‘Susie! The bread!’
Susannah jumped up from the table. ‘Oh no, oh shoot, Katie!’
‘Quick! Hide the book. She could be back any moment,’ Kate said, opening the door and flapping the tea towel to clear the kitchen of the black billows of smoke.
‘Are they ruined?’ Susannah asked, stuffing the book under a cushion.
Kate took out the trays of blackened loaves. Slipped the oven gloves off.
‘I’d say so,’ she said, smothering a giggle.
‘Why are you laughing? I’ll get the brush handle for this,’ Susannah said despairingly, but her sister’s giggles were infectious. A laugh bubbled up inside her. Kate looked so funny with threads of lace hanging off her skirt, hair all wild, and well – here Susannah was again, being the dreamer as Mother always complained.
‘I’ll make some pancakes, they’re quick enough,’ Kate said. ‘Tell her it’s my fault the others burnt. I was watching the bread while you were out getting the washing down.’ Kate waved at the window to the sheets flapping on the line outside. ‘She won’t hit me!’
It was true. Their mom clearly favoured Kate. Well, any mother would. Kate was so good at everything their mother viewed as important – lace-making, sewing, cooking and gardening. Susannah tried to do things right, but she got caught up in her books. She’d decide to read to the end of a chapter, put the book down and help Kate out, but then the story would kidnap her and hours might pass before she realised Kate had done all their domestic tasks on her own. Her sister never told on her, but often their mother would catch Susannah out. Curled up on her bed, buried in a book. A loud slap on the leg was her resounding wake-up call to join the ‘real world’ as their mother called it.
‘Vinalhaven isn’t the real world, Mom,’ she’d talk back, her leg and dignity smarting from the slap. ‘The real world is what’s happening out there.’ She waved her arm towards the window and the view of the blustery Atlantic Ocean, as the daily craving to know what was really going on beyond the borders of the tiny island dug into her heart.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, my girl,’ her mother told her. ‘The real world is right inside these four walls, where you, your sister and I have to make our living, and provide for ourselves all on our own.’
Susannah immediately felt guilty. She always did when her mother reminded her how much she had to sacrifice to look after her two daughters with no husband to help. What good were books when you had to make a living on the island of Vinalhaven, miles from the mainland, let alone an actual city?
Susannah picked up the laundry basket.
‘She won’t believe you burnt them.’ Susannah was glum now as she spoke to Kate. Her backside was still sore from yesterday’s smack for dropping one of their precious eggs.
But Kate wasn’t listening. She was all a bustle, cleaning out the burnt tins and getting together everything she needed to fix Susannah’s mess.
Susannah headed out into the garden, glad to be outside the house. It was a blustery day and the sheets flapped around her in the wind. She walked through them, imagining she was wandering the streets of a bazaar and these were brightly coloured banners. She closed her eyes, went to a place her daddy had been during the war. Morocco. She could smell the street vendors’ exotic foods, hear the strange language they were speaking, see the beautiful women with dark eyes, beauty concealed behind veils. She had never forgotten the stories her daddy told her on his one visit home. If she squeezed her eyes shut, really tight, he was right before her. Come on, my little Susie. One hand for her, one hand for Kate. Daddy had his girls again and he was going to show them the world. Yes, she could hear the cries of the vendors now, smell the spices and the heat of Casablanca as Daddy took them on an adventure. Weaving through tiny streets and alleys. Searching for ancient wisdom in a land far older than their own.
A sheet slapped her in the face, and she opened her eyes, her dream disappearing fast into the blue western sky. She gazed out to sea. This was where they lived. Perched on a rise of land, the back garden opening out onto a rocky slope all the way down to the Atlantic, and in the other direction blueberry bushes, and pine woods.
Susannah pulled down one of the sheets and wrapped it around her. She was the daughter of a gypsy. She drew the sheet across her nose and mouth, and made her eyes big and round. What would it be like to live in a tent in the desert? To ride a camel? Would she dance with her sister around the desert fires? What would they eat? She didn’t think it would be pancakes. Maybe fruit? Sweet and juicy, something like plums.
‘Susannah! What are you doing, girl? You’re dragging the sheet in all the dirt.’
Her mother loomed over her, arms crossed, frowning. Always frowning at Susannah. She was tall too, the only physical feature Susannah had inherited from her mother. It was Kate who shared the same fair hair and blue eyes as their mother. Although her sister never looked as severe as their mother did now: the rosebud contours of her lips drawn into a thin line of disapproval.
‘Sorry, Mom, I was hanging the laundry,’ Susannah said, not daring to look her mother in the eye.
‘Well, it sure looks a funny way to be doing it.’ Her mother grabbed the now dirty sheet from her hands. ‘It’ll have to be washed all over again. Not that I don’t have enough to be doing.’
This was the anthem of their childhood. All the chores her mother had to be doing. But for who? That’s what Susannah wanted to shout out. She and Kate didn’t care if the house was
