“Oh my God, like this! Like work and kids and TV and food and maybe having sex once a week if we’re lucky and just sitting out here every fucking night watching the seasons go by and doing the exact same things the exact same way over and over and over again.”
“Take the baby upstairs,” Aunt Loretta said in a low voice and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
Holding Ellie close, I turned and padded up to her bedroom. She was still asleep, but I sat down in the rocker anyway, rocking and soothing her, patting her little arm and whispering, “Don’t worry, baby. I’m here and everything’s going to be fine.”
“Well, what do you want to do, Dianne?” Beale said, sounding both frustrated and a little angry. “God, you just had a baby, I thought you’d be happy having time off—”
“Why, to sit here and look at the stars?” my mother cried. “Or no, wait, maybe I should be in there pumping this stupid milk out of me like a goddamn cow or running up and down those rotten cellar steps to wash load after load of baby clothes, or do dishes or cut the grass or any one of a thousand other chores that are killing me just thinking about them. Do you know that? I think about doing the same thing day after day for the rest of my life and I just want to . . . I don’t know. Scream. Run.”
Ellie sighed in her sleep.
I kissed her forehead.
“I don’t know what to say,” Beale said finally, in a weary voice. “I love you, Dianne, and you’re not going to like it when I say this, but I love our life. I love the farm, the way it’s always changing and growing, and the peace and knowing that when I walk in that door after work Sayre’s going to be there with Ellie and my mother, and you’re gonna come down those stairs with that smile . . . It’s ordinary stuff, but it makes me really happy. It’s all I ever wanted.”
Crickets chirped and the breeze rippled through the little lamb-print curtains.
“I know,” my mother said and she sounded exhausted. “I’m sorry, I am. I’m just so tired and . . . I think I’ve got a bad case of the baby blues or something. I don’t know. I do love you and I didn’t mean that the way it came out. I just . . . never expected it to be like this. So constant and overwhelming.”
“You know, you’re going back to the doctor’s for a checkup soon. Why don’t you tell her how you’re feeling?” Beale said quietly. “I mean, if it’s the baby blues, maybe you two can talk about it or she can give you something for it.”
I stopped rocking.
“Yeah,” my mother said after a moment, sounding a little more upbeat. “That’s a good idea. I really want to feel good again and enjoy Ellie and sitting here with you—”
“Looking at the stars?” Beale said dryly.
“Just being with you,” my mother said.
They didn’t speak again and I gazed down at Ellie, so tiny and vulnerable sleeping in my arms, so pure and perfect, with no hurts or disappointments or betrayals yet, and I thought about my mother being sad and restless and maybe it was normal but it set off distant warning bells inside me.
It made me want to take my sister and run.
I couldn’t do that, though, so instead, for the rest of the summer me and Ellie became almost inseparable. My mother had gone to the doctor and gotten a prescription for her postpartum depression, so Ellie was being bottle-fed now instead of breast-fed, which freed up my mother and gave me even more time with my sister.
She was a happy girl, with big hazel doe eyes and a little rosebud mouth, a drooler and a laugher, an arm waver and a screecher, just for the fun of it. She would chatter like a little monkey whenever she saw me, kick her legs and flap her arms and pitch a fit of baby temper when I tickled her nose with my hair or tried to change her diaper.
I was bad at diapers, the dead belly button thing was nasty, and the sour spit up grossed me out, but Aunt Loretta was good at that stuff, swift, gentle, and efficient, and so she had plenty of Ellie time, too. So did Beale, who loved laying on the blanket on the floor with her after work as she pushed herself up on her wobbly arms and burbled and spit and cooed, and then fell asleep on his chest.
Somehow our whole family began to revolve around my sister, like she was the sun that lit up our planets. Even my mother, her mood better on antidepressants and smiling occasionally, had taken to wearing Ellie around the front of her in the baby sling while she went grocery shopping or folded laundry or strolled around the yard.
Once I even caught her dancing out at the edge of the field under the willow tree with Ellie in her arms, moving to music only she could hear, smiling and kissing my sister’s cheeks, telling her she was beautiful and adorable and that Mommy loved her.
