A Voice of Her Own Read online

  “What’s wrong with this house?” I asked.

  Father had no answer for that, at least none he cared to share. His face took on the serious expression I knew so well. It was a sign to leave all contradiction on the far side of the road, better yet in another town! “It has been decided,” he stated with firmness. “We move next month.”

  Silence into silence—and deeper still—heavy with distress. Vinnie was crying now. Large soundless tears rolled down her cheeks and stuck to her chin.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Mother said, then added vaguely, “It will all work out in the end.”

  “No, it won’t!”

  “Emily!” corrected Father.

  I looked at Austin, who was smoldering as only he can smolder—eyes like daggers.

  Why won’t he speak?!

  I was on my own in the battle.

  “Our new house is across from your school,” Mother offered. It was a fact of questionable relevance, as I would be attending a new school in September, on another street entirely.

  “I don’t want to move!” I shouted. I don’t know why I felt so strongly on the matter. I can only say that I did. Change has never landed well with me.

  Father looked stern to the point of his own discomfort. I was hardly behaving like “the best little girl in Amherst.” He fancied me as such. It was too awful, really. I had so many dark thoughts. If he only knew!

  “That will do, Emily,” he pronounced.

  I ran from the table, out the door, into the yard, around the house, past the oak tree, and down the hill toward the garden. My breath was coming in broken sobs. The wind stung my face, blowing my short hair back, then forward into my eyes, sticking to the tears, making it hard to see. I hate not to see.

  I ran along the flat stones. They become smaller part-way down the slope leading to the grass of the Stoneless Place above the narrow steps. I stopped at the first step, collapsing in a heap of tears on the cool, flat surface. My world had split apart and I, a tiny fragment, spinning in the space of the unknown.

  I think it was not as long as it seemed before Austin was at my side. “It’s all right, Emily,” he said.

  “No, it’s not!” I cried, bemoaning my fate.

  “Don’t be stubborn.”

  “Go away!”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “You know how you are.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Things are terrible one minute and glorious the next!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “The terrible times don’t last.”

  “Neither do the good ones!”

  “Don’t be contrary, Emily. Your stubbornness will get you nowhere.”

  My breath came in jolts of life—gasps—as it did when I swam too long in the pond. Austin sat next to me on the stoop.

  “Why didn’t he tell us?” I asked.

  “He did.”

  “Before! Not now, when the day is upon us!”

  “The day is not upon us,” said Austin. “The day is not for weeks.”

  “Weeks is sudden when a thing is unexpected. He should have told us before!”

  “It’s not the end of the world,” said Austin.

  “How do you know?”

  Austin looked at me, pausing a moment before summing up my character. “You’re too young to be morbid.”

  “What is the proper age?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Fine,” I said, ignoring his ill-timed attempt at humor.

  “At the youngest,” he added. He was smiling by then. I was smiling too, but inside myself and careful to keep it a secret.

  “Father says we can take the cats.” It was Vinnie—who else? She had joined us on the steps, holding Roughnaps, wide-eyed and suspicious from all the confusion.

  “Is that all you think about?” I asked.

  “Not all.” It was pitiful how small she was and going through such a large change. I reasoned if it was hard for me to leave the only home I had ever known at nine, it would be worse for a girl of seven. At times compassion fills my selfish heart, which amazes me and delights me very much.

  As it turned out, Austin had his own dislike of the thought of moving. He did not confess to it that day, but later told me it was a blow to his sense of security. He said he had always assumed the Homestead would be in the family for generations, passed on through time like an ancient castle, complete with a moat. He also liked the yard.

  Vinnie carried Roughnaps inside to tell Tiger Boy and Snugglepoops about the move, leaving yours truly and her brother to our own vices. We sat in comforting silence. I knew of no one in the world with whom I felt the same ease in quiet space. After a time, Austin followed a friend down the road to do something. I don’t remember who the friend was, or what they were going to do. Austin had many friends and none of them wanted to play with me, a fact that caused no small amount of pain. It was not so much because I wanted to play with them but because I wanted to play with Austin, and when given the choice, Austin chose his friends. Off they would go to places unknown, leaving me alone in all my glory, unless you count Vinnie, which I did not. Two years is a long way down when one considers a sister who is only seven.

