The Seary Line (35 page)

“What truth?”

“You know.”

“That I don't.”

“Yes, you do. You bloody well know.”

Thick silence for a moment then, “That idn't no one's business but my own.”

“Don't be stupid, Mother.” Trace of a slur. “You don't live your life detached from everyone else. We're all like a bunch of damn scales on the same godforsaken fish. You move down by the tail, and I still feels it up by the head.”

“Aren't we getting poetic.”

Big gulp. “No one owns their own life. Not even you.”

Stella pursed her lips, pressed her toes down farther into her slippers. Elise was being unfair. Dragging that matter up, polluting the very air with her sentences. All this in front of a five-year-old.

What was the point of it? Stella decided long ago, if she were ever to tell her story, this would be the part she would leave out. Omit entirely with razor incisions. In her opinion, it added no value, offered no insight into her character. And doesn't everyone deserve to skip a chapter? A few pages at the very least.

Summer pouted, then said in a scratchy voice, “Why'd you go and do that for? Upsetting Nan.”

To which Elise replied, “Don't you be fooled, child, nothing don't upset that one.”

Stella patted Summer's hand, said, “Your mother's right. Nothing don't upset this old goat.”

Summer giggled. “Why don't you tell me then? About Pop number two.”

“Oh. Oh, oh. I couldn't do that, darling. There's nothing worth telling. There was no Pop number two.”

“Well, then, make something up.”

“I'm afraid I'm not very good at that either.” Stella reached for the nearest book, pushed up her glasses and held it at arm's length. “How about I read to you instead. Henry Huggins?”

“Good,” Summer replied. “That's my favourite. I love Ribsy so much.”

“All right.” Stella nestled herself on the couch near Summer's head, and the child closed her eyes, sucked her thumb. Stella was tempted to nudge that wet digit away, but didn't. Instead, she stroked Summer's forehead, smooth with youth, and started reading on page one.

“Henry Huggins was in third grade. His hair looked like a scrubbing brush and…”

As the front part of her brain registered the words and spoke them, a deeper part couldn't help but tickle the sleeping memories. And they awakened, much to Stella's dismay, with startling vividness. Yes, she was married the
second time in the legal sense. But her heart never gave into it. Never gave into it at all. He never gave her heart the chance.

Just before Christmas when Elise was fourteen and Robert was nine, the harbour filled with great chunks of ice. Stella could still remember the sound, like dishes breaking, when the pans crowded in. They seemed livid, she had thought, crashing into one another, some buckling sideways, jutting up out of the black water. In the winter sun, it burned her eyes just to look at it.

Everyone thought the ice would last a week, maybe two, and then depart overnight, a crafty visitor who doesn't say goodbye. They would once again relish the sight of the water, choppy with the bitter winter winds. But, this never happened. The ice stayed on, well beyond its welcome. Morning after morning Stella would awake to a brilliant white harbour, nothing more than a seething blanket, a floating trap.

People shook their heads, talked relentlessly about the ice, first praising its beauty, then condemning its cruelty. Can you imagine, they joked and laughed, if the ice were there to stay? What would happen to them all? Stella could not bring herself to mention it. Silliness, she knew, but she worried the ice might find all the attention attractive.

As the weeks continued to creep by, the geniality expired, and people became antsy, snapped at one another. For Stella, the incessant noise began to torture her. Sometimes, she thought it might actually be alive, the ice, calling to her with a cold creaky moan that sent shivers down her spine.

Dried goods were dwindling. Ships carrying supplies and mail were unable to break through, and in late spring, the general store closed. No one banged on Mrs. Fuller's wooden door unless they wanted a wooden spool of thread or a scrap of fabric. Money or credit made no difference as the molasses barrels were empty, flour sacks were flattened, every glass jar of stick candy was void of even a sugar granule.

Stella's pantry was bare. At first, people dropped off the occasional bit of fresh meat, a few rabbits. But the harbour remained bound up, and when people began to worry about their own survival, they were less generous. Stella didn't blame them, she would have done the same if she had only a handful of chickens, diminishing supply of crabapple jelly, a pat or two of butter from a cow who refused to give more. She and the children survived mostly on salt fish and the potatoes they had not planted, cutting away the sprouted eyes.

With the cold breath coming off the ice, the vegetable harvest was poor. Everything was miniature in size, turnip, beet, stubby flavourless carrots. Elise and Robert whined and cried with hunger, grumped over the similarity of every meal. But Stella had little to offer them.

People panicked. A group gathered outside the general store, fists formed, claiming Fuller, who was as robust as ever, and his mother were holding back. Reverend Hickey arrived to calm them, sent them home. On their way, a whippet-thin man named Cornelius Greene went out onto the ice, leaping from pan to pan. Neighbours gathered to watch him, hollered at him, but he kept hopping until he was only a silver dot. A sparkle. Then nothing.

