7

Early summer, hotter than usual, and with only one child to babysit, Molly the Nose decided it would be a fine day to walk to the corner store for an ice-cream cone. She invited Della, but she declined. Della had Stacey and Tommy to contend with but also a one-year-old baby who needed a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Stacey and Tommy felt ripped off. Della said she had a headache and lay down beside the day crib in the hottest part of the afternoon.

Stacey and Tommy busied themselves building irrigation ditches in the backyard. Tommy was five, and Stacey wouldn’t be four much longer. In parts of the garden where nothing had been planted, they dug a trench and fed the garden hose into the channel. When filled with water, it looked just like an irrigation project they’d seen on TV the week before. They left the hose running because they wanted to see if a natural lake would form.

In no time at all, I think we’ll have a big lake out here. What do you think? Stacey didn’t offer a response. She stared at the grass.

They had nothing to do until the flow of water proved them right or wrong, so they climbed through the fence to the backyard belonging to Molly the Nose and Hart Ferguson. Tommy figured if they were there when Molly the Nose returned, they might get a lick of ice cream, a bite if they were lucky. Maybe she would even bring two extra ice-cream cones back with her.

You kids looking for someone to play with? Is that it? Hart had come onto the back porch and found them wandering around, looking lost. Molly’s not home yet. Come on in, and I’ll get you some lemonade made this morning.

I’ve never been inside their house before, Stacey whispered into Tommy’s ear. I don’t think we should go.

Don’t be stupid, Tommy said. He’s got lemonade.

Hart told them to sit themselves down at the table. He poured the lemonade into two glasses and put a plate on the table that held two cookies, making Stacey glad they’d accepted.

Won’t be long before you two head off to school, Hart said.

Tommy already goes to kindergarten in the mornings. I’m going next year, and I can read already.

You cannot, Tommy said.

I can read some.

They munched on their cookies and looked around the kitchen. The grey Arborite table matched the grey walls. The floor was black tile, and the ceiling was shiny white. Stacey liked her own kitchen better.

You kids might be interested in some of my collections, Hart said. Stacey and Tommy exchanged glances but remained silent. Hart stood up and walked to the side of the house, and they both followed. Guns are my favourite thing in the world. I don’t shoot nothing with them. I just like the idea of them. I don’t keep a lot of guns, but the ones I own are important. Here, take a hold of this revolver. Stacey took a step back, and Tommy hesitated. Don’t be afraid. There’re no bullets for it anyway. That there is a Remington from 1875. If you haven’t heard of Jesse James you will someday. Wild outlaws the James gang. Jesse’s older brother, Frank James, this is the gun he used. Took only one bullet at time is all. Heavier than you’d think, isn’t it?

Tommy aimed the gun against the wall with both hands and pulled the trigger. Stacey took the gun in her hands then passed it back to Hart.

They call this here rifle a Winchester. They call it the gun that won the West. I don’t have bullets for it either, but it’s capable of shooting off seventeen rounds at a time. Makes sense it won the West, when you think about it. You’ve heard of the Battle of the Little Bighorn haven’t you? Well, maybe not. Anyway, the Indians won that one because the army only had single-shot rifles and the Indians had all sorts of guns, including ones like this that could shoot over and over. Success in war is about technology and always has been. Look over here. This case has genuine Indian arrowheads found out on the Plains. They knew how to put poison on the end so the animals they hit tightened up and couldn’t run away.

Stacey and Tommy followed Hart’s voice around the room. He showed them what he claimed was a genuine Indian tomahawk, though it looked hardly used, and a single spur once worn by Bill Miner, the gentleman train robber. Tommy found the tour more interesting than Stacey did. She figured even if Molly the Nose brought back extra ice-cream cones, they would have melted by now.

Hart showed them a chair he had made with a saddle in the big bedroom then told them to take a seat on the couch because in fifteen minutes the movie High Noon would be on channel 2. He got them each another cookie and more lemonade to pass the time while they waited.

What are you three doing in here? Molly the Nose yelled.

We’re about to watch a movie, Hart said.

