Cassie Binegar Read online

  In Margaret Mary’s bedroom there was a place for everything and the bed was so neat that Cassie wondered if Margaret Mary actually slept in it.

  “Your parents are nice,” said Cassie, suddenly shy.

  Margaret Mary looked up, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “They are nice.”

  “Your house is nice, too,” said Cassie, sitting on the bed. “And your room,” she added. Cassie stood up. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Margaret Mary smiled and pointed.

  “It’s there,” she said, grinning. “It’s nice, too.”

  Cassie grinned back at Margaret Mary. Then they both laughed. Cassie had not yet heard Margaret Mary laugh. It was very loud and noisy, and it seemed to bounce off the clean painted walls and tumble around the neat room. The idea of Margaret Mary, proper and prim, laughing like someone’s uncle made Cassie laugh even harder. They rolled around on the bed, their arms clasped over their stomachs, gasping, sitting up to look at each other, then collapsing again.

  “What are we laughing about?” asked Margaret Mary, trying to look serious. This made them laugh more.

  After a while, Cassie sat up, drying her eyes. Margaret Mary sat up next to her, both of them quiet, shy again, looking at their feet. Cassie stared at her sneakers, one taped over a toe, white shoelaces in one, brown in the other. Then she looked at Margaret Mary’s feet: pink socks with lace edgings, brown shoes with straps hooked over pearl buttons.

  Cassie sighed.

  “You have matching clothes,” she announced.

  Margaret Mary nodded.

  “And ribbons and dresses,” Cassie added. She got up and walked over to the closet where Margaret Mary’s dresses hung in neat rows, one to a hanger. Matching ribbons hung on a hook just inside the closet.

  “Maybe I should try matching ribbons,” she said thoughtfully.

  Margaret Mary reached over Cassie’s shoulder, picking out two green ribbons. Together, they stood in front of the mirror, Margaret Mary trying to gather the wild wisps of Cassie’s hair into a pigtail on one side, Cassie the other. Her arm up, Cassie could see that there was a hole in the underarm of her shirt. They stood, side by side, looking at their reflections. Margaret Mary tipped her head, studying Cassie. Cassie tried to smile at herself, but she couldn’t.

  “I look,” she said sadly, “like a package.”

  “Cassie,” said Margaret Mary, “your hair is splendid and free. It shouldn’t be tied up in ribbons.” Then, seeing Cassie’s sad look, she added, “They’re only ribbons, Cass.” She bent her head toward the closet. “They’re only dresses. They’re only socks.”

  Slowly, Cassie reached up and untied the green ribbons. She handed them to Margaret Mary.

  “But everything here is so neat and uncluttered,” she said, watching Margaret Mary hang the ribbons back on the hook.

  “And safe,” she added softly, surprising herself.

  Margaret Mary put her hand on Cassie’s shoulder and they looked at each other in the mirror, Margaret Mary so slim and fair-haired, Cassie, her hair so wild, her eyes sad.

  “Only safe and uncluttered on the outside, Cass,” said Margaret Mary softly. She gestured. “This is all the outside. It doesn’t matter. It only matters if you’re safe and uncluttered on the inside.”

  Inside, outside, thought Cassie as she went to Margaret Mary’s bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she saw that Margaret Mary was right about the bathroom. It was nice. There were no hairs in the sink, no remnants of soap bars to be scratched off. The lid of the clothes hamper was closed tightly, not like in Cassie’s house where the clothes tumbled out and around and behind. Cassie sat on the edge of the bathtub and leaned over to open the hamper with one finger. At the bottom, very neatly folded, was one blouse. Cassie picked it up. It was not dirty.

  Inside, outside, Cassie repeated silently as she and Margaret Mary walked beside the evening sea toward Cassie’s house. She didn’t understand. It didn’t have anything to do with her insides. If Cassie’s family would only move back where they lived before, things would be all right again, wouldn’t they? Things would be uncluttered. Things would be safe, the way they had been. Cassie thought about Papa. Or would they? The gentle waves along the inlet reached for their bare feet. The stars were scattered across the sky. Cassie watched Margaret Mary, walking beside her. Cassie straightened up and practiced walking delicately, one foot carefully in front of the other, like Margaret Mary. “Inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside,” she whispered to the rhythm of her steps as she walked home, trying to understand the meaning of Margaret Mary’s message.

