Borrowed Children Read online

  “A what?”

  “To follow the star.”

  “Oh, you mean a Wise Man’s camel,” Anna says, too loud, as though Helen can’t hear.

  There’s a queer light behind Helen’s head. I smell something too. O Lord! I almost knock the girls over getting to the parlor where Willie s gowns are blazing.

  “Stay back!”

  I reach for the afghan that’s always on the couch. It takes forever to drag it through the air, but it smothers the flames. Awful smoke billows from the wool and the gowns.

  “Open the door!” I call out to Anna, and as she does, the fire licks into the room. I might have thought of that, have known not to put them so close—

  “Amanda!”

  Now I’ve waked Mama.

  “What’s burning?”

  I gather the mess in my arms, then drop it in the kitchen on the way to Mama.

  She’s propped up in bed, wearing the lacy bedjacket Omie sent her. She wasn’t asleep, she was writing a letter, but her eyes are sleep-soft.

  “It’s all right,” I tell her. “It was Willie’s clothes. I had them drying in the parlor and they caught fire.”

  “Oh, Mandy!”

  “I’m sorry. I should have thought—”

  “Yes, you should. This house is a tinderbox. It could be gone in a minute.”

  Tears sting my eyes.

  “Come here to me.”

  I take two steps toward the bed.

  “Sit down.”

  I do that too, lifting my chin to try to keep the tears pooled.

  “You’ve burned your hand.”

  Looking down spills the salt water. There’s a crescent blister rising on the heel of my hand.

  “Doesn’t hurt.”

  “It will. Grease it good with butter.”

  I stand to go.

  “And Mandy, I’m sorry I spoke so sharply. This is all too much for you. I need to get up and get to work.”

  “But you can’t do that,” I remind her. “For at least two more weeks you have to stay in bed. Don’t worry. I’ll be more careful. And I’ll bring your strengthening pills.”

  Omie sent them along with the bedjacket. Mama laughed when she read the label’s claim to cure “fainting spells and a sense of goneness.”

  “I may be weak,” she said, “but I certainly know I’m here.”

  I turn away from the bed. It doesn’t matter if it’s too much. I have to manage ….

  Back in the kitchen, Anna asks, “Now what’s Willie going to wear?”

  Helen cuts in. “I can make a camel, can’t I? Anna says they have to be angels, but angels only sing. The camels got across the desert.”

  “That’s right, honey.”

  “And they brought the presents. The angels didn’t bring a thing.”

  “They brought glad tidings.”

  “Not in a gold box.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So you’ll help me make a camel?”

  “sure.”

  “Right now?”

  “Not right now. I have to work on supper. Besides, it’s a long time till Christmas—”

  “But camels are hard.”

  “Not as hard as angels,” Anna taunts. “Angels have to look holy.”

  “Girls,” I begin. But my peacemaking gets lost in Willie’s cry.

  9

  That cry has gotten worse because Willie has colic. It’s been going on about two weeks. He eats and falls asleep and then wakes up screaming. I’ve tried sugar water to burp him and a hot water bottle on his stomach, but nothing helps. Mama’s had to quit feeding him in the night. If the cramps started then, he’d wake the whole house. The trouble is, the only way she can not feed him is if I walk him back to sleep. He won’t take that from her, and anyway, she needs her rest. She’s just been out of bed a few days.

  So I never know how much I’ll sleep. Last night it couldn’t have been long. Willie woke three times. I walked him round and round the parlor, past midnight on the mountain, past the 3 A.M. train, past the sun coming into the hollow. I’d just fallen back to sleep when Daddy called us.

  “You girls get up from there! You’re wasting the best hours of the day.”

  Of course he didn’t know how much I’d been up. He snores right through Willie’s cries.

  So up I got again, feeling half sick, and made biscuits and fried bacon and eggs.

  David complained that the bacon was too hard. “Next time,” I said, “you fix it for us.” That hushed him.

