Three hands shot up, all of them boys. They shouted without waiting to be called on. “That's a uniform!” “That's from the army!” “That's a soldier coat!”
“Very good!” Miss Beth clapped her hands and went on. “It is a soldier's uniform. And does anyone know when this uniform was worn?”
The boys looked at each other. The smallest of them ventured, “In the war?”
“In the war, yes, but what war? No one? Well, this coat was worn by a British officer in the War of 1812. That's such a long time ago that your grandfathers were not born yet and their fathers were not born yet and
their
fathers were not even born yet.”
The children watched Miss Beth, stone-eyed. They had little grasp of time and none at all of time before them. Addy glanced around the room at the other artifacts, most of them from the 1800s. There were a few muskets and rifles and bayonets in a display case near the big roaring fireplace, and Addy could see some of the boys' big eyes drifting toward the weapons. She laughed to herself, thinking how boyish the boys were and how Miss Beth could really get their attention if she just opened up the case and let them touch the guns.
In another corner of the room there was a display of cooking utensils: an old kettle, a muffin tin shaped like ears of corn, a rusty rotary beater, and a cast iron frying pan
like the one Addy still used for chicken and potatoes. She thought how common they looked and not like things that belonged in a museum at all. Hanging on the wall nearby was a patchwork quilt. Addy clucked her tongue at the sloppy stitching and crooked seams, thinking she'd done better when she was barely thirteen. She even took exception to the fabric and colour choices, which she thought garish and wrong. The young mother sitting beside her mistook Addy's clucking tongue for admiration and whispered of the careless quilt, “It's really beautiful, eh?”
Miss Beth was waving her arms, still discussing the significance of the red serge uniform in the case. “And though it's a historical fact you'll find in few
American
history books, the British and the Canadian forces distinguished themselves in the War of 1812 when they defeated our neighbours to the south and⦔
There was a butter churn and a butter mould, a rusty pitchfork, an old wheelchair, a washboard, and a loom. Addy remembered her mother coveting a similar-style loom, even though she'd never seen her weave an inch of cloth and Laisa regularly bought fabric from the dry-good store in Rusholme, or clothes ready-made from the catalogue. Addy thought how her mother would laugh at the museum's collection and say, “They think these things old? These things ain't old!”
Mr. Toohey found a path through the restless children and whispered something to Miss Beth. Addy reckoned he was telling her what Addy herself was thinking. That the
children were far too young for any history lesson on the War of 1812 and why doesn't she just let them loose to wander and wonder? Miss Beth looked huffy, then announced, “Children, you may take a moment to browse. But do not touch anything. I repeatâdo not touch
anything
.”
Sharla appeared at Addy's knee with Prasora, Otto, and Lee-Ann in tow. They were smiling and pleased not to be sitting cross-legged on the floor. Otto noticed a tall oak chair nearby. He laughed and pointed. “Got a big hole.”
Addy looked at the chair and nodded. “Mmm-hmm. You know why that hole's there, don't you, Otto?”
The boy shook his head. A few other children gathered around. Addy went on, “Well, when you was growing and ready to get yourself out of diapers your Mama put you on a chair with a hole, didn't she?”
“A potty chair?” Lee-Ann asked, scratching her face.
“Mmm-hmm.”
The rest of the children had joined in looking at the big oak chair.
“That's too big for a potty chair though,” Sharla said.
“That's for big folks, Honey. That's a kind of chair folks used before they got flushing toilets in their house.”
The children squeezed in closer, curious and giggly.
“Used to be when there wasn't plumbing you had to get into your coat and boots and go all the way out back to the outhouse. That was sure some thing to do in winter.”
“What about summer?”
“In summer, well, you mostly just had to hold your nose.
Sometimes, 'specially at night, you used this here kind of chair instead of making the trip all the way out back.”
“Butâ¦?” The children looked at the chair, bewildered.
Addy saw a ceramic chamber pot nearby and put it under the hole and the children all at once understood.
“Number one
and
number two?” a boy asked. “Then what you do with the pot?”
