After the funeral Ida began to have some trouble attending to things. She would be engaged in a task and something about it would draw off her thoughts; for example, one morning while scattering corn for the chickens and collecting the dwindling eggs she found her thoughts drifting to the ship that had perched on the beach like a setting hen; she began to wonder what was happening with the Addie Todd. She set off for the beach.
It was a bright but raw day, the wind shoving Ida from behind, the sunlight signaling her from the waves; the Addie Todd had still not appeared above the surface, but fewer people stood watching. Ida strolled near enough to collect the day’s report without having to engage directly with anyone and learned that equipment trouble had delayed the operation.
“She’ll be up by Christmas,” one of the watchers predicted, and off Ida’s mind went: Christmas.
Traditionally Ezra and Ida went to Ruth’s for Christmas dinner, and Ida had learned early in her marriage that this invitation was not one to be negotiated, but surely if there were ever a year when Ida might be excused, this was it. So when Ruth presented her invitation Ida said, “Thank you, Ruth, but I’ve decided it would be best for me to stay at home this year.”
“Very well,” Ruth said. “But I hope you’re not serving us mutton.”
Christmas also meant it was time to separate the ram from the ewes, a task Ida had never attempted before and didn’t wish to now, for the simple reason that the beast always looked at her with a look of . . . well, hatred. She stared at him standing on a rise in the field, looking down his arrogant Grecian nose at Ida. He was handsome, she would admit—gorgeous, in fact—sturdy leg bones, strong shoulders, nice tight wool, bold, bright eyes well spaced on either side of a strong brow. All right, so she’d given the beast his due, and here he was already stamping the dirt at the sight of her. She collected Bett, opened the gate, pointed at the ram with her crook, and gave the dog the command to shed; Bett isolated the ram and drove him into the smaller paddock without trouble, but once in the paddock Ida noticed that the beast held one foot off the ground. Ida braced herself, slid through the paddock gate crook at the ready, and called to Bett to keep the ram cornered. The next thing she saw was sky. She scrambled to her feet and fled the paddock.
Lem came, looked without comment at Ida’s muddy backside, removed a stone from between the ram’s toes, and somehow managed to stay upright. Once safely out of the pen, they stood side by side admiring the ram, or rather Lem admired it and Ida glared at it.
“For an animal with such a pleasant job, you’d think he’d be better natured,” Ida said.
That shocked the kind of full-bellied laugh out of Lem that Ida rarely heard, and hearing it now cheered her unreasonably. Her mind floated again. “Would you like to eat Christmas dinner with us?”
Lem twisted to look at Ida. “Well, yes, I guess I would. I’ll bring punch.”
Ruth had never served punch. Ida felt better at once.
Hattie arrived at seven a.m. in a ruffled flannel tea dress, her apron neatly folded under her arm, vegetable parer in hand. “Mother sent me to help.” She stopped short just inside the kitchen door to drop her cloak onto the peg, and when she turned around her face was shimmering with tears. “I can’t bear not having him here today. Do you remember last year? That song he made up about Hattie’s hat? Sometimes it feels like I haven’t laughed since.”
Ida remembered no song about a hat. She remembered no laughing. But one thing was sure—there would be no laughing this year. Hattie began to attack the turnips, recalling other Ezra moments as she peeled, most of which predated Ida’s marriage: Ezra teaching Hattie to play poker; Ezra taking her to catch herring at the creek; Ezra rowing her across Lagoon Pond; Ezra taking her aboard the Cormorant and allowing her to parade around in Mose’s dive suit. That was when Ida knew that Hattie was in some Ezra world of her own devising—Mose had once told her the full dive kit weighed 150 pounds.
But in amongst her verbal creations Hattie managed to peel the turnips and apples, boil and mash the potatoes, and roll out the pastry for the pie, while Ida washed the turkey, chopped oysters and onions for the stuffing, set the cranberries to boil, soaked the soda crackers in milk for the pudding, set up another pan for the accompanying sauce of sugar and wine and nutmeg and raisins, and strained the stock for the clear soup that had been simmering since dawn.
Ruth was bringing the nuts.
When Lem arrived he claimed a spot on the stove for his punch, but even before it got poured into the cups, something went awry. Hattie had returned with Ruth, the former dressed in black satin and the latter in black silk. Ida had dressed in a crisp white shirtwaist and black brocade skirt, which she’d cinched with the same purple belt that had once attracted Henry Barstow’s notice—the belt drew all four eyes and pinched both mouths, but this she’d expected. The part she hadn’t expected was the fact that Lem’s entrance seemed to cause Hattie to temporarily lose her speech. Granted, Lem barely looked like himself, clad in wool suit and tie, his hair neatly damped and parted.
“Well, I’d no idea,” Hattie said at last.
