“With your father the way he was, I mean, a silencer, how did you get to be such …”
“Such a yakker? From him! Once I was out of the house I couldn’t shut up. I think I must be full of bullshit. You haven’t noticed?”
“I’ve noticed!”
“And …?”
“It’s okay. It fills spaces I can’t or don’t want to. And I can tune out.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I don’t mind.” she replied. “Because it means the pressure’s off me.”
“What pressure?”
“The pressure to keep you amused so you’ll want to be with me.”
“I want to be with you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever said anything.”
“Well, you’ve never wanted to know.”
He senses now that she wants to know. She’s gone into retreat mode which is rare for her. Retreat mode for Meredith means she is distracted, distanced. She doesn’t talk. She goes to bed. The girls put their mouths to her ear and say, “Earth to Mom!”
He is thinking he should be jealous. That would be the reasonable — or unreasonable and instinctive — way to feel. Perhaps he should be enraged. But he just feels sad: sad at his own passivity, that in some way he has failed her, failed her enough that she has heaped her affection — that’s how he sees it — on someone else. Her affection is a loose, lavish, limitless weight. It is not in his nature to ask her what’s wrong. If something is wrong, she’ll tell him. Or so he believes. Either that or he’ll lose her. He feels that actually preventing that is beyond his power. He can only keep loving her as he always has, steadfastly, profoundly, heedfully, and hope it’s enough.
Lizbett enters the kitchen where Meredith is studying a shopping list. She and Thompson have a big contract: a five-page Christmas editorial for RARITY. She says to Lizbett, “Lovely playing, darling.”
“Thanks, Mom. It’s Schubert. It’s really hard.”
“‘The Impromptu Number two in A Flat,’” says Thompson. He is making a pile of toast and peanut butter for the table while he puts together the girls’ lunches. “It sure was hard.”
“Nan-Nan is always telling me how you never practised. How she doesn’t want us to end up like you.”
“I wish I had now.”
“I like your jazzy stuff.”
He leaves the lunch-making and goes into the next room with the piano and plays few vibrant riffs from Ray Bryant.
Meredith looks up. “Sonny! C’mon! Has anybody seen Darce? Isn’t she up yet? Lizbett, go upstairs, please, and get your sleepyhead sister out of bed.”
“Why is she so bad? Do I have to?”
“I already stuck my head in,” says Thompson.
“So did I,” says Meredith.
Lizbett enters her sister’s ocean-blue room with the red plaid curtains and opens them.
“Don’t!” yells Darcy. She buries her dark head in the pillow. Dora, Meredith’s mother, is descended from the “Black Irish” and Darcy has inherited her colouring. When they are open, her eyes are a deep brown, with black lashes — unlike Lizbett’s, whose blond lashes fringe bright green eyes. And Lizbett is pale like her mother. Darcy’s skin is olive.
She is like a sprite. Her family likes to say she is “no bigger than a minute.”
“C’mon, Darce. Mom said. You’ll be late for camp.”
Darcy whimpers, “I don’t want to,” and Lizbett puts her hands under her sister’s back and lifts her into a sitting position. She flops back down.
“Please, Darce. C’mon, I’ll help you.” Reluctantly, Darcy pulls herself out of bed. She is a wistful child. Where Lizbett is impulsive, spontaneous, Darcy is pensive, hesitant, as if she regrets, not her short existence, but any disruption that may occur in the future. This has nothing to do with premonition and everything to do with her view of life, which is essentially sad. She was only three when their beloved Great Dane, Misty, died, but the sorrow that pervaded the house affected her deeply: seeing her mother, father, and sister weep openly. She clearly remembers the dog’s enormous bodily absence and the wonder of that. Now she fears separation of any kind, sensing it may be permanent. But she knows her parents, her mother especially, disapprove of any fuss, so she has developed a brave face. Getting up in the morning means she is going to have to put it on.
Lizbett leads her into the bathroom where she fills the sink with hot water, wets a washcloth, and washes Darcy’s face. Then she puts toothpaste on her toothbrush, says, “Open,” and brushes Darcy’s teeth.
Back in the bedroom, she pulls clean clothes out of the drawers, some panties, brown shorts, and a white T-shirt and helps Darcy put them on. By now, Darcy is awake and she bends over and buckles up her sandals.
“Let’s make the bed,” says Lizbett and together, one on each side of the bed, the sisters pull up the sheet and blue coverlet.
“Careful not to disturb Mr. Mushu and Geoffrey!” Mr. Mushu is their Siamese cat and Geoffrey is a stray tabby who arrived last winter during a snowstorm. The two beloved animals are curled up at the bottom of the bed cleaning each other.
“Darcy, honey, what are we going to do with you?” Meredith says when the girls arrive in the kitchen. “Stephen and his mommy are going to be here soon to pick you up. You barely have time to eat.”
“I can take some toast in the car. I’m an owl, like Daddy.” It’s true the two of them have trouble getting to sleep at night. Thompson reads in bed. Meredith has taken to allowing Darcy to do the same. Better to have her absorbed than tossing and turning. Books are her life, in any case. She often has two on the go. Meredith has tried to help her develop other activities, but Darcy has resisted. Apart from the piano lessons, which she also takes with her grandmother, she is not interested in anything else except the cats. And, unlike Lizbett, who has a group of close friends, Darcy only has Stephen, who has been her friend from nursery school. Meredith thinks this is far too passive a life for a child to lead. Her contribution to family life is being complaisant.
Maybe she is a late developer. She certainly was a late talker. While Lizbett had said words at ten months and full sentences by eighteen months, Darcy spoke few words, even at two years. Meredith keeps watching for an artistic bent to surface. Her artwork from school has shown promise. She is hoping that the art camp she is attending at the City Art Gallery will inspire her.
As Lizbett is leaving to walk to the Courtice Museum for her mask camp, Thompson hands over her lunch. “Thanks, Daddy,” she says. “Hope it’s good like yesterday.”
“Should
