The Birth House. Ami McKay

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СКАЧАТЬ Once considered a treasure, now forgotten and left behind.

      “Seein’ how he couldn’t brag you was a boy, your daddy bragged over that caul. As any good sailor knows, a caul’s as good as any blessing of St. Christopher, it brings fair wind and plenty of it, and it’ll save ‘em from drownin’ too. You weren’t even a day old, and the men were all fightin’ over it. A letter even come from as far away as Halifax, offerin’ great sums of money, but your maman thought better of it and give it to me to keep safe. It couldn’t get no safer than hangin’ ‘round my neck, burnin’ next to my heart while I whispered to it, day on day, night on night. I give it all the words of Louis Faire, all the secrets of the simples, all my prayers to Mother Mary, all what’s written in the Willow Book. This is how I knows that you are my follow, the next traiteur.” She hung the strand of beads around my neck, her hands shaking, her eyes pleading and haunted. “You have to take it from me, Dora, take the prayers, the secrets. If you don’t, they’ll be lost, and I’ll never have a moment’s peace on the other side. Stay with me ‘til I cross over. It won’t be long; the grave’s not too far off now. I know I won’t see another winter.”

      I tried to calm her. “You’re just tired, Miss B. A good night’s sleep and you’ll be fine.”

      “You proved yourself with Mabel’s little one. The women here, they’ll need someone. They’ll need you.”

      I laughed and teased her, hoping she would leave it alone for now. “By the time you die, Dr. Thomas’ll have built one of his fancy maternity homes right here in Scots Bay Maybe even two.”

      She grabbed my arm and held tight, muttering a stream of prayers in French. “They need you.”

      Frightened, I twisted away from her, making my way to the kitchen to put on my coat and boots. “Mother needs me at home. I’m too young. I’m sorry …” I left the caul and Miss B.’s beads on the table and ran to the door.

      She called out after me. “You must take it. It’s what God means for you. It is your destinée …”

8

      ISPOKE WITH MOTHER about what went on at Miss B.’s. We were doing the mending after breakfast, pushing darning eggs down into the heels of Father’s socks, hoping to make them last another winter. The only time words come easy between us is when we’re busy. Everything I’ve learned from Mother, every bit of her truth, has been said while her hands were moving.

      When I finished telling her of Miss Babineau’s offer, she paused and looked up from her knitting. “And what did you say?”

      “I told her no, of course. I can’t leave you to take care of the boys alone.”

      Returning to her handwork, she looped the yarn into a tight knot. “I know you don’t think I know much about the world, but I hear what’s going on. Newspapers get here often enough, and God knows Fran tells me what’s fashionable and so on.” She cut the end loose with Father’s old pocketknife. “Things are changing for women. They want a say in things, to be their own persons. Some girls are working at jobs where they make their own way. If we lived in a bigger place, there might be more opportunity for you. I’ve heard that out west and even in some towns down towards Halifax, girls your age are doing men’s jobs, working on farms while the men are away … but here in the Bay there isn’t room for it, the men’s pride won’t have it. You know how it is, a girl lives with her parents until she gets married, and then she spends the rest of her life raising babies, cooking, cleaning, waiting on her husband. Do you really want to go from helping me take care of all these boys to taking care of another man?” She was fishing for a small white button in the bottom of a canning jar. “I know Marie Babineau doesn’t have much, but she’s got one thing I’ve never had, and that’s quiet. I can only imagine having moments all to myself that no one else knows about.” Her eyes squinted and narrowed as she guided the end of her thread through a small, shiny needle. “Your father wants you to stay with Aunt Fran.”

      “I thought he’d given up on that.”

      “He spoke about it again just yesterday morning. He said you’ve been breaking the rules.”

      “What rules?”

      “He saw you sleeping next to Charlie again, Dora.”

      “It was cold, the twins stole my blankets, and Charlie offered to share. I don’t see why he thinks it’s so wrong.”

      “He just does.”

      “So he thinks I’m some sort of …”

      “He’s your father and he wants what’s best for you.”

      “He doesn’t know the first thing about me, let alone what’s best for me.”

      “Your father …” She lowered her voice to an angry whisper. “Your father is a good and honest man whose only weakness is having pride in his work and his family. You’ll not speak that way about him again.”

      “Mother. I’m sorry, I—”

      “The truth is, we’ve barely enough for the winter this year. Albert and Borden are going off to join the war. They want to do their part. I know you don’t want to go to Fran’s, but now with Miss B …. you could stay with her.” She stitched a patch on the knee of Father’s overalls. “I don’t think it’s much to ask, considering … just for a little while.”

      I tried to find a way out of it. “We could sell my caul. Miss B. said people offered money for it when I was born.”

      Mother shook her head. “That was a long time ago. No one believes in that sort of thing these days.”

      “But I don’t want to leave home. I don’t want to leave you.”

      She took my hands in hers. “My gram always said, Each day brings another handful of opportunities. It’s up to you to make the best of what you’re given. And that’s just what you’re going to do. With all the young men going off to fight in the war, who knows what will happen to them. You’ve got to think of a future for yourself, just in case.”

      Every summer, for “Mary’s day,” Miss B. makes a gift, a Lady Moon for each of the girls in the Bay who’s turned eight in the past year. They’re simple little things, rag dolls wrapped in blue dresses, stitched with crescent moons and stars, hands sewn together in prayer, bodies stuffed with dried seaweed, rose petals and lavender. Mothers, too polite to refuse them, turn their heads when their daughters leave them behind, tucked behind the headstones in the cemetery beside the church or fallen into a puddle alongside the road.

      There have been few things in my life that I’ve called mine. Anything that was important or special disappeared soon after it came to my hands. No matter how well hidden, my dolls and their tea sets were eventually found, lined up on the fence and destroyed. Smooth beach stones flew from my brothers’ slingshots, knocking my treasures into the pigpen. Father tried talking to them, but he never blamed them, never punished them for it. That’s what boys do. This is why I set my Lady Moon free. And not just my Lady Moon, but all of the other forgotten dolls as well. Some years I’ve found only a single doll lying on the beach, other years there have been as many as five sweet faces crowded into a round-bottomed basket, trimmed with a torn piece of cotton for a sail. I tell them all a secret and set them afloat from Lady’s Cove as the tide goes out. СКАЧАТЬ