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At first he thought the noise was just from the stones but two days later, Jemmy realized that it was just loud in the future. Even Mam and Da talked about it once with a laugh.
A noisy boat took them to the mainland and they walked on dark and unusual rock until they found a long, flat building. Mam and Da said it was like an inn but he had to take their word for it having never actually stayed overnight at an inn that he could remember. He and Da and Mandy waited outside while Mam spoke to the people inside and arranged for their rooms.
Mam got in touch with someone she knew who could send them money and was coming to get them to take them to Boston where Mandy’s heart would get fixed. It would take two days for him to get there.
Jemmy didn’t leave the room. He was too afraid and there was so much to see inside the room anyway. It was really two rooms. A larger room with two beds and lamps that didn’t need candles or wicks or fire and were blindingly bright. Mam told him not to stare at it or get so close cause it would damage his sight, like staring at the sun. He spent a long time exploring the privy and playing with what Mam told him was a toilet. The noise was loud and the rush of water startled him but in an exciting way, not a scary one.
Da left for a while and came back with new clothes and some food in strange wrappers that rustled and came in strange colors. Mam went into the privy to bathe while Mandy slept on the bed, Da watching her while he and Jemmy ate the odd pastries. They weren’t hot and they were somehow both incredibly dry and incredibly sweet. He coughed until Da got him water from the special spring in the privy to drink.
After Mam emerged grinning and pink, her hair wet and wearing a clean shift made from a bright cloth, it was his turn to bathe.
He’d never been in water so hot. “I feel like a potato,” he told his mother who laughed.
“Is it cause I keep scrubbing and scrubbing you but there always seems to be more dirt to scrub off?” she asked, vigorously rubbing the washcloth behind his ears so that it tickled.
“No,” he giggled. “When ye put them in a stew. They get all hot and soft and I feel like that now.”
“Is that a good thing?” Mam asked, a funny smile on her lips.
Jemmy shrugged. “I like it right now. I hope the water’s this hot next time I have to take a bath.”
“It will be this hot every time you take a bath,” Mam told him. “And you’re gonna be washing more often than you did when we were on the Ridge with Grannie and Grandda. That’s just how things are done here.”
Jemmy sighed but conceded, “If it’s this warm I suppose that willna be so bad.”
Mam smiled and helped him finish scrubbing then got him out of the bath and dried him off.
The new clothes felt strange and they smelled strange. So did the bedclothes. He was tired but slept fitfully because of the noises outside and from someone on the other side of the wall of their room.
There were more of the pastries in the morning, the sweetness not as sharp nor the texture so dry as it seemed the night before. Mam said they were strawberry flavor but he liked the strawberries from Grannie’s garden better.
After breakfast Mam pulled out a pair of scissors and told him to sit still while she draped a towel around his shoulders and cut his hair. She’d done things to his hair before but she’d never cut so much off at once. He frowned when he looked in the mirror. His hair didn’t look like Grandda’s anymore, pulled back into a queue. Then Da sat down and let Mam do the same to him and Jemmy didn’t mind so much. “Hair can grow back,” Da whispered when Mam was busy cleaning up.
They offered to play games with him after that but he knew they needed to talk about what they were going to do after they got to Boston and Mandy’s heart got fixed. He would have said they should go back to the Ridge and Grannie and Grandda but he was afraid of the stones and even though it was scary, looking out the window and watching the future outside was beginning to make him curious.
He sat in a chair with his arms resting on the windowsill and watched. And asked his parents questions.
“Is that a real vroom?”
“Why are they dressed like that?”
“Where are they going?”
“What’s that she’s on?”
“What kind of vroom is that?”
“What’s that called?”
They made up a new game for him. He had to see how long he could watch without asking questions and Mam would time him using the automatic clock on the table between the beds. He could ask one question for every five minutes he watched quietly.
There were so many people. A few seemed to feel him staring and looked over at him. He ducked out of sight the first time. The third person smiled and waved so he waved back.
He wasn’t bored with watching but Mandy grew fussy and Mam and Da were acting funny because the person Mam knew was supposed to be getting there soon. Jemmy climbed onto the bed with Mandy to rub her belly and let her pull his finger into her mouth so Mam and Da could get ready.
Then there was a knock on the door and Mam got up to answer it. Jemmy moved closer to where Da was standing, blocking Mandy from sight and peering around Da.
“Bree?” the stranger’s voice said from the open door. “Christ, it really is you.”
“You remember Roger,” Mam said, gesturing to Da.
Da stepped forward and shook the man’s hand. Jemmy made a noise when the man looked at him and smiled but Jemmy stood his ground.
“This is our son, Jeremiah,” Mam introduced him, “and that’s wee Mandy on the bed. Jem, this is Dr. Joe Abernathy. He’s an old friend of Grannie’s.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jeremiah,” Dr. Abernathy said, reaching a hand out to Jemmy too.
Jemmy tried to remember Grannie telling stories about her friend Joe but all he could remember was that she usually stopped before she finished. She would spot him listening and stop herself saying she’d finish the story later when little ears weren’t around, then Mam, Da, and Grandda would laugh.
Looking at the offered hand for a moment, Jemmy took it and shook it the way he’d seen Da and Grandda do when men came to the Ridge with questions and requests. Dr. Abernathy smiled.
“First things first, let me give that little lady a medical examination and then we can talk.”