Dew beaded on streetlamps and darkened cobblestones as the seasonal thaw warmed Leamington Spa. The grey watercolors of spring bled in the sky. Tap tap tap, the rain dripped off leaves and pooled into muddy puddles.
Two boys strolled down the dirt road toward Mr. Brand’s farm, one clutching a brown paper parcel under his arm. On the tag, his mother had written, Mr. Brand, here are the Easter chocolates you requested. No need to pay; take it as a gift for your kindness. Sincerely, Constance Baker.
Mr. Brand had tracked mud across the threshold of Baker’s Sweets on Maundy Thursday, before the busy weekend of making hot cross buns and crème eggs and Simnel cakes for Easter festivities.
“I’m putting on a surprise for the family, you see, after church on Easter. It’s been a hard winter at the farm and all, and I would have them smile, yes?”
“Yes,” Constance nodded without acknowledging the pain in Mr. Brand’s eyes. But she had risen early to make the chocolates, box them, tie them with twine, and call Jim in from playing in the street to make the delivery. As usual, he had dirt on his cheeks.
“You know the Brand’s farmhouse?”
“No.”
“Yes, you jolly well do. Ethyl’s in your grade. They live off Radford Road. Her father and uncle played music at Auntie Lavinia’s wedding.”
“I said no. I don’t know it.”
“Lord, Jim, you certainly do know Ethyl. You played together when you were babes.”
Jim studied his shoes. “Don’t know her,” he declared, a bit too loudly and a bit too red faced.
“Fine, fine. Radford Road. Just follow the address.”
Jim looked up at his mother. Her eyes narrowed as if daring him to say it.
“But I don’t want to. It’s started to rain again.”
“You were just playing out in the rain, so it’s obvious you’re not going to melt.”
“But—”
“Get going or your face won’t just be red from blushing.”
As soon as Jim closed the door behind him, jumped down the stoop, and headed down the street, his friend Rodney Stoker stopped kicking his ball around, and fell in beside him.
“Where’re you off to?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the parcel for?”
“A delivery.” Jim stomped in a puddle, and a few commas of mud sprayed up on the hem of his pants—the hem his mother had asked Auntie Lavinia to repair.
“I’m just looking at the mud.”
They walked in silence a while, and then Jim stopped. “Hey, I got an idea! What do you say we go fishing?” Jim pointed over the stone wall that partitioned the field stretching off from one side of the road. “We’re not far from the river.”
“Let’s do it.”
Jim and Rodney jumped the wall and tore over the open farmland until they breached the line of trees drooping over the River Leam. Still under his arm, the box in the brown paper wrapping was now rain-speckled and smashed flat.
And then he saw her. She was there. Right there.
The girl. Ethyl Brand. He knew full well who she was. He knew her name. He knew where her desk was in the schoolroom and he knew he had pulled her braids more than once, and, one time, when the schoolmaster asked him to solve an arithmetic problem with her, he’d kicked her. He didn’t know why. He shook his head at the memory. I always mess things up. She shouldn’t be kicked. Nobody should ever kick her! She’s … she’s what? I don’t know. A flower? A bird? An angel?
And he was supposed to be delivering the parcel of chocolates to her house. To her father. But instead he’d tried to avoid seeing her by going to the river. And now here she was.
His stomach bubbled.
She was barefoot and perched on a sandbar at the river’s edge, watching the leaves twist in the current. A tree with white bark drooped its branches over her like an umbrella, and in its branches, a red bird chirped. The whole world was green and grey and brown and damp like wet dirt. But her hair was red, like a fiery halo.
“Maybe Ethyl wants to go fishing, too,” Rodney started running, but Jim threw an arm out to stop him.
“I-I,” Jim toed the mud while he stuttered. “Let’s just leave her be. Looks like she wants to be alone, anyway. We can go fish somewhere else.”
“But—” Rodney started to protest, but Jim put his finger to his lips to shush him and then crept forward to set the box of chocolates on the crumbling, old stone wall where Ethyl had set her shoes. Where she was sure to see it. And then he tip-toed away with Rodney, leaving the gift of chocolates behind.
A few days later, Jim arrived at the schoolhouse to find another brown paper parcel on his desk, this time tied with a blue ribbon. Thank you for the chocolates, the tag read, I hope this gift makes you smile. He could feel Ethyl’s eyes trained on him from her desk in the corner, but he didn’t dare acknowledge her. When he was sure nobody else had noticed his curling grin, he pulled the ribbon loose, unwrapping the paper. Inside was a book, A Tale of Two Cities. For the rest of class that day, in between lessons about multiplication, Jim kept a hand over his mouth to conceal his smile.
Jim spent more time lingering after that, at church, on the country roads, near the river and the like, wondering if he would run into her. She seemed to have a favorite spot to reflect, and that was in the same place he and Rodney had seen her on the banks of the River Leam, under the trees. Taking a deep breath, he finally approached her one day, the book in his hands.
“Hello,” he said, and sat down beside her on the sandbar.
She mumbled a casual, “Evening,” as if they spoke that way every day.
“Thanks for the book,” he said. He picked up a stick and started drawing shapes in the sand. “I’ve actually read this one before. You see, my dad had a lot of Charles Dickens books he left for me after he died. I’ve read them all. I didn’t understand most of the words and don’t remember what happened, but I read them. There’s A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol.”
