Chapter 3 #2
Bright looked cheerful at the mention of Christmas and asked if she could open the boxes. It stood to reason that where there were ornaments, there would be presents, maybe even a present for her, but Maeve said no. “You can come back at Christmas and open them then.”
I didn’t say a word to Maeve that night when we brushed our teeth, and when we said our prayers I left her out.
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t be mad.”
But I was mad. I got into bed mad. The tour had occupied the entire evening.
She had shown them everything there was to see: the butler’s pantry where dishes were kept and the tablecloths were rolled onto wide spools, the closet in the third floor bedroom with the tiny door in the back that led to an attic crawl space.
She let them spin around in the ballroom, pretending to waltz.
It had never once occurred to us to dance up there.
“Who puts the ballroom on the third floor?” Norma had asked.
Maeve explained that when the house was built a third floor ballroom was considered the height of fashion.
“A fad, really,” she said. “It didn’t last. But once you’ve put a ballroom on the third floor it’s pretty much impossible to move it.
” Maeve showed them every last bedroom in the house.
Norma and Bright both agreed that Maeve’s room was best, and they sat in her window seat while Maeve closed the draperies over them.
The girls squealed with laughter and then called, “No, don’t!
” when she opened the draperies up again.
When the tour was over she brought a stepladder from the kitchen so they could take turns winding the grandfather clock, even though she knew I did that myself first thing Sunday morning.
Maeve sat beside me on my bed. “Think of how overwhelming the house must be to them, how overwhelming we must be, so if we showed them everything instead of just the nice things it would be, I don’t know, friendlier?”
“It was very friendly,” I said in a voice that was not friendly.
Maeve put her hand on my forehead, the way she did when I was sick. “They’re little, Danny. I feel sorry for anyone who’s that little.”
She had put them in her own bed, and when our father came back with Andrea they each carried one sleeping girl down the stairs and took them out to Andrea’s car. Maeve had to run down the stairs after them. They had forgotten the girls’ shoes. Maeve told me Andrea was a little bit drunk.
To the long list of things my sister never got credit for, add this: she was good to those girls.
If my father or Andrea was in the room, Maeve would politely ignore the children, but leave her alone with Norma and Bright and she was always doing something nice—teaching them to crochet or letting them braid her hair or showing them how to make tapioca.
In return they followed her through the house like a pair of worshipful cocker spaniels.