The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay (24 page)

“She’s uppity, that Hillock girl. Poured the lemonade all over the violets. The juice of three lemons. Not good enough, I suppose. Not good enough for her.”

“Three lemons?”

“She’ll be laughing at me. Making fun of me at that rich woman’s house where she works. And the steak all over gristle. I can’t make my biscuits now. She’s been to school. She studied biscuits.”

“Now, Jessie, you make the meal you planned. We’ll all enjoy it.”

Idella didn’t know what to do. She looked down at the table. The forks were wrong. She couldn’t help but notice, after all her time in service. It was her training. She saw that the dessert forks were switched with the main course.

“Should we sit?” She looked over at Edward, who was now staring out the dining-room window.

“Sit if you want to.” Idella didn’t know if he was angry at her or at his mother.

From the kitchen Mr. Jensen’s voice was like a radio playing music low. The clamor and scrape of pans on the iron stove indicated some activity now. There was a sudden loud sizzle when the meat hit the pan. Idella knew by the sound that the pan was too hot. Way too hot.

She felt ill. All that lemon juice was seizing up down there and puckering her insides.

Mr. Jensen stood in the doorway. “Sit, Miss Hillock. Sit. Soon we will be eating.” He placed a bowl of peas and a dish of pickle relish onto the middle of the table.

There was visible smoke now, coming from the kitchen. And Mrs. Jensen was calling Mr. Jensen to help turn something over. The meat must be glued to that pan.

Eddie had already set himself down across from her. He was silent, not even looking at Idella, sunk in on himself. Idella reached across the table to pat his hand. “Eddie,” she whispered, “it’ll be over by midnight.”

Eddie smiled. It was slow coming across his face, but it finally came. “Maybe it’ll just be starting,” he said.

“I mean the meal, Eddie. It’ll have to be over by then.” She giggled. “I need to be back to the Grays’ by then.”

“I was thinking of dessert,” he said, reaching to squeeze her outstretched hand.

“Shortcake?” she asked, smiling.

“Mmm,” he said. “With cream.”

“The potatoes! I forgot the potatoes!” A wail came from out of the kitchen. “Oh, there’s no time for them now. No time. Everything is ruined!”

Mr. Jensen came in, carrying a platter with the steaks laid out across it. They looked as dry as last year’s cow patties, Idella thought. There was no juice whatsoever under, over, or between them—just dry plate.

Mrs. Jensen came in at the very last, more composed than Idella expected, and took her seat at the head of the table. She carried a basket covered with a linen cloth and placed it on the table right up against her own plate, like she was protecting it. That must be the biscuits.

Idella praised each dish extravagantly as it was passed to her. When her plate was fully loaded, she set about to cut a piece of steak. It was challenging. Panfried, Idella thought—it’s more like tanned leather. She took a small bite. A bit of gristle would have added some sweetness. “Oh, this steak is so satisfying.”

“I’m sorry about the potatoes, Idella. New little potatoes, they were. So good right out of the ground.”

“These things happen,” Idella assured her. “We have so much good food here already.”

“With fresh butter and pepper. That’s how we were going to have them. Butter made right here. Jens whipped it up for them potatoes.”

“Ma, I think we should stop talking about potatoes, seeing as we won’t be getting any.”

“Don’t be rude to me, Edward.”

“Why sit there and talk about what we aren’t going to have?”

“Don’t you go blaming me. I tried. But it’s too much to do everything all by myself. It is too much!”

Mr. Jensen raised his hand up. “Eddie, Jessie, please. It don’t matter about the potatoes.”

“No,” Idella said. “No. We have no real need of potatoes.”

“If I had more help around here instead of doing it all myself, I’d of had time to remember the potatoes.” Mrs. Jensen was on the point of tears again. Those damned potatoes. Idella was ready to eat them raw.

“Tell me now, Miss Hillock, have you been in this country for long?” Mr. Jensen steered to a new topic.

“Just three years. But it was just . . . you know, just Canada. Not far. Not like coming to a foreign country.”

Jens smiled. “Yes, I know what that is like. When I came over, all of my papers for work were in Danish. You know—letters that people wrote about me as a worker. No one here knew what was in them. They could have said I was a lazy good-for-nothing and no one would know better.”

“I’m sure they didn’t say that.” Idella liked him so much. It was calming just to look over at him. His eyes spoke right to you.

“Well, I should hope not,” Jessie chimed in. “I hope they said something better than that.”

“Of course they did, Jessie dear.
I
could read them.”