“Which is your favorite?” Ethyl asked. She started drawing in the sand, too.
“A Christmas Carol. It’s an awful sad story, but at the same time a most happy story. I like Christmas stories.”
Ethyl turned to look at him. “Those are good reasons.”
“Would you like to meet here tomorrow and talk some more?” Jim blurted, heart racing. He thought it was probably asking too much of her, especially since this one conversation had taken a week to cultivate.
“I would,” she whispered before standing up and sprinting back toward her farm.
Jim watched her until she disappeared and then looked down to see a heart drawn in the sand.
Mum stopped going to church after the time Luther threw a prayer book and hit an old lady in the back of the head. The priest came to our door that afternoon and said Luther might have a demon inside him, and Mum shut the door in his face. Still she made me go every weekend with Auntie Lavinia and Uncle Mark.
Especially on Easter.
Today Father Carmichael spoke from the pulpit behind the gate with his gentle, old-man voice that echoed through the pillared cavern. His words were careful and spread out all soft and droopy, like icing on a cake.
“We began this year of Our Lord in darkness, during the winter when nights were long. That was when the Lord came to the Earth, not as a militant king in flowing vestment, but as a humble babe …”
He paused especially long, so long that everyone in the pews could think about the importance of Jesus as a humble baby. My attention wandered to the ceiling, and I imagined, like I always did, that I was Jonah and the church was a whale, swallowing me up. And then there was the kaleidoscope window that I always thought looked like a giraffe was hiding in it.
At one point, Father Carmichael started talking about parenthood, and I had no idea why. “Let us start at birth,” he said, “when the love between parents is so great that it creates life. When that child is born, its parents shower it with love and wait on it every hour of the day, oftentimes going without sleep. I cannot name a mother who would rather live in comfort while her child suffers.”
I could think of one.
A hand spread out on my back, and I shivered. I looked up to see Auntie Lavinia smile and pull me close into her side. She had freckles and black hair, just like me. She smelled like flowers, and I hugged her back, but just for a second so nobody saw. Uncle Mark looked over and winked at me. I liked him okay. He had kind eyes set in a thin face adorned with a meager mustache.
I smiled back and then looked over at Ethyl and her family. They always sat in the pew across from us. I stole a glance at her and she turned and looked at me. I could feel my cheeks redden. Luckily, the adults picked up the hymn books, turned to the page, and started singing. I looked at Auntie Lavinia’s book and sang the words from it.
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
The bells bong bong bonged, and Auntie Lavinia had to stop me from running down the aisle and out into the square, where I knew the Easter Egg hunt would soon begin. I’d never been allowed to stay for the hunt because Mum didn’t think it was fair to Luther. Because of course Luther couldn’t hunt eggs. Luther couldn’t do much of anything.
“Can I do the hunt this year, Auntie Lavinia? Please?”
“Let’s go home and ask your mother, love. Maybe this year will be different.”
Dammit. I marched back home with Auntie Lavinia and Uncle Mark holding hands. Meanwhile, the men with the mustaches and top hats gathered up all the kids in front of church. They were kids like Farmer Brand’s goats were kids, all rounded up and bleating in a circle, patches of tweed and cotton and black shoes that their mothers had tied too tight and they cried over all morning. The fat man in the top hat and mustache told the rules that I already knew and then raised his flag—a white table cloth—and flashed it twice to signal the contest. The kids radiated outward, giggling, gossiping, peeking under every flower pot and inside every bird house. One of them pulled out a blue, penny-sized egg from the bird house and put it in their pocket. That’s a robin egg, not an Easter Egg. One of the adults made the little girl put it back.
“If Luther can’t join the Easter Egg hunt, then neither can you,” Mum said once I got home. “It’s not fair for him to watch you go have fun while he can’t. So, I'm sorry, but the answer is no.”
“But Mum, please. It’s Easter. And he’s here, not out there watching.”
Behind her, I watched the cupboard door in the kitchen open on its own. Out rose Luther, yawning, making those squeaky rubbery noises to himself. How long had he been asleep in the cupboard? As he stretched and rubbed his eyes, I thought of the verses from the hymn we had sung at church.
Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
Mum locked her gaze on me, and that same feeling passed between us that always passes between us. Usually at this point, if I said one more word, I’d get slapped or hit with a ruler. But Mum’s brow did not harden. She looked at Luther and then back at me and then at Auntie Lavinia, and then she sighed and started to untie her apron.
“Fine, yes. I’ll take Luther on his first Easter Egg hunt today. You go on and find your friends.”
The townsfolk had done an Easter Egg hunt in Leamington Spa every year since always. The kids would search for eggs, and the adults would eat cucumber sandwiches and look at the kids looking. Whoever found the most eggs by noon won a prize, a little metal plaque that Rodney told me was made of gold. Rodney … I wonder where he is … Wait! He would probably be good at finding eggs, and the two of us could win and walk up to the pavilion at noon with shirtfulls of eggs and get the plaque. Those other kids who sniveled and hid behind their fathers when me and Luther went around, who stole my pants and called my mother names, who made me eat dirt and gave me whoopings, they needed to be beaten and beaten good.
I found Rodney next to a tent set up in the greenspace by the river, where men drank scotch and smoked cigars and said dammit and hell. Rodney was sitting next to the tent cloth, knees folded up, chopping a stick into pieces with his dad’s knife.
