The Village by the Sea by Paula Fox Read Free Book Online Page A

I in a very small rowboat—all that was left of her father’s fleet of boats—with several lobsters, a huge picnic hamper, blankets and so forth. We were going to one of those little islands in the bay. We hadn’t gone thirty feet from shore when the rowboat began to sink, and the lobsters floated out of the sack they were in and swam away.”
    He buttered a slice of bread, held up a jar of lemon marmalade and looked at her questioningly. She shook her head, no, wondering if Aunt Bea permitted the blackberry jam to be eaten only in her presence.
    The worried expression on Uncle Crispin’s face didn’t match the cheer in his voice. Was he thinking about a hidden bottle of brandy? Had he thrown away the plastic deer? His voice often had a pattering effect like a light rain falling on a roof. Sometimes the patter made Emma restless.
    â€œNow and then your Aunt Bea keeps to her room in the morning,” he said, not looking at Emma. “She doesn’t always sleep well.”
    Emma had seen people who were drunk on the streets, and once at home. A neighbor in her apartment house had come weeping to the door. He’d lost his key, he mumbled. Her father had supported him with one arm and found the key in a pocket of the man’s jacket. Aunt Bea wasn’t like the weeping man or the staggering people on the street. But there was something lopsided about her as though she’d lost her balance a long time ago and couldn’t get it back. Emma wished she hadn’t found the deer. It had been in her mind when she awoke that morning. It was quiet in her room. She heard a gull cry. She had thought of her father who, by that time, must be in an operating room.
    A bypass was a little road off a main one. As she visualized such a road, it changed into a country lane she and her father and mother had walked along one early evening in upstate New York. She could see herself on the lane, carrying a musty bird’s nest her father had just plucked from a bramble bush and handed to her.
    A main road to her father’s heart was blocked. Now there would be a lane, a bypass. She shivered and got up and quickly dressed. She had paused at the foot of the staircase, drawn a deep breath and braced herself for greeting Aunt Bea. When she discovered only Uncle Crispin in the dining room, she realized by the relief she felt how much she had dreaded seeing her aunt.
    â€œPlease, what time is it?” she asked him now. She could hear bacon frying and see Uncle Crispin’s back as he bent over the stove.
    â€œEight-forty exactly,” he replied.
    Emma looked down at the bread and butter on her plate. To take one bite of it would be like swallowing a whole loaf.
    Uncle Crispin was suddenly beside her, pulling a chair close to hers and sitting down. He took a table knife and cut the bread into little pieces.
    â€œTry eating it that way,” he said in a kindly voice. The worry on his face was gone; it showed only concern for her.
    â€œMom’s going to telephone me,” Emma said breathlessly.
    â€œShe certainly will,” he said. “The operation is not likely to take very long. You can go down to the beach after you eat. I’ll call you the second the telephone rings.”
    She didn’t think she could do that—leave the house before she had heard her mother’s voice.
    They both looked up at a shuffling noise in the living room. Aunt Bea appeared on the dining room threshold. Her hair stood up all over her head like milkweed in a wind. She was wearing one of the cotton robes Emma had seen in the bathroom. It was printed with tiny faded pink rabbits. Her feet were bare.
    â€œCrispin. One would like the room to be darker. Can you draw the shades?”
    â€œGood morning, Aunt Bea,” Emma said.
    â€œTea,” Aunt Bea said.
    Perhaps Aunt Bea is drunk on tea, Emma thought. As she slumped into a chair, Emma realized she had just seen her aunt standing up for