John Casey - Compass Rose

Even what she said in the mildest way made it worse, even though she waited to say it privately to one or the other—“You know, I think Rose’ll figure that out on her own” or “If I were you, Rose, I’d …” They wanted their fights to hurt. The pair of them wanted to reach complete fury at the same time and exhaustion at the same time and their dark wordless recognition of each other at the same time.

She’d leave them to it. Not yet, not quite yet. Not while Elsie was sitting by Miss Perry’s bed. But she had to go. She’d go and wait for them on the other side of Rose’s stormy adolescence.

Rose stood up and pulled on Mary’s hand. Rose was growing out of her plumpness; her bones were giving her a lift out of girlhood.

Rose said, “Come on. I’ll leave the door open and you call down the stairs — you know all the stuff we need.”

Rose was out the door, swinging through it with one hand on the jamb, then down the stairs in three steps. The room was full of Rose’s voice and will, an Elsie-like swirl of energy that cleared out the last scattered notes of song.

Mary got herself out of bed. Rose had laid everything out — the canister of cornmeal, the butter, the salt, the griddle that stretched across two burners.

She said to Rose, “I suppose you’ll want some, too.”

“Nope. I’m on a diet.”

“Breakfast is no time to diet. By noon you’ll be off somewhere eating junk.”

“Do you know how many calories there are in just one tablespoon of maple syrup?”

“Never mind the calories. You’re growing like a weed.”

“You’ve been saying that for years, and I’m still fat.”

“You’re nothing of the sort.”

“Then how come Mom’s always after me to exercise?”

“Because she’s an exercise fanatic.”

“And you’re a cooking fanatic. Between you and Mom, I feel like a tennis ball. Eat. Go jog. Eat. Go jog.”

“Forget I said anything.”

But Rose was on a tear. “But it’s even worse when you and Mom are on the same side. Mom says, ‘Take Latin,’ and you chime in, ‘Oh, I’ve always been glad I had a little Latin!’—like food has Latin names the way plants do. And—”

“You’re on a diet, fine. But don’t you go sneering at the work I do.”

Rose acted out “Huh?” as if she was playing charades, palms up, fingers spread, face twisted. Then she said, “You know what you are, you’re a thin-skinned rhinoceros. You trample around telling everyone what to do, but if anyone says the tiniest little thing, I mean, like so tiny a normal person wouldn’t even notice, and you get all huffy and like, ‘I’m wounded, oh my God, call nine-one-one.’ ” Rose fell onto the sofa clutching her heart. She lifted her head. “Call the rhinoceros-abuse hotline.”

Mary was still pissed off but about to laugh anyway when Elsie came in. Elsie said to Rose, “What are you doing lying down? You were supposed to bring the johnnycakes.” She took in the unlit stove. “You haven’t even started yet?”

Rose poked her head up over the back of the sofa and looked at Mary, raising one eyebrow (as she’d recently learned to do). Mary was glad she held back a sharp answer when Elsie sat down and held her face in her hands. Rose said, “First I had to call Sawtooth to tell them Mary—”

Mary waved a hand at Rose. “Not just now, Rose.” She lit the burners, tossed the pats of butter on the griddle, and began to mix the johnnycake batter, keeping an eye on Elsie. She waved at Rose to come over to the stove. She put her arm around her and whispered in her ear, “Your mother—”

Rose pulled away and said, “I know. ”

“Listen to me,” Mary said, pulling her back. “She’s doing things and doing things, but there’s not a thing she can do. She knows Miss Perry is dying, but she hasn’t—”

“Accepted it. I know that.”

“You do and you don’t.”

“And besides, if Miss Perry’s asking for johnnycakes …”

“The day before my father died he asked for steamer clams and blueberry muffins. There’s a lot you don’t know. When you were about to be born, your mother wanted to know exactly when, and of course no one could say. No one knows exactly when someone’s going to be born, and no one knows when someone’s going to die. And it’s a good thing it’s a mystery, because a mystery wears you out and slows you down to where you’re not able to think — otherwise, no one could bear to be that close to someone they love who’s that close to eternity.”

As Mary had been pouring this into Rose’s ear, Rose had relaxed and even leaned into her. And now Rose put her arm around Mary’s waist and squeezed and said, “Sometimes you are so corny. ”

Mary went rigid.

Rose moved away. Mary couldn’t bear to look at her. If it had been anyone else, Mary would have slapped her across the face with the wooden spoon.

Rose said, “Oh, God, you’re going ballistic again. I didn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

Mary said in a voice that carried across the room, “Elsie — does Miss Perry like her johnnycakes thin and lacy at the edges or plump?”

Elsie raised her head and said, “Thin.”

Rose said, “Come on, Mary.”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“All right, it may have sounded—”

“Get away from me.”

“Fine. I’m going to May’s.”

After Rose shut the front door behind her, Elsie looked up again. Mary said, “You go on back to Miss Perry. I’ll bring the johnnycakes along in a minute or two.”

Mary wrapped the platter of johnnycakes in a linen napkin and put it in a Sawtooth delivery box that had ended up in her truck. After she dropped it off, she drove to Sawtooth. She saw Rose walking on the shoulder of Route 1, headed home. Rose waved at her to stop. Mary rolled down the window. Rose said, “May told me I couldn’t stay there until I apologized. So I’m sorry.”

“That might be good enough for May. Not for me. Make of that what you want. I have work to do.”

When Miss Perry woke up from her nap, her voice was crusty. It reminded Elsie of granular snow. Miss Perry said, “I believe I saw s-something of what comes after. The afterlife. They were waiting. No one I know. They were waiting for my brain vapors. They didn’t say ‘brain vapors,’ but they thought brain vapors. Odd. I didn’t like it.”

“A dream,” Elsie said. “A bad dream.”

“Please don’t interrupt. The dogs were coming in and going out. I have never kept a dog. My father kept several. Let them out, let them in. I thought, I am old dogs. They murmured approvingly — the ones who were waiting. It was alarming. I did not wish to lose grammar. I did not wish to become dogs. I told you. I told you that later.”

Miss Perry closed her eyes. Elsie thought she’d fallen asleep again, but then she saw that Miss Perry’s fingers were tugging at the edge of the coverlet. Elsie reached for them, felt the awful distance of Miss Perry’s fingers from Miss Perry’s effort to be. Elsie willed herself to touch them. She willed her hand to touch Miss Perry’s, as if it were happening at some other time. Their hands were framed in too sharp a focus. She took a breath to blur herself. If she was to be of any use, she should do simple things simply.

The youngest of the Tran girls was on during the day. She was also the chattiest. She stopped Elsie in the upstairs hall one day and said, “How should I spell my name? My parents spell it L–I, but in American it could be L-E-E or L-E-A, which means ‘field,’ or L-E-I-G-H.”