Can a person feel two violent emotions at the same time? Can a person ache with love and seethe with jealousy, be both happy and miserable with longing, because that’s how I felt standing there watching them.
That’s exactly how I felt.
My mother wasn’t like that all the time, though. Sometimes she was snappy, irritable, and lonely, I think, because the farm and the mountain could be a lonely place. She wasn’t back to work yet and had taken to leaving the baby home in the afternoons and heading down into town to visit a woman she’d met in Lamaze class, a transferee to Dug County whose husband was in management at the factory and who lived in a big new house and had money and jewelry and went to the spa and had parties all the time and had been to Greece, and Italy, and Paris twice.
When my mother told us these stories, the envy in her voice was right out there, undisguised, and she would gaze at us with a mixture of accusation and dislike, as if we were the reason she had never been to Paris.
She never came home from those visits happy, only more and more dissatisfied. She started mocking her amethyst ring, calling it “quaint,” and would stare at herself in the mirror like she was trying to drill holes into her own soul.
“Maybe you shouldn’t go down there anymore,” I offered, hanging around in the bedroom doorway and watching her actively despise her hair.
“Oh really? Then tell me, where am I supposed to go to get out of here, Sayre? Come on, you’re so full of answers these days. Tell me. I don’t have a lot of friends. I have one. Her. What am I supposed to do?” she said, glaring at me in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and running an idle finger up and down the wooden door trim. “But friends aren’t supposed to make you feel bad about yourself, Mom. They’re supposed to make you feel good.”
She held my gaze for a long moment, and something in her face changed.
“You know, you’re right,” she said, walking across the room and perching on the edge of the bed, near the night table. She picked up the phone, and without looking at me, said, “Close the door on your way out.”
Sixth Grade
SCHOOL WAS STARTING THE DAY AFTER tomorrow and I was worried about leaving Ellie.
I mean, I’d been with her every single day since she’d been born; how could I just up and leave? She wouldn’t understand why I wasn’t there in the morning playing a goofy game of peek- a-boo or blowing raspberries on her stomach after her bath. What if she forgot me, or worse, what if she thought I had abandoned her?
“Don’t worry, I swear I’ll say your name at least twenty times a day, all right?” my mother said with good-natured irritation when I whined my concerns one night at supper.
“Really? How are you going to . . . ?” I stopped, blinked, and shoved a whole piece of butter bread in my mouth to prevent myself from finishing that sentence because ever since that day we’d talked about friends, my mother had been leaving the farm early in the morning and coming home around four, breezing in, strapping on the baby sling with little Ellie in it, and bustling around with more energy than she’d had in the last six months combined, helping with dinner, toting laundry down from upstairs and then down again into the cellar to do the wash, vacuuming and sweeping the sum
mer grit off the front porch. She hummed as she worked, her eyes bright, her movements quick. She was losing the baby weight, too, and came out of the bedroom crowing with triumph when she fit back into her skinny jeans.
The only thing was, I was afraid she was using meth, or at least drinking again. I’d seen her stagger once, and trip over nothing while wearing her flip-flops, spotted some sloppy hand gestures, and smelled it on her twice after she’d gotten home, the familiar vodka scent buried beneath layers of mint gum and toothpaste, perfume, and even garlic. We’d been alone with Ellie at the time, so I’d taken a second, louder sniff and looked at her funny. She’d ignored it but wouldn’t meet my gaze and that made me suspicious enough to check the calls received on her cell phone and sure enough, Candy’s number was there at least once a day.
She was still on the antidepression medication and I knew from reading the bottle that she wasn’t supposed to drink or take other drugs at the same time.
It worried me, but the family was happy again, and I was reluctant to wreck it.
“How am I going to do what?” my mother said curiously. “Say your name? Well, first I’m going to form the letter Essss . . .”
“Ha ha,” I mumbled and just kept on eating and watching her talk and laugh and pick at her food, and then hustle around clearing the table, shooing Aunt Loretta, Beale, and Ellie into the living room to relax.
