The
contrast of the house in the aftermath of their leaving was primarily audible;
with his daughter and her family gone the room seemed ever more quiet. There
was no question that he enjoyed their visits, but he enjoyed too these easy
moments in their wake.
His
wife was already in bed, already asleep too he didn’t doubt, but he sat on in
the welcome silence, the tiny pink umbrella spanning his legs and the suitcase
it came from still open at his feet.
It
had been his daughter’s idea. Hoping to involve her own daughters more in the
visit, she had clambered up into the attic to retrieve the case filled with its
distillate of her childhood, the old photographs and schoolbooks, the drawings
and paintings, and the cards made for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, for
birthdays and Christmas. Both girls had giggled and squealed at each uncovered
item, excited to evaluate their own efforts at such alongside their mother’s
attempts as a child of similar age, a critical comparison inevitably finding in
their favour.
In
the suitcase’s other childhood they had been less interested. She was the
absent aunt they knew of but had never known, a mystery less involving even
than those read to them at bedtime, but their grandfather had asked for her
little umbrella to be handed across to him and had sat holding onto it until
they left.
At
years’ remove from her disappearance they had, his wife and he, decided to
limit the extent of her possessions remaining in the house to only one each
before clearing out the rest, hoping in such a definitive gesture to afford
themselves some peace, and this little umbrella had been his choice. (His wife had instead initially tried to buy
a similar E.T. doll to the one with which she had gone missing, but then
abandoned the idea knowing the replacement would never support the freight of
her sentiment.)
He
was saddened to have forgotten it, one of the first possessions that he could
remember her actually asking to own.
Together they are spending the morning
in town, and she becomes joyfully agitated to see fallen upon the pavement dark
blots of rain. His umbrella is open and up before she manages even to pop the
fastener which would free the folds of her own. Standing over her, he is amused
to see her quickly scoot off into the incipient downpour, giving her umbrella a
little shake before again attempting to release its sliding lock.
He steps closer to offer her protection
from the increasing weight of rain, and again she scuttles off a little
distance. The folds flap damply from each other as she rattles the umbrella in
her fist, hoping so she might work loose the lock which continues to confound
her.
When she sees him move again toward her,
this time trying to tuck the long handle of his own umbrella under his arm, she
backs away both pleading and implacable.
ache1 before she became ache1:
I can do it. I can do it.
until finally it blooms a bright pink in
the rain, and she stands smiling from behind the hair stuck damply to her face,
panting from exertion.
ache1 before she became ache1:
I can do it.
The
cadence of her intent came audible to him still these long years later, sat
clawed at by an awful nostalgia and grown so old as father to something that
had itself ceased to age.
When
he finally climbed the stairs with the suitcase now packed and locked, he was
surprised to find his wife sitting up awake awaiting him.
Mother:
We can never leave this house, you know that? We can never move from here.
and
in response to his look of bewilderment
Mother:
How would she ever know where we were?