  4

  Gran

  CASSIE AWOKE LATE the next morning. The sun was high, and Cassie sat on the edge of her bed, thinking about Margaret Mary. She reached for her thesaurus and took out her notebook and pen. Margaret Mary, she wrote: proper, perfect. She frowned a bit, thinking of Margaret Mary’s wild laughter. Confusing, mysterious, she added.

  “Cass,” her mother’s voice came up the stairs. “You’re late getting up today. Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” called Cassie.

  “I’ll need help.” She could hear her mother coming up the stairs. “Gran’s coming tonight.” Her mother stood there, filling the doorway.

  Gran. Cassie’s heart began to pound. She had forgotten. No, not really forgotten. Gran had always been there on the edges of each day, like the memory. And like the dream that had begun to blur the memory.

  “Maybe you could wear the shirt she sent you, the one with the embroidery? She’d like that.”

  Cassie nodded. Her mother paused, looking at her, her eyes bright and sharp, like Gran’s. But she said nothing, and after a moment, she left.

  Cassie walked slowly to the closet and took down a blue denim shirt. She held it up and looked at the many stitched memories on it that Gran had sewn for her. A large tree, her tree back home. A rose, one that she and Papa had grown and tended together. “Dang rose!” Papa had yelled at it once. At her surprised look he had explained, “Flowers need stern words. Everything needs stern words at one time or another.” A small rowboat, light blue, that she and Gran had rowed together on the back pond, talking and trailing their fingers in the water, watching the turtles sunning, then slipping into the water when they rowed near. A candy box with a red ribbon. Cassie smiled, thinking of the chocolates that she and Gran had always eaten, hidden, in secret places. Once in the backseat of her mother’s car, Gran and Cassie had stuffed them greedily into their mouths, warm and melting from the box. “What are you eating?” her mother had asked. “Remember, no snacks before dinner.” “Why, we know that, Kate,” her Gran had said matter-of-factly. “Celery sticks and carrots,” she had replied, making Cassie giggle. “But I hear no crunching!” Cassie’s mother had insisted, trying to look at them in the rearview mirror while Cassie and Gran burst into laughter, happily locked into a secret of their own.

  Cassie sighed and tried on the shirt. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, then she took out her notebook with her poem “Spaces” in it. She read the first two verses, then she wrote:

  My clothes are spaces, too: a shirt,

  My pants

  My socks

  A dress

  A skirt,

  And in my shoes, below my clothes

  Are spaces there

  for

  all

  my

  toes.

  Not good verse, she thought. But not bad either. Fair to middling, she thought, remembering one of Gran’s expressions. As she slipped the notebook back in her drawer, she saw the two tissue-wrapped packages that she had almost forgotten were there. Her hand stopped over one. It was the grandfather doll that had once belonged to her dollhouse. When Papa had died, she had taken it out of the dollhouse and wrapped it up, hiding it in the back of her drawer. She reached in and picked up the other package and slowly unwrapped the wrinkled paper and took out a new doll in a velvet dress with a long whit
e apron trimmed in ribbon. A grandmother doll with gray hair pulled back in a black band. Cassie thought about her Gran who, unlike the doll, insisted on wearing jeans most of the time, and boots or sneakers.

  Cassie walked over and stared at her dollhouse. Though the dollhouse was old, the doll family was new and perfect. A mother, a father, two brothers, and a girl. They were dressed in soft and proper clothes and were all in their places. Cassie had always loved moving them around, putting them where they belonged; the mother in a long lavender dress in the dining room with her china dishes, the father before the fireplace reading a book, the brothers in their rooms. And the girl? Cassie moved the girl about, from one room to another, but there was never a right place. Cassie sighed and picked up the girl doll. The grandmother doll in one hand, the girl in the other, she held them in front of her, as if weighing them. Finally, after peering into each room, she shook her head. She put the girl doll in her pocket. Then, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug, she leaned the grandmother doll against the front door, where the doll, patient and silent, waited for someone to let her in.

