There's an Egg Yolk in the Sky

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THERE’S AN EGG YOLK IN THE SKY

By

Ecs

THERE’S AN EGG YOLK IN THE SKY

By Ecs

Copyright © 2011 by Elaine Campbell Smith.

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, please write WordMerchant Publishing at the address below.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and locations are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First WordMerchant edition published 2011.

WordMerchant Publishing

P.O. Box 1764

New Port Richey, FL 34656

LCCN: 2011908707

Cover design by R. LeBeaux

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks go to Rick Boling, President, WordMerchant Publishing, for his guidance and continuing support . My gratitude, also, for all the effort he expended in helping me prepare this novel for publication. He is a treasured colleague.

Thanks go as well to my readers:

Sonja Rodrigues Williams was enormously helpful in finding goofs in the manuscript, and was complimentary in reaction to the story; you are a valued friend, Sonja. Let’s do it again, gal.

Cam Campbell was, and is, prized for the constant encouragement to me to keep going even during my gloomy times. Also for finding typos.

Pauline Masterton, a dear friend and my last bastion against errors.

This book is dedicated to my family, all of them, the quick and the dead.

First of all: my spouse for the years of advocacy.

Next: Melissa and Penn and Lily and Lacy.

Parents: J.C. and Kay

Siblings: Marcia, Linda, Michael, Stephen, Ford.

Cousins: Jerry, Jeannine, Darlene, Walt, Lee, Kit, Sandra.

And any others that are first or once removed that I might have missed.

Thank you all for being in my life

Prelude

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms,

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste....

William Shakespeare

AS YOU LIKE IT

II, vii, 139-166

PART ONE: Mewling and Puking

1

Tabitha Cathleen MacGillivray came into the world eyes first (at least that was what she was told later on), and that was her first mistake. She had no inkling of what was out there, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go, so she looked. But the mother squirted her out before she had a chance to decide whether or not she was ready. No wonder she cried.

The year was 1933 and the depression had a fierce grip on the United States. Despite that, babies were being born. They weren’t being born in as great a number as previously, and nowhere nearly as plentifully as they would be later on when life was desperate and lovers mated because they might never see each other again – or because everything was swell and mating was fun. On June first, Tabitha became one of the occasional babies that were born during the depression. As a child, she often wished, so she could lend dramatic significance to her birth, that she could say she had been born on a dark and stormy night, but that wasn’t the case. The day was balmy and clear and she didn’t even get her mother up early with labor pains, much less the doctor who strolled in casually a few minutes before she came into the world. Teatime, or cocktail time (depending on taste), was when she got her momentary glimpse of the white sterile room with hovering but unconcerned attendants also in white. The date was before medical personnel decided that white was, all things considered, too pure a color to properly reflect the doctoring profession. After that, they started wearing green, which represented it admirably.

Tabitha’s eyes were bruised and swollen from the birth and she kept them closed for two weeks as nurses, new parents, and fond relatives manhandled her. She didn’t know who did what to her or why. The punishment for her first curious peek at where she was to spend her life was excessive, people said. But they also said there was a possibility that Tabby wasn’t hurt, that she kept her eyes shut deliberately because she didn’t want to see any more of the world. The first look had been enough to last a while.

When Tabitha deigned to, or when the swelling went down enough for her to, take her second look at the world, she was certain she shouldn’t have surfaced. At least, in retrospect, this is how she imagined she must have felt. Above her bed hung a monstrosity that jiggled and turned in a precarious and threatening manner with every waft of breeze. And she was in jail. Bars hemmed two sides of her small, wooden prison, and solid walls barricaded the ends. She opened her mouth to voice her disapproval and all that came out was a mewling, squeaking, ineffectual blat. She tried again, and the embarrassing squall was repeated. All she got for her effort was a stiff rubber nipple stuck into her mouth, and the milk that drizzled through too slowly wasn’t even warm enough. She drank it anyway, but the process took longer than she would have liked because of the tiny hole in the nipple. She wondered why someone didn’t poke a bigger hole in the thing so she could get this feeding business over with. Maybe she should make the hole bigger herself; bite the end off the nipple and gulp down the milk.

She clamped her uppers and lowers on the rubber, but nothing happened except that it bent. She had no teeth! What a demeaning condition. No teeth. She probably looked awful.

Tabby’s ugly, a voice from outside the jail said, confirming her suspicion. What with having no teeth, how could she look other than ugly? Her eyes flew open and she saw three small, smeared faces.

