The next morning, Sunday, I found Mama sitting up in bed wearing a fresh housedress and reading a Louis Lamour novel. Her hair was braided and neatly pinned, like always. She looked for all the world as though she’d just sat down for a moment, except for the plaster cast that covered her leg halfway up to the knee and the dark bruise raised on her face. The cast was propped up on a pillow. I’d never seen Mama in her bed before.
The blue frog looked at me accusingly.
“Martha’s getting breakfast on,” Mama said. “Your father told Mag Hewitt we don’t need help today, so don’t you go letting her in.” She didn’t look up from her book.
When I’d woken up, my chest felt squeezed and tight, as though my ribs had become a size too small. Now it was like someone had let the air out of me. Was it possible that Mama didn’t know about the pencils on the stairs? She’d seemed so lost after her fall. Could it be that she didn’t realize it was my fault? And no one had told her?
Downstairs, Martha was flushed as she stirred the oatmeal, though the kitchen was early-morning cool. “Norman called Aunt Izzie this morning,” she said. “He’s going to keep the truck an extra day so he can bring her that old wardrobe. Do you want raisins?”
My feet slapped across the linoleum. “Yup, yup, yup.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought Aunt Izzie back with him.”
“Can’t remember the last time she was here,” I said. “But I bet Norman wouldn’t drive two hours to Ship Harbour if he didn’t hope he could talk her into coming.”
Martha set my bowl in front of me and swiped the comic book I’d propped against the milk bottle off the table. “You know, a while back Mama said that Aunt Izzie got all worked up because Johnny wanted to come to Halifax and get a job at the shipyard,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of him dropping out of school either, but it would be nice if they both ended up here.”
I leaned over the oatmeal and felt the steam break like a wave across my face. “I think you’re thinking having Johnny around would really shake things up.”
I liked the way that sounded when it came out of me. People aren’t always straight when they talk, especially when they’re talking to the youngest. Even Martha sometimes put on a coat of sugar on things.
Martha tapped me on the head with a knuckle. “I mean, wouldn’t it work out nicely for everyone if we had the company, not to mention some help.”
The thing about sugar is, it’s real hard to scrape off.
The last time Johnny came into the city was for Young Lil’s wedding, two summers ago. Uncle Ezra and Aunt Izzie didn’t come because one or the other of them wasn’t feeling well. Let me tell you, after Cousin Johnny pulled up in his father’s car, girls from all over the North End were suddenly going crazy with errands on Agricola Street. You never seen so much traffic back and forth in front of the house. That’s because Johnny had grown into what you’d call a tall drink of water. He was fifteen, then, same as Martha. He had night-black hair, like Mama’s in old pictures, and her blue eyes, too, not brown like the rest of us. Mostly I liked the easy way about him. He listened closely and laughed at near anything you said.
Once, when I was small, I told him, “I’m going to marry you when I grow up.” Martha’s cheeks turned pink, and I quickly added, “After you marry Martha.” Which only made her go from pink to red.
Johnny laughed. “People don’t get that lucky twice.”
After the wedding, the grown-ups headed for the church hall and danced all night. Martha and me were the only ones who made it to church the next morning. On the way out, we stepped over my brother Freddie and my sister Margaret’s husband, Cecil. They were sleeping side by side on the floor, each with his arm flung over the other. When we got back, those grown-up Normans were sitting around the kitchen table, holding their heads, smoking. Martha said, “Where’s Johnny?”
Everyone started looking around the room as though he was a cat that might have gone behind the stove. That’s when Johnny came in through the back door. His hand was gripping his night-black hair like it was dragging him along.
Freddie hollered, “So, you caught the last dance with Sarah Hatfield after all!”
There was a lot of hooting and slapping the table—until we saw Mama bringing up the rear.
“Found this one face down in my dahlias. You’d think, son,” Mama said to Freddie, “you’d show your cousin a little more hos-pit-al-ity. At least take the bottle out from under him so he can get a decent night’s sleep in your mother’s flower bed.”
Johnny smoothed down his matted hair. “Sorry, Aunt Lily,” he said.
If anyone else in that kitchen had been caught sleeping one off in the garden, they would have been chased from the house with a broom. But Mama had a soft spot for Johnny on account of him being Aunt Izzie’s one and only, and she just pulled another stool up to the table. “I’ll get breakfast on,” she said, heading for the pantry. “I’m ashamed of all of you.”
Johnny looked so sheepish that everyone started laughing again.
Norman carried Mama downstairs and got her settled. He leaned his big black umbrella against the chesterfield, in case she needed to move around, and set up the radio so she could listen to a service. My parents almost never went to church. Norman said he didn’t need people eavesdropping on his prayers, and Mama said she’d had her religious education, thank you. Truth be told, she didn’t go anywhere if she could help it. That didn’t get the rest of us out of it, though.