He nodded at me, then put a finger to his lips.
“Hey,” I whispered. “The Easter Egg hunt started already. Wanna make a team and find them all before the other kids?”
“Jim, do you ever wish you were in the army?”
“What?”
“There’s some older boys—Tom Jansen and Michael Pinckney—smoking cigars and talking about how they joined the army. They’re in the tent right now.”
Rodney pointed his thumb at the rippling cloth wall beside him.
“Where did they fight?”
“Sounds like South Africa.”
The men in the tent started laughing, and Rodney pressed a finger to his lips and an ear to the tent.
I heard clinking glasses and lots of coughing, and Rodney tried to breathe in the smoke from the cigars. And then I heard the voices.
“You should’ve seen the savages, running naked and pillaging indiscriminately. Elephants running wild—ivory on legs, we called them. Nasty place. Know how to hold you own there, and you’re a rich man, though.”
Savage? What makes someone savage? I wanted to ask because when I knocked over old Mrs. Highsmith’s beehive, she called me a savage and my mum gave me a whupping she said was fit for a savage. I didn’t ask though. I just crouched down next to the flapping tent cloth that stunk of cigar.
“There was a man in our regiment who was caught trying to flee from the action. He dropped his gun and ran for the nearest village. Military police found him, tried him in court for cowardice, was found guilty of desertion, and executed about a month later.”
“Come on, Rodney, I don’t like this.” I pulled on the collar of his Sunday best. “Let’s look for the eggs now.”
But Rodney’s eyes were wide and empty because his thoughts were in South Africa.
“I’ve held my dad’s gun before, you know. He let me.”
I got the feeling that the British soldiers in South Africa would have looked into his empty eyes all day if not for the sudden bustle and clinking of glass inside the tent.
“Ch—Charles dear, we were going over to the Masons’ for lunch, remember?”
Rodney’s mum. We could tell she’d ventured inside the tent unwelcome because as soon as she spoke, all the coughing and grumbling and swearing died down, and the young men went quiet when they found a lady in their midst.
“Five, Margaret. Me and Fred Mason spoke. They wanted us over at five.”
“Sorry, but why would Fred Mason host a lunch at five in the afternoon? Come on, now, please.”
Rodney’s dad was silent. Nobody laughed at his mistake, either. Except for me, that is. Pressing a hand over my mouth to hide my giggles, I leaned my ear up against the tent cloth, along with Rodney. We heard a sound of swishing fabric—maybe Rodney’s dad was putting on his coat, maybe he was laying down his napkin on the table, or maybe even wiping his sweaty forehead.
“Pardon me,” a different voice spoke up to break the tension, “eh—”
“Call me Mrs. Stoker.”
“Very well, Mrs. Stoker. I’m new to Leamington, just finished serving in Africa, and I’m trying to learn the names. There’s a woman who runs the sweet shop. I gather you’re friends?”
Rodney and I met eyes, and I felt my chest tighten. Whoever this man was, his voice was swelled and puffy like a balloon. He sounded like my Uncle Peter. Uncle Peter gets sick when he drinks too much, and in the evenings, his voice swells up just like that, like when I spent the holiday at his farm over in Rugby.
“Are you referring to Constance Baker? No, I do not make a habit of socializing with her.”
Without thinking, I tore up a chunk of grass from the ground and made sure that Rodney could see me. I made a mental note to put snails or grubs or something slimy in his mum’s handbag.
“I guess what I’m trying to get at is,” the man’s voice continued to swell until he was talking over himself, “this Constance Baker, she seems a fine woman, fine and put together and pious. I gather there’s no Mr. Baker?”
Rodney’s face got red, and he shifted on his hams, crossing his arms. I scratched my head with ferocity. I’m leaving, right now. But I didn’t.
“Cut the nonsense, Tom.” another man spoke up, “That’s the whiskey talking. You wouldn’t want to court Mrs. Baker.”
“Why not? I ask again—is there a Mr. Baker?”
“No,” I peeked under the tent wall to see Rodney’s mum study the dirt beneath her feet. “Not anymore,” she said.
I swallowed.
“Sad,” Rodney’s dad spoke up, “It’s a hard thing, having a house without a father. Not good for the children. That Jim Baker especially. Call me a fool if he doesn’t end up with his head cracked open one day.”
“Boys like Jim Baker are no enigma, love,” Rodney’s mum said. “If you won’t breed a sheepdog with a tramp, then don’t breed a gentleman with a, a…”
My hands shook, and I got that feeling I usually got right before I try and fight one of the older boys always making fun of Luther. But now they were making fun Mum. I peeked under the tent to see Mrs. Stoker’s face scrunch up like her tea had turned to vinegar.
“Have you met Mrs. Baker?” she asked the newcomer. “It’d be a meeting you’d never forget.”
“Indeed?” the same man said. “Tell me.”
“You’ve seen how she paints her face. It’s ghastly. Red lips, dark eyes, I can’t tolerate it. I heard from my cousin that she’s, well, a loose woman.”
Mr. Stoker coughed. “Who told you that?”
“Maisie—you know, Maisie Collins.”
“Maybe Maisie’s right, or maybe she's just a busybody. I wouldn’t trust that woman to make my toast, and you shouldn’t be spreading gossip.”
“Yet you trust me to make your dinner.”