  I had hoped to go to church today, the first time since Willie, so I killed and plucked a chicken last night and put it in the icebox, ready for Mama to fry. But she was hardly out of bed when she told me, “Mandy, I’m afraid you’ll need to stay home today. I’ve got that pain in my foot.”

  She hobbled into the kitchen and did a few dishes, but before long she had to go sit down. The pain comes because her heart was damaged. She doesn’t get enough blood to her legs.

  I try not to cry, looking at the breakfast leavings. I can’t really say God was calling me to church. I just wanted a wintry ride in the wagon and a chance to see a face or two from school. Even breathing other air is good for a body. And instead I’m left with a pile of dirty plates. That’s not so much, but in a few hours there’ll be dinner, and the dishrag hardly dry before supper comes on.

  Another hope I had was to do some schoolwork. Last week Mr. Aden sent me a book, The Romantic Poets, His note said if I’d read it and write a piece about it, that would fulfill my English requirement. I was thrilled.

  But I haven’t had a chance to open it. For one thing, I’ve had to help Anna and Helen with their ornaments. Anna was scornful when I suggested tin-foil angel wings.

  “Tin-foil doesn’t look holy!” she said. “And we’ve got plenty of feathers.”

  We do, but chicken feathers are too small to paste. I found that out the hard way, with Anna mad and half feathered herself. We had to take some goose down from one of our pillows.

  “Don’t tell Mama,” I cautioned.

  “Is this stealing?” Helen wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so. Anyway, you can’t go to jail for stealing feathers for angel wings.”

  The camel was tricky too. Felt wouldn’t do for his fur.

  “He should feel rough,” Helen insisted.

  We tried sawdust, but that was as messy as feathers. Finally I sent her outside for some sandstone. Our mountain is good for that. It’s limestone on the Laurel County side and sandstone on ours.

  We cut another camel shape from a cardboard box, spread it with paste and rolled it in sand rubbed off the rock. It dried and sparkled.

  “He’s made of desert!” Helen exclaimed. Then she pasted yarn on for a saddle and we were done.

  But by then Anna had a quarrel about her angel.

  “I don’t like her mouth. It’s silly. And angel eyes are blue, not brown.”

  So we made another face and glued that on. When will it get better? Mama can only do a little and most of that is for Willie.

  The first thing she wanted to do when she got up was give him his bath. That made me sad. I would abandon the kitchen in a minute, but I miss that bath. Willie loves water. No matter how he has fussed, a tubful soothes him, and if he’s been happy, he smacks the water and laughs. Daddy says he’s too young to be laughing, but that’s what he’s doing. And I laugh with him.

  If I’m going to get this dinner ready, I’ll have to wash the dishes, so I dip hot water from the reservoir built into the stove. Then I take the chicken from the icebox and lay it out to dry. Mama says if chicken is wet in the least it won’t fry right. I know all about chicken.

  What I don t know is when I can go back to school. Should I ask? I puzzle over this washing dishes, frying chicken, putting the big kettle of potatoes on to boil. And then I hear Daddy coming in the door.

  “Smell that chicken!” he calls out to the boys. “I wonder if that could be your Mama’s.”

  “Not this time,
” she answers. “I’m still peg-legging around. How was the service?”

  The familiar pattern of their voices drifts to the kitchen. Annas drowns it out.

  “Look what I’ve brought you, Mandy! Daddy said I could.”

  She careens around the dinner table, Helen behind her. They each hold a bunch of bittersweet.

  “Where did you get it?” I ask, accepting the swatch of orange berries.

  “They had it left over from decorating the church,” Anna explains.

  “And I brought some for Mama,” Helen says.

  “Good for you.”

  “I wanted to give it to you, but Anna wouldn’t let me. She said Mama ought to have some.”

  “She’s right. You run along and give it to her.”

  Helen goes. I turn back to the chicken, the green beans. Anna makes no move to put her coat up.

  “How was church?”

  “Fine. Miss Snavely asked about you.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said you were pining to go back to school.”

  “Really?”