“What do you think you do?” Addy asked with a raised brow.
“Clean it out?!” the children chimed.
“Well of course you clean it out!” Addy laughed.
Miss Beth had been standing nearby, watching enviously, for it was her mission to teach through history and it annoyed her greatly that the children were more interested in the oak commode than the brilliant lesson she'd prepared on the American invasion. She cleared her throat and addressed Mr. Toohey. “Is this discussion really valuable, Mr. Toohey?”
Mr. Toohey grinned at the woman but said nothing. A little boy with red hair pointed at a strange instrument hanging on a peg on the wall alongside some kitchen utensils. “What's that?”
Miss Beth stepped up. “That, Young Man, is what we call
bellows.
A person would open those two ends there and fan the flames of the fire in a wood stove or a fireplace.”
Addy couldn't help but correct the woman. “Looks like bellows, Ma'am, but it's not.”
“Oh really?” Miss Beth huffed. “Then what is it?”
“It's a seed planter.” The children watched as Addy took the thing down to demonstrate. “See, here, you put your seeds in this sack part here, then look inside. Look right there, there's a tiny hole just the size of a seed. You set down like this. The sharp part goes in the earth right up to the end of the metal. See? That way all the seeds get planted at the same depth. Then you open these ends and just the one seed gets let out and down in the dirt she goes.”
The children fully understood the mechanics of the seed planter and now they each wanted a turn trying it out for themselves. Mr. Toohey sidled up to Addy and whispered, “Can you come on all my field trips?”
Addy grinned but had not a moment to answer as suddenly Miss Beth clapped her hands and cried out, “Who wants to see the mummy?!”
The children shrieked and raised their hands. No one had told them there was a mummy at the Chatham Museum.
Miss Beth threw Addy a look of triumph, then shouted over the clamour, “The mummy is in his
sarcophagus
on the third floor, but do not run. I repeatâdo not run! Children!” Miss Beth was huffing and red before she reached the stairs.
Addy watched the grade-one class and the other chaperones disappear up the stairs. She was relieved Mr. Toohey had been as eager to see the mummy as the children were, and grateful to have a few moments alone. That flu had taken more life out of her than she'd imagined and she was feeling profoundly fatigued. She recalled there was a
comfortable-looking sofa near the big oak doors at the front. She held the wall for support as she made her way to the entrance hall. She eased herself down on the sofa and closed her eyes.
Not a moment's rest did Addy enjoy though, before the front door opened and there stood the silhouette of a tall, thin man. Even though his face was in shadow Addy could see it was her husband, Gradison Mosely. She did not pause to wonder where she was or what Mose was doing here, for she knew full well she was in the entrance hall of the house where she lived and that she'd fallen asleep waiting for Mose. Waiting for Mose. She was always waiting for Mose.
She smiled at him as he burst through the door and put her fingers to her lips to shush him. “Mrs. Yardley's just got her baby down,” she whispered, and pointed to the closed door of the first-floor apartment.
Mose nodded and closed the big oak door gently behind him, making a comical show of tiptoeing down the hall to where Addy sat. He set his luggage on the sofa beside her and drew from behind him a small box wrapped in red foil. The box was not a surprise, for there was always a present when Mose came home and it was always a pair of salt'n'pepper shakers. The last pair had been ceramic lobsters from Nova Scotia, made to look like a bride and groom. Addy had laughed and laughed when she saw them.
This time though, she'd wait to open her present. She smiled into her husband's green eyes and rose, reaching her arms around his neck. She kissed him deeply, feeling him
swell, then whispered a thing into his ear that she knew would have him bounding up the stairs to their shabby, cold, wonderful little home.
It was two years to the month since the wedding. Addy was twenty-three years old and still there was no child. Addy knew how desperately Mose wanted a family and she feared God was punishing her, making her barren as retribution for her sins. She felt ashamed for herself and hurt on behalf of Mose, who, far as she knew, never did much of anything wrong. Addy hadn't seen Mose in a number of weeks and in that time she'd gone to Nora Lemoine, with whom she'd grown especially close since the death of Mary Alice, and confessed tearfully. The old woman had stroked her back and said, “Nonsense, Adelaide. God isn't punishing you.”
