12
45 As Jessie scrubbed the breakfast dishes, she said a prayer that she must have prayed a thousand times since the day the jar with her mother’s letter in it hit the water. She prayed that her mother would stay strong and healthy, the good weather would hold, and there would be no storms, at least not until her father came home. Last night she had had a terrible dream. A wall of water, a tidal wave, had knocked the lighthouse off its foundation and swept them— “Jessie!” Her mother’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Is there something wrong? I’ve been calling your name and you haven’t heard me.” She stirred another spoonful of sugar into her tea and said, “You’ve been doing that a lot lately, honey. Are you not feeling well?” The heavy platter Jessie was washing slipped out of her hands and fell back into the wash basin sending water cascading over the side. She was so tired of all the lies she had told. She wanted to throw her arms around her mother and tell her what she had done with the letter. But when she opened her mouth, the words wouldn’t come out. Instead she said, “Oh, I guess I’m worried. I mean, I’m just tired.” Rubbing her forehead, her mother sighed. “I guess that makes two of us tired and worried. I don’t know why we haven’t heard anything from the Lighthouse Service. They know the 12 storms are only a few weeks, if not a few days, away. I thought surely there would be a letter in yesterday’s mail.” Jessie turned back to her scrubbing. From the warmth that rose up in her face, she knew it was red. A tear rolled down her cheek and into the soapy water. She could hardly remember what it felt like to be able to say what she really wanted to say, to just tell the truth without having to think about every word. Stiffly getting up from the table, her mother straightened herself up. Brushing aside the window curtains, she looked out. “Oh, dear,” she said, “the wind’s picked up and I left my polishing cloth tied to the railing. It’s my best one. I don’t want to lose it.” She rearranged the curtains and, turning to Jessie, added, “But I’m just too tired to go back up right now.” Jessie wondered if maybe, just maybe, her mother had left the cloth tied to the balcony’s railing on purpose, as a test. No, her mother wouldn’t do that. Her mother wouldn’t think of doing something like that. She looked at the dark shadows under her mother’s eyes and noticed for the first time how thin her face had become. “I’ll get the cloth, Mama. You rest,” she said, drying her shaking hands on the towel. Her mother came over to where Jessie was standing and, putting her arms around her, assured her, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t think you can, Jessie. It’s my job to be outside up there.” “I’ll get the polishing cloth, Mama. I said I would.” Jessie tried to keep her voice from shaking. Her mother kissed her on the cheek. Then, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she made her way up the steps to her bedroom. Jessie kicked the black iron leg of the cookstove. A sharp pain shot through her big toe. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m crying because my toe hurts,” she told herself. 46 ...
OR
