Lilac Spring

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lilac Spring book club discussion questions

Prologue

Haven’s End

Maine, 1861

“You’re the new ’prentice, aren’t you?” Cherish asked the boy hunched over one of Papa’s drafting tables.

He twisted around, a startled look on his thin face, as if she’d caught him doing something wrong.

Cherish stepped through the doorway of the boat shop and approached the table, her rag doll, Annie, swinging back and forth from one hand.

The boy swiped the edge of his palm against the corner of his eye, watching her silently as she neared.

“Aren’t you?”

Staring at her through disconcertingly gray eyes, he finally answered, “Yes.”

“Why’re you crying?”

“I’m not crying!”

“Yes, you are. I can tell. Your eyes are all red.” It suddenly occurred to her that maybe, being a big boy, he didn’t want to admit to crying. She never minded crying; it usually made her feel better afterward. The only problem was it usually followed a spanking.

“Whatcha’ doin’?” she asked curiously, peering beyond him to the drafting table.

“Nothin’. Just looking.”

“That’s Papa’s model.” She stood on tiptoe at the edge of the table, eyeing the wooden half-hull sliced in sections like a loaf of bread cut lengthwise.

She dragged another stool over to the table and climbed up on it. “I waited till Papa was down at the yard ’fore I came over this morning. It was a long time! Then I was ’fraid Mama wouldn’t let me walk over.” She smiled. “She thinks I’m outside playing with my kitty-cat.”

The boy said nothing.

“I cried yesterday,” she told him, settling Annie on her lap. “Mama sent me to my room.”

He continued eyeing her as if deciding whether she was friend or foe. He had nice eyes, she decided. Green-tinged gray, like a choppy sea. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I pulled kitty’s tail. I was trying to tie her to my dolly’s stroller, but she wouldn’t ’bey me.”

She could see the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and that made her glad.

“Kitty scratched me. See?” She pushed up her sleeve and showed him the bright red line running up her forearm.

“Papa never sends me to my room or spanks me. Mama says I’ll be spoiled if someone don’t spank me. Papa says I’m his little lady and should never be spanked.”

The two sat quietly for a few moments. The boy’s attention, she could see, had returned to the pieces of carved wood on the table. “Are you from far away?” she asked, shifting on the hard stool.

“Real far,” he murmured.

“Where?” she asked, finding it hard to picture anything beyond Haven’s End.

“Swan’s Island.”

“Swan’s Island,” she repeated in awe. Her mama had just read her a story about a swan the night before. She imagined a beautiful island full of snowy-white swans.

“Do you have a mama and papa?” she asked when he said nothing more.

“Just a mama. Papa was lost at sea,” he added in a fierce tone, as if proud of the fact.

“That’s too bad.”

He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose. His thick golden hair fell over his forehead as he bent over the smooth pieces of wood that fitted together in descending order.

“Are you your mama’s little gent’man now your papa’s gone to heaven?”

He scoffed. “I’m too big to be a little gentleman.”

“Are you going to be a gent’man when you grow up?” Papa said she was going to marry a gent’man when she grew up.

“Naw! I’m going to build boats.”

She smiled. “I am, too!”

He turned his head toward her as if seeing her for the first time. Instead of laughing at her the way Papa did whenever she told him, he looked interested. “You like boats?”

“I love boats!”

“Your father is going to teach me how to build boats.”

She nodded. She’d heard Papa talking about the ’prentice.

He focused on the model again, running his forefinger down the sheer of the gunwale. “Some day I’m going to design them, too,” he said softly, reverently. He seemed not to be talking to her, but to himself.

“Me, too,” she replied at once, wanting to bring his attention back to her, although she wasn’t quite sure what “design” meant. That was okay. If the new boy could do it, so could she.

“What’s your name?” she asked, taking a liking to him despite his aloofness. He was nice, not like those big bullies at the schoolhouse.

“Silas.”

“I’m Cherish.”

“Cherish.” He turned his gray eyes on her again. “That’s a funny name.”

“It is not!”