She blew her nose noisily. “What am I gonna do, Nora?”
“Well, you don't see your husband every night like most women do. And you don't get yourself
close
to him as often as most either. Mind you, some women wouldn't mind that arrangement but if you're looking to have a child you need to getâ¦closeâ¦just as often as you can.”
Addy shook her head. “You don't understand. Every time he comes home. The whole time he's home. It's not just once, it's not just at night. It's twice in the morning and again at night and sometimes if we brush up against each other in the afternoon⦔ She started weeping again. “I just don't understand.”
After she heard that, Nora Lemoine didn't understand either, for she'd always just assumed Mose was too tired on his days off to be much good, or that Adelaide rejected his amorous advances because she resented his being gone. She raised the issue carefully, knowing that Addy would resist. “Maybe you want to see the doctor, Honey.”
Addy did resist the idea of talking with the doctor but only because she knew Mose would not approve. Early on in their marriage, she'd suggested the doctor and Mose'd gone pale, stomping and declaring, “I forbid it,” which caused another round of stomping but this time from Addy, who would not be
forbid
anything. Later in bed, Mose had quietly apologized, a thing she could always expect from her good man. He'd said, “I'm sorry, Addy. Don't know what good
you
seeing a doctor's gonna do though.”
“Why?”
He'd been grateful for the darkness. “Can't help but figure if it's not working it's because there's something wrong with
me.
”
“Doesn't have to be you, Mose,” Addy'd assured, kissing his neck.
“But you already⦔
“Don't believe it works like that, Mose. Just because I had the one baby doesn't mean something hasn't gone wrong with me.”
He waited a moment, loving her lips on his throat, then asked, “If you did see the doctor, Addy, what would he do?”
“I don't know.”
“Think he'd give you some medicine?”
Addy kissed the hill of her husband's chest. “Don't know.”
“Think he have to⦔ Mose swallowed and pulled her to his mouth. “Think he ask you to take off your clothes? Think he do that? Think he have to touch you here? Addy? Or here? Or here?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Addy moved against his finger.
When Mose bit Addy's lip she knew it had been deliberate. She opened her bloody mouth and pushed her salty wet tongue against his. Mose drew blood, and Addy knew why. Mose didn't want her to see the doctor, to be looked over by the doctor, to be touched by the doctor, because it both horrified and aroused him in equal measure.
In the end, after talking with Nora, feeling desperate as she did, Addy decided she would make the appointment and, much as she hated to, she'd have to deceive Mose. When she finally did see the doctor she wished she'd gone two years earlier, for what he told her was surprising, something she'd never have guessed. After her visit, she'd walked all the way home wondering,
Only two or three days in a whole long month a woman can get herself with a child. Mose and me never once hit on them days but Zach Heron, one time, one terrible timeâ¦
The doctor had told her some other things too, signs to look for on her body and days to count on a calendar so she could know better when she was ready. That's why today she'd open her present later. Near as she could tell, with the
information the doctor'd given her, Addy was ripe and Mose was here. If ever they were gonna make a baby it was gonna be now.
After Addy whispered into Mose's ear, he flew up the stairs as she'd known he would, and had to come back down to collect his bag. Addy giggled and went up the stairs in front of him, wagging her behind in his face as he clasped his big hands to her breasts. When they reached the third floor Mose opened the door. Though the fire'd gone out and the furniture looked more ragged than he remembered, he wanted to cry at his joy to be home.
There was music playing in the apartment of Martin and Kay Baldwin on the second floor and Addy could not have chosen a finer selection. It was Billie Holiday's voice rising up through the floorboards and Billie made the blues sound so sweet Addy hoped the singer'd never get over her grief. Addy didn't mind that the Baldwins liked to play their music loud, for Mose did make some passionate noises and the bedsprings were broken in three places.