“Thanks, honey, for being so nice to my mom,” Beale said, lingering in the doorway, catching my mother’s arm as she swept by, and giving her a quick kiss. “She’s been really wiped out these last couple of days. I don’t know if it’s the heat or just her refusing to take it easy for a while, but she really needed a break tonight. You’re the best.”
“Ah, that’s what they all say,” my mother teased, giving him a look from under her lashes. “You go relax, too. Me and Sayre will get this.”
“But I wanted to play with Ellie,” I said, sulking. “I don’t have hardly any time left to be with her, Mom.”
“You go ahead, Sayre. I’ll help your mom,” Beale said, giving my mother a mischievous look and a light slap on the butt. “Come on, woman. Let’s get it on.”
I slid out of my chair and ran into the living room, laid the white cotton sheet out on the floor, and eased Ellie out of Aunt Loretta’s tired arms. For the next hour me and my sister lay on that rug and played blinky-eyes staring games that made her dissolve in laughter, and tickling games that made her cackle and kick her feet, and near the end, when she was yawning and her eyelids were drooping, she caught hold of my finger in her little fist and, keeping her soft, hazel gaze on my face as if learning it by heart, listened to me croon, It’s sleepy time, baby girl. The moon is out and the stars are shining. Sweet dreams. I love you so much, Ellie, Ellie. Good night, sleep tight.
And when she fell asleep and I drew away from her, I looked up and saw that Aunt Loretta had fallen asleep, too. I was glad because she’d been having headaches and dizziness for the last couple of days, and had even gotten nauseous for no good reason last night. She said it was nothing but the unrelenting heat and all she needed to do was go lie down in a dark room with the ceiling fan on, but I’d seen how hard she worked all day, usually right up to bedtime, both indoor and outdoor chores, and taking care of Ellie, too, didn’t help matters any.
I lay back down next to Ellie on the sheet. “Only one day left for us. I wish I didn’t have to go to school.” I snuggled closer, turning on my side so she was tucked into my body, and up against my heart. I kissed the top of her head and her wispy, brown baby hair. Closed my eyes and lay there drowsing until somewhere in my hazy subconscious I heard a murmured voice that sounded like Beale, and then someone took Ellie from me and the rush of air that followed was cool with loss. I frowned in my sleep and Beale whispered, “Sayre? Come on, sweetheart, you can’t stay here like this all night,” and then he lifted me into his arms and carried me up to bed.
I never forgot that. What it felt like to have the father I never had tuck me safely into bed, kiss my forehead just like I’d kissed Ellie’s, and whisper, “Sleep tight, Miss Sayre Bellavia.”
Chapter 25
I FALL SILENT, LINGERING IN THE residual happiness of that memory, but my mother is suddenly restless, agitated, her legs trembling and feet twitching, her palsied fingers plucking at the sheet, her head moving back and forth on the pillow. Her eyes roll wildly beneath the lids and she’s breathing faster now, in short, hitched puffs that sound as if something is happening inside her, as if she’s somehow struggling, and in a burst of panic I lean over her and fumble for the call button, have it right in my hand, thumb poised to descend when her body relaxes and her breathing slows to normal again.
“Mom, what is it?” I whisper, shaking, and after a while, when she doesn’t answer, only keeps on breathing, I set the call button back on the bed, rest my head on the edge of her pillow and heart pounding, speak to her of Ellie.
Ashes, Ashes
IT WAS WEIRD THAT FIRST MORNING, having to leave the house so early and stand out in the hot, baking driveway waiting for the school bus. I kept looking back at the farmhouse where the rest of my family was—Beale packing his gear and getting ready to head upstate to the livestock auction, my mother barely awake and looking a little hungover to me, although no one else seemed to notice it, Ellie still sleeping, and Aunt Loretta in the kitchen making breakfast without me—and wishing hard that I could be in there, too.
But then the bus came and I got on and three girls liked my new shirt and I got all caught up in the whole first-day-of-school thing, getting my seat in homeroom and liking my new teacher, seeing Jillian in the hall and having lunch together, getting my schedule and then hopping the bus home again.
