Chapter Nine
The truth of the matter was, I wasn’t like the others. I knew this from an early age. I could spend days on the farm by myself, wandering from house to barn to tree, lingering in the meadow, sitting in only the company of whatever cat followed along with me. I looked forward to the summer days, when school was out and I didn’t have to be in a room with rules and kids my age. I didn’t need to be needed like others did. Because sometimes being needed got us into trouble, like whatever was going on across the street.
I couldn’t shake that image from my mind. Every time I closed my eyes to try to sleep, I saw Gary pulling Bitsy away from the window. What had she been doing in that room? And why hadn’t he wanted her there?
With no sleep, I nearly called Nora and told her to cancel the card game.
Too gripped by the vise squeezing my temples, I wanted to spend the day in bed. Of course, the kids wouldn’t let me do that, and neither would Nora. I knew if I called her, she would make a big deal out of it, saying the visit would be good for me, that I needed to make more friends. But I didn’t know if I wanted to be friends with Bitsy.
Regardless of how I felt, I swallowed a few aspirin and told myself I could make it through an hour. If I did, my reward would be rest, if the kids allowed it.
As I set up the card table, I heard Daddy’s voice, the words he’d said one day when they thought I was outside: She needs friends.
Mama hadn’t even stopped working the dough as she told him that I was
fine. Daddy didn’t seem to agree. He went on to ask about Sue Ann down the road. “They’re different types,” Mama told him. She was right. Sue Ann didn’t come to the creek often, but one time when she did, I attempted to show her the frog I had found. She refused to touch it because she said it would give her warts. I knew that day to not believe her. If frogs caused warts, by then my hands would’ve been coated with them.
“There must be someone,” Daddy had said.
But what was he talking about? He spent his days with the livestock, farm equipment, and crops while Mama worked away inside the house or hanging laundry on the line. We all had our roles and we kept to ourselves, exchanging few words unless absolutely necessary.
Maybe that wasn’t the life he’d wanted. Maybe Daddy wanted more friends. Maybe Daddy wanted to be needed by more people. Maybe that’s why he was the one who would hug me, pull me in close, peck me on the cheek before bed each night. He was the one who laughed with me, hung the tire swing and pushed me higher when I asked him to.
I hadn’t thought of Daddy like that before, of maybe wanting different things. He had always been my father, the heir to the Oscuro farm, the only son who would continue working the land his ancestors had settled. I never thought to ask him if he had wanted something different.
Mama didn’t need us, or anyone, in the same way. She needed to get the bread made, the floors swept, the laundry on the line. She needed to ration the food, pull together the meals, dig for every last root vegetable. And she needed to care for the kids. Of course, I needed to do that too, but what did I owe to anyone else? Friendship was nice, but it wasn’t a gift to be given to just everyone. Especially not a woman who wouldn’t make eye contact with me but had no problem insulting my dinner choices.
Right on schedule, my doorbell rang. Nora and Hatti arrived together, with
kitchen timers in hand, ticking away the countdown to when our time would end. One of the best decisions we ever made was getting our kids on the same nap schedule so that we could get in a couple hands of spades during rest time.
As Hatti walked into my living room, I saw how much she had changed since I had last seen her. It was no secret that the Brooks had not planned this fourth child of theirs. Their three-bedroom was already bursting at the seams.
Her husband told Henry they were about to have too many children for the square footage. It made me wonder if they had considered moving.
Hatti’s shoulders leaned back to counterbalance her developing stomach.
As much as I hated the softness, the empty pooch of a stomach, I didn’t miss pregnancy. It takes a lot of a woman. If I was being honest, I hoped to never experience that again, but of course I would never say that out loud.
For all I knew, I was alone in those thoughts. As much as Nora complained about her kids, she loved them and would probably welcome more if she could. We all knew that Hatti saw all parts of motherhood as nothing but a blessing. Though I wondered if she ever hid in her closet or the backyard or with a drink in hand.
