Olivia, Mourning (40 page)

Without formally accepting Mrs. Place’s invitation Olivia simply carried her things upstairs and stayed on. Each morning Mrs. Place rapped on her door while the sky was still black and Olivia came down to join her in the kitchen for a cup of coffee. They maintained a polite distance – no more personal questions – and it took only a few days for the two women to settle into a routine. Olivia was first out the door. She shrouded herself in her cloak and ran out to the barn where she kindled the fires in the four big bake ovens. Then the two women worked side-by-side. Olivia mixed up bread and cookie dough, while Mrs. Place cut lard into flour and salt for her famous pie crust. One morning Olivia hauled the heavy cast iron frying pan out to the barn.

“What do you want that old thing for?” Mrs. Place asked.

“Can I use some of those?” Olivia nodded at the bushel of apples under the counter.

“Sure.” Mrs. Place shrugged. “I got plenty.”

“Then I’m going to fry up a batch of Michigan apple fritters. It was the devil-woman who taught me how to make them, but they’re good anyway. So sweet you think your eyes are going to fall out, but everyone loves them.”

When Mrs. Place came in for dinner that day she told Olivia that the shop hadn’t been open for two hours before her fritters were sold out.

“If you want,” Olivia said, her voice carefully nonchalant, “you could put up a sign saying you’ll have them every Thursday.”

“That would be good. Real good.”

And that was how Olivia told Mrs. Place that she would be staying and how Mrs. Place responded that she was most welcome.

Olivia enjoyed working in the back of the barn. In the early morning the heat of the ovens felt good, not oppressive as it became later in the day. It always smelled homey and delicious, even after Mrs. Place was done with the day’s baking. That was when the townswomen started bringing their meats to roast and puddings to bake. For the few pennies Jettie Place charged, they preferred to let her keep a fire stoked, especially when the days were so hot.

Most days Olivia went back to the house before the shop opened, but sometimes she stayed, lurking in the back room, freezing like a statue whenever the bell announced the arrival of a customer. She always wore her soft moccasins, so she could silently creep over to her chair to sit, often with dough-covered hands held out to her sides, as she eavesdropped on what the customers had to say.

No one ever made any mention of Mourning Free. Olivia also listened for Tobey, half eager to hear his voice, half just as glad he didn’t come in. It would have felt awful to be hiding from him on the other side of a wall. When everyone had gone and the store was empty again, Mrs. Place would rap her knuckles on the wall three times, letting Olivia know she was free to go back to peeling apples or spooning gobs of dough onto cookie sheets.

Other days Olivia stayed in the house, reading and napping between frenzies of cleaning. A few times she got careless and opened the back door to shake out a rug or scrape mud from a shoe, but she never saw anyone in the field. Mrs. Place brought her a few books from the reading room and Olivia spent the evenings with her nose in them or being taught how to knit. After their initial burst of too much candor for comfort, the two women remained careful of one another. Their conversation was spare, consisting mostly of Mrs. Place repeating what she had heard in the shop. Olivia choked back the questions she still longed to ask about her parents.

Life in prison was boring, but boredom seemed to be what Olivia needed. Memories still tormented her, but she gradually began to relax and sleep through the night. Without being intrusive, Mrs. Place managed to make her feel mothered. Taken care of. She lived in a warm, orderly home with a kind woman. Perhaps living through enough uneventful days would make her feel human again. She read and knitted the evenings away, taking comfort from the tedium.

When three weeks had gone by with no appearance of her monthly visitor, Olivia sighed. “I guess I’d better start knitting booties.”

“Still too soon to say for sure,” Mrs. Place replied. “But, yes, it does look that way. Don’t you worry, we’ll work out what to do.”

Olivia was sure. That night she lay in bed, palms pressed to her stomach. She felt no revulsion and considered that a sure sign that Mourning was the father. There was still no news of him, though Olivia often begged Mrs. Place to inquire about him.

