“Frank was always all business, although I don’t know if I’d call