Ellie looks down at the flowers, her heart sinking. ‘I thought they’d be pretty for Emmy’s birthday.’
‘Weeds belongs outside. I’m not havin’ them in my house. Honestly, you’re as stunned as a dead cat sometimes, girl.’
Ellie feels the heat rise in her cheeks. Nothing she did was right. She couldn’t sew a seam straight enough, or make dumplings plump enough, or find berries ripe enough when they were out berry picking in the marshes.
‘I always had flowers in the house at home in England. My father loves them.’
‘There’s no accounting for people’s ignorance. You wants the place crawlin’ with ants or worse?’
‘That never happened in England.’
‘There we goes again about England. England this and England that. Why don’t you do us a favour and go back there where you belongs?’
Ellie blinks back the tears that threaten to spill over her hot cheeks. She was doing her best. But nothing she did was good enough for Agnes. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes. I thought they’d be nice.’
‘Well, I’m not chancin’ any bugs in here. Throw them out.’
Her shoulders slumping in defeat, Ellie wipes the back of her hand across her eyes and opens the screen door. Out on the porch she closes her eyes and raises her face to the cool breeze blowing in from the ocean. If only she could go back to England. Persuade Thomas to pack up and leave this wretched place. But that would never happen. Not least because they’d never be able to afford to.
She’s lost herself. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. Where’s the Ellie who’d dodged bombs and who’d driven through the devastation left by the Baedeker raids with supplies for the firemen in the Auxiliary Fire Service? Where’s the Ellie who used to giggle with Ruthie at the latest Marx Brothers film or swing around the dance floors of the Samson or the Lido? Where’s the artist? The daughter? The sister? Who am I?
She swats at a mosquito with the bouquet of purple fireweed and heads slowly down the wooden steps. On the final step, she stops.
This isn’t right. This is my home, too. I’m Ellie Parsons. I’m the wife of your son, Agnes. I’m a mother to Emmett. I’m Eleanor Mary Burgess Parsons. I’m a woman and I intend to live my best life, Agnes Parsons. I live here now. You’ll just have to get used to the idea, because I’m not going anywhere.
She juts out her jaw and pulls back her shoulders. There’s nothing wrong with bringing some flowers into the house. Into my house.
Ellie stomps up the steps and pulls open the screen door. Tossing the flowers onto the table, she heads over to the cupboard, shoving the pots and pans aside until she finds what she’s looking for.
‘What kind of racket do you think you’re makin’, girl? My teeth are fit to rattle out of my head.’
If you had any teeth left, you old bat. Ellie dips the metal pitcher into the bucket of water by the stove and sets it on the table. Picking up the flowers she sticks them into the pitcher.
Agnes sets down her knitting and glares at Ellie over the top of her glasses. ‘What are you, deaf as a cod, maid? Didn’t I tells you to throw them out?’
‘You did, indeed.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘But I fancy them, and I truly don’t see the harm in having a few flowers in the house.’
Agnes shoves the knitting aside and pushes herself out of the armchair. ‘Are you givin’ me lip, girl?’
Ellie folds her fingers around the back of a wooden chair to steady herself. ‘I am not. This is my home, too, and I’d like to have a few flowers for Emmy’s birthday.’
Agnes’s mouth falls open. ‘You … you—’
The thud of footsteps on the back porch. The screen door flies open and Ephraim strides into the kitchen, scratching his neck. ‘Jaysus God, those skeeters are some thick.’ He throws a stack of dried cod onto the table. ‘Well, look at that.’ He bends over and sniffs at the flowers. ‘Aren’t those lovely. Cheers the place right up.’
A smile tugs at the corners of Ellie’s mouth as she glances over at Agnes. ‘Yes, don’t they? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go check on Emmy.’
***
Ellie roots through the baking sheets and muffin tins in the cupboard beside the stove. ‘Have you seen the cake tins, Agnes? I’m sure I saw them here just the other day.’
The kitchen is silent except for the click of Agnes’s knitting needles.
Ellie rises to her feet. ‘Agnes? Have you seen the cake tins? I need to bake Emmy’s birthday cake.’
Agnes peers over at Ellie, her pale eyes as hard as the ice of a ballycatter along the shore. ‘Hasn’t seen them.’
‘Martha Fizzard hasn’t borrowed them?’
‘Martha Fizzard’s gots her own.’
Ellie kneels down on the faded green linoleum and pulls the contents out of the cupboard until they’re stacked around her like a fortress. ‘They’re not here.’
‘You must’a put them somewhere else last time you used them. If it wasn’t for your lack of sense, you’d have no sense at all.’
‘I put them back here. I know I did.’
‘Looks like there’ll be no birthday cake today.’
‘But Emmy’ll be so disappointed.’
Agnes holds up a knitted needle with half a toddler’s pink wool jumper. ‘The baby’s only three. He doesn’t knows what he doesn’t know.’
‘You hid them, didn’t you, Agnes.’
‘Never did any such thing.’
Rising to her feet, Ellie steps over the piles of pots and pans and pulls open the screen door.
‘Where’d you think you’re goin’, miss? You left a mess there in the kitchen.’
‘It’s Emmy’s birthday, and he’s going to have a birthday cake.’ The screen door slams behind her as she hurries across the yard and down the steps to the Fizzards’ house by the tickle.
That spiteful old woman! First the flowers and now the cake tins.
She says the words over
