Romeo Blue (24 page)

The letter was never finished and never sent. There appeared to be others and all of them were never mailed. In one he spoke of me and his great longing and sadness over not seeing me or knowing me. I closed up the writing box and went over to the Victrola and put on a record. I chose “I Think of You.” Not because I wanted to wallow or drown in tears but because it had been Gideon’s favorite song and I wanted Dimples to know my father. “Dimples, do come in here and listen to this song,” I said.

She wove her way into the library a bit cautiously. She was dragging Wink by his ear.

“You’re hurting Wink. He always had very sensitive ears, actually. I never carried him that way,” I said.

“He likes it,” shouted Dimples. “He likes being dragged about by his ears. He told me. He told me.” She kept shouting and shouting and finally she started to cry.

I went over to her and I put my arm round her. I suddenly realized how confused and alone she felt. After all, she was far away from her home and from her own mum. “We shall be all right, Dimples,” I said. “We shall go on waiting and waiting and hoping. And I think we should ask The Gram if she could make Wink some new clothes. I bet she can make him the best pajamas any bear ever had.”

Derek was shattered by all this. He had a look about him, like a sturdy plate that had been dropped too many times. Every morning before school, he walked off way down the shore and I could see him tossing small rocks into the water over and over again. Now we were like other families in Bottlebay, not knowing anything about their brothers or fathers or uncles or cousins. We did not know where Danny was. We did not know if my father was alive or dead. Not knowing left you feeling heavy and confused, with your feelings all in a bottle inside you.

Last week our seagull, Sir William, had shown up on our porch with three fat gray children, all of them waiting to be fed. Miss Elkin was visiting and confirmed Sir William was a girl seagull and not a boy as we had previously thought. We now needed to change her name. I did not think a girl should go flying about with a name like
Sir William
. I would have loved so to tell my father about his pet. But I could not. Perhaps he would never know now.

We sent packages of biscuits and our homemade jam and sweaters and socks to the last address we had for Mr. Henley but we got no reply. And it was Dimples who asked after we’d mailed off the package if a soldier would
need a wool sweater in North Africa. And The Gram rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, how could I be so foolish? You’re right, Dimples, of course. No one wears wool in that climate in the spring, which is, God willing, just around the corner.”

In the middle of March, Dimples found a whole collection of ladybugs that had wintered over in the house, upstairs. She captured about five of them and had them in a jar in our room. She put a tiny thimble of water in for them and sometimes she let them out to wander about on her arms. One day one of them got lost under the dresser and Dimples had a terrible fit until Derek helped her find it.

We read in the
New York Times
that month that the Allies were planning to send planes to bomb Germany “around the clock.” And I did hope that didn’t make the Nazis bomb London all the more. We had real baths, instead of sponge baths, that month too, when it began to warm up enough in the bathroom to be able to stand it. Dimples told us that when she took a bath in England, the government said you could only have five inches of water in the bathtub. Did they measure the water with a ruler? I wondered. And I hated war and I said so every night before I went to sleep.

And then on a warm evening in late March, the sort of evening at the end of winter that appears out of nowhere, when the air is strangely thick and balmy and new, we decided to pull out the wicker porch chairs
and sit outside. The four of us, on the darkened porch, were rocking away all bundled up in our coats. We were rocking in rhythm with the surf and watching the searchlights across the water, when the telephone rang.

The Gram began to shake and she wouldn’t get up even when I tugged and pulled at her. But she wouldn’t budge. She just kept calling out, “No. No. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.” And finally I ran to the phone and grabbed the receiver. I too did not think I could bear any more bad news.

“Hello,” I called into the phone.

“Hello,” a voice called back. “Is it Felicity?”

“Yes,” I called, “who is this?”

“It’s your mum, Winnie, darling. Can you hear me? Are you there? You sound so grown up. I’m just arrived back in the States. Are you there? Hello, darling? Say something. Have we been cut off? Hello?”

“Winnie! Winnie!” I said. “Is it really you?”

The phone started buzzing and sputtering. “Hello? It’s your mum, darling. I have so wanted to hear your voice, my baby. I am going to be trying to come there tomorrow, although Bill thinks I’m too weak.” She started to cry. “But I shall be fine. Can you make up a bed for me? I’m awfully tired, darling. Can you hear me?”

“Oh, Winnie, yes, we can make you a lovely bed. Oh, Winnie, I’ve missed you so. I nearly died waiting for you,” I said.

“I shall see you tomorrow. I have a ride, says Bill. It’s all arranged.” Her words trailed off and grew faint. “He’s been so very nice. I’m awfully tired, darling. I shall see you tomorrow, perhaps. Is that just lovely, then? Okay, my darling. Good night, then.”

“Winnie! Winnie!” I called out again. “Winnie. Oh, Winnie. Don’t hang up. I have waited so long. Good night. Will I really see you tomorrow? How will you get here?”

“Yes, darling. It’s all been arranged.” The phone began buzzing and sputtering again. “I’ve lost a bit of weight, you know. Don’t be shocked, will you? And I imagine you are a big girl now.”

“Oh, Winnie, shall I tell The Gram? What shall I say?” But I don’t think she heard me because, soon enough, the line was empty and an operator broke in. And then I held the receiver in my arms and I shrieked and cried at the very top of my lungs. I screamed at the very tippy top of my whole being. “Winnie! Winnie! Winnie! My mum, Winnie, is coming home. She is back. Winnie is coming home!”

