Chapter XI
XI
Persephone spent the spring and summer months aboveground, tending to her beloved flowers, visiting with her beloved mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest. But because Persephone had eaten one single pomegranate seed while in the Underworld, she was bound to return there every autumn and winter.
Her departure from her mother was bittersweet, for Persephone hated to leave her, but she had also grown to love her husband, had grown to love her home amongst the dead.
For Demeter, saying goodbye to her daughter each year caused the harvests to die, the plants to go dormant, the earth to grow cold.
Whenever you feel the sharp, biting breeze of a winter’s day, know that this is Demeter, yearning for Persephone, and in her deep, deep sorrow, keeping everything cold until spring.
Clara had a dream of a new painting but when she stood at her easel and tried to start it, nothing would transfer from the brush to the canvas.
I watched her that afternoon, over and over, dipping her paintbrush into vivid oil colors that seemed to evaporate into thin air in the journey from the palette to the creamy stretch of canvas.
“I don’t like this at all,” she said after it became clear that it wasn’t working, after Bernadette took the brush herself and of course managed to paint a tiny swath of color in the bottom left-hand corner.
It sat there like an accusatory brand, that little spot of paint.
Eventually Clara removed it with paint thinner and an old, stained rag.
“And it wasn’t even a nightmare this time,” she said. “It was just a dream. A really nice dream, actually.”
If everything Henry had said was true, it would seem like the black tear was already devouring the Farthing girls.
We called Aunt Bea, up in Vermont, just to see how she was faring. She seemed less affected by the black tear because there were so many miles between her and it, but at the same time, she expressed a feeling of unease that followed her throughout her days.
“Like I’ve forgotten an important meeting and someone is just about to call me and tell me I’m in deep shit for it,” she explained. “Or like I’ve left the stove on.”
Our mother was still sad and lifeless, drifting in and out of rooms with a strange, vacant expression on her face, pausing like she had momentarily forgotten where she was or what she was doing.
Our father, on the other hand, was absolutely fine.
He had made carrot cake that afternoon because Everyone seems a bit glum around here lately, huh?
Must be that time of year. What do they call it, honey?
SAD. Right. Anyway. It’s potentially a little burnt.
But I am almost positive it’s still edible.
We ate the carrot cake if only to appease him, to not cause him any more worry. It was mostly tasteless in our mouths.
“When can I see that new painting you’ve been hiding away in the attic, Clara?” Dad asked, trying so desperately to start a conversation with any of the women in the room.
“Oh,” Clara said. “I destroyed it.”
“You—what?”
“Yeah. I realized it didn’t fit my vision. It wasn’t serving me. As an artist, you know. So I destroyed it.”
“It wasn’t serving you…” Dad repeated slowly. “I really don’t know what to say to that one. Honey?”
He turned to Mom, who took a deep breath, as if willing herself to be present, to engage.
“Sweetheart, I think that’s wonderful,” she said finally.
“You think it’s wonderful that Clara destroyed her painting?” Dad asked.
“Clara has always known what she wants,” Mom said.
Dad did not know how to respond to that, so he resumed eating and let it go.
I tried to slip out that night for another long, solo walk, but Mom was waiting for me, already dressed in her coat and winter boots, standing on the front porch staring up at the sky.
“Oh,” I said. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m going with you,” she said, lowering her face to look at me, smiling and tucking me underneath her arm.
“How did you know I was going out?”
“Because you’re always where you’re supposed to be,” she replied. “And tonight I just knew you were supposed to be with me.”
“Where should we go?”
“You lead the way. I’d follow you anywhere.”
It was too late for any museums, we’d already had dinner and dessert, and I wasn’t about to take my mother to Dark Magic, so an aimless walk around the block it was (my favorite).
She kept her arm looped through mine and we didn’t talk for the first ten minutes or so.
It was cold but manageably so, as in, my face didn’t feel like it was going to freeze solid.
I still wasn’t used to the feeling of getting farther away from the tear, how much better I felt even half a mile away from it.
“So strange,” Mom said, as if reading my mind. “I’ve had such a terrible headache all day, and now I feel perfectly fine.”
“Maybe you just needed some fresh air.”
“Some fresh air, some ibuprofen, and some you time. The perfect combination.” She let me go and stretched her arms over her head, taking a deep breath. “Short school week for you girls, huh? I know you must be happy about that.”
