The Cradle From the Last Board

The cradle

For a second nobody said anything at all. The sun was low and it came across the yard and lit up the walnut like it was lit from inside.

Wilbur and I lifted it down together and set it on the front walk at the foot of the steps. The rockers touched the concrete and it moved, just a little, back and forth, and then went still.

Jenny came down the steps with the baby. She put her free hand on the end panel and traced the heart cut through it with one finger.

“Alice,” she said. “You made this?”

“Dad started it,” I said. “A long time ago. I just finished it.”

She looked at me, confused, and I didn’t explain. It wasn’t the time and it wasn’t my story to tell first.

Jenny is a practical person. She bent over and pushed on the mattress. Checked the corners. Ran her hand down the inside to see if anything would catch. Then she straightened up and her eyes were wet.

“It’s walnut,” she said. “Where in the world did you get walnut like this?”

I opened my mouth. I didn’t know what I was going to say. I hadn’t planned that far.

Beth said it before I could.

“It’s the last board.” She was standing at the top of the steps with her hands pressed together in front of her coat. “Her dad sawed it from a tree on his pond when she was a little girl. He saved twelve boards for her babies. And I burned the other eleven on my burn pile in October.”

The yard went very quiet. Even the fire seemed to quiet down.

Jenny turned and looked at her mother. Chris looked at Burl. Burl looked at the ground, but he didn’t look away from it.

“I said a terrible thing to her that day,” Beth went on. Her voice shook, but she didn’t stop. “I said she didn’t even have a baby to put in a cradle. I knew what they’d been through. I knew. And I said it anyway, because I was ashamed, and I wanted somebody else to feel it instead of me.”

She came down the steps slowly, holding the rail. She stopped in front of me.

“I’m sorry, Alice,” she said. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just couldn’t stand here and let Jenny think I had any part in something this good.”

I didn’t say anything right away. I’m not sure I could have.