Strawberry Hill, Chapter 9

Recommended 8 and up. Raleia Pendle always wished she was from an old-fashioned family from a bygone era who would be involved in every aspect of her life, but instead she has modern (for 1976) hippie parents who keep their distance. Raleia gets a taste of the past by moving to Tidal, ME that was hit by a Tidal Wave in 1911 and is a living museum to the event. She also meets Ian Rutherford a recluse who hasn't left his house since the tidal wave hit.

Transcript

Hello,

This is A.

Le Fay of Sylvanosity and I'm going to be reading chapter 9 of Strawberry Hill.

Harrington County Hospital was old.

The tile floor rippled like a lake of stone.

The windows rattled in their wooden frames when attendants wheeled a gurney under them.

Sconces lit the hallways,

Casting cones of light onto the floor,

Leaving shadows in the corners.

Raelle loved that kind of place,

A building haunted by history.

She could almost feel it in the air,

A quiet charge of energy that made Raelle think of ghosts.

But she shouldn't be thinking of such things.

Tiny was in trouble.

Her baby,

Too.

Still,

Raelle's mind kept returning to the fact that the victims of the tidal wave would have been brought to that very hospital where she sat staring down a hallway with ripples in the floor.

Millicent Davies was brought there and treated for a nervous disorder.

So said the book Tick had given her.

Raelle knew that back in those days people often fretted over the emotional state of women.

It was commonly believed that women were ruled by their emotions,

In tune with the emotional ebb of the world and prone to breakdowns.

But who wouldn't be a little shaken up by seeing a wall of water crush half a town?

Millicent probably came in guided by a few stable gentlemen who were no doubt shaking inside.

Not Millicent.

She wasn't ashamed of her feelings.

She didn't flinch from crying over the deaths of her fellow townspeople.

And they shut her up in a hospital for that.

Those stiff-lipped creeps who didn't show their feelings were the ones who really needed help.

Raelle thought they probably held it all in until one day they just sprung a leak.

Now it's never a leak,

It's always a gush.

Something cracks and the emotion just pours out.

Like Tiny and her baby clothes ritual.

Tiny kept all her emotions stuffed inside until they came flying out in all directions.

Why didn't Tiny just let them out as they came to her?

Probably the same reason I don't,

Raelle thought,

Rubbing her arms.

And I have no idea why that is.

Raelle couldn't wait in the lounge any longer.

The chair is smelled of cigarette smoke and the air-and-calm speaker hissed even when it wasn't being used.

She went for a walk.

Max might not be able to find her if she strayed too far,

But that would be good if he had to deliver bad news.

Raelle walked all the way to the other side of the hospital,

Hoping Max never found her.

Stopping in front of a window overlooking the parking lot,

Raelle watched the bugs swarming around a street lamp buzzing through some insane death dance.

What a life.

You fly around all day looking for food,

Then some dumb human comes along and flips on a light,

And you get sucked in by some weird chemical in your brain,

And you're stuck there buzzing around that darn light until you die.

What could be worse?

How about being a baby?

You can't do anything.

Feed yourself,

Speak,

Clean up after you do your duty.

Heck,

Newborn babies can't even smile,

And when they get sick,

There's nothing they can do.

Raelle wondered if little babies knew when they were going to die.

The thought made her chilly inside.

She had to make sure the baby was okay.

Brushing to the other side of the hospital,

Raelle charged past the no children allowed beyond this point sign and started searching for tiny and small private rooms behind curtains.

She was about to panic when she saw the belt of Max's rust-colored bathrobe dangling below a curtain.

Max was speaking to Dr.

Shields,

Whispering actually.

They were standing off to the side sputtering away about something Raelle couldn't hear.

She went straight for Tiny,

Who was clutching her blanket,

Chanting,

It's only heartburn.

Raelle would have been relieved to know it was heartburn if she didn't see the chokehold Tiny had on the blanket or the glazed over look in her mom's eyes.

She wanted to comfort her mom,

But she was afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Raelle?

Max sounded startled.

I didn't see you come in.

He came up behind her and even put his hands on her shoulders.

Smiling,

Max said,

Look,

Tiny,

It's Raelle.

Raelle didn't like the everything's alright tone in his voice,

But she smiled at Tiny who blinked as if she'd just woken up from a dream.

It was only heartburn,

Raelle.

She laughed,

But she didn't sound happy.

Good?

