Hard-Hearted, a Short Story

Winter had already sawed away at her face and cracked the skin on her fingers. It happened every year. The wind and rain of November gave way to the wet snow of December and then January came with its frightful cold and the wind, furious coming across Lake Superior from the northwest. The wind was fierce and unrelenting, snaking its way under her cabin door and her sixty year old windows. She could’ve put the wood shutters up but then she couldn’t see the lake and the sentries.

No one else on the Point was staying through the winter. Just her. Marigold McAdams. She stayed most years instead of going down below to her cousin’s house in Lansing. It was too crowded there with her cousin and her cats, the whole place layered in white cat hair like cotton candy. That’s it, being there was living in a cotton candy machine, the white always swirling around, on her clothes, in her nose. She hated it. So she stayed in her place all year round, never mind what the locals said about it not being safe, you know, if the heat went out or she got caught outside in a blizzard and couldn’t find her door.

There was plenty of talk about the old lady at the end of the Point jutting out into Lake Superior, the crazy old lady, the nut case with an army of cement block figures around her house, sentries to ward off the evils, they said. To her, they were just art. Her primitives. She considered herself an artist specializing in primitive statuary, basically stacking cement blocks she’d gathered from dumps and abandoned places into towers and then painting faces on them, except the faces never made it through a whole season because of the wind wearing away the paint, you know, so she had to create new faces. Every year was a new gathering.

In the summertime, tourists made a special trip to the end of the Point to point and take pictures at Marigold’s collection. She watched them from the kitchen window, careful to stay behind the curtains lest someone call out to her, ask a question, or want to talk. She couldn’t have that. Talking with strange people pointing at her art or any people, really, doing anything.

It was last year or maybe the year before that one of the cement block sentries came to live in the house. Marigold was okay with this since there probably was enough room in the house but she wondered why now? Why after all these years of living outside in the weather with all the others, their faces, worn away or not, turned toward the north, catching the wind, swallowing it whole.

It was one of the girls, shorter than the other figures and with a flare at the bottom, extra cement blocks to create a skirt, if you will. That’s who came in the house. Her face hadn’t completely worn away. Yes, some of it was faded but it was a good enough face. Eyebrows, one whole eye and half of another, a mouth grinning wide with remnants of teeth, a not completely friendly look but understandable considering the circumstances. Marigold decided to give her a name. Amy. She never named any of the outside sentries but a name seemed proper for a house guest.

 It wasn’t Amy’s fault but her presence in the house was starting to bother Marigold. For one thing, she’d settled next to the stove where she took up a lot of space with her cement block skirt. Marigold was always having to give her a wide berth which was hard in the kitchen because it was small and made for only one person. But the worst thing was Amy’s constant talking.

            “We all know you like the boys better. It was clear from the start. Us women, we were just an afterthought. Like if you have men you have to have women. But we saw that you were always fixing up their faces and giving them hats and cigarettes to hold so they seemed so natty and sophisticated and meanwhile there we were out there in the wind and snow with halters on. Just being ornaments, ornaments, ornaments. For years.

Marigold swiped at her ears like a dog with an itch.

            “Don’t pretend you don’t hear me. You hear me, you old witch. You with your ratty greasy hair in a braid like you’re nineteen. You’re not nineteen, you’re a billion. You’re the oldest woman who ever lived and you look it. Life’s not been kind to you, MARE – EEEE – GOLD. Has it now?

 Marigold pulled an extra knit hat from the bin to put over the watch cap she always wore. She pulled it hard down over her ears and tucked in her braid.

            “An apology would go a long way, you know? For giving the men everything and making us all look like hussies. You could rethink it, give us all new paint jobs, make us dignified, striking, inspirational. But no, you’re not going to do that, are you? You’re going to say it’s too late to make things right. I can see that excuse running through your brain like a tickertape. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.“

Marigold looked at her boots for a long minute. They were old and broken down like second hand slippers, mucking boots for wet weather but she wore them all the time, never caring about mud or dirt or snow on her boots or on the floor. It made her no never mind, none of it.  But Amy. Having Amy in the house, well, that couldn’t continue. It would be one thing if she knew her place but she clearly didn’t. Speaking to Marigold like that? That was out of line. Inappropriate, as they say, up in town. Those tourists are being inappropriate, they’d say, when people were too loud or sat down in restaurants in their bathing suits. Inappropriate. Amy had her nerve.

Stepping behind Amy, Marigold reached into the tool closet just off the kitchen. The sledgehammer still had dirt and sand on it from the summer when she was working on giving one of the male sentries new shoes. She aimed for the head and swung just once. That’s all that was needed to make things right.