A puff of laughter filled the tent, and Mr. Stoker swallowed his whiskey before losing his solemn, rotisserie composure. He motioned his glass toward himself.
“No wonder the Baker boys are so …” Mrs. Stoker went on.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Mr. Stoker said. “You know Luther can’t help the way he is. And Jim’s not a bad sort. Good friend to our boy, remember.”
“These things are inherited, and the mother seems plenty strange to me,” Mrs. Stoker said, straightening up like she was going to give a lecture. “Why one time, when I was in the store, Rodney and I saw Luther have one of his fits. It was a sight I shan’t soon forget.”
To hell with it. With them all. I dropped the edge of the tent and stood up to go, hands clenched, jaw set, when I noticed the rock Rodney was crouched on a tiny ivory shine in the grass.
“Rod—an egg! You’ve been sitting on it this whole time, you chicken!”
Rodney snatched the egg up and stuck it in his trouser pocket. Finally, I dragged him away from the tent, and within a few minutes, we were searching for eggs and having fun. Kind of.
Whoever hid the Easter eggs had a ruddy go of it because we found them all over—in birdbaths, bushes, windowsills, some even just lying in the grass where people could step on them. They were painted eggs, too, dipped in blue and green pulpy water in coffee cups in the kitchen like Mum used to. Mum.
I heard her coming before I saw her.
“Look, Luther, there’s the egg. See? No, Luther, right there—see? In the flower pot. The flower pot. Luther, look at me. Go to the flower pot.”
“Ba,” it took him so much effort to say that. He pressed his lips hard and thought deep for the syllables. The sounds came out shrill, like an out-of-tune instrument, and he clung onto Mum to hide from all the other faces staring at him, blubbering in her shoulder.
“Luther, no sounds. Use words. The flower pot, Luther.”
She sounded just as happy as she always did around Luther. I imagined she was telling herself over and over again to love him sweet. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
“Ba.”
Luther was just about as tall as Mum now, which made the other kids stop and gape when they heard his sounds. They got quiet like they always did and shrank behind their parents. They were all afraid of him. Pricks.
Mum and Luther were coming around the corner, and I didn’t want to be there when they arrived. I was standing on Rodney’s hands because he was giving me a boost to see over Mrs. Robert’s garden wall. I didn’t see any eggs, but there was a big plate of golden-sweet hot cross buns cooling on the table on her veranda and a street cat circling the table and rubbing its neck on them. Mmm. My arms shook as I pulled myself over the wall and into the yard, where I opened the gate for Rodney to come in. We tip-toed over the gravel, and the cat stared at us. It started walking in figure eights around the tabletop, restless as we approached.
I heard that rubber-squeaking sound, the constant sound of someone inhaling in delight. Luther stumbled through the gate on his toes, flapping his hands and jumping when he saw the cat. He ran right past us, not even noticing the dozen painted eggs Rodney and I were holding in our shirts. The cat’s eyes widened into saucers; it arched its back, twitched its tail, and darted off the table and into the bushes.
When Luther saw me, he ran up and hugged me, but I kind of pushed him away because I didn’t want Rodney to see us hugging. But then Luther did the same thing to Rodney, and Rodney gave Luther a shove, too.
So I hit Rodney. What’s a brother to do? Sometimes I don’t even know why I lash out, but as soon as I’d done it, I knew I shouldn’t have. Luther froze up like he does sometimes, his face all blank.
“Luther? Luther where are you?” I heard Mum’s voice in the background.
Rod crouched over, covered his face, and got real quiet. I thought he was going to start crying and get us all in trouble. Come on, Rodney, don’t be a baby. He stayed crouched. Rodney …
I inched over and touched Rod’s back to see what he’d do, and he got up and smashed all his eggs on my shirt, giggling. They were all boiled, of course, and left yellow grainy marks like dry boogies. But he ruined my Sunday’s best. Whew. We were going to be okay.
I laughed. “Want me to do you?”
He nodded, and I smashed all my eggs on his shirt. There were a thousand tiny crack crack cracks, and he had white and yellow egg flesh all over his suit, a few pieces of shell still sticking on. The both of us stood there giggling. I reached out and poked his shoulder, and he had the same idea. Next second, we were both pretending to be tough guys. I sent my fist at him in slow motion, and he grabbed it and pretended to twist it. I went along with him, flopping on the gravel of Mrs. Robert’s garden, clutching my arm and seething.
“Where’s the money?” Rod stood over me.
“I buried it, wise guy.”
“Aw, yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ll never get your dirty hands on it now!”
Rodney suddenly got distracted and reached over to snatch one of the hot cross buns that Mrs. Roberts had set out to cool. They looked good, so I got up and figured I’d take one, too. Rod was going to take a bite, but there was a fly sitting on it, right on the warm, crisp crust. Rod pulled his finger back to flick the fly off, but it saw him coming and buzzed away.
“Aw man. Looks like I’ll have to get that fly another day. Fight’s over.”
“No hit Jim!”
Oh God. Luther. I’d almost forgot he was still there. Now, he was suddenly screeching and flapping his hands against Rodney. Rodney stuffed a big bite of bun in his mouth and stepped aside. He didn’t even try to block Luther. He just turned way. And then he was on the ground, head cracked open on the pavement, and Luther was standing over him.
The fly buzzed back and landed in the pooling blood.
