“Amen.” Sarah cut in, extinguishing the rush of words. I lowered my head until I was sure I wouldn’t laugh out loud and offend the little girl. Next time I’d tell Sarah to just let her go. I could have listened to her all night.
The conversation began in earnest then, Claudia apologizing that Darcy mentioned the crab and my general announcement to the table at large, preceded by a piercing glance at Nathan, that I had no special aversion to crabs. Darcy wanted to know if I liked them and I told her I didn’t like or dislike them. They are and always will be, just crabs.
“Are you scared of spiders?” Hester asked in a sotto voice barely above a whisper. Everyone stopped talking and turned to her.
“Yes, I am,” I said in a surprise. “I hate spiders.”
“Crabs are arachnids, too. They look scary sometimes.” Her white cheeks colored and she almost choked on the last word.
“Crustacea,” Nathan said gently. “Crabs and spiders are both anthropods, but crabs are crustaceans and spiders are arachnids.”
Hester looked up at Nathan, her cheek color deepening. “It’s okay,” Nathan reassured. “There is only one tiny difference. Think of crab antennae. . .” He hinted, letting her think.
Hester’s chin shook for a second and Claudia frowned, “Hess, don’t worry about it. I thought they were arachnids, too. What do the stupid scientists know, anyway?”
Hester looked up to Nathan and hesitated before saying, “Two?”
“Exactly!” He said. “Spiders only have one. I think you were thinking of scorpions. But good connection.” Despite the praise, her worried eyes fell back to the table.
“I think they look like spiders,” I ventured softly. “That’s why I fell over. I saw it move from the corner of my eye and I thought it was a nasty big spider.”
“You fell over?” Darcy squealed with glee. I’d been certain Nathan already told that part. He just smiled and shook his head minutely. “The crab made you fall down?” That piece of knowledge kept her entertained for ten minutes at my expense. She did an impromptu reenactment, squealing and falling to the floor with a resounding clatter of arms and legs on the wood floor.
Claudia defended me by kicking her baby sister in the shins, and I took that as my cue to concentrate on my plate and once again, curse that crab. To avoid any more attention I sampled the salmon. The meat fell to pieces when I tried to cut it with the side of my fork. I scraped up some broken scraps and tentatively put them in mouth, knowing that Sarah was watching. At first all I tasted was smoke, fresh outdoor smoke curling around a low flame, followed by a cascade of spices running across my tongue and before I chewed twice, it was gone. Melted. Heaven. I stared at it, thankful I still had a plateful left and gave Sarah an awed smile. She grinned with deep satisfaction. I wasn’t ready for mussels, probably never would be, but I could eat Sarah’s salmon for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I swallowed each bite in triumph, enjoying my seafood like a Smither.
The evening proceeded with a great deal of noise and laughter and jostling. Hester spoke to me two more times, something I perceived as a rare honor. Claudia offered to show me around the town, but in the same breath, admitted there wasn’t much to show. At nine o’clock Claude reminded Judith that Darcy needed to go to bed so she could get up early for summer preschool the next day. The girls told us good night and waved good-by to Nathan since he was staying for lines. Darcy raised up a wail that rivaled emergency vehicles and begged to stay and recite with us.
“You have to have a line, Darce,” Claudia pointed out.
“I do, I have one.”
“What?” Nathan asked, looking leery of her answer.
Darcy insisted that she couldn’t tell because lines were for outside and so we all traipsed out to the porch, which groaned under our weight as all seven of us, plus one tired dog, tried to find spots on a porch built for two, three at the most.
“Ahem!” Darcy announced. “Once upon a time,” my eyebrows shot up and I gave Sarah a this-should-be-good look, “our forefathers brought forth a continent and gave us a star-spangled banner for the land of the free and liberty and justice to all.” Darcy’s dimpled hand covered her heart solemnly and she stared at each of us to emphasize the profundity of her words.
Probably because she was the only one not in danger of laughing if she opened her mouth, Claude put her hand firmly on Darcy’s head and herded her down the steps as she said “That was great, Darcy. Very beautiful.”
“Who said that quote, Darcy?” Sarah called out as Judith left with Hester.