I ought to bust your head for saying that, Dee-Dee, the largest of the three visitors said. She’s a baby. She can’t help it if she’s ugly.

I don’t want a sister. I want to be the only girl. Dee-Dee’s hand fished between the bars, took a tiny bit of Tabitha’s flesh, and pinched. "And she is ugly."

I like her, the littlest one said. Her eyes are open. She’s looking at us.

Dee-Dee poked a finger at the open eyes. They stick out too much.

Mama! Mama! The largest ran yelling from the room. Tabby’s eyes are open.

Within minutes, a woman bustled in. She was Cecilia Shaw MacGillivray, the mother. She was lovely with dark, shining hair and a smooth, bonny complexion that had the natural brush of pink on cheeks that blesses many Irish females from birth onward. Tabby, she said. You are a Tabby Cat. You waited two weeks to open your eyes, just like a kitten. She lifted Tabitha out of the crib and looked at the protuberant eyes that were still lightly discolored. I was so scared you might be blind.

Tabitha opened her mouth to say she wasn’t blind, and burped.

Good girl, the mother said, patting the tiny back. I can’t wait till Mac sees you. He’s been worried, too.

Mama, why did you have a girl? Dee-Dee whined. I didn’t want a sister.

For heaven’s sake, Dee-Dee. What a thing to ask. You can’t pick which. You take what God gives you.

I didn’t want it to be a girl, she said, completely out of sorts, and stomped from the room.

Tabitha was kissed on each cheek by the mother, then was lowered again into the jail. She didn’t want back in there, and tried to object. The feeble blat came out again.

I can’t hold you now, Tabby, the mother said. I’m cooking dinner. Your daddy will be home soon. She turned to the largest of the small visitors. Alasdair, amuse your sister so she won’t cry.

I’m not crying, Tabitha tried to say, but the weird sound – the only sound she’d been able to make other than the belch – was all she could manage.

Let me, the littlest one said. I want to play with her.

The mother patted his wavy, pale-hair. Okay, William Roy. But be careful. She’s still tiny.

William Roy reached between the bars, and Tabitha, afraid of receiving another tweak like the one Dee-Dee had given, drew away as much as she could with the limited control she had of her body. But he grasped her hand gently and softly, and held her tiny fingers with his not too much bigger ones. I like you, he said.

Tabitha quit trying to move, and looked at him. He picked up a round object on a stick and held it over her face. For a second, she thought he was planning to bonk her on the head with it, but he began to shake it, making it give out a hideous racket, clitting and clatting, ear-piercing sounds. She reached for it to stop the noise, but couldn’t manage her muscles enough to do what she wanted. Her arm simply waved ineffectively at the rattle.

You like it, William Roy said, and shook the thing more energetically.

Tabitha rolled her head so she could look at him straight on. She wanted to tell him she didn’t like the sound, but each time she tried to talk, that peculiar bray erupted, and she didn’t know but what the rude sound might offend this littlest visitor. She didn’t want to do that, he meant her no harm, so she decided to ignore the toy. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

2

For the first few months of her life, Tabitha was unable to do anything for herself. She was lifted and changed and bathed and turned from her back to her stomach and back again. The mother did most of that. And she was visited by the father and the three little ones.

The largest of her small visitors was her brother Duncan Alasdair MacGillivray Junior. He was seven years old and an uncommonly tough, wiry, feist of a boy – a smaller replica of the father, Mac. They both had bright red hair, hard strong muscles, and played with her roughly, but not roughly enough to hurt. She liked both of them despite the fact that when she leaked water each of them quickly handed her to the mother who tsk-tsked and changed her to dry again.

Tabitha had no control over wetting and soiling herself. She couldn’t even pull herself erect with the bars of her jail, even though she tried. Everyone else was on two feet, why not her?

The mother was busy and didn’t play with Tabitha much, but she did most of the necessary things like giving baths. Once in a while, Mac gave the bath, and sometimes Alasdair did. But because Alasdair was so young, the mother was reluctant to let him bathe her all alone with no help, so she hung around when he tried.

The mother always prepared the food, though various volunteers or designated agents shoved it at Tabitha’s mouth. Eating was the most fun when Alasdair fed her. He flew the spoonful of food around and swept it in curving arcs toward her, all the time making noises that sounded like motors. Dinner took a long time when he fed her, what with his games.

