Threads (19 page)

"I think you could perhaps try patience. You've never been very patient. Now that you're
an adult it's way past time you stopped thinking of yourself so much."

With advice like that we soon stopped asking. After all it was obvious she didn't know
what she was talking about. She'd never been married.

As far as we knew she had never even been in love. We teased her to find out but she
would only say, "There's some things for me to know and you to wonder about."

I wasn't married yet, but I planned to be soon. I knew Aunt Sophie didn't approve of
Len. She worried about his temper. We argued constantly about every little thing and he didn't
like my new job either. Since we were going to be married why did I need a career? She warned
that a possessive man before marriage can become even more jealous after the vows are taken,
and...

I'd stopped talking to her about him. She'd never been in love. She didn't know how his
eyes, his hands, and his concern about me made me feel.

Now, in the dark, I wondered at her reason for exposing her story, the deep self she'd
kept hidden all these years. Why to me, now? Sure, I'd always listened better than the other
cousins to her stories and had spent more time with her, but there was more to it than that.

I decided to think about it tomorrow after I left. Right now I was going to put on a
couple more pieces of wood to the fire, close it up, and go to bed. But first I put everything back
in the box, locked it and returned it to its place in the drawer and left the key on the table.

There was the boy to have the answer about tomorrow, too. Cannon Beach? Could it be
that he still lived there? He would be old, impossibly old. An old boy? As much as the answers
intrigued me, I dreaded asking her the question. I didn't want Sampson to be old, but neither did I
want him to be dead.

The next morning dawned bright and clear. Sun through the kitchen window reflected
off the chrome edging of the table. The key was gone.

Perhaps we could forget the whole thing. She had left them all and I was sure the reason
could be applied to my situation in some oblique way. Why else had she told me her story?
Almost everyone was dead and gone. It was morbid to rehash old wounds. What happened fifty
years ago couldn't have any relevance to me.

Now, with my senses alert to a reason behind the telling, I was eager to be gone. I was
not going to listen to unwanted advice, however indirect. I'd just grab a cup of coffee and be
gone.

But she was quicker than I. "Well, good morning, sleepyhead." It wasn't even seven
o'clock yet.

Before I could finish saying, "Just a cup of coffee please, I've got to run," she was at the
stove.

"Get some bacon and eggs into you and then I have a favor to ask before you go."

"Well, Aunt So," I hedged, "I just wanted to get some coffee--"

"Nonsense. You need more than coffee. I'll make you a good breakfast."

I kept quiet. She was herself again, full of energy and hustle, not the old woman I'd seen
the night before.

"Now, if after breakfast you could stay for awhile and help me with these windows, I'd
sure appreciate it."

"The windows? But you always told me not to wash them when the sun is shining on
them 'cause they streak."

"That was when I didn't need any help and could wait until a cloudy day. But..." She
bent her head to look feeble, "When a strong body that can reach up, and isn't afraid of breaking
old bones from falling off a chair comes around, I just have to grab it and make use of it. "

I was wearing short sleeves. She laughed and squeezed the muscles in my right arm. Her
fingers were softly rough, a contradiction but there she was, defined by the feel of her skin. She
was pulling out all the stops again so I gave in. After all, maybe she was telling the truth.

"You know," she said, as she put the coffee in front of me, "I always did like clean
windows."

I'd never particularly noticed it.

"In fact I was washing windows the day I decided to leave."

There it was. She was going to continue with the story despite the fact I'd not brought it
up.

When they brought Lily home I was so happy to have them back. I laughed and teased
David about his obsession with the child. But the problem wasn't him. It was in me, and in the
situation. I was possessive and jealous, not unlike your Len.

Aha! This reference to him confirmed my suspicions. She questioned his
character.

Before Lily came, Sampson was the center of our attention. We all loved him, but
because I'd given him to David, I felt we had a special closeness. I never saw resentment in Amy
of that closeness. She accepted it, with an occasional envy that I saw now and then, but she
wasn't mean-spirited. She seemed as happy for David as he was. But
their
baby brought
a change to our lives.

