Broken China
by Thea Atkinson
Muddied tracks on a squat porch floor, frayed curtains, and a
steady stream of children coming and going, yelling and
laughing, that's my view of the world. At least it is nowadays
and promises to be for years to come. Not that I feel trapped,
mind you, or isolated. I don't think that way. Life just is, is
all, and you traipse through it day-to-day, managing small
miracles wherever you can.
Charlie's my miracle. He gave me my first piece of China back in
'55. He sat on our bed and scooped off his socks, while I tidied
around him.
"Take a look in the bag, Ann," he said, tilting his head towards
the general direction of the dry sink where a paper bag with the
letters R. H. Davis printed on the front sat on the gouged
surface.
I opened up the bag and peeked inside. You can imagine how my
heart tripped over itself when I realized it wasn't just another
piece of trash.
A tiny horse lay cushioned inside, wrapped in wrinkled tissue.
Bisque glazed a creamy tan, it had a black mane that flowed down
its neck and touched the curve of its back. I'd never seen
anything so delicate. It didn't matter that it had a missing
foot and half of its tail gone. Neither did it matter that there
was one solid crack that ran from flank to shoulder and showed
more than a share of white. I took one look at Charlie's broad
face with its stubby, rounded nose, the short chin, and I lost
my voice.
"They were just going to throw it away," he asked, seeing my
silence. "I thought it looked kind of pretty. Do you like it?"
"Like it?" I croaked. "Why, Charlie, it's the prettiest thing I
ever got."
He had a way of grinning that made my legs tremble, and he shot
me one great and glorious smile.
"It came in broken like that," he said.
I sat next to him on the bed. It creaked wickedly and sagged.
"Lucky me."
He reached out and thumbed my chin in answer. Smooth, his
fingers were, and smelled of Old Spice and back-storage-room
grime. After three years, those scents mingled had become an
aphrodisiac. I think that night was when I got sick with Danny.
That year saw two more kids in school. For once in my married
life I shipped out more than I brought in. For a sweet period of
time, I didn't feel like I was constantly swimming underwater.
I could set my clock by Charlie in those days. At 12:05 every
weekday, I'd peek through the curtains and see him with his legs
pumping, and arms a-swaying, rounding corners and heading down
the dirt street toward home. For a short man, he sure could
walk.
Dinner was always to the stove at that time of day, with onions
and carrots simmering happily on the Kemac. When I'd see him, I
knew I had enough time to ladle it up into a plate and be just
setting it on the table when he walked in. It didn't matter what
I served or how often I served it. He always barged in the door,
arms wide, face beaming, and gave a great big sniff, so loud the
kids could hear him from wherever they were in the house.
Inevitably, they all came running and charged at him.
"Wow. Something smells good, Anna."
"It's just a little rabbit stew," I said to him, and pulled kid
after kid from his lapels.
"My God, rabbit stew. Is there a family that eats any better?"
I had to roll my eyes. Maybe he wasn't sick of rabbit, but I was
about to grow fur.
Every now and then, Charlie brought another trinket home: ducks,
geese, children, fine ladies, oh, the like of them, and they
were all for me. Here in my little shack with the smell of
onions and bread and the sound of squealing children, was a
window to the unexpected. Imagine that. Anna MacIsaac, owner of
fine china.
The kids couldn't understand my pride over the little
collection. Not that I displayed them anywhere. Lordy, no. I'd
have to wait till the kids all grew up and got more responsible.
Trouble was, kids kept coming. So I had to wrap the pieces up in
paper that I got from the butcher. Sometimes I sat to the
kitchen table with a bowl of Carnation canned milk and patiently
sealed the cracks of the more fortunate pieces and glued the
less lucky ones back together.
Dorothy often watched me, sometimes they all did, whispering to
each other and staring at me as if I'd gone queer.
"Isn't it beautiful, Dort?" I asked her once, holding the
original horse.
She screwed up her nose. "But it's all cracked and broken."
I waved her away. "You wouldn't know treasure, girl, if it bit
your nose."
She tutted and went in search of a brother to bother, and I went
back to my dreams.