Raelle gave her mom's hand a squeeze.

They all stood there for a moment.

The air felt stiff.

Raelle slipped out from under Max's hand,

Saying,

I'll go tell Tic.

Great idea.

Max made it sound like she discovered a way to cure the common cold.

Tic was pacing the waiting lounge,

Reciting the scientific names for frogs.

She's not gonna have the baby now,

Raelle announced.

Great!

Tic jumped up,

But he wasn't smiling when he came down.

What is it?

You look sad.

She's a little freaked out.

What's wrong?

I don't know.

It was just heartburn.

Tic shrugged.

I'd be scared if I had to be taken away in an ambulance in the middle of the night.

Heartburn or all heartburn.

Yeah,

I guess.

Tiny spent the night in the hospital just to make sure.

Raelle was washing the dishes when Tiny walked in the next morning.

Tiny dragged the garbage can across the room,

Then opened the pantry door.

Starting with the spaghetti sauce they'd canned last summer,

Tiny began to throw food in the garbage.

What are you doing?

Getting rid of anything that so much as hints of being spicy or acidic,

Tony answered,

Slam dunking an onion.

Heartburn doesn't hurt the baby,

Does it?

No,

It's not the heartburn that's a problem.

It's the half-crazed response to the heartburn that isn't such a good idea.

She tossed out the tomato soup,

The Spanish rice,

And the taco sauce.

Tiny,

You're getting rid of all of our food.

Just because it might give you heartburn doesn't mean we can't eat it.

So you'd eat all this great stuff in front of me?

Tiny shouted.

Thanks a lot.

You'd enjoy torturing me?

No,

It just seems stupid that you have to throw this all out.

What Rhea really wanted to say was that it seemed like a pretty childish thing to do.

Tiny grabbed the can of soup out of the garbage.

Maybe I should give it to a church or something.

Rhea shook her head and went back to washing the dishes.

Tiny didn't stop with the food.

She said she was stress-proofing her life.

That meant no more cleaning,

No loud noises,

No lifting,

No bending,

No using the stairs,

And no flushing the toilet unless absolutely necessary.

And she went to weekly checkups with Dr.

Shields to reassure herself that nothing was wrong.

These rules didn't seem too bad,

But Tiny considered laughing too loud.

She yelled at Tick for making too much noise when he got his clothes out of the dresser.

Rhea had to keep the pans quiet when she cooked.

Tiny wanted to have her meals in bed and insisted that they play soothing classical music all day long.

For the first time in her life,

Classical music made Rhea go numb.

Did the doctor tell her to do all of this stuff?

Rhea asked Max as he searched through the stripped supplies for something to cook for supper.

No,

But I guess it wouldn't hurt.

Who?

Rhea asked.

She's gone crazy.

She wanted me to cut back the tree outside the window because she didn't like the scratching noise it made on the glass in her window.

I could do that.

Rhea wondered if she was being unreasonable.

She wanted Tiny's baby to be okay,

But she didn't want to have to tiptoe through the house for the next three months.

And still,

She had to admit that being the maid for the rest of the summer didn't appeal to her either.

Cooking and cleaning weren't her style.

So she was being selfish.

She could admit that to herself.

Rhea even made it through a whole week of catering to Tiny's every wish,

Rubbing her feet,

Fanning her with a straw hat when the electric fan got too loud,

And washing the dishes in slow motion so they didn't clink together.

But a night didn't go by that Rhea didn't scream into her pillow just to hear the noise of it in her ears.

She was so glad to see Wednesday come around again.

That she had all she could do to keep from speeding to the store.

The last thing she needed was to get pulled over by a cop,

So she kept it under 25.

Barely.

Rutherford was dusting books when she got to the house.

She could see him through this green door.

Afternoon,

Miss Rutherford.

Rhea was committed to being a polite,

Feminine girl for the day.

Then maybe they wouldn't fight.

She wore a dress.

Not a frilly froufrou one.

It was a jumper,

Really.

Red cotton with quarter-sized white buttons at the shoulders.

She even put the crate down in front of the door so he wouldn't see her carrying anything.

Rutherford's eyes widened as he came to the door.

Striking color.

He didn't say it as a compliment.

She couldn't win.

What?

You don't remember girls wearing red?

Not generally.

He opened the door.

Good afternoon,

Miss Pendle.

He moved aside to let her in.

She stepped over the crate to fight the urge to pick it up.

