Mother Lode (23 page)

Slowly he opened the door again. This time
he drizzled the worn dishwater, watching the last drops glisten in
the moonlight as they fell to the snow, the steam rising in the
crisp cold of the northern night. In the distance he could hear the
clip-clop of a single horse. Probably Mr. Kukkonen coming home late
again. He wished he could run to him, help him carry in the bundles
of laundry.

“I better bring in more firewood,” he
stalled.

“Come in, Jorie.” She had done with
coaxing.

Slowly he returned, closed the door, placed
the dishpan on its nail by the stove.

“Follow me.” His mother picked up the
kerosene lamp on the kitchen table and led him to the back parlor,
closing the curtained French doors behind them. The parlor that was
saved for special occasions. The parlor the family rarely saw. They
hadn’t been in this room since last Christmas. Despite its fancy
rug and stuffed furniture, it was always cold, except for special
occasions. Tonight there was no fire, no Christmas tree with
brightly lit candles. His heart leaped with apprehension, as the
room swallowed him.

He watched the shadows dance crazily across
the forbidding room as she carried the single lamp to the
table.

“Rub my feet,” she commanded softly,
wrapping herself in a heavy shawl, and placing her small,
voluptuous body on the horsehair sofa. “I’ve been on them all day,
and Lord knows they ache so. I’m sure you’re the perfect one to
take that pain away,” she crooned.

Jorie slid obediently to the floor and
grasped his mother’s slender ankle, untying her black high top,
loosening the laces slowly. Finally, he slipped the shoe off her
tiny foot and began rubbing it gently, the way she’d taught him
to.

“Grasp it firmly, Jorie, it won’t break!”
The tinkle of her laughter echoed through the sparsely furnished
room.

She smiled indulgently at him and he tried
to take back the hot red blotchy rash he knew was giving him away.
He imagined his embarrassment always heightened the pleasure she
took in him.

Clumsily he rubbed her feet.

“Not so fast, my Precious. Try using a
longer stroke, like this.” She demonstrated on his arm, while he
tried to keep it from shaking.

He continued a few minutes longer, then
started to put her shoes back on.

“No, leave them off, Jorie. Too late for
shoes. Run get my slippers, there’s a good lad.”

He did so, wishing desperately there were
some escape, some way not to return.

“What’s taking so long?”

He came slowly down, crouched again before
her, ready to wiggle the slippers on to her feet.

“Didn’t you notice something, Jorie?” she
stopped him.

He hated it when she asked questions like
that — making him feel stupid and knowing he was about to be told
something he didn’t want to know.

“Feel my stocking — the
one on my foot. There, a little higher on my ankle. All that time
you were feeling your mother’s foot, didn’t you
notice
anything?

He could feel the rash popping out again —
the prickle and the heat, running down his neck like the hot wine
he’d been given at Christmas time.

“What was I supposed to notice?” he mumbled,
staring at the floor.

She pulled something out of her pocket and
dropped it in his lap.

“What’s that?” he muttered.

“Well, pick it up Laddie. What does it feel
like?”

Obediently, because he was unable to be
otherwise with her, he picked up the object.

“Well?” she coaxed.

“It’s a stocking.” He had to say it twice
because the first time his words carried no sound.

“Now feel its texture, and then feel the one
on Mummy’s foot, Dear.”

He felt a sort of murkiness come over his
brain and knew he was making a fool of himself. His mother waited
patiently, seeming to enjoy each tortured moment.

Finally, he came back enough to make contact
with the thing in his hand.

“This one’s rougher. Rougher material.”

“Yes. So that means the one on my foot
is—?”

“Softer,” he felt the idiot, wondering why
her dulcet tones confused him so. He watched as their steamy breath
met in the space between them and became one.

“And? Feel it, dear. Learn to discriminate
between the feel of things. Just as you do between tastes.”