God in heaven, I had never seen so much blood—staining the skin like ink on paper, darkening the pavement. Luther ran behind me, crouched down on his heels and rocked back and forth while flapping his hands and smacking himself in the head. Jim just stood there. Frozen. Looking down at his friend like he’d never seen him before. For a moment, I stood frozen as well. So much blood—my fingers tingled and my stomach lurched.
I didn’t know how to act. I couldn’t swallow; I couldn’t speak. Maybe someone else, a doctor, would come strolling by, cry out, and seize the body in his arms? He would rush off to the hospital, leaving me just a bystander featured in next week’s post. Scenarios dreamed themselves up separate from my thoughts, kind of like how they say life flashes before the dying, one of whom was bleeding out on the ground at my feet. Finally, after what seemed ages but was probably seconds, I bent over Rodney Stoker and lifted his head; my fingers came away sticky with thick blood from the gushing patch at the back of his head. A bandage? I looked up at Jim and considered pulling his shirt off to use as a bandage, but he might resist and delay me. So I reached for the buttons of my own blouse, pulling it open, yanking it off my shoulders and using the long sleeves to tie it tight it around Rodney’s head. The white cotton—the blouse I had borrowed from Lavinia all those years ago and then “forgot” to return was already stained like the strawberries I would coat in chocolate for St. Valentine’s Day.
And the blood kept gushing.
I needed to call for help, but my voice wouldn’t work. And, besides, we were too far from the village green and there was too much activity for anyone to hear me. Could I carry him? Was that allowed? My arms were jelly, and I feared any touch would break him. I touched his face, no movement. I slid my arms under his knees and his back, and then struggled to stand. He was limp and warm and heavy in my arms.
Where to? The hospital? Too long of a walk—I didn’t know how long he even had. Doc Abbott’s place on the other side of town? I’d walk up to drawn curtains and a closed gate. The church? I hadn’t been there since the incident with Luther and the hymnal and the old woman. Besides, as soon as anyone saw me with a bloodied boy, everyone would accuse Luther, no doubt. Especially Mrs. Stoker. Oh, god. What would Mrs. Stoker say?
But the boy needed help. Now. Someone at the Easter festivities would know what to do.
I turned to Jim. “Take Luther home. Now.”
Jim looked up at me, shock written on his face.
“Jim!” I wanted to shake him. “Do you hear me? Take your brother home now!”
I left my boys and hurried down the cobblestone with Rodney bouncing in my arms, down Gordon Street, around the corner, under the trees, red brick at one side, white plaster on the other. Down the row of vine-curled steel fences where the stray cats hissed as I passed. New Street. Church Terrace. There, ahead, the green at the flank of All Saint’s Church where tents flapped and children played chatter buzzed. I saw children running with bubble wands and playing jump rope, fine gentlemen and farmers stumbling down the egg-and-spoon race while their best girls clapped and squealed, prize-winning rabbits with blue ribbons pinned on their cages, and bearded men spinning war stories and sipping on Scotch.
“Doc Abbott! You—where’s Doc Abbott?”
I singled out a raggedy old man because raggedy old men seemed to be the only ones who would acknowledge me.
He pulled off his cap and ran. Mothers grabbed their children by the shoulders, covering their eyes and turning them away. A bearded man from one of the tents hurried toward me. He opened his arms and motioned for me to hand over the boy, which I did.
“What happened?”
“Hit his head on pavement—playing like boys do. An accident, a terrible accident.”
“We’ll get him to the Doctor. Don’t you worry yourself. Best tell Mr. and Mrs. Stoker,” and the man rushed off with Rodney limp in his arms.
With the warmth of the boy’s body gone, the humid air was cold against my skin. I looked down to see my arms were bare and remembered I’d taken off my shirt to staunch the blood. Now, I was standing out in the open in my silk shift, matted and bloody. Young boys stared and then looked away, embarrassed. Some of the women scowled, while others mouthed, Dear me.”
On the church steps I saw Father Carmichael chatting with a wealthy widow who stopped, put her hand over her mouth and pointed at me. The priest clicked his polished shoes down the front steps, and hurried straight at me. I crossed my arms tight over my chest and held my chin high. People stared as he ripped off his black jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
“Come,” he motioned me to walk with him, “It’ll do no good having a whole town frown on you.”
“What happened?”
“A playful tussle. Jim and Rodney. Rodney took a misstep and tripped.” My hand instinctively touched the back of my head. “There was so much blood.”
“Who has the boy?”
“I don’t know his name. I think he’s new in town. He grabbed him and said he’d take him to Doc Abbott’s.”
“My good people, the crisis is resolved.” Father Carmichael’s voice echoed over the greenspace as he hurried me along. “Enjoy this holy day in Christ and do not trouble yourselves.”
The mothers ushered their children back to their business, but the festivities had lost their vibrance.
“I trust you will accompany me to Doctor Abbott’s?”
“For the boy’s parents—Mr. and Mrs. Stoker, God bless them. They will be frantic, in need of counsel and comforting. You are close with them, are you not?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You saved their boy’s life, Mrs. Baker. And your Jim plays with him all the time—a best pal of Rodney Stoker if I ever saw one. It would be most kind if you explain to them what happened.”
“Father, I really don’t think they would appreciate—”
“Maybe you could say a prayer with them. For safekeeping of the boy.”
“I—I’ll do my best.”
