Miss Elva (15 page)

“Rat poison in the milk.”

“Sweet Holy Virgin, what have you done?”

“Stopped him from beating the shit out of you.”

Now it looked as if Rilla would collapse.

“We’ll have nothing … nothing,” she said, more to herself. “You’ve ruined it! All this, everything I put up with, I did it for you.”

“For me? I had to listen to him paw at you like some animal, night after night. For me? How long do you think it would be before he went from your bed to
mine? Look, I’m younger, prettier. Then it would be for me, all right. Thank Jesus Elva’s a cripple.”

Tremors overtook Amos. He grabbed Jane and tried to pull himself up or her down.

“Let go of me.” Jane stood defiantly against her mother.

Elva went to Oak’s side.

“How long have you been doing this?” Rilla asked.

“Months.”

“Will he recover?”

“He’d better not.”

“Elva, go upstairs,” said her mother.

Not a chance.

Oak asked if he should take the truck into town for a doctor.

“No,” said Rilla. “No doctor.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Jane.

“Shut it, girl!” Then Rilla gently laid Amos’s head down and stood up. “I could use your help,” she said to Oak.

He nodded without hesitation.

“Front room, his desk, there’s paper. Get some to write with.”

Oak ran to his errand and Rilla intercepted yet another convulsion.

“Amos, you’re going to die,” Rilla said with more firmness towards him than Elva or Jane had ever heard her use before. “Do you understand?”

She held him, rocked him, until his trembling passed, and then he nodded meekly.

“You got to make your life right before God. Nod if you understand.”

Perhaps he thought he could buy himself hope, or more time, or even salvation by agreeing with her. He managed a weak sign.

Oak came back with paper and a pen.

“I want it legal and proper. Write that he leaves everything to me.”

“Ma’am?”

“Do it!”

Amos groaned, his eyes wide. Oak pulled out a chair from the table, sat, and hastily scribed the will. When he was done, he read back to Rilla, I, Amos Stearns, being free to do so, leave everything to Rilla Twohig.

“How’s that?”

Rilla nodded, then, “You owe me that, Amos.”

Oak gave the paper to Rilla. Jane, sombre in triumph, was already looking down on the man as if he were in his grave.

“Is he really going to die?” asked Elva. No one answered.
But he’s my father.

Rilla put the pen into the man’s hand and said, “Sign it.” He could not. “Damn you, Amos, sign it.” She took his hand and tried to help. “I can’t do it.”

“Give it to me,” said Oak.

“No, it’s not right.”

“I know,” he said. Oak took Amos’s hand and the pen and signed the will. “If anyone asks, I witnessed his signature. It’ll be better for you that way.”

Rilla nodded.

Amos died there on the kitchen floor shortly after, his bowels eliminating in one last act of contempt.

E
LVA SAW HIM
coming up the driveway through snapping squares of white and white-long-past-white.

“What is it?” asked Rilla, expecting Elva to hand her another clothespin.

Oak saw him too. He was putting up the storm windows. Earliest they ever got up, said Rilla. She was some
thankful Oak was still around to help out. September was blowing in cold, but dry.

“Hey,” said Dom, dropping his duffel bag. His face was berry brown from the sun and wind. “Just got in.”

Rilla resumed her pinning. “Expect your mother will be happy to see you.”

Oak stood balanced on the ladder, holding a window, watching like he couldn’t quite get his head around the twin thing. Feel one thing for one version, nothing for the other.

“I’m on my way. Thought I’d say hello first.”

To Jane? We all know about it, Dom.
But Elva kept that in her head.

“That’s nice of you,” said Rilla.

“Where’s Gil?”

“Thought it best your mother wasn’t alone out there these days.”

“Heard things were bad. Still no settlement?”

Nobody bothered to answer.

Dom grinned. “That can’t be going well. For Gil, I mean.”

“Expect your mother’s more worried about being alone than being with him.” Elva always thought her mother had a hard look about her, but it was never harder than when she continued on doing something, like hanging wet socks, talking but not looking at you, like she did now with Dom. “And Jane’s not here.”

