Chapter 4 The
Tin Box
Heather and
I walked down the block toward Petra’s house. Mrs. Conner waved “hello” as she meticulously
washed the window on her front door. I
could see her father-in-law sitting in his wheelchair by the bay window and
staring out at us as we passed their house. A while back, he had had throat cancer and had his
voice box removed. I don’t know how
he communicated with his daughter-in-law, but I supposed she did enough talking
for the both of them.
As we neared Petra’s house, I
felt a ripple of trepidation tingle up my spine. The high gothic windows embedded in the
Victorian façade seemed to be watching us as we approached. For twenty-five years this house had been
left to languish and it was in sore need of repair. The worn roof drooped low,
exposing gaps where lost shingles had long ago blown away. Dark moss crept up the steep angles of the
roof line. Ivy grew on the tall chimney,
choking the bricks as it wound its way up; the ivy’s appendages beseeching
release into sky. This certainly did
look like a house that a ghost would feel at home in. For the first time, I thought perhaps I
should have listened to my father and met Petra at the library.
“I wonder
which window belongs to Petra’s bedroom.”
Heather mumbled.
“I just hope
it’s not in the turret,” I replied.
Even before I knew that Petra’s
grandmother had been found dead in the granny attic, this house had given me
the creeps. Miss Tandy’s simple
clapboard farmhouse sat next to the daunting Victorian structure. The cozy screened-in porch filled with piles
of magazines and old newspapers was a sharp contrast to its imposing
neighbor. Miss Tandy had a hanging porch
swing that she and I would sit on during hot summer days. There was always a cool ice-filled pitcher of
iced tea on the wicker table next to the swing, waiting for any guest who might
stop by for an afternoon chat.
“What’s wrong with the turret?”
Heather asked me.
“I thought you knew. Petra’s grandmother poisoned herself in the
granny attic.”
“No way! Do you know why she did it?” asked Heather.
“I don’t know. But Petra’s mother was just a girl when it
happened. I heard that she found her
mother’s body when she came home from school.”
“How horrible! Who told you what happened?”
“It’s just gossip from the
neighbors. My mother told me about it,
but it happened before my family moved here.”
“Wow. What a shame, it’s such a cool house! Just look at all the property around it. I bet you could have a mean game of
‘kick-the-can’ and have plenty of places for all the kids in the neighborhood
to hide out.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I tried to take my
mind off of the tragic history of the house and, instead, concentrated on
spending the day with my friends.
As we walked up to the house, Petra
came bursting out of the screen door.
She ran across the front lawn and collapsed in front of us in a fit of
giggles. We tried to help her to her
feet but she wound up pulling us down on the grass with her. Lying on her back, Petra pointed up to the
sky, “Look at that! It looks like
Pegasus!” Heather and I lay down next to
her and looked up. Large white puffy
clouds broke the blue expanse that greeted our eyes. Petra was pointing to a cloud that resembled
a horse with wings flying across the sky.
“Wouldn’t you love to fly!” she
exclaimed.
“Sometimes I dream that I’m flying
above trees and buildings and I’m not afraid at all.” Heather sighed.
I thought about my own dreams but didn’t know
how to explain them. Instead I just
said, “But then you have to land. That
doesn’t scare you?”
“No.
Whatever goes up; must come down!” giggled Petra. She stood up and then said, “And whatever
goes down; must come up!” She pulled our
arms until we were standing again.
“Let’s go inside and I’ll show you around.”
Behind the front door was a large entrance
hall and, beyond that, a stairway reaching up into darkness. But the entrance hall was full of color, as
the sun found its way through the old stained glass in the large windows. There were beautiful urns and vases in a
multitude of colors decorating the hall.
Statues from ancient cities stood guard on either side of the imposing
stairway and it looked more like a museum than a house. Petra’s mom came walking into the hall from a
back room that I guessed was the kitchen.
Delicious smells from the oven followed her into the room. She had an apron on and was wiping her hands
on it as she approached. She put out her
dried hand and said, “I’m Lydia, it’s so nice to meet you girls.” Lydia’s touch was soft, warm, and confident
as she enclosed my small hand in hers.
