A Piece of the World(37)

“What do you think?” I blurt finally. “That I am an imbecile? That I have not a thought in my head?”

“It’s not you I worry about.”

“Well, you needn’t worry. I can take care of myself. And besides—as if it’s any of your business—Walton has been honorable in every way.”

Al lowers a stack of plates into the washing pan. “Of course he has. He likes the diversion. He doesn’t want to give it up.”

Clutching a fistful of forks, I turn to him. For a brief moment I contemplate striking him with them, but instead I take a deep breath and say, “How dare you.”

“Come on, Christie, I don’t mean to . . .” Again his voice falters, and I can see, given how unnatural it must feel for him to confront me, how important he considers this. And yet I find him irritatingly simplistic. All the things I ordinarily admire about Al now strike me as deficits: his loyalty no more than fear of the unknown; his decency, merely na?veté; his sense of morality, prim judgment. (How quickly, with a slight twist in perception, do people’s strengths become flaws!)

“What I’m saying is that . . .” He swallows. “His options are many.”

It’s no use trying to explain to Alvaro what love is. So I say, “You might say the same about Papa, when he courted Mother.”

An ironic look flits across his face. “How’s that?”

“He could’ve worked on any ship. Traveled all over the world. But he settled here, with her.”

“Mother had a big house and hundreds of acres.” He flings his hand toward the window. “You know what this house, the Olson House, used to be called.”

I splash the cutlery in the dishwater impatiently. “Did you ever consider that maybe Papa fell in love?”

“Sure. Maybe. Just remember—you have three brothers. This house isn’t yours to inherit.”

“Walton isn’t after this house.”

“Okay.” He dries his hands on a dish towel and hangs it on a hook. “I’m just saying you should be careful. It’s not right for him to keep you on a tether.”

“I’m not on a tether,” I tell him sharply. “Anyway, I’d rather be with Walton for three months in the summer than any of these local boys all year-round.”

One morning after gathering eggs, a few weeks later, I step across the threshold into the house and hear my parents’ voices in the Shell Room, a place they rarely enter. I stand very still in the foyer, cupping the eggs, still warm from the hens, in my hands.

“She’s no beauty, but she works hard. I think she’d make a fine companion,” Papa is saying.

“She would,” Mother says. “But I’m beginning to wonder if he’s toying with her.”

My face tingles as I realize they’re talking about me. I lean against the wall, straining to hear.

“Who knows? Perhaps he wants to run a farm.”

Mother laughs, a dry bark. “That one? No.”

“What does he want with her, then?”

“Who knows? To fill his idle time, I suspect.”

“Maybe he really does love her, Katie.”

“I fear . . .” Mother’s voice trails off. “That he will not marry her.”

Papa says, “I fear it too.”

My cheeks are aflame, my heart beating in my ears. In my trembling hands, the eggs jostle and shift, and though I try to contain them they slip between my fingers and drop to the floor, one after the other, splattering smears of yellow and viscous white across the entryway.

Mother appears in the doorway, looking stricken. “I’ll get a rag.” She ducks away and comes back; crouching, she mops the floor around my feet. Both of us are silent. I’m aware of nothing but my own humiliation, the shock of hearing my silent fears put into words. The screen door slams and I watch Papa go past the window, ducking his head on his way to the barn.

IN SEPTEMBER, WHEN Walton is back at school, he writes, “I think that night we made the trip to Thomaston was the happiest I ever spent. How could you steer, under the circumstances? I believe I was to blame.” He is homesick for Cushing. Homesick for me. “This was the best summer of my life. A large part of that I owe to you,” he writes, signing his letter, “With love, Walton.”

I feel as if a wall of the house has detached from the rest and fallen gently to the ground. I can see a way out, a clear path to the open sea.





WITH WALTON AND the Carles around all summer I don’t need anyone else; my brothers and I buzz around them, moths to their vivid flame. But after they leave, I am lonely. When Gertrude Gibbons, a girl I never particularly liked at school who has grown into a mildly tolerable adult, invites me to a Wednesday night sewing circle run by a professional seamstress, Catherine Bailey, I reluctantly agree. Gertrude, too, makes her own dresses, and between sessions of the group we start sewing together in the evenings sometimes, when the chores are done. It’s a way to pass the time.

On a cool November evening, I take my sewing to Gertrude’s house in a sack slung over my shoulder, a two-mile walk. All day it’s been raining; the road is damp, and I have to walk slowly and carefully to avoid muddy puddles.

“Finally!” Gertrude exclaims when she answers my knock. Round faced and ruddy, with an ample bosom that strains the buttons on her dress, she’s chewing a molasses cookie. Her large black dog barks and leaps. “Down, Oscar, down!” she scolds. “Come in, for mercy’s sake.”