  I looked about the March yard. Soon a robin would be coming down the walk, the daffodils would be swaying in the breeze, the tulips would be up and proud and the trees would be dressed in all their finery.

  I can’t leave now! My friends are coming! They will miss me!

  It was really too much. There I sat on the top step at the end of the grass of the Stoneless Place and below me, the four long, narrow steps to the garden. There are five steps all together. I wondered about the Stoneless Place. I loved that spot. Stones, stones and more stones and in between—no stones at all. Was it Nature did it? Was it the work of men? Was it a woman, lone and able, clearing a soft place for the pure want of it?

  I would have to say good-bye to my Stoneless Place and to my steps. The steps were good for jumping games, better with company, most especially my “particular friend,” Abby, but if Abby was not handy and Vinnie unwilling, I could play alone. The rules were various and changeable, a fact that bothered my more literal-minded sister. But I was fair. I never tricked her. Well, I did once and felt the worse for it, but otherwise I did not change the rules in the middle of a game to suit my personal advantage, though I thought of it. I never considered such willful dishonesty with Abby. My dear Abby! Abby Wood. She lived just up the hill—a step-walk away—with her uncle, Luke Sweetser. Now there would be distance between us—a walk of many minutes!—inconvenient when sudden fancies for moments shared might strike. I had known Abby forever to my waking mind. Orphaned at three, she had come to Amherst to live with her uncle.

  The wind was blowing hard, its March custom, yet I had not the mind to move. The larger move was all my heart could bear. A bird came down the path. She did not know I saw her, leastways not that I could tell. She may have caught my watchful glance only to hurry later to the nest, spreading the nimble tale of how a girl sat on the step looking “oh, so lost.” Then all the other birds would wonder at the loneliness of humans.

  A Wooden Way

  The day before we left the Homestead, my feet went a wooden way. There was no life in them that I could tell. I walked across the yard as in a trance, so sad I was to be leaving. I was angry as well but sought to ignore that fact, which is easier said than done. I had to say good-bye to my friends—the grass and trees, the flowers, the birds. I would see no bees that day as they were deep in their winter rest. I hoped they might come to Pleasant Street to visit my flowers there, for I was sure to have flowers. I could not think of life without them.

  The forsythia looked finely—great blazes of yellow along the fence—and the pink cherry blossoms were budding. One could see the red fog on the trees in the distance. The bushes were budding too. Mother’s tulips were crimson. Who would water them now? And the daffodils, just ready for picking, if one
cared to disturb them. The blue daisies stood proud, their bright yellow centers announcing the strength of the unassuming. And there was round-lobed hepatica, deep purple pansies, not to mention the crocuses, the yellow coltsfoot and the tiny blossoms of the whitlow grass. Soon there would be asters and showy lady’s slipper, but they would not be seen by me.

  I sat beneath the large oak, my back against its strong trunk. The sun was hot and no leaves yet for shade. I made no move to get my bonnet. I pictured it resting on the hook by the stairs. As I had come into the yard to ease my heart in its impending tear from Home, I cared not to tighten the chains by going back inside. My mind was in a dark place. I felt as if I was moving from Safety to Danger, from Life to Death almost. I cannot say what made it so.

  I went around to the back of the house. There was the barn, one giant’s step from the house, the animals quiet within.

  Thank God the animals are coming with us!

  It was hard enough to leave my plant friends without adding the cows and horses into the bargain. We would, however, be leaving the barn well, which was fine with me. I did not have to fetch the water from that Siberian outpost. That was Austin’s job. Father would never permit Mother or me to do it. Father always instructed Austin in no uncertain terms to watch out for the cattle lest he be hooked or stampeded by our docile companions. Now, that does seem far-fetched if you ask me.

