Lily follows Frances up to the attic.
“I was going to show you something but now I think maybe you’re not old enough.”
“I am, Frances. I’m old.”
They are seated on the floor, cross-legged before the hope chest. “This was Kathleen’s room, eh, Frances” always must be said, and the response, “That’s right, Lily, this is where she died,” before they can get on with whatever game Frances has in mind. This liturgy serves to honour the story that no longer needs repeating. The story that Frances told Lily so long ago and so often:
“Our beautiful older sister, Kathleen. She had red hair like an angel on fire. And she had the voice of an angel. God loved her so much, He took her. She was only nineteen when she died of the flu. I was there when she died and I closed her eyes.”
There is always a pause here while they both picture it faithfully. Then Frances continues, “Her last words were … ‘Dear Frances, you are my favourite sister. And you are also the most beautiful next to me. Please. Look after Lily.’” Frances’s eyes start to glint green, but it is a serious glint. Scary. Lily’s eyes grow round and wet. The bump appears in her forehead.
“Why did she say look after me?”
Frances doesn’t take her eyes off Lily, she just says evenly, “Because she loved you, Lily.”
“… I love her too.” Tears.
Frances puts out a hand and barely strokes Lily’s long hair that’s never been cut. Then … “Okay, quit blubbering, let’s play.”
It is understood that Kathleen is not to be mentioned around Daddy, “because, Lily, it would hurt him terribly if you even said her name.”
On this particular evening, Frances has decided that the time has come to talk of other things. She reaches into her pocket and produces the key to the hope chest. Lily gasps.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Lily.”
“What’s melon dramatic?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Oh.”
Frances repockets the key. “I made a mistake, you’re too young.”
“I am not!”
“Keep your voice down.”
Whispering passionately, “I am not, Frances, I won’t tell.”
Frances raises an eyebrow, shakes her head, mutters, “I must be losing my marbles,” and inserts the key into the lock. Raises the lid. The waft of cedar…. Frances gets a lump in her throat, blinks past it. Lily knows better than to ask.
“Close your eyes, Lily.”
“Okay.”
“There are things in here that you’re not ready to see.”
Rustle, rustle.
“Put your hand out.”
Lily does. “It feels silky.”
“It’s pure satin. Open your eyes.”
Frances holds what looks like a miniature wedding gown, gone a little yellow with age.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily breathes.
“It’s the christening gown. We were all baptized in it. Kathleen, Mercedes, me, you. And Ambrose.”
Lily looks up. “Who’s Ambrose?”
The thin white stripe appears across the bridge of Frances’s nose. It usually only appears when she’s laughing, but she’s not laughing now.
“He’s your brother, Lily.”
Lily stays perfectly quiet, looking into Frances’s eyes, waiting. Frances says, “Here. You can hold it.”
Lily takes the gown from Frances and cradles it in her arms, such a precious thing, an heirloom.
Frances says, “Ambrose died.”
Lily waits. Listens. Frances tells the story:
“On the day you both were born, a stray orange cat came in through the cellar door. It climbed the cellar steps. It climbed the front hall steps. It climbed all the way up to the attic without a sound. It came in here where you both were sleeping and it leapt into your crib. It put its mouth over Ambrose’s face and sucked the breath out of him. He turned blue and died. Then the orange cat put its paws on your chest and it was about to do the same thing to you but I came in and I saved you. Daddy took the orange cat and drowned it in the creek. Then he buried it in the garden. In the spot where the scarecrow used to be but now there’s a stone. I helped.”
Lily doesn’t move a muscle. Frances takes the gown carefully from her and calls, “Here Trixie,” making kissing sounds with her mouth, “Come on Trixie, come on,” until they hear the loping pad pad up the stairs and Trixie appears in the room, blink. You called?
“That’s a good Trixie, c’mere.”
Trixie comes. She always does when Frances calls. She found Frances three years ago. Trixie is pure black with yellow eyes. Although, who can say, maybe her missing front paw had a white slipper on it, we’ll never know.
“Frances, Lily, supper.”
“Coming, Mercedes.”
Downstairs, Mercedes pops her head out the front door, looking for Daddy’s Hupmobile. He had to do an emergency delivery to Glace Bay this afternoon. Someone needed twenty pairs of shoes right away. Mercedes is proud that Daddy works so hard, and always at night, just so he can look after Lily. Otherwise Mercedes would have had to leave school. Daddy drives all over the island delivering dry goods he picks up in Sydney. And often he makes boots all night in the shed. Mercedes has seen the reassuring glow of his lamp down there in the window, athough she would never dream of disturbing him — Daddy doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s working.
Mercedes is proud they have an automobile, athough she knows she should only be grateful. Here it comes, right on schedule, long and boxy, bobbing over the ruts. And here come the girls down from the attic; it looks as though supper will be on time for once. Tonight it’s an old Cape Breton recipe that Mercedes got from Mrs MacIsaac: ceann groppi. That’s Gaelic for “stuffed cod head”. It’s taken Mercedes all afternoon, she sincerely hopes Daddy will be thrilled: take a big cod head, take a lot of cod livers, scrape off the iffy bits, take rolled oats, cornmeal, flour and salt, stuff the head through the mouth, holding it with a finger in each eye. Boil.
James tosses his cap onto the halltree hook and says, “Come and hit the ivories, Mercedes, I feel like cutting the rug with my best girl.”
Mercedes smiles at Daddy and proceeds obediently to the front room, forced to wait dinner after all. Tortured as though by tacit conspiracy involving her entire family. She sits at the piano and grits her teeth at the sound of Lily giggling and running to Daddy. Mercedes opens the old Let Us Have Music for Piano and plays.
Lily places her left foot on top of Daddy’s right one, her right one on his left, and they dance to “Roses of Picardy”.
Until finally “I’m starved,” says Daddy. “What’s for supper, Mercedes?”
Supper.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” says Frances.
Even James. “I’m sure it’s delicious, Mercedes, but I have a hard time eating with my dinner looking me straight in the eyes.”
They all laugh except Mercedes, who gets up and leaves the room.
“What’s the matter with her?” asks James.
Frances responds, “It’s her period.”
James winces, so sorry to have enquired that he fails to notice the inappropriateness of the answer. “Well … I’ll apologize. Who wants tea biscuits and molasses?”
Up in her room, Mercedes consoles herself with the family tree. She has been working on it for almost a year. It is a painstaking process. Whenever she has a new entry — whenever she has had the precious time to dig a little deeper in the Sydney library, or on those rare occasions when she has received a long-awaited reply from the provincial archives in Halifax — she carefully unrolls the large scroll of special paper on her desk. She fastens down the corners, takes out a pencil and a ruler and neatly draws a short vertical line beneath one of several long horizontal ones, under which she inscribes the latest name. And there it hangs, quietly suspended like a piece of desiccated fruit.