“I don’t got to ask. I woulda heard. Ain’t no way Mourning Free is back in town without my customers yapping about needing him to do one thing or another.”

“Please, Mrs. Place. Maybe he’s outside of town, working on someone’s farm. Please, just ask in the Livery and the Feed and Grain. They would know.”

“All right. All right. But only if you stop calling me Mrs. Place. Jettie will do.”

The idea of calling an older woman by her given name appalled Olivia. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Olivia didn’t even know what Mrs. Hardaway’s Christian name was. Or Miss Evans’. But she nodded her acknowledgement of the request and again begged Mrs. Place to ask about Mourning.

But no one had heard a thing about him since he’d left.

Mrs. Place continued to behave as if Olivia’s presence in her home were the most natural thing in the world and Olivia accepted her benefactress for what she appeared to be – a kind-hearted, lonely woman, with affection in her heart for the daughter of the man she had tried to love.

One rainy day after closing up shop Mrs. Place told Olivia that she needed some things from Killion’s General and would be back shortly. This was not unusual; Mrs. Place went to the store at least once a week. But when two hours had gone by and she hadn’t returned, Olivia started pacing and peeking out the front window every few minutes. By the time another hour passed she had begun imagining awful things – Mrs. Place slipping in the mud and being trampled by horses, keeling over in the street as she clutched her heart, being shot by bank robbers, bitten by a poisonous spider, or attacked by a pack of wolves.

Olivia was ashamed to realize that most of her worrying was on her own behalf. Imagine the troop of church ladies that would lay siege to the house, in search of a dress in which to bury poor Mrs. Place. Once “that woman” was dead, they would surely welcome her into their congregation. Imagine them discovering that Killion girl cowering in a corner. “Tsk tsk, What did I always tell you about her? Shame, shame, there the little slut was, in the family way, living with that harlot. Well, no wonder. Birds of a feather. Old Man Killion must be spinning in his grave, but what could he expect, the example he set. And him with his poor sick wife.”

Olivia realized how totally dependent on Jettie she was and began to harbor second thoughts about her decision to stay. But those dissipated the moment she heard familiar footsteps on the back porch. Mrs. Place nudged the door open with her hip, hidden behind a tall stack of books.

“I know, I know, I had you worried. You don’t got to waste your breath saying it.” She huffed and puffed.

She set her burden down on the kitchen table, steadied the top of the pile to keep it from toppling over, and shook the raindrops from her coat before hanging it on the hook by the door.

“But you’re gonna forgive me, once you know the reason.” She nodded at the books. “I’d just about finished settling up with your brother when those two Wainwright sisters come in, brimming over with the good news that Old Mrs. Steadman died last night.” She turned to hang up her bonnet and grab a rag to wipe the floor. “Not that her dying is good news, Lordy me, no, I didn’t mean that, even though she was a nasty old toad, may she rest in peace. The good news is that she had a roomful of books and left all of them to the town, to start a real lending library. Those Wainwright sisters are volunteering the use of that storage shed out behind their place and they’ll be the librarians. But they were telling your brother Avis how they needed someone to catalog the books. So who do you think butted right in and said she’d be glad to do it?” She beamed with pride, watching Olivia pick the first book off the top of the pile.

“Well, you can imagine the look those old crows gave me. Don’t think I know how to read a book, let alone catalog one. They swung their pointy chins around to stare at me, right on cue with each other. You’d think they’d been practicing. And you know the way they squeeze those bushy eyebrows of theirs all together.” Mrs. Place wrinkled her face in an excellent imitation of them and Olivia giggled.

