“Right before what?” I ask even though I should not have to because people should complete their sentences.
“It was right before Belsum came to town,” Pastor Jeff says quietly. “Before they broke ground on the plant even.”
“We thought…” Mama begins, then has to clear her throat. “We thought everything was about to get so great. And instead everything got so terrible.”
“But the park was nice,” Pastor Jeff says.
“Briefly.” Mama snorts.
“Why did they?” I ask.
“Why did they what?” says Mama, as if I have changed the subject which I have not.
“Why did they build the dam?”
“To make Bluebell Lake,” Mama says like this is obvious.
Pastor Jeff does a better job of saying more. “In the summer, kids used to wade in the river to cool off.” I try to picture this. I cannot picture this. “Splashing contests, prying up rocks, catching tadpoles in jars, that kind of thing. But the water moved too fast out in the middle. Parents started to worry about some kid getting swept away. I think there was a petition or something. People lobbied the mayor—this was the mayor before Omar—until finally they dammed the river to build the lake and the park so we’d have somewhere to hang out and swim safely.”
“Did you?” I cannot picture anyone swimming in Bluebell Lake or anywhere in Bourne. It is like Pastor Jeff has admitted he spent his summers swimming in something gross and also dangerous like a vat of drooling wolves.
“Sure we did. It was really nice.”
“Briefly,” Mama says again.
“It was nice to have somewhere to swim instead of just wade,” Pastor Jeff continues. “And the park was pretty all year long.”
“Your dad proposed to me there,” Mama says. Suddenly my sisters and I are alert as birds because we have never heard this story. “It had snowed, and it was late, and we were walking around the lake holding hands, just, you know, to be out in it, throwing snowballs at each other, hugging to keep warm. And it was so pretty, all white and moonlit and quiet. Clean. It was one of those nights you could stay in, perfectly content, forever. You know?”
I do not know. I have never heard her talk like this. She is not looking at me or Mab or Mirabel or Pastor Jeff. She is looking above our heads.
“And then he tripped over a branch or something. It was buried in the snow, and he couldn’t see it. He fell right over, and we laughed so hard, and when I tried to help him up, I slipped too, and then we were just lying in a pile together in the snow, laughing, tears streaming down our faces. I made it upright finally, and I reached out to pull him up, and he took my hand but resisted when I tugged his, and then he said, ‘As long as I’m down here…’ and he was on his knees and I was standing there, and he said, ‘I think you better marry me.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I think I better.’ And then he got up, and he walked me home. And then at my door he said, ‘I am pretty sure I love you more than anyone has ever loved anything ever.’”
She is quiet then. Even I can see there is more to say, but she does not want to say it. She has sucked her lips inside her mouth like she is afraid of what will come out of them next and wants to keep the words in. Her eyes are wet and pink and still not looking at us but no tears fall out. Then she closes them and scrunches them up and then she opens them and makes them wide and then she blinks and shakes her head and shakes her head some more. And then, after a long time, she starts talking again like she is right in the middle of her sentence and did not interrupt it with a very long silence. “And he said, ‘But wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll love you even more.’” Then she swallows a lot and does a little cough and then she says, “And you know, they never shut the park. All these years, the park’s still there. Hardly anyone goes anymore because you wouldn’t go in the lake for anything, and going to the park with that lake just calling to you and you not being able to go in, that’s just cruel. Plus, you know, all those memories. It’s hard. But it used to be a really nice place.”
Pastor Jeff reaches over and squeezes Mama’s hand which squeezes his back.
No one has anything they can think of to say next.
I look at my sisters. Their faces show confused which is just how I feel too because Mama and Pastor Jeff answered the question. But it did not answer the question.
Three
I’m doing English homework in the clinic waiting room. King Lear. Now there’s a character with three daughters who has a rough time of it. Aside from that, though, he and Nora don’t have much in common. Lear bought his own troubles, and that’s a luxury Nora’s never had. Maybe he’s right that he’s more sinned against than sinning, but Nora is not sinning at all. Nora is sinned against instead of sinning. Maybe if she’d had the chance, she might have liked to sin a little in her life, but her whole world has been taken up with being sinned against, so there hasn’t been time. It’s not that the well-connected, well-endowed, and powerful don’t have troubles. It’s that they’re so much more likely to have earned them than the ones who are isolated, poor, and defenseless. And not the king of anything.