered. “I don’t
know how to say this.”

“Just spit it out.”

Jorie took a deep breath.
“Is it wrong to, to
rub
it?” he turned his flushed face to the pattern in
the carpet.

The doctor took a moment to respond. “People
have different views on that subject. Certainly from a medical
point of view, there’s nothing wrong with it. Despite all the myths
abounding, you won’t grow hair on your palms, go blind or any other
such nonsense.”

“But is it
wrong?
”

“
I
don’t think so. But everyone would
not agree with me.”

Their attention was caught by the chatter of
jays outside the window. They looked out to see the male chasing
the female from the cherry tree to the elm to the pine.

“All part of nature’s plan,” the doctor
smiled.

Jorie took another deep breath. If it were
all right with the doctor, then it would be all right with him. The
matter was finally settled.

After five long days, the fever broke, and
Doctor Johnson said the crisis was over. The visits tapered off,
causing Jorie to be almost sad he was getting well. Except for Ma,
the doctor was the closest thing he had to a friend.

That night Catherine thanked God that he’d
been spared. She had not attended St. Joseph’s for several weeks.
On Sunday she went, but a different priest was officiating. After
mass she inquired of the sister.

“Father Dumas isn’t with us any longer. He was
transferred to Minnesota.”

Minnesota! Catherine could hardly believe
it.

Without her old friend, she was again a
stranger in a foreign land. She stopped going to church. Anyway,
hadn’t praying to God directly saved her son?

Jorie had not spoken to her much during this
time, except to give brief answers, ask for things. Now he was
feeling better and watched her as she changed his bed sheets. A
feeling of tenderness came over him as pictures of all she’d done
for him this week flashed through his mind. How she loved him. Why
had it all been spoiled!

She bade him climb back into bed, and he
asked her to apply the liniment. As he was still deeply congested,
she applied it generously to his chest. “Would you rub it on my
legs too? They’re aching.”

She pulled down the covers, extracted one
leg trying to keep the rest of him covered.

“It wouldn’t do to let you get cold.”

She noticed the brown hairs growing on his
legs, glistening with the oil. He was beginning to lose his
boyishness and take on the look of a man. She lingered over the
first leg longer than she realized, lost in her reverie. Abruptly
she pushed it under the covers and withdrew the other. As she did,
she noticed a bulge at his groin.

“That enough, Ma. The other one isn’t
aching.”

But she had it out, and commenced to rub it
anyway. Holding his foot, her long strokes went upward from his
ankle to his knee. Then pushing her hand up the back of his thigh
she heard him moan softly. His eyes were closed. She covered him
then, left the room.

A sense of jubilance filled her. How silly
of her to think the reverent obedience of the son who adored her
had vanished? What further proof of her power could she ask than
what she had just witnessed in his room? If he’d avoided her these
past weeks it was because she herself had failed him by abdicating
her throne. There must be no crack in the crown.

Chapter 18

“I’ll clear the table, Ma,” he said rising.
“Then I have to study.” His chair scraped against the rough wooden
boards of the kitchen floor.

“Not so fast,” she said softly, wrapping the
left-over bread in the paper he’d helped Helena to wax. “You’ll
lend a hand with the washing up, and then we’ll see.”

“
We’ll see
.” These words, had come to
strike apprehension in his young soul. Beads of perspiration broke
out on his forehead as he stacked and clattered the dishes. For
once he wished his pa was here.

She chided softly, “You’re going to break my
grandmother’s plates, Laddie. I brought them all the way from
Scotland, when I was but a girl.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, forcing himself to slow
down. After all, why was he in a hurry? “I’ll wash.”

The large pot of water on the wood stove was
already boiling when they brought the dishes to the kitchen. There
must be sap in the stovewood, as it crackled and spat loudly
—echoing the explosions in his chest. He wanted to tell it to hush,
not to shout to all the world his fear, his confusion.

With whatever suds her homemade lye soap
began, they were soon defeated by the slippery venison fat sliding
off the plates. Jorie watched with fascination as each bubble
popped, the greasy circles forming around his hands.

“Lad, what are you doing? You forget
yourself.”

With a quickening of his heart, he came back
to the present. She was waiting for more dishes to wipe. Slowly,
but not so slow as to cause further comment, he continued washing
the dishes, as her hands caressed each cup and plate slowly and
lovingly. When the dishes were done, and he feared he was finished,
he spotted the pots and pans on the stove.

“I’ll pour fresh water for the pots,” he
told her.

“Let’s just let them soak overnight,” she
cooed. “No hurry about them.”

“It’s all right,” he said with a surge of
will. “I don’t mind.” As he propped the back door open with a piece
of firewood, the frigid air swooped in like a bird for the kill. He
took the dishpan outside, flung the greasy water over the stoop,
turning it instantly to ice. Returning, he pushed the sleeves of
his woolen shirt and his winter underwear up to his elbows,
attacked the pots as though in a duel to the death, determined to
undo their dirty, begrimed faces. Somewhere in the distance he
thought he heard her say, “That’s enough, Jorie. They’re only
pots.” But something made him keep scrubbing, polishing, pouring
every ounce of his sap into this task.

It was her hand on his shoulder that finally
brought him back. The hair on the back of his neck went up, his
hands fell limply down in the warm water.