Leaving Lucy Pear(90)

Later, after supper, but not so late that the answer was sure to be no, not hesitantly or apologetically or half trying to sabotage herself, Bea asked if she could hold Marlene Aimée. The baby was quiet, and wide awake, her blue eyes wandering from Bea to the lamp behind her and back again. Julian mumbled something about how she didn’t often smile at this hour, Bea shouldn’t be offended, but Bea barely heard. She was looking at Marlene Aimée: her radish pink lips, the upper curling over the lower in such a way that she appeared to be on the verge of laughter, the fluffy thatch of dark hair that sprouted like a mushroom from the top of her head, the pert, puggish nose. And the things that would not last: the yellow flaking at her scalp, the fur that grew at her temples, the rash on her cheeks. Now, too, Bea thought, Maybe this will be enough.





Thirty-eight




She boards the train as if climbing a tall, precariously tilted boulder in the Lanesville woods, her steps quick, already committed. Like a rock, the train seems to her at once alive and unthreatening, animate yet without preference—it lets her on but is unmoved by her weight. Lucy has with her clean underwear, two new dresses bought by Mrs. Cohn, the blanket Emma gave her, and a sack of sandwiches she made this morning in the dark kitchen before even the cook woke. Also, a book of children’s poetry Uncle Ira left on her pillow one night, inscribed: For Lucy, full of light. She was going to take Mrs. Haven’s rings, but then she found a stack of twenty-dollar bills in the top drawer of Mrs. Cohn’s desk, so she left the rings for her sisters. The wad is stuffed deep into one of Liam’s socks, though she keeps one bill, the gift from Estelle, separate, in the other sock, understanding that it did not come easily. She wears one of Liam’s sweaters, too, and a pair of his trousers, and Jeffrey’s extra cap, low over her eyes. Around her chest she has wrapped one of the bandages Emma saved from Roland’s first weeks home. The sweater is roomy, Lucy’s breasts still nearly imperceptible, but she wears the bandage anyway, as a cautionary measure. It keeps her warmer, if nothing else. She left her winter coat behind, unable to wear it—clearly a girl’s—or to fit it into her bag, a brown canvas duffel Roland used to bring on his fishing trips. Emma took the bag and nearly everything else from the house, including the bandages, the curtains, all the pillows but one. She left only Roland’s clothes and a few kitchen things. The children weren’t there when she did this. They were at school, except for Lucy and Joshua, whom Emma had sent down to the coffee shop. Afterward, she would say nothing of what happened, not even to Lucy. She did say that they could go back in the spring, for the perry. And she said that she had arranged for a nurse. The nurse would go to the house twice a day to check on him, keep the fire lit, keep the house. Emma looked, saying this, much older, and very beautiful.

If she were a girl, Lucy thinks, she would wrap the blanket around her shoulders, but because she is not supposed to be a girl, she hugs the duffel to her while she waits for the car to warm up and rests her feet on the opposite seat, like a boy can do. The train is not full—still, she was surprised when the conductor moved her to a place where she could have two seats, facing each other. At night, when the beds are set up, Lucy will have both the top and bottom bunks, a sort of closet all to herself. She doesn’t understand how the seats will change into beds—she sees no mechanism. She tries to look out the window, but instead stares at the porter as he carries another suitcase through the car. She hasn’t seen a colored person before.

? ? ?

For hours, as the train rolls north, she speaks to no one. She eats her sandwiches and wonders, as they disappear, if she has made a mistake. She was safe now, after all, with her siblings and Emma and Mrs. Cohn and Mr. Hirsch, with the cook and housekeeper and nurse. It was a kind of family—a good family, in many ways. The only man was old and sweet. There were two women, two mothers, home almost all the time. The children had space to run. There were enough beds that each child had one to herself—though often, by morning, she had found a sibling and crawled in with her—and enough money that it was no great hardship that Emma could no longer work at Sven’s. The men at the long counter glared at her. Lanesville was done with her. So she was home, and Mrs. Cohn was home, the house large enough to let them pass each other comfortably, like moons. But they were warming. The other day Lucy had seen them talking quietly on the screened porch, huddled close in their coats, Emma’s new—she had relented, accepted—so that they looked like equals. Like two women, friends even, having a conversation. Then, sensing Lucy, they’d looked up, their faces instantly lit, vying for her attention, praising, worrying, making way. She was everything to them.

But that was it. They wanted to help her but they needed her, too, and their need was heavy. They thought she was older than she was, but she wasn’t. You couldn’t actually be older than the number of years you had lived. She was ten. She felt as if they were sitting on her head.

This morning, hours before the train to Boston was scheduled to depart, she had slipped out through the basement bulkhead, walked off Eastern Point, and ridden the bus to Lanesville. A few quarrymen sat in back but none seemed to recognize her, and even if they had, it would have been Johnny Murphy they saw. Leverett Street was dusted in snow. She climbed the hill in the trees, the duffel pulling her back, her concentration so great she nearly passed the house. The Davies’ chimney trickled gray smoke, residue of last night’s fire. The Solttis had bought a car—it sat like a black rock in their yard. Even Mrs. Greely’s house was dark, and silent. A wan light spread through the trees. Lucy had stayed on Eastern Point through Christmas, had gone to Mass with Emma in a new church, had done what she could to avoid cruelty. January was setting in now. The door to the perry shack squealed at her touch and she stepped in quickly to find the place scentless. Her breath jumped in front of her. She moved cautiously to the window.