“It is? Why?”
“Christmas, silly. Aunt Bea is driving down on Wednesday. It’s supposed to snow again, too. They’re predicting lots and lots.”
“I completely forgot about Christmas,” I admitted.
“Well, it’s that time of year. Yesterday I couldn’t find my favorite hair pin, the whole morning I spent looking for it.”
“It was in your hair?”
“It was in my hair,” she confirmed. “That’s still not as bad as talking on your cell phone while looking for your cell phone. Which I have also done, many times.”
“When is the snow supposed to start?”
“Thursday. We’ll have to pick up lots of wood and have fires. Remember that Christmas we all read Little Women?”
Of course I remembered. It had snowed so much we hardly left the house for a week.
Clara had been four, me six, Evelyn and Bernadette eight and ten.
The electricity kept going in and out and we’d toasted marshmallows on the fire and Mom had read a couple chapters every night, holding all of us in rapt attention, even our father, who had at first hung around near the doorway, downplaying his interest, but by the third night was sitting cross-legged on the floor with us, Clara on his lap, their eyes wide as they waited to hear whether Amy would die after falling through the ice.
“We all loved that book so much,” I said.
“I loved it, too. It was a secret thrill, having four girls. I tried to get you all to call me Marmee but it never stuck.”
“Well, Bernie cut off all her hair. That must count for something.”
“She’s my Jo, for sure. Always has been.”
“You know, Louisa May Alcott based that scene on her own life. She caught typhoid pneumonia during the Civil War and the doctors cut off all her hair while she was delirious.”
“And she had three sisters, too. One of them died. One of them got married. She wasn’t really subtle with the parallels.”
“Do the rest of us,” I prodded. “Who’s Clara?”
“Amy. Although less frivolous. But still underestimated.”
“Evelyn?”
“Meg. Sweet, reliable, stalwart.”
“And that leaves me as Beth,” I said. “Which is sort of depressing, as she’s nobody’s favorite sister, and all she does of interest is die.”
“I don’t think that’s true, at all, that she’s nobody’s favorite sister,” Mom said. “She’s my favorite sister. She was the kindest and the most decent. And the most altruistic.”
“What does altruistic mean again?”
“It means you care about other people. And you need to study more SAT words.”
“I don’t know about that. I feel pretty selfish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re anything but selfish. You care so much about your sisters, about this family. You’re always exactly where you’re supposed to be. And you keep everyone together.”
She kissed my temple as we continued to walk, as we looped around and headed back toward home, every step feeling heavier and heavier, Mom’s headache, I knew, coming back, by the way she rubbed at her forehead absentmindedly.
“Just like Beth,” she said a full minute later.
By then, we were underneath the black tear again, in front of the brownstone, the house Persephone had blessed, the house the Farthings had built and then lived in forever, the house where Henry had died and been buried underneath the jasmine bushes.
I couldn’t let anything happen to this house. I couldn’t let anything happen to my family. I wouldn’t.
“Come on, kiddo,” Mom said. “I think it’s time for all good godlings to be in bed.”
I had a dream about the night Clara ran away from home.
She’d been eight and absolutely obsessed with Bernadette, who was fourteen and incredibly unpredictable; sometimes kind and loving, sometimes cruel and distant.
I couldn’t remember the details now, but Bernadette had said something to Clara after dinner, and I’d watched Clara’s eyes close into slits, resolution spreading across her face.
As a family of girls, we were no strangers to running away. Bernadette had done it, even Evelyn had done it, and now Clara would do it. Only I seemed unwilling to leave the family home; my long walks always led me straight back to our front door.
Clara waited until everyone had gone to sleep (even then, at eight, she was a little night owl) and I waited to hear the telltale signs of a suitcase being packed.
At least it was summer, and a soft, mild night, and I slipped into flip-flops to follow Clara out the front door, dragging her small Muppets suitcase behind her noisily (the dream stuck very close to what had actually happened; both then and now I thought to myself, How is nobody hearing this??).
I walked behind her for half a block and in that time her stride went from determined to unsure before stopping altogether. I let her stand there for a moment and then I walked up beside her, making plenty of noise, clearing my throat so I wouldn’t scare her.
“Going somewhere?”
“Winnie! What are you doing out here?”
“What are you doing out here?”