The Rain May Pass

Chapter 1

I’d spent every summer of my life on Cape Cod since I was a baby. My mother said she used to swim the length of Falmouth Heights every day when she was pregnant with me. In a way, I felt it was more my home than Brookline where we lived in the winter. Lots of rich people from Boston had summer homes on the Cape.

We didn’t have much money, so my parents rented a run-down caretaker’s house behind my uncle and aunt’s property. It wasn’t much, but at least we got away from the heat and my dad could drive just a couple of hours when he had to be in the city. There wasn’t air conditioning in those days, and our apartment was on a street with truck traffic and overlooked three gas stations, so the Cape was like being in paradise.

During my fifteenth summer, everything changed. My brother was in college. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and the house we rented in Falmouth had been torn down, since my aunt and uncle had died. So, my parents weren’t going to go there anymore. They wanted me to go, but I’d have to stay with my grandmother and work in her gift shop. I didn’t mind working but being with her for two months would be a nightmare. She was anything but the lovable granny I used to see in the movies. Besides, she didn’t seem to like me or anyone else for that matter.

After we finished supper one night, I said to my parents for probably the tenth time, I don’t want to go to Falmouth.

You’re going, my father said. He didn’t even look up from the kitchen table. He was too busy with his health magazines.

But why? I replied. Why can’t I just spend the summer here? I can go to the beach with a couple of my friends and I can do some studying. I won’t be any trouble. I’m sure he knew this was just a ploy, but it was worth a try.

We want you to get away from all this heat. You can swim there, and it will be much healthier for you. My father always acted as if I was some kind of invalid, but he was obsessed with the whole family’s health. I told you before, someone has to be with your grandmother. She’s getting older and she needs help in the shop. Besides, she’s going to pay for your room and board. It’ll be a free vacation.

My mother was washing dishes at the sink. She said nothing. I knew she wasn’t in favor of my going at all. She didn’t get along with my grandmother and she must have known how dreary it was going to be. I reached out to her as a final resort. Mother, I can help you around the house and I can get a part-time job. They always need kids to scoop ice cream at St. Clair’s in the hot weather.

I have nothing to do with this, she said. Your father has made up his mind and there’s no changing it. If you’re miserable, I’ll see what we can do, but you have to at least give it a try.

I gave up. I’d have to spend the whole summer with a person who was unpleasant and cold. Well, what could I do? I tried to look on the bright side. Maybe something good would come of it.

At that time, I was really a kid. I even kept a diary that I wrote in every day. I used to share my bedroom with my brother, but now he had a place in Boston where he was going to Northeastern University. He only came home now and then to learn photography with my father, so I had the room all to myself. My parents could burst in anytime they wanted to though, so I had to hide under the covers with a flashlight in my left hand as I wrote. That night, I opened the little red book with 1941 stamped on the cover and turned to the blank page for June 21. I thought for a minute and then began to write:

Well, today was a lucky day. School is all over – 

Year’s marks:  Math – A, Span – B, Lit – A, Comp – B, Mech. Dr. – A

They’re mailing my report card. I had to pay seventy-five cents for my lock in the gym that Mr. Bemis said I didn’t return, but I did. He always picked on me whenever he could. At least I don’t have to see him for a few months.

Vi un paseo con Irving L. Compramos ice cream cones. Vimos unas muchachas hermosas y les hablamos. In eve, Irving and I went over Sandra Powers house and visited she and Barbara Berger. At first, I didn’ t recognize Barbara – in fact I was so stunned by her improved appearance I was in a daze for a period after I met her. Finland may declare war on Russia. Tomorrow, Mom and Dad are driving me to Falmouth where I will help my grandmother in her shop for the summer.

I started to put the cap on the fountain pen and changed my mind. Instead, I very carefully drew a symbol in the margin. It was the letter T sitting on top of a small circle because I was trying not to play with myself too much. I thought by putting the symbol in my diary every time I did it, it would remind me to control myself more. So far, it wasn’t doing much good. I turned off the flashlight and reached for my penis.

The next morning, I could hear my parents’ voices through the door as I was packing my suitcase in my bedroom.

Dearie, my mother said, I can’t find Mother Schein’s medicine. Have you got it?

No, Dad replied, I left it on the sink in the kitchen.

Will you get it for me? she asked.

I can’t, he said, my hands are dirty. I’m shining my shoes.

I heard my mother’s sigh of exasperation. My father was a clean freak, and he always worried about getting germs. It’s just a bottle. You can’t hurt it, she said.

All right, my father sounded annoyed, just wait until I wash my hands.

There was a sound of my mother slamming down whatever she was holding. Never mind, she said, I’ll get it myself.

