John Casey - Compass Rose

“What do you think, Rose? Fun?”

Rose made noises. She hadn’t said a recognizable word yet, but she’d begun to make noises that seemed to have the rhythm of conversation.

“So we’ll do it again. From the top. Or shall we just lie here?” Elsie spun them around with her feet, and Rose laughed. Elsie acknowledged laughing but not Mary’s reports of singing or saying words. Elsie was the skeptic and was annoyed at Mary for making her the skeptic. Mary, in addition to singing to Rose, talked baby talk to her. When Mary was around, Elsie found herself speaking in formal complete sentences to Rose. Now that she and Rose were alone, she just opened her mouth and wrapped Rose in whatever came out. “She says she doesn’t like babies. What was that about? Was it just an aftershock?”

Elsie spun them around again. Rose said, “Ah,” and then higher, “Ah, ah.”

Elsie said, “Okay. I give in. We’ll call that singing.” Elsie gave another push with her feet. As they spun to face the house, Elsie saw May walk past the station wagon. May disappeared on the other side of the house. Elsie lay still. When she heard May knock on the door, her feet skittered on the snow and the ice, moving the sled a yard or two. More knocking. Elsie turned Rose toward her. She had to twist herself onto her knees to get up. She had no idea; she had a storm of ideas. May reappeared. She might have walked back down the driveway without seeing them. Elsie waved.

May turned her head and stopped. Then she walked down to the pond. Elsie stood still. May came across the ice, taking small shuffling steps that left a channel in the snow. Elsie had forgotten that May was taller than she. Most of the times Elsie thought of May, May was an invisible presence that came up through her and filled her. This May, in her wool overcoat with a scarf over her head, emptied her.

May took off a glove and moved the side of Rose’s hood. She stared at Rose’s face. Rose lifted a hand. Elsie took off Rose’s mittens, May touched Rose’s palm, and Rose held on to May’s finger. May bent her head, and it seemed natural to Elsie to lift Rose higher. Perhaps because Rose felt herself being lifted, she turned and raised her arms. May picked her up and began to rock her gently with a little sway of her hips. Rose put her fingers in her mouth and drooled. May made a little noise, as near to a laugh as Rose’s noise had been. May wiped the drool away with her fingers and dried them on her coat without taking her eyes off Rose.

“You’re a good baby,” May said. “You’re a pretty girl.”

Elsie said, “It may be time for her bottle. Would you like to come in?”

May handed Rose back to Elsie and said, “I don’t believe I can just now.”

“Perhaps another time.”

May looked up at Elsie’s house, then back at Rose. “Perhaps.” Elsie shifted Rose to her shoulder and dropped Rose’s mitten. May picked it up. She said, “That’s hand-knit.”

“Yes. Mary Scanlon knits.” May put the mitten on Rose’s hand. Elsie said, “Mary takes care of Rose most mornings. Here and then at Sawtooth. I’m here after five. Unless I’m with Miss Perry.”

“Yes,” May said. “Miss Perry.”

Elsie couldn’t tell if May was weighing good deeds against bad or if she was still wondering what it would be like to go into the house. Elsie had no idea what details May might have asked Dick to tell, what pictures came to May’s mind. Now it was just as well they were outside, bundled up in winter coats.

May said, “I think Dick should see her. I think he should see her over at our house.”

Elsie took a step back. Then she pretended she was looking for the sled. She bent down and picked up the rope. May said, “Here. You’ll need both hands going up the hill.” May took the rope and led the way, walking in the footprints she’d made. She stopped halfway up and looked at the attached greenhouse.

Elsie said, “I usually have some greens, but this year …”

May didn’t say anything. When they reached the driveway, Elsie said, “Did you leave your car down by Miss Perry’s?”

“I walked. It’s not that far.” May leaned the sled against the side of the house. “You haven’t said anything.” May sounded mild but deliberate. “You haven’t said anything about what I said.”

“I thought … I would have thought …” Elsie felt herself flustering. She took a breath and said, “I thought it would be better if we kept apart.”

May put her glove on and folded her hands. “That’d be fine. If it was just about you and Dick.” Elsie felt herself out of time with May’s steady matter-of-factness. She wondered if May knew what it felt like to listen to these long pauses and short sentences. And then she thought that was the way Dick talked.

“You could keep Rose to yourself,” May said. “Or … Dick could come over here. Least that way Rose would know her father. But then Dick might end up thinking he’s got two families. If Rose comes over to see us, then she’s the one with two families.”

Elsie made a noise. It sounded like the yip of a dog having a dream. Rose stiffened. May nodded once, as if Elsie had said something conversational. May said, “Charlie and Tom don’t know. They will. It’s getting to be not much of a secret. I expect they’ll be hard on Dick for a while. Course not so hard as if they heard it somewhere else.”

Elsie hadn’t thought — or hadn’t let herself think — about Charlie and Tom, about Charlie and Tom judging her. She shrank from it. Then she tightened. She felt herself grow sharper. Had May been busy figuring out more ways to make her feel bad?

She looked at May. May was pulling the ends of her scarf tighter, her eyes on the ground. Whatever energy had brought her up the hill was spent. Elsie didn’t dare imagine the pain and anger May had felt, but she imagined May now. She imagined that May’s short, practical sentences weren’t an attack — they were May’s trying to shift the weight she carried, not that it would be lighter but that there would be some relief if she could carry it differently.

If Charlie and Tom learned about Rose, they would sympathize with May, and that would be part of May’s relief. Hard on Dick. That might be part of the relief, too. Then Elsie wondered how much further along May imagined all this. Did May see herself and her sons sitting around with Dick as he dandled Rose on his knee? Or did May imagine Rose in her own arms? Did she imagine herself growing fond of Rose? And Rose fond of her? And what about when Rose was six or seven? Summer boating with all the Pierces and Elsie — and Mary Scanlon and Miss Perry, too? Jolly flounder fishing, a birthday party?

Elsie looked at the black and white of the trees and snow around them, the hard, low sky. She said, “Just how do you see these visits working?”

May looked up. “Bit by bit. I could get a car seat for Rose. Pick her up one day when Dick’s home. The boys back in school.”

“I’m afraid Rose would be afraid.”

May considered this, nodded. “Maybe you or Mary Scanlon. She’s used to Mary, I guess. One of you could come along till she’s used to us.” May shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest. She said, “Dick was good with babies. When the boys were babies. He’s been a good father. Strict about work, but when they do a good job, he says so.”

“Work … I don’t think I’ve looked that far into Rose’s future. I’m just trying to fit in next month’s doctor’s appointment.”

May said, “Dick’s helping with all that — still making a regular contribution?” She said it mildly.

“Oh, I didn’t mean … Yes, he is.”

May nodded. She said, “I expect you’ll want to think it over. It’s time for me to get back, anyway.”