Don’t you know Della has been having a conniption? She walked the baby in the stroller all the way to the store and back looking for these two. Molly the Nose went to the front door. Della, they’re in here. They’re watching TV with Hart. Without being asked, Stacey and Tommy got up and walked out to the front porch to join Della.

Hart sat on the couch looking confused. Come back once you’re both in school, he said. I’ll teach you how to make a bow and arrow.

Della didn’t say a word until they got back inside their own house. How many times have I told you it’s this house or the yard? We’re sorry.

Sorry? I nearly had a fit. Here, play with the baby on the couch. I need a drink of water.

Stacey and Tommy put the baby between them and took turns making cooing noises. The yelling bewildered the baby, her eyes darting back and forth between them. Della returned with a cigarette in hand.

What were you two doing over there?

We just went to play for a minute. And to see if there might be ice cream from the store. We didn’t stay long. Hart was nice to us. He gave us cookies and lemonade and let us hold his guns.

His guns? He let you hold his guns?

They’re heavier than you’d think, Stacey said, trying to make it sound like an informative trip. Tommy pulled the trigger, but I didn’t. I just held it.

Never again. You hear me? Never again. Now go out in the backyard. You’ve got an hour before Tommy’s mother gets here.

With visiting Hart next door, they’d forgotten about the hose and the irrigation. It hadn’t formed a lake like they’d thought it might. Instead, every inch of the garden was soaked, and some of the plants were floating in puddles. Stacey ran and shut the water off.

I hope it dries out before they see it. My dad can get mad sometimes.

You worry too much, Tommy said. It sure is a lot of water out there. It’s like a real irrigation ditch. As soon as you start school, I want to go back there because that guy says he’ll help us make our own bow and arrow. Stacey stared at a radish floating in the irrigation project and covered in mud. That was the problem with vegetables. They grew in dirt and came out dirty and needed to be thoroughly cleaned. She liked apples and plums better. They showered when it rained and were ready to serve when you picked them. She picked the radish up and pushed it back into the muddy dirt so it almost looked like a normal radish.

With a house full of kids weekdays, Della found it hard to keep her home as she liked. She was in survival mode most of the time. Her last client wasn’t picked up until 5:30, and then she had supper to worry about. Most Saturdays started off with what Della called getting the house shipshape. Sage helped if he was around, but most of the time, he had something like an oil change or a tune-up scheduled for Saturdays. That left Stacey at home to help with cleaning the house. She could watch cartoons between nine and ten and then had to help put the house in order.

Stacey didn’t mind Saturdays so much. She liked things in order. Sage had built her two long shelves that ran along one wall of her bedroom. One for books and one for stuffed animals. Because Della knew she wouldn’t get an argument from her about cleaning her room, she assigned her vacuuming and dusting the living room, and then she got to tend to her own affairs. So that was how Della and Stacey passed a Saturday with light snow falling outside. It was still early winter, and like every year, the snow began like a rumour that might or might not stay, a rumour eventually confirmed. It didn’t matter to Stacey. She didn’t start school until next year, and if she wanted to play in the snow, she only had to open the door any time she wanted for the next four months.

Sage, why do you keep leaving your coat on the back of a chair when you come home? We have hooks in the porch for coats. Sage had something on his mind and wasn’t in the mood to fight; instead, he accepted Della’s comment and returned his coat to the rack that sat beside the back door.

We’ve owned that car for what? Six or seven years now?

How would I know? Della said. We bought it four years before we had Stacey is all I know.

That makes it eight years then. Arnie down at the garage says it will burn oil worse and worse unless we rebuild the head. I’m wondering if it’s worth it. Caught up in that important decision, he forgot to take his boots off until he’d already walked halfway across the kitchen floor. He went back to the porch to take them off but not before Della came into the room.

Look at that, she said. We can’t even have a clean house for two days a week. Why can’t you be as neat and tidy as your daughter?

Stacey?

Do we have another daughter?

Since when is she Miss neat and tidy?

Well, if you were around more on Saturdays, you’d see what she can do for someone her age. She doesn’t complain about it either. She’s outright finicky. The other day one of her stuffed animals had fallen on the floor, so I went to put it back again and noticed she has them all in order, shortest to tallest. Her books are the same way too.

