Mary Ellen had been away for five days when Dr. Simpson sent word with Uncle Bert that Papa could come and fetch her, but to stop by the doctor’s office first. Mama was in the midst of canning a mess of ripe tomatoes. They were already boiling in the large canning kettle on the stove, filling the steaming kitchen with their sharp fragrance.
“I don’t see how I can leave right now, Matt,” she said. She wiped perspiration from her brow with the back of her arm. “Can you go alone?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll go saddle up Dolly.” Papa started out the back door, followed by Poll’s shouts. “Dolly! Saddle Dolly!” We could hear Papa muttering as he walked down the path to the barn.
I had been scalding more tomatoes in another pot, then slipping off the skins before they went into the canning kettle. I looked up. “Could I go with Papa? Please, Mama? I’ve got the rest of the tomatoes ready, and if you leave everything when you’re finished, I’ll clean up when I get back.”
Mama stopped stirring and thought for a minute. “I guess I can finish up without you. Rose can help with the baby.” She began stirring again. “Tell Papa I need a few things from town. I have a list there on the table.”
“Yes, Mama. Thank you!”
I flew up the stairs to change my dress, happy at the prospect of a trip to town, and of being with Papa.
We rode along behind Dolly, the sun warming my bare arms. I’d forgotten a hat, as usual, so I’d no doubt have some freckles to show for it. When we passed the Anders farm, I noticed that the gate was open. At the far end of the lane, near the house, a handsome horse was tethered to the hitching post. Even from a distance, I could tell it was not one of the usual farm horses. I recognized it as one of the thoroughbreds that Charles Anders often rode. He must have come home on vacation from his private school. He was lucky his family could afford to send him there. I didn’t envy him the fancy private school, just the chance to go to school. Any school at all.
At the top of Blueberry Hill, the only elevation for miles around, Papa stopped Dolly so we could look at the view. Far away, through the space between two pines, we could see a tiny stretch of the blue Atlantic Ocean, ten miles away. I remembered the winters we’d lived in a house on the beach, and wondered if Papa was thinking about it too.
He’d been farming full-time ever since he left the New Jersey Life Saving Service five years ago, when Rose was only three. Before that, we’d spent every winter in the house next to the Seaside Beach Life Saving Station, until Papa was injured one stormy night, manning a lifeboat. During those fierce storms, the ocean sometimes crashed over the dunes and the waves washed around the foundation of our house. I thought it exciting, but Mama was always scared to death. She’d stand at the window, white-faced and trembling, staring out at the waves that thundered up the beach toward the house. Sometimes she made us girls get dressed, then dragged us through the wild blackness to the Life Saving Station a stone’s throw away, where Papa and the other men watched for shipwrecks along the coast.
The men would take my sisters and me up in the lighthouse and let us look through the telescope. I could still picture the dark thrashing sea, the great foaming breakers lit up by the flashing beacon. More than once we had witnessed a wreck, and had watched as the men launched a lifeboat through the pounding surf, or if it were too rough, shot the breeches buoy on a rope to the crew of the ship. One by one the people on board would climb into the canvas breeches—like trying to put on your drawers on the slippery deck of a heaving boat—and were hauled to shore on the rope.
One winter there had been three wrecks in one night, and all the people were brought ashore that way. Papa had helped guide the ropes and lift the people out, then came back to make Mama a cup of tea in the station kitchen.
“There now, El,” he’d said. “The wind’s dropping, and the tide’s going out. No need to worry. There’ll be no more wrecks tonight. The storm’s nearly over.”
Mama had sat primly, clutching a quilt around her and sipping her tea. Gradually her shivering stopped and she responded with a faint smile to the jokes of the men. At dawn, Papa shepherded us back home.
When summer came, and the station needed only a skeleton crew, we were all happy to go home to the farm, especially Mama.
Now, turning back, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked again I saw nothing. Just a few scrub pines and a scattering of low huckleberry bushes on the sandy hillside. Papa hadn’t noticed anything. “Could have been a bird or a fox, I suppose,” he said.
He shook the reins with a “Giddy up, Dolly,” and the wagon was just beginning to move when we heard the sound of hoof beats behind us. A moment later, a young man galloped by, his blond hair ruffled by the wind, his leather jodhpurs gleaming in the sun. He gave a careless salute with his crop as he passed us. Papa’s eyes followed him until he disappeared down the road ahead.