Rutherford stared at her like she just burped without covering her mouth.

Rhea rolled her eyes.

The guy was impossible.

He bent down to pick up the crate.

He didn't even grunt when he hoisted it up.

He had to be ancient,

But he carried it to the kitchen with ease.

How do you keep in shape,

Rhea asked as she followed him.

Your forwardness astounds me,

He said as he put the crate on the counter.

Rhea wanted to say that his backwardness was strangling her,

But she smiled and said.

Blaming a hermit for following the customs of his childhood would be like yelling at Florence Nightingale for not using penicillin.

If you must know,

I walk in the woods quite a bit.

I garden.

I clean.

I chop wood.

These things keep me fit.

Rhea watched him put his groceries away.

Flour,

Bananas,

Canned peaches,

Yeast.

Boy,

What she wouldn't give to live in a house without hamburger helper,

Potato chips,

And SpaghettiOs.

She would miss Tony's special macaroni and cheese and pizza,

But Rutherford had the right idea.

He didn't buy a single thing that hadn't come straight out of the ground and into a box or a can.

No wonder he was so darn healthy.

He'd never been introduced to junk food.

Well,

Shall we play a game of Cribbage?

You'll have to show me how to play,

Rhea.

I always got Cribbage mixed up with cricket in her hand.

Someone said Cribbage and she thought of the fancy British version of baseball where he used it to form a hockey stick for a bat and ran around a grass field.

Her aristocratic men even played on their lawns wearing these fancy shirts with his stiff collars and ties.

She always had to remind herself that Cribbage was a card game,

Something elderly people did to pass the time.

Certainly,

Rutherford smiled.

Cribbage turned out to be profoundly boring and confusing.

Each person had a hand of five cards and you got points that could move one of your picks across some stupid little board with a bunch of holes in it.

Rhea still didn't understand the game after playing it all afternoon.

She was far more interested in learning new things about Rutherford.

Have you lived here all your life?

Seems like it,

But no.

Informative,

Rhea thought.

Do you like it here?

Apparently.

I haven't left.

Where did you live before?

New Hampshire.

It's your turn.

Please go.

Where you went but you did something wrong and he tried to explain the stupid game all over again.

Give me strategic- Stratego or life or even Candyland over that stupid game,

Rhea thought.

She's about to suggest that they switch game.

When she realized they'd all been invented after women started wearing short dresses.

Do you have the game Monopoly?

That's an old one.

Never heard of it.

That was unbelievable.

Some out-of-work guy had invented it during the Depression and it had been a smash hit.

Never?

No.

Rutherford had been in his house since before the Great Depression.

Rhea tried to think of something else further back.

Anything would tell her how long he'd been in the house.

Kool-Aid.

Now that was in the 50s.

Hairspray.

What would he want with hairspray?

Wait.

He had said earlier the band-aids were invented in the 20s.

That's right.

He'd been hanging out in this old house for 50 years.

It's a board game invented in the 30s.

That's nice.

He nodded.

Go.

I could bring it next Wednesday.

We could play.

All right,

But I would like to finish this game before I turn 90.

You're almost 90?

He laughed.

I'm 88 if you must know.

Wow.

That's old,

Rhea said,

But she was instantly embarrassed.

Sorry.

He laughed again.

Don't be.

Surprises keep people young and you're chucked full of them.

I never thought of myself as being all that old.

My grandfather lived to be 117.

He shingled a roof when he was 97.

Really?

I doubt it,

But it makes for a nice story.

He couldn't even remember when he was born,

So I don't suppose he was all that accurate about his age.

Oh.

Rutherford tapped the table.

Play.

Play they did until dusk.

Rhea pushed 30 on the way home,

Half because she knew Tiny would be stressing out over her long absence,

And half because she'd finally spent time with Ian Rutherford without getting into a spat.

The old man wasn't so cantankerous after all.

You know,

Sometimes when we meet someone we have difficulty getting along with,

It's usually because they don't understand us very well,

And we don't understand them very well.

And sometimes doing something as simple as playing a game of cards allows us to get to know them better,

And allows them to get to know us better,

And relaxes us a little so that we might be able to spend an afternoon with them and discover things we never knew before.

Well,

I hope you enjoyed this chapter of Strawberry Hill.

I know I enjoyed reading it,

And I look forward to reading future chapters very soon.

Thank you for listening in.

This has been A.

Le Fay of Sylvan recipe.

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