Depot Road

We were a strange little crew that lived up and down that old road in Windham.

There was Barbara. She was busty and her red hair was always shorn like a boy's. Shorn seems a good word for that hair, not sure why. I remember someone once called her a horse woman. She did always smell a bit of manure. Must have been in the crevices of her boots. She was probably cleaning out the stalls in the early dawn when we were all ironing our hair. She could wrangle a horse with an authority that kind of scared us all. And she was a bit of a ruffian. We found out later that she was also a bit of a lesbian. But that was later. You wanted to be on Barbara's good side, that was for sure. Or she'd head lock you. Or worse.

Barbara lived in the big Victorian at the corner of our street. She would try to make us all linger under the massive elms in her front yard. We'd be attempting to move on down the road, but she'd holler and say, Wait, Wait, I have to tell you guys something! And then she'd tell us some far flung from the truth story. I remember she used to spit when she was telling what she thought was a really funny story. She did have a great laugh. Kind of hearty and from the gut. She'd lean way back, stick out her ample bust and belly, and throw her face to the sky. I don't know why, but I remember that her two front teeth were yellow and they crossed a little in the front.

All the while that she was talking and spitting, we'd nod and smile and shoot each other let's get outta here looks, and pretty much we'd finally just have to start to walk away, and she'd still be talking.

When we'd make it as far as the railroad tracks, we knew we were out of earshot and we could explode with that laughter that makes teenagers pee.  And run the last block home.

We'd pile through the door laughing. It was just my sisters and I. And Faithy. She might as well have been a sister.  We'd peel off our school clothes and put on our favorite big tees and sweats, and socks, if it were winter. And then we'd tumble into the kitchen, dropping down to sit too hard on the antique chairs. Mom would usually be there in the kitchen, peeling potatoes or snapping beans, for the evening meal.  She'd scowl and smile, all at the same time.

One of us would put the tea kettle on and another would grab two fistfuls of mismatched coffee mugs, the clank of the porcelain music to our ears. Out came Nana's dented tea tin from the cupboard.

It was tea time.

We'd sit at that old pine table and drink hot tea with Tang and lots of sugar. We'd snicker about boys we liked. And first kisses. And fights with our parents. And dare to admit that we were scared to death about our brothers in Viet Nam. Dinner would roll around and we'd always find an excuse to linger there at that table. Play cards, avoid homework.

And then there was that late Sunday afternoon when Faithy called and tried to talk into the phone. "Guys?" A long silence. Then she just hung up. The next thing we knew, she was at the door. She plunked the doorbell only once, instead of her annoying six or seven plunks. Her face was as pale as a withered flower, with a red nose at its center.

All she could choke out was, "Oh my God, you guys. My Mom died." It was so out of nowhere. She covered her mouth just as a sob exploded through her fingers. Like a herd of frightened deer, we bolted for the woods. No words. Just instinct. Ran up the lane, our bare feet digging into the slippery brown pine needles, a spicy scent perfuming our wake.

As we reached the grove at the top of the hill, we collapsed under spearmint-scented green arms. At that moment, all we knew was that the hissing pines in our little grove would soothe us, somehow. Maybe whisper something to us that we couldn't understand.