The Sand Castle (2 page)

A long silence followed, then Louise drew in her breath, finally exhaling in one long stream. “I'm starting to feel old.”

“Don't be silly. You're not a day over fifty-two.”

“Forty-six,” came the swift, icy reply.

“Ha.”

“You'll always be my baby sister but don't make me older than I am.” She shifted in her seat, rolling up the window because the air was brisk even though it was August. “Middle age is tricky. Some days I feel like I'm sixteen and other days, well. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I wouldn't know,” came the saucy reply.

“Ha right back at you.” Louise smiled broadly.

“You're only as old as you feel. Perk up.”

“I try, Baby Sis, but sometimes things wash over me.”

A silence followed. “Guess it does.” Another moment passed and Mother added, “We have to fight back. In a way we have to live harder for Ginny. If you tart yourself up you'll feel better and younger. Really.”

“Maybe, but I don't care if I bury my face in Pond's cold cream, the wrinkles are arriving.”

“You look great.”

Mother wasn't lying. Beautiful skin that aged slowly was a family trait. If anything, the men's skin glowed even fresher than the women's. Mother said shaving kept their skin smooth.

“You two look like twins.” I added my two cents.

Mother, while grateful that I was mollifying her sister, shot me a fleeting glance. She liked being the baby and didn't want to look like Louise's twin.

“Aren't you sweet,” Louise cooed.

The fog raised up enough so we could see the
landscape, flat as a pancake. The point of St. Mary's County lay right in front of us, what passed for a parking lot was crushed seashells. Beyond that the sands shifted with the winds, which fortunately were light.

Mother pulled onto the shells, tires crunching them, as the sun cleared the horizon. “Rise and shine.”

I shook Leroy. “Wake up.”

He opened his eyes, then sat up. “Look at all those birds. Aunt Wheezie, I have to go to the bathroom.”

As Mother cut the motor, Louise opened the heavy car door, then opened the back door, and Leroy stepped out, his PF Flyers bright white because he'd scrubbed them with an S.O.S. pad. Leroy kept things organized and clean since his daddy insisted his son do chores in proper military fashion. I had to be organized, too.

“Honey, there's no one here so you go on over
there.” She pointed to the edge of the shells. “Don't forget to shake.”

Beet red, he mumbled, “Yes, Ma'am.”

“I'm gonna look,” I taunted.

Mother put her hand on my shoulder. “Nickel, don't be ugly.”

“Mother, I've seen earthworms bigger than that.”

“When did you see Leroy's part?” Aunt Louise's eyebrows shot up almost to her widow's peak.

“All the time. He always has to go to the bathroom.” I shrugged because it didn't seem like a big deal to me.

Mother considered this, then patiently counseled, “Don't make fun of him. Boys, uh,” she thought some more, “boys are very nervous about their part even if they brag about it.”

Louise concurred. “They're very sensitive. I certainly hope he hasn't examined you.” She enunciated “examined.”

“Aunt Wheezie, he doesn't care about me at all. I don't want to see him but like I said, he's always going to the bathroom. I don't know why. I don't have to go to the bathroom that often.”

They ignored my prattle as Mother opened the trunk of the car.

“I'll carry the hamper if you carry the big cooler.” Louise reached for the cooler, the same one Dad used when he went pheasant hunting.

Mother without complaint lifted out the drinks cooler with a grunt. She knew Louise's back often hurt.

“Mother, Leroy says his part hurts sometimes. Why is that?”

“Fills with blood.”

This sounded awful. “Should he go to the doctor?”

Both sisters laughed, then Louise said, “No.”

“I don't see blood.”

“Nickel, this is a discussion for another day,” Mother suggested, which meant to shut up.

I couldn't argue, though I did say, “Well, I'm glad I don't have that problem.”

“I am, too.” Mother walked across the sand, her arms extended because the cooler was heavily loaded with drinks.

Louise followed with the hamper. “You wait for Leroy and then bring the blankets and my bag of tools. We're going to pick the perfect spot.”