From my bedroom window, I heard Norman talking to someone outside.
“Don’t worry about the lawn,” he was saying. “I’m more concerned about Mrs. Norman’s garden getting weeded.”
When I saw who he was talking to, I ran downstairs. Martha was fixing her hat in the hall mirror. She looked from my face to the screen door. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t make a fuss. You know Norman only has one day off and he needs the help. You go be polite.”
I stepped out onto the porch. It was hot already and my Sunday clothes were itchy. But I was polite. “Good morning,” I said to the Gravedigger, who was standing by himself in the yard. Then, to be extra nice, I added, “Don’t blame you for not going to church on a day like this. Not when there’s work to be had.”
“I’m waiting for Fred Senior,” said the Gravedigger. “He still out back getting the clippers? Or is he in Dartmouth today?”
I might not have been so well mannered, I tell you, if Martha hadn’t come out just then.
I love church. I love the hollow sound of my heels as I walk up the aisle. I love the dark shiny wood that’s like tight, ripe apple skin. I love the women in their Sunday clothes. The smell of powder and perfume. The heavy, felt-lined collection plate. The worn-soft hymn book. First thing I do when I get to church, after I’m done looking at what everyone’s wearing, is open the hymn book and feel the paper between my fingers. Delicate as onion peel. I lift a page and pass my hand under the words. Strong words, fierce words, God words. I’m no Baptist, but when I sing hymns, I’m as thunderous and holy as Sunday.
I was still thinking on the Gravedigger when we got to church that morning. About how Norman, who was usually a sensible person, didn’t seem worried about leaving Mama at home with a boy who had a fondness for dead bodies. Maybe he would dig a big hole in the yard and then start thinking about how to fill it! I hoped Mrs. Hewitt was planning on coming by, and I don’t hope that very often.
The minister asked everyone to stand for the Creation hymn:
Many and great, O God, are your works
O Lord of every shining constellation
Long before time and the earth were begun
When I was singing those words, all my worries about Mama eased up. Martha’s voice was soft and deep, deeper than you would expect. I liked the way our voices sounded together and how they fit with the congregation’s. Funny how you can listen to the whole congregation, then, if you think about it, you can hear your own voice. Or someone else’s, like Martha’s. Or just the men, or just the women. Or just that old lady in the pew behind you who must have been in a choir once and still thinks she’s God’s gift to music because she’s really caterwauling and her voice has a phony trill to it so you work even harder to hear yourself.
At the end of the hymn, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the caterwauler. She was wearing a skinny ol’ dead fox around her neck with the head and tail still attached. “Next time, dear,” she said, “maybe you should just mouth the words.”
She said more than that, but I didn’t hear any of it because I was turned back around in my seat, a hot flush running from my ears down my back. I felt Martha’s hand over mine and started trembling all over what with trying to keep the tears from leaking out.
Later, when the collection plate was going around, I could hear the caterwauler whispering to the old bag beside her that she was just trying to be helpful. Because of her voice, you know. Only trying to help. Can’t blame a person for helping. Oh yes, only trying to help. Then Martha turned around and gave them some kind of a look.
We walked home with Martha’s friends Susan and Amy. Around the back, the Gravedigger was trimming the edges of the lawn. Mama was in the kitchen having tea with Mrs. Hewitt. I felt bad that I’d forgotten to be worried about Mama, and then I was mad at the caterwauler all over again because she made me forget. I went straight upstairs and took out my sketch pad. Before I was even out of my good clothes, the caterwauler was torn apart by a pack of foxes. I don’t meant to boast, but the picture was so good, it kind of turned my stomach.
“Rosalie Evelyn Norman!”
If you had told me a few days earlier that I’d be standing on the back step holding a plate with the Gravedigger’s lunch on it, I wouldn’t have believed you. But there I was, handing him his ham sandwich with a side of potato chips and a glass of milk to wash it down. He just took everything and started eating.
All of a sudden I wasn’t scared so much as just peed off at the Gravedigger, sitting there in his work shirt and heavy boots in the middle of summer, like he wanted to be even bigger and sweatier and smellier than he already was. It was his own fault if people didn’t like him. And anyway, what was so scary about him? It’s not like he went around killing people—he just dug them up. He was a dog of a human being and I wasn’t going to be scared of him any more.
“You know, civilized people say thank you,” I said.
“Civilized people know their father’s proper names.”
Dog! Mick! Gravedigger!
“Don’t you get too comfortable,” I said. “When my cousin Johnny gets here, he can do this stuff and other stuff, too, and then you’ll be out of a job.”
The Gravedigger took a long drink of milk. He wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. “Your cousin’s not coming,” he said. “He’s missing.”