Chapter 21
Five days after my mother died, she rose from the dead. Like Jesus in the tomb, only it took my mother a couple of extra days.
I was being discharged from the hospital when a young nurse swept into my room, all bounce and brightness, as if the walls weren’t still heavy with death. “Your mother has arrived,” she announced with a smile.
And for a split second—I believed her.
Of course, I knew it wasn’t true. I’d held the knowledge of my mother’s death like a burning coal for five days. But grief plays tricks, and something in me—some foolish, fragile part—looked to the doorway expecting her. Hoping.
When I saw the figure silhouetted there, my heart cracked all over again.
“Her aunt,” Cess corrected, stepping into the room with her arms folded. “Her aunt has arrived. For pity’s sake.”
Cess wore a black pencil skirt and a black shell top and black pumps. I’d never seen Cess wear so much black. “Ready, Mabel?”
“Ready.”
I’d packed my clothes, my toiletries, my books, and my journal.
But I wasn’t sure I was ready. My bones were set and healing, there was nothing they could do for me in the hospital that rest at home couldn’t do.
And Daphne had been discharged the day before, so there was nothing more for me there.
And yet, as Cess signed the paperwork, took my bag, and guided me to the parking lot, I felt leaden with dread.
A Mass booklet was waiting for me on the passenger seat and a picture of my mother beamed back at me from the cover.
“I saved that for you,” Cess said. “Not as good as your mother picking you up, I know.”
I opened my mouth to say thank you. When nothing came out, she nodded and started the ignition.
“Your father left for London this morning,” Cess said, as we drove.
I nodded. I was glad he wasn’t going to be there, obviously, principally because with him gone, I’d thought I could lie to myself that Mum and Dad had gone on another trip.
But my father was right, as it turned out.
I was a terrible liar. And with every inch closer we got to Rosehill, the less I was able to lie about where she was.
The neighbors waved uncomfortably as we pulled onto the street.
Mrs. Harris muttered a greeting as she came home, pushing two kids in a stroller with another one on her heels.
Mr. Watkins, the gardener, was weeding the front garden and he told us he’d cut some lilies—Mum’s favorite—and put them in vases around the house.
If he thought it was rude that neither Cess nor I responded, he didn’t show it.
We walked to the front porch, and Cess opened the door, and gestured for me to go in.
“Go on,” she said.
But I didn’t. I wasn’t entirely sure what stopped me at that particular point. Perhaps I was afraid of the house, knowing my mother wouldn’t be there? Or perhaps I was waiting for her to come home?
Cess didn’t push me to go inside, nor did she go in.
When it was clear I wasn’t entering, she moved to a patio chair and sat down.
We stayed there for nearly an hour, not talking.
I found myself looking around, imagining myself out there when I was a child with polio.
Imagining a sister playing with me. It felt familiar yet intangible, like a movie I’d seen a long time ago, or a dream I’d had.
It was the sound of a car door closing—soft but final—that pulled me from my trance. Then came the gentle crunch of footsteps on gravel.
Ness appeared on the porch seconds later, her arms outstretched, and without a word she folded both Cess and me into her embrace. We stood there, the three of us, held together in a kind of human knot—me in the middle, the unlikely center of something warm and aching.
It should have felt awkward. Ness was so small, barely up to our shoulders, and Cess and I were not huggers. Not with each other. Not with anyone. We were stiff-backed, self-contained women, trained from girlhood to tuck our feelings in like the corners of a hospital sheet.
But somehow, it didn’t feel awkward. It felt right. And it must have felt right to Cess too, because as Ness held us, she let out a sound I’d never heard from her before—a raw, involuntary gasp, sharp as a snapped string.
That was the moment—five days after my mother fell from the seventh-floor balcony—that I finally cried for her.
Not because I wanted to. But because, at last, I could.
I’m not sure if Ness moved in after my mother died, but it felt like she was at our house around the clock after that. She was there when I woke in the morning, there when I went to bed.
I was glad for Ness’s presence, not only because I liked Ness, but also because she filled the silence.
She talked about the kind of day it was going to be—overcast, sunny, possible showers.
She talked about how it might be nice to go down to the beach later and get our toes wet.
She talked about how she’d seen fish on special and wouldn’t it be nice to have salmon for dinner.
It wasn’t annoying. It felt like a lifeline.
