Anna Solomon - Leaving Lucy Pear

It seemed unnecessary. It seemed a betrayal. Then she turned nine and Roland bumped into her one night, in passing. The force knocked her to the opposite wall. He walked on. She thought it was a mistake; Roland touched none of his children, not even on the head or hands, as if to preclude some idea — his own? the neighbors’?—that he must beat them. But the next evening, passing her in the same doorway, he touched her arm, the upper part where she was soft: with one finger he drew a straight line down, quick but hard enough to leave a mark. Since then, every so often, he poked or pushed her in this way: without warning, and on an almost-but-not-quite-private part of her, and so silently and inscrutably, Lucy wondered if she had dreamed it. She felt pain, but only briefly. The next day, Roland would smile at her. He had a sudden, toothy smile not a single one of them could resist, the kind of smile that if seen only once a month made amends for the other twenty-nine days, his eyes shining as impishly as a child’s. Maybe she had it wrong. She said nothing. Complaints were not tolerated, and besides, who would believe that Roland had behaved so strangely? He was tempestuous and prone to shouting, but this was not like that. This was like another man, like Roland’s dark, quiet cousin emerging, but only for Lucy. This was, undoubtedly, Roland’s punishment for her having wondered. Worse, each time he did it, she wondered more. Which would only lead, she feared, to more punishment. And so, it seemed, she was trapped. Which was why she planned to go to Canada, to Peter.

Lucy let Anne and Maggie comb her hair. The yard smelled of pinesap, and more faintly of fish — down at the cove, a field of cod had been laid out on racks to dry. If Quebec was inland, she thought, maybe it wouldn’t stink of fish. From the top of the hill, the crazy old widow Mrs. Greely called for her crazy cats. Beast! Lover! Old man! Lucy counted the money again, gave one penny to each of her siblings, for their labors on the shack, which she was supposedly in charge of. Then she went inside to wash her face and change into her dress before their mother came home.

After the fire of 1873, the Bent heirs had been heartbroken and brash and, in the rebuilding, had overlooked or dismissed a number of elements, some trivial, like a weather vane that would have been stolen anyway when young men from neighboring towns started stealing such things decades later, and some more important, like gutters. The original house wore 240 feet of copper gutter, a glorious, greening skirt you could see from across the harbor. But now there were none at all, and when it rained hard, as it did today, the whole house appeared to be crying.

Inside, the furniture and rugs perspired: the resulting odor was mosslike and sweet. Bea had been watching the rain since she woke, a straight, windless, dumping rain that drove holes into the grass and formed lakes in the driveway. She’d watched, mesmerized, until Emma ran in saying, “Sorry! Dammit. Oh! Sorry! I’m soaking the floor, I hate the rain,” looser in mood than Bea had seen her, and Bea smiled. “I know!” she agreed, though she didn’t hate rain. It was a relief now and then, particularly in summer when the sun and birds and sparkle off the harbor started to feel a little pushy, even depressing, if one didn’t feel just the same. Also, the rain drowned out the terrible sound of the whistle buoy. Bea could see the buoy, if she walked out to the road’s end and lifted Ira’s binoculars to her eyes: a finger of steel rising out of the water. Seeing its mournful sound come from its rocking and its rocking come from the sea, the plain, material order of the thing, temporarily eased her loathing of it. But at night, waking in the dark, she felt as if a great bird had been sent to harass her, a braying, whining creature with talons bigger than her own feet. At the thought of her own feet, Bea would become aware of a cramping there — she would try and fail to move her toes. And because this was a problem she had experienced before, at Fainwright and on several occasions since, always resolving by morning, she told herself it must be benign. All in your head! she heard Nurse Lugton say. But then another voice would enter, like an actor onto a stage, a character more vigilant and afraid, convincing Bea that this time she was in for it — this time she would be paralyzed. Her feet would grow hard as rocks and she would sit up, to make sure she could still do that, then she would swing her legs off the bed and lower herself onto her feet, to see if she could do that, and her feet, somehow, would hold her, they felt balled and worthless but they went on functioning as feet, and she would say, out loud, “Damn whistle,” as if adding a real voice to the room might jar her out of the debate in her head. She would lie down again and try to fall back to sleep. Sometimes she could but often she couldn’t and she would lie and sit and lie awake like this, harassed by the buoy, for hours.

But the rain washed out the sound of the buoy and Bea hoped it would continue all day and through the night. She had loaned Emma a dry dress and now Emma stood in front of her, wearing it, a drapey, pinkish brown silk thing, very modern, Lillian had said, presenting it to Bea, what all the young women are wearing, “young” hit hard as a challenge to Bea, and Bea was thinking how much better it looked on Emma, even though Emma had to be at least ten years older than Bea, because Emma was taller and her skin pale enough to set off the pinkish brown whereas on Bea the color seemed to merge with her skin and the fabric caught on her hips and it looked, generally, like a dress wearing a woman rather than the other way around.

“I’ll have to give you that dress,” she said.

“No,” said Emma. “You shouldn’t even let me wear it. It’s not a dress for working in.”

“Don’t work today.”

“Of course I’ll work. Ira…”

“He’s taking a tub. When he’s out, yes. For now, sit?”

Emma frowned. Bea wasn’t sure what had caused such a need in her this morning for company — it had flown in with Emma, a damp hollow in her throat.

“Please. Sit with me.”

Emma continued to stand, arms crossed at her breasts, the small, perky kind Lillian had wanted for Bea. “I’m a good deal older than you, Mrs. Cohn.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’m not certain. I apologize for saying it.”

“Meaning you should be the one telling me what to do? Or that you don’t want to sit with me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No.” Bea was sorry. Emma was clearly uncomfortable in the dress, and with the idea of making small talk with her boss. All the energy she’d arrived with was gone. Bea would have excused her, in another circumstance. But in this one, she didn’t want to be alone.

“How about a compromise,” she said. “You make tea — that counts as work. Then you drink it with me.”

Emma didn’t move.

“Are you worried I’ll tell on you?” Bea laughed. “I don’t owe Josiah Stanton that much.”

“Story.”

“What?”

“His name is Josiah Story.”

“Right.” Bea was now certain they were having an affair. “Doesn’t he bring you here to woo me? Wouldn’t he want you to do what I want, even if it’s sitting with me, pretending to be my friend?”

• • •

They sat at the card table in the parlor, by the window. They were quiet for a while, listening to the rain hammer the earth, watching it jump back up and fall again. Bea reached into the piano bench nearby, withdrew a small bottle of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, poured more than the recommended dose into her tea, then positioned it over Emma’s cup. “Yes?”