She had fine laugh lines around her mouth and her eyes,
where the skin crinkled when she smiled.
Her large eyes were a deep dark brown and she had lush auburn curls that
hung to her shoulders and framed her pretty face. Her dimpled full-lipped smile exuded a
comfortable confidence that drew me to her.
I wasn’t used to people touching me,
so I looked down at her hand holding mine with uncertainty. After an awkward pause, I stammered, “I’m
Julie and this is my friend, Heather.”
Heather tilted her face up toward
Lydia and let go of one of her brilliant smiles. As Lydia released my hand, I felt bereft of
the energy that had flowed from her hand into mine. Lydia took Heather’s hand in hers and said,
“Pleased to meet you, Heather. You girls
make yourselves at home and when you are ready, come into the kitchen. I already made some sandwiches, and I have
some chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.” Lydia walked behind her daughter and put her
arms around her. She caressed Petra’s
hair and gently kissed the top of her head before walking back to the
kitchen. When she left, it was as if the
air had been sucked out of the room with her.
I felt a pain deep in my chest and a burning behind my eyes. I looked at Heather and recognized the same
agony in the rigid lines of her face. Neither
of us knew what it was like to have a mother like Lydia.
“The library’s upstairs; come with
me,” directed Petra.
Reaching out to Heather, I grabbed her hand and
together we walked up the stairs. Petra
explained as we reached the second floor that this was where her bedroom was
but we continued to climb up to the third floor.
“Half of this entire floor is the library and that
door leads out to a veranda overlooking the backyard. The other half of this floor is my parents’
bedroom. Above us, on the fourth floor,
is the granny attic with the turret.
There’s a cool widow’s walk looking over the back of the house. My mom says that you can see the bay from
there.”
“What’s a widow’s walk?” Heather asked.
“The story is that long ago, an ancestor of mine who
had this house built was a sea captain.
The wives of sea captains often had landings that they could walk on
that were near the roof of their homes so that they could look out to sea and
wait for their husbands to return.
Being a sea captain was very dangerous in those days and often the men
were lost at sea. So landings like these
became known as widows’ walks.”
We walked into the library; its walls were lined
with hundreds of books. Relics from foreign
lands were placed on display scattered around the bookshelves and on the walls. There were African masks, jewel encrusted
ornaments, and lengths of exotic fabric splashed across the room. Soft cushioned dark brown leather chairs were
scattered throughout, beside green desk lamps on small reading tables. Petra had turned all of the lights on and a
warm glow filled the large room. I
walked to one wall and gently ran my fingers over the bindings that read,
Bronte, Browning, Crane, Chopin, Dickens, Flaubert, Hawthorne, and
Hemingway. A light film of dust covered
my fingertips and the smell of old books filled my senses. Walking across the room I saw books by
Shakespeare, Shelley, Steinbeck, Tennyson, and Whitman. What treasures were accumulated within these
walls!
“Have you read all of these
books?” I asked in awe.
“This library has been here in this
house for a long time, but my mom has always had plenty of books. It seems like she doesn’t ever feel at home
unless there are loads of books surrounding her. She’s been reading some of them to me since
I was a little girl. But of course, I
haven’t read these books; although, I think she probably has! My mom says that these books have the answers
to all our questions. Like, once I asked
her what it was like to live during the depression, the next thing I knew we were
reading Grapes of Wrath; not my favorite book. But just bring up a question to her and
she’ll have you reading a book searching for the answer.”
“Which is your favorite?” I asked.
“Definitely, Little Women by Louisa May
Alcott, and also, the series of ‘Little House’ books by Laura Ingalls
Wilder. I’ll never forget reading The
Long, Long Winter with my mom. We
called it the Long, Long, Long, Long, Long Winter.” Petra started
laughing and shaking her head. “I didn’t
think it was ever going to end! But it
really made you think about how it must have been back then to live without all
the modern comforts we take for granted.”
