The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [12]
Bertha ran out of the house as we moved back toward it. She carried two hard-boiled eggs. “For your lunch, Mama,” she said. “And yours, Clara.”
“A good idea!” Mama said as we returned to the porch where our leather grips sat waiting. “You’re so thoughtful, Bertha.”
“It was Arthur’s idea. He said we should boil them.” Arthur stood off to the side patting the dog’s head. Sailor panted. I wished that dog was going with us.
“Then we thank you both.” Mama pulled Arthur forward, kissed his face, Bertha’s forehead. I took the eggs and put them in my grip.
Johnny pushed his head between his siblings and wrapped his arms around Mama’s neck. Then he came to hug me and whispered, “Bring me back a New York frog. It will jump higher than Arthur’s from Mica Creek.”
“I’ll look for the very best,” I whispered back.
“You be a good boy for Ida and your papa, all right?” Mama said, tapping him on the shoulder. Johnny nodded. His lower lip quivered. She pulled him into her skirts, held his arms as he lowered his head into her side. The two stood rocking side to side until four-year-old Billy cuddled close.
Mama started to lift him, but Billy said, “I’m too big for you to carry.”
“So I can’t put you into my little case and take you with me?”
I winced at her mistake.
His eyes grew large. “Yes, take me! I’ll climb right inside!” He wiggled free, pulled at her grip, which weighed less than he had at birth.
She opened the bag, snapped the frame and handle back, and it stood open, wide like a jaw. He peered inside as she squatted beside him. “You are too big, son,” she said. “See?”
“You need the lantern,” he agreed. “If I go, you won’t have room for light.”
“That’s right. And we need the light very much.”
“All right,” he said and stepped back. “I’ll stay here.”
Lillian waddled over and wove her sticky fingers into Mama’s hair. In the seven months we’d be gone, Lillian would change the most. Lillian’s blond hair, soft as peach fuzz, glistened in the sunrise.
“Mama go?”
“Soon.” Mama kissed her head, squeezed her, then handed the baby to me, her eyes moist.
The smell of Lillian’s hair and the smoothness of her face against my cheek closed my throat. How can she leave them? How can I leave them?
“I have a surprise for you, Lillian,” Mama said. She sniffed, then handed my sister a piece of Hardanger lace shaped like a heart, one Mama had stitched herself. She pulled a small pair of scissors from her pocket and cut the heart in two. “You keep this half of my heart. Keep it safe for everyone to have now and then. Put it under your pillow, then maybe Johnny’s, then the rest. A different pillow each night.”
Lillian nodded, though I knew Ida would have to sort out who got that piece of Mama’s heart and when. I looked at their faces, my brothers’ and sisters’, aching with such longing.
“Mama,” I offered. “Why don’t you cut a little piece of your heart now for everyone to have?”
Bertha piped up, “Oh yes! Please do that.”
Mama looked at me. “All right. Lillian, can Mama have it back for a minute?”
Lillian hesitated but, by nature a generous child, she handed it to Mama, who cut off sections and then placed these in the open palm of each of my siblings, their pink skin showing beneath the squares and diamond shapes made by threads pulled back so carefully by my mother’s hands over many hours.
“Do you have a small piece for me?” I asked as she gave Lillian back a little square.
“You’re going with me, Clara. You certainly won’t need one,” she said.
I thought my heart would break.
She cut her own half heart in two and shared this with Papa. He looked at it, didn’t speak. Then she took Lillian’s pudgy hand and rubbed it across the piece Mama would take with her. “I’ll keep this one with me.” She held it to her breast with the child’s hand. “My heart will be complete only when I come home again and all of you put your pieces together with mine. All the while I’m gone my heart will be smaller because I’ve left so much of it with you.”
Noses sniffled. Silent weeping shook Arthur’s