24

JEREMY, PENNSYLVANIA

1962

THE BIG DOORS OF the barn were closed much of the summer because Vincent was ill. Every once in a while, he’d manage to get out to the workshop, and Claire and Vanessa would join him there. But despite the coziness and the warm, familiar smells, the workshop was not quite the same as it used to be. Vincent didn’t seem to want to talk, and the sound of his breathing often filled the air as he whittled or painted or glued pieces of wood together. He kept his pipe in his mouth, but he never smoked it anymore.

The young deputy sheriff was around a good part of the summer, helping Vincent with the mechanical workings of the carousel. Zed Patterson. “He’s a genius at making that thing go,” Vincent would say, and then he’d laugh. “He doesn’t understand the meaning of a carousel, though, that boy. Says I should put some prettier music on the organ. What’s he expect—a little Mozart? Chopin? Not on my carousel.”

One day—it was not a Friday—Len Harte showed up unannounced. He walked into the kitchen where Claire and Mellie sat at the table hulling strawberries while Dora rolled pie dough on the kitchen counter.

Len walked straight across the kitchen floor to where Mellie sat and slapped her hard across the face. Mellie’s head snapped to the side, and his hand left a mark on her cheek as red as the berries.

Dora gasped, and Claire dropped the strawberry she’d been hulling to the floor. She had never seen her father hit a person before. He didn’t even hit her or Vanessa when they deserved it. “My God, Len.” Mellie stood up, her pale hand with its pink nails pressed against her cheek. “What’s—”

“Where’s Vanessa?” Len boomed. He looked directly at Claire, who drew her feet onto the chair and hugged her knees close to her body.

“Upstairs,” Claire said, the word barely audible. Vanessa had been upstairs most of the morning. She’d said she wasn’t feeling well.

Len stomped through the kitchen and pounded up the stairs. Mellie looked at her mother. “Why is he acting like this?” Mellie asked.

Dora was trying to press a wet cloth to Mellie’s cheek, but Mellie brushed her hand away and started up the stairs after her husband, with Claire not far behind her.

From the stairwell, they could hear Vanessa crying in little hiccupy sobs.

“Now!” Len yelled at Vanessa. “You have three minutes.”

At the top of the stairs, Mellie turned to Claire. “Go downstairs, darling. Everything’s going to be all right. You just go down and wait with Grandma, and I’ll get everything straightened out up here.”

Mellie’s cheek was still red, but she was smiling. She would fix whatever was wrong.

Claire walked slowly down the stairs. She sat at the table again while Dora ran the rolling pin this way and that over the dough on the counter. The dough was so flat that from where Claire was sitting, it looked as though Dora was rolling the pin on the counter itself. Dora talked about the state fair while Claire poked at the strawberries in the bowl. Dora spoke very loudly, as though she could overpower the screaming and shouting from upstairs and somehow prevent Claire from hearing it.

After pressing the paper-thin dough into the bottom of a pie plate, Dora pulled a coloring book and a box of crayons from the cupboard by the back door and set them on the table in front of Claire.

“Let me see you color something pretty,” she said, and though the book was far too juvenile for Claire, she obediently opened it to a picture of two robins and a worm.

It wasn’t long before footsteps thundered on the stairs and Len came flying through the kitchen. Claire looked up from her coloring only long enough to see that he was dragging Vanessa by the arm and carrying a suitcase with his free hand. Vanessa was crying so hard she was choking on her tears as her legs scrambled to keep up with his. Then Claire returned to her coloring, carefully staying inside the lines. She didn’t look up at her sister again. And she kept coloring as Mellie ran, screaming, after Len and Vanessa into the yard. That was not like Mellie. Claire squeezed the red crayon as she worked it around the robin’s fat breast. Dora talked even louder. There would be a lot of strawberry pies entered in the state fair this year, she said. The weather had been just right for strawberries. And Claire colored, and as the screaming and yelling and little sobs grew to a crescendo, she held the picture up for her grandmother to see.

Len’s car screeched away from the house and sped down the long driveway. It was a while before Mellie came back into the house. Her eyes were red, but she was no longer crying. Dora and Claire looked at her.

Mellie pulled one of the kitchen chairs close to Claire and sat down. She took both of Claire’s hands in hers. “Your daddy and I have decided to live apart for a while,” she said calmly.

What did that mean? “Are you divorced now?” Claire asked. She had a friend named Barbara whose parents were divorced. Barbara saw her father every weekend.

“Divorced!” Mellie laughed as though Claire had said something wildly amusing, and Claire smiled uncertainly. “Of course not. Sometimes a married couple needs to have some time apart. That’s all. And Daddy wanted to take Vanessa with him so he wouldn’t be too lonely. And you’ll stay with me so I won’t be lonely either.”

Mellie stood up and lit a cigarette. She walked to the counter where Dora was laying strips of dough on top of the strawberries in the pie tin.

“I believe that’s the most delicate pie crust I’ve ever seen you make, Mama,” Mellie said. “You’ll win first prize this year for sure.”