Oh, Lamb – by Lorin Medley
Willa’s new boyfriend Rudy drove his old tea-stain of a car up the gravel driveway and parked it next to the
guest cottage, beside the Volvo that Mavis would soon be too old to drive. Mavis stood on tiptoes and held the
curtain back a titch; despite cataracts she could make out Rudy with his baseball cap and shoulder length hair,
one arm draped over the back of the seat to enfold her granddaughter. The pair of them sat there for the
better part of an hour and then Rudy hustled around the nose of the car and opened Willa’s door. Mavis
frowned, climbed into bed and snugged the quilt around her shoulders. It’s the small things, she thought. The
way they disarm you when you least expect it.
Mavis was introduced to Rudy the next morning. She was weeding and had spotted a slug lolling around in
the damp shade of the hosta. Not knowing what to do with the repulsive thing she settled on scooping it up
with a piece of bark and dropping it into the garbage bin. She then hoisted the bin onto the red Radio Flyer
wagon and managed to pull it around to the front of the house.
The lovebirds occupied the space between Mavis’s Volvo and that horrid car/truck thing that Rudy drove.
When Willa spotted Mavis she let go of one of Rudy’s hands and pulled him along, the morning sun filtering
through the forest behind her and bathing the trunk of arbutus in light.
Willa had arrived on the island in late May to spend the summer working on an organic farm – skipped off the
ferry in a tunic thingy and mid-calf tights wearing a backpack and a big smile for her Gran – then chattered in
the car on the way up the hill from the ferry terminal, across undulating roads and leafed-out orchards to the
turn-off and Mavis’s driveway. Such a peppy lamb, Mavis had thought smoothing her skirt over the knobs of
her knees.
“This is my friend Rudy, Gran”.
Rudy was lifting his baseball cap and leaning back making a show of resisting Willa. Despite her misgivings
Mavis did the proper thing and reached out to shake Rudy’s hand, but then he smiled and proffered both of
his hands, instead of the customary one. For a moment Mavis saw nothing but Beau Bridges eyebrows and an
unconvincing grin. The wagon handle clattered to the ground and she found her hands wedged between his.
“Can I help you with that, Mrs. Downey?”
Rudy’s eyes were hazel, like Mavis’s late husband’s – the kind of eyes that pilfered flecks of color from their
surroundings.
“No, no, no,” said Mavis. I’m not dead, yet.”
She managed a terse thank you, extracted her hands and pulled on the wagon, but the wheels slid sideways
and stalled.
“Let’s take a look at that.”
Rudy brushed his hair behind his ear and swung down on his knees. Some beaded thing around his neck.
“Looks like a bent axle.”
“I know what it is,” said Mavis – then added, “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than waste your time
with an old lady.”
“Not just any old lady.” Rudy winked. “I do have standards.”
The sun barreled up beyond the canopy of cedars. Willa clasped her hands behind her back and beamed at
Rudy.
But the compliment left Mavis feeling like a child. She dragged the wagon a few more steps.
“Have it your way,” said Rudy, no longer friendly.
He grabbed Willa’s hand.
“Why don’t I just put the bin in my trunk and drop it off for you,” he said, his voice flat.
He snatched the garbage bin off the wagon and walked away swinging it like a drum. Willa trotted after him
and called back, “It’s okay, Gran. He doesn’t mind!”
The two of them in the cab of the truck crunching down the driveway with their booty.
That evening over a game of Crazy Eights Willa sat cross-legged on the floor across from Mavis, a bowl of
butterscotch candies on the coffee table between them.
“Give him a chance, Gran.”
“A chance to what?”
“He is a gentleman, I know it – he’s a free spirit, that’s all.”
“Ha,” said Mavis.
She dealt seven cards and Willa picked them up.
I read my Angel cards this morning, Gran. Abundance and my Heart’s True Desires – Rudy says that’s why I’m
here.”
Mavis studied her fan of cards.
“I’m pretty sure we met in a past life.”
“Oh, for the love of Pete.”
For a while, only the slap of cards and intermittent hum of the fridge buoyed the silence.
“Last card,” said Willa holding it in front of her face. “What about you and Grandpa?”
Mavis looked up.
“In the beginning, I mean”.
“Change it to Spades,” said Mavis.
“Not fair. You never tell me anything.”
Willa reached across the table for a candy, twisted the plastic wrapper off and popped it into her mouth.
“And as it so happens,” she said, “I like Rudy’s car.”
Willa spent most of June feeding goats, weeding and watering vegetables on a farm across the island. She ran
small errands for Mavis – returning library books and mailing letters – but evenings were reserved for Rudy.
