Crossing Stones Read online

  homework, no more Mr. Sander, no more poetry

  to memorize or history to learn or essays to

  compose—but I’ll miss walking home with Emma,

  and I’m restless: What will I do with myself

  once the applesauce and peas and beans

  are all in their jars on the pantry shelves and

  the storm windows are washed and fitted

  back in place, and…? Once I start thinking

  about it, I can see the list goes on and on—help Papa

  butcher the pig and hang the ham and bacon

  in the smokehouse; get all our winter woolens

  out of storage and check them thoroughly

  for moth holes that need mending; let down

  the hems of all the skirts and dresses

  Grace has outgrown since last winter;

  make Christmas gifts for everyone. And then,

  when the earth warms up next April—start all over.

  My life could go on like that forever.

  Unless …

  I hear they need nurses in the army hospitals,

  they need workers in the factories; they’re finding

  out that women can do almost all the things

  that men have always done. What if,

  some morning, I walk down our path and shut

  the gate behind me, keep on going down

  the dusty road to town, get on a train to …

  somewhere? Wouldn’t something interesting

  be bound to happen?

  The Tide That’s Drowning Millions

  Emma

  School isn’t much fun

  this year without Muriel, without

  Ollie. Almost all the boys are gone now.

  It’s spreading like an epidemic, all of them

  following each other into the army, navy, air corps

  (they all want to fly), or merchant marines. Whenever

  one of the boys signs up, all the rest start talking big;

  the teachers applaud the ones who go. Yesterday, Sig

  Olsen left (when his sister brags about it, she never

  says she tried to talk him out of going, of course).

  Frank wrote to us: They’re hoping we can stem

  the tide that’s drowning millions. But how,

  I begin to wonder, will they set about

  doing what no one else has done?

  Unbreakable

  Muriel

  The paper has an article about Aunt Vera’s protest.

  The day after she and seven others were arrested,

  ten new women took their places on the picket line;

  those ten were arrested that same day, and fifteen

  more came to hold the banners. The articles

  and cartoons are not complimentary—everyone

  seems to think this is a big joke. When someone takes it

  seriously, it’s only to chastise the protesters:

  unwomanly, unpatriotic, a thorn in the side of the president

  when he has more important things (The War)

  to think about. But Aunt Vera managed

  to smuggle a letter out of prison. (One of the

  prison workers is secretly on their side.)

  As long as there’s a shred of a banner

  to hold up, Aunt Vera writes, there will be women

  to stand in the rain (or snow, if it comes to that)

  and hold it. We’re political prisoners—

  they are doing their best to break our spirit.

  Papa reads it out loud and says, Good luck to them.

  My sister’s spirit has always been unbreakable.

  He studies me. You’re a lot like her, Muriel.

  I’m not so sure. Papa thinks I’m strong because

  I speak up for my beliefs—but as the war

  gets louder all around us, I’m becoming quieter.

  If I were in Washington right now, even though

  I’m certain that Aunt Vera and her friends

  are in the right, I’m pretty sure I’d drop the banner

  in the street and slink away before

  I’d let them haul me off to prison.

  Names

  Ollie

  Dig deeper, men, they tell us.

  We’ve been digging five feet deep

  through mud, with blisters on our hands, and

  still it’s raining and the officers command us: Keep

  on digging. So we do. The walls of this hellhole are all that

  stand between us and the gunfire of the enemy. I’m digging furiously,

  trying to keep up with Victor, Pete, and Phil. Trying not to think about the

  dying men we carried on a makeshift stretcher to the ambulance last night,

  and whether they made it to the Red Cross tent. What were their names?

  Ron and James, I think, and Douglas. Less than a week ago I said to

  Phil, Tell me your girlfriend’s name, and I’ll remember it. If

  you … you know … I’ll write her a letter. He said,

  Maeve McGill, in Omaha. What about you,

  kid? Emma, I thought. No one, I said.

  Against the Dark Space

  Muriel

  Look, Muriel, five peas in this pod—taste them.

  Saturday afternoon, Grace and I are in the garden

  picking the late summer peas. The sun is warm but not

  too hot, the peas are bursting from their pods,

  and Grace is being good, helping with the work

  without complaining. We need her to be more

  grown-up than usual, more than she probably feels;

  she sets her doll, Eliza Jane, at the end of each row

  and as she works, she looks up constantly to show me

  and Eliza Jane how many peas she’s picked

  (besides the ones she’s eating). And so it

  happens that it’s Grace who sees him first—

  the man in uniform, turning in our lane.

  I see everything at once—Grace’s curiosity,

  until she sees my face shift from calm

  to terror, and instantly her face reflects my own.

  The man’s slow walk, slower still as he approaches.