He set off at a brisk walk down Bath Street, and I tried to keep his pace. I noticed, as we walked, dark drop marks spotting the cobblestone, some connected by a dark drizzle.
“Somebody will have to clean that blood sooner or later,” Father Carmichael said. “Let’s hope for a nice cool rain to wash our filth away.”
I agreed.
The tidy rows of houses stared quietly as we passed under the train bridge. Water dripped on us and a few puddles had settled into the cracks and depressions in the sunken sidewalks next to dented rubbish bins. On the other side of the bridge, Leamington was much less tidy. Everyone said Doc Abbott kept house and office there because that’s where the need was greatest. I had been there several times when the boys were young, but had stopped going when the doctor suggested Luther be sent away.
We stopped at a knicked-up white plaster home facing the butcher shop. The plaque out front read:
Father Carmichael rapped on the front door several times and then opened the door and motioned me in. Rodney’s parents—Margie, who had called Luther a cow and Mr. Stoker, the fat lawyer who always looked me up and down as if I were a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop—sat on chairs by the window, both sniffling into handkerchiefs. The waiting room smelled like old furniture, like the musty antique wardrobe of my mother’s that Lavinia kept in her bedroom. The curtains were dark, and the outside light peeked through in grey, slanting beams. An empty desk sat in the corner next to the door to the doctor’s examining room. The lamps were dusty and gave off little light. I got the impression the doctor was counting on the office being closed on Easter Day.
“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Stoker,” Father Carmichael said, his voice soft and low. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Mr. Stoker stood, tall and rigid like he was on an inspection line in the army. He took Father Carmichael’s outstretched hand and gripped it tight.
“Stay strong, Charles,” Father Carmichael whispered. “Christ is suffering with you.”
Mr. Stoker swallowed and blinked back tears. “Thank you, Father. Your presence is a comfort.”
“You may have heard, but Mrs. Baker was the one who rescued your son. To ease your hearts, I have brought her along to inform you how your son came to be injured. Mrs. Baker, if you will?”
I couldn’t speak. I glanced at Father Carmichael, and he nodded for me to carry on.
I swallowed hard. “It—it was an accident, you see. Jim and Rodney, making horseplay like boys do … they were play-fighting in a garden, and I happened to hear them as I was walking along. I found Rodney had fallen and knocked his head on the pavement. They were just playing, roughhousing. It was Jim. Jim pushed him. I’m so sorry. It was an accident.”
The Stoker’s eyes met.
“Please, if there is any reparation I can make—”
“You owe us nothing,” Mr. Stoker raised a hand to shush me and sunk back into his chair. “If it was an accident, like you say, then we thank you for helping our boy.” Stoker looked at me, his eyes hard as pebbles. “A terrible, terrible accident.”
“This is the wisest course, Charles.” Father Carmichael pulled up another chair and sat down beside him. “Accidents are accidents. This was no plan of God, nor a work of fate. No soul was responsible.”
That was when Margie raised her daft pink face, stained with tears and looked straight at me. “Who was watching Luther when you found our boy?”
My throat closed.
“Please,” Mr. Stoker smoothed his wife’s hair, “it needn’t be discussed. There was no ill intent.”
“Who was watching Luther?” she repeated.
When a priest and a lawyer walk into a waiting room, they must not be kept waiting, I thought. I have to say something. I have to say something. “I, well, he was at my sister Lavinia’s house for the day.”
Even as I spun the lie, I knew I couldn’t make up enough background information to support it. I didn’t even know where Lavinia was. She may not even be home, and my story could be proven false at any moment.
“And you only saw Rodney after he fell?” Margie said.
“Yes.”
“But you think it was just roughhousing.”
I tilted my head to hide my quivering lip and tried to smile at her. “What else could it be? Jim was beside himself. You know as well as I do what great friends they are.”
Mr. Stoker leaned forward in his seat, and Father Carmichael raised an eyebrows at me.
Bollocks. Bollocks. Theyknowtheyknowtheyknow!
Then the door to the doctor’s office opened, and Dr. Abbott stepped into the waiting room. He pulled off a pair of bloody gloves, wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve, and announced that Rodney would most likely recover and be just fine. We all rejoiced, and Margie even gave me a hug. Then I slipped outside, walked down the street until I could disappear into an alley, and fell apart. They’ll know. Rodney will wake up, and he’ll tell them what Luther did. Oh God, he’ll tell and they’ll come get Luther and take him away.
There would be an assault charge, a conviction, a court-issued sentence to life in a mental asylum. I’d knew about the electroshock therapy and ice baths. I’d seen the men who’d been lobotomized and put in straight jackets, pumped full of drugs. Their eyes. I could never forget their empty eyes. What God would be so sick, what universe so contradictory, as to take away someone’s humanity? My Luther is such a kind boy. He gives hugs and kisses like a baby and hides in cupboards. He wants to hug his mum and brother and give us kisses and hold our hands. Only a heartless bastard would want to change my boy.
I kicked the rubbish bin and slumped against the wall. Then I stood up and wiped my eyes. I have to get home. I have to be home for Luther. For when they come to get him.
Slipping in the back door, I found Lavinia sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. The house was almost as much hers as mine for the amount of time she’d spent there with me and the boys after James died and before she married Mark. She could help herself to whatever she wanted.