The most efficient mealtimes came when Dee-Dee fed her. Dee-Dee was Deirdre Ferne, her sister. Dee-Dee was six, dark haired like the mother, and, thank goodness, was gone with Alasdair many hours out of every weekday. When Dee-Dee was around, Tabitha got pinched and spoken to rudely. She decided she didn’t like sisters any more than Dee-Dee did, but she couldn’t understand why Deirdre had taken such an instant dislike to her. She hadn’t done anything other than be born. When Dee-Dee fed her, she piled the food high on the spoon and crammed it into her mouth as quickly as possible. Tabitha liked that, getting the food business over in a hurry, but she knew Dee-Dee hoped she would choke.

William Roy never got to give her food unless it was a cracker or a piece of zwieback, but he was usually nearby when she ate, making his mouth do the same things hers did even though he never got anything stuck into his. He was her littlest visitor, another brother, and was her favorite person. He wasn’t yet four years old and was home all day. He was huskier than Alasdair, his hair was a lighter shade of red, and he was as gentle with her as was the mother. Tabitha didn’t often make the vulgar, eruptive attempt at trying to talk when he was near; she wanted to be able to say something sweet to him because he was kind to her. He never told her she was ugly, never made fun because she had neither teeth nor hair, and always tried to play with her. Though he continued to shake the rattle at her, she forgave him. His incessant batting of the thing above her face was instrumental in causing her to speed her coordination so she could grab it to hush it.

The mother fed her at noon except on weekends, and she was almost as efficient as Dee-Dee, but the bites were smaller and didn’t as rapidly follow one another so she had more time to swallow. Mac rarely fed her, but in the evenings, after the spills and mess had been cleaned off, he took her and tickled her and held her for a long time. He often read aloud to the other children as he held her. She wasn’t at all sure about what he read, she couldn’t understand a word, but the sound of his voice was pleasurable, and the rumble in his chest felt good.

Still she kept getting that bottle with the too small hole in the nipple stuck into her mouth, and she kept wishing for teeth so she could bite the hole bigger.

One day while she was in jail and William Roy was on the floor playing, she felt a tiny, sharp chip on her bottom gum near the front of her mouth. She explored the nubbin with her tongue for a while, then realized it was a tooth.

Hey, she yelled at William Roy. It even sounded a little like hey. Hey! She called again, and he looked at her. She smiled and tried to point at her newfound delight. He got up and came to her. She smiled wider and he stuck his finger into her mouth to touch the wee, wet, white wonder.

Mama! Mama! he hollered, and ran to tell the mother, who came back promptly to touch the tooth herself.

Well, well. You’re getting teeth. Cecilia smiled, then frowned. When are you going to grow some hair? I don’t want you to be bald your whole life. None of the others was bald. She shook her head, making her own lovely, thick, rich, tumbling, dark tresses bounce enviably, then she tsked a couple of times and went back to work, leaving her two youngest children alone with the new tooth.

Tabitha sighed, half in relief, half in impatience. Now she had to get a tooth on the top so she could bite. She couldn’t do anything to hurry a tooth, she would have to wait for that to appear in its own good time, but, meanwhile, she could practice standing up. She hated being trapped, not being able to go where she wanted when she wanted, so every chance she got she pulled at the bars of her jail to try to get herself on her feet. The bars were helpful. She wasn’t sure the other members of her family knew this, but they were just the right size for her hands to grip. So far, she hadn’t managed to get entirely up, but she was determined. After the tooth was born, she spent a week in concentrated effort, and, finally, she tugged and heaved and pushed and shoved until she was all the way erect. She had spent so much energy getting there she didn’t want to fall, so she hung onto the top rail with both hands and her mouth. Umgah, she grunted at William Roy.

He dashed off to tell the mother.

Tabby, Cecilia said as she came in. You’re too young to stand up. You’ll make yourself bow-legged. She picked up her child and laid her back down.

All that effort wasted.

As soon as the mother disappeared, Tabitha went back to work. This time after she was up, her brother didn’t tell anyone and, when she got tired, he helped her down himself.

Within the month, Tabitha grew another tooth. Just her luck, this one was on the bottom as well. But she had mastered the art of getting to her feet. She didn’t have to hold on with her mouth any longer, and she could bounce up and down as she hung on with her hands. William Roy hadn’t reported to the mother about the accomplishment since the first time. He understood without having to be told.

