Кристина Клайн - A Piece of the World

I WRITE TO Walton after the holidays, wishing him a happy 1917, telling him about the presents I received from my brothers and the flannel shirts I sewed. I describe the suckling pig we roasted in a pit Al built in the yard, the blueberry compote and fried apple cake, the chicken stew with squash dumplings and the drink Sam concocts on New Year’s Eve: rum, molasses, and cloves in a mug with boiling water, blended with a cinnamon stick. Whaler’s Toddy, it’s called. I strive to convey the flavor of our humble rituals, the camaraderie and clamor of a house filled with boys, a feeling of well-being and holiday cheer that isn’t so much exaggerated in the telling as enhanced. I do my best to avoid a plaintive undertow.

I don’t understand. Why haven’t you written?

Days pass, weeks. Months. I thought I was used to waiting. This is a new kind of hell. My soul feels coated with tar.

I berate myself for the letter I sent, filled with mindless chatter about our simple rituals. What I have to share is paltry, insignificant, domestic. And yet it’s all I have to give.

As winter turns to spring I slog to the post office, zigzagging through the snow and slush. Bills, flyers, the Saturday Evening Post . “Nothing for you today, Christina,” Bertha Dorset says, her prim voice threaded with pity. I want to lunge across the counter and throttle her until her face purples and she gasps for breath. But I take the mail and smile.

Even when the snow melts and the crocuses bloom I am cold, always cold, no matter how many blankets I pile on my bed. In the middle of the night, I listen to the wind screaming through gaps in the wall. I remember a story I read once about a woman who goes mad trapped inside her house and comes to believe that she lives behind the wallpaper. I am beginning to wonder if I will stay in this house forever, creeping up and down the stairs like the woman in that story.

IT IS A warm morning in May when I see Ramona out the kitchen window, striding toward the house across the grass, head down, shoulders squared. I’ve thought about this day all winter. I sink into my old chair beside the red geraniums. Lolly springs onto my lap and I stroke her back. Ordinarily I would get up, put a kettle on for tea, stand in the doorway to welcome her, but I can’t rally the energy to cover the conversation that I know is coming with the rituals of a friendly visit.

Ramona isn’t surprised to find me in the kitchen. “Hello, Christina. Mind if I come in?” Her smile is wobbly. Stepping across the threshold into the gloom, she squints. “So good to see you.”

I muster a smile in response. “You too.”

“Did I catch you in the middle of something?”

“Just the usual.”

“You look well.”

I know I don’t. I’m wearing an old apron over a plain checked dress. “I wasn’t expecting company.” I start to untie the back of the apron.

“Oh, please don’t change,” she says, adding quickly, “It’s just me.”

“I’m done with the lunch dishes. About to take it off anyway.”

She watches me wrestle with the tie in the back. I can tell she wants to help but knows I wouldn’t like it.

For a moment she hesitates in the middle of the floor. She’s clutching a paper bag and wearing a style of dress I haven’t seen before, yellow and white checkerboard patterned with full white sleeves and three tortoiseshell buttons, a drapey white collar, and a wide waistband. Pale stockings and white leather shoes. Her hair is pulled back in a bun with a yellow ribbon.

“That’s a nice dress,” I say, though her outfit makes me think she must be stopping through on her way to somewhere more exciting.

“Oh, thank you. It’s summery, don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

As if suddenly remembering, she says, “I brought you something! Mama had a crate sent from Florida.” She takes three large oranges out of her bag and sets them on the table. “I’d love to get down to Florida one of these days. I can just see myself lying on a beach on a towel with a big straw hat. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Maybe so.”

“How about we go together? In the winter sometime, when it’s so dang cold.”

I shrug. “I’m not keen on burning in the sun.”

“I forget about your Swedish skin,” she says. “Why don’t I peel us an orange and I can dream about Florida and you enjoy a healthy treat?”

“Well, I just ate lunch . . .” I begin, then relent. “All right.”

She digs into an orange with her thumbs and peels back the thick cratered crust, carefully picks off the white veins. Pulling it apart, she hands me a slice. “Cheers!”

The orange is so sweet, so juicy, that I almost forget how nervous I am.

When we’ve polished it off, Ramona pulls Al’s rocker toward the table and sits down. “I love this old rocker,” she says. “So lived in.” She rubs the arms where the black paint has worn through to wood.

It’s only now, with her hands draped over the arms of the rocker, that I notice a sparkle on her finger—a ring. “My goodness, is that—?”

She blushes deeply, then leans forward and thrusts her splayed fingers toward me. “Yes! Can you believe it? Engaged. I wondered when you’d notice.” The false cheer in her voice is evidence of how awkward this is for both of us. “I would’ve written to let you know, but it happened only a few weeks ago.”

The ring, with a sizable central diamond encircled by a pattern of tiny diamond chips, is more ornate than any I’ve ever seen. I tell her honestly, “It’s beautiful. From Harland, I assume?”

She laughs. “Of course Harland. It got quite serious quite suddenly. We plan to marry in the fall, just a small family wedding. There’s lots to do, goodness! But I’m so glad to be back here now. And to see you.”

“Well.” I think of portly Harland in his funny short-brimmed hat. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It means the world to have your blessing.” Spying Lolly sidling through the doorway, she cries, “Oh, what a pretty cat! So big.”

“She’s a Maine coon. They’re little tigers.”

“Here, kitty.” She clucks her tongue and snaps her fingers.

Lolly freezes, looks back and forth between us.

“She won’t come,” I say. “She’s stubborn and shy. Like me.” As if to demonstrate, the cat streaks across the floor and leaps onto my lap.

Ramona smiles. “You’re not shy. You just like who you like. That cat’s the same way.”

Lolly arches into my hand, insisting that I stroke her, and for a few moments her steady purring is the only sound in the room.

A faint citrus scent lingers in the air.

Finally Ramona sighs. “I have been fretting about how to bring this up. Walton . . . I don’t . . .” She shakes her head, twists one of the large buttons on her dress. “He’s a dear, I adore him, but he can be so exasperating .”

I can’t follow what she’s saying. Walton is a dear? She adores him? “He stopped writing,” I say.

“I know, he told me.”

I grip Lolly’s back so hard that she meows and sinks a claw into my palm, then squirms out of my lap. A bead of blood springs to the surface of my hand. I wipe it on my skirt, leaving a pink smear.

“It was abominable of him. I kept telling him so. And—well—cruel.”

Though I knew this moment was coming, not a single fiber of my being wants to be having this conversation. “Ramona—”

“Let me bumble through this, horrible as it is—I have to. Walton loves you—loved you, I suppose. Oh, Christina.” She sighs. “Every word out of my mouth is as painful for me to say as it must be for you to hear, and I don’t want to do this, but . . .” She stops. Then blurts: “Walton is engaged to be married.”