Free The School on Heart's Content Road by Carolyn Chute Page A

St. Ongeis ever so stark of expression, eyes leveled on whoever or whatever it is that turns her head. Reflections of the kettles and dippers, and the many strewn Settlement-made ceramic plates and cups painted a pretty eggnog yellow, purl and flurry on the glass parts of her specs. A dimple by her mouth once seemed girlish; now, at age fifty, it increases her severity with a look of clenching jaw.
    She is short while standing, short while sitting. And fat. Not pudgy. Not chubby. Not stocky. But fat. Her long graying black hair, often worn up and out of the way, sometimes with Swiss-looking embroidered sewing-shop trim or a barrette, is free today. It forks partly over one mighty arm and mighty breast, partly down her back. Her work shirt is pale chambray and tight. Her wedding ring is silver and plain as are the rings of all the St. Onge wives, none etched, knurled, or exclusive.
    She raises her chin, staring off flatly into a chaotic memory. With her old steel-rimmed glasses (found in a trunk with ancient tools?) she possesses that sepia dignity of all 1800s people preserved in frames today as they waited then for the photographer’s black-powder flashes.
    Beside her at the table (empty of other breakfasting Settlementers), the towering one’s face lurches through dozens of expressions. In a photo of any era, he would blur or be caught with one or both eyes closed, the illusion of no mouth or two mouths. Claire and Gordon. Such a pair! And truly in years past, they were only a pair, not this branching out, thicker tree of their current lives.
    In a future time, Claire remembers more of that morning.
    Through the nearby doorway into the Cooks’ Kitchen there was yipping and yowling like coyotes, the breakfast clean-up crews in true form. Mostly teens long-leggedly galloping by with bins or trays, a few smaller helpers trailing along asking squeaky questions and carrying a real big spoon or towel. I forgot which kid it was who patted me on the head, but it was Heather who kissed me on the head as she passed by with a wet rag in each hand. Heather was twelve. You see, it was their little joke about how I had become much shorter. Actually,
they
had grown too tall for me to kiss or pat
them
on the head anymore.
    Glennice pushed a ceramic cup of coffee toward Gordon’s hand and offered to take mine and refill it, but I was done.
    I looked sideways at Gordon’s eyes, swollen, almost purpled from no sleep. “You’re damn late,” I said.
    He took my hand.
    I sighed.
    He said, “Do you think it’ll let up some, all these people? Think they’ll lose interest in a while?”
    â€œI don’t know. But this is more than we can handle, even the co-op stuff—especially the co-op stuff.” I hugged myself. It could have been fall. Cold mountain smells moved foggily with the smells of cold eggs and smoky meat grease.
    He released my hand.
    I made a teasy face at him. “You don’t want to hear that, do you?” I pulled my chair a tad closer, nearer to his warmth.
    His chin was up, collars open. He was in a sort of heat.
    â€œSomebody I know is always saying that nobody can save the world. Let me see . . . .” I pretended to search my memory. “He sometimes backslides. But mostly he’s been pretty committed to the idea of doom.”
    He looked so suddenly into my eyes, it made my insides hop. He grinned.
    I was trying not to smile. “Years ago he—this man I know—he said the world of humans was a bucket of maggots.” I tried to make my voice deep. “A bucket of maggots.”
    His grin stretched wider, twisted, overcrowded bottom teeth and straight uppers. Eyes. His whole head. Too merry. He said, “Who is this dude, some crank?”
    I could see my young Gordon in the shifting but honest eye of my memory. More colt than stallion. A redneck bookworm in his off hours from the mighty DePaolo construction biz. I liked my history texts