There was a lot in my life I could be thankful for. But like I
said, I didn't think that away. No time is granted during the
run-of-the-mill day when ten kids are howling and supper needs
fixing and laundry needs done, to even consider fortune, let
alone thank it. I just lived. The kids grew, both in height and
in number. Charlie worked and came home. Life did its thing, and
no one was the wiser.
Once in a while the years hiccupped and served me a dose of
indigestion. Sometimes it straight out poisoned me. When I took
to the bed to deliver Michael, Charlie, as usual, endured his
share of the trial.
"He's a little sickly, eh Ann?" he said, sticking his baby
finger into the squalling mouth.
I was horrified. "Are you saying there's something wrong with
our boy, Charlie MacIsaac? Cause if you are, you can blame
yourself. You with that bad stomach of yours, I tell you, your
blood is poor. You got no strength in your bones. Imagine.
Mixing that foul Scots blood with this fabulous French stuff...
We're strong, us Doucettes. I ought to curse you, you damn Scot,
you know I can. Why..."
"Enough." He kicked the bed. "Christ all mighty Anna, I was just
observing. You don't have to pull out the evil eye."
I hunkered down satisfied, ignoring the whispering inside my
mind that told me Charlie would be right in the end. Michael,
bless his soul, died in my arms and I near went mad. Charlie
held me as tightly to sanity as he could. But when Beatrice was
stillborn ten months later, the tether snapped and caught me
right in the eye.
My china calmed me though, all through the tough times. At the
worst of it, I took each piece out from its butcher paper
wrappings and handled it for hours. I'd enlist the older kids to
help reseal the re-sealed-and-come-unglued cracks. There we'd
sit, dipping fingers into a big bowl of canned milk that I'd put
on the table. Chubby fingers rained drops of white on the beaten
surface. The next day, I'd always find two or three hardened
globes that shone shiny in the early sunlight.
Ah, but it wasn't always that way. By the time my other babies
came, I was all over the turmoil. Charlie got a promotion to
salesman and got to use the company car for his sales route.
He still brought home the trinkets every so often too. And just
as often I'd get to ride in the car with him. On one trip we
went all the way to Meteghan, to the place where I'd been born.
He didn't say a word when I asked him if I could visit my
sister, Verna, and take a peek at my first girl. It's a shame I
didn't do the math; we drove all the way to my sister's house
only to discover that my girl was 17 and had moved out on her
own. Charlie just sat in the car and absently rubbed his
stomach. He knew I was upset.
"Stomach bothering you again?" I asked.
His bottom lip shoved up into his top one the way it did when he
tried to pretend something wasn't bothering him.
"It's been worse."
"Well, you better get to the doctor and get it looked after. I
got enough to worry about without having to give bed baths to
some old Scotsman."
"Whew," he said with quick grin. "Now a bed bath sounds great."
On the way home, we pulled into an old saw road and drove the
car as far into the bushes as we could. I'd had a long dry
spell. Usually, all I had to do was drop my drawers into the
same laundry basket as Charlie's, and I got sick with my babies.
Nowadays that didn't seem to matter. 42 was close enough to the
change that I thought I was safe.
Almost ten months later, a midwife proclaimed that I'd had my
last son. That was fine by me. But I did name him Mikey. I guess
I just couldn't lose the thought of the first. All told, this
one woman had given birth 16 times, 15 of those years I'd been
married to Charlie, and 12 of those kids were his. It's a good
thing he loved children. To me they were like squawking geese
pecking at my shins and flapping in my face. How I loved summer
when I could pack a couple of them off to camp with the rest of
the altar boys down at Notre Dame.
Charlie wouldn't go to church with me, not to the old church on
Albert Street with its large stained glass windows, or to the
tiny new church just down our way. He said he'd seen enough
priests drinking and smoking and being downright hypocritical to
last him a lifetime. So when the new church was built, he
refused to even step inside with me and the brood. Sunday
mornings we'd come home to a dinner Charlie had made. Usually,
it was fried hamburger with canned Campbell's tomato soup and
elbow macaroni. Lord how good it smelled when I walked in the
house. It didn't even matter to me when he got up from the table
and got sick. I guess I just never thought about it then. By
Christmas he spent more time over the toilet than he did at the
table.
"It's my stomach, Anna. It's taken to bleeding," was all he
said.
"Oh, my God, Charlie. We better get to the doctor."