I thought about this a lot in the dark, quiet hours, or submerged in the bathtub, or as Luna rested on my lap and the wind whispered to me. Maybe they felt those same things. Maybe I wasn’t alone in all this. Maybe I needed to be the one to speak up, the first to say something, to refuse to remain silent. But what if I was the only one?
“How are you feeling?” Nora asked Hatti as they took their seats around the card table.
Hatti took a breath and looked at me before answering. “I can’t complain.”
But she could. We all could. The things that children do to our insides. The pressures we feel. The pain of being torn in two. Then there are the chapped nipples. The sleepless nights. The constant need to be present for this helpless
child while our bodies are still healing and trying to figure out how to become their own again.
“Well,” I began, “you’re glowing.” It was summer. Everyone who spent even a few minutes in the heat and humidity was glowing.
Hatti placed a hand on her stomach, already comforting her baby before it had even arrived. “Thank you, Lulu.” We smiled our polite smiles at one another. This wouldn’t be the time or place for confession, especially not with a new person joining us.
Especially with that new person being Bitsy.
As if summoned by my thoughts, Bitsy rang the doorbell a few moments later. She stood on my front step, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, her blouse tucked firmly into her A-line skirt, a belt fastened at her waist. She had overly rouged her cheeks and a smudge of pink lipstick clung to her front tooth as she smiled. She had tried so hard, a realization that both saddened and annoyed me.
But she didn’t have any dark circles beneath her eyes. She didn’t look like she had been up all night. Like me. Like I knew she had been. She looked fine, other than the misplaced lipstick.
“Welcome,” I said. The word came out flat, nearly more as a question.
“Thank you for inviting me.” I hadn’t. I looked at the dish in her hand. “A strawberry-pretzel salad,” she said. She held out the pan for me to take. I hesitated as I looked at what she had brought. Beneath the plastic wrap were sliced strawberries set in red gelatin on top of a layer of cream cheese and a crushed-pretzel crust. Of all the snacks this woman could’ve made, she chose a Jell-O salad. Distracted by her audacity, I at first missed the other thing she had brought.
“Oh, Katherine—” I stammered as the girl peeked from behind her mother’s back. I looked at Nora, wondering why she hadn’t told Bitsy to leave her at home.
“Hello, Mrs. Mayfield.” Katherine’s voice was quiet. While Bitsy had clearly put as much thought into the girl’s attire as she had her own—a Sunday dress and ribbon to match the lavender flowers along the collar—no outfit could hide the girl’s peaked complexion, glassy eyes, and flushed cheeks. “I was hoping to play with Wesley.” The young girl punctuated her sentence with a sneeze.
“I’m afraid Wesley is resting. All the kids are.” As the girl coughed, I looked at her mother and explained, “We put the kids down for naps so we can play uninterrupted.” Bitsy looked confused, so I continued, “With peace and quiet.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” Nora moved me out of the doorway and guided Bitsy and Katherine into the house.
“Oh,” Bitsy began, “I couldn’t leave her alone.”
“We’re just across the street,” I pointed out. What did she think would happen?
“While the kids lay, we play!” Nora said as she took the salad from me and placed it in the kitchen.
“She won’t be a bother,” Bitsy explained as the girl sneezed again. And then coughed. And sniffled. Without skipping a beat, Bitsy reached up her sleeve, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it to Katherine.
Nora told Bitsy to have a seat and then whispered to me, “Go get Wesley.”
“No,” I told her. “He’s napping.”
“He doesn’t sleep anymore.” She was right, but I still didn’t want to disrupt the routine and I certainly didn’t want him to catch whatever it was this girl had. The last thing we needed in the house was a lingering cold. “It’s just this once. She didn’t know.”
Nora and I looked at each other. I didn’t want to back down, but what was I to do? I wasn’t going to argue. So I gave in, got Wesley, and said they could play out back. Bitsy told them to stay on the patio where we could see them.