“Charles Anders!” I said. “He must be home on vacation.”
“No.” Papa had a look on his face that I couldn’t fathom. “Sam says he’s been suspended from school again, he didn’t know why. Too bad he isn’t more like his father. Mr. Anders is a fine man.”
I felt sorry for Mr. Anders, with a son like Charles and a wife who we’d heard was a semi-invalid.
As we drove on, I listened drowsily to the rhythmic clip-clop of Dolly’s hooves until we came to River Heights. Papa tied Dolly to the hitching post in front of the doctor’s office.
When we entered, Dr. Simpson stuck his head around the door of the examining room and said, “Morning, Matt! And Anna! Come right on in, Matt.”
“Anna, you wait here while I talk to Doc,” Papa said.
I sat leafing through a Ladies Home Journal, the murmur of voices from the next room in my ear. The other magazines on the low table were farm journals or bulletins about the new 4H Clubs, but this one showed the latest ladies’ fashions—women wearing pointy-toed shoes, outlandish hats, and high-necked dresses with pinched-in waists and long straight skirts, their hair elaborately dressed in loops and swirls and pompadours. I couldn’t imagine myself tightly corseted like that, with my body pushed into the stylish curves of an hourglass and my feet squeezed into those high-heeled, pointy shoes. I much preferred the flat-heeled boots and full skirt I was wearing.
After twenty minutes or so, Papa emerged from the doctor’s office. He said we needed to stop by the feed store before we fetched Mary Ellen, and I told him Mama had given me a list of some things from the general store too.
“But Papa,” I said, “what did the doctor say about Mary Ellen?”
“He thinks maybe it’s just taking her a while to recover from...what happened. He says it’s like that sometimes, and we should give her more time to get over it, and keep giving her the iron pills. I dunno. I hope he’s right.” He sighed
I patted his arm. “Me too, Papa.”
He dropped me in front of the general store. It was much bigger than our little store in Cedar Crossing, with meat in glass cases across one end, and an annex off the main room with all sorts of hardware and farm tools and equipment. Along the wall near the cash register a bank of shelves held bolts of fabric and boxes of colored threads, with bags of sugar and flour and salt stacked on the floor. Bins of crackers and cookies, with hinged lids, were lined up near the door. Two women stood by the fabrics, looking at the bolts of cloth, and in the annex a man in a carpenter’s apron was sorting through a drawer full of nails, but I was relieved not to see anyone I knew. I took in the familiar mingling of smells—the clean freshness of new cloth, the metallic sharpness of pitchforks and nails, the sweet warmth of raw meat, the nose-tickling dryness of crackers.
The grocer turned from the pile of bills he was taking from a spindle.
“Good morning, Mr. Whiteside. Mama needs just a few things today,”
He peered near-sightedly at the list. “I’ll have these for you in no time, Anna.” His white apron tightened around his generous belly as he reached for bags of flour and salt, then crossed the aisle to pick up a packet of needles.
“That be all, now?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you. Mama said can you put it on our bill till next time she comes to town?”
“I most surely can.” He piled the purchases in my basket and held the door. His manner seemed the same as ever, and I thought he probably hadn’t heard any gossip about the baby, or about Mary Ellen’s so-called engagement. I hated this feeling of wondering what people were saying about us. I’d never even thought about it before.
As I was leaving the store, I almost bumped into someone, and when I looked up, it was Mark.
“Hey, Anna, what are you doing here in town?”
“Just some errands. And then we’re going to Aunt Grace’s to see Mary Ellen.”
“I heard she’s been kind of sick. You didn’t mention her that day out on the bay, and I forgot to ask. What’s the matter with her, anyway?”
“No one is sure. Doc says she’s anemic. We’re all worried about her.” I didn’t like not telling Mark what had happened to Mary Ellen. It was the only thing, ever, that I didn’t feel free to talk to him about.
“Well, gosh, I’m sorry. I hope she’ll be better soon.” He pulled a kerchief out of his overalls and wiped his face. “Sorry, I gotta run. I’ve been racing around town all morning, collecting stuff for Mr. Pierce. But listen, I’ve got this book that my English teacher loaned me, It’s one of Shakespeare’s plays. I thought some evening I could come over after work and we could read it out loud.”