  I don’t know whether I’m more amazed that Anna knew this or mad that she said it.

  “And what did Miss Snavely say?”

  “Said that was a lot of foolishness, that you were getting the best education a girl could have.”

  I don’t answer that.

  “She said you were lucky, learning all you are now.”

  “Well, she’s wrong,” I snap. “You are the lucky ones, and don’t you forget it. You and Helen and the boys.”

  “Going to school? What’s lucky about that? I’d rather stay home like you and play with Willie.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Anna.”

  Suddenly Mama comes in.

  “Anna, you hang your coat up. And help Helen.”

  When they’re gone, she says, “That’s no way to talk to your sister.”

  “But it’s the truth.”

  “According to Amanda Perritt. That doesn’t mean gospel.”

  There’s almost a laugh in her voice. I let out a deep breath. I don’t talk back. But I mash the potatoes with a vengeance.

  Soon we are all seated at the table. I take my old place at the side to make room for Mama. Daddy blesses us and sends around the food. The gravy I made isn’t as good as Mama’s, but it covers. I eat it all off the crown of my potatoes and ask for more. Mama looks at me and the boys and then at Daddy, measuring.

  “I think not, Mandy,” she says. “You don’t want to get plump like me.”

  That’s not what she means and she knows it. My ribs stick out. She means, leave it for your brothers, your daddy. Never mind if you want some more. And I made it!

  David’s hand edges toward the gravy boat.

  All of a sudden I feel fire like Willie’s gowns blazing. It’s all around me. If I stay in my seat, if David’s hand touches the china, I’ll be caught in a roar of flames. So I grab the gilt-edged handle, stand up, and hurl the gravy boat at the wall.

  It sails over David’s head and smashes and the fire I felt is a fierce joy. Let them stare! Let the china splinter in the rug and the gravy run down the wall.

  10

  Everyone at the table seems to hold his breath while I go to the kitchen for a rag and a bowl. Gradually, as I wipe gravy from the wallpaper and pick china fragments from the rug, they resume talking, but nobody says a word about what’s happened. Anna and Helen must be biting their tongues. When I finish, I come back to my place and dig meat off the back of the chicken. I did take the back. Mama will have to give me credit for that.

  All the time I’m clearing the table and washing up I’m waiting for her anger. There’s nothing. When Willie wakes, she disappears into the bedroom. Even Anna and Helen steer clear, and the boys have gone to hunt squirrel in the bare trees. I feel invisible. Is that what happens when you let your feelings out? No one can see you?

  Well, if that is the way of things, I can take it. I just wish I’d thrown something which didn’t break. Or didn’t match. We don’t have many dishes that do.

  The kitchen is done and the house is still as midnight. I take Mr. Aden’s book and sit down to read.

  *

  Tuesday now and still no mention of the gravy boat. Mamas stronger, doing a little more each day. And she studies me on the sly whatever we’re doing. I catch her at it. Does she want to get out of the way in case I throw something else?

  Right now Doc Bailey’s here to look at Willie.

  “This boy’s not sick,” he says. “Just immature digestion.”

  But Mama worries. “I’m afraid it’s because I’ve neglected him.”

  “Hogwash!” Doc Bailey tells her. “He’d have colic if you’d been sitting by him day and night. I’ll give you some syrup to soothe him. You don’t have any business being up all hours.”

  “Its Mandy who gets up.”

  “Or Mandy either.” He turns to me. “You’re getting your motherhood early.” The way he says it makes it sound like something I could wear.

  He opens his worn bag, with its shelves of pills and liquids, and pulls out a bottle of something green as grass.

  “This should do the trick.” He hands it to Mama. “Let me know and I’ll write a prescription if you need more.”

  We thank him, feeling a little shamefaced since Willie has been quiet as an egg ever since he came. Just smiled and waved his hands when the doctor felt his belly.

  “That’s the way it goes,” Mama says after Doc Bailey is gone. “Five minutes with a doctor can cure a child—till the doctor leaves.”