As we started our first hand of cards, I longed for the timers to ding or, better yet, for these guests to leave so I could slip into a hot bath and dissolve the day away.
I told myself that I would be nice. I could make small talk for the remaining forty-five minutes, especially if it could drown out Bitsy’s incessant humming. Every time the room went quiet, she would begin with a few notes, always the same, not any sort of recognizable song. Instead, it was a series of long and short spurts, as if melodically humming Morse code.
“You’re getting settled in?” Hatti asked.
“Oh, yes.” Bitsy looked at the fanned cards in her hand as she answered.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled so that dimples recessed into her cheeks. “Didn’t take much time.”
“I should say.” My voice came out louder than I had anticipated. I wondered if anyone else noticed. “They had everything unpacked by the next day.” Had I just revealed I had been watching them? “I mean,” I stammered, “when I dropped off the pie, it was clear you were already making yourself at home.” All except for that front bedroom that appeared to still have boxes piled high, but I wasn’t supposed to know that.
“Where did you say you moved from?” Hatti asked.
“Across town. Knollwood.”
Nora shifted in her seat and spoke for Bitsy. “You moved to be closer to your husband’s work?” She had apparently already learned a few things about the Betsers, which made my stomach twist. How much time had they spent talking, getting to know each other?
“What’s he do?” I asked as I tossed a card into the center of the table.
“He’s at Fink and Fischer.”
“An architect! So is Lulu’s husband!” Hatti exclaimed. She always loved
making a connection.
“A project manager,” Bitsy corrected.
“Ah, so they aren’t the same,” I said as I tossed out another card. Beneath the table, Nora pressed her foot into mine, issuing a warning for me to be nice, but I ignored her. If she wanted to invite someone new to our game, then I figured we should get to know her. “And in commercial, from the way it sounds. Henry’s in residential.” I kept my eyes on my cards, as though I was planning out my next move, but really I was trying to ignore Nora’s glare.
“Gary would like that,” Bitsy’s small voice chirped. I wondered about their relationship. She seemed eager to please him, but from what I had seen in the middle of the night, he didn’t have the same care for her.
“He’s looking for a new job?” Hatti asked when Bitsy didn’t offer more.
Even then she only responded with a slight nod. From our few encounters, I already knew not to expect her to say more than a few words at a time.
“Well, I’m sure Henry would be happy to get him in at Simon and Glasser, isn’t that right, Lulu?”
I refused to look at Hatti. It was one thing to let a neighbor borrow a cup of sugar, but giving them a new job was a bit much, especially when Henry was still trying to lock down his own promotion. I kept my eyes on my cards as I responded, “I’m not sure there’s an opening.”
“He could put in a good word.” Hatti used the same singsong voice as she did with her kids, but I wasn’t one of her children. The sunlight poured through the picture window, causing my head to throb as I looked at her.
Sensitive to the light, I squinted in her direction as I tried to think of what to say next. I didn’t want to promise anything, nor did I want to continue discussing my husband’s job, but the building pressure in my forehead was all I could think about.
Before I could respond, Nora called out, “We set you!” Our win had been
to Nora’s credit. She always had a way of winning, almost a confidence about it, as if for her it was inevitable. Meanwhile, I could barely concentrate enough to know if I was following suit.
“My deal,” I said as I gathered the cards. As I looked at the clock to see if it was time for another aspirin, Bitsy excused herself to use the restroom.
Once we heard the bathroom door click shut, Nora leaned in and offered a warning, “Be nice, Lulu.”
“I am!” I said, louder than I had intended, and Nora tapped my foot beneath the table again. “I’m just trying to get to know her.”
“Are you?” I thought I was. Instead of offering a defense, I shuffled the cards. Thankfully, Nora didn’t press any further. Instead, she began to whisper, “You heard she’s from Knollwood? Did you hear what happened?
About the despondent wife?”
“Despondent?” Hatti asked.