He waved me away like he usually did, picking up the littlest of
the babies and setting him on his knee. Patty-caking, and peek-a-
booing, he pretended he didn't hear me.
Neither of us slept well that night. No heat came up through the
floor grate, but I knew his tossing and turning wasn't from the
cold. Finally I prodded him into a sitting position.
"Yes, Anna. I know. Get dressed." He flung his legs over the
bed, and pulled his pants from the floor. Through the yellow
light of a cheesey dime store lamp, I watched him button his
starched white shirt. As I safety-pinned my bra together, a
terrible and familiar feeling came over me.
"You know my great, great, great grandmother was burned at the
stake."
"Yeah?" he said.
"Well, I get feelings now and then."
He nodded at me. I'll never forget the look on his face. In all
of our years together, he'd never spoken of that uncanny talent
of mine. That night his face was as deadly serious as I'd ever
seen it. "I know, Anna," he whispered. "But you can be wrong
sometimes."
We shambled down the creaking stairs, and made ready to go to
the emergency room.
Unfortunately, Danny had awoken and was standing in the kitchen
on the faded linoleum staring into his father's eyes.
"Where you going Dad?"
"Just to the doctor, Dan. I might even be gone a few days. You
mind your Mama, okay?"
Danny's solemn nod would have made me chuckle any other time;
Lord, he would try to be good, but he just didn't have it in
him. That night, I was too strung to smile.
Bleeding ulcers, the doctor-on-call said. Something that could
be fixed up with a little operation. I tell you, I was never so
happy in all my life. I tucked Charlie in bed, and made my way
home. I hated that he wouldn't be home over the holidays, but I
sure was glad he was going to be okay.
He came through the operation just fine. But he looked some
little lying in the hospital bed. The white, white sheets made
even his brown face pale, and his blue eyes were circled with
black.
Every day I brought a different kid with me to the hospital to
visit their Dad.
"Dad, you look funny," Dorothy said when I brought her.
Charlie laughed straight out and held onto his belly.
"Why Dort? Why do I look funny?" He twirled her mousy pigtail
around a stubby finger.
"Well, your mustache is all grown."
I realized for the first time in the days since the operation,
that he hadn't shaved. "Why don't you get the nurses to shave
you, Charlie."
"I don't think so, Anna. They been trying to bath me all week.
And they threatened to come back tomorrow. But I'm a grown man.
I can shave myself and I can bath myself. I don't need no help."
"I'll bring your razor tomorrow."
He nodded with a satisfied grunt and sent us home. He said he
was tired and needed to sleep. That he didn't want Dorothy out
in the cold too long and it was a long walk back to Prince
street--too long a way back in the slush and snow.
I wish I could say he got his shave. That damn proud Scot. He
got up in the middle of the night, figuring he'd wash himself
before the nurses got in the next morning. Slipped and fell, he
did. And no one found him until the next day. How could I
explain to the children that their father had survived the
operation, only to hemorrhage later on. I couldn't; didn't give
any reason. And though Charlie had never set foot in Notre Dame,
he was the first man wheeled down its aisle.
All I have left of him now, are my children and my collection.
The kids are all to bed. Sleeping soundly or fitfully wrapped
around each other to keep warm. I can't sleep. The house is too
noisy in its silence. The icebox with its chronic drip keeps me
company in the cramped kitchen, the freckled countertop creaks
from the weight of boxes filled with Charlie's goods waiting for
pick-up by the Salvation Army. And, of course, I sit in the
middle of it all, handling my china piece by broken piece.
At first when I unwrapped everything, and laid it on the table,
I was amazed at how much I'd collected--how much Charlie had
given me over the years. It really is a huge collection, and I
need a much bigger bowl of canned milk. But it's hard to
remember how beautiful they were all pieced together. Now I look
at the chunks of bisque, the assorted hooves and hunks of
dresses, and various heads, and I wonder how in the Hell I'm
going to put them back together.
Thea is a freelance writer in Nova Scotia obsessed with fiction. Besides this exciting opportunity to be part of
The Danforth Review, she has had stories in QWERTY, Thought
Magazine, Regina Weese, Vestal Review, Captains of
Consciousness, Zygote, Canadian Stories, Happy,
ShyFlowers Garden, and on CBC radio one. She is shopping her latest novel and writing her seventh.
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