David paid more attention to Lily and Amy than he did to Sampson and me. I was still
nursing Sampson, but David didn't crowd around and crow over us anymore. Now it was Lily
and Amy who got this attention.

Then Lily got the colic. Sampson had never been sick a day in his short life, so when
Lily cried in pain David couldn't stand it. For weeks he walked the floor with her at night. He
wouldn't let Amy or me do it.

"You have enough to do in the day taking care of these babies," he said. "I'll take care of
Lily at night. You both need your rest. You can't get worn down."

Her crying and the long nights were exhausting for all of us. Even through my sleep I
could hear her when she woke up and started crying.

During the day we were all tired, but only my temper got short. They'd waited so long
for a baby, no sacrifice was too tiring for them. Amy kept saying, "This will pass. We just have
to wait it out. Think of poor Lily. It's harder on her than us."

I wasn't sure. They were spoiling her terribly, but I said nothing.

Somewhere in her fourth month Lily's colic eased, but it was already too late for me.
Probably if it hadn't been that straw it would have been something else. I couldn't share someone
so close to my heart. Amy and David could, but I couldn't. They had each other and Lily in a
way that would never include me. I wanted David and Sampson to be all mine. To care mostly
about me.

That was never going to happen. David was a good talker. He'd convinced me this could
work for all of us, but the reality was that it worked well for him--and Amy too in some ways.
Would she have Lily if not for me and Sampson?

I was extra. I wasn't needed. David had manipulated me. I knew I had to take some
responsibility too. I'd gone along with David's scheme because it was the only way I could get
what I wanted: David. I kept my thoughts to myself but inside I seethed with anger and
tears.

I couldn't take my frustration out on Lily--she was so tiny--or Amy or David--I was too
afraid of losing him. So I took it out on the one person I had who was mine. Sampson.

I decided he was going to be potty trained and weaned. And that he'd stop pulling things
from tables and bookshelves. And would mind my every word. He was going to be a perfect
little man.

He wasn't ready for the sudden change, and my anger toward him made it worse. You
would think my experience with Mandy's kids would have taught me that children move slowly
or quickly according to their own pace. Forcing your schedule on them, it seldom works. But
they'd been Mandy's children, not mine. I'd had to accept doing things her way which, since we
had the same upbringing, was not all that different from mine. But I saw things that I would do
different if they were mine. I wouldn't have put up with half the nonsense she did.

The difference was that she had four little ones close together. I had only one. He was all
mine, and now my full attention went to him.

When he wet his pants I spanked him and shamed him. "You big baby! Naughty dirty
boy!"

"He's only a baby," Amy said, almost crying.

David just looked at me and took Sampson away, holding him on his lap and rocking
him. "It's all right. You'll do better next time."

Sampson not only didn't do better next time, he got worse. He started wetting the bed
again, something he hadn't done since he was about a year old. I put him back in night diapers,
which he fought because I shamed him so about it. "No, no," he'd cry, trying to wiggle
away.

It got to the point where only Amy could put him to bed because he ran away from
me.

Weaning him was awful, too. If I'd just eased into it, he might have given in, but one
morning as he started to climb into my lap I just said, "No, you're a big boy now. Eggs and cereal
and a cup for you."

He fought it. He threw up. He knocked the cup to the floor and reached for me. Soon
that didn't work because there was nothing there. At first my breasts swelled and hurt, and I'd
say--I remember it and am ashamed--"This hurts me more than you. You hurt Mommy."

David got very angry when I said that. "You have no right. Can't you see what you're
doing to him? What is the matter with you?"

"Don't interfere. He's mine. You take care of Lily, I'll take care of Sampson."

I didn't look at his face when he said, "He doesn't
belong
to anyone. He is his
own."

Thus I brought screaming and crying to what had been a peaceful house. The matter
with me was that I was blind jealous. The sharing didn't work for me. Maybe it would of if I'd
been brought up to it, but I wasn't.

