Show Me a Sign

signs, holding up as many fingers. I am to fill the pitcher three times, adding the water to the kettle two times. Always, the last pitcher is for cleaning up.
The task is easy enough. Papa dug a shallow well right next to our house, by the pear and apple trees. On an island, you can’t dig a well too deeply unless you want to drink and cook with salt water.
Back in the kitchen, I rinse corn, beans, and squash from our garden. These foods grow plentifully in every season. The Wampanoag, the local Indians, call them “the three sisters.” They work together to grow—corn provides height for the bean stalk, squash provides mulch, and the beans provide beneficial gasses to the soil.
There is much discord between the Wampanoag and us Vineyarders that I know worries Mama and Papa. Papa says that we both lay claim to the same tracts of land, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts goes back and forth in its rulings. The Wampanoag believe land should be held collectively, rather than as personal property. How can that be?
Papa is sympathetic to the Wampanoag. Perhaps it’s because he labors side by side with them on the farm. Mama socializes only with English women. She is glad early missionaries to the island succeeded in Christianizing so many Wampanoag. I was raised to accept her beliefs. But ever since George died too young and without just cause, I have begun to question everything.
When I’m done cooking, I’m supposed to wipe the table, but instead I watch Mama wash a dish and wonder at her contentment with her daily chores. She always does them meticulously and with great calm. The last time I stacked the plates, I chipped two of them. I prefer making up stories.
“I saw a lion on the beach today,” I sign.
Mama wrinkles her brow as she carefully lays a pan of hot cranberry muffins on a trivet.
She shakes her head and signs, “You shouldn’t tell tall tales.”
“But it’s true,” I insist, tapping my index finger against my closed lips.
“Tell me,” Mama signs. She takes off her apron and sits down at the wooden table Papa built.
I sweep my hair away from my eyes—it is important that my face shows, even though it is positively dull. I don’t have Mama’s and George’s fine features. My thick hair, which Mama calls the color of sunlight, has cowlicks that don’t curl as smartly as other girls’ hair. It gives me lumpy braids, and I’m too young for a bun. I tuck it behind my ears, and it hangs to the middle of my chest.
I remain standing so I can express myself with my whole body, not just my hands.
“When the tide came roaring in today, I saw the lion.”
Mama frowns. “There are no lions on Martha’s Vineyard,” she signs emphatically. “Ezra Brewer put those ideas in your head.”
“No, it was Miss Hammond. I love her teachings. She always shares fascinating stories from her brother-in-law who is a sailor. He claims he saw a mermaid once. And Miss Hammond says the lion is ‘the king of the jungle.’ ”
“We have no jungles, Mary. No lions.”
Mama’s eyes are watery and her shoulders slump.
“The dark waves were so high, and the sea spray was white against them,” I sign, my eyes and mouth wide open to show awe. “I stayed back. One wave got bigger and bigger, and it looked like a lion’s head roaring before it crashed against the rocks.”
“That is fanciful,” Mama signs. “It’s not true life.”
“But it looked like a lion to me,” I sign.
I see Mama sigh. She has never had time for fancies. Papa enjoys when I tell a tale, and George was always most excited by my whimsies. His amusement at my storytelling made me perform more energetically. I sometimes even teased a smile out of Mama.
Mama stands up and begins to remove the muffins from the pan. I help her, then wrap two in a cloth.
“Walk beach, give to Ezra Brewer,” I sign.
Mama nods, but I can read a slight look of disapproval in her face. Ezra Brewer is not Mama’s favorite inhabitant of our township, Chilmark. I’m not sure why she dislikes him. Papa enjoys his company and stories. I sometimes wonder if his farmer’s heart longs for the excitement of the high seas.
“I promise I’ll return later to help you,” I sign, crossing my fingers behind my back.
As I walk out the door, I think I see Mama call out to me from the corner of my eye. George was hearing like Mama. I am deaf like Papa, and no manner of shouting will get our attention.
I confess I do not turn back.

We live up-island. To get to Ezra Brewer’s, I walk down the high road toward our pastures. I do not see Papa or our herding dog, Sam. They must be back at the barn.
Our sheep farm sits on rolling meadows bounded by stone walls. From the high road to the Atlantic Ocean beyond, Chilmark is a hilly place. I sign, “Good morrow, sheep.” They barely look up.
Our grazing pastures are part of the much larger Allen farm. With permission from the colonial government, the local sachem sold it to them in 1762. The Allens have rented the land to the Lamberts for generations.
I pass the timber-framed barn that Papa’s father built. It has large tubs for sheep dipping and space for sheep shearing. In two small, adjacent buildings there is a very old corncrib for storing dried ears of corn, and a stone peat house, where rotting vegetation for conditioning the land is stored.
When I reach the hallowed ground on the high road, memories come rolling in like dark clouds.
My brother, George, and I are in the road. We are laughing. He is chasing me in circles, grabbing for a tool in my hand.
Clouds drift past the sun. I look up, shading my eyes with one hand when George slips the tool out from my