SPILLED MILK
The table is set. Five silver cups full of milk. Hot dogs, peas and corn scatter the children’s plates like modern art. He sits at the end of the table, tight lips and tired eyes.
“What’s for dinner, Margaret?”
“Lamb chops.” I place a plate in front of him. The children squirm in their seats like worms.
“Sit still and eat,” he commands.
“Time to eat, no more playing,” I say softly. The three eldest carefully pluck at their food. The two youngest, Ella and Claude, are tickling each other, laughing, and it happens—Claude’s cup turns over.
“I told you to stop fooling around! Look what you’ve done!”
“It’s okay, R.J., I’ll clean it up. It’s just a little spill.”
“Who did it?” he growls at the children. “Who did it?!” The little ones, Ella and Claude, start to cry. Adam, Helen, and Joan sit perched on the edge of their seats like deer in headlights.
“You little varmints!” He stands up, pulls off his belt, and raises it above their heads. Adam, Helen, and Joan slip off the bench and run up the stairs, the little ones following.
In the calmest manner possible I tell R.J. to put the belt down. He doesn’t listen.
He brandishes the belt like a weapon, swinging it in the air, commanding the children to come back. They are terrified; Claude and Ella start to wail. I plead with R.J. to stop, that they are just children, to please stop. I pull his shirt, he shrugs me off. The older three make it up the stairs to their bunk beds. Claude and Ella sit in the middle of the living room floor, mewling in each other’s arms. He weilds the belt, ready to strike them. I rush in between him and the children. The hard leather strap stings my back. I don’t care, I don’t care, my babies, my babies. He doesn’t stop until he tires out. He throws his belt down and slams the door as he leaves. My babies are shaking. “Shh, shh, it’s okay.” I carry them, one on each hip, up the stairs. I tuck them in their beds and check on the older ones. They are in their bunk beds, clinging onto their blankets. I kiss each of their foreheads and tell them it’s going to be alright. I don’t feel anything. I sit on the back porch, take in the night air.
I breathe in as crickets begin their evening song. Where can I go with five children? He can’t do this again, must not do this again, never again. I want to cry. I can’t. I want to fall. I can’t.
He comes back late and enters through the porch door. I rush inside the kitchen. “Margaret,” he whispers. I turn away. “Margaret, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I just—” He tries to touch me. I dodge his hand.
“This can never happen again.” I stack the children’s plates and put them in the sink. Who is saying that? I am just a head without a body—where has my body gone?
“Margaret, Margaret, please …” My body gets up away from him and his contrition. I drift up the stairs, into our bedroom, and shut the door.
He sleeps on the couch that night and leaves early for work. The spilled milk and disarray of dishes clutter the kitchen table from the scene last night. I clear the rest of the plates, wipe the table and carefully rinse and dry the five silver cups and place them in the cupboard. Everything has its place. “Why, Margaret? Why do we have these silver cups?” he asked me the day we bought them. And I replied, “Because we can, R.J., because we can.”
I get through the day, making breakfast for the children, cleaning up as the children play in the yard. I set the dinner table outside on the porch. It is warm enough, and maybe a change of scenery will help. He said he will bring home dinner. I am numb.
R.J. walks up the porch steps with flowers in one hand and Kentucky Fried Chicken in the other. He places the KFC on the table and hands me the bouquet. “I’m sorry, Margaret, I’m sorry.” I take the flowers. “Margaret, aren’t you going to say something? Anything?” He puts his hands in his pockets, shifting his feet.
“The children are hungry.” I call them in for dinner. They scramble up the steps and burst through the porch door. They see him and freeze. It’s as if they stop breathing all at once, waiting for a signal to exhale.
He displays the bucket of chicken. “Now who wants a drumstick?”
A chorus of voices clamors at once: “Me! Me! I want a drumstick!” The children sense his playfulness, that good Daddy is here now. They accept it as if he has always been this way. Ella and Claude raise their little hands and he drops a drumstick on each of their plates. They squeal with glee. Helen pouts, and he puts a drumstick on her plate; she takes it greedily. Joan and Adam wait patiently until he hands them the bucket. He catches my eye and quickly averts his gaze. “Come, Margaret, sit down.” I take my seat across from him, gripping my coffee cup, watching every move.
