“Me? I’m…pregnant.” They both sigh, and start talking about the small annoyances of pregnancy. Amanda can’t help but worry that she’ll have a defective, but she’s not going to say that to Denise.
Eventually a couple of other women join them, trading home remedies and ideas for sick babies, and Amanda breaks away and heads for the food. Betty has made her famous honey cake, although the whipped cream on top has quickly melted into a gooey mess. Amanda takes a huge piece and eats it messily from her hand. The sweet richness is heavy and intoxicating, flushing her body with satisfaction.
“Amanda.” Betty comes up and puts a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you well and breeding. Remember what a terror you were your last summer with the children? You were almost as bad as Janey Solomon. You broke Margaret’s nose, remember that?”
Amanda blinks. “No.”
“Well, how is your first summer as a woman? Miserable, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Amanda says gratefully. “I don’t know how I’ll do it. Why can’t we cover ourselves with mud and go run around?”
Betty laughs. “No running with that belly. I do understand, though. We’re trapped in our houses, and the children get to run free. I suppose we had our time, though.”
“I suppose.”
“At least we know autumn is coming.” The season that used to be Amanda’s biggest torment has quickly become a promise of relief.
“And a winter, and a spring, and then another summer.”
“It can’t be any other way,” says Betty, laughing again.
A few women, picking at honey cake and talking with their mouths full, move toward them.
“Denise, Amanda,” says Alicia Saul. “Your first adult summer.”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” says Isabel Joseph, and they both chuckle.
“How is your Frieda?” Betty gently asks Isabel. She sighs.
“She was still having trouble before summer started. Crying all the time, not eating. Summer came just in time; she took a whole plateful of bread and cheese that I put out when I saw her creeping around the garden.”
“You can’t run about like that and not be hungry,” says Alicia.
“It’s his fault for waiting,” says Isabel. “He waited a long time, and she had to be sent home from school, she was so upset, remember? It’s best started before they’re old enough to really understand it. Then it’s just part of life.”
“Oh, I completely agree.”
“I can’t believe Rita isn’t having her summer of fruition right now,” says Anne Abraham, who has wandered over. “She gets the pains, the moods, everything except actual bleeding.”
“She’ll be one of the older ones next summer, then.”
“Oh, yes, that’s always good, she’ll have another year of being a child. As long as when the blood does come, you know…the shalt-nots are respected.”
“Well, of course they would be!”
“I remember Mother used to say that the chickens could smell the blood, and it would make their eggs bigger.”
“Really?”
“Mother told me I would spoil butter, so I snuck to the churn once and stuck a finger in some butter. Nothing happened.”
“Speaking of butter, did you try this butter bread?”
“No, is that Ada Jacob’s? I swear her husband got lucky. Her mother said she used to hate cooking and once made bread burned to a solid rock. She’s certainly improved.”
“Well, I used to hate little children, and I certainly don’t hate mine now.”
“Children are different.”
“So is butter bread!”
Their laughter flutters upward like a flock of sparrows. Amanda looks at Denise and sees she is dreaming, somewhere else. Betty has scolded Amanda before, for having so few women friends, but this party is reminding her why she doesn’t want any. She tires quickly of talk about bodily functions, sweet foods, the smugness of women with children. Of course, talking to a man besides Andrew or Father is frowned upon, and the girls she used to run around with treat her like she’s invisible.
A few children, muddy and completely unrecognizable, streak by the window. Amanda stifles an urge to shatter the glass with her fists.
The cake feels burdensome in Amanda’s stomach, and her teeth ache from sweetness. Circling, she looks at the happy women and snoozing chaperone, and feels a sudden longing to be alone in her own house, crouching in the cool, silent root cellar.
Jane Jacob comes to stand by her. “How are you feeling, Amanda?”
Amanda stutters. “I’m—I’m fine. Just, you know. Feeling a little ill.”
Jane absently takes Amanda’s hand, and Amanda recoils from her palm. It’s soft, and damp, and sticky like the cake. Smiling and making gabbled excuses, she fetches the precious sheet of netting and begins winding it around herself, spinning like a top as she spurts forth wordy nothings about feeling tired, having had a wonderful time, the cake was marvelous, so nice to see everyone. She catches a glimpse of Mr. Balthazar staring intently at her like she is a madwoman. Hurtling out the door, she enters gratefully into the humid summer air, the scents of butter and the breath of women clinging to her skin. Inhaling deeply a few times, she immediately feels better and begins her shuffle toward home. Andrew has been pulled away for another all-night repair, and Amanda will sit in the kitchen with her head between her knees, legs splayed to allow for her stretching belly, and stare at the floor.
Near the path that leads to Amanda’s home, there is another, smaller path through the grass that leads to the seashore. Amanda thinks pensively of the echoing emptiness waiting for her at home. Hesitating, she changes direction and shambles down the increasingly sandy path until she can see, blearily, the stretch of windblown sea before her. The rising moon hangs heavy, low and swollen, the golden color of butter.
“Amanda.”
She whirls, squinting through the veils of gray across her face. A man is in front of her, clothed in netting like herself, so close to her she has to raise her head to see him. His face is a sparkling mass of points, wire pocked by moonlight, and no matter how she turns her head, she cannot see his features.
“Amanda.”
His voice is deep, and he pronounces her name slowly, like it’s an incantation. Her lips start to tremble. He advances toward her, slowly, inexorably, and she stumbles backwards. The waves hiss against the shore like hushed, fevered breathing. He says her name again and she tries to reply, but her lips are numb and clumsy with dread, and mumble shapeless sounds. Her heels creep back into damper and damper sand, until she feels salt water lick her ankles.
“Come here,” he says, but she continues walking backwards into the cold sea, step for step, staring at his glowing face as it approaches her, suspended in the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Vanessa