  When I reached the back door I stopped. There, a little to the left, was my Flower. Mother was the gardener then. I learned a great deal from her about the likes and dislikes of our various charges in matters of when to plant, when to water and preference of location as to amount of sun or shade. All of Nature’s people have minds of their own. One does well to learn them.

  I stood looking at my Flower. I had planted it entirely by myself, choosing the spot with care. I had considered digging it up and taking it with me, a plan which Mother did not recommend. “It will die,” she warned. “The transplanting will overtax its tender roots.”

  Like Mine.

  I did not share this thought with Mother as I knew it would upset her. Mother has always been frail, with headaches, neuralgia, mysterious pains and bouts of low spirits. Many times we don’t know what ails her. Perhaps her mind is far from the answer itself, a likely reason for her to leave the rest of us in dark as regards her situation. This Day Before Moving Day, Mother rested on the lounge under a woolen blanket.

  I knelt by my Flower. “I have to leave you,” I told it. Tears were pushing at the back of my eyes. I don’t like leavings. I thought of my first leaving then. Vinnie had just been born. Mother was not well and so it was arranged for me to leave. Mother must have felt overwhelmed with a new baby and Father away so much. I was the expendable one. I recall a carriage ride. Aunt Lavinia. A cloak across my face. Darkness and cold. Flashes of white fire through the cloak and a crack to split my ears. A thunderstorm? I longed for Mother, but I was a good girl.

  “HELP!”

  Vinnie was calling from the kitchen window, and I squatting in a manner most unbecoming a fashionable young lady, boots caked with mud, skirt brown with dirt from my excursions about the yard.

  “HELP!!”

  Vinnie had been calling after me much of late. It was always about some great Hurrah that when looked at squarely was nothing more than a “tempest in a teapot,” as the saying goes. I think Vinnie was scared of leaving Home, as scared as I was, only more so, being so small.

  “ROUGHNAPS HAS A BIRD!”

  I hurried into the house as fast as I was able, being so vexed at the news as to give not one ounce of thought to the mud on my boots, and more importantly to Mother’s certain reaction to the telltale signs the same would leave upon the floor.

  As the kitchen door slammed behind me, I realized I had entered a veritable hornet’s nest—great shrieking and scurrying about, as Roughnaps, the monster bird murderer, was rushing, body at a slant, toward the parlor, a poor half-dead bluebird in his mouth and Vinnie chasing after him, screaming and threatening the worst and then, “EMILY, HELP!” and Mother rising from the lounge, holding the woolen blanket as Vinnie chased the detestable creature through the front hall.

  That was the precise moment when Father chose to arrive from work, straight and important, with cane and hat and black briefcase in hand.

  A feeble “Hello, dear,” from Mother; “it’s the cat. . . .”

  “EMILY, HELP!” from Vinnie.

  “He has a bird . . . it’s nothing,” said Mother. “It will all be over in a minute.”

  Father stood motionless, erect, disapproving.

  Scratch, scratch and a great scraping of cat nails across the recently polished floor. There was a great rush of air about my ankles as Roughnaps hurried past, the innocent bluebird dangling from his jaws. I myself wanted to kill Vinnie’s prized, fang-toothed ball of fluff. I detested his murderous game.

  “Stop him!” I screamed at Vinnie.

  Father set down his briefcase.

  “We don’t scream in the house,” said Mother, a comment clearly meant to show Father he needn’t question her disciplinary techniques.

  “He’s murdering a bird!” I shouted.

  “That’s unfortunate,” said Mother, “but we don’t scream about it.”

  I do.

  Father looked important in his office clothes. It was good to have him at home, however briefly. He had recently been away for the better part of a year with the legislature in Boston, a fact I resented, the truth be told.

  I tried to express myself firmly, but quietly, as if I were a respectable young lady. “Vinnie simply must stop that cat,” I explained. “It’s not fair.” At this point Roughnaps headed for the stairs, Vinnie on his tail. “Get your cat before I kill him!” I screamed.

