The Cape Ann by Faith Sullivan

Author:Faith Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307716965
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-18T20:00:00+00:00

23

UNCLE STAN SAT FOR three hours with Aunt Betty, but she didn’t wake. Sometimes he’d get up from the big chair, walk wearily to the window, and stand with his back to the room, weeping.

Periodically Mama looked in, felt Aunt Betty’s forehead, and shook her head. At nine-thirty Mama announced to Uncle Stan, “I’m going to have to put cold cloths on her, or she’ll go into convulsions.” She fetched a big bowl of water and added ice chips hacked from the disappearing block in the icebox. When she began stripping Aunt Betty’s gown, Uncle Stan backed toward the door as if guilt constrained him from viewing his wife’s body in its present unhappy condition.

“Help me with Aunt Betty’s nightie, Lark.” Mama’s voice had a sharp edge that was meant for Uncle Stan, as if she were at the end of her patience with him.

“I’m going for a walk,” he said. “I won’t be long.”

We heard the screen door close softly. “He’ll walk as far as the tavern,” Mama sniped. “Someone will feel sorry for him and buy him a beer.” This was said as though she were disgusted by those who would pity him.

“Don’t you feel sorry for him?” I ventured.

Mama sighed, not sure of the answer herself.

We worked together for an hour. At one point I was so drowsy, I nodded off in the middle of wringing out a cloth. Aunt Betty rose to the surface of consciousness a couple of times, complained of the cold, then, with eyes rolling upward, she fell back into stuporlike sleep.

At length Mama patted Aunt Betty all over with a towel and pulled the sheet up to her chin, not bothering to dress her again in the nightie. Dropping into the arm chair, she told me, “Get into your nightie and come give me a kiss when you’re ready for bed.”

But when I was ready for bed, Mama was sound asleep in the chair, and I didn’t wake her. Now that I was curled up on the couch, I was no longer sleepy. I remembered the letter I had meant to write Hilly. I would write it tomorrow night. By then the stork might have come.

I would tell Hilly about Maria and her magic tea that was going to make Aunt Betty well. I still had faith in Maria’s magic, notwithstanding that Aunt Betty was near convulsions. And I would also tell Hilly about the Witch who lived next door to Aunt Betty.

Glancing across the narrow strip of yard, I saw the light burning in the Witch’s back bedroom. Was she hooking her rug? No. I’d be able to hear the hook. The bedsprings whined. Was she going to get up and go to the bathroom?

A figure passed before the window shade, moving from left (where a door led to the hall and bathroom) to right (where the head of the bed was pressed against the outside wall, near the window). It was not the figure of Witch Kraus. It was taller and moved like a man.

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