I leaned against the side of the car, the side away from Leroy, and when he whistled and returned, I lifted out a blanket and handed it to him. I took another blanket and picked up the plumber's bag, then closed the trunk. Inside the canvas plumber's bag were trowels, small buckets, a tin measuring cup, a T-square, popsicle sticks, pieces of colored paper, twine, scissors, a whittling knife, and a bottle of nail polish. He followed me toward where Mother and Aunt Louise stood, right hands shading their eyes.

Mother turned and motioned for us to hurry.

Once there, Louise pointed to the water, “Look at that.”

A school of small fish were jumping out of the water, the sun turning their silver bodies red.

“Wow,” Leroy held the blanket to his chest.

“Gotta be a shark or something pushing them.” Mother studied nature and could identify birds and birdsongs, animals, trees, wild-flowers. She taught me these things, including the different cries for mating, defending territory, and the “just plain happy” cry as she called it.

Leroy hugged the blanket tighter, “I'm not going in the water.”

“Not now anyway. Sunrise is breakfast time for everyone and your little toes would look so tasty.” Mother teased him.

“I'll keep my sneakers on,” he replied solemnly.

Louise laughed, bending down to kiss his
cheek. “Don't do that. By the time the water warms up you'll be safe.”

He nodded but clearly did not believe this.

“Who's hungry?” Mother took Leroy's blanket and spread it out.

Louise spread out my blanket and within minutes ham biscuits, cheese, little apple tarts, and deviled eggs graced the center of the blankets.

Mother poured hot tea for herself and me. Aunt Louise liked coffee, as did Leroy, so they drank from her green thermos, which had thin red concentric pin stripes. Co-colas and 7 UPs nestled in the cooler since no one in our family could survive long without one or the other. Occasionally, Mother would knock back a jigger of whiskey followed by a Co-cola but not often. When she did it was usually in winter after she'd trudged in from finishing her chores. No one in our family was a drinker except for PopPop, who came back from Verdun a changed man. He was good to me and let me sleep with his foxhounds
as well as play with them—but sleeping with them was the big prize. Mother and Louise said he was never the same after the war. He drank off and on but when he was on, he'd drink a fifth of whiskey a day. Yet the minute he knew I was coming to stay with him he stopped. I didn't understand it.

Uncle Ken seemed the same after World War II, at least on the outside. Louise said that Ginny told her he'd wake up crying in the middle of the night. I never saw it myself. It was kind of funny, too, because he was proud to be a marine but said over and over he never wanted Leroy to go to war.

Once I told Uncle Ken I wanted to fight.

He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned down to whisper, “You would, too, but put it out of your mind.”

Mother and Louise talked about the fall clothing coming into the department store on the downtown square. The colors proved a big topic,
with Mother liking the plaids and Aunt Louise getting particular about what kind of plaid.

Since at that point I didn't know the difference between clan MacLeod and the tartan of the clan Lamont, I focused on Leroy. “You think a shark will eat you?”

“How about a manta ray?” His blue eyes widened.

“Too far north.”

“How do you know?” he challenged me.

“Cause I read
National Geographic
, that's why.”

He whispered, ham biscuit crumbs on his rosy lips, “Aunt Louise won't let me read it. Naked women. I saw one once and she had rings around her neck and her neck was long as a giraffe. No clothes hardly.” He then covered his mouth with his hand and giggled.

I whispered back, “I saw that issue, too.”

Mother had taught me to say, “issue” for periodicals. A stickler for proper identification of everything, she'd bang on me until I got it right.

“Cow udders.” He giggled louder.

I whispered louder as I looked down at my flat chest, “If I grow lung warts like that I will die. Really and truly, Leroy, I will die.”

We both turned our eyes to look at Mother and Aunt Louise's breasts which stood out nicely in their camp shirts, they each had a light sweater thrown over their shoulders, pressed shorts on their shapely legs. Men always looked at their legs so I guessed they were special. Then we giggled more.

“What are you two giggling about?” Mother reached over to playfully swat my head.

“Nothing,” I lied, and we laughed even harder.

This made Mother and Aunt Louise laugh and then we all laughed although by now we didn't know why. It didn't matter.

“Juts, remember Aunt Doney's bathing suit?”

