Chapter Forty-seven

JESSICA PUT HER TWO COPPER POTS in the wooden crate; then she took the top one out again. She’d need it to heat up milk for Sally. The child loved to have her “possy,” a mug of hot milk sweetened with honey. Jessica glanced over to the hearth where the child was seated on the floor. She had placed her favourite doll, Min-min, in a box for her bed. She was talking quietly to herself, but Jessica heard her say, “Go to sleep like a good girl. Don’t bother Momma. Momma has a heartache.”

Last week Sally had asked her mother what was wrong, why she lay in bed sleeping all the time. “Momma has a heartache,” Jess had replied, and now Sally said that all the time. She had bound a piece of cloth about the doll’s head, confusing head and heartaches. Jessica wanted to go to her and hug her tightly, but she felt as if she could hardly move, as if her limbs were too heavy. She simply stood and watched for a moment; then she went back to her task. She had packed the three valises, which was all Walter would allow.

“Only what we can carry, Jess. Put everything else you’ll need later in the trunks. I’ll get some crates, and you can put the dishes and your pots in them.”

She blinked. She had been standing at the sink staring through the window but seeing nothing. How long? There was a plate in her hand that she had been in the process of wrapping in the strips of Holland cloth that Walter had cut for her. These dishes had come to her from her own mother when she’d died. Her older sister, Catherine, had been angry at that, considering it was more her right as she had nursed their mother in the last days of her illness. “You can have them,” Jessica had said, but her sister had pouted and retreated into martyrdom. “No, if that was her wish, you must have them,” but after that the feelings between them were even less cordial than they had been. Jessica knew that she had been her mother’s favourite child, the last born, the youngest daughter. She hadn’t wanted to move away, but Walter was always restless and, she suspected, all too anxious to move her far from her family, where he’d have her all to himself. So they had moved to Ontario and taken this cottage in which she had once taken such delight.

She couldn’t return to Alberta, not with Catherine’s coldness and constant reproach, and yesterday, when Walter had suggested they move further east, she had agreed. Not with enthusiasm or even fear; she had no strong feelings anymore. They were soaked up like ink on blotting paper by her prevailing lethargy, her indifference to any event around her, even her own child.

The door opened and Walter came in, bringing a waft of cold air. He couldn’t hide his dismay when he saw her.

“Jess! Not done yet? We don’t have much more time.”

She looked around, saw the half-empty crate, the pots on the floor. The stack of dishes, already wrapped, were still on the table.

“Here, I can help now,” he said.

Sally jumped up and ran over to him. She was sucking her thumb, the doll tucked under her arm.

“Arh. That’s dirty,” he said, and pulled the thumb away from her mouth. She started to whine.

“Leave her alone, Walter. She’ll just get upset again, and she’s been playing nicely.”

Sally was winding up for a full crying jag. Jessica picked up a dish where a honeycomb sat in a sticky mess. Flies never completely died off, and one or two were crawling around the dish. Jessica knocked them away, broke off a piece of the comb, and handed it to Sally. The child quieted immediately, stuffing the sweet morsel into her mouth.

“Go and play with Min-min for a bit longer, there’s my girl.”

Sally cast a sullen look mixed with some triumph at her father, and he sighed in exasperation.

He began to place the dishes in the crate, where he’d put wood shavings.

“Maria has agreed to keep an eye on things until I have a chance to come back for our belongings.”

“Did she have anything to say?”

“No, not really.” He hesitated for a moment. “I told her your sister had invited you to come and live with her for a while until you felt more like yourself.”

“Catherine has virtually disowned me.”

“Maria doesn’t know that, Jess.” He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice, but she felt it and turned away from him. She looked out of the window.

“It’s starting to snow,” she said.

“Yes, it’s gone very cold. It will be warmer where we’re going,” he answered, struggling to inject jollity into his tone.

She didn’t turn around, and her voice was so low he almost didn’t catch what she said.

“Are you certain we are doing the right thing, Walter?”

He stood up and came over to her and put his arms around her, burying his head in her shoulder. “Of course we are, my chuck. We’ll have a new start. No bad memories. You’ll see. Before you know it you’ll be feeling right as rain.”

Briefly she rested her cheek against the top of his head. “Will I? Sometimes I feel as if I will never be happy again. Not as long as I live.”

“Jess, come on. You have Sally. We’ll have sons, seven of them if I have anything to do with it.”

He moved his hands to her breasts, caressing them through her gown. She flinched and he could feel her body stiffen. He let her go and stepped back.

“I’d better get on with this packing. Are you going to help or not?”

Without looking at him, she walked over to the door and reached for her shawl. “I’m feeling so tired. I think some air will wake me up.”

“Jess …”

“Watch Sally, will you. I won’t be long.”

“Momma!” Seeing what her mother was doing, Sally let out a wail and ran toward her. Walter caught hold of her.

“Sally, stop it. Momma will be back. She’s going for a walk. You can help me.”

“No! I want to go, too. Me, too.”

Jessica closed the door behind her, almost running toward the gate. She could hear the frightened screams of her little daughter, but she pulled the shawl tighter about her head to shut out the sound. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t bear to be in his presence. The pretence between them was like acid in her gut. It wasn’t only the loss of her unborn son that was destroying her life energy, it was the circumstances that had caused the miscarriage, circumstances they had never referred to again so that she thought she would go mad, as if she had swallowed poison that she must vomit up if she were to live.

She was sliding down the hill now, the snow and mud over her boots cold against her bare legs. She came to a halt by catching hold of one of the trees. She clung to it, pressing her cheek against the rough bark. She began to cry out over and over. “You lied to me. I know you did. You lied.”

The skin on her face began to bleed.