I listened to see if either of them was about to come into my room. The silence told me they were probably sulking as they usually did after one of their minor battles. I went over to the wall where I had hung a picture of a clipper ship. When my brother left, I had asked for wallpaper patterned with ships so that I’d feel like I was on a boat. I’d found this print and a cheap frame to put it in. I took it down and placed it on the bed. I peeled back the metal hinges that held the backing in place and removed the cardboard. This was where I hid things so no one would find them.

I took out a stack of photographs. The top ones were nudes of a girl standing in front of a maple tree. Each picture was a different pose. She wasn’t very pretty, but she sure looked sexy. I looked at each picture quickly and then put them on the bed. At the bottom was a closeup of a naked boy being held by two older boys wearing clothes. They were laughing as they forced the younger one to show his penis to the camera. I’d added that picture recently. It seemed kind of sexy to me, like the Strength and Health magazines I’d steal a glance at in the bookstore when the owner wasn’t watching. I looked at the picture and then put the frame back together and hung it on the wall. I scooped up all the other pictures and hid them in my suitcase below my underwear. I closed the latch and set the suitcase by the door.

I was ready to go.

Chapter 2

It took almost an hour before the car was packed that day. It was a 1937 Willys, and it was very small. My bicycle had to be tied on the back bumper with blankets wrapped around it so it wouldn’t scratch Dad’s precious car. Then there were the suitcases, bags of food, and kerosene stove for my father’s vegetarian meals. He wouldn’t eat sandwiches, so my mother had to cook him special things. He ate a meat substitute made from soybeans. He made me taste it once saying it was just like hamburger. It sure wasn’t. I could barely get it down, and I refused to eat it ever again.

We kept putting things in the backseat and shifting them around until we could find the right combination so there’d still be enough room for me. By then it was getting late, and my mother’s face was pinched and angry. I was ready at eight-thirty, she said as we drove away from the apartment.

Well, I was ready, replied my father.

Why didn’t you say something? she snapped.

What do you mean, why didn’t I say something?

You were reading your health magazines. The least you could have done is pack the car—

My father stopped her. Let’s not discuss it. Let’s try to enjoy the day.

I sat quietly in the back. The last thing I would ever do is take sides, but I noticed my father didn’t say, Let’s enjoy the day. He said, "Let’s try to enjoy the day," because they never did.

The trip took three hours though Falmouth was only eighty miles from Brookline. My father was a very careful driver and lunch took an hour by the time we unpacked the stove and Mother had cooked Dad’s disgusting soy burgers. They had another fight when my father found some classical music on the radio that he usually played only on Sundays.

Must you play that dreary music? Mother asked him. It gives me a headache.

Dad replied, Can’t you ever try to improve your mind? They stopped talking after that entirely.

At that time, I couldn’t understand why they just didn’t seem to get along. They slept in the same bed. Once, I found a book of postcards they had sent each other when they were engaged, and Mother was living in Kansas and Dad was in Boston. They were so lovey-dovey. I also discovered a book about woman’s health hidden away in the back of the bookcase. Inside was a list of dates Mother must have written. I guess it had something to do with when they had sex because it was hidden in a chapter on that kind of stuff. But there was this tension between them, almost like heat lightning in the summer that makes you keep waiting for the storm.

When we started driving again, things kept falling down in the back seat. I had to hold them in my lap because I had no luck in shoving them back in place. By the time we were close to the Cape, I was buried in boxes and bags.

It was a gray day but that didn’t dampen my excitement. I kept looking out the window, waiting for the special landmarks that told me how much farther we had to go: the stone pillars on either side of the road, the Dutchland Farms where we’d sometimes stop for small boxes of ice cream with wooden spoons tucked inside, the Herring Run sign, and the open-air dance hall in Buzzards Bay.

When I finally saw the stone pillars, my heart leapt. We were in Wareham. Any minute we’d be in Buzzards Bay, and I suddenly thought I didn’t care if my grandmother was awful.  She couldn’t take away from what I felt about being back. As we drove into Buzzards Bay, I saw the dance hall. Every year when we passed it on our way, I thought someday I’m going to go dancing there when I get old enough. The paint was peeling badly on the Blue Moon sign and it looked deserted, but I figured it would look good when they fixed it up. The season didn’t really begin until the Fourth of July weekend, and everything was always done at the last minute.

We crossed the Bourne bridge over the Cape Cod Canal. The railroad bridge in the distance was high in the air. A ship must have just gone through. At last, we were on the Cape. Straight ahead was nothing but scrub pine woods on either side of the road. I was excited, as if something wonderful was going to happen. I always felt that way when we finally reached the Cape. Maybe it was the smell of the sea, but it was a whole different feeling than I felt anywhere else. It was a sense of freedom.