This brought on a war whoop from Mother, who laughed anew. “Oh, my God.” She wiped her
eyes with a napkin. “Kids, Aunt Doney wore this bathing suit that had to be from the 1880s if it was a day. Well, the darn thing was wool. I mean your Aunt Doney and Uncle Jim could afford a new bathing suit but, well, that's another story. She walked into the Bay. . . .”

“And the waves hit the shore.” Aunt Louise dabbed her eyes because Aunt Doney was big as a house, the only family member who turned to fat.

Mother laughed more, then returned to the tale, “So she's out there paddling around and finally she comes on in. The day was right hot and to make a long story short, the suit shrunk. Whole sections of Aunt Doney hung over the edges of the suit. She about had a fit.”

“Did it itch?” I wondered.

“Yeah and cut the circulation off her legs and arms so Uncle Jim told her she had to take it off, but there wasn't a place to change or wash up. But there was a nice big bucket by the outdoor
pump, so we trundled over there. Louise and I had to hold up blankets so no one could see, and she stripped off the bathing suit, washed with the bucket. She'd pump and pump, pump and pour. There was a lot to wash. We're holding the blankets and remember, we're not much bigger than you all and our arms grew weary. Uncle Jim hurried to fetch her frock, as he called it. Before he got back to us this wind whipped in right off the Bay and we couldn't hold onto the blankets which were bigger than we were. Honey, there stood Aunt Doney just screaming and hollering vowing to kill us on the spot.”

“I didn't know Uncle Jim could run that fast.” Louise cried from laughter.

“If she'd kept her trap shut a few people would have noticed a large white lady naked by the water pump but no, she has to scream bloody murder and everyone on the beach witnessed all that jelly flab quivering.”

They leaned on one another shoulder to
shoulder, laughing. One would subside, then the other would start up. They were worse than Leroy and me.

It was good to see Aunt Louise laugh.

“What she do to you?” Leroy, cautious of punishment, put down his ham biscuit.

“She made us go sit on the bench telling us we couldn't swim in the Bay. We were supposed to sit there until the mule jitney came by to carry us back to the train depot.” Mother smiled at the memory.

“Did you?”

“Well. . .,” Mother fudged, since she didn't want Leroy and I to know what a devil she was, except we knew because not much had changed, she was just bigger, that's all.

“Your mother told everyone who passed by that an evil fat lady had forced us to sit on the green bench in the searing heat. We were going to dry up and fall down. Oh, it was a pitiful performance.”

Breathlessly Leroy asked, “What happened?”

“A nice gentleman walked to the police station and the policeman came by on his horse to see what was doing. Juts really pulled out the stops so he took us to the station and we got cleaned up by the lady behind the desk. We were full of sand. And then they gave us ice cream.” Aunt Louise relished the story.

“And they arrested Aunt Doney for cruelty to children.” Mother laughed so hard she had to hold onto Louise or she'd tump over.

“It was a mess, I can tell you that, and Uncle Jim had to pay a fine and then he paid them more to keep it out of the papers. Great day.” Louise drew out “day” in the Southern manner.

Aunt Doney didn't talk to us the whole way home, and that was a long train ride, I can tell you.” Mother again wiped tears from her eyes.

“What did your Mama do when you got home?” Leroy's shoulders hunched up, already worried.

“She laughed and laughed. Aunt Doney got so
mad at her she didn't speak to her for a whole month and Mama said it was a blessed relief.” Louise leaned on her sister again.

“It wasn't our fault a big wind came up.” Mother's chin jutted out for a moment.

“Wasn't our fault she ate so much pie and cake, either. That woman could eat, eat like a farmhand. She didn't eat like that in public but when it was just us, she used her fork like a shovel. I vowed I would never look like that when I sat down at the table.” For emphasis Louise again patted her lips with her cloth napkin.

“You don't eat much, Louise. Your prayer of thanks takes so long the food gets cold. You lose your appetite.” Mother teased her.

“Juts, you're such a Philistine.”

“What's a Philistine?” Leroy asked.

Aunt Louise removed her sweater as the sun climbed higher, dissipating the dawn clamminess. “What do they teach you at St. Patrick? You don't know what a Philistine is?”