Read Machine Dreams for Free Online Page A
Authors: Jayne Anne Phillips
was born and no one ever talked about it. Why would they? What’s the difference, it don’t matter.
Bess stayed there on the farm for seven years then, and helped—putting up food, companion to her mother. Maybe she felt chastised, but the family would not have said a word to her. She was like a mother to me.
The brothers all had parcels of the land but were twenty, fifty miles distant. They farmed or mined and drifted by the homeplace every few weeks, on horseback, alone; women and children didn’t travel in the winter. My father, Warwick, was the only brother worked in towns a while and wore a suit. Later he went back to the mines, but then he was a wholesaler for a dry goods company. Just a few weeks after he brought Bess home from St. Louis, Warwick brought this bride of his to the farm and moved her in. Then he left, as Bess tells it, and was only back twice the months the girl was there. She was a girl he’d met in his work, a working girl. She never gave any facts about herself, Bess says, and went away after I was born. Went away as soon as she could travel, and sent no word to anyone again.
Warwick paid for a wet nurse half the winter, but there is more to a baby than feeding it
I never saw my father, not really.
You did see him, you don’t remember, He had the new wife, but by then you were accustomed to us. Then he died when you were still in skirts.
…
They gave the impression it was his new wife didn’t want me, but I knew it was him. I don’t remember what he looked like, except from pictures. I just remember him yelling at me once or twice. He never did a damn thing for me, never noticed me. One summer—I was real young, at the farm—I had a baby coon. My father had his rifle and was standing over me. It was out at the edge of the fields, away from the house, where the grass was tall. He said go into the field and let that coon go, you can’t keep a wild creature. I held the coon and walked in. The grass was over myhead, deep and high. He started shooting. The gun made two sounds, a big crack from behind, like thunder, and a high zing close by, like a stinging fly close your face. The grass was moving and he was shooting where the grass moved. I stayed still for a long time. I don’t know what I thought. Years later I asked Bess about it and she said wasn’t Warwick did that at all, was a neighbor man, because it was a danger to have coons when there was rabies in the county.
I don’t know. He was well liked. There is an old homemade album Bess must have pasted together. The pictures are taken outside the old house, and everyone is dressed in their best. My father is wearing a woman’s big hat and posing like Napoleon.
They had his funeral there at the house. The brothers made the casket out of pine board, and the lid was kept shut. That was the practice in that country; if a man died in the mines, his coffin was closed for services, nailed shut, even if the man was unmarked. They would have put Warwick’s coffin on the long table in the parlor, the best room. The window shades in that room were sewn with gold tassels. Silk tassels, and children weren’t to touch them. The parlor was seldom used, but it was dusted everyday, spotless, and the floor was polished once a week with linseed rags fastened onto a broom.
It was soon after Warwick’s funeral Bess left the farm.
She came to Bellington because it was the closest good-size town, and started working as secretary to Dr. Bond. Bess would have been in her late twenties, an old maid. She met Clayton because he was Doc Bond’s younger brother.
Doc Bond and Doc Jonas were the only two doctors here besides the veterinarian. Clayton was in the construction business, always was, so the three men started the hospital. Bought two houses; Bess and Clayton lived in the smaller and built onto the bigger one. Knocked down walls inside, built wards. The modern addition that stretches out from the back now wasn’t there then; the place was much
Bess stayed there on the farm for seven years then, and helped—putting up food, companion to her mother. Maybe she felt chastised, but the family would not have said a word to her. She was like a mother to me.
The brothers all had parcels of the land but were twenty, fifty miles distant. They farmed or mined and drifted by the homeplace every few weeks, on horseback, alone; women and children didn’t travel in the winter. My father, Warwick, was the only brother worked in towns a while and wore a suit. Later he went back to the mines, but then he was a wholesaler for a dry goods company. Just a few weeks after he brought Bess home from St. Louis, Warwick brought this bride of his to the farm and moved her in. Then he left, as Bess tells it, and was only back twice the months the girl was there. She was a girl he’d met in his work, a working girl. She never gave any facts about herself, Bess says, and went away after I was born. Went away as soon as she could travel, and sent no word to anyone again.
Warwick paid for a wet nurse half the winter, but there is more to a baby than feeding it
I never saw my father, not really.
You did see him, you don’t remember, He had the new wife, but by then you were accustomed to us. Then he died when you were still in skirts.
…
They gave the impression it was his new wife didn’t want me, but I knew it was him. I don’t remember what he looked like, except from pictures. I just remember him yelling at me once or twice. He never did a damn thing for me, never noticed me. One summer—I was real young, at the farm—I had a baby coon. My father had his rifle and was standing over me. It was out at the edge of the fields, away from the house, where the grass was tall. He said go into the field and let that coon go, you can’t keep a wild creature. I held the coon and walked in. The grass was over myhead, deep and high. He started shooting. The gun made two sounds, a big crack from behind, like thunder, and a high zing close by, like a stinging fly close your face. The grass was moving and he was shooting where the grass moved. I stayed still for a long time. I don’t know what I thought. Years later I asked Bess about it and she said wasn’t Warwick did that at all, was a neighbor man, because it was a danger to have coons when there was rabies in the county.
I don’t know. He was well liked. There is an old homemade album Bess must have pasted together. The pictures are taken outside the old house, and everyone is dressed in their best. My father is wearing a woman’s big hat and posing like Napoleon.
They had his funeral there at the house. The brothers made the casket out of pine board, and the lid was kept shut. That was the practice in that country; if a man died in the mines, his coffin was closed for services, nailed shut, even if the man was unmarked. They would have put Warwick’s coffin on the long table in the parlor, the best room. The window shades in that room were sewn with gold tassels. Silk tassels, and children weren’t to touch them. The parlor was seldom used, but it was dusted everyday, spotless, and the floor was polished once a week with linseed rags fastened onto a broom.
It was soon after Warwick’s funeral Bess left the farm.
She came to Bellington because it was the closest good-size town, and started working as secretary to Dr. Bond. Bess would have been in her late twenties, an old maid. She met Clayton because he was Doc Bond’s younger brother.
Doc Bond and Doc Jonas were the only two doctors here besides the veterinarian. Clayton was in the construction business, always was, so the three men started the hospital. Bought two houses; Bess and Clayton lived in the smaller and built onto the bigger one. Knocked down walls inside, built wards. The modern addition that stretches out from the back now wasn’t there then; the place was much