  “Mom, how will Gran be?” Cassie and her mother, both hot from the sun, dressed in old clothes, had been cleaning the cottage that sat high on the bluff.

  Cassie’s mother straightened up, the cleaning cloth in her hand.

  “Be?” she asked. “Be,” she repeated again, and Cassie could see that her mother understood, for her face softened.

  “Gran will be just as Gran has always been, Cass,” she said. “It is Gran’s life that has changed some, not Gran.”

  Cassie, not understanding, shook her head. Her mother took her hand and led her outside, the two of them sitting on the stone steps.

  “It has been hardest for you in one way, Cass, because you have not seen Gran since Papa died. Or spoken to her. But I have. Gran is the same. Something has gone from her life, it’s true, but she is still Gran. Her life has shifted a bit. Moved.” Cassie’s mother turned Cassie’s hand over, looking at the palm as if reading something there. “A new pattern, Cass.”

  Cassie stared at her mother, unable to answer, afraid she would cry, half wishing she could.

  “Poor Cass,” murmured her mother, pulling her close. “Poor Cass, who wishes that things never changed.”

  Maybe, thought Cassie, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder, things wouldn’t have changed. Maybe if I’d told Papa I was sorry for yelling, he would still be here. Maybe. Maybe. But these were words she couldn’t say. Not ever.

  Gently, Cassie pulled away from her mother.

  “When is Gran coming?”

  “After fishing,” said her mother, “Dad will bring her.” She looked at the sun. “I’d better get to work, Cass. You can stop if you want. Go see Margaret Mary. You’ve worked hard enough.”

  Cassie shook her head and watched her mother. There was a smudge across her forehead and her long wild hair had tangled in a gold earring. She looked like a happy gypsy, and Cassie smiled.

  “I’ll stay and help,” she said. She turned and looked out at the ocean, beyond the inlet, trying to see this place as her mother did. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t.

  It was later, much later, when all the hardest work was done and Cassie was setting the table for dinner, that she heard the sound of the truck coming up the hill. She ran to the window, watching. Her brothers unloaded the fishing gear and lobster pots from the back. Her father opened the truck door and helped Gran down from the high seat. Gran, with her gray hair tied back with a ribbon, and her long legs, like Cassie’s and her mother’s, in jeans.

  And then, the kitchen door swung open, bringing in the sea wind and her family and Gran. John Thomas caught Cassie up in his arms and whirled her up to the ceiling, where in spite of the clamor of the kitchen, Cassie suddenly felt exposed and alone. She saw Gran’s sharp eyes looking at her. For a moment, she surprised John Thomas with unexpected affection, burying her face in his neck, hiding in the smell of the sea. Then he put her down and she went to hug Gran.

  “Oh Gran,” whispered Cassie, the words suddenly flowing from her like high-tide water going up and over a dune. “I’m sorry . . .”

  “Sorry?” said Gran in a crisp voice. “Surely not sorry that I’m here?” She pushed Cassie back to look at her. “Sorry that you seem to be more beautiful? Sorry for this slanted floor? What is the matter with this floor, Kate? Sorry that we have lots of time to go rowing and talk?” She bent down and whispered in Cassie’s ear, “I have chocolates.” Then louder, “No. There’s plenty of time to be sorry. Right now I must change clothes and unpack and have a snack of celery sticks and carrots. Upstairs. Coming?” She paused and looked at Cassie.

  Cassie laughed suddenly, a sound that startled her. It was all right. Gran was still Gran. And, Cassie thought, as she followed Gran up the stairs, right after supper I must put the grandmother doll where I know it belongs. Inside the dollhouse.