Sage got up from his chair in the kitchen and went to her bedroom door. Well I’ll be damned, he said. Where is she?

Next door. I made a batch of cookies, and she took some over to Molly and Hart.

Since when are we cooking for those two?

You know, Sage, you should look around and be thankful for the friends and neighbours we have in this town. Molly has always been there for us whenever we need her. She’s invited me to go to church with her tomorrow, and I’m going. You can come with us if you want.

No thanks. Hart doesn’t go to church, does he?

No. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. Come here. I want to show you something. Della walked into Stacey’s bedroom and took the second-largest stuffed animal and moved it about halfway down the pecking order. You watch, she said. Before bedtime she’ll have them all lined up again.

She had a choice, on Sunday, to attend church with her mother and Molly the Nose or go for walk to the river with Sage. Her dad told her once that Jesus Christ didn’t have a sense of humour. Sage liked to watch the snowflakes fall into the river. She chose the river.

Not much presented itself in Della’s closet as formal, so if she liked going to church, she would have to look around the secondhand stores for something else to wear because if you met the same people in the same place once a week, you couldn’t wear the same thing forever. Molly’s friend, Rose Schultz, picked them up at 9:30. By then the snowfall had let up.

I feel good about today, Molly said. I’ve wanted to invite you to give our church a try for the last two years, and I finally got around to it. Knox United doesn’t have a huge congregation, but it’s peaceful.

I know little about the United Church, Della confessed. I went to a few Catholic services with my mother when I was much younger. Easter and Christmas normally.

Well, Molly said, think of it as somewhat similar to the Catholic Church but with less fanfare. No rosary beads and no fish on Fridays.

No fish on Fridays, Rose said. That’s a good one. Della could see why Molly liked Rose because Rose found anything Molly said funny or interesting.

Knox United was huge compared to any church Della had ever set foot in. The windows along the side let in the glare of winter light that reflected off the newly fallen snow. The worn sheen to the pews and the elegance of the pulpit reflected a more prosperous time in the history of the town. And the smell. Every church Della had ever entered had what she assumed was a church smell, and Knox United was no exception. She now thought of it as the smell of sin, the result of decades of church attendance by those who walked in with their sins and left them behind when the service ended.

Molly insisted they get there early and sit close to the front. The church appeared to hold at least a hundred and fifty churchgoers, and yet when the minister, who hadn’t been identified by Molly or Rose, got up to the front to welcome the congregation, no more than twenty-five parishioners sat before him. And with the church only slightly warmer than the outside world, many kept their coats on. Della wondered if the church was ever full. At Christmas perhaps. Or for a wedding. She didn’t ask because she knew the question would sound like a slight to Molly the Nose.

The minister had a resonant voice that made everything he said sound truthful. He talked about God and salvation and how winter was a time for internal contemplation. He led three or four hymns, but with so few trying to keep up with the organ, the result was faltering. Toward the end, all but two of the attendees, Della and a young girl who sat at the end of her pew, rose to accept communion. Entering a church was a big enough step, and Della didn’t feel the need to consume a Christian vitamin her first day.

The minister stood on the landing at the front of the church as they departed. It took time to leave because he had a brief conversation with each of his regulars. Molly introduced Della, explaining her newness to the community, and the minister held her hand in his hands and looked into her eyes and welcomed her with such deep earnestness that Della felt compelled to return the following week. Out on the street, where the snow fell more deliberately than before, the people looked vulnerable, like field mice out in the open, while inside there had been a sense of comfort and safety that Della still carried with her.

Rose Shultz only lived a block and half from the church, but because of the soft snow on the ground, they drove to Rose’s for tea after church. Our ritual, Molly said. Do you mind? I’d love to sit and have a cup of tea, Della said. I don’t get out much.

Once Rose had seated them in the wallpapered dining room, she brought out an ashtray for Della. I don’t smoke, she said, but my understanding is you do. So far, Della liked this Sunday ritual. It beat watching snowflakes fall into the river. It beat a lot of other things she could think about too.