She loved us both as one would love her own children.
My mother’s sister, Prudence, was still alive then and came to visit us on a regular basis, often bringing gifts: new dresses for Constance and me, pants and a fine coat for Jacob. It was she who started the fuss about Auntie. She and Father would sit together in the kitchen, talking over coffee. I would crouch down in the hallway, eavesdropping, but could only hear snatches of what she’d say to my father: “Not dignified.” “Cannot be allowed to continue.” “Filthy heathen witch.”
It was Prudence who sent Reverend Ayers and some of the men from town to pay my father a visit after years of her own harsh judgments and threats did little to change my father’s mind. I don’t know what finally pushed her to call in the men, or how she convinced them to come, but I remember their ominous arrival. It was in the heat of July, only months after I’d seen Hester Jameson up by the Devil’s Hand.
“Reverend,” Father said when he answered the door, “what brings you out this way?” He looked beyond Reverend Ayers and saw the other men: Abe Cushing; Carl Gonyea, who owned the inn; Ben Dimock, who was foreman at the mill; and old Thaddeus Bemis, patriarch of the huge Bemis family.
“We’ve come to talk with you,” Reverend Ayers said.
My father nodded and held the door open. “Come on into the living room. Sara? Go in the kitchen and fetch the brandy and some glasses, will you?”
They settled in the living room in a circle of chairs pulled around the fireplace. Some of the men took out pipes and smoked. I served them brandy. No one spoke.
“Thank you, Sara,” my father said. “Now you and Jacob leave us. Go out and do your chores in the barn. When you’re through with that, there’s wood to stack.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
My brother and I headed out to the barn to do chores. Jacob paced back and forth in front of the horse stalls, wringing his hands.
“What do you suppose it’s about?” I asked.
“Auntie. They will try to force him to send her away,” he told me.
“They cannot!” I exclaimed. “What right do they have?”
“Father depends on the people in town. They buy our vegetables, our milk and eggs. These men, they have power.”
I scoffed. “Auntie’s powers are greater.”
When the men finally filed out of the house, my father was pale and shaken. He said very little. He poured himself another cup of brandy, which he gulped in two great swallows. Then he had a third.
When Auntie came by later with freshly skinned rabbits to make stew for supper, Father met her outside. They did not come in, and spoke in hushed tones. Soon, however, their voices were raised.
“How dare you!” Auntie yelled.
Eventually, Father came back into the house. “I’m sorry,” he said to her before he closed and latched the door. The three of us sat in the living room, listening to Auntie.
“Sorry? You are sorry? Open the door! We are not finished!”
I rose from my seat to unlatch the door, but Father pulled me back down and held me there, his fingers digging into my arm. Jacob bit his lip and stared down at the floor, tears in his eyes.
“How dare you!” Auntie shrieked as she watched us through the window beside the door. Her face was as serious and angry as I’d ever seen it. “How dare you shun me? You will pay for this, Joseph Harrison,” she hissed. “I promise you that, you will pay.”
Later that night, after Father had fallen asleep with the empty bottle of brandy, Jacob crept into my room. “I am going to talk to her,” he told me. “I will find a way to get her back.” The fierce desperation in his eyes suddenly made me understand how deep his love for her was, how much he needed her. We all needed Auntie. I did not believe our family could get by without her.
I sat up late in my bed, waiting for Jacob to return. Eventually, my eyes grew too tired.
I awoke to Father shaking me. Dawn light streamed in through the window. Father reeked of brandy and had tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s Jacob,” he said.
“What?” I asked, jumping out of bed. Father didn’t answer, but I followed him out of my room, down the stairs, and out the door. My bare feet padded over the damp, dew-soaked grass. I walked in Father’s shadow all the way to the barn, terrified.
Jacob was hanging from one of the rafters, a coarse hemp rope tied neatly around his neck.
Father cut him down, held him in his arms, sobbing. And then, in my shock and sorrow, I did the thing I will always wonder if I should have done—I told him the truth.
“He went out to see Auntie last night,” I told him.
Father’s eyes clouded over with a storm of thickening rage.
He carried Jacob’s body into the house and laid him down in his own bed as if Jacob were a little boy again, being tucked in.
Then Father got his gun and a tin of kerosene.