Elva thought even with the tan, Dom paled.

“She’s helping out her aunt.”

Help indeed. More like she’d been sent packing in the hopes that no-nonsense Auntie Blanche, even more no-nonsense than Rilla if you can believe that, might talk some sense into the girl. Not eating, not sleeping, walking around with Amos’s white enamelled bowl, puking all the time; if anyone could put a stop to Jane tearing herself apart, it was Rilla’s sister.

“When’s she coming back?”

“Day or two.”

“Then is Amos, I mean Mr. Stearns, here?” Dom had gotten right serious. “There’s something I have to talk to him about.”

Rilla stopped pinning. “He’s dead.”

“Jesus! I knew he’d been sick. When?”

“Couple of months back.”

“Really sorry about that.”

Rilla was pinning again. “What did you want with him?”

“Well, I, I’d hoped to talk to Jane first, but seeing as how things are.” Dom looked awkwardly at the audience on the ladder and holding Rilla’s clothespins. “I wanted to ask his, yours I guess, permission to marry Jane. I’ve made some money, not much but I’ve got a job lined up in Sydney and enough to get us there.”

“That would be all right, Dom, considering how Jane’s having your baby.”

How’d she know? Elva wondered. Even after they’d buried Amos next to Dotsie, Jane refused to give up who the father was.

“That’s that,” said Rilla. “Didn’t know for sure, Jane not saying, but from the look on ya, you figure it’s yours too.”

“Does … my mother know?”

Rilla was still hanging laundry, but she smiled. “That one’s for you.”

“Mrs. Stearns—uh, Rilla—” Sonofabitch! He didn’t know what to call her. “I’ll do right by Jane, I will!”

Yes well, Rilla’d heard all that before. “I’ll tell her you came by.”

Off balance in that holy-shit-what-do-I-do-now kind of way, Dom said, “Bye, Elva,” and nodded to Oak on the ladder and left, forgetting his duffel bag in the driveway. Oak watched for a bit, then finished with the window he’d been holding.

Rilla said, “More pins, girl.”

Through the sheets on the line Elva and Rilla could see Dom getting small, getting swallowed up by the tall grass. All that schooling, grooming for the priesthood, the illustrious career meant to stretch out in front of him.

“Poor bastard. Look at him. His life is ruined.” It would be Rilla’s only judgement.

But Elva thought he looked relieved.

– – –

Elva figured it would turn out like this. Jane would never say boo to Dom about what Gil did, probably because she was worried about what they’d do to each other. Maybe she even felt responsible for what had happened. If she was going to say something, she’d have done it by now, but after she got back from Indian Brook, she and Dom were inseparable, and there was no way Dom, if he knew, could act as if what happened didn’t happen. Or so Elva reasoned.

Dom and Jane would get hitched, race off to Sydney, maybe even Halifax. She’d miss Jane dreadfully, maybe even get sick over it like those richy-rich girls on the radio dramas, but a Demerett Bridge without Jane and Dom might be the sort of place Gil would stay in, and then there was all that time she’d have alone with Rilla. So who gave as hit if Jeanine Barthélemy, who apparently was still in the dark over Dom’s fall from grace, got pissy over her son going straight to hell? Elva didn’t care for her anyhow and thought that Rilla, in her own way, would echo Jane, Haw haw. Maybe her mother might even consider sending Elva to school.

Oak, Elva knew, shared her feelings.

“She’ll be leaving,” he said in regards to Jane. But then he had to say, which ruined it all, “And when she goes, so will Gil. Should’ve been gone weeks ago, weeks ago.”

The September day was swept away with heavy skies streaked with dull grey, dry, bitter winds and
larches yellowing too early. Usually after Dom had spent an evening visiting with Jane, they’d make their goodbyes on the front porch, which could take forever with all the I-miss-you-already’s and kiss-kiss-kiss-I-love-you stuff. Elva didn’t know for sure, but she guessed there was cooing about baby names and where they’d go and the piano the house in Sydney would have although Jane had no inclination to learn how to play. On this evening, Dom came through the back way into the kitchen where Elva was sitting alone at the kitchen table, swinging her feet back and forth, eating a sandwich of toast and cheese.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked, and something was definitely wrong. Wrong in the angry-want-to-kick-something kind of way.

