Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [85]
“So people took their houses with them across on the water?” Nora was dumbfounded. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Oh yes, some did, not everyone. They just rolled them down on the beach on logs and onto a raft and towed them across. There’s times now I sees the refugees on the television, old people, little children, mothers with their babies clutched to their breasts headin’ off down the road with their few things, and I thinks, That was us back then.”
She looked at Nora, the shock of realization on her face. “Eventually when it came my turn to leave, I never did clear out the old place. I left it as it was, just took the few things I needed or couldn’t part with, then pulled the door behind me and left. Thought I might go back for a spell come the nice weather, but I never did.”
“And Matt?”
“Matt died home, on November 14, 1962.” Her finger tapped the table top. We had a few wonderful years on the island after the crowd left. Those who stayed behind came closer together. Survival, I suppose. Times, it was a struggle but we always helped each other out, like in the old days. The biggest change I remember was people comin’ to the house again. They were back and forth all the time. I liked that and I believe Matt did too, although he never did say. He was more comfortable, I think, with the few. We were all in the same boat. There was just no way we would have made it without each other. No way. When you’re happy, girl, it makes a lot of things come together. Don’t you think?”
Nora nodded. “But the isolation, the cold in the depths of winter, the dark, the work to keep wood cut, the fear of being far from help. It must have been terrible.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her body.
“How did he die?” Nora suddenly asked. Then, in an attempt to take some of the bluntness out of her question, added, “My father just slipped away in his sleep at the age of sixty-two, just a few years before his coveted pension came due.”
“It all happened so suddenly, one day he was the best kind, next day everything had changed.” The tone of her voice dropped as she retreated into her world of memories. “He come out of his bedroom one day all wrapped up in his winter coat, the buttons all skew ways. ‘Blessed Lord, what are you at?’ I said. ‘Look at the get-up on you. It’s a beautiful day out.’ Well, girl, he didn’t know what I was talkin’ about, but he let me help him off with the coat and we had a little laugh about it. But I thought it strange.
“By and by, there were other little things he’d do that was not like him. Like one day he opened the door to the back porch and said, ‘I’m sure this used to be the outhouse.’ I said, ‘No, Matt, it’s never been there. It’s out back.’ It was funny in a way and kind of nice to be having a laugh together, especially about personal things like that. But soon it wasn’t funny no more. Times I was frightened. At night he’d usually read for a while by the fire. Always when he’d finish he’d close whatever book it was he was readin’ and lay it on the shelf by the stove. This one night he was rummagin’ about, tossin’ things aside and makin’ the biggest kind of fuss. His book was gone. I had taken it and hidden it away. He spoke quite harsh to me that night, not like himself, and when I passed him down the book from its usual spot, he never breathed a word of apology. He just sat down in the chair like nothin’ had happened. What shocked me most that