The morning is my favorite time, before anyone awakes in the house, before the trill of the first bird. I roll out of bed, careful not to wake R.J. on the day he likes to sleep—Saturday. I gingerly walk down the steps and a baby wails. Is it Ella or Claude? It’s Ella, she’s standing at the side of her crib. I scoop her up quickly before Claude wakes up and walk down the stairs, past the kitchen and into the yard: my salvation. The dew on the grass seeps through my slippers. I press my hands in the cool soil, tears drop—the earth doesn’t mind. Ella mimics me, her plump, brown fingers are tiny next to mine. The first light bathes the trees; the birds begin their morning songs. “Ella, it’s the sun.” She sits in my lap her cheek rests against mine. She points and says sun, sun. I sing her song to her, “Little Ella, Little Ella, she’s the leader of the band, she can play the old piano, plink plink plink plink plank.” This is Ella’s song, all my children have them. She loves it at the end when I tickle her belly. I pull weeds from around the iris flowers that are beginning to bloom. Ella joins me. A ladybug lands on my hand. It visits a moment; I guide it to a stem and it gladly attaches itself. The coffee machine gurgles in the kitchen; R.J. must be awake. I know what I must do. I place Ella on my hip, walk into the kitchen, pick up the phone, and call the babysitter.
The farther north I drive, the more rugged rocks jut out from the shoreline, protecting sparse beaches below. Intermittently, lonely lighthouses appear set above the beach, desolate—as if waiting for a visitor. I head towards Munjoy Hill, in Portland. Memories flood me: playing in the street with Kenny, Sammy, and Hank, feet slapping on hard concrete, loud laughter. I pass the church where I lit a candle praying to the Virgin Mother, the church that denied my brother Lloyd a burial, little Lloyd. Divorce. Did I really dare? It is a sin against the church, the church that denied my poor brother. I recall the priest’s words: “You’d make a good wife and mother.” I don’t want to disobey God, yet I don’t know if I can stay with him. I’m at my mother’s flat. It feels smaller now—and is more run down, paint chipping, steps a bit crooked, the steps I ran down as a little girl to get help from Aunt Jo. Maybe Aunt Jo is home. The lights aren’t on in Aunt Jo’s place; I better not disturb them. There in the yard stands my tree, sturdy in full bloom, preparing to drop acorns: each acorn carrying the potential to seed a whole forest. As a child I relied on this tree: hiding with Hank from strange men and singing my heart out to it.
I knock on the door. My mother answers, surprised. “Margaret! What on earth—come in. Grandma Emma is here too!”
“Oh Mother!” And I start to sob, uncontrollably sob.
“Margaret, come sit. I’ll make you a cup of tea.” I sit down with my heavy head in my hands. I force myself to rise. Grandma Emma sits across from me with her back erect and lips drawn together. Her dark brown face is creased with lines. The kitchen table, green linoleum floor, and padded green chairs that used to stick to my legs as a child are all the same. Tears roll down my face; they won’t stop now. My mother pours me a cup of tea. “I told you Margaret, there was something odd about him. I told you …”
“Yes, Mother, I know.” I add milk and sugar into the cup, stirring it gently. “Most of the time it is good; he is a good, stable provider.”
Emma observes me like an inquisitive bird. “Watch the children. You need to watch the children.” She makes me nervous. My mother lights a cigarette.
“Mother, I thought you stopped?” I try not to sound too accusatory.
“Yes, I know, but this is a special occasion.” She tilts her head as she blows the smoke to the side. “I can’t give it all up, alcohol and cigarettes.”
“Yes, I know, Mother.”
“One day at a time, Margaret. So, what will you do?”
“I can’t leave him. The children, where would we go? I can’t make enough money nursing …”
“There, there, Margaret, chin up.” Mother pats my back. “Just make the best of it, the best you can.” She takes once last puff of her cigarette. The smoke irritates me. I open the window. “He’s providing for you and your children, Margaret, that’s a lot, a lot more than your father ever did.” She grinds the end of the cigarette into the ashtray. Grandma Emma begins singing a song I don’t recognize. She bangs the table. Her voice, guttural and percussive, snaps me out of my sadness—there is a fierceness to her words, an intention I don’t understand.
“Emma does this now, sings in the old language, banging on the table like a drum.” Mother places her hand on my shoulder. I hold onto it. We don’t dare disrupt Emma’s deep voice and clamor. She finishes her song, wraps her shawl around her shoulders, stands up, and leaves the room.
“Do you know what it means?” I ask my mother.
“No, but I do think she is praying for us—that is what I do believe.”