  And she’s right. Willie wails again as soon as she feeds him, knees drawn up, face tight as a fist. And we can’t give him the medicine till bedtime. But when we do, it works like a charm. For me that means the first real sleep since the Skidmores’.

  I wake up before dawn in a panic. Willie! I run into Mama’s room, my heart loud as thunder. The tiny back under the crib quilt rises and falls. Mama is a big ball in bed. And I am as awake as I’ll ever be. Feeling foolish, I put on the coffee and take up the book.

  Now while the birds sing a joyous song,

  And while the young lambs bound

  As to the tabor’s sound,

  To me alone there came a thought of grief…

  It isn’t ten minutes till Willie cries. I go in as usual to change him before giving him to Mama, but she’s already up, crooning to him.

  “This boy slept all night!” she proclaims, happy as Christmas. Willie stares at her face like a great light.

  I try to be glad. I am glad about the sleeping, but I feel useless. I thought it was me Willie needed.

  “We’re fine here,” Mama says. “You start breakfast.”

  Anybody’d rather hold a baby than cook.

  The rest of the day and the week are like that, too: Mama gaining strength and taking over. Not enough for me to go to school, but enough to talk about it. Yet no one does. Is that my punishment?

  It’s Friday night now, and Mama and Daddy are figuring. Given all that’s happened with Willie, I’d forgotten about the mill, forgotten to worry. Tonight Helen asks Daddy about the big ledger book.

  “You’re doing your books,” she says. “What are you studying?

  “How money disappears.”

  “Are you a scholar?”

  “No, honey. Just a Professor of Hard Times.”

  She stares at him.

  “I wish I were a scholar,” he says. “It’s going to take some research to figure out how to make ends meet.”

  Mama signals for us to go to our room.

  Once down the hall, Helen continues her questions. “Ends of what?”

  “He means we’re poor,” Anna offers.

  “The whole country is poor right now, not just Perritts.”

  “Who’s going to meet their end?”

  “No, no, that’s not what he’s talking about. He means making the money which comes in equal the money that goes out. Having a bal
ance.”

  “How can he do that?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. It takes adjustments.”

  “Oh. Do we have some?”

  “You don’t have adjustments; you make them.”

  “Could we make some?”

  “We already have. We’ve adjusted a lot to Willie’s coming.

  “But that didn’t have to do with money,” Anna puts in.

  I think about that.

  “Well, it did in a way. If I hadn’t stayed home, we would have had to hire help to look after Willie and Mama.”

  “So you kept money from going out?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Like the boy at the dike.”

  “What?”

  “That’s a story we heard at school,” Anna explains. “But he was keeping the water out, Helen, out of the village.”

  “And in the sea,” Helen insists. “Like the money. Mandy’s been keeping the money in.”

  I wish I’d thought of that. Somehow it makes me feel a lot better.

  “You girls get ready for bed,” Mama calls.

  I start to help Helen out of her dress.

  “I can do it myself now,” she says. “Since Willie, my arms are longer.”

  Mine, too, I guess. But I hadn’t even noticed I’d quit helping her. Why didn’t Anna do it?

  Anna’s got her dress off, her gown on, and has jumped into bed.

  “Anna, get up and brush your hair. And your teeth.”

  “I’m too tired.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Your teeth will fall out and get stuck in your hair,” Helen warns.

  You can tell she’s been to school.

  Anna rolls out of bed and does what’s needed. We’re all about settled when Mama appears at the door.

  “Come into the kitchen a minute, Amanda.”

  I climb out of the warm bed, stone cold. I half expect to see every china chip laid out on the table, a note written in blood beside it: You must put it back together by morning or die.

  But this isn’t a fairy tale. Daddy is seated at the work table drinking coffee. Mama motions me to have a seat.

  “Mandy,” Daddy begins—he never calls me Amanda, no matter how serious things get—“your mother and I appreciate all your work since Willie came. We know it’s not been easy. You’re the only child I’ve got who would grieve missing school, and you’re the one who’s had to do it. …”