“That’s what the paper called her.” With eyes wide, Hatti and I leaned in, our silence begging Nora to keep going. “Word from the bird, this woman put her child down for a nap, shut the bedroom door, and then went into the kitchen. It was an old place—small rooms, apparently, each one with a door of its own. Well, she closed the kitchen door and then took plastic wrap and taped over it. She sealed off the kitchen, turned on the gas, opened the oven door, and stuck her head inside. Her husband got home that night, kid was crying, still in their room. Couldn’t figure out what was going on until he broke through to the kitchen. She sealed it off so well, he couldn’t even smell the gas when he walked in.”
“She”—I could barely force the words out—“killed herself?”
Nora nodded.
“Lord have mercy,” Hatti gasped. “Do you think she went…” It took a moment for Hatti to say the final word: “Mad?”
The pause grew thick over the tick of the timers.
“Don’t we all?” The words slipped out before I could even register them as my own. Hatti’s eyes immediately dropped, as if nervous to be associated with my confession. But Nora looked at me, taking in my reddening face. She nodded slightly, and I chose in that moment to believe she understood.
Lost in the tragedy of this stranger’s story, we didn’t hear Bitsy, not until her voice called from the kitchen and startled us all: “Where are they?”
“Probably out back or around the side of the house.” Nora waved off Bitsy’s concern.
“Or out front,” I said.
Bitsy pulled open the door and stepped out back. She began to yell for Katherine, her voice growing in volume and panic each time she bellowed the girl’s name. The three of us looked at each other, confused by Bitsy’s urgency. When she disappeared out of view and hollered louder, we got up and followed.
By the time we had reached the backyard, Bitsy had Katherine by the wrist. She bent down to eye level and said, “You were to stay here,” as she pointed at the poured concrete slab in the backyard.
The girl’s already glassy eyes began to pool with tears as her bottom lip quivered and she choked out an apology.
“It’s okay,” I said. Wesley looked unfazed, other than being disappointed that his playtime had come to an end. “They were just playing.”
Bitsy dragged Katherine into the house. As she walked by me, she muttered, “I gave them instructions.”
“They’re just kids,” I reminded her. As long as they stayed in the yard, they were perfectly safe, so I didn’t care if they stayed on the patio. Why did Bitsy? “They probably got carried away and—”
“Katherine knows better.” She emphasized the first word, and I knew what she meant—her daughter knew better, but my son did not.
Bitsy didn’t say goodbye, nor did she take her pretzel salad with her when she left.
I drew Wesley to me. I wanted to tell him to ignore that crazy woman, but Hatti and Nora were listening. Instead, I asked him what had happened.
“We were just playing.” He shrugged. “She said that her mom was gone and her aunt was sick, so we had to drive around the yard to look for them. I was the taxi driver and she was the detective, and we were looking all over.”
As Wesley continued droning on about their make-believe game, I watched Bitsy pull Katherine by the arm. The girl’s hair ribbon bounced as her feet struggled to keep up. I felt bad for that girl, being pulled away by a force stronger than herself, like her mother had been in the middle of the night.
Hatti and Nora decided to head home early, and I was thankful when the ticking timers walked out the door and the house grew silent again. The quiet lasted only a few minutes, not long enough for me to rest, but as I nursed Esther, I thought about Bitsy. I couldn’t believe she’d brought her sick child with her, but why had she gotten so upset when they were safely in our yard?
The more I thought about her, the faster I rocked. I worried that Esther sensed my irritation.
To calm myself, I tried to think of something else, but the only other thing that came to mind was the despondent woman. I wondered about her and what had led her to make that decision. She had lived in Bitsy’s neighborhood. Had Bitsy known her?
Rocking the pink bundle alone in the nursery, I began to wonder if we all knew her. Maybe she had a cleaning schedule taped to her fridge. Maybe she also got tired of ironing underwear. Maybe she woke in the night and sat in the shadows, wondering if dawn would break like it did each morning. Or if, just one time, the moon would blanket the sun and the night creatures would bask in the continuing darkness. Or maybe that was just me.