“Donald Reagan,” Darcy cried back from the darkness.
Sea song and laughter accompanied them all the way home.
Sarah ran inside to get her line and left Nathan watching me as I bent my head back to follow the sway of the top branches. “All this heat is rare. It’s blowing in front of a storm,” he said. I turned to him, trying to figure out why it sounded like a warning.
“A bad storm? Like a classic Nor-easter?” I asked, making fun of myself.
He smiled. “You said it wrong. No, not a bad storm. Just a gale. Like your name. But then you’ll really see Maine. This mild stuff is just a hustle. It makes the summer people think they can stand it here and then it smashes them like a prize fighter punch in the face.”
“You think it will scare me off?” I couldn’t help smiling. He obviously thought he had me pegged.
He shrugged. “Will it?”
“I’ve been through a tornado.” The door snapped open and Sarah appeared, carrying a bag of flour. “What…” is as far as I got.
“It’s my line,” she said. “Did you say you’ve been in a tornado?”
I eyed the flour quizzically before I told them about the time a tornado touched down across the street from the high school. It was a disorganized, weakling of a tornado, but it still counted. I was crossing between our two main buildings for lunch and enjoying the strange atmosphere outside. The heavy rain that fell all morning finally halted and everything looked incredibly defined and clear, each leaf standing out on the trees, every blade of grass standing in relief from the ones around it. The strange, green air smelled fresher than I ever remember. An eerie stillness enveloped everything – even breathing made too much noise. Then an exhilarating rush of wind seemed to sweep up from the ground itself, like passing over a grate when the fans are blowing. For a heartbeat the hair on my arms stood up. Then it was gone. I found out later that it took the Texaco Star off the filling station and knocked down a power line. I never saw the funnel.
“It was beautiful, really,” I finished. “I loved it.”
Nathan scrutinized me doubtfully and I turned away, proud that I stumped him. “So what does your line have to do with a bag of flour?” I asked Sarah.
She turned the bag until the glow of the porch light settled on the words on the back. “Just listen –
Harvested from the clean, open earth, beneath the endless, indigo sky, Sackman’s wheat tastes of hard work, gentle hands, windy harvest days and fresh, summer rains.”
A playful smile toyed at the corners of her mouth. “Now what frustrated poet ended up writing product descriptions for wheat?”
“And what frustrated poet of a CEO approved that line instead of
whole grain goodness to improve energy, heart health and mental function
?” Nathan asked.
I laughed and took the flour from Sarah’s hand to read the entire paragraph. “It makes me miss home.” I found myself telling them about my wheat field, trying to describe the graveyard, the openness, the sense of space. As I spoke the pine trees seemed to scoot nearer to the house. Even the sky felt tighter, drawn in too close to the ground. I looked up at the low, vaporous clouds. When I finished talking, no one said anything so I mentioned Nathan’s comment about a storm coming.
Sarah glanced up. “Probably. He’s better at telling than I am. If not sooner, then later. The storms always come eventually.”
“How do you say Nor-Easter?” I asked casually.
I give Sarah credit for not laughing. “I’m not sure anyone who isn’t a New Englander should try, really. It would be a bit like me saying howdy.”
“We do not say
howdy
in Nebraska!”
“Okay, but they do somewhere and if I said it it would sound wrong. But if you really want to know, you say more like no-reastuh, but easy on the middle r. You can’t drop it or pronounce it fully. Somewhere in between. And most importantly you say it like you’re referring to an unworthy opponent, irritated and a little bored.”
Nathan rolled his eyes at our impromptu lesson. He obviously didn’t think an outsider could manage the blessed language of Maine. I was just regretting that I had to share a line with him when Sarah told me that I was next.
“I wrote mine down.” I pulled a wrinkled slip of paper from my pocket and tried to ignore Nathan, except for quick glimpses to monitor for any more signs of disdain or ridicule. “It’s a Longfellow poem. I just copied one stanza.” I cleared my throat.
“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
I looked up to Sarah and said, “It’s the first line that got me. Art is long …”
“But the march to the grave?” She asked. “Does it bother you? Is it too morbid?”