  5

  Wishes

  GRAN AND CASSIE sat in the lee of a dune, the sun warm on their legs, watching the faraway figure of Margaret Mary approach. Cassie knew it was Margaret Mary because of the wind. It was blowing hard, and sometimes Margaret Mary’s braids stood out straight behind her.

  “I like the wind,” said Gran. “It’s like someone’s trying to talk to me.”

  Cassie thought about the rattling of the windows in the old house at night and how she hated it, covering her ears, trying to hide beneath the bedcovers.

  “You’re really different,” said Cassie, looking at Gran.

  “Different-changed or different-unusual?” asked Gran, a handful of sand sifting through her fingers.

  “Different-unusual,” said Cassie.

  “Well, I should hope so,” replied Gran matter-of-factly.

  Cassie watched Margaret Mary’s slow progress around the bend of the inlet.

  “Margaret Mary’s different-unusual, too,” she said. “She wears socks that match her dresses and speaks with an English accent.” Cassie looked sideways at Gran. “And her mother wears high-heeled shoes that make clicking sounds, and she has plastic flowers. They are beautiful. All the time.”

  Cassie waited and Gran looked at her quizzically.

  “Is this some kind of test?” she asked.

  Cassie frowned. “I just wondered what you’d think.”

  “Not really,” observed Gran. “You’re telling me what you think.”

  Cassie was irked, and there was a long silence while they watched Margaret Mary bend down and pick up something from a tidal pool. A black-backed gull wheeled directly overhead, its lonely croak startling them both. The clouds parted and the sun shone suddenly. Cassie shaded her eyes with her hand and looked at Gran, stretched out beside her. The sun sat cruelly on Gran’s face, outlining the wrinkles and the folds of skin under her chin. Why, thought Cassie with fear crawling up her spine, she’s an old woman. She remembered thinking that her Gran was the most beautiful thing in the world, her hair in soft folds swept up on her head, her skin soft and smooth. Now all of that was gone. Cassie remembered her mother’s words, “Poor Cass, who wishes that things never changed.” Cassie did wish that. She wished it now and always.

  “Yes, I have wrinkles,” said Gran. She had opened her eyes and was looking at Cassie. “And I am getting old faster than you are.”

  Cassie flushed and moved uncomfortably. Gran put her hand over Cassie’s and Cassie could see that the once smooth hand was now gnarled, the veins making ugly blue roads.

  A shadow fell over them, and they looked up to see Margaret Mary standing above them, her head outlined in the sun. Cassie scrambled up, grateful for the interruption.

  “This is Margaret Mary.”

  “And you’re Cassie’s grand-mum,” said Margaret Mary, smiling.

  “Sit down, Margaret Mary,” said Gran. “We were just talking about wishes.”

  Cassie looked sharply at Gran. Were they? How did she know? How could she see?

  Margaret Mary dove, headlong, dre
ss and socks and all, into the dune and rolled over.

  “Wishes?” she said. “I have lots. I wish for hamburgers daily, fresh rhubarb, and to do something brave and wonderful.”

  “Do you have wishes, Gran?” asked Cassie.

  “I used to, Cass. I seem to have used them all up by now, except for one or two. I can remember wishing to be a Royal Canadian Mountie when I was your age.”

  “You did?” exclaimed Margaret Mary, enviously. “I wish I had thought of that wish.”

  “You may have it,” said Gran kindly. She turned on her side. “What do you have there, Margaret Mary?”

  Margaret Mary opened her hand. “A creature of some sort,” she said. “I found it down there.” She pointed toward the inlet.

  “A hermit crab,” said Gran, smiling.

  Margaret Mary put it down on the sand and the bunch of legs emerged from the shell, pushing it along. The crab traveled fast, as if it had somewhere to go, a mission all its own, safe and secure in its shell.

  Cassie thought about her poem “Spaces.” She had read the first three verses to Gran the first night she had come. Gran had listened, tilting her head slightly to one side, just like Cassie’s mother. But when Cassie had finished Gran had only smiled at her.