The Babysitters
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t is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children’s Island. The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead. That summer we wore black glasses to hide our eyes. We were always crying, in our spare rooms, little put-upon sisters, In the two, huge, white, handsome houses in Swampscott. When the sweetheart from England appeared, with her cream skin andYardley cosmetics, I had to sleep in the same room with the baby on a too-short cot, And the seven-year-old wouldn’t go out unless his jersey stripes
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