Jacob Have I Loved

Without a word, Call and I put the sacks into the bottom of the boat and climbed in after them. The cats must have exhausted themselves fighting, for the sacks lay almost quiet at our feet. The Captain yanked the starter cord two or three times and the motor finally coughed and then hummed. Slowly he turned the bow and headed for open water.

It was midafternoon and the heat closed in on us unmercifully. I was aware of the smells of cat and the awful spoiled sardine smell of my own hands. I jerked them off my lap.

Just then, a piteous little cry rose from the sack nearest my feet. It sounded more like a baby than a cat, which is why, I suppose, it suddenly tore the blinders from my mind. “Stop!” I screamed, standing up in the boat.

The Captain cut the motor abruptly, telling me to sit down. But as soon as the motor died, I jumped over the washboard and swam with all my might for shore. I could dimly hear the Captain and Call yelling after me, but I never stopped swimming or running until I was home.

“Wheeze. What happened?” Caroline jumped up from the piano at the sight of me, hair streaming, clothes dripping all over the floor. I stomped past her and my mother, who had come to the kitchen door, up the stairs to our bedroom and slammed the door. I didn’t want to see anyone, but of all people in the world, Caroline was the last one I wanted to talk to. I still smelled of sardines, for goodness’ sake.

She opened the door a crack and slid through, leaning on it to shut it gently behind her. There was no way, now, to get down to the kitchen and wash.

“Can’t you see I’m dressing?” I turned my back to the door.

“Want me to get you a towel?”

“Don’t bother.”

She slid out the door and came back carrying a towel. “You’re a mess,” she said pleasantly.

“Oh, shut up.”

“What happened to you?”

“None of your business.”

She got that hurt look in her great blue eyes that always made me want to smack her. She didn’t say anything, just put the towel down on her bed and climbed up and sat down cross-legged beside it, dropping her shoes neatly to the floor.

“You and Call didn’t go swimming, did you?”

No one was supposed to know that Call and I sometimes went swimming together.

I tried to run my fingers through my wet knotted hair. She slipped off her bed and came over carrying the towel. “Want me to rub your hair?”

My first impulse was to shake her off, but she was trying to be kind. Even I could tell that. And I was feeling so awful that the kindness broke down all my usual defenses. I began to cry.

She got my bathrobe for me, and then she dried my hair with those powerful fingers of hers as gently as she might coax a nocturne from our old piano. So although she never seemed to urge me to talk, I began to do so, until, finally, I was pouring out my anguish, not for the cats, but for myself as murderer. It didn’t matter that I had not actually thrown them into the Bay. I had cleverly lured them to their death. That was enough.

“Poor Wheeze,” she said quietly. “Poor old cats.”

At last I stopped crying, dressed, and combed my hair.

“Where are you going?” she asked. It was none of her business, but she had been too nice for me to say so.

“Auntie Braxton’s,” I said. “We have to get it cleaned up before the Ladies’ Society makes it a missionary project.”

“Can I come?”

“Why would you want to come? It’s a filthy stinking mess.”

She shrugged, blushing a little. “I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing better to do.”

We borrowed a bucket and mop and a bottle of disinfectant as well as a pile of rags from my mother, whose face was set in a question she did not ask. As we entered Auntie Braxton’s house, I watched Caroline closely. I suppose I wanted to see some sign of weakness. “Smells terrible,” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah,” I said, a bit disappointed that she hadn’t at least gagged.

We had hardly filled the bucket with water when Call and the Captain appeared at the front door. They just stood there, hanging back a little, like a pair of naughty kids.

“Well,” I said. “Back so soon.”