The next day the sky was as gray and blue as the pearly inside of a mussel shell. The wind was coming in from the south, the clouds high and tumbling. I don’t know how Winnie ended up approaching the house from way down the shore. Perhaps her ride had left her off at the wrong spot along the water or she had taken a wrong turn herself or maybe she just wanted to look at the ocean first before knocking on our door, but there she was, walking up the shore just as I always knew she would, just the way I had seen my mother coming towards me so many times in my mind. The water pearly blue, her dress the same color, the sky too chiming in, matching that soft blue note. All of it melting into wind and wholeness, her hair loosened and blowing. She was limping.
God, Winnie, don’t limp. Don’t look so thin and so tired. The wind could carry you away. Don’t let it. Don’t move. Be there really. Really.
I ran towards my mother. She seemed farther and farther away, the faster I ran. And she seemed hardly aware of the wind that battered and ruffled her.

“Winnie,” I called out, rushing along the shingles and sand and mud. I raced and ran and for a moment it felt like I would never reach her, that I would run and
run and I would never get to her. She suddenly seemed so far away, so far away. Then in a cloud of wind and salt spray I rushed upon her. “Winnie!” I shouted again. I threw myself into her arms and she fell into mine and as soon as I had my head on her shoulder, I realized I was bigger and taller and older now, that I wasn’t the same little girl anymore. Winnie felt small to me and her eyes were huge and full of something new, something I did not recognize.

It was all a jumble of sky and sea and tears. Winnie’s voice sounded lost and wavering and her arms were thin. When she and I stumbled up to the porch, The Gram stood at the screen door. Her face was frozen and still. Winnie leaned against my shoulder and looked at The Gram. “Helen,” she said through the mesh of the screen, “Helen, may I come in? I’ve been on a long, long journey and I am very tired and I have lost so much.”

The Gram didn’t answer.

“May I ask you for a place to rest, just for the time being?” said Winnie. She laughed in a weakened, soft way. “I shan’t take up much room and I promise to be quiet.”

The Gram stood there saying nothing for the longest time and then she backed away from the door and I led my mother into the parlor. In the moments that followed, The Gram began to step back a little more and a little more until finally she turned and went upstairs into her room and shut her bedroom door.

Winnie sat down on the sofa and took off her shoes. Her feet and legs were dotted with faded bruises and old scratches and for some reason she began to shiver. She pulled a crocheted blanket across her lap so that I wouldn’t see the marks on her legs. She was shy about that and about her wrists as well. “It’s been almost two months and they are practically all gone now,” she said and she took my hand and I sat down beside her. And for a moment I too felt shy, as if a stranger had come for a visit.

“Would you care for some tea?” I said finally. I spotted Dimples then, peeking round the corner and I shook my head and waved her away.

“Yes, thank you, darling,” said Winnie, closing her eyes and squeezing my hand. “Yes, oh yes, tea would be lovely.”

“The Gram must be tired today, if she forgot to say hello. Sometimes she can be forgetful, especially because of Gideon. We’ve been so very worried about him.”

Winnie rested her head on the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. “Hush, darling. Yes. We’ll talk about all that when I’ve rested. Now I need to sleep. Did I tell you how lovely you are, do you know? And you are so much taller! But you are still my pretty little child. Oh, I have missed you.”

She spoke with her eyes still closed and she squeezed my hand again and I suddenly wanted to shout at The Gram, “Come downstairs and greet my Winnie. She did
not mean to hurt anyone. She’s been gone so long and she’s tired!”

But The Gram did not come out of her room. I thought for a moment I heard her on the stairs but it was only the sound of the sea that always seemed to transform itself and rise up and become yet again a kind of unexpected visitor in the Bathburn house. I made a pot of tea but Winnie fell asleep on the sofa and never drank any of it.

And then I went upstairs into the spare bedroom at the back of the house. Dimples followed me without saying one word. I opened the curtains and put fresh sheets on the bed. The sheets were cold and smelled of sweet cedar when I took them from the wooden chest. This room had hand-stenciled birds as wallpaper. Cardinals and orchard orioles flew all over the walls and above the doors. In the cupboard was an old doll with a wax head and a calico dress. Dimples watched me as I put the doll on the pillow next to where my mum would lie. Winnie had a small shopping bag of clothes with her. They were new, with tags hanging from them and they did not look like clothes she would pick out for herself.

Derek finally helped me lead Winnie to her room. He called her Aunt Winifred. When she sat at the edge of her bed, she looked at Derek and said, “I don’t believe we’ve met and I’m so sorry about that. I suppose you’re my nephew, but are you Miami’s son?”

“No,” said Derek, looking down.

“Am I unaware of Gideon’s marriage? Are you Gideon’s son?”

“No,” said Derek, turning to the window.

“Well then, dear heart, we will talk about it. I’m a good listener. You will tell me all about it when I wake up later.”

Derek turned round quickly and his face lit up. Every freckle seemed suddenly a tiny point of light. Later that afternoon as Winnie slept, Derek disappeared and I stood at the back window in Winnie’s room and watched him bicycling along the road to town.