Part 1: THEN
Miss Doe was a rocker.
She could not speak and she only heard what she chose to but she was a rocker from the earliest morning sunrise till long after it had set in the evening.
In an endless supply of flower patterned gowns covering every possible inch of skin below the neck, pale hands peeking out beneath fraying lace trim, she would rock in a chair I had rarely seen empty, staring out a window beyond which life traveled and hummed and of which she had no part.
When I was four minutes old, they placed me in her arms and she rocked me for my first of many breaths, every day, year in year out, until I reached the age of eight and assured my mother that I no longer needed to be rocked to sleep or for any other reason for that matter, that I was a near grown girl and could take care of myself. As I made my speech, Miss Doe turned eyes on me, hazy blue with cataracts, and never reached for me again. Not for a child’s needs anyway. There came a time much later. But I was a different person by then and long forgiven my insolence.
Her presence in my home was never questioned; it was simply accepted that she was there, it was acknowledged that one might speak to her, but that she would not or could not answer one back. I remember seeing my mother being rocked, my father on a few occasions (once when my two month old sister Gracie passed away, and again when his mother died), my two older brothers, often at the same time (they were twins), nearly every neighbor on our road and many many others about whom I had no idea.
There was a worn pathway from our front door, across the hard wood and into the sitting room where Miss Doe spent her days. Mother had stopped waxing that part of the floor the year before I was born; there was no point, the wax never had time to dry before another set of footprints was leaving a tacky tread in a familiar direction, deepening the groove, and adding to the growing road map of scars and scratches that lay underneath.
New babies were a given. At least ten a year in my town, all brought to Miss Doe within moments of their births, to be rocked while the family member who had brought them would sit in the kitchen with mother, drinking coffee, pinching off pieces of cake my mother invariably had sitting on the table (in anticipation of the event), yawning and rubbing eyes red and watery with lack of sleep.
Wounded children were second on the list. Before the hospital and after the initial shock, frantic mothers would rush in through a front door rarely locked, and thrust a screaming youngin’ into Miss Doe’s arms, backing away as if frightfully grateful to be rid of the bleeding thing. There they would stand, wringing hands, feet in motion as if marching, eyes expectant. These were my favorite of all the visits. I would watch from the hallway, peeking into the shadowy room as light spilled onto Miss Doe and the wriggly child in her lap, and begin to count. In all my years of counting, I never made it higher than forty-five before the tot, pale and hiccupping, was curled into Miss Doe’s chest blinking up into her face and winding grubby fingers into the folds of her dress.
A nod, and mother would swoop in, exchanging one pair of arms for another, and a child might never even realize what had just taken place. Whatever bleeding there was before those forty five seconds never seemed to show itself afterward nor was any ever witnessed on the dark busy pattern of Miss Doe’s gown. I looked. It simply wasn’t there.
Teenagers (usually girls) were the most predictable. A carload of blonde squealing cheerleaders would pull up to the curb and a tear- and make-up streaked face would emerge from the group. The heartbroken lass (it was always heartbreak, there was no other malady for a sixteen year old girl) would jog up the walk in the way only teenage girls know how to do, arms scissoring back and forth in front of their bodies, ponytails bouncing in the sun, a wad of ratty tissues clenched in one hand.
They always knocked. They waited patiently for mother or myself to open the door and they would simper for a moment and ask if Miss Doe was available for consultation. I was quick to usher them in, but mother would try to engage them in conversation first, usually to no avail, and she would eventually lead them by their petite sweater-clad elbows down the hall and into the awaiting arms of Miss Doe, who had already seen them when they’d pulled up in front of the house.
Widows and widowers were next, thankfully not too often, because they always stayed the longest. There was one woman whose husband had died tragically when a grain silo collapsed with him inside who was three days in the sitting room, barely eating and only climbing down from the comfort of Miss Doe’s body to stretch out on the couch and sleep for a few hours. On the third day, she emerged, drawn and hollow-eyed but with a smile for mother who was presenting her with a funeral cake to take back to the family. They spoke in whispers for a few minutes and when a blue station wagon honked its horn outside, the widow left, cake in hand, clothing wrinkled, and shoeless. It was determined later that she wasn’t wearing any when she’d arrived but no one had noticed at the time.
Death destroys decorum and custom alike, without discrimination.