You? I thought but did not say. You? What harm can she possibly do? You do not need to be delivered from evil. Can’t you see? It’s me. Me—I who am so close to being swallowed up in all that eternal darkness. But I didn’t say it. I wasn’t angry at her—just deadly tired.
In the light of the next day, I tried to tell myself that I had only imagined the great evil of the scene the night before. Hadn’t I once tried to convince Call that the Captain was a Nazi—a U-boat delivered spy? Why, then, was I so upset over Grandma’s accusation? I saw again in my mind those glittering eyes and knew it was not the same. Grandma, however, seemed to have forgotten everything. She was quite her grumpy, silly self again, and we were relieved to pretend that we, too, had forgotten.
In February, Call dropped out of school. His mother and grandmother were destitute, and my father offered to take him aboard the Portia Sue as an oyster culler. My father would tong, bringing up oysters with his long fir-wood tongs, which looked like scissors with a metal rake at the end of each shaft. He would open the rakes and drop his catch onto the wooden culling board. There Call, his hands in heavy rubber gloves, would cull, using a culling hammer. With the hammer head he knocked off the excess shell, and with the blade at the other end he struck off the small oysters. The debris was shoved into the Bay and the good oysters forward until they could be sold to a buy boat, which would take them to market. From Monday well before dawn to Saturday night, they would be gone, sleeping all week on cramped bunks in the Portia Sue’s tiny cabin, for the best oyster beds were up the Eastern Shore rivers, too far away for daily commuting when gas was so strictly rationed.
Of course I was jealous of Call, but I was surprised to realize how very much I missed him. All my life my father had followed the water, so it had never seemed strange to have him gone, but Call had always been around, either with me or close by. Now we only saw him at church.
Caroline made a fuss over him every Sunday. “My, Call, we sure do miss you.” How could she know? Besides, it didn’t seem quite ladylike to say something like that, straight out.
Each week, he seemed to grow taller and thinner, and his hands were turning more and more into the rough brown bark of a waterman’s. Even his manner seemed to change. The solemnity that had always lent him, as a small child, a rather comic air, now seemed a sort of youthful dignity. You could sense his pride that he had come at last into a man’s estate, the sole support of the women upon whom he had until now depended. I knew we had been growing apart since summer, but I had been able to blame that on Caroline. Now it was more painful, for the very things that made him stronger and more attractive were taking him deep into the world of men—a place I could never hope to enter.
Later that winter I began going again to see the Captain. I always went with Caroline. It wouldn’t have been proper for either of us to go alone. He taught us how to play poker, which I had to be persuaded to do, but once I began it made me feel deliciously wicked. He probably owned the only deck of regular playing cards on Rass. Those were the days when good Methodists only indulged in Rook or Old Maid. We played poker for toothpicks, as though they were gold pieces. At least I did. Nothing gave me greater satisfaction than totally cleaning out my sister. It must have shown, because I can remember her saying on more than one occasion in a very annoyed tone of voice, “For goodness’ sakes, Wheeze, it’s only a game” as I would lick my chops and scrape all her tumbled stacks of toothpicks across the table with my arm.
One day after a particularly satisfying win, the Captain turned from me to Caroline and said, “I miss your singing now that Trudy’s gone. Those were some happy times.”
Caroline smiled. “I liked them, too,” she said.
“You’re not letting down on your practicing now, are you?”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know. I guess it’s all right.”
“You’re doing fine.” I was impatient to get on to another game.
She shook her head. “I really miss my lessons,” she said. “I hadn’t realized how much they meant.”
“Well, it’s a pity,” I said the way a grown-up speaks to a child to shut her up. “Times are hard.”
“Yes,” the Captain said. “I suppose lessons take a lot of money.”
“It’s not just the money,” I said quickly, trying to ignore the vision of my own little hoard of bills and change. “It’s the gas and all. Once you get to Crisfield, it’s worth your life to get a taxi. Now if the county would just send us to boarding school like they do the Smith Island kids—”
“Oh, Wheeze, that wouldn’t help. What kind of a music program could they have at that school? We beat them all to pieces in the contest last year.”
“Well, we should be able to request a special school on account of special circumstances.”
“They’d never pay for us to go to any school, much less a really good school,” she said sadly.
“Well, they ought to.” I wanted to dump the blame on the county and deal the cards. “Don’t you think they should, Captain?”
“Yes, somebody should.”
“But they won’t,” I said. “Anything dumber than a blowfish, it’s a county board of education.”
They laughed, and to my relief the subject was closed. It was too bad about Caroline’s lessons, but she’d had a couple of good years at Salisbury. Besides, it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t started the war or caused the storm.
The Captain did not come to our house. He was invited perfunctorily every Sunday, but he seemed to know that he oughtn’t to come and always managed an excuse. So I was startled one afternoon a week or so later to see him hurrying up the path to our porch, his face flushed with what looked like excitement and not just the effects of his rushing. I opened the door before he had stepped up onto the porch.
“Sara Louise,” he said, waving a letter in his hand as he came. “Such wonderful news!” He paused at the door. “Your father’s not here, I guess.” I shook my head. It was only Wednesday. “Well, please get your mother. I can’t wait.” He was beaming all over.
Grandma was rocking in her chair, reading or pretending to read her large leather-bound Bible. He nodded at her. “Miss Louise,” he said. She didn’t look up. Mother and Caroline were coming in from the kitchen.
“Why, Captain Wallace,” said my mother, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sit down. Louise, Caroline, will you fix some tea for the Captain?”
“No, no,” he said. “Sit down, all of you. I’ve got the most wonderful news. I can’t wait.”
We all sat down.
He put the letter on his lap and pressed out a crease with his fingertip. “There are so few opportunities for young people on this island,” he began. “I’m sure, Miss Susan, a woman of your background and education must suffer to see her children deprived.”