He shuddered,
remembering.
Find the words to describe. .
.
He hoped she wouldn’t say that now. He
had no words to describe what he was feeling, only a chattering of
his teeth, and a familiar sensation in his groin. He wanted to run
from her, or to be so young he could lose himself in the comfort of
her bosom with innocence. But at thirteen he could do
neither.

“Touch it, Jorie.”

He hesitated.

“You’re going to be a writer, aren’t
you?”

He put his fingers on her ankle, could feel
her pulse beating there, took his hand away.

“Silk it is,” she intoned.

He touched it again — first as though it
were a hot coal about to sear him, then slowly, mesmerized by his
mother’s voice, and the smell of her lilac cologne. He lost all
sense of time and forgot how cold he was. A sweet surrender began
to overtake him as he felt her soft hands on his curls, welcomed
her warm breath on his cheek.

And once again, he knew he’d lost to her.
Though all she asked of him was to go to sleep contemplating the
sense of touch, and how different textures could evoke different
sensations.

That winter had more snowfall than the young
folks had ever seen. All over town, people were erecting high
wooden sidewalks three feet above the ground between their homes
and the road. When it snowed, it could be swept off with a
broom.

The streets were rolled, and snowshoes came
out of cellars and sheds sooner than usual, to the annoyance of
adults and delight of children. With the wind sweeping across the
lake, it wasn’t unusual for snow banks to get as high as thirty
feet. Some families were so snowed in, their only escape was
through an upstairs window.

From his bedroom, where he was working on a
Christmas present for Ma, Jorie watched the blizzard continue to
swirl around the fruit trees in the circle drive; soon they were so
white, that as close as they were, he could no longer make them
out.

He wondered if they’d have
a Christmas tree this year. With the snow so deep, and Christmas
only five days away, Jorie didn’t see how they could manage a tree.
Well, that was all right with him. He always felt sorry for the
poor tree anyway. All dressed up with cookies, candies and candles
— but
dead
.
Chopped up a few days later for firewood. He’d read about humans
being sacrificed in other cultures, and now imagined a person being
killed, then propped up and decorated for some peculiar ritual,
later to be cremated, like the discarded Christmas trees. How
uncivilized it all was.

He’d bought his father a new pipe, and he
had finished one present for his mother. Every boy in his
industrial arts class had made a two and a half foot long wooden
fork for turning the clothes in the boiling water on laundry day.
His mother’s old one was cracked, so it was a good time to replace
it.

Now he was working on a diary for her. He
knew she wrote regularly, and she’d mentioned that the last was
almost full. Larger than the others, with wooden covers, it had yet
to be fixed with a strap and clasp. He’d bought fifty pages to put
in it, but others could be added. In a couple more hours he’d have
it finished.

His mother and Helena had been busy all week
making Christmas cookies and candy. Even his father seemed to
appreciate the extra efforts and the special foods prepared for the
occasion; for this Jorie was grateful.

He gave the covers a coat of varnish. In the
morning he’d give them another coat, and attach the strap. Then it
would be finished. To rid the room of varnish fumes, he opened the
window a couple of inches and brushed away the snow that had piled
up on the outer sill. He sucked in the cold evening air and slipped
into bed.

During the night the wind came up and the
snow blew in the window. Jorie awoke to the sensation of a fine
mist blowing onto his face. The storm was over, and with an almost
full moon shining in the clear sky, he could see the fine layer of
snow covering the floor between the window and his bed.

Sounds came to him from another room, as
though someone was being hurt. He lay absolutely still and
listened. Another groan and muffled cry.

His mother!

Grabbing the white blanket around his
shoulders, he crept silently down the hall to her room. He opened
the door softly, but was stopped short by what he saw.

In horror he watched his father grunt and
thrash about on top of his mother. She was moaning, gasping.

He wanted to yell out to his father to stop!
He must do something to protect her. But he stood frozen in his
tracks.

Then he saw his father sink his hands in her
long un-pinned hair and pull her head back, causing her to arch her
back and cry out.