It didn't work for me in our little Cannon Beach family.

As long as I, through Sampson, was the primary recipient of David's attention I was
happy. Only I had been able to provide him with a child. But now I had to share this glory, and
be happy about it. It wasn't in me.

When it comes to our own child most of us are blind. The child must be perfect. We all
go about trying to make perfect children in our different ways. One believes in the belt, another
in a kiss, another counsels a mixture between the two. Perhaps one method will work, but when
you have three people, three ways in conflict, the mixture doesn't work.

It certainly didn't work with Sampson. He became impossible. Now we had two crying
babies, and three exhausted, tense, and angry adults.

Maybe if I'd still had David's physical love I'd have been different, but it was gone. Even
the hugs and kisses disappeared.

I grew more frantic in my determination to make Sampson a perfect child. I needed,
wanted, David's approval of our son, our specialness. I was jealous of Amy and her power with
David, her life with him before I came, and now, with Lily as their focus.

I don't know what was worse, my scattergun anger, my jealousy, or that all the gentle
love play with David dried up.

There were many nights when he didn't come to my bed at all. His excuse at first was
that he had to be up with Lily. When he was there, the intimacy wasn't. Always, I thought,
tomorrow night...
But it didn't happen.

There was something else, something I didn't see until later. Always I'd made quilts, as
my sisters did, but with me it had been more. An obsession almost. Where my sisters sewed out
of duty and need, to me it was a joy.

With David and Amy's appreciation my stitching took on a new meaning. I was an artist.
Creative.

Caring for Sampson, and Amy and Lily, left me no time or energy for quilting. The
scrap bag by my bed was in the way. I stumbled over it and Sam got into it. I shoved it under the
bed. Once in a while I'd sweep under there and hit the bag, making the dust fly.

Nothing but babies.

I loved babies, but...

In my confusion I looked for someone to blame. Everything wrong must be because of
baby Lily. I didn't blame her, I told myself in my lonely bed--just as lonely when David was in it
now as when he wasn't--but before she came... If she hadn't come...

If she hadn't been born...

If she went away...

My thoughts stopped there, guiltily.

And then I got a letter from my sister Lydia. Her twin, Lucy, was getting married in
September. Lucy and Jack were planning a honeymoon at the beach in Seaside. Did I know a
nice place they could stay in Cannon Beach for a couple of days?

I wasn't sure whether this was a thin excuse to get me to invite them to stay over with us.
I could easily sidestep that. It wasn't my house. They thought I was the housemaid who took care
of the kids.

I read and re-read the letter until the sweat on my hands smudged Lydia's neat writing. I
put the letter away in my bedroom drawer where I wouldn't be running into it.

I didn't like the idea of Lucy being there at all. I didn't know this Jack, but Lucy was
sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued. It would be impossible to explain why Sampson called me
Mommy, and he looked too much like me for comfort.

One morning in early August I was thinking about how impossible Sampson had
become. I was washing the living room window that opened to the sea and watching a couple
walking arm in arm on the beach. It was windy and they were snuggled close together. My heart
hurt to see them. The pail of water was by my feet. Sampson walked over and deliberately, I'm
sure of it, pushed it over.

I jumped, and would have slapped him if the shock of the warm water on my feet hadn't
triggered a memory. The water and the couple on the beach revived a fragment of the nightmare
I'd had the night before and forgotten by morning.

In the dream I was walking out into the ocean, carrying a baby, Sampson. He was
wrapped in a partially finished quilt. The waves didn't get us wet. I wasn't cold. It was very
peaceful. Without warning a huge wave swept over us. When it was gone so was the baby, but
not the quilt. I looked frantically for Sampson, but I couldn't find him, I ran back to the house,
screaming, "David! David! Sampson's gone."

He looked at me oddly and said, "No he's not. He's right here." And there he was,
smiling and cheerful playing on the rug.