“Oh, yes, o’ course. I forgot.” She actually smiled. “I forgot that Jens can read the Danish.”

“What sort of work did you do in Denmark, Mr. Jensen?”

“Well, we had the farm, sure, we all worked the farm. But I also worked in a clothing store for men in Copenhagen. I enjoyed seeing the different people and helping them. It was a change from the loneliness of the fields.”

“Oh, yes, I know what you mean. Dad talks about how lonely it gets being out in the field all day. Course, he likes it, too. Nobody to bother him. That would be the other side to it. Nobody to tell him what to do.”

“Well, I tell Jens what to do.” Jessie was smiling. “I tell him what needs doing and when. Don’t I, Jens?”

“Well, nobody’s going to tell
me
what to do.” Eddie leaned forward. “I’m going to rule my own roost some day. And there won’t be any damn chickens in it, I can tell you that.” He laughed at his own joke.

“You’ll need eggs, Eddie,” Mrs. Jensen said. “You can’t have eggs without the chickens to lay them.”

“I know that, Ma. I know all about that.”

“Why, Edward.” Mrs. Jensen’s face flushed red.

“I can go get me some eggs down at Foley’s. I can let somebody else’s chickens lay my eggs.”

“This is no conversation for the supper table, Edward. Really. More peas, Miss Hillock?”

“Please!” Idella held her plate under the heaping bowl, to catch the peas.

There was too much food. Mrs. Jensen was fueled to animation by Idella’s ornate compliments. She blushed with pleasure at praise of her peas and gurgled happily when Idella asked for more of that homemade pickle relish, though she didn’t really think it went with the meal. The more Idella managed to eat, the chattier and happier Mrs. Jensen became.

“Look, Idella! It’s that Masterson girl!” Mrs. Jensen was pointing. “See, look out the window there. Pull back the curtain, Eddie, so Idella can see. There she is sitting under that tree over there on the lawn. See her? Right out there for all the world to see.” Mrs. Jensen lowered her voice. “She is in the family way. I know it. Looks high up in her, too. Could be turned wrong. They get that shape when the baby’s turned wrong. That’s what happened to Ethel with her first one. Breech, they call it. Almost killed her.”

“Ma, let’s not talk about this now.”

“That doctor had to cut her right down through to get that baby out. To half an inch it was from her rectum. Half an inch, I swear, is all. I saw it. I saw.”

“Ma!”

“Oh, my.”

Edward was pale. “Ma, please.”

“My dear, maybe we shouldn’t bother Idella with these details.” Mr. Jensen put his hand over his wife’s. She batted him away.

“I have never seen a baby come out so hard. All turned around, he was. Facing the wrong way. Cord around his neck. It was wrapped right around it, thick as a rope. A thick rope. It’s a wonder she didn’t burst right open. I thought honest to God it was going to happen and we’d lose her and the baby. Half an inch to her rectum. No more than that.”

“Ma, please.”

“My babies come out pretty easy compared to that.” Mrs. Jensen smiled and nodded toward Edward. “Eddie got the Scoullar legs like me. Ethel, too. Now, Ethel is my own daughter, and I love her, of course, but I knew when she was born, from the day she was born, that she would not be smart. Or pretty. She’s a good girl, but those two features are not hers.”

“Well, I haven’t met her yet. Eddie’s told me about her situation.”

“Oh, yes. Terrible. Left alone with three boys to raise. Husband killed at the mill on Thanksgiving. Terrible shock. They had him working in an ice storm, you know. His own father sent him out that night. His own father.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Idella whispered.

“Now, my Albert was smart. I like to think that he became a doctor. You can tell right away with babies. Albert was smart.” She smiled at Idella. “Any more steak? I’ve saved you a nice second cut.”

“Oh, no thank you, Mrs. Jensen. I’ll burst. It’s all so good. So delicious. I’m saving some room for the shortcake. I’m so looking forward to that. Why don’t you have that extra piece yourself?”

“Yes, my dear,” Mr. Jensen said. “You take that last piece.”

Mrs. Jensen shook her head. “You know I always seem to make that little bit of extra. Like for another person. Enough for one more. It’s Albert’s portion, I tell myself. That extra portion would have been for my Albert.”

“I’ll take it, Ma,” Eddie said, handing his plate toward his mother.

“Albert would be twenty-seven years old now. Imagine. Probably tall like Jens.”

“Ma, I’ll take that last piece.” Eddie reached across the table and forked the last steak. He was red in the face.