Suddenly, he sprang to action in a stabbing fit of
passion. With no thought for his own safety, he lunged for his
father, grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him off his
mother.

Momentarily startled beyond comprehension,
Thomas quickly recognized the ghostly apparition standing over him.
He came to a full seething rage, rose from the bed and smacked his
son hard across the face with the back of his hand, sending him
flying against the wall.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
he boomed.

Still reeling from the pain and shock, Jorie
could only blink back.

“This is not your room! You are never to
come in here! Do you understand?” his father thundered.

Catherine concurred with Thomas. “How could
you blunder into your parents’ bedroom like a three year old? For
God’s sake, Jorie, you are thirteen! What in the world were you
thinking of?”

Dizzily, Jorie staggered back to his bed,
where he lay miserably in a curled up heap under all his covers.
Although his cheek was radiating shooting pains in all directions,
it was his mother’s words that hurt the most. Her words and his own
self-loathing. He had seen animals fornicate, but there in his
mother’s sanctuary, he had not imagined his parents capable of such
beastly behavior.

How could he have been so far off the
mark?

He heard someone coming down the hall, and
hoped it was his mother, come to soften her words. But the steps
were too heavy. Now he knew it was his father, and freezing in
terror, he waited to receive more punishment for his terrible
invasion of parental privacy.

But the footsteps passed,
and Jorie breathed again. His father would be going back to his own
room. Jorie couldn’t remember the last time his father had been in
his mother’s bed. His thoughts were all a jumble. Had his mother
actually been
enjoying
it? How dreadful, if that were true, that he’d charged in
like a jealous lover, and interrupted something she found pleasure
in.
But how could she?

In the morning the throbbing soreness on his
face forced him into consciousness, immediately reviving the memory
of last night, invading every sinew in his body with guilt and
remorse.

He wondered if he had ever
really believed she was being hurt. Maybe he just didn’t want his
father there with her, doing
that
. He felt betrayed. She’d made
him feel he was the special one, and just sometimes she had to say
things to keep the waters calm between her and Pa.

A sullen truce fell between father and son
and mother and son. On Christmas morn Thomas presented his wife
with a new woolen robe, and Catherine gave him a vest she’d
knitted. Jorie offered his mother the laundry fork he’d made at
school, but did not feel inclined to present her with the new
diary.

It was a solemn time, with less cheer than
Jorie could remember on any previous holiday. Soon Pa left to spend
the rest of the day with his other family members.

The holidays offered no relief from chores,
especially with Helena given a few days off.

When he came downstairs the day after
Christmas, half the morning was gone, and his mother was doing the
laundry. Even before he got to the kitchen, the smell of steaming
wool underwear permeated the house. Piles of dirty clothes lay
about the floor, sorted by color. The clothesline had been strung
on its hooks across the kitchen, back and forth, and his mother was
stirring the clothes on the stove with the new laundry fork.

She heard him but did not turn to look. She
spoke sharply. “As you can see I’m very busy. I haven’t time to fix
your breakfast now.”

“Can I have this bread?”

“Yes. And there’s some bacon.” She nodded to
the warming shelf on the stove.

He ate the bacon and bread, grateful for the
laundry that hung between them, obscuring her view of him. She was
clearly stewing over something. He had no way of knowing whether it
was what he’d done earlier that week, a spat with his father, or
something to do with the laundry.

“When’s Helena coming back?”

“Not until Thursday, and the clothes won’t
wait. You’d better get out of that filthy underwear,” she spoke
sharply. “I need to wash it. Put on something clean.”

“Are you angry with me?”

She was silent.

“What did I do now?”

The bubbling of the boiling water on the
stove pretty much summed up his mother’s mood, he thought.

“Well, don’t tell me, then.”

Her angry face, haloed by wreath of steam,
appeared suddenly between the shirts she jerked apart. “Don’t you
talk to me that way, lad.”