It was a good day and I chattered like crazy during supper, hogging the conversation, making Beale laugh and poor Aunt Loretta, who still didn’t feel good, try to smile. Finally, my mother told me to stop talking and start eating because if I wasn’t done by the time the table was cleared, I wasn’t getting any dessert and there was butterscotch pudding.
So I did, and the talk turned to Aunt Loretta. Beale made her promise to call the doctor tomorrow and make an appointment because her headaches hurt so bad sometimes that her vision got blurry, and he was worried and annoyed that she hadn’t done it yet. “I mean, c’mon, Ma, what’re you waiting for?”
“I know,” Aunt Loretta said, removing her glasses and rubbing the red mark on the bridge of her nose. “I was hoping the weather would cool down once September got here and maybe that would help but . . . I guess I have to. I’ve been wondering if they’re migraines but I’ve never had one before so I don’t really know.”
“That’s because you’re not a doctor,” Beale said with good-natured impatience. “Swear you’ll call Doc Goodwin tomorrow and make an appointment? I don’t want to come home from the auction and find you all laid out because of some stupid heart attack or something.”
And they joked a little more about it, but it wasn’t a heart attack, it was a brain stem stroke, and he wasn’t the one who came home and found her.
I was.
We All Fall Down
THE SECOND DAY OF SCHOOL WAS as good as the first, except this time I got off the bus with homework in my backpack. The weather was still scorching, and my shorts were stuck to me from sitting on the sweaty, vinyl bus seat. All I wanted to do was get inside and eat a grape Popsicle, but when I started walking up the driveway I could hear Ellie crying from inside the house, the thin, forlorn sound echoing out in the still air and the closer I got the funnier it sounded, different than usual, hopeless and raspy and exhausted, like she’d been crying for a long time . . .
I started walking faster.
Beale’s truck was gone because he’d left for the auction and Aunt Loretta’s car was gone but my mom usually took that when she went to town or to Candy’s and there wasn’t any real reason why my heart should be pounding s
o hard and my blood thrumming in my ears—
I took the front-porch steps two at a time and the front door was closed.
And locked.
That’s when I knew something was wrong.
Aunt Loretta always kept the front door open from morning till night in good weather so the cross breeze could sweep through the screen door and cool the house.
I knocked hard on that door but ran back down the steps, not waiting for an answer. I could hear Ellie wailing upstairs, and that scared me even more because Ellie always napped downstairs in the afternoon where it was cooler, so why was she upstairs where it was so hot, and why was she crying and crying and no one was soothing her?
I raced around the house, shrugging off my backpack as I went and dumping it on the grass. The back screen door was unlocked and I yanked it open and went inside, calling, “Aunt Loretta? I’m home. Aunt Loretta?”
The kitchen was silent, deserted, and the dirty breakfast dishes still sat on the table.
“Aunt Loretta?” I yelled again, backing slowly out of the kitchen and into the hallway, my gaze glued to the remains of that ominous meal left lying there for what, almost nine hours now? No, no. Something was desperately wrong. Even the air was wrong, flat and still and empty. “Aunt Loretta?”
Ellie must have heard me, because her crying turned to screaming.
“I’m coming,” I called, and whirling, grabbed the banister and flew up the stairs. My legs were shaking, my knees like water. “I’m coming, Ellie! Aunt Loretta? Where are you? Aunt Loretta?”
I bounced off the walls running down that hallway and into Ellie’s room. She was lying in her crib, her face scarlet and her hair plastered to her forehead, wearing a diaper that reeked and the little teddy bear pajama top she’d been put to sleep in the night before. “Oh, baby, come on, baby, come on,” I babbled, picking her up and gagging at the smeary mess on the sheet and up her back. She was hot and crying with no tears, and her head looked weird, like the soft spot was kind of sunk in, and she stared up at me with such solemn, tragic eyes that I ran then, I took her and ran down those stairs and into the kitchen, shaking so hard I almost fell.