Mother, wore a watch with a face so small I don’t know how she could tell time. This was her way of proving her eyes were good. At forty-six she had little cause to worry; she looked like a woman in her early thirties and she acted like one who was fifteen.
The fragrance of honeysuckle pervaded the air. A low fog hugged the rolling hills. Ginny had slipped away from us six months before and we all missed her.
A child’s sense of loss is different from an adult’s. In some ways it is far greater and in others more superficial. Each time I thought of Ginny I imagined she was playing a harp, wearing a flowing white gown and conversing with the BVM and Jesus.
Uncle Kenny kept his nose to the grindstone. Apart from work, the boys were his focus and Aunt Mimi’s too. She was bound and determined that one of them should become a priest, to make up for the fact that her daughters had not taken vows. Even at that age Kenny and Wade’s unsuitability for a life of denial and service was obvious.
We hoped Aunt Mimi would take vows herself. Her despotism reached new heights. Certainly she felt the death of her daughter sincerely but she never missed a chance to remind us of her cruel loss. Then again, the Blessed Virgin Mother gave up one of her sons and Mary Magdalene suffered, too. I wondered why suffering was glorified. Crucifixes gave me the creeps. Not only did they adorn every wall of Mimi’s house, she had a tiny one on the dashboard of her Nash.
Torn and bleeding Jesus, his eyes rolled to heaven, greeted me constantly. I loved Jesus but I liked to think of him throwing the money changers out of the temple. Aunt Mimi gravitated toward the crown of thorns.
On this early summer morning, Mother checked and rechecked her watch. We were standing at the top of Queen Street Hill, fishing poles and tackle boxes in our hands.
Right on the dot, 6:30 A.M., Aunt Mimi roared out of the fog, stopping at the beer joint that also stood at the top of Queen Street Hill. Since cars possessed speedometers, Aunt Mimi felt one should use them: bury the needle.
We hopped in. I had the backseat to myself since the boys were with their father and Julia Ellen was off doing something exciting. Fifteen years older than I, Julia Ellen dazzled me. She played the piano, she was going to nursing school, she dressed like a model and she had so many boyfriends that Aunt Mimi fretted over it. If she had not been so attractive, my aunt would have fretted even more.
She used to tell her popular daughter, “It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one,” and then she’d fling up the example of Virginia’s marrying handsome but poor Ken, working her fingers to the bone to make ends meet.
Julia would sass back, “Oh, Mom.”
That doesn’t sound like sassing, but any independent opinion counted as rebellion in my aunt’s eyes.
Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of fishing at Long Level with Mother and the saint-in-residence. Butch came, too; that was Sis’s big Boston Bull. He was big as a Boxer and cunning. Mickey loathed the sight of him, never missing an opportunity to swat and run.
Dogs contributed to Aunt Mimi’s image. Buster, elegant in his permanent tuxedo, beautifully muscled, did suit her. Hounds would never do and gun dogs had too much fur. She wouldn’t waste time combing them out.
Butch and I stared out the back window at the corn shoots breaking through the chocolate soil. The apple trees had bloomed late that year, and white petals covered the ground.
By the time we reached Long Level at the Susquehanna, the fog was burning off the river. Way on the other side, for it’s a wide, impressive river, were train tracks.
A moored raft bobbed in the water maybe ten yards offshore.
Mother set up a fishing camp: three chairs, three towels, three buckets for our catch. The hamper of food stayed in the car because of the ants. She said we’d have lunch at the proper time. She and Aunt Mimi shared a thermos of coffee. I had a thermos of hot tea—I loved tea. A cooler of pop sat next to Uncle Mearl’s truck, too heavy to haul far.
Mother favored tiny red worms because they wiggled. She declared that fish like wigglers. Aunt Mimi preferred flies and she taught me how to tie them. She liked to watch them laze on the surface of the water. I contented myself with night crawlers. Wigglers were too tough for me to handle. I’d drop them and Mother would get impatient with me for wasting bait.
Mother combed her hair.
“Juts, what are you doing?”
“Combing my hair.”
“There’s no one here but us,” Aunt Mimi said.
“The fish might look at me.”
Aunt Mimi laughed. She hadn’t laughed for a long time. Then she and Mom dug little holes for the butts of their fishing poles, left them and waded in the water, thereby scaring off any possible strike. They didn’t really want to catch anything.
They talked. I swam through the cold water to the raft to throw in my line.
Aunt Mimi said that Delphine Falkenroth had the most beautiful hands, so beautiful that she modeled for glove and hand cream manufacturers in New York City. I tuned out after that and waited for my whale to bite. Not one nibble.
The sun danced on the surface of the water and I looked back at the two women, so alike they could have been twins. Mom was making Aunt Mimi laugh. Some of the terrible gloom was lifting and for a moment I could see what Aunt Mimi had been like as a girl. Standing in the water up to her knees, her skirt rolled up, head back, laughing at Mother, she kicked some water at Mom. Then Mother kicked water back. The Chesterfield sizzled when Mom flicked it in the river. Within seconds they were having a water fight. They screamed and laughed, and I was so jealous. I wanted a sister.
I had one. She was about to show up.