She stood and opened her arms, and I fell in them. My little sister. I breathed in deep, so deep as to fill my whole lungs, so I’d stop trembling. Then I exhaled sharply, completely emptying them. In again, out again to calm myself so the boys—who I knew were awake with ears pressed to their doors—couldn’t hear me cry.
“Jim told me,” Lavinia said. “I was just headed back to the green when I ran into the boys. I brought them home immediately.”
“You … you know what Luther did?”
“Constance, it never happened. Look at me. You told me about the sanitarium and we both know what they’ll do to him if the authorities find out and send him there. So, it never happened. It was an accident. Jim did it.”
After James died, I was left with two sons and a candy store to run. Plus my father had died recently and my mother had basically disowned me because I’d married without her permission. I was lost. I’d left my whole family behind to come to Leamington Spa to live with my husband and help in his store. We were in love. Luther’s birth was a happy affair, and we thought the whole world was good. But then Luther stopped developing like the other children. I asked the local housewives, who said the disease came from promiscuity on the mother’s part. Then I asked the priest, who said the disease came from Satan. The doctors told me the mineral springs in Leamington Spa would do the trick—that they’d fix my son. And when that failed, I went to the fortune tellers, the mystics living by the road, and they stole my money.
And then little Jim was born, and we saw a new chance for hope in the world. Then came the accident. With my husband gone, the store to run, and two boys to manage, I wanted to give up.
I used to be gentle, soft, and filled with love, but I became hard, resentful, and filled with hate. I cursed my life and my God. I woke up every day with a tight chest and a clenched jaw,. No amount of sleeping syrup could relieve the stress, no matter how sick it made me. That’s what it was—a sickness. Every day I was sick and bitter and broken. My blood boiled in my veins and anger radiated from my pores.
I used to have a different kind of life, one in which I had the luxury to think about books and ideas and politics and philosophy and the future. But that life died and all I could think about was Luther. Because Jim could get along on his own, Luther became my whole existence. All I could do was feed him and try to show him I loved him. Half the time, I knew he was completely oblivious to me, but I kept trying to get through. I couldn’t bring myself to give up. Until I couldn’t go on anymore. When I confided in a letter to my little sister that I thought the boys would be better without me, she packed her bags and came to live with us. She saved my life.
Lavinia lived with us for two years. She helped me develop a routine that made living with Luther and Jim possible and helped me figure out how to run the store. Then she fell in love with a good man. A man she deserved and that deserved her. She had the life I once had, and I would do anything to see her keep it, just to watch and marvel at what could have been.
And sitting in my kitchen on that horrible day, she saved me again. She hugged me, made me tea, and shushed my sobs.
“Rodney will wake tomorrow,” I said finally. “He’ll tell everyone what happened. You know Mr. Stoker’s the best lawyer in the shire. He’ll put Luther away if it’s the last thing he does.”
“If it comes to that, we’ll have to convince him not to. That’s all. Mark will talk to him, don’t worry. For now, you just get rest. Do you want me to stay the night?”
“No, I’ll manage. I always do.”
She kissed my forehead, pulled on her sweater, and slipped quietly out back door into the night, and I, for a while, remained at the table and tried to make sense of my chaotic thoughts.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock on the mantle, surrounded by knickknacks from a past life—china plates, enameled saucers Granny gave me on my wedding day, marked the time. I roused myself and went into the living room. So many reminders of James and the life we’d been building. His books had pride of place in a lovely bookshelf he’d made himself. We had Malory, Browning, Spencer, Chaucer, and a graphite rubbing of Lord Byron’s headstone from Westminister Abbey, where we’d taken our honeymoon. James had collected the complete set of Charles Dickens, acquired book by book throughout the years. The space reserved for A Tale of Two Cities was empty now, probably because Jim was reading it in his bed. Whenever there was a crisis, that’s what little Jim did. He buried himself in a story, hiding under his covers to block out Luther’s screeching. Eyes closed, and I could smell the graphite of the Byron rubbing and pretend I was back James’s arms.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock kept moving; its gears kept turning. Past eleven, past midnight. I paced through the shop, examining the chocolates, taffies, and bonbons that had taken me so many hours to make. Everything seemed so alien and unfamiliar.
Someone rapped softly on the shop door, and I turned to see a face through the glass.
Our eyes met. It was too late to go upstairs because he had already seen me. I turned the knob and opened the door, but he did not cross the threshold. I realized I was still wearing Father Carmichael’s jacket. I stared at him, not sure how I should be feeling. Dawn was hours away, but Rodney could wake at any moment—maybe he was already awake. Maybe he had already told. Maybe that’s why Mr. Stoker was here. But no, he didn’t know. I could see it in his face. His heart was still open, still soft, still vulnerable and bleeding. This was my only chance to convince him. I had saved his son. Now I needed to save mine.
“Come in.” I motioned him in, and he took off his hat.
“I just came back from Doctor Abbot’s.” He stared at the ground, wringing his hat in his hands. “I sat over Rodney’s bed all evening, changing his bandages, watching the bleeding finally stop. It will be some time before he is fit again, but Abbot thinks he will likely recover completely. I thought you would want to know.”
“That’s wonderful. Has he stirred?”
“Yes. His eyes opened, and I spoke to him.”
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock carried on. A quarter to one.
“W—what did he say?”