  “Emily!” A sharp call from Father.

  I wanted to plead my case, but Father’s mind was busy elsewhere. It seemed unsuitable to call it back. Mother held tightly to the blanket, watching Father. She looked a pitiful figure. “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Good enough.” Father hung his hat on the hook by the door.

  There was a great scuffling from upstairs.

  “DON’T GO UNDER THE BED!”

  Father stared straight ahead, looking “dead as a doornail”—a favorite phrase of Mother’s.

  I could not remain quiet. “Why does he have to murder innocent birds?”

  “Emily . . . ,” said Mother.

  “And if he’s going to do it, he should go outside where none of us can see him. I think he does it for spite.”

  “I doubt that, Emily,” said Father.

  “I don’t.”

  “The subject is closed.” There was a dry and serious pause.

  A door slammed. It was General Mack, the father of the family with whom we shared the Homestead. He passed through the kitchen on his way to the stairs, a tall man who sold hats. I was used to sharing our house with strangers and paid him no mind. Father looked at Mother. “How’s that cold?” he asked.

  “Better,” said Mother.

  It did not appear so to me. Mother had spent the afternoon on the lounge in the parlor, complaining of feet “as cold as ice.” She made a sad and dreary picture bundled there, her blanket about her tiny frame, the shutters closed, the room near empty, as much of the furniture had already been moved to the new house. Whatever her situation—neuralgia, a cold—moving makes it worse. Mother has never cared for travel.

  Father looked at her. “Don’t go out, just the same,” he instructed. Father is always at us about our health. “Don’t go to church in the snow,” “Don’t go to school in the wind,” “Don’t let the cattle hook you when you go to the well,” “Don’t let the woodpile fall on your head” and the old standby, “Don’t be anxious.” That was hardest to obey amidst the infinite sea of dire warnings. My favorite could not be surpassed in the measure of fear it inspired in our tender hearts. “Don’t fall out of the carriage as a wheel may roll over your body and kill you!” How’s that for l
ifting the spirits!

  “Would you like your paper?” Mother inquired of Father. Why she referred to it as “your” paper I cannot say, as we all, excepting Vinnie, read that same Springfield Daily Republican and Mother knew it. I put it to an attempt on Mother’s part to honor Father to an inappropriate degree. At any rate, as Father did want “his” paper, they retired to the parlor, leaving me free to hurry upstairs to check on the progress of the Gruesome Bird Murder.

  The house was too quiet.

  What’s happening?

  I was soon to find out. Upon entering our room, I saw Vinnie, half under the bed—only her legs could be seen—and not making one sound. “Did he kill it?” I asked.

  “I think so,” came the small words from underneath the bed.

  I bent down to look. It was black as pitch.

  “He won’t give it back,” said Vinnie.

  It was some moments before my eyes adjusted to the dark. There was Roughnaps, crouched in the farthest corner beneath the bed and growling a deep-throated growl, the poor dead bluebird locked between his jaws! “It’s dead,” I said.

  “Poor bird,” said Vinnie.

  “Poor bird is right!”

  It was very sad indeed. I do believe Vinnie was more upset than I was. She loved the bird and the cat, while I loved only the bird, which made my anger straight.

  That night I went outside to say good-bye to my Flower. It stood small and proud, its petals a brilliant purple in the light of the April moon that shone down from above Father’s Oak. I sat on the cool ground—just being there. I cleared some little stones away from the stem and smoothed the earth around the Flower with my hand. It was truly a miracle, my single Flower, with a mind of its own and a destiny inside, just as they had been inside the tiny seed I had planted a few short weeks before.

  I made up a poem then. It was to my Flower. I sometimes wrote poems as a child—not many, but some. They marked important Circumstances, not Large perhaps, but always containing significance in my child’s mind.

  My Flower keeps the largest Friends—

  It blooms outside my door.