Issue

Here are a few May trifles for Mothers Day: “Bringing Jamie Home” by Margaret Frey, a literary piece; “Dear Sunshine” by Michelle Denham, a fantasy; and a Classic Flash from Punch. For the Classic, we had some difficulties finding a good story specifically about mothers, so we gave you the next best thing — the perfect husband. Enjoy!  

They brought Jamie home in the shirt Addie had mended, the tiny stitches on the right cuff black with soot. The socks she had darned the night before, the heels having grown thin, were scorched and ragged. His work boots had been blown off, the men said. But it was the watch that broke her. The silver disk was still tucked in Jamie’s shirt pocket. Tucked over his heart, he’d often quipped. The time tick-tocked, the tiny wheels and gears still turning as if nothing could stop them. Not a mountain or explosion or terrible fire.

They brought Jamie in and laid him on the kitchen table. Gus McMahon and Russell Price. Big men, the two of them barrel chested, their sooty faces streaked with sweat, laid her boy down gentle, being careful with his head. One arm dangled over the table edge. Gus took care of that, rearranging the boy’s arms and hands until they were neatly crossed on his chest. But for the dirt and blood, the boy could have been napping, dreaming the way boys do.

Then Gus told her about the watch, how he discovered it unscathed in Jamie’s pocket. Recognized it right off because Jamie was proud of the timepiece. He’d flash the watch for the boys and men when there was grousing over a hard, never-ending shift. Jamie would rally them. Just two hours more, he’d shout. Two hours twenty. The winnowing down, that precise handle on the hours and minutes made it bearable somehow. Gus stammered over the words. He didn’t look her in the eye but she knew the sorrow was as real as the burden of time.

Russell said the women would be by shortly to help with Jamie. If she had no objection, he’d start on a proper box. He owed her and Cos, he said, for all their kindness when his own son passed.

She nodded. She watched the men shuffle out, then looked at Cos standing now outside the door. He braced the doorframe, his long arms stretched up, hands on the head casing. His face was gray and ashy. The pallor showed beneath the black dust that covered him, the floor, the whole world for all she knew.

He opened his mouth, ready to say something but she put her hand up, fair warning. She wanted nothing but quiet now, some peace in the moment. It was old news, her fight about Jamie taking to the mine, even if they needed the money and God knows, they did. It was an old, bitter story, her cleaning black dust off boots and backs and scrubbing clothes that never came clean. It was yesterday’s sorrow that pinched her with worry about a boy with a mountain strapped to his back and a husband wheezing through the night. It was old but new again, fresh from the underground — a boy’s broken body and a father’s regret. She wanted no more of it.

Still, she turned to Jamie. She moistened a cloth from the morning’s water bucket. She wiped his face, the way she had from the day he was born, rubbing gentle but high into the hairline. The black grime was everywhere. Once his face was clean of soot and blood, she inspected the deep gash above his ear, straight through to the skull, the bony cap no protection for a methane explosion. She suspected the back of his head was worse but she wasn’t ready to turn him over. The boy smelled of sulfur and smoke, a trip to Hell and back.

Jamie wasn’t the only loss. There were sixty men missing and a half-dozen boys — trappers, brakers and mule tenders. The women who would come by and help her wash and dress her son would see more than their share of grief. They would tuck this moment and all the rest deep inside themselves because that’s where women carried their darkness.

She stroked Jamie’s cheek. She reached inside his pocket and pulled out the watch. Gus had said it was undamaged but she immediately felt a divot in the back casing, the size of her thumb. She put the watch to her ear. A steady tick, tick, tick, sure as a heartbeat.

“You could give the watch to Carla,” Cos said. “She swears she’s having a boy. You’d be passing it down the line like your Pa wanted.”

Like her Pa wanted? He’d wanted a son, took every opportunity to remind her mother of that sorry fact. His complaining bought five girls, she the eldest. Pa said the watch had been passed through the family, father to son for a hundred years or more. Said the watch came from the old country, a small mining town in Wales. Years after the old man died her mother confessed he’d won the timepiece in a drunken card game.

She clutched the disk in her fist. The motion of its innards whirred; the ticking grew monstrous. She shouted though it sounded more like a shriek. “No! No! No!” And with that, she heaved the watch against the wall. It thudded, bounced and rolled along the floor. Tiny springs, levers and ragged-edged wheels flew in all directions. The casing landed near her foot. She stomped it. She pounded the casing again and again. She ground the metal with her heel, wanted all the lies, all niceties and platitudes, the God knows bests smashed, pulverized, made as useless as a life undone.

Cos caught her by the shoulders. He rocked her in place, held her head against his chest until the struggling stopped.

After that, the women arrived. Still hanging onto Cos, she pushed back, nearly lost her balance but righted herself, sure and solid. She pressed her eyes with the heels of her hands, took a deep breath then went about doing what needed to be done.

When he was born he had exactly six minutes of normal living. For those six minutes he was loved, cosseted and crooned over by midwives and nurses. He entered the world feeling cautious but very comfortable.

Then he opened his eyes.

A few of the nurses shrieked; some ran away.

“What is it?” his mother demanded.

“This one has a dragon behind his eyes,” the head midwife said, her voice matter-of-fact and precise. She had been delivering babies for far too long to panic at every little abnormality that might occur during a birth. “Best set him out to die now before you get too attached.”