  The paper in his hand. White against his clean

  blue uniform. (Against the dark space

  of the letters Ollie has not written. Why?)

  Yesterday, I received a short letter from Frank,

  and I see that, too, like a flash of lightning

  across this suddenly dark place.

  Grace, I say, go inside and stay there.

  Tell Mama to come out. Tell her …

  No, don’t tell her … Just say I need her

  in the garden. Somehow I find my way

  to my feet. A fly lands on my wrist, I flick

  it off, it buzzes round my hair, follows

  my slow steps to the gate. Its buzzing drones

  a background to my prayer: Please, God, please don’t

  let it be true. Don’t let it be Ollie. Anything

  but that. God. I beg you. Don’t

  let it be true. As I reach the gate, Mama

  steps up behind me and speaks one word

  with such authority I feel she could hold back

  a breaking dam with that one word’s sheer force.

  No.

  The two of us stand side by side, facing

  the young man, who looks from me to Mama,

  back to me, down at his feet. He draws

  in a deep breath before he asks, Is this the home

  of Private Frank L. Norman, Jr.?

  I Didn’t Mean

  Muriel

  Please forgive me, madam. You say Private Norman lives

  in the next house down the road? I mean … He turns red, stammers.

  That is … where I will find his family? This man stands before us

  in his uniform, this is his job, he’s simply asking

  for dir
ections in an unfamiliar neighborhood—

  but must it be our task to give them? No!

  I want no part of this! Don’t tell him, Mama! (Did I

  say “anyone but Ollie”? No—I didn’t even think that.

  Oh, God, you know I didn’t mean … don’t let this be true.

  Please. Send this man back where he came from.)

  Now Mama’s quiet voice: Left at the end

  of the lane, across the bridge, around a curve

  in the road, you’ll see a white house, green shutters.

  Her voice quivers: Sir? Is it … as bad as it seems?

  He shakes his head and turns away, but we can’t tell

  if he’s shaking his head no to Mama’s question

  or only (too gently) refusing to answer it.

  I can get to the Normans’ house faster than he can

  by running along the path, crossing the creek

  on the crossing stones. I turn to go, but Mama

  catches my elbow, pulls me close,

  strokes my hair, and whispers,

  Muriel, please stay here

  with Grace.

  I’ll go.

  A Basket

  Muriel

  Why were you and Mama both so scared

  of that nice man? Grace wants to know.

  I can’t think of any way to answer

  but the brutal truth. I kneel beside her,

  push a strand of hair out of her eyes:

  If a soldier is (oh, I want to say “hurt,” but Grace

  stares me down) killed in the war (she doesn’t flinch),

  they send someone to your house to tell you.

  When he stopped here, we thought he was bringing

  bad news about Ollie. I’m hoping I can stop

  at that, but Grace is quick: Frank—she points

  across the creek. Muriel, does this mean…?

  I close my eyes and try to think, trying

  at the same time not to think. I don’t know, Grace.

  Mama has been gone a long time, hasn’t she?

  Shall we take our peas to the Normans?

  She nods. I gather a few eggs, five peaches,

  all the peas we’ve picked, and put them in a basket;

  Grace adds a small bouquet of hollyhocks.

  It doesn’t help—the more we put into

  the basket, the emptier it seems.

  My Shepherd, I Shall Want

  Muriel

  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

  Emma repeats over and over, rocking

  back and forth in a corner of their kitchen,

  inconsolable. My arm around her shoulder, I

  absorb the words she speaks, try to separate

  them from her sobs: I shall not want,

  I shall not want, the Lord is my shepherd,

  I shall not want. The words twist and turn—

  meaning, at the same time, God willing, I will always have

  enough of everything I truly need, and God forbid

  I should want anything I cannot have. Eventually

  her crying quiets and her voice is still; silence gathers

  like a storm around us—maybe Emma shall not want,

  but I shall. I want Frank to walk through this door.

  I want the door to slam behind him. I want him to be

  laughing, making all of us laugh, too. I want to know

  where Ollie is; I want both Frank and Ollie home, strong

  and whole, sitting right here at this table; and when

  it’s time for us to cross the creek and go back home,

  I want Frank and Emma to walk halfway with me and Ollie.

  I want the sun to shine tomorrow morning on Frank’s

  brown wavy hair and dimpled smile, and while I’m at it,

  I shall want what I don’t even want. I don’t expect

  to fall in love and I don’t plan to marry,

  but maybe I want someone

  to try to change my mind. Maybe

  I’ve been wondering if that someone

  might be Frank. Oh, Emma, Mama,

  Mrs. Norman—who will I

  not love and marry now?

  Nest Blown from Its Tree

  Emma

  The church is too small to hold so many crying

  people. (We save a place where Frank always stood.)

