Watermelon Syrup: A Novel

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ing rattled unevenly. The room smelled sour and medicinal and of old woodsmoke, and she’d realized then how sick Mama really was. She felt numb as she climbed into bed beside Hildy. When Renate asked more questions about Waterloo, she begged off, saying she was too tired after her long train trip, that she’d tell them more stories tomorrow. She could hear Maria’s and Renate’s even breathing from the other narrow bed across from hers and Hildy’s, and she could see a high pale crescent out of the small window. It had finally stopped snowing. The sky was black silk, covered with tiny diamonds. Something howled in the distance. A wolf? Perhaps only a freezing farm dog.As she closed her eyes, she imagined the deep white silence of the prairie expanding until it circled the whole globe, leaving their small log house a dot no bigger than a pinprick. thirteen “Lexi! Come!” Mama’s voice, weak though it was, had an angry edge to it. Lexi scraped the dough off her fingers, squished it into the ball she was kneading, then gave the loaf another small punch before she wiped her hands on her apron. She ran into her mother’s bedroom, her heart pounding. Papa, Renate and Maria had gone off to school and Hildy was at the kitchen table, playing with an old doll that had once been hers. Her mother’s cheeks were splotched with red as if the blood had been forced to the surface by her agitation. She seemed to be trying to get out of bed. “Mama! Don’t exert yourself.” She moved closer to the bed, not exactly sure what to do but wanting to pull the covers up around her mother more tightly, to keep her safely cocooned. Mama tried once again to get up and then fell back, exhausted. “What is it, Mama?” She touched her mother’s shoulder gently. Mama pointed at the large white enamelled chamber pot in the corner , and Lexi felt her face instantly flame up. 102 Annie Jacobsen jacobsen_text 8/27/07 10:05 Page 102 “Let me help you up,” said Lexi, awkwardly taking one of her arms. Her hands were shaking. “Ach, I’ll do it by myself yet!” her mother almost growled, and shoved Lexi’s hands away. She made another huge effort to rise, pushing at the heavy covers as if she were rolling out dough. Lexi pulled the comforters back so that Mama could move. Her thick ankles and bunioned feet stuck out from under the nightgown like engorged claws. Mama awkwardly moved to a sitting position, dragging each of her swollen legs across the bed until they fell down to the floor. She allowed Lexi to take her arms to help her to walk to the chamber pot.When they had taken two steps, Mama scowled and motioned for Lexi to pull the pot out from the wall, to position it so that she could sit on it. Lexi’s arms strained to hold Mama’s body in position as she slowly lowered her onto the pot. At the same time, she clumsily lifted the nightgown up and tried not to look, but couldn’t help seeing how the red creases across Mama’s ankles, feet and shins made them look like sickening white sausages about to burst. She hated seeing the flat, withered buttocks. She held Mama’s hands to balance her as she sat on the pot. Neither of them could look into the other’s eyes. She waited until her mother nodded, and then handed her two pieces of newspaper from the pile in the corner. She held on with one hand, looking away, wincing at the sickly smell. Back in bed, Mama slipped almost instantly into sleep, eyeballs flickering underneath her closed eyelids, her breath a light, bubbling snore. Lexi tucked strands of her mother’s hair back behind her ears. The thumping of her own heart was finally subsiding. Mama’s loose grey hair made her look almost childlike and, at the same time, very ancient. Lexi stood and looked at the worn face. Mama was forty-three and yet she looked like an old, old woman.The lines in her skin were deeper and sadder than she’d ever seen them, and suddenly she couldn’t imagine her mother well again. Her earliest memory of her Mama, beautiful and young, was of her standing in a field in...