“Eddie!”

“Well, what about me?” He was shouting. “Did you decide about me? Did you have me down for feeding the chickens on the day I was born? Pulling the goddamned weeds from your garden!”

“Edward!” Mrs. Jensen gasped.

“I’ve heard all I’m ever going to hear about Albert! He was a goddamned baby, is all!” Edward rose up out of his chair and pounded his fist on the table. “A goddamned
baby
! He wasn’t anything. He died before he lived. ‘If Albert had lived. If Albert had lived.’
I’m
here, goddamn it.
I
lived. You’re crazy, do you know that? You are a crazy woman, and if Albert had lived, he would have hated you, too, just like I do. A goddamned crazy woman.” The silver trembled against the plates. “And Ethel isn’t pretty! I’ve heard that enough. And she’s not smart. But she got out of this house. Away from your watching, watching, always watching. Always saying a mean thing. Crazy old lady sitting on the porch all day, watching.”

He grabbed his dinner plate and clutched it, shaking. Idella thought it might break down the middle, he was holding it so tight. Peas rolled off onto the floor. Their soft tumbling was all that could be heard. No one moved. Then Edward threw the plate across the table toward his mother. “Here! Give this to Albert. Give him my supper!” It landed with a thump in front of her, knocking over her glass. Water pooled and spread, a darkening puddle in the white linen.

He stormed from the dining room, sending a last tremor through the dishes on the table, and out the back of the house. The screen door screeched open and slammed shut. Idella sat, stunned, staring at her plate. There was a crack in it, a faint crack like a vein that linked the dried bits of meat, disappeared under the peas, and ran off the side, right up to the gold rim.

“Well,” Mrs. Jensen finally said, her voice gone all funny. “Well. Well.”

Mr. Jensen righted the spilled glass and sopped the water with his napkin. He took Eddie’s plate, bent down, and gathered up peas from the floor. Nothing was said. He worked gently and quietly. His long arms reached carefully across and in front of Mrs. Jensen, scraping up food.

She seemed not even to see him. The cameo brooch was heaving up and down on her blouse, like it, too, was gasping for air. She moved her head back and forth and began making whimpering sounds. She pursed and unpursed her lips, as though wanting to speak.

Idella felt so heavy—her head, her arms, her chest, all so heavy. She couldn’t move. She dared not speak. She only lifted her eyes in thanks when Mr. Jensen removed the plate from in front of her.

“The shortcake. My biscuits,” Mrs. Jensen simpered. The starch was all gone out of her. She peered up at Idella, so sad looking. Her thick glasses reflected the glare of the overhead light. “Do you want shortcake, Miss Hillock? Strawberry shortcake?”

“No thank you, Mrs. Jensen,” Idella answered. She stood and pushed her chair in. “I’d best go find Eddie. I think he went out back.”

She stepped carefully out of the dining room, past the slumped, chittering figure of Eddie’s mother. Mr. Jensen was cooing her to calmness like a mourning dove, gently stroking her hand.

Idella walked through the kitchen. Such a nice big kitchen, she thought. She saw the iron skillet askew on the eye of the stove. Dried clumps and shreds of burned meat clung to its bottom in thick patches. Its surface needs priming, Idella thought. A black iron pan is no use for frying if you don’t take good care of it.

The back room was taking on the evening’s coolness. Its darkness was soothing. Idella walked on through it, past the jars of preserved jams. I wonder what those are like, she thought. Sour probably. Or runny. Poor old soul. She noted the nice stacked shelves along the walls, some lined with empty canning jars. This back room did make a nice summer kitchen. She reached the screen door and swung it open. The raspy, hawing sound of the rusty hinge filled the air like an old crow’s call. She stood for a moment, holding the door open, looking out over the garden and field. Chickens quietly clucked in the little henhouse, their gentle pips of noise adding to the sense of quiet. A firefly blinked. Another, farther out.

And there was Eddie, over by the strawberry patch, scooched down on his haunches. He, too, was looking out at the field—a soft gray figure silhouetted in the dimming light, fuzzy around the edges as though sitting in a private fog. Mist rose up from the long field grasses and sat like puffs of smoke in the lower dips and hollows. Idella slipped gratefully out of her new shoes—she wasn’t used to wearing that much heel—and stepped down onto the cool, dark grass. She walked toward Eddie, choosing to let go the screen door so it screeched and banged closed behind her. Not for the last time, she thought, as she padded toward him, smiling. Not the last time she’d hear that screen door bang.