“That brings us to the topic of inventions,” she
continued, “I pulled out a bunch of books I found on past inventions. Here, let’s each take a couple and look
through them. I thought that maybe they
might inspire our thought process.”
She handed me copies of The
Fabulous Story of How American Dreamers, Wizards, and Inspired Tinkerers
Converted a Wilderness into the Wonder of the World, by Mitchell A. Wilson
and The Picture History of Inventions, from Plough to Polaris, by
Umberto Eco.
Petra pointed to some notebooks and pencils on one
of the tables. “Let’s jot down some
ideas and see what we come up with.”
After pouring through a dozen books between us and
reading about the inventions of edible tie pins, an automatic hat-tipper,
bed-wetting alarms, and an electrical bedbug exterminator, we started to get
really silly.
I said, “How about a soap called ‘cheese’ that’s in
the shape of cheese and lasts for exactly 365 days. You only need to buy one bar a year!”
Heather chimed in, “And the smell drives all the
girls crazy like in the Aqua-Velva commercials!” She started going wild, attacking an
imaginary guy who had just used our cheese soap.
Petra laughed and looked forlornly at her blank
notebook, “Maybe we should be a little more practical. How about inventing a machine that does your
school projects for you? All you have to
do is just tell it what the topic is and it gives you all the information that
you need and puts it all together.”
“Far out! Then
we wouldn’t have to waste time in the library and we could play outside. It’s spring and I want to be out there!” Heather walked over to the window. “Hey what’s that?”
Petra and I walked over to the window overlooking
the backyard. There was an old wooden
structure perched in a giant maple tree.
It was cradled in a web of huge
branches. Tiny green buds appeared along
the maple’s outstretched arms.
Petra explained, “It used to be my mom’s tree house
when she was a little girl. It’s been a
long time since it was used so my dad wants to make sure it’s safe before I
climb up into it. He said he has to add
extra supports and replace some weak boards.
Maybe, after he’s finished, we can decorate it together.”
“Count me in!” I screamed.
“This is so cool!”
Heather was so excited she tripped over a chair.
“Let’s go have our sandwiches, we need fuel to
think.” Petra led us downstairs.
The kitchen had an old white enamel table with cold
matching chairs placed around it. Lydia
set out a tray of plastic wrapped sandwiches and glasses of milk as we sat
down. I looked around a room that seemed
to be suspended in time. The white
cupboards and big farm sink were from a different era.
Lydia saw me looking at the kitchen and said, “We
have a lot of renovation to do on the house, but I kind of like this old
kitchen. Although we have to update the
appliances, I think I will keep this early 20th century look.” She looked wistful for a moment as if happy
childhood memories were passing through her mind. I started to realize that Lydia had good
memories of this house as well as the sad ones.
This is where she had been a child, where she had lived with her parents. This was her home.
We were busy enjoying our lunch when a man and
little boy walked in. The man had dark
hair with grays sprinkled throughout. He
wore glasses over his huge round blue eyes and he had a handsome strong jaw and
warm smile.
Petra jumped off her stool and ran over to the man
for a hug. Putting her arm through the
crook of his, she introduced us, “Hey guys, this is my dad, John Racine, and
this is my little brother, Jack. Dad,
these are my friends Julie and Heather.”
“Hello ladies!” her father spoke with a dreamy French
accent. He came over to me and took my
hand and kissed the back of it. He did
the same to Heather and she giggled because it tickled. Little Jack, who was a miniature replica of
his father, proudly said, “Hi, I’m Jack.”
“How old are you Jack?” Heather asked.
He took in a deep dramatic breath and shouted, “I’m
five!” He then ran over and hid behind
Petra. She picked him up, carried him over
to the kitchen counter, and placed him down on a stool. She announced, “Jack is the sweetest boy in
the world!” She protectively placed her
arm around his waist to keep him from falling off the stool. He turned in his seat, kissed her cheek and
giggled.
“I didn’t know you had a little brother,” I said.
“Yeah, well, we try to hide him in the basement but
he keeps breaking out.” Petra teased.
“No I don’t!”
Jack took her seriously. “I don’t
like the basement!”