“His voice was too weak to speak, so he only mouthed words, which I could not make out. But I made it clear to him that he is in good hands and has nothing to worry about.”
“I’m so glad to hear it.”
Something moved inside me, a dread I had never felt before, a directive that made me sick. The situation was already too far gone for me to look back. If I didn’t act now, it would be too late.
“Mr. Stoker, you look exhausted. I have some tea prepared, if you would have it.”
“No, I mustn’t stay long. Margie is waiting for me.”
“Please. It’s the least I can do, considering. I will feel terrible unless I can offer something more. After all, it’s the moral and ethical thing to comfort our neighbors.”
Mr. Stoker puffed out his ample chest and stood tall, shoulders back. His wife had always treated me as if I were a leper, but the very important Mr. Stoker had rarely had anything to do with me at all. And now he was here in my house. In the middle of the night. How odd.
“Well, I guess I should, if only to ease your own considerable pain, Mrs. Baker. So yes, I will accept your offer and share some tea with you.”
So that was his prime motivator—morality. Ethics. Being the pillar of the community who always puffs out his chest and declares his intent to do the right thing for God and King. Take that away, and he’d be lost. Vulnerable. Susceptible.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
I led him into the living room, where he sat on the sofa. Then, going into the kitchen, I poured the tea. The kettle was still on the stove and the water still hot. I took a key out of the pocket of my skirt and unlocked the padlock on the medicine cupboard above the stove. Hands trembling, I pulled out the cork to Luther’s sleeping syrup, which I sometimes gave him when he had fits in the night. I let it drip drip drip into Mr. Stoker’s tea, enough to knock him out for at least an hour or two, along with ample honey and a squeeze of lemon to disguise the taste. I took a deep breath and set his cup on the saucer.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Ten till one. I swallowed and made the sign of the cross. Oh God, will I ever be forgiven for this? It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if I burned in hell, so long as Luther was not locked away in the asylum.
“Here we are,” I said, walking out into the living room. I handed him the cup and saucer and sat next to him, so close our thighs touched.
He took a sip and paused. “Thank you,” he said. He looked around the room, then back at me. He took another sip as the silence stretched between us. I could see the pallor of worry on his skin. I’m sure he could see the same on mine.
“Mrs. Baker,” he began, “I only intended to stop by briefly to tell you that—”
“Yes?”
He stared blankly at the empty space in front of his eyes, forgetting for a moment what he was going to say. He took another sip. And then another as if to fill the awkward silence. He stared at my leg touching his and cleared his throat. His eyes began to travel slowly upward until he caught himself. “I—I was going to establish that there are no hard feelings between our families. I was a boy myself once and know how boys roughhouse. I do not blame Jim for hurting Rodney, so there is nothing to forgive. Nothing for you to worry over.”
“If only that were true.”
“What?”
“You know, this isn’t my jacket. Father Carmichael gave it to me. Could you give it back to him for me?” I pulled off the jacket, revealing my silk slip and bare arms, both stained with his son’s blood.
“Why, I—” Mr. Stoker’s eyes dropped down to my bosom and then slowly moved back up to my face. His eyes drooped as he fought to stay awake. He shook his head as if to clear it, then slapped his cheek and yawned. “Mrs. Baker … what I mean is … what I mean to say … what is wrong with … Did you put something in this?”
His words were muddled and the cup and saucer slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor, spilling their contents on the rug. He stared at it for a long moment, and then looked up at me, eyes unfocused.
I wanted to beg his forgiveness, but that would not have accomplished anything. I had to be cold, as cold and hard as necessary. And I had to make sure that this man would never be an obstacle to my son’s wellbeing.
“Luther was the one who pushed your son, Mr. Stoker. “Rodney and Jim were roughhousing, but Luther didn’t understand. He thought Rodney was truly hurting Jim and so he pushed him. He didn’t mean for him to get hurt, but it was Luther. Not Jim. It wasn’t just two friends roughhousing.”
Mr. Stoker’s eyes went wide. “What are you saying?” He tried to stand.
“I’m saying that if Rodney wakes up and remembers what happened, that if the truth comes out and you think to take legal action against my son, I’ll tell everyone.”
He pushed himself to his feet, wobbled, and grabbed the lampstand to steady himself. “Tell everyone what?”
“That you came here in the middle of the night to take advantage of a defenseless widow.”
“But I never—” His words were slurred, and before he could take two steps, he fell to his knees, pulling the lamp down with him. He looked up at me one last time and collapsed on the rug, snoring.
Bong.
The clock struck one o’clock.
In the quiet moments just before dawn, when the first rays of warmth broke through pink-feather clouds hanging over Bath Street, a fat man stumbled down the cobblestone, holding his tweed cap tight to his head, yawning, and sticking close to the shadows in the alleys behind the garden fences. He was missing a wedding ring.
In the garden behind Baker’s Sweets, a woman knelt in the spring loam. Parting the soil, she took a gold wedding ring from her pocket and planted it as she would a seed. From a second-floor window, two curious eyes watched from behind the curtain, arms clutched tight around A Tale of Two Cities.
The woman in the garden stood, brushed her dirty hands on her skirt, and headed back inside.
On the village green, fat robins hopped to and fro looking for breakfast, ready to greet the new day. The last vestiges of dirty ice hiding in the shadows of cold alleys melted into dark stains on the pavement, drained down gutters, and trickled into the River Leam.