He didn’t come home that night, but he did manage to call. My mother spoke to him and told my brother and me to go to the Rabinowitzes and tell them we were having dinner with them. Mrs. Rabinowitz made me a peanut butter sandwich, because she knew I didn’t like fish. She talked to my mother on the phone and said my brother and I were to spend the night.
In the morning it was still raining. I went home before anyone else was up. My mother and father were in the living room. My mother was in her robe. She was crying. My father was drunk. “I love her more than I ever loved anyone,” my father said in a strangled, slurred voice. “Nobody will believe it because nobody wants to believe it. They prefer it ugly.”
“How can you say that?” my mother asked. She was holding his hand. “Tell me how you have the nerve to say that to me.”
“I just can’t help myself,” my father answered. He saw me and his voice rose. “Go back to the Rabinowitzes. Do as you’re told.”
By the time I got back, I was crying hard. Mrs. Rabinowitz heard me. She came down from the bedroom and held me in her lap. Mr. Bush, the milkman, came to the door. He had just been to my house. He spoke to Mrs. Rabinowitz in a whisper while he handed her their milk. “Cynthia Marciti drowned,” he told her.
“I know,” Mrs. Rabinowitz said.
“Her parents thought she was at a slumber party. She was out on the Wabash.”
“I know,” Mrs. Rabinowitz said. Cynthia Marciti baby-sat for me occasionally. She was a student of my father’s. My brother and I stayed with the Rabinowitzes for four more days.
On Friday, my mother came walking across the lawn, dressed in a black dress. “No one expects this of you,” Mr. Rabinowitz told her. “You don’t have to.”
“She was eighteen years old,” my mother said. “Do you think I could blame her for any of this?”
Stevie told me that my father paid for the gravestone. He said it was very big and had an angel on it. I didn’t see how this could be possible. My father didn’t believe in angels.
The Rabinowitzes drove my mother to the funeral. I hadn’t seen my father in four days. When I tried to talk to my brother about the angel he told me to shut up. “I wish everybody would just leave me alone,” he said, which was unnecessary because pretty much everybody was.
Stevie and I got out the Uncle Wiggily board. I couldn’t read my first card, because of the tears in my eyes. “Read it to me,” I said, handing it to Stevie.
“Uncle Wiggily says you are moving to California,” Stevie said. “Go ahead three spaces.”
I put the card in my pocket. At some point I must have used it as a bookmark, because seven years later I found it again, stuck in a book in my grandparents’ house, in the bedroom my mother had slept in as a child, which was now my room. There were no seasons in California. In seven years I had had to learn to remember things differently.
I had been eleven years old the last time I saw Stevie. Now I was eighteen, the same age as Cynthia Marciti.
The card had Uncle Wiggily’s picture on it, a rabbit gentleman farmer in a top hat, collar, and cuffs. “Uncle Wiggily says you will marry a man who is a lot like you are. You will have two children, a boy and a girl. You turn out very ordinary,” it said. “Go back three spaces.”
THE TRAVAILS
Inspired by John Kessel’s story “Gulliver at Home.”
I hope I may with Justice pronounce myself an Author perfectly blameless; against whom the Tribes of Answerers, Considerers, Observers, Reflectors, Detectors, Remarkers, will never be able to find Matter for exercising their Talents.
September 28, 1699
Dear Lemuel,
When you think of us, think of us missing you. As Betty cleared the Table from Breakfast this morning, she burst into Tears. “There is Papa,” she said, pointing to a Crumb of Bread. And I perfectly comprehended her. I saw you in my Mind, your Speck of a Boat, no bigger than a Crumb on the whole of the Kitchen Table. God speed you back to us.
And then we sat no longer, because of all the daily Work to be done. Now it is Evening and I take Time to write. I hope you received my Letter of July 3rd. Our Betty is Ten Years today and, though only Months have passed since your Departure, I believe she is much altered and not the little Girl you left. I feel the Passage of Years more acutely in the Children’s Lives than in my own. With a ten year Daughter, I cannot be accounted young. Already she is more than half as old as I when you came courting. I imagine therefore that she is already half done with being mine. A melancholy Thought.
But the Days grow ever more beautiful, so I shall look outside rather than in. How do you endure a Day at Sea with no Trees about you? The Elm at our Window is all turned, its Leaves as golden as Egg Yolks. The Moon tonight is as big as a Tea Tray, but of course you have that too, wherever you are.
Johnny is growing out of all his Clothes, and Betty and I are kept forever sewing. I never pass Mrs. Nardac in the Shops but that she informs me that the Islands where you are sailing are filled with Women who wear no Stitch of Clothing. If they cover their Bodies at all, she says, they do it with their Hair, which is longer and thicker and more lustrous than anything any Woman in London can do with Wigs. Mermaids then, I say, teazing. No, no, they are quite real, she assures me. She thinks you will not come Home this time and she wishes me to know she thinks this.
But I know otherwise! And such an Adventure we had when the Weather first chilled. Suddenly we were overrun with Ants. What you now picture, double. Ants poured into the House from every Crack in every Wall. Not just the Kitchen, they assaulted us in the Parlour and even the Bed Chambers. Oh, it was War and went on for three whole Days. I plotted and laid Traps. You would imagine we had every Advantage, from Size to Cunning, and yet we could not win through. In truth, they seemed uncannily clever at times. Johnny even made use of a Weapon I must leave you to imagine. His Face when I came upon him! “I washed away great Hordes of them,” he insisted, but I took him to Bed by his Ear and it has taken me many Days of scrubbing to see the Humour in it. And then, with no more Warning than we had at the Beginning, they vanished and we are at Peace again.
Mrs. Nardac thinks that Johnny should be sent away to School, but of course he is far too young still. I know I anticipate your Wishes in the Matter by keeping him at Home for now. When you return, you will find us all,
Your loving Family and,
Your Mary
Yuletide, 1701
Dearest, dearest,
I have received Word today from a dear Mrs. Biddle that you are recovered from the fast Grip of the Sea and safe aboard her Husband’s Ship. What joyous Tidings! What Joy to write a Letter I know you will receive! I ran all the way Home and shouted the News without pausing to every Soul I passed. Then Betty and I wore ourselves out with the Weeping and Relief. You are on your way Home to us and we are anxious to see you healthy and unchanged in your Regard. In truth, something in Mrs. Biddle’s Letter betrayed Concern regarding your State of Mind, although I remind myself that she has also written here, twice in one Letter, that you are well. Eat and rest now, my Darling. Take care of your Dear Self.
We are all healthy here. Carolers came to the Window last Night. They sang of good King Wenceslas and Bethlehem. Snow fell, but gently, on their Scarves and Caps, while their Voices rose into the Air. Tonight all is Snow-Silent and I cannot choose which it is I like best, the Silence or the Noise of the World. Greedily, I would have them both. The Whole of it is the only thing that will suit me tonight. Mrs. Biddle said that you have such Stories to tell us. And we, you!