Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund Read Free Book Online Page A

girl that I was, jumped upand down with her. Breathlessly, I asked could we pick the roses and could we pet the goats, and my aunt sent us off to do whichever we preferred without demanding so much as the semblance of proper introductions.
    We scampered away, through a gate, up rocks till I knelt to pet a little white goat, and its hairs were very distinct, long and wiry, not nearly so soft as a cow’s, but less sharp than a pig’s. With its insistent, solid little head, the kid nuzzled hard against my chest and hurt me where my bosom was beginning. I looked up from my kneeling to Frannie and, laughing, said, “Make her stop butting.”
    â€œYou can’t make her do anything,” Frannie answered. “You yourself must stand up.”
    But she took the goat by her shoulders and pulled her back. I stood up, and then the goat butted at my knees.
    â€œDoes she have a name?”
    â€œYou can name her.”
    â€œShe’s ‘Apron,’ then, because she is white as your apron.”
    Then I looked up and, for the first time since our landing, noticed the Lighthouse, which was, indeed, a great gray tower so stern and austere in its height that I let my gaze slide down to the cottage.
    â€œI’ve named the Lighthouse,” Frannie said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHis name is ‘the Giant.’ ”
    I thought it fit him perfectly, and I took Frannie’s hand, and we walked rather soberly back to our mothers, who, from that little distance, appeared as blotches of windblown color. My mother’s dress was ocher, as was my own, and Aunt Agatha’s dress was deepest indigo. I was startled that here on the bare rock of the Island, colors suddenly had meaning, as though the light itself were defining. Only the stone of the Lighthouse seemed sullen, as though there was no color there to be brought out by even the strongest sunlight. My mind went dizzy with abstraction—the great gray upward sweep, and at its base, a blotch of yellow, a blotch of blue: mothers.
    â€œHe can’t move,” Frannie said confidentially. “He can’t step on us.”
    Â 
    O UR MOTHERS’ NAMES were complementary—Agatha and Bertha. Their names belonged together. I wished my mother would not goback to Kentucky, but she planned to stay with us on the Island only a week.
    My mother was slightly taller than her sister, and her dark brown hair tended more toward black than red; it was parted smoothly in the middle and soft wings framed her lovely forehead. Aunt Agatha was shorter, and rounder, like her daughter; her brown hair tended toward red, and it was frizzy. She pulled it straight back from her forehead, but a cloud of fine frizz hovered at all the edges. About Agatha, who was the older, there was a certainty, while about my mother, the dominant air was gentleness. I later came to think that they both knew the foolishness of the world, to which Agatha remained unyielding while my mother, less certain that any view could be absolute, responded with pliant accommodation.
    For our first meal, they sat together on one side of the rough table, Frannie and I sat together on the other, and Uncle sat at the end of the table facing a small window. From my bench, it was easy to watch the two sisters, and I rather regretted that I did not myself have a sister who was a friend and with whom I could compare myself, the better to understand both my singularity and our commonality. But I had Frannie.
    I saw that little Frannie was mostly a replica of her mother, though she had Uncle’s green green eyes. I had Agatha’s eye color, which was the same deep blue as her dress, but my hair color was dark, like my mother’s. The texture of my hair was even more wavy and frizzy than Agatha’s, and everyone who saw it in Kentucky said I had gypsy hair. My body was and is slender, like my mother’s. I was glad of that, as I didn’t like large breasts on women, though they