It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she wanted me to help, to set the table at least, but she anticipated it.
"Without Celeste now. I will do everything in the kitchen. and I will set the table. You were never good at it. Noble. You broke one of my pieces of china, an heirloom, remember? You were always a bit clumsy. Noble, but boys are more clumsy. Don't worry about it. It's expected," she added and turned back to the window.
"There's a lull out there." she said. It seemed like she was talking to herself more than she was talking to me now. "So much has happened. Everyone has retreated for a while. But don't worry. They will return. Everything will be fine again soon when they see we're doing exactly what we were told to do. Don't worry." she whispered.
I thought about it. Was that why I didn't feel or see any spirits?
I looked at my splinter, and then I went back to the fort and continued, not really doing all that much before she called me to dinner. Only then did she help me get the splinter out of my hand. I didn't cry about it, but she talked to me as if I were crying.
"Boys are such babies. Actually, they never stop being babies. Even when they're men, grown, they need to be treated with tender loving care much more than women do. You hate to hear it. I know, but women are actually stronger than men, especially when it comes to endurance. Noble. Women endure.
They are the ones who give birth, you know. Men stand by and grimace, giving thanks they are not having the labor pains. This splinter is nothing. Most women would gladly endure a splinter rather than give birth, believe me. There," she said. "See? Its all over. Wipe away your tears and wash your hands. It's time for dinner," she told me, even though I had no tears. I pretended I did and went to wash my hands.
Dinner was the most lonely time of all for me. I never stopped expecting my brother to appear and take his seat. I missed the way he squirmed or complained about having too many vegetables.
"You're eating too fast as usual," Mommy told me. I had barely started, but it was something she always said to Noble. "Take your time and chew every mouthful. Your poor stomach will complain if you don't," she warned.
How many times I had heard her say that to him? I actually looked at his chair, and then Mommy, not realizing it until that very moment, practically leaped out of hers.
"Noble!" she cried. I held my breath, "What?"
"You're sitting in your sister's chair. It's not right to do that. Get back m' to your own seat immediately. Go on," she ordered.
I looked at my plate and Noble's chair and rose slowly. It was very hard to do it, to sit in his seat. I hesitated. Mommy leaned toward me, her hands on the table.
"You have to do this," she said in a whisper. "You have to do it all."
I sat, and she put my plate of food in front of me. "Gobble your food." she said. "Go on."
I started to eat fast, and then she stopped me.
"Please, eat slowly. I told you. Someday you'll have to eat with more people, and you want to be polite, don't you. Noble? You don't want people to think you were brought up in a pigsty." She smiled. "Remember when Daddy used to tell you how his mother chastised him at the dinner table? If he didn't eat slowly, he would have to eat a second dinner. That's what he said. Of course. I didn't believe that. Not for a moment. Half an ear. remember? That was what he told you children. Half an ear," she muttered.
She sat again and sighed.
"Once there was so much joy around this table. I wonder if there will ever be as much again."
She ate in small bites, pecking at her food like a sick bird. When we were finished. I started to reach for a plate, and she cried out.
"Don't touch anything. Go play with your trains or look for night crawlers," she told me. "You want to go fishing again, don't you?"
The very thought of it put an electric fear into my bones. I started to shake my head.
"Of course you do. You must. It's part of what I need you to do. You'll understand later." she promised. "Go on. You're excused from the table. Noble,- she concluded, waving her hand at me.
I rose and walked out. Noble would take his flashlight and search around the house for worms. He'd pluck them and drop them in his empty coffee can. He would tease me and call them pieces of spaghetti, which made it hard for me to eat real spaghetti when Mommy served it. I stood there for the longest time, and then I put my hands in my pants pockets and brought my right hand out quickly. What was that?
Gingerly. I put my hand back in and brought it out. It was the dried remains of a dead snail. My stomach churned. but I caught hold of myself when I turned and saw Mommy peering out of the living room front window curtain, watching me. I quickly went to find the coffee can and, swallowing back my reluctance, began to pluck night crawlers with as much glee as I could manage.
Mommy was smiling.
For her, every day that passed with me doing the things that Noble had done was another day confirming that Noble was indeed coming back. Mommy felt it when she saw the dirt on my face, the sores on my hands, the tears in my jeans, and the mud on my shoes. My completion of the fort in the woods was a crowning achievement. She talked about it as if I had built one of Daddy's wonderful houses.
You do take after your father." she said. "You've inherited his penchant for construction. The next house you build will be even better. I always knew you'd be goad with your hands. You're mechanically inclined. You draw well. You have that vision," she continued.
How would I ever draw as well as my brother had, or at least good enough to please her? I wondered. When I tried to draw some of the things he had, they came out terrible. but Mommy didn't see it that way. She raved about my sketches just the way she always did when my brother made them. Was she blind to my awkward lines, or did she really see something good in them?
She was right about the calluses coming, just the way they had come to Noble's hands. The roughness was distasteful to me at first, and then I did get used to it. I swung my hammer better, drove nails in faster, and worked with a saw without the fear I used to have of cutting myself. Mommy had me chopping wood and showed me how to split logs to prepare them for the coming winter, when we would use them in our fire-place. It was very hard work. Most nights. I ached terribly and wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot tub, but she told me to just shower quickly and get to bed.