“Indian Brook.”

With two men around the house, Rilla figured it was okay to go, although Elva didn’t know where Oak was. Hadn’t seen him all day.

“Damn. When she gets back, tell her Jane won’t marry me.”

Elva just blinked.

“Look, is there something going on that she won’t tell? Did something happen while I was away?”

Elva slowly shook her head.

“And why won’t Gil come over here any more? He’s always got some excuse.”

Just a shrug this time.

“Fuck.” And he left.

Elva sat quietly at the big table, still nibbling her toast and cheese even though her stomach started to flip-flop. Was the truth coming out? Could be just a spat. Lord knows, Jane wasn’t the easiest person to love. But why ask about Gil? A door slammed overhead and the hum of the light bulb in the kitchen seemed very loud. Jane won’t marry me. Not, I won’t marry Jane, or, We can’t get married, or, My mother forbids me to marry Jane, but Jane won’t marry me.

How could that be? wondered Elva. It’s what Jane wanted, didn’t she? If Jane didn’t marry Dom, that ruined everything—well, if nothing more than the fantasy that Gil might one day be hers. And wasn’t that just like Jane! To not even give Elva that. Why in heaven not go away and be happy? Forget about Gil.

Maybe she can’t.

What to do? What would Jane do? Jane would have pulled the plug! That’s when it occurred to Elva that maybe Jane had been right after all about the sandpiper. Maybe you can’t see what needs to be done sometimes, because your heart’s right up in your face and you can’t even breathe when that happens, let alone make sense of what’s good for you and what’s bad.

It was right to let that poor bird go. It’s right to do it for someone when they can’t. And I can do that for Jane. I can tell Dom what Gil did.

The revelation filled Elva with such conviction,
such clarity of purpose, she could only wonder why she hadn’t thought of it before. The truth, Elva believed, would help Dom understand Jane’s reluctance. However painful the catharsis might be, at some point it would bring peace.

There was shrieking along the shore where the high winds hit the beachhead and roared over the dunes. Not the best of nights for good-deed doing. Elva was glad she’d taken Jane’s oilskin, the wind being cold as she stumbled through fields of brown grass drooping heavily, crunching underfoot. The long shadows of evening were giving way to blue, to grey, to black, making short work of a girl’s courage. Elva was sure she’d catch up with Dom before he got too far, he hadn’t left all that much before her, but damn it, she hadn’t thought to bring a lantern.

She was losing her way. Being swallowed. Those old rotten limbs on the dead elm by the Barthélemy farm were creaking something fierce.

“Jane?”

Quiet but sure, he’d startled her. Too dark to see him sitting on the fence lining their road. Dom waiting there, hoping Jane had come to her senses? All Elva could tell was that he was coming towards her.

Frightened, shivering, anxious to get it out and get it over with, Elva did not give him a chance to speak as she nervously garbled out what had happened between Jane and Gil at Ipswich Abbey, even the whole lurid
tale of Gil’s rent-boy past. Elva had a head of steam going and there was no stopping. So she had broken not only a promise to Jane but a confidence from Oak. Oh well. She hoped that telling Dom about the last five years of his brother’s life would soften any retribution. It was only when she paused to catch her breath that she felt something brush her feet and heard the swish of Major’s tail against grass.

Gil grabbed her arms, shaking her, squeezing so tightly she felt her bones would pop.

“You’re hurting me!”

“How do you know this?”

“Oak told me and, well, there’s a secret space from my room to yours—”

“You
saw
us?”

“I know about you and Oak. It’s not your fault, you’re just trying to prove you’re a real man like Dom. But that’s okay.”

No, far from it. No watcher likes to be watched, and what she could not see in the dark was the transformation in Gil that had withdrawn him from Oak. Running away from himself is what Gil did, and this time it left him marooned between wanting to be Dom and being mad. Elva had upset an uneasy truce.