“Oh, Mark, yes! I’d love that. Come any night, I’m always there.”
He went on into the store, and a moment later Papa drove up. I climbed in and he turned Dolly toward Aunt Grace’s house near the river. As we rode along, I was already anticipating the play-reading with Mark.
When we got there, Aunt Grace was out in the garden, cutting roses. Even this early in the morning, her hair was brushed back into a smooth knot, and she was wearing a freshly ironed blue dress that molded itself to her figure and exactly matched her eyes.
She leaned forward and presented her cheek for me to kiss. It felt smooth and soft, and smelled of the lilac powder she used. As we entered the house, she said, “Doctor Simpson told me you’d be coming for Mary Ellen today. I’ll go call her.”
Papa and I went into the parlor and sat down. We could hear Aunt Grace calling up the stairs.
“They’re here, Mary Ellen.”
Heavy drapes were drawn tightly across the windows as usual, and the slippery horsehair sofa was prickly against my bare arm. On the marble-topped table next to me was a picture of Aunt Grace and Uncle Tony on their wedding day, Aunt Grace trussed up in organza and white lace and Uncle Tony straight and uncharacteristically austere in a black suit and black string tie. Neither was smiling. I wondered if they had both been as unemotional as they looked. Maybe that was why they never had any children. I quickly pushed such an uncomfortable thought away.
Across the room Papa fidgeted in an elegant Morris chair with carved wooden armrests and dark green cushions. Nothing in this room was ever moved or changed. It was exactly as it had been since I was a little girl. I was suddenly reminded of staying overnight here when Rose was born. Aunt Fanny had come to stay with Mama while Papa fetched Dr. Simpson and dropped Mary Ellen and me off at Aunt Grace’s. After supper Uncle Tony read the paper, and Aunt Grace sat embroidering. She told the two of us to sit quietly on this same sofa and practice cross stitch on some scraps of material she gave us. Mary Ellen had produced a perfect little square of brightly colored flowers and leaves while I sat wrestling with snarled embroidery floss and big untidy stitches. I had wished passionately that we were back home with Mama and Papa, eating our apples and singing along with Mama as she played our favorite songs on the little pump organ in the parlor. When it was time for bed, Aunt Grace sent us upstairs with strict instructions to wash our faces and hands and get right into bed and go to sleep—and no talking. I had lain awake a long time listening to the unfamiliar creaks and occasional street noises until I finally went to sleep.
I snapped out of my daydream when Aunt Grace came into the room and said in a low voice to Papa, “What’s wrong with Mary Ellen? I know the doctor said she’s anemic, but she’s been acting so strangely.”
“Why, what’s she been doing?” Worry lines creased Papa’s face. I leaned forward, anxious to hear what Aunt Grace would say.
“Well, the other night Tony and I found her trying to get out the front door in the middle of the night. She was mumbling something, but she wasn’t making any sense. She must have been sleep-walking, because she didn’t remember anything about it next morning. Has she done that before?”
Papa shook his head. “No, she hasn’t. But she just hasn’t been quite herself lately. Sometimes it almost seems like she’s sleep-walking in the daytime. She doesn’t do her chores, and most of the time doesn’t even answer when we speak to her. El and I have been pretty concerned.”
“Yes, I have too,” said Aunt Grace. “She wouldn’t even go with me to the Ladies’ Luncheon at church, or to the yacht club with Tony and me on Saturday night, which she loved to do last summer. She just wants to stay in her room. I can’t imagine what she’s doing up there all the time, a young girl like that wanting to be alone so much. Dr. Simpson came by every day to see her, and he seemed worried, too. Said he’d hoped the iron pills would help, give her some energy.”
“I know. Doc said this morning to be patient, give her more time to get over whatever it is. Guess that’s all we can do.”
Aunt Grace frowned. “I suppose you’re right. I just hope she snaps back, for all our sakes. Tony and I have grown quite fond of her.”
She stepped to the bottom of the stairs again. “Mary Ellen, your Papa and Anna are waiting. Hurry up.”
“Shall I go up and get her?” I asked.
“Yes, why don’t you? Maybe that will hurry her along.”
I ran down the stairs a minute later. “She’s not there,” I blurted. “She’s not in her room, or anywhere upstairs.”
