to call her aunt in Sydney. She broke into a broad grin when she heard Marjorie’s voice at the other end. “Aunt Marjorie, I’d like to accept your invitation. I can’t cook, but I’d be helpful in everything else.” Marjorie chuckled. Lily was surprised at how strong her aunt sounded, despite the fact that the breast cancer had spread to her lungs.
“Lily, it would be wonderful to have your help. When can you come?”
“In two weeks, when school ends. I need some practical advice.”
“Well, you know your aunt has an opinion on everything.”
Marjorie understood the delicate interaction between Lily and her mother. She had met Amelia in her compromised circumstances when Amelia was the housekeeper to the elderly Mr. White. Marjorie was working at the time as a full-time nurse and was unable to care for her grandfather. She understood that Lily reminded her mother of something she wanted to forget. Marjorie had intentionally filled the emotional gap when Beth was born by making Lily her special niece.
When Lily hung up the phone, she began to cry. Marjorie had called her beautiful even when she was at her most ungainly. Beth, so sure of herself, didn’t need compliments. The proof of her self-confidence and resilience was found in the fact that even a botched abortion and the birth of an illegitimate child had not daunted her. Beth had returned to New York after the birth of the baby.
After her first full year of teaching, and her tumultuous relationship with Ed Parsons, what Lily wanted most now was to rekindle her family relationships and forget her former beau.
“What was I like when I was young?” Lily asked one evening, curled up on the sofa. The weather had turned cool and her aunt had stoked up the coal stove.
“My goodness, you make yourself sound so old,” Aunt Marjorie said, laughing. She held the glass door open for a moment, staring at the orange embers. “You would stretch out by this stove reading your page-worn books and eating my cookies.”
“I remember the cookies,” Lily said. “Two cookies bound together by homemade jam. Sometimes you used a date mixture, but I preferred the jam.”
“Your uncle Ned paid a full month’s wages for this New Silver Moon stove on our first anniversary,” Aunt Marjorie said, looking fondly at the stove. “You were always intrigued by the name. That’s why I want you, the daughter we never had, to inherit it. I’ve set aside money to transport this stove wherever you are, so long as it’s not Timbuktu.”
Lily laughed. “I don’t want to inherit the stove anytime soon, Aunt Marjorie.”
“Just remember, there were never more than six hundred New Silver Moons manufactured.”
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