As Tabitha waited to grow teeth and practiced standing, she learned things. Not only was she ugly (she hadn’t a scrap of hair – she could feel that with her hands without Deirdre always mentioning her baldness and Mac and the mother worrying about it), but also she had been born into a Scottish family of Catholics who lived in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. As if fate hadn’t been cruel enough in letting her be ugly, she had five other strikes against her. One: she was a miserly Scot. Everyone said Scots were tight-fisted and careful with a penny. Two: she was a weird Catlicker. That was the way a great number of folks in the area thought of her family’s not too fashionable religious affiliation. Three: she was a southerner. To anyone from the north, that was almost as bad as having the plague, and she supposed that was because the south had lost the War Between the States. Four: she was a hillbilly. Though she was surrounded by other hillbillies, the term was often used in a derogatory manner. Worst of all, five: she was female. No one in a sensible frame of mind would want to be a female. As far as most of the world was concerned, all females could do was clean house, cook, and make babies. She was faced with almost too much to expect to live down, but if she could learn to walk, she would start working on those other things.

However, before she even learned to stand up in her bed without hanging on, prohibition was repealed in the United States. She hadn’t been aware such a thing was going on. And Christmas came, bringing a plethora of frightening new things like a fat, colorful man in a white beard and a tree put in the house and covered with all kinds of objects, some of which were lovely and some of which had been designed and executed by the three older MacGillivray children.

On that first bright, new, delightful and fascinating Christmas morning, Tabitha was allowed to sit on the floor where she fumbled with brilliantly wrapped packages. In the furor caused by the excitement of Alasdair, Dee-Dee, and William Roy, she was forgotten. She crawled about, picking up to suck on, bits of ribbon that turned her mouth and tongue varied hues of the season. The green tasted best. It had a stringency absent in the red and gold and blue. But when Mac and the mother finally noticed her vibrant lips and chin and tongue, they whisked away the pretty ribbons.

3

Before Tabitha knew it, the year was 1934 and she’d done nothing in 1933 except be born, grow two teeth on the bottom, and learn to stand up in her bed. But the new year began auspiciously. When it was eating time, she was allowed to hold her own spoon. Sometimes she got something into her mouth, but she derived a great deal more fun from batting the food with the back of her spoon, watching the little dips form and the lovely spatters fly. The mother didn’t find that to be as much of a delight as she did, and scolded her each time she did it. Eventually, she stopped the pleasurable pastime. She learned that if she didn’t do it, she didn’t have to hear the reprimand. The only times she slipped and forgot were when Dee-Dee was near and one of the spatters could get on her. The roars of rage from Deirdre were satisfactorily loud, and the action paid back somewhat the pinches Tabitha had suffered at her older sister’s hands.

Tabitha was also given a cup to drink from, even though she wasn’t yet permitted to hold it, and she didn’t have to worry about that inadequately pierced nipple any longer. And just when she felt the swell in her gum that prophesied an upper tooth.

William Roy was allowed to hold her cup for her on occasion, and when he did, she scooped food and held it toward his mouth. He took it, too. It was about time someone fed him something.

Not two months after the advent of the cup, Tabitha found she could stand up without holding on. Of course when she tried to bounce, she fell, but she knew balance would come with practice.

William Roy saw her standing without gripping the rail, and she was moving her weight from one foot to the other. He came to her and wormed her over the side of her bed, scraping her stomach and catching a pin on her diaper and pulling it half off in the process, but she was out of jail and on the floor with her brother. He hitched her diaper back near where it belonged and let her hold his hand for support as she investigated the newness of free mobility.

He dumped her back in bed before the mother came into the room

William Roy was wonderful. Every day, when the mother was busy, he helped her walk. Together they went two steps, then three, then halfway across the room. They practiced two or three times a day, and before long she was able to go about without the security of his hand. Too, she was becoming more adept at helping him get her out of jail. She could almost break out by herself. But his presence at the moment before she might, with the slip of a hand, take the long fall was comforting.

She and William Roy didn’t play together much. The things he did with crayons and books, or sticks and bricks, or trucks and cars were much too complicated for her. She preferred banging two blocks together or trying to stack them one on top of the other. When, from time to time, he offered to let her hold something, she did. And she held carefully because she didn’t want to break anything of his. She didn’t want to hurt him in any way.

Tabitha Cathleen MacGillivray, what are you doing? Cecilia asked, appalled, when she came into the room. "You’re too young to walk. You’re only nine months old. Oh! And look! You are making yourself bow-legged. What am I going to do with you? She swept Tabitha into her arms, inspected the legs, then studied the naked head and tsked. Bald as a billiard ball and bow-legged to boot. Gracious. And all the other children are so pretty."

Tabitha smiled, showing her hard-won upper tooth offset against the balanced bottom two.

Gracious, the mother said again, and put her daughter back on the floor.

Now Tabitha had everything she could ever dream of wanting: freedom, a loving brother, warm food when she was hungry, a soft mattress to sleep on, and a million years spread out before her in which to experience such joy.