Lydia stepped in now, “You know I don’t like you
teasing your brother” she admonished Petra.
Lydia picked up Jack, gave him an Eskimo kiss and placed him back down
in front of his sandwich and a glass of milk.
Petra shrugged, smiled at Jack, and blew him a
kiss. Jack who had been glowering at
Petra stopped sulking, smiled, and blew a kiss back to her.
Lydia spoke to Heather and me, “I tell Petra and
Jack all the time how lucky they are to have each other. I know sisters and brothers like to tease but
. . . it’s so hurtful when teasing comes from someone you love.” Lydia tilted her head and looked pleadingly
at her daughter.
“Sorry mom.”
Petra looked up at Lydia. Lydia
came over to Petra and placed her hand on Petra’s shoulder and gently squeezed
her, “I know, honey.”
That was the end of it. I couldn’t ever imagine a scene like that at
my house. For my sisters and me, teasing
was a competition that we took part in daily.
As hurtful as it was, you just got caught up in the cycle.
Mr. Racine
asked, “So what are you girls doing inside on this beautiful day?”
“We’re working on a project for school. We have to come up with a product or service
to present to our English class. We’ve
been looking through the library at books on all sorts of inventions but we haven’t
been able to come up with anything that would really work,” explained Petra.
“You said it could be a service, right?” asked her
dad.
“Yeah.” We all shook our heads.
“Why don’t you develop a research service where you
girls would use our family library as the source for your research? You could offer it as a service to your
classmates.”
“Dad, what a great idea!”
“Yeah, the public library is pretty far from here
and the school library is closed on weekends.
We could be the local weekend library research center.” I liked this idea; spending time around books
was no hardship for me.
“Kids could pay us to look up the
information they need for reports. Then
we hand them the information and they write their own reports. We could even loan out books.” Petra was getting excited.
Lydia frowned, “I thought this was
supposed to be a hypothetical business?
I don’t know about loaning out our books for money. You’d have to keep track of the books and
what would you do if someone didn’t return a book or if a book got
damaged?”
“It is just hypothetical; we just have
to develop the whole concept. But you’re
right; we’ll just offer to do the research for them. We could charge by the hour or by the
project, what do you think?” Petra
asked.
“I think we should develop a price
list for research that takes an hour, half a day, one day, or the whole
weekend,” said Heather.
“Good idea, let’s do it!” Petra ran up
to get her notebook. After we wrote down
all of our ideas we took the tray of cookies out to the backyard to have a
picnic.
Lydia gave us a blanket and we laid it
down on the grass. The birds were
singing and tulips and daffodils were blooming around the edges of the
house. The trees around us were also
budding and forming the skeleton of a canopy above our heads.
“How should we decorate the tree
house?” I asked.
“My favorite color is purple,” said
Petra.
“So is mine!” said Heather.
“Mine is pink!” I offered.
“Okay,” said Petra, “Then two walls
will be pink and two walls will be purple.”
“Neat!” exclaimed Heather. “How about sticking some glow in the dark
stars on the ceiling.”
“Cool! We could use some posters too.” I offered, “I have a Peter Max poster.”
“Does the tree house have
electricity?” asked Heather.
“I don’t think so.” Petra answered. “But we can bring up battery operated camp
lanterns.”
I asked, “Do you think maybe your mom would
let us use an extension cord or even string some Christmas lights from the
attic window? Then we could have
electricity in the tree house.”
“Great idea!” exclaimed Petra.
We spent the rest of the afternoon
planning our tree house. When it was
time to go home Heather and I thanked Lydia and John for letting us use their
library. “Anytime you need to use the
library, you’re welcome to come over.
And if either of you ever want to borrow a book to read, that would be
fine too.” Lydia gave each of us a hug
and said, “Come back soon for a visit.”
Heather and I walked home past Mrs.
Connor who was now weeding the garden in her front yard. “Hi girls, did you have a nice time today?” “Oh yeah, it was a great day!” Heather
gushed.
“You spent all day in there, what’s the inside of
the house like?”
