This was a far cry from our gleaming marble bathroom. I poured warm water from the kettle into the bowl and Bridget and I scrubbed our hands and arms as thoroughly as if we were doctors preparing for surgery.
“I like washing in this bowl, Mama, but there’s no hole in the bottom. How do we make the dirty water go away?”
“Carry it over to the back door and pour it onto the grass.”
Carefully balancing the heavy bowl, she went through the back kitchen and poured the water onto the shrub beside the back steps. “I’m giving this bush a drink of water. I hope it likes the taste of soap.”
“I’m sure it won’t mind. Plants get thirsty, too.” It was the first time in her life, and probably mine as well, that we had recycled our dirty water.
Bridget set the table with her usual precision, selecting two china plates from the glass-fronted cabinet and rotating them so the flower patterns faced in the same direction. They were pretty things decorated with floral bouquets, edged with a blue stripe. I flipped over a plate to find the pattern: “Old English,” by Johnson Brothers.
While Bridget washed two knives and two forks, I scrambled eggs in a cast-iron frying pan and toasted rye bread over the surface of the stove with an old toasting iron — two pieces of screened mesh held together by a pair of wire handles.
For once, she ate everything.
“Boy, I was hungry!” she said as she wiped her plate with a crust of toast.
I poured boiling water into the teapot, reflecting that it was handy to keep a kettle simmering on the stove. The strong tea was delicious with a dash of evaporated milk.
As the sun fell lower on the horizon, we searched the dining room sideboard and found an assortment of candlesticks made from wood, tarnished silver, and porcelain. Bridget carefully stuck white tapers into two of them, and I lit them with a wooden safety match. The room looked friendlier in the candlelight, and somehow cleaner, although I knew that was just an illusion.
I carried both candles carefully as we trooped up the dark staircase. Might as well save my flashlight batteries. Our shadows followed us as we climbed.
When we entered the bedroom, I realized my mistake. I shouldn’t have spent all afternoon cleaning the kitchen. Even in the candlelight it was obvious that everything was coated with a thick layer of dust. A wave of revulsion swept over me, and I briefly thought about trying to sleep in the truck.
Fortunately, there was a sheet covering the bed, so I delicately folded the four corners together and lifted it off. The striped mattress underneath looked clean. Bridget sat in the centre with Fizzy while I went downstairs and fetched a pail of soapy water.
When I climbed back up the stairs, I noticed two sets of footprints on the stair treads, one large and one small. Grimly, I remembered the hours I had spent picking tiny specks of lint from the white carpet back in Phoenix.
Upstairs I wiped the rails of the brass bed so dust wouldn’t fall into our faces while we slept. The water was muddy by the time I finished. Bridget changed into her pajamas while I explored the linen closet in the hall. Thankfully the heavy fir door fit tightly in its frame, and the feather pillows and bedding inside were spotless. I pulled out a set of beautiful thick cotton sheets and pillowcases, monogrammed MMB in dark-green embroidery thread, and made the bed with two patchwork quilts and a blue satin duvet.
I pulled a pair of clean socks over Bridget’s dirty feet. She crawled between the sheets, and Fizzy went with her. I wasn’t fond of the idea of sleeping with an animal, but I squashed my distaste and allowed him to snuggle into her arms, where he started to purr. Johnny Wrinkle had been carefully laid to rest in a dresser drawer, put aside in favour of this fascinating new toy.
It was still light in the room. The sky was a deep shade of salmon, scattered with early stars like a field of white daisies. I didn’t dare touch the curtains, fearing a shower of dirt, but I opened the window slightly, dislodging a tangle of spider webs dotted with dead flies. The sweet-smelling evening air flowed into the room, along with a musical chorus of croaking frogs from the creek.
“Mama, I’m glad you don’t have to go to work tomorrow.”
“Me, too.”
“You won’t go away again?”
“No, my darling. It will be just the two of us for a long time.”
“You forgot Fizzy. That makes three of us.”
I spread another clean sheet over the black Windsor chair before sitting down beside the bed, and I sang the same song I had been singing all her life, one of the remnants of my own childhood. “‘Toora, loora, loora,’ that’s an Irish lullaby.”
“Mama.” Bridget’s voice was drowsy.
“Yes, honey?”
“I feel like somebody is watching us. Do you think this house is haunted?”
“If there are any ghosts around here, they’re friendly ghosts, watching over you and keeping you safe.” Somehow it felt like the truth. I kissed her cheek, then we rubbed noses — our trademark goodnight.
I sat there until she fell asleep. It occurred to me that I hadn’t done this for a long time, not since she was a tiny baby, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the miracle of her existence.
It didn’t surprise me that mothers were overprotective. People hired bodyguards and security systems to protect their treasures, yet they allowed their children, the most valuable treasure of all, to leave their control, vulnerable and defenceless.
In fact, it surprised me that mothers let their children out of their sight. But that was the real victory of motherhood: allowing children to ride in vehicles, to sit in classrooms with strangers, to cross streets and play games and contract illnesses from other children, and to put themselves in harm’s way repeatedly. And yet their mothers, with enormous effort, made the supreme sacrifice and allowed them to do it.
And those were “normal” children.
I gazed lovingly at my daughter’s flawless skin, the dark eyelashes on her pale cheeks, the perfectly cut lips. Four years and five months ago this precious creature hadn’t even been born. I deeply regretted having missed so much of her short life already. No matter what happened next, at least we would be together.
Finally, I rose and went to the window. It was three minutes past nine. The sun still glowed from behind the horizon, as if reluctant to leave. I could see the lazy curve of the creek, the water reflecting the fading light like liquid gold.
My candle cast shadows into the corners as I went down the magnificent staircase and into the living room. The house was dead silent now, as if even the birds outside were asleep. I reflected that this must be what it felt like to be deaf. I had never contemplated how much sound was generated by the humming of refrigerators and computers and furnaces and air conditioners, not to mention telephones.
The Oriental carpet muffled my footsteps. The brown velvet couch, still covered with a sheet, faced the stone fireplace while two Morris chairs with slatted backs sat on either side. A pipe rack hung on the wall, still bearing my great-uncle’s pipes and giving off the faint fragrance of tobacco. The smell reminded me of my father.
I squatted before the low bookcase on the left side of the fireplace, opened the glass door, and held my candle close to the rows of hardcover books. There were no brightly coloured jackets here. The covers were dark blue and green, brown and black, with the titles printed on their spines.
These shelves were filled with books of a masculine nature. There were dozens of books by Zane Grey. White Fang, by Jack London. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. Songs of a Sourdough, by Robert W. Service. I pulled out the last one, opened the flyleaf and read the inscription: “To