Give birth as soon as you can, croaked Grandma Mary, swinging her legs off the narrow iron bed. It was the eightyseventh year since Marys own birth, and she had long since forgotten what it felt like to be young, though her grandson and greatgrandson kept urging her onward, occasionally rapping a walking stick against the floor.
Stay here with your blue stocking, and youll be remembering us old folk when its too late, theyd chide.
Now Mary had grown melancholy, refused to rise, and muttered spitefully at the household, What have I done for you, you lot of snakes, to make you sleep till noon? The clatter of pots in the kitchen rang out at half past six in the morning, and the family grew uneasy.
Grandmother, asked little Emily, five, the greatgranddaughter, why dont you curse at us any more?
Im about to die, child, thats all, Mary sighed, speaking of her impending end with a mix of sorrow for the life slipping away and a faint hope for something beyond the stew they could no longer manage.
Emily scurried to the kitchen where the remaining relatives huddled. Grandma Marys groundhog is dead! she announced, reporting the latest intelligence from her covert reconnaissance.
What groundhog? raised the head of the household, also the eldest son, William Hawthorne, eyebrows bristling like the hedges that lined their Yorkshire lane. He seemed a figure from an old folk tale, the sort of man the wind would whisper past.
Probably an old one, Emily shrugged. She had never seen such a creature, for Mary never showed it to her. The elders exchanged glances.
The following day a composed, measured doctor paid a visit.
Your grandmother is not well, he declared.
Of course, William said, clapping his hands together, what else would we call you for?
The doctor looked pensively at him, then at his wife.
Just agerelated, he replied, matteroffactly. I see no serious abnormalities. What symptoms does she show?
Shes stopped telling me when lunch and supper should be cooked! All her life she poked me with her nose, saying my hands werent made for work, and now she wont even step into the kitchen, Williams wife, Margaret, said in a voice that had lost its vigor, herself already looking like a grandmother.
The family council with the doctor agreed that this was a worrying sign. Wearied by worry, they lay down to sleep as if they might simply fall through.
In the night William awoke to the familiar shuffling of slippers. This time, however, it was not the urgent rattle demanding an instant rise for breakfast and work.
Mum? he whispered, stepping into the dark hallway.
A casual, unceremonious voice replied, Well?
Whats the matter?
Aye, think Ill slip off to a little rendezvous with Mike Jacobs while youre all asleep, Mary murmured, sounding as if she were just pulling herself together. To the loo, where else would I go?
William flicked on the kitchen light, set the kettle boiling, and sank into a chair, his head cradled in both hands.
Starving? Mary stood in the doorway, eyeing him.
Yes, Im waiting for you. What was that, Mum?
Mary shuffled to the table. Ive been cooped up in my room for five days, she began, when a pigeon smacked into the windowbang! I took it as an omen of death. I lay down, waiting. Day after day, and thenhere I am, up in the middle of the night, thinking, Wouldnt it be better to let that omen wander off to the woods and the sprites, rather than waste my life beneath these sheets? Pour me a strong cup of tea, hotter and heartier. For three days you and I have barely spoken; well have to make up for it.
William finally drifted off at half past five in the morning, while Grandma Mary remained at the stove, determined to see the breakfast through herself, for the thinhanded children would otherwise never get a proper meal.
