“I’m not sure what they know, and I don’t care,” he says dismissively. “Let’s put this aside and enjoy the morning, shall we? I’m sorry I brought it up.”
I nod, but the conversation has dampened my mood. It’s only later, going over it in my head, that I realize he didn’t answer my question.
THE DAY BEFORE Walton and the Carles are to return to Massachusetts, we make a plan to go to the Acorn Grange Hall in Cushing for a dance. Walton shows up earlier than expected with Eloise and Ramona and finds me in the yard behind the house, struggling with a load of laundry. It’s wash day, and I can’t leave until all the clothes are on the line.
“Go ahead, I’ll be along soon,” I tell them. I’m hot and perspiring, still wearing my old frock and apron.
“I’ll help her finish,” he says to the others. “We’ll catch up with you.”
Eloise and Ramona leave the house with Al and Sam in a clamorous gaggle. I watch them as they make their way down the road—Al and Sam tall and awkward, bending like reeds toward the pretty sisters.
Walton helps me wring the damp pieces, his strong hands far more efficient than mine. He hoists the straw basket to his hip and we make our way to the clothesline; then, crouching, he takes each piece of damp clothing from the basket, shakes it, and hands it to me, and I pin it to the rope. The intimacy of this ordinary task feels bittersweet.
Walton waits on the back stoop while I go inside to change into a clean white blouse and navy skirt. “You look nice,” he says when I appear. As we stroll toward the Grange Hall, he rummages in his pocket. I hear the familiar crinkle of wax paper. He pops a butterscotch candy into his mouth.
“Do you have one for me?” I ask.
“Of course.” He stops and takes out another, unwraps it, and puts it on my tongue. He rubs my arms. “Autumn in the air already,” he muses. “Are you cold? Do you need my jacket?”
“I’m perfect,” I say a little stiffly.
“I know you’re perfect. I was asking if you’re chilly.” He smiles, and I can tell he’s trying to lighten my mood.
I suck on the candy for a moment. “You’re leaving.”
“Not for a few days.”
“Soon.”
“Too soon,” he concedes, lacing his fingers through mine.
For a few minutes we walk along in silence. Then I venture, “Teachers are needed all over. Even in Maine.”
He squeezes my hand gently but says nothing. Above our heads a riot of birdsong erupts, piercing the quiet. We both look up. The dense tree cover, leaf lush, gives nothing away. Then, suddenly swooping across the road, a dark flurry.
“I’ve never seen so many crows,” he remarks.
“Actually, they’re blackbirds.”
“Ah. What would I do without you to correct me?” He pulls on my hand playfully, and then, realizing he’s yanking me off balance, tucks his arm around my waist. “Such a clever girl,” he murmurs in my ear. Then he slows and stops in the road.
I’m not sure what he’s doing. “What is it?”
He puts a finger to his lips and tugs me gently down the embankment into a copse of blue-black spruce. In the shadows he cups my warm face in his cool hands. “You are truly something, Christina.”
I look into his pale eyes, trying to decipher what he’s saying. He gazes back implacably. “I can’t tell if you’re sad to be leaving,” I say, a petulant tone creeping into my voice.
“Of course I am. But admit it—you’ll be a bit relieved. ‘Finally summer’s over, I have my life back.’”
I shake my head.
He shakes his head, mimicking me. “No?”
“No. I—”
He kisses me on the mouth, gathers me closer, kisses my bony shoulder, the hollow of my neck. He runs his hand down my bodice, hesitates for a moment, then continues all the way to the folds of my skirt. I am dizzy with surprise. He pushes me back against the bark of a tree. I feel its knots pressing into my back as he leans into me, running a hand down my side, another under my blouse, up the slight curve of my breast. His mouth on mine jams my head awkwardly against the trunk, an uncomfortable and yet not altogether unpleasant experience.
The butterscotch clicks in my mouth. “I’d better spit this out, or I might choke,” I say.
He laughs. “Me too.”
I don’t care that it’s unladylike; I spit it on the grass.
Now his hand is between my legs, lost in the fabric. I feel him cup me there in a proprietary way, and I push my hips toward him, feeling his hardness between us. My skin is alive, every nerve ending pulsing. His breathing ragged, insistent. This is what I want. This passion. This certainty. This clear sign of his desire. Right now I would do anything, anything he asks.
And then—a sound on the road. Walton jerks his head up, alert as a bird dog. “What is that?” he breathes.
I cock my head. Feel a low rumbling in my soles. “An automobile, I think.”
The sky is dark now. I can barely see his face.
He pulls back, then sways into me, clutching my shoulders. “Oh, Christina,” he murmurs. “You make me want you.”
The darkness emboldens me. “I’m yours.”
Still holding my shoulders, he rests his head on my breastbone like a nudging sheep. When he sighs, I feel his warm breath on my chest. “I know.” Then he looks up into my eyes with a startling intensity. “We must be together. Beyond”—he waves an arm, indicating the trees, the road, the sky—“all this.”
My heart leaps. “Oh, Walton. Do you mean it?”
“I do. I promise.”
Though everything in my nature fights against it, I’m determined to find out what he means. Swallowing hard, I ask, “What do you promise?”
“That we will be together. There are things I need to—resolve. You must come to Boston, and meet my parents. But I promise you, Christina, yes.”
Blue-black spruce shushing overhead, gravelly dirt under my thin-soled shoes, the smell of pine, a Necco wafer of moon in the sky. Some sense memories fade as soon as they’re past. Others are etched in your mind for the rest of your life. This, I already know, is one of those.
When we get to the Grange Hall, Ramona and Eloise are chatting and dancing with whatever stray boys they can round up, gaily pulling them out of chairs. The makeshift band, fiddle and piano and standing bass, is composed of some of the boys I grew up with, Billy Grover and Michael Verzaleno and Walter Brown. They play raucous, sloppy versions of “The Maple Leaf Rag” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Walton croons in my ear: “Leave the Strand and Piccadilly, or you’ll be to blame, for love has fairly drove me silly—hoping you’re the same!”
When they start to play “Danny Boy,” I listen to the words as if I’ve never heard them before, as if they were written just for me.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses dying,
It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide . . .
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow—
Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so