I have the worst heartburn, my mother said.

That’s because you get aggravated, my father replied. Why do you upset yourself?

You know, she answered, your mother has been waiting all day. She’ll be frantic.

We’ll get there. Don’t worry. Then he went on. I wish you’d stop drinking coffee in the morning.

Dearie, please, she said as if she knew what he was going to say next, that doesn’t give me the heartburn.

Why don’t you just try my coffee substitute for a few days? I know you’ll feel a hundred percent better.

I can’t stand the taste of it.

It tastes exactly like coffee, he sounded shocked. Everybody says it does. You just won’t give it a chance.

Please, I’ve got to have my coffee. I have few enough pleasures as it is.

My father was not to be stopped. At least you could use the soy milk instead of cream.

I stopped listening and just stared out the window.

At last, I saw the sign that said Falmouth.  I watched the shabby houses go by and change into bigger and better ones as we got closer to town. We went past an old country store that had been brought from upstate New York and put on the plot of land where we used to live when I was growing up. I knew the guy who owned it. When he was finished, he was going to sell antiques there. It looked pretty awful now, but I guessed there was still a lot to do. He had already torn down the house we rented that wasn’t any good anyway.

The big house next door where my Uncle Louis and Aunt Rae lived was still there, though they had died. My Aunt Rae had something wrong with her that made her say all her thoughts out loud. If we went to dinner there, she’d serve you food and say, Have some more potatoes. Right after that she’d say out loud, Why should I wait on these people? They keep eating all our food and they don’t do a damn thing. She didn’t know she was saying it, so nobody paid any attention, but it was weird. I had to keep from laughing, but I felt sorry for her too.

Finally, we rounded a corner that curved away from the highway and came to a group of buildings where my grandmother had her shop. A sign read, Queens Byway, and on one side of the road were four shops. My grandmother’s was the one next to the parking lot. Beside hers was Goodell’s Dress Shop, and next to that was a candy store. The fourth shop was empty. Across the street, there were other shops, but they were more elegant, and one was a fancy dress shop that some wealthy people owned.

Nana’s shop had two huge windows with small panes to make it look like it was from the eighteenth century. The bright red wooden door was ajar, but there was a sign taped to it that read, Opening July 1.  Inside, I could make out a mess of tables heaped with merchandise, boxes, and wrappings. I could see my work was cut out for me. The other shops still had paper pasted on the inside of the windows left over from the winter. Those owners hadn’t returned yet.

Dad parked the car in front of the store, and we piled out. He opened the screen door and yelled, Mother, Mother!

My grandmother appeared through a curtain tacked over a doorway in the back of the shop. She was chewing, and in her hand was a piece of rye bread covered with her favorite—cottage cheese. She had on an oversized sweater that she hadn’t bothered to button. Her blouse was spattered with food stains. Her dark skirt was smudged with the same powder that caked her sallow cheeks. Once, at the train station in Florida where my Uncle Sumner sent my grandmother every winter, a woman nearby whispered, Look, there’s a Seminole Indian. With her multi-colored clothes and shopping bags full of old stockings that she made into rugs, my grandmother was certainly unusual looking.

My father made a kissing sound next to her face, but his mouth was as far from her as possible. My mother didn’t go near her, but she did say Hello, Mother Schein. I thought I really had to, so I kissed her cheek as I said, Hi Nana.

You said you’d be here early, she glowered at my father.

We got a late start, Dad replied. It’s all right. We have all day tomorrow to help you. She gave him a dirty look. Now, he tried to get it all back to normal, where do you want everything? I have the medicine in a separate bag.

The clothes have to go to the house, Grandma said. Her accent and her false teeth made her pronounce every word carefully. It’s too late to go. We don’t have time to get there before supper. Mrs. Hotchkiss stops serving at seven.

We might as well eat now, then, my mother said.

If I’d known we were going to eat so early, I wouldn’t have had my tea, my grandmother muttered.

We have a little time left, Dad said. Let’s at least take whatever you want into the shop.

We started unloading the car. It wasn’t easy since the tables and showcases took up almost every inch of the shop. The narrow path around them was almost like a maze. At a certain point, you had to turn back and retrace your steps to go in another direction.

The tables were covered with various objects: Mexican dishes, baskets, Chinese cloisonné and Italian Della Robbia plaques (I learned the names for both when I worked part-time in the shop the summer before), cheap jewelry, knitted bags, dolls, ash trays, and cigarette boxes. The only things that had any connection to Cape Cod were a sea captain doorstop, a Cape Cod barometer and some cranberry pickers that held magazines. Everything was a mess, with excelsior on the floor