“Yes, Our Lady.”
“Lily.”
It’s Frances. Oh no. Lily has used her perfume without asking. But Frances doesn’t even say anything about that.
“Lily.”
Lily drives the car away from the grotto and out from beneath the sheets. She looks up at Frances. Frances has the scroll.
“What happened here, Lily?”
Tears form in Lily’s eyes and roll down but she’s not crying that she knows of. “I coloured in the family tree.”
“That was Mercedes’ special thing.”
“It was a surprise.” Now she’s crying.
“You know you shouldn’t touch other people’s things, Lily, especially when they’ve worked hard. You should have drawn your own.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
Frances knows this to be true. She sits down on the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry, Frances.”
“Don’t cry, Lily.”
Lily tumbles into Frances’s arms for a good snoggling cry and Frances hugs her.
“Frances?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Everyone didn’t die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone didn’t die when I was born.”
“Of course they didn’t.”
“Daddy didn’t die. Mercedes didn’t die. You didn’t die.”
“Mercedes’s feelings were hurt, that’s all, Lily, she didn’t mean it. She loves you. We all do.”
Lily can’t resist another look at her artwork. She peels open the scroll and reaches under the sheets for the phosphorescent statue. She and Frances look at the scroll together by the light of the Virgin Mary.
“You’re a good artist, Lily. I like the worms.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s inside the treasure chest?”
“Treasure.”
“What kind of treasure?”
“Ambrose.”
“Lily. Ambrose is just a story.”
“I know.”
The Virgin is losing her glow. The picture is no longer visible. It’s time to go to sleep. Frances rolls up the scroll.
“What are you going to do with it, Frances?”
“We don’t want Mercedes to see it any more. I’ll have to take it to the dump or burn it.”
“No!”
“Shsh. We can’t keep it.”
“We could bury it.”
Frances considers…. “In the garden.”
Frances and Lily are crouched in the garden, working by the cautious light of a candle stub. The Virgin Mary is in Lily’s pocket. Together they manage to dislodge the big rock — a catastrophe for a whole community of soft-shell creatures that go scrambling in all directions. Lily marvels at how they all managed to thrive under that rock without being crushed by it:
“For them the rock is the sky.”
“Come on, Lily, we haven’t got all night.”
Even though Mercedes is the gardener of the family, she is unlikely to go digging under the rock, so the garden is actually quite a good hiding-place. Daddy put the boulder in this spot, “the year he decided to make it a rock garden,” says Frances. “Up to then there was a scarecrow, but one night it pulled itself out of the ground and walked away.”
Lily pauses and looks at Frances, but Frances is calmly digging with a spoon, not using a spooky voice or anything.
“Nobody knows where it went. Maybe it’ll come back and visit us someday if you’re lucky, Lily. Anyhow, Daddy never made the rock garden because Mumma died around that time and he didn’t have the heart to continue.”
“Around the time that I was born, eh.”
“That’s right. You and Ambrose.”
“Frances, you said Ambrose was just a story.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Frances, don’t!”
“Don’t be a baby Lily, jeez, you’re so easy to scare.”
“He was just a story, Frances,”
“All right Lily, he was just a story.”
“He was, Frances!”
“Lily, you think what you want to think and I’ll think what I want to think. And if you’re not mature enough to help me here then we’ll just burn your stupid drawing in the furnace and Daddy will know about it, is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Then quit whining about Ambrose, he was just a story.”
Silence. Lily, satisfied, picks up a spoon and digs obediently.
Frances grins; “No he wasn’t.”
Lily controls herself and manages not to respond. Frances starts laughing. They keep digging. Frances calls softly, “A-a-ambro-o-ose…. Ambro-o-ose, Lily wants you-ou-ou.”
Giddy gales of laughter. Prickly lights in her eyes and the little white stripe. Frances rolls over in the dirt and shakes her hands and feet in the air like a dog and giggles demonically. The only thing to do when Frances gets like this is to ignore her until it wears off, otherwise you make it worse. Lily just keeps digging.
“That’s deep enough.” Frances is suddenly back in command. “We don’t want to dig up the bones of the orange cat.”
Lily draws back. She had forgotten about the cat, now only inches below. Frances lays the scroll in the shallow hole. “Rest in pieces.”
Lily looks up sharply but it’s okay; apart from a gleam in her eye, Frances is safely this side of the verge.
They each toss in a handful of dirt, then bury the scroll and roll the rock back into place. A perfect job. Just place these loose bits of dry corn husks around its base and no one could ever tell in a million years.
“Okay Lily, go on inside now, I’ll be right there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to say a little prayer.”
Lily obeys. Out of the garden and onto the little foot-bridge over the creek in her steady uneven gait and whap, she catches a dirtball right in the back of the head. She turns. Frances is doubled over in the centre of the garden. She’s off again. Oh no.
“Frances, come on. Someone will see you.”
Frances runs in a crazy limp out of the garden, down the bank and right straight splash through the creek, waving her arms, doing her impression of Lily — “Fwances come on, come on Fwances!” laughing, limping all the way back to the house. Lily follows slowly. Frances can’t help it, Lily knows that. She just hopes Daddy hasn’t heard them out at this hour. Because if he has, Frances will get a good talking-to. And there won’t be anything Lily can do about it, except to bring her warm milk after and let her sleep with Raggedy-Lily-of-the-Valley.
But it’s all right. Daddy is out. He isn’t working, he just couldn’t sleep. He went for a walk and wound up at the graveyard, longing for a drink. He drank salt air instead. Now at dawn he turns homeward, listening for the sound of pit boots along Plummer Avenue, expecting to hear the mine whistle. Then he remembers the strike. For no reason his throat tightens. His eyes sting but he isn’t going to cry, there isn’t time. He wants to be home when his girls wake up.
Porridge
“Here, Daddy.”
Breakfast. It’s a new day and the night is gone and I’m here with my girls. “Thank you, Mercedes. Eat up, Frances.”