4

Spring came, and the summerlike weather with it sparked heat off sidewalks, trees, rooftops, and bald heads. And Deirdre tried to kill Tabitha. School was over for the year and Alasdair and Dee-Dee were home all the time. June the first came and with it Tabitha’s first birthday. Mostly, the celebration was nice. No one else had packages to open (though the other children did help a lot in unwrapping Tabitha’s) and the cake was pretty, but when she tried to catch the enticing flame, the mother stopped her hand.

In the afternoon, after the packages and the cake, the four MacGillivray children were in the side yard. The yard was lovely with a rock garden and a rose garden, a huge wisteria vine on a trellis, vast stretches of emerald grass studded with trees, and a stone path that led around the house past a lilac bush, through the hedge of spirea, and onto the public sidewalk. Deirdre took Tabitha’s hand and led her out of the yard, down the steps through the hedge, past the sidewalk, beyond the grass that grew in a narrow swath between the walk and the curb, over the curb, and into the middle of the street. There, she let go of Tabitha and went back to the curb to watch and wait.

Tabitha looked at Dee-Dee, at an approaching car, at Dee-Dee again, and then toddled toward her sister and started to climb onto the curb.

Dee-Dee said, Go on and play.

Alasdair came through the hedge. I’m going to bust your head, Deirdre, he yelled. He scooped Tabitha into his arms, hugging her against his not yet broad, but already protecting, chest, and gave Dee-Dee a shove, causing her to fall and skin her knee.

Making Tabitha’s head bobble with each step, he pelted into the yard. Ma! Ma! Pa! he yelled.

Deirdre got a good switching as well as the hurt knee for her efforts, and the mother wept and kept saying, "How could you do such a thing, Dee-Dee? How could you?

Ma, Ma, Pa, Tabitha said.

The surprise of Tabitha’s first words made the mother quit asking how Deirdre could have done such a thing, made Mac smile, and made William Roy say, Tabby talked. She can talk.

That encouraged her and from that moment on she worked hard at trying to learn. By the time school started for Alasdair and Dee-Dee again, she was eloquent. More than half the time, William Roy was the only one who could understand her, but that was enough. He was still her favorite.

Life was more pleasant, and quieter, with Dee-Dee off at school with Alasdair. Then Christmas came again, more comprehensibly this time, and during the school’s mid-winter vacation that came with Christmas, Mac arranged a week of free time and drove the entire family to see some of Cecilia’s relatives who lived in the flatlands near the Mississippi River. When he carried Tabitha to see the massive, muddy, nation-dividing flow for the first time, her eyes widened. Big drink of water, she said, overwhelmed.

Mac and the mother laughed, but Dee-Dee said, You’re stupid, Cue-ball. That’s a river.

Tabitha was learning to resist everything Deirdre did and said, so if Dee-Dee said that was a river, it must be a drink of water. She smiled, showing four evenly spaced teeth on top and five-and-a-half below. Big drink she repeated and clutched Mac more tightly around his neck.

After they returned home and the new year began, Deirdre and Alasdair went back to school. The months passed pleasantly, punctuated with the day when a rabbit hid eggs here and there in the side yard. Tabitha was able, with Mac’s help, to find a few. The year before, she’d been given a couple to hold and she’d banged them together as she did her blocks, and they’d crumbled. This year, she didn’t do that; she just held them and admired the soft colors.

5

I’ve got to hire someone to help me with the rental houses, Mac said to the mother one day not too long before Tabitha’s second birthday. Being a Scot, and therefore innately frugal, the senior MacGillivray had been cautious with his money. When people had been forced, by the depressed conditions of the country, to sell homes at ridiculously reasonable prices, he had bought them. He now owned one less than a dozen (the eleven houses were located in nearly every section of town), and he owned two grocery stores, which he hired people to run but which he visited and supervised. The maintenance is getting to be more than I can handle, he said. A fellow at the employment bureau told me about a young man who is enrolling in the university this fall and wants a job. I’ve set up an interview."

All right, Mac, Cecilia said. That’s fine. Maybe he could help out around here sometimes, too. When he’s not needed by you.

Are you overworked? he asked, concerned. Do you need a maid? Do you want one?

"Heavens no. I don’t want one underfoot. I’ve told you that before. It’s just that sometimes I want things done in the yard or garden and I can’t find time to do them. And in the house, too. Like rearranging furniture. Alasdair is plenty big enough to help, but William Roy is still a baby. It would be a relief to know I