Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [73]
We all have been hard hit around this area. The mill in Waterboro closed it doors and so did the bank, and here in Taft the bank is paying depositors 50 cents on the dollar and will close July 1. Bernice Radcliffe said the other day that she never wanted to see another raisin again, and I know just how she feels. In May, you could get raisins and honey for a good price, and that’s all anybody ate for weeks.
Richard told us a funny story last night about how when his brother Jack was visiting and they were headed back to the house, they didn’t think they had enough gas to make it, so Jack turned his Model T around and backed it up the hill since the gas tank is under the front seat. Gas is 19 cents a gallon now.
Vinegar is cheap, so make sure you have some handy. It keeps apples from turning brown, as you know, and it is a good meat tenderizer. A dash of it in breads and rolls will make them crusty. Also, a tablespoon in place of cream of tartar in meringue makes it beautifully high.
Here is a good recipe for English Monkey that I clipped out of Estelle’s Ladies’ Home Journal that doesn’t need too many ingredients. Soak one cup of bread crumbs in one cup of milk. Melt one tablespoon of fat. Add one-half cup mild cheese, grated. Add it to the crumb mixture. Beat one egg and add to the above with salt and pepper. Cook three minutes. Pour over toast and serve.
Love,
Mother
Honora
Honora lets the letter fall onto the kitchen table and thinks of Harold. Harold, who stood in as best he could for her father in life as well as in the church. Harold, who has not felt like a man since Halifax. Harold, who has character, who can be trusted.
She puts her handkerchief back into her sleeve. She thinks for a moment about making the pie. She has already prepared the rhubarb; she has only to fix the strawberries and roll out the dough. She stands and removes the covered dish of rhubarb from the icebox, the fruit looking like a slimy sea creature in the shallow white bowl. But she is just too hungry and too tired to make a pie. She finds the box of Saltines in the cupboard, spreads some rhubarb between two crackers, and eats it. She chews experimentally and then with more enthusiasm. The stewed-fruit sandwich is delicious. She stands at the window, looking out at the pink beach roses, which have just come into bloom, and she has an idea. A very good idea, she thinks.
She finds the butter yellow wedding suit in a shallow closet in an empty room upstairs. She has the paper bag the dry goods came in from Jack Hess’s store. In her bedroom, she cuts the bag to make wrapping paper, puts the suit inside, and writes a note.
Dear Bette,
I am sorry to have kept this suit so long. It is still in pretty good condition. I don’t want my money back. I hope everything is going well at the store.
Sincerely,
Honora Willard Beecher
She ties the package with string and sets it on her night table.
There, she thinks. That’s done.
She turns and looks into the mirror. Her face is narrower, more hollow cheeked than it normally is, and her skin is still winter white despite several long walks along the beach. And there is something else, something that wasn’t there a year ago — a tension in the muscles, a niggling unease.
When were you going to tell me about the strike, Sexton?
She will not meet her husband’s trolley tonight; indeed, she has probably already missed it. That might alarm him some, at least make him wonder. She doesn’t have a dinner planned either. Let him eat boiled rhubarb and Saltines like she just did.
She walks to the window, the one that overlooks the ocean. The sea is flat tonight, a blue suffused with pink. She watches a fisherman on a lobster boat drawing in his pots. Usually, she sees the lobstermen when she wakes at daybreak. She likes the way they are always intent upon their methodical work, and she wonders if they hate lobsters as much as she does.
Oh, it is just too bad, she decides, moving