Galore - Michael Crummey [88]
—D-don’t let Amos near the stove, Mother, Henley shouted. —He’ll have every chair in the house b-broke up for f-firewood.
Laughter all around. Even Judah managed a tired smile. And Mary Tryphena allowed herself to think perhaps it had been for the best.
Years followed the same migratory pattern. Henley slept chaste beside his wife through the winter and took what pleasure could be found on the Labrador during the fishing season. Even Harold Callum Devine could sense his father’s habitual lean northward and he never warmed to the man, as guarded saying his goodbyes each May as when the stranger arrived home in the fall.
Patrick and Amos followed the women into the Methodist fold. —We spends enough time apart, Patrick said, without going to separate churches every Sunday. Martha had inherited Callum Devine’s gift and she was a major attraction at the services, singing out over the congregation during the hymns. Her white hair like a saint’s halo shimmering with the palest colors of the northern lights, her voice like the voice of a creature only half human. She and Bride accompanied Reverend Violet on his summer mission trips along the shore, Bride witnessing to the change Jesus made in her life, Martha leading the motley congregations through half a dozen hymns.
The Trim brothers volunteered their boat as transportation for the mission trips and the American doctor sometimes traveled with them to pull teeth and lance boils on the stagehead. Reverend Violet was leery of allowing a hardened apostate to accompany the evangels, but came to appreciate how physical relief and spiritual rebirth could follow one on the other. Bride became a kind of nurse during these trips, assisting during procedures requiring an extra hand, working with Newman until the service began. The sound of Martha singing “Rock of Ages” or “Amazing Grace” would steal the last of his patients and he followed them up to watch from the doorway. Bride and her youngster taking up a collection of pennies while Martha lifted her face to the wooden rafters. Those raw and unlettered congregations startled by the hint of grace in her voice, half of them in tears to hear it.
Bride’s son had long ago been nicknamed Tryphie, in honor of Mary Tryphena’s legendary inquisitiveness as a girl. Bride could see Newman found children trying and she did her best to shield him from the boy. But confined aboard the Trims’ thirty-footer, there were inevitable interrogations.
—You’re American, Tryphie said, staring at the doctor, and Newman admitted he was. The boy wanted to know if the doctor’s mother and father were American as well, did he have brothers and sisters and were they American, did he have a dog, a horse, a cow and were they all American? It was exactly the kind of child’s questioning Newman found exasperating though he did his best to hide it around Bride. —Yes, he said, my dog is American, my horse is American, my cow is American.
Tryphie nodded his head slowly. —You don’t belong here, he said finally.
—No, Newman sighed. —I don’t.
—What is it brung you then?
The doctor shrugged elaborately. —I have no idea.
—You been called here by the Lord, Bride offered. —Me and Tryphie is all the proof you needs of that. And she quoted from Psalms. —By thee have I been holden up from the womb, thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.
Newman felt the heat rising in his face and he looked out to open water. —Your Reverend Violet is the expert on religious questions, he said.
Bride said, If there was no one calling you, Doctor, you’d have left us for long ago.
—Amen, the Trims said.
Newman leaned in close to Tryphie, desperate to shift the conversation elsewhere. —I have a Spanish pig at home