  Where did everyone come from, and how did they all hear

  about this funeral? My place has been between Frank and Father.

  All my life, their voices made a strong, clear arc my voice could climb

  up to the rafters, soaring there on its own music, coming home to rest.

  Now when the congregation sings this hymn Frank loved—“A Mighty

  Fortress Is Our God”—my not-so-mighty voice struggles to take flight

  and can’t. It gives up, like a bird trying to fly home to a familiar nest

  that’s been blown from its tree in a storm. Such sudden change: I’m

  an only child now, I suppose, one of those odd creatures Mother

  feels so sorry for. How will she ever survive? I can hardly bear

  to look at her, contorted with the effort to believe in God

  on such a day. No doubt asking herself, Why sing?

  Two Languages

  Muriel

  A mighty fortress is our God. Those words

  Frank loved so well were written by Martin Luther,

  a German. We sang them at the funeral,

  though it was probably a German soldier who

  killed Frank—can anyone make sense of this?

  Who does God belong to, whose mighty fortress

  is he, if people sing that hymn in two languages,

  and in those same languages defend this war?

  Who is the mighty fortress walling in, and who

  does it keep out? A hard rain beats against our window

  for the third day in a row—making mud out of our garden,

  relentless in the way it pounds such questions

  home. And where is Ollie now? Why haven’t we

  heard from him these past seven weeks?

  Muriel, you think too much, Mama says. (Am I

  to stop thinking altogether? Would that be more ladylike?)

  I have to get out of this house—I go out in the rain,

  walk down the road, and meet the mailman. Hello, Muriel,

  he says. I have a letter for you—from France. I don’t

  even look to see if it’s addressed to me. I tear

  it open in the middle of the road, letting the blue

  ink smear in the rain: Dear Pa and Ma

  and Muriel and Grace, Thank you for the socks

  and cookies. This war is bigger than I expected.

  I thought I might see Frank over here, but

  I don’t know where he is. Do you?

  It would be awfully nice to see a familiar face.

  Tell Emma I said thank you for her letter.

  I don’t have much time to write.

  Your son and brother, Ollie.

  I sob with the relief of hearing from him.

  I know we have to answer. But I won’t be

  the one to tell him. Let Mama and Papa

  try to find the words—I’d feel like

  I was shooting Ollie in the heart

  if I wrote this awful truth to him:

  You can stop looking.

  Frank was killed in action

  before you even got there.

  Staring at Me

  Ollie

  night again fed myself today

  better than last week ouch

  Nurse— please tie my shoe

  (Frank? Where is he? What happened?)

  rat in the trench ran across my arm who killed the rat?

  black eyes skinny tail staring at me

  wouldn’t stop explosions all night

  couldn’t sleep losing

  track of time how many days weeks?
/>   That’s right—you’re getting better. At least not any

  (tank stuck in mud ambulance)

  worse. Shall we write a

  letter for you? Don’t be

  frightened. You’ll go home soon.

  Invisible Thicket

  Muriel

  Our home is your home—the Normans’ house

  and ours have always felt like two rooms

  in one grand mansion. Now an invisible

  thicket of grief surrounds their house—

  I can barely make myself walk through it.

  In the kitchen, the barn, the fields, Frank’s absence

  hovers over everything—he isn’t climbing up the windmill

  to see who might be coming down the road; he isn’t

  teasing his mother, pretending to cut into the cake

  she’s made for the church supper; he isn’t brushing

  burs out of the horses’ manes and tails; he isn’t

  spreading hot raspberry jam on the first slice

  of bread, warm from the oven; he isn’t singing;

  he isn’t smiling; he isn’t whistling while he mends

  the broken fence where the rooster escaped last night;

  he won’t be hitching up his team to drive us all

  to the dance next Friday night (he won’t ask me to dance—

  the smell of shaving soap, the thoughts we hid so well

  from one another, forever hidden now). The place

  we’ve tried to hold for Frank to fit back in

  when he returns refuses to close over

  or fill in. It gapes and glares around us everywhere:

  Here I’m not, says Frank, and here, and here.

  Gray

  Emma

  It’s almost October. Shouldn’t

  the maple leaves be changing color?

  Those four sunflowers must be yellow,

  but all the flowers’ faces look dirty gray

  to me. The purple asters are so brave, trying

  to offer us a bit of color while they can, before

  they’re killed off by the frost. The red rooster’s

  cock-a-doodle-doo barely wakes me up. It used to

  have me jumping out of bed, onto the cool floor,

  and getting quickly dressed so I could go flying

  downstairs to breakfast. At five a.m. today,

  awake already, I clutch my damp pillow,

  debating: Should I go to school or

  not? Can I still be a student?