Galore - Michael Crummey [141]
—I know exactly what you’re saying, Eli told her.
Esther never looked at Abel or spoke a word to him while he sat there, and it wasn’t clear if she ever took in the arrangement his father proposed. —Who’s there? she shouted every time Abel came through the back door of Selina’s House. The same puzzled belligerence in her voice, as if she’d forgotten he was living in the old servant’s quarters. —It’s Abel, he called back and that was as close as they came to conversation. Esther ignored him, wandering the hallways drunk and talking to the goat in languages he didn’t understand and singing her forlorn nursery rhymes. He felt as if he was eavesdropping at the back door still. He was given no specific instructions other than to make sure the house didn’t burn down and he walked through the rooms at night to douse the lamps she’d left lit.
Each morning he emptied her honey bucket and made her bed and folded away the trunk of clothing she’d worn on her most recent jaunt through town. He cooked his own meals and left food in her way hoping she would at least pick at something. She took to leaving the goat in its harness after her drives and Abel put the truckley away in Tryphie’s workshed, happy to be acknowledged as her kedger. She slept at all hours of the day and he made sure there was a pillow under her head and covered her with a quilt and he often stood looking at her awhile then, free to try taking her in without embarrassment. There was a simple prettiness in the face that the years of drink hadn’t quite ruined, a veneer of refinement about her even in her cups, and he couldn’t help but think of her as beautiful. He pulled the quilt higher around her neck to feel her hair brush against his fingers.
Esther could sleep for hours and he was at loose ends without her activity to occupy him. He pretended to read, half listening for the sound of her up and about again. He copied endlessly from Jabez Trim’s Bible, he chopped firewood and hauled water and cleaned ash from the fireplace and the kitchen stove. He snooped through the rooms of the old hospital, picking through the clutter and junk, puzzling over the arcane surgical equipment or browsing through stacks of medical notes. Esther woke hungover and miserable and Abel boiled the kettle for tea, folding her hands about the mug to be sure she wouldn’t drop it.
Hannah came by with meals on occasion, to satisfy herself Abel wasn’t starving to death. Once a week Bride visited the house to ask after Esther. —She isn’t causing you too much trouble?
—I don’t mind, he told her.
—I could come for a night sometime to spell you off.
—We’re fine, he said.
He resented these incursions into what he thought of as his territory. There had been no further word of shipping Esther off to Connecticut and by March month Abel had forgotten his station was intended to be temporary.
At the beginning of May, Esther’s father came to Selina’s House unannounced. Tryphie arrived with Eli and they knocked for fear of what they might barge into if they did not. —Hello Abel, Tryphie said when the boy peered out.
Abel slammed the door shut in the men’s faces and stood behind it, the floor pitching beneath him.
—Open the jesus door, Eli shouted.
The goat looked out from the parlor, chewing placidly on a tuft of ancient case notes. Esther came to the top of the stairs and stared down at him where he barred the entrance. She was wearing a stage dress of black chiffon, backlit by sunlight through a window.
—You’ve the loveliest hair, he told her. He was struggling not to bawl, his pale face gone awry with the effort.
—You let them in now, Esther said. It was the first full sentence she’d ever blessed him with. —Tell them I’ll be down the once.
Abel waited in the parlor with the imperturbable goat while Esther sat with the men in the kitchen. Eli appeared at the door finally, looking in at his son among the filth of the room. The youngster unable to hold his father’s eye, his life hanging in the balance. —She says she