In my mind’s eye arose the Cowling family cemetery, reposing peacefully in the slanted rays of sun, engulfed in the golden hills. “No. It doesn’t upset me – death. Not in the abstract, at least. But that first line seems to say that time is the only thing that really dies. Art is long. All the things we make, create, leave behind, are long. Only time dies.”
“I’ll take you to the Smithport cemetery,” Nathan said in a soft, husky voice. “You’d like it.” His sullen face fell away to something kinder and he spoke. “You have to read the rest of the poem. It’s not about death. It’s about living. I like to read it just so I can say ‘bivouac of life’! Now there’s a line.”
“Which, by the way - what is a bivouac?” I’m glad he pronounced it first so I could ask without slaughtering the word.
“A camp. Like a military camp where you stop and camp for the night but don’t have any shelter,” he said.
I tried to picture life as a sleeping bag in a field and then turned back to Nathan. “How do you know all that? How did you know the rest of the poem? And the meanings? And all the science things at dinner- about the crabs? How do you remember?”
Nathan shrugged grumpily, the same way Cleo does when someone compliments her appearance, and changed the subject. “I guess it’s my turn.” He tugged on his shoelace and never pulled out a piece of paper or a book. He just spoke. “Another Longfellow. Just a few words.
Is it changed, or am I changed?”
“I can’t get the context,” Sarah said.
“You know this one, Sarah. Think.” He demanded.
She grew still, thoughts rolling behind her eyes. “No, I can’t remember. I can’t do it like you can, Nathan.”
He breathed out in frustration and continued,
“Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.”
“Are you asking me, or yourself?” Sarah asked him.
“I wasn’t. It’s just a line, Sarah.” They glared slightly at each other in the quiet. I couldn’t keep up with his fast mood changes. Placid to angry, defensive to tender. I just stared at his lips, pushed hard together and the flare of his nostrils as he refused to move.
Sarah broke the uncomfortable silence. “I think you’re asking me if Smithport feels different with my family gone.”
“I’m not,” he fired back with scorn in his voice.
“Then are you asking me what it will feel like when you come back?” Her words were coaxing and gentle, but his eyebrows furrowed.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he insisted.
“Am I missing something?” I asked.
“No,” Sarah answered in a grim tone, “I think I caught you up on everything you need to know.”
Nathan’s gaze broke as his head jerked to me, and then back to Sarah. “You told her?” he asked. “Everything?”
“Most of what I knew. She filled me in on the rest.” Sarah answered. I balked at a tiny stress laid on the word “most.” Nathan looked at me as my face went hot with confusion.
“So where has your mother been?” he asked, not hiding the resentment in his voice.
“Nathan, don’t.” Sarah words were calm, but sharp.
I met his stare, not allowing the trembling in my body to make its way out to my skin. “She’s been in Nebraska,” I said icily.
“Is she coming back?” Nathan asked, but what his voice really said was
she better not come back
.
My eyes narrowed and Sarah said, “Good night, Nathan.” He met her stony expression and didn’t speak another word except for a quiet, mumbled goodnight. He jumped the rail of the porch and the rocks ground under his heavy footsteps as he walked away. I looked to Sarah but she only sighed and said, “We’re all protective of something.”
“You?” I asked, while still looking into the darkness. “Is he protective of you?”
“He doesn’t need to be. He’s mad that Claire hurt me. He just forgets that I hurt her worse.” The bald self-loathing in her voice stung me.
“I don’t know if I’d say worse,”
“Then what would you say?” She turned to me like my response mattered very much to her.
The answer seemed to fall out of the still air. “I think you hurt her deeper … but she hurt you longer.”
Sarah’s lips parted as she softly repeated the words to herself. She looked up to me, something like hope resting on her face. “He doesn’t mean to take it out on you. If Nathan didn’t like you he wouldn’t have come back for lines tonight. I know he sounds gruff sometimes, but he is just trying to decipher the world.”
I frowned in doubt. “Shouldn’t that be easy for someone as smart as he is?”
“On the contrary. I think that only makes it much worse,” she said without further explanation.