Stella, too, could sense madness in her desperation. Late one night, under a full moon, she slipped down over the icy hill that led to the beach, and with an axe in hand, smashed at the hulking shards. Water rinsed up over her
boots, numbed her feet, and she raised that axe over and over again until she was unable to lift her arms above her head. With frustration fueling her last bit of strength, she tossed the axe out onto the ice with as much force as she could muster. In an instant, the layer of white rippled, and the axe slid off, swallowed without as much as a burp.

Stella sat on the rocks, water washing in, trying to steal the hem of her skirt. Her hands were lead at her sides, and when she pounded the rocks, she didn't feel a thing. Head upon her bony knees, she began to cry. She knew when she returned home, she would not sleep. Only listen to the restless whines of her children as they tossed and turned, bellies filled with damp air.

She stood, clothes sticking to her skin, and began to lumber home. Empty hands, and she felt a flash of anger over her own stupidity. She had lost their axe. She thought of the few axes hanging on the wall of the general store, each held up by two nails, and she glanced over at the building. In a window on the upper floor, a thick shadow nearly obliterated an orange glow behind it. Someone was watching her.

The next morning, a small jug of molasses appeared on her back stoop, along with three rabbits, a braid of onions, raisins, paper packet of salt. Whoops and squeals of childish joy. Noontime dinner fit for a king. Her children loved her that afternoon, shrunken bellies once again stuffed beyond.

When Christmas re-appeared, and the ice showed no sign of departing, Alistair Fuller said he wanted to be married. Have a life away from his mother. Hunger turned her into a repeat bride, hunger and a secret desire for a companion. Plus, there were her two excited children, who didn't notice his empty eyes, yelped instead at the sight of sugar crystals on the corners of his mouth.

As though on cue, shortly after she had said “I do,” the ice departed, leaving a gentle lapping quiet.

“Nanny?” Thumb like a bleached prune.

Stella put down the book, removed her glasses and let them sit on her chest, thin chain holding them. “I thought you was gone to sleep.”

“Then why was you reading?”

“Was I?”

Summer cocked her head, stared at Stella through doubtful glassy eyes. “Do you like Ribsy?”

“Well, yes. He seems like a perfectly lovely animal.”

“When I get a dog someday, I'm going to call him Ribsy.”

“That's a nice name.”

Fists underneath her chin, squeezing. “I love him too much, Nanny. More than Henry Huggins do.”

“I see why. Dogs can be very, very special, Summer. Part of your family.”

Whispering now, “Nan?”

“Yes?”

“Is God in Ribsy?”

Stella sighed, rubbed her chin, pinched at the whisker or two that had appeared there in recent years. Quick peek at the door, all clear, and she whispered back, “If that's what you feel, my duck, then God's most assuredly in that dog. I wouldn't be surprised in the least.”

“That's just what I was thinking too, Nanny.” Thumb in again, talking through her cheek, Summer said. “You can read some more.”

Stella never knew such a man could even exist. Filled with “piss and vinegar” didn't begin to describe him. He had not wanted his mother to attend the small service, had an enormous argument with her on the steps of the church. A yawning rift developed between mother and son. Sulking ensued, and years of swallowed ire started seeping out. The only time he calmed was when Elise sassed him with appalling flirtatiousness, or when Robert cajoled him, drove his small hands into Fuller's coat pockets in search of something sweet.

His first act of violence was against Leander's chair that had been nailed to the sloping roof above the porch. Fuller had heard the rumours, people saying that in a wispy fog, they could often see Leander's ghost perched there. Sometimes, they said, he'd nod cordially as a guest entered his home, reach a chalky hand out to welcome them. Since his death, he was seated above, watching over Stella and the youngsters like a good spirit would. But when Fuller moved in, the sightings changed. Leander was described as being on the edge of the chair, appeared ready to spring forward.

One evening, after he'd returned from working silently beside his mother at the general store, Fuller took Leander's ladder, and without a word, leaned it against the side of the house, hobbled up. Hammer in hand, he slammed the chair until it splintered, icicles exploded, legs and spindles rolled down off the roof, jabbing the snow drift below. Back and base cracked against a bent knee, jammed into the woodstove.

“This is the house of a shopkeeper now. No furniture maker lives here.”

Stella wouldn't permit her mind to dawdle on every slight, every aggression. What would be the point? She already hated that part of herself, hated that she had let him in, and hated that she hadn't the courage to force him out. During those months of marriage, she went entirely limp, shocked into submission.

But there was one act that she had solidly locked in her memory. One unforgettable act. Whenever her mind spat up the secret end to their story, she used it as justification for her lack of action. Sometimes she wished she could bring herself to explain to Elise, but the words would never come. How could she tell her only daughter that she had stood idle while he died because of love for a dog? Justice for a dog.