Weeks trailed by. Mavis began to resent the bluster of Rudy’s engine as his car turned off the main road to
her driveway, its final sputter and clunk when parked. When she rested her feet on the ottoman and tried to
nap her granddaughter’s youthful certainty swirled into her dreams like vanilla into cake batter. Adept at
turning tension into something edible, Mavis rooted through handwritten index cards until she found her best
buttermilk scone recipe. But, no sooner had she checked the pantry for ingredients than Willa had arrived at
their door with six steaming muffins – folds of cranberry, banana, and pecan brimming over the scalloped
sides of the muffin cups.
One morning while eating her Bran Buds and listening to The Sunday Edition on the radio Mavis had an
epiphany: had Willa come to the island to get away from something? Perhaps life with the Shaughnessy set
was not all it had been cracked up to be.
She lifted a spoonful of cereal to her mouth and caught the milk before it dripped down her chin.
Or, did Willa – like most islanders at one time or another – expect to find herself here? As if one can mislay a
heart or a dream and find it under a log at the beach, or on the side of a rock teeming with periwinkles.
Mavis stood, re-tied her housecoat and stepped outside. The curtains were still drawn at the guest cottage.
She picked her way across the driveway in her slippers and stopped by Rudy’s car. Dew lingered on the
windshield and the windows yawned open – tree-shaped air freshener and tobacco papers on the dashboard,
dented metal thermos on the seat, a faint skunky smell in the upholstery.
The wash of sadness surprised Mavis. She thought of Willa spooning Rudy in the guest bed, giddy and
hopeful.
Well, she thought. Never mind, then.
Willa was jumping for joy.
“Rudy is moving in, Gran. Just for a while – until he finds a new place. You don’t mind, do you?”
For the month of August Rudy lounged on the steps smoking joints and talking about fitting a new screen on
the cottage windows. Mavis found something whiffling about the man.
Her own husband had presented her with a petunia basket every Mother’s Day for thirty years knowing full
well how she hated petunias. After his stroke Mavis cut up the oldest pillowcases and used them to sew
hankies. He cried all the time. She fed him soup and tied his shoes sometimes too tightly leaving a pale ridge
of skin on his foot when the shoe came off.
Now she chose baskets loaded with fuschia.
The Bachelor was on. Mavis fanned herself with the TV Guide and picked holes in both the bachelors and the
bachelorettes. During a commercial, she stepped outside and caught Rudy pressing Willa against the baking
trunk of his car, Willa’s dress hitched up on her slender thighs.
Like a gull gorging on herring, she thought.
That night a wind stirred and rain spattered on the roof Mavis tossed and turned. She dreamt she was seven
and a tractor followed her home from school; it dug a trench around her house and trapped her inside. After
a loud gust of wind woke Mavis up she lay in the dark watching branches outside the window swipe the sky
and the pendulate into stillness.
A few weeks after the dream Mavis thought she heard something over the sound of the television – the
ungodly call of a raven, or the sound a cat makes you step on its tail. She muted the TV, stood up and pulled
the curtains back from the window. Rudy and Willa arguing under the crabapple tree – Rudy punctuating the
air with asterisks and underscores, Willa and her braided ponytail floating around him, clining to his arms
while he tried to shake her off like so much kelp tangled in his paddle.
Mavis’s heart trundled: This is how it starts, she thought. And then one day he smacks you because he tripped
over your son’s Matchbox toy. She began folding and unfolding the fabric edge of the curtain. She wondered
what Willa had done to provoke Rudy. That’s what her husband had always claimed – that she had provoked
him.
Rudy lifted the rim of his baseball cap and jammed it back down on his forehead. Willa buried her face in her
hands.
And then she flew at him. The young woman who cupped spiders for release outdoors and started the day
with herbal tea and Angel cards stung Rudy’s face with the heat of her hand.
An hour passed before Willa knocked on Mavis’s door.
“Gran?”
The screen door squeaked and clicked shut.
“Gran, are you there? It’s me, Willa. I saw your light on.”
Willa had brought her Angel cards and a diffuser. She struck a match, lit the tea light under the diffuser and
then added three drops of frankincense. The light flickered and made shadows around her eyes.
She held the cards to her heart and asked the angels to bless the cards and Willa and her Gran. Shuffled. The
Ace of Fire spat out of the deck and Willa slapped her hand over it. She sobbed once, a guttural sound.
Didn’t I warn you, Mavis felt like saying. Didn’t I?
“Oh, Lamb,” she said.
The next afternoon she put on her broad brimmed gardening hat and she and Willa drove the Volvo to the
beach. Mavis rested on a log while Willa walked barefoot in the sand, the sun high and a cooling breeze off
the water. Out in the channel a prawn fisherman pulled up his traps. Willa called Mavis to come to the
shoreline when a sea anemone had been stranded by the tide. Once she would have said, “Poor thing –“ and
gone as far as to put a rock on either side and build a driftwood roof to keep the gulls from picking at. But
today she poked the anemone with a stick and she and Mavis watched it recoil.