I nudged Heather to walk faster, “Sorry,
we have to get home. No time to talk
right now.” I whispered to Heather,
“Don’t even start with her, all she wants is gossip.”
Miss Tandy was rocking on her porch
swing. “Hello girls! Enjoying the nice day?” she called.
I spoke loudly so that she could hear, “Hi, Miss
Tandy! It’s nice out today, but I can’t
wait for summer!”
“Me too, be sure to stop by for some iced tea!”
“Okay, see you soon,” I replied.
We got to my house first and I ran up my front
steps, “See you in school on Monday!”
She waved goodbye as she continued on her way home.
Inside, my mother was getting ready for dinner. I watched her as she set the table and I
thought about my family. My parents
provided us with a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on our
table, and a good education. So why did
I feel so numb? What more did I
want? But now that I had glimpsed the
kind of love that families could share, I felt cheated. It was hard to acknowledge this because I
felt guilty about not appreciating what I did have. Many nights I sat at the table and pushed the
vegetables around on my plate and was told that “children were starving in
China!” Sometimes, my sisters and I
would complain that we were full. But my
dad would just make us walk up and down the hallway until we had “made some
room” for the rest of our dinner.
I washed my hands and went to sit at the kitchen
table. My father sat down, took off his
belt and laid it across his lap.
“Mary, your mother told me that we’re almost out of
shampoo again. Are you still washing
your hair twice each time you take a shower?
If you insist on doing that, then I’m going to take the cost of the
shampoo out of your allowance.” My dad
was annoyed with Mary. Mary tried to
explain that she had read the directions on the shampoo bottle that said you
were supposed to wash your hair twice each time. But considering that her allowance was only 25
cents a week, it would take two months to pay for one bottle of shampoo. So she gave up and said, “I’ll only wash my
hair once from now on.”
My mother
tried to change the subject as she placed the chicken cutlets on the table, “So
how was everything at Petra’s house?”
“Petra’s parents are really nice and she has an
adorable little brother named Jack. We
decided to use a service for our English project. We can use Petra’s library to do research
for the kids in class. By the way, Lydia
said I could borrow books from the library to read.”
“Really!” My
dad was impressed. My love for reading
had been inherited from him. One time he
said to me that the worst thing that could happen to him would be to lose his
sight. He couldn’t imagine not being
able to read anymore.
Mary said, “You’d better clean your room before you
start borrowing books. You’re bound to
lose them in that mess.” Annoyed, I
glared at her. Why did she have to bring
that up? I was having such a great day,
now she had to ruin it for me. I looked
at my father to see if he was going to add to Mary’s criticism.
Angie added sarcastically, “More books! That’s just what you need! Like you don’t spend enough time buried in
the ones you have.” I felt like it was a
physical blow. This is what we did to
each other. In order to save ourselves,
we threw each other to the lions. Angie
shook her head in disapproval and then reached for the bread across the table,
“Juliana, you’re a cross-eyed bookworm.”
My father took his fork and stuck it into the back
of Angie’s hand. “Don’t grab,” is all he
said, but he gave me a wink that she didn’t see.
Every night, I mechanically kissed my mother and
father on their cheeks before heading up to bed. It was expected and it was necessary. Inspired by Petra’s family, tonight I felt
bolder than usual. My parents were
watching television in the recreation room.
My mother was sitting on the couch and my father in his recliner.
I walked over to my mother and put my arms around
her in a hug. She pushed me away with a
nervous uncomfortable laugh and rubbed her arms as if to rub off my touch. Flustered, she said “Good night and don’t
read too late, we are going to ten o’clock mass in the morning.” She dismissed me and looked back at the TV.
After that, my courage abandoned me. I dutifully walked over to my father and
kissed his cheek. As I walked up to my
bedroom, I brushed quickly at my eyes so that Angie wouldn’t see the
tears. I wondered how I could feel so lonely when I
was surrounded by my family, but the fact was, I did. I said to myself, at least you have them,
Heather doesn’t really have anyone. But
in spite of that knowledge, I felt the emptiness engulf me.