“No idea of what?” Ida asked.
“That you’d invited Mr. Daggett.”
“Who wants punch?” Lem asked.
Ruth did not. Hattie did. Ida did. She held out the cups as Lem poured; before she even tasted it she could smell the fermented cider and the cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves; perhaps something citrusy besides. Lem lifted his glass. “To Ezra,” he said. “May he rest in peace.”
“Well, in that case I should not refuse a small cup,” Ruth said.
Even with the punch the meal was a quiet one, and Ida couldn’t blame it all on Ezra; where she’d hoped Lem’s presence would have eliminated a few conversation gaps, it only seemed to cause a bigger one. After Ida and Hattie retreated to the kitchen to clean up, the talk seemed to flow better in the parlor, Ruth’s chirps and Lem’s rumbles drifting over the exhausted silence in the kitchen. When Ida and Hattie returned to the parlor, Ruth stood up.
“Time to wander.”
“I’ll drive you,” Lem said.
“There’s no need of anyone driving me,” Ruth retorted just as Hattie said, “Thank you.”
Ida’s three guests left, and sooner than she’d expected, Ida was alone. She sat herself in the chair Lem had recently occupied and breathed in the relief of an empty house, but after a time the relief wore off. The tick of the clock grew loud, echoing around the room. Ida had just decided to give the day over to her bed when someone knocked on the door.
Thrusting her way through ghosts of Christmases past, Ida opened the door on Lem.
“Forgot my kettle.”
Ida stepped aside. Lem stepped in, picked the kettle off the stove, swished it. “According to the rules of hospitality as I know them, the kettle’s mine but the contents are yours.”
Ida set out two fresh cups. Lem poured. They returned to the chairs by the fire. The stillness of the scene, Lem’s total concentration on the cup in his hand, reminded Ida of several of her early portrait sessions, the subjects intent on looking anywhere but at the artist, afraid to speak lest they creased their brow. But Lem’s face couldn’t disguise the years or the weather or the care, even in stillness. Ida leaned forward. “Lem. Let me sketch you.”
“Thank you, no.”
“It won’t take long. I haven’t tried a portrait in months. If I don’t start again soon—”
Lem drained his cup and stood up. “Some other time.”
“Why not now? You’re all spruced up. You’re warm. You’re fed. You’re full of punch.”
They eyed each other, Ida attempting to gauge the degree of Lem’s resistance, Lem no doubt attempting to gauge the degree of Ida’s desperation. She said nothing else; he would or he wouldn’t as he decided; that much she could see. At the end of it Lem made a half circle and perched on the edge of his chair, holding out his cup for more. Ida filled his cup in the kitchen and collected her pad and pencil.
But whatever stillness Ida had observed in Lem disappeared the minute she picked up her pencil. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. He ran his fingers through his hair. He tugged his collar. He leaned forward. Back. Forward again. Ida gave out no criticism or correction, but she realized she needed to distract him or she’d never get a single line drawn.
“So tell me, how many lambs might we get this spring?”
Lem’s mouth twitched, a twitch that said, I know what you’re up to, but he answered. “I count twenty ewes carrying, best I can tell.”
“You like the new ram?”
“I’ve never seen a finer. I told Ezra, he did well there.”
Lem went on. A big-headed ram had once created so many big-headed lambs that they’d lost nearly a dozen; a pushy one had tried to jump the fence into the ewes’ pasture and broke his leg; another stood calmly in the corner no matter how many ewes squatted in front of him. Lem never grew easy, but by the time Ida set down her pencil he’d stopped tugging at his cuffs and resetting his shoulders, and the damp of perspiration had dried on his brow.
Ida walked him to the door. “Tell me this, Lem. Do you want to manage the farm?”
“No. And that’s what I told Ruth.”
“When? When did you tell her that?”
“The day after you told me what she said to you. I also told her you’d been managing pretty well whenever Ezra was gone, and I’d help where needed.” He paused but stood there so long that another thought occurred to Ida.
“Why did you come back here tonight? Really?”
Lem gazed over Ida’s shoulder as if at Ezra’s ghost. “I don’t recall that first Christmas alone being the best day of my life.” He paused again. “I’m not going to say Merry Christmas to you, Ida, but I will say thank you for a nice night and may peace settle on you soon.”
He was out the door before Ida could think what she might wish for Lem in return. She watched him climb into the wagon, watched him snap the reins and move forward, watched the wagon stop, watched Lem lean forward, fumble in his coat. Ida couldn’t see what he was doing, but she stood and watched until he rose from his hunched position and the wagon had moved off again. Odd, she thought, that this man was the one person who seemed to genuinely care what happened to her, care what she thought. Felt. As she cared what happened to him. The wagon paused again. Ida took a step after it, but before she could take a second step it bolted ahead and down the track.