“Those two old birds come into my shop ’bout every day, but I never said a word to them except, what can I get you ladies today? So it might as well have been the broom what piped up and offered to organize their library for them, that’s how surprised they were. But I kept on; I don’t tell too many stretchers, but once I get started on one I’m pretty good at it. I said that in my younger days I’d worked at one of the biggest libraries in New York City, so I know just about everything there is to know about cataloging books. Said I’d be more than happy to take care of it for them. Course I couldn’t possibly do the work anywhere but right here at home. So from now on they’re going to bring a new stack of books to the shop every Monday morning and I’ll give those books back to them the next week, with their catalog cards all written up.” She finally paused for air and to give Olivia an uncertain look. “You’re gonna figure out how to do that, ain’t you? Your daddy always said he hardly knew what you looked like, the way you always had your nose in a book.”

Olivia stared at Jettie, feeling the same way she had that day in the river, when Mourning saved her from falling. She wasn’t used to anyone doing anything for her without being asked and had no other experience of another person anticipating what she might want or need.

“Yes, of course, I can figure that out.” Olivia couldn’t think how to thank her and feared she might cry. All she could do was repeat, “Of course I can do that.” Then she added, “This was so kind of you, Mrs. Place.”

“Ain’t you never going to stop calling me that? You better, you don’t want me to start calling you Miss Killion.” Looking pleased, but slightly embarrassed, Jettie made herself busy, moving things about the kitchen. “Well, I guess that will work out then. I figured you’d want them. Never was much for books myself, but you – even when you were a little thing you always seemed to be carrying one around. So there’s your first batch.” She patted the stack of books. “Good thing the rain let up. They hardly got wet at all. There’s about three hundred more where those came from. A few stacks of journals too. You can do as much or as little as you please. You get tired of it, I’ll just tell them I don’t got as much time as what I thought.”

“I won’t get tired of it.” Olivia used her skirt to wipe the damp, reddish-brown volume she had picked off the top of the stack. Its musty smell reminded her of walls of books and ladders on wheels.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Olivia read the name of the author. “I’ve heard of him.”

She set it aside. Next on the pile was a well-worn pamphlet of a play called
The Indian Princess
. “Oh look, this is the one about Pocahontas,” Olivia said.

“Poke a what?”

“Pocahontas. You know, the Indian lady who helped the Pilgrims.”

“I know. I know. I was having you on. Even an ignoramus like me’s heard of Pocahontas.”

“Miss Evans taught us about this play. Said it was interesting. I think I’ll start with it.” Olivia set it aside and moved some other volumes off the pile.

Mrs. Place smiled and tied her patchwork apron on, turning away to start putting the supper Olivia had prepared on the table.

“Look, here’s Charles Dickens. I bet you’d like him, Mrs. … Jettie.”

“Book written by a man? Bet he kills off all the women in it.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Same reason most a them fairy tales are about orphans. Children in ’em might have a kindly grandmother putting food on the table, but no parents. They love to daydream about not having anyone bossing them around from sun up to sun down. Same as a man daydreams about no women nagging him. No responsibility.”

“Well, I haven’t read all of Mr. Dickens’ books, but I don’t believe he does away with all his female characters. You really should try one. I’m sure you’d like it.”

“I’m more sure to like some food in my stomach. Go ahead and clear them books off the table for now.”

“Fenimore Cooper.” Olivia held up another one. “He’s wonderful. I’ve read this one. I bet you’d like it too. Next time they come, ask if they have
The Leatherstocking Tales
. I haven’t read it yet. Oh, look at the way this binding is falling apart.” She held up a volume of Keats. “Tell them to get you some glue and binding tape. If there’s going to be a library, the books need to be kept in good repair. And ask them what the library is to be called, so I can properly label them, Property of the Five Rocks Public Reading Library, something like that.” She had begun moving the books to the parlor and spoke in installments, as she moved between the two rooms. “And I’ll need paper, so I can make little pockets to paste into them.”

“What for?”

“To hold the card. For keeping track of who borrowed the book and when they’re supposed to bring it back. I’ll need some regular paper for the envelopes and thick paper for the cards.”

“Guess those old cows are going to have to start believing Jettie Place worked in a library. That oughta rattle ’em good.”