She did other things too—opened all the windows to let in the breeze, spread bright cloths across the table like she was laying out sunshine, turned on the wireless to let a little music move through the rooms. Looking back, I sometimes think this should be a service one could gift the grieving: the quiet, steadfast presence of someone who still believes there’s joy to be found—someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.
Because in those early days after my mother died, it was Ness, I am certain, who allowed me to continue to breathe.
There was one other thing that allowed Cess and me to continue breathing: our mutual hatred of my father.
“He didn’t deserve Mary,” she said to Ness one morning, apropos of nothing.
I was eating breakfast and she was clattering around the kitchen.
“He never did. He was always speaking to her like she was a fool, all because he was threatened by how smart she was. Any woman would turn to the booze, being married to a man like that.”
“Cess,” Ness said, tipping her head toward me.
Cess had abandoned her all-black outfit for high-waisted jeans rolled up to below the knees with a white shirt and black flats. She even wore a red scarf around her hair. But it didn’t do much to brighten up her mood.
“What? You’re the one always saying we don’t give kids enough credit. You think she doesn’t know her father is a sorry excuse for a human being?”
She looked at me. “Mabel, you know your father is a sorry excuse for a human being, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Cess!” Ness stood up and started collecting plates. “He’s her father.”
“I hate him,” I said. “And he hates me. Because of Kitty.”
I didn’t look at them, but I imagined Cess and Ness were exchanging a look. “I didn’t know you knew about Kitty,” Cess said.
“Mum told me. In the hospital.”
Cess pulled up a chair at the table and sat beside me. Ness stood behind my chair with a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not sure what your mother told you, Mabel, but Kitty succumbed to polio, like many kids did. Your father had some odd beliefs about it but—”
“She caught it from me.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Cess said. “No one knows where she caught it. It was everywhere. Besides, you were three years old, it wasn’t your responsibility to keep your sister away.”
“Whose responsibility was it?”
“I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “No one’s.
Everyone’s! There were plenty of us about.
Your mother. Your father. Me. We all kept an eye on her, but Kitty was a busy one-year-old, crawling around, getting into everything.
I know your mother blamed herself. I blamed myself.
” Cess placed a hand on my head, then ran it through my hair.
“We don’t need anyone else blaming themselves. Certainly not you, darling.”
She’d never called me “darling” before. It brought tears to my eyes.
“Why not?” I asked. “My father blames me.”
Neither Cess nor Ness spoke for several seconds.
“Your father was very upset after Kitty died,” Cess said, after a time.
“Mum told me,” I said. “He must have … really loved her.”
Cess exhaled. “Kitty was a sweet child, a pretty little thing. She toed the line, smiled on demand. Very like your mother. She reflected back the parts of himself that he wanted to see. So yes, I think he did love her, in his way.”
When my mother was alive, she used to accuse Cess of being too brusque, too direct. Just because something is true doesn’t mean you need to say it, Cecily, Mum would tell her. But I’d always admired Cess’s directness. It meant that when she said something, I knew it was true.
It made the sting of this comment—that my father loved Kitty—particularly painful.
“I loved her too, Mabel, of course I did, she was my niece. But to be perfectly honest … she was far less interesting than you.”
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“You came out, larger than life—full of questions and observations and thoughts. You were curious and intelligent and didn’t suffer fools. And maybe”—she paused, as if considering something—“maybe that was the problem?”
I wasn’t following. “What was the problem?”
“Your father has always had a preference for things that don’t challenge or intimidate him. It’s the same with most men, I’m afraid.” Cess looked me squarely in the eye. “You outshone your father from the moment you were born. There are very few men who can cope with something like that.”
Cess put a matter-of-fact hand on my knee and gave it a little squeeze before she stood up. Ness handed me a tissue.
As I finished eating breakfast, I felt something loosen in my chest, the tiniest breath of forgiveness—not for my father, but for myself.
Something softened between Cess and me after that day.
We were still miserable. We hardly talked.
But occasionally, as Ness buzzed around us, chatting and feeding us, we exchanged a look.
It was hard to explain that look, because it contained so much.
Exasperation at Ness. Adoration of her. Shared grief.
Of course, as a narcissistic fourteen-year-old, I couldn’t quite fathom the sadness Cess appeared to be feeling.
It was clear in my mind that I was the principal mourner.
My mother had died. Yes, she’d lost her sister, but she had had a lifetime with her.
Still, for someone who spent much of my life alone, it was nice to not be alone in my grief.