Papa jumped up from the chair where he’d been sitting stiffly, hat in hand. “But where could she have gone? When did you last see her?”
Aunt Grace explained that at breakfast Mary Ellen picked at her food, then went back to her room. She hadn’t seen her again.
“I can’t imagine where she could be.” Aunt Grace stood in the doorway, clasping and unclasping her hands, her heavy rings clinking together. “She’s never done anything like this before.”
I felt a small, cold chill of fear. I’d never paid much attention to the stories some of the older women told when they got together for quilting or sewing bees, about tramps coming through town or gypsies carrying off children—or young girls like Mary Ellen. But still, maybe things like that did happen sometimes.
I gave myself a mental shake. I’d never heard of anything like that here, in this little town of River Heights, where almost everyone knew everyone else. It was a silly thing to worry about.
Papa was heading toward the door, as though he couldn’t stand still any longer. His worried frown had deepened. “Maybe she walked downtown. I’ll go have a look around. She might have stopped in to see Tony.” His voice was rough with unspoken anxiety. “Anna, you stay here with Aunt Grace.”
“I want to come with you, Papa. Please!” I begged.
“Well, all right then.” To Aunt Grace he said, “If Tony hasn’t seen her, I’ll go across to the sheriff’s office. Maybe he’s heard something.”
Aunt Grace nodded. “I’ll stay here in case she comes back while you’re gone.”
We were startled by the sound of heavy boots on the porch, followed by a knock.
Aunt Grace hurried to the door and let the sheriff in.
“Morning, Grace,” said the sheriff, lifting his hat. “I’m sorry to bust in like this, but I wanted to let you know right away that we found your niece down by the river a while ago and took her back to the station. She’s all right, just a little confused and upset.”
“Oh, thank God,” said Aunt Grace. “Matt, did you hear?”
Papa had come out into the hall, with me following him. “Yes, I heard. Are you sure she’s all right? What was she doing down by the river?” Papa looked pale under his tan and his voice sounded ragged.
“I didn’t know you were here, Matt. Yes, she’s all right, but I have to say, she was acting a bit unusual. Some boys crabbing along the river noticed her standing at the end of the public dock, crying and swaying back and forth. One of them came and got me. My deputy Tom and I found her still standing there, looking down into the water, still crying. I recognized her as Grace’s niece because I’d seen them around town, but when I asked her her name, she just looked at me and didn’t answer. I sent her to the station with Tom, and came here to find Grace.”
Papa thanked the sheriff and said he’d come get Mary Ellen and take her over to see Doc. The sheriff tipped his hat again and nodded. “See you down at the station.”
“Matt, I’m so sorry,” said Aunt Grace. “I should have kept a better eye on her. It didn’t dawn on me until just now that she was acting like I—” She stopped. “Matt?” Her voice trembled.
Papa nodded.
Aunt Grace stood dead still for a moment. “So the baby ...?”
Papa nodded again.
Aunt Grace put her hand on Papa’s arm with a tenderness she showed only rarely and only to him and Uncle Tony. I was astonished to see her blue eyes fill with tears, and I wondered what the messages were that had seemed to pass between her and Papa.
Papa put his hand over hers. “There now. It’s going to be all right. I’ll stop back after we see the doctor. He may want Mary Ellen to stay in town a little longer, or who knows?”
“She’s welcome to come back here if Doctor Simpson thinks it’s best. I’ll take better care of her after this. And maybe I can help somehow. I hate seeing her so sad.”
“Well, don’t blame yourself. You had no reason to think she’d go off like that. We’ll be getting along now to fetch her.”
At the sheriff’s office, Mary Ellen was slumped on a straight chair by the wall, staring down at the floor. Her hair hung in loose blond strands around her face, and her eyes were puffy from crying. She leaned against Papa when he put his arms around her, but said nothing, either to him or to me. I wondered what she was thinking. I wanted to ask why she’d gone down to the river, and why she was crying. But she looked so sad and exhausted, crumpled up in her chair, that I didn’t have the heart to question her.
“We’re going back to see Doc, Mary Ellen,’ said Papa gently. “We need to know what he thinks we should do.” His blue eyes, so like Mary Ellen’s, studied her face. He was still wearing the worried frown.
Mary Ellen nodded, again without speaking. She climbed into the wagon, put her head back, and closed her eyes.
We waited in the wagon while Papa went in to have a word with Dr. Simpson. I ached with pity for my sister. Her dress was wrinkled, her face pale, and her eyes hollowed with blue shadows. When I put my arm around her, she lay her head on my shoulder. I could feel her shivering and held her closer, frightened by how changed she was. She seemed to have gotten so much worse in the last few days.
When Papa came back, he turned the horse once again toward Aunt Grace’s.
“Doc will come by later to see you,” he told Mary Ellen. “Right now he’s got a roomful of patients. He wants you to stay with Aunt Grace a while longer. She’s happy to have you, and I’ll bring Mama to town to see you in a day or so.”
Mary Ellen nodded without raising her head from my shoulder. I took her hand and squeezed it, but she made no response. I felt a stab of loneliness for the sister I seemed to have lost.
Aunt Grace was waiting on the front porch. When Papa told her what the doctor had said, her usual brisk self reappeared.
“Come straight back to the kitchen, Mary Ellen. I’ll have Betty heat some water and we’ll wash your hair and give you a nice hot bath, then you can have a nap before lunch. We’ll have you feeling better, I can promise you.”
She took Mary Ellen’s arm and Mary Ellen, unresisting, allowed herself to be led to the kitchen.
“Don’t worry, Matt. She’s in good hands,” Aunt Grace called back over her shoulder.
“Thank you, Grace,” Papa said to her retreating back. “I’ll be in with Ellen tomorrow or the next day.”
Aunt Grace gave a little wave of her hand and disappeared into the kitchen with Mary Ellen.
When the last few houses at the edge of town were behind us, I spoke up. “Papa, what were you and Aunt Grace talking about after the sheriff left? Why did Aunt Grace cry?”
Papa didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be trying to find words for what he wanted to say. Finally, clearing his throat, he spoke in a husky voice. “Your Aunt Grace had a baby a long time ago, a little boy named Edward.”
I was so surprised it took me a minute to collect my thoughts. “What happened to the baby?” I asked.
“Well, first of all, Aunt Grace wasn’t well afterward. She had what the Doc said were the ‘baby blues.’ She stopped eating, and wouldn’t talk to Uncle Tony, and wouldn’t take care of the baby. Uncle Tony had to hire a woman to come in and take care of both Aunt Grace and Edward. But then it got much worse. Aunt Grace was beginning to get a little better, and even take an interest in the baby, but when he was three months old he got diphtheria. He was only sick a few days, and Doc did all he could, but Edward died.”
“Oh, how awful. Poor Aunt Grace and Uncle Tony.”
Papa nodded. “Yes. It was a hard time for both of them.” He clucked at Dolly, who had stopped to investigate some grass beside the road.
“Aunt Grace nearly went out of her mind with blaming herself and grieving. We were all afraid she’d do something to hurt herself. Uncle Tony had to take her away to a kind of hospital, called an asylum, in Philadelphia. The doctor there, I forget his name, was somehow able to help her and she finally got better. But she never would talk about the baby. If any of us mentioned him, she’d walk out of the room.”
I found it hard to imagine the businesslike, authoritative Aunt Grace as the sad young woman Papa described.
As though reading my thoughts, Papa said, “The whole experience changed her. She came back a different person. Threw herself into all sorts of things in town just to keep busy. Seemed like she was trying hard to forget that it ever happened.”
I hesitated a minute, then I asked, “But didn’t Aunt Grace want to have more children?”
“I don’t think she could.” He flicked the reins over Dolly’s back. “Giddy up, Dolly. Let’s get on home.”
We rode for a while in silence while I digested this new piece of information. What did that mean, that she couldn’t have more children? I wished I could ask, but it sounded like one of those questions that embarrass adults. I asked Papa instead if Dr. Simpson thought Mary Ellen had the same thing as Aunt Grace—those baby blues.
“He said he suspects it’s that, because of the way she’s been acting. But she also lost a lot of blood so he’s giving her the iron pills as well. He hopes in time she’ll be all right.” Papa shook his head. He looked discouraged.
It seemed too cruel for this to happen twice in one family. But at least our little Grace was strong and healthy, and surely Mary Ellen would get well again.