(more…)

SCENE THE FIRST—At the GALAHAD-GREENS’.

Mrs. G.-G. GALAHAD!

Mr. G.-G. (meekly). My love?

Mrs. G.-G. I see that the proprietors of All Sorts are going to follow the American example, and offer a prize of £20 to the wife who makes out the best case for her husband as a Model. It’s just as well, perhaps, that you should know that I’ve made up my mind to enter you!

Mr. G.-G. (gratified). My dear CORNELIA! really, I’d no idea you had such a—

Mrs. G.-G. Nonsense! The drawing-room carpet is a perfect disgrace, and, as you can’t, or won’t, provide the money in any other way, why—Would you like to hear what I’ve said about you?

Mr. G.-G. Well, if you’re sure it wouldn’t he troubling you too much, I should, my dear.

Mrs. G.-G. Then sit where I can see you, and listen. (She reads.) “Irreproachable in all that pertains to morality”—(and it would be a bad day indeed for you, GALAHAD, if I ever had cause to think otherwise.’)—”morality; scrupulously dainty and neat in his person”—(ah, you may well blush, GALAHAD, but, fortunately, they won’t want me to produce you!)—”he imports into our happy home the delicate refinement of a preux chevalier of the olden time.” (Will you kindly take your dirty boots off the steel fender!) “We rule our little kingdom with a joint and equal sway, to which jealousy and friction are alike unknown; he, considerate and indulgent to my womanly weakness,”—(You need not stare at me in that perfectly idiotic fashion!)—”I, looking to him for the wise and tender support which has never yet been denied. The close and daily scrutiny of many years has discovered”—(What are you shaking like that for?)—”discovered no single weakness; no taint or flaw of character; no irritating trick of speech or habit.” (How often have I told you that I will not have the handle of that paper-knife sucked? Put it down; do!) “His conversation—sparkling but ever spiritual—renders our modest meals veritable feasts of fancy and flows of soul … Well, GALAHAD?

Mr. G.-G. Nothing, my dear; nothing. It struck me as well,—a trifle flowery, that last passage, that’s all!

Mrs. G.-G. (severely). If I cannot expect to win the prize without descending to floweriness, whose fault is that, I should like to know? If you can’t make sensible observations, you had better not speak at all. (Continuing,) “Over and over again, gathering me in his strong loving arms, and pressing fervent kisses upon my forehead, he has cried, ‘Why am I not a Monarch that so I could place a diadem upon that brow? With such a Consort, am I not doubly crowned?'” Have you anything to say to that, GALAHAD?

Mr. G.-G. Only, my love, that I—I don’t seem to remember having made that particular remark.

Mrs. G.-G. Then make it now. I’m sure I wish to be as accurate as I can. [Mr. G.-G. makes the remark—but without fervour.

SCENE THE SECOND—At the MONARCH-JONES’.

Mr. M.-J. Twenty quid would come in precious handy just now, after all I’ve dropped lately, and I mean to pouch that prize if I can—so just you sit down, GRIZZLE, and write out what I tell you; do you hear?

Mrs. M.-J. (timidly). But, MONARCH, dear, would that be quite fair? No, don’t be angry, I didn’t mean that—I’ll write whatever you please!

Mr. M.-J. You’d better, that’s all! Are you ready? I must screw myself up another peg before I begin. (He screws.) Now, then. (Stands over her and dictates.) “To the polished urbanity of a perfect gentleman, he unites the kindly charity of a true Christian.” (Why the devil don’t you learn to write decently, eh?) “Liberal, and even lavish, in all his dealings, he is yet a stern foe to every kind of excess”—(Hold on a bit, I must have another nip after that)—”every kind of excess. Our married life is one long dream of blissful contentment, in which each contends with the other in loving self-sacrifice.” (Haven’t you corked all that down yet!) “Such cares and anxieties as he has, he conceals from me with scrupulous consideration as long as possible”—(Gad, I should be a fool if I didn’t!)—”while I am ever sure of finding in him a patient and sympathetic listener to all my trifling worries and difficulties.”—(Two f’s in difficulties, you little fool—can’t you even spell?) “Many a time, falling on his knees at my feet, he has rapturously exclaimed, his accents broken by manly emotion, ‘Oh, that I were more worthy of such a pearl among women! With such a helpmate, I am indeed to be envied!'” That ought to do the trick. If I don’t romp in after that!—(Observing that Mrs. M.-J.’s shoulders are convulsed.) What the dooce are you giggling at now?

Mrs. M.-J. I—I wasn’t giggling, MONARCH dear, only—

Mr. M.-J. Only what?

Mrs. M.-J. Only crying!

THE SEQUEL.

“The Judges appointed by the spirited proprietors of All Sorts to decide the ‘Model Husband Contest’—which was established on lines similar to one recently inaugurated by one of our New York contemporaries—have now issued their award. Two competitors have sent in certificates which have been found equally deserving of the prize; viz., Mrs. CORNELIA GALAHAD-GREEN, Graemair Villa, Peckham, and Mrs. GRISELDA MONARCH-JONES, Aspen Lodge, Lordship Lane. The sum of Twenty Pounds will consequently be divided between these two ladies, to whom, with their respective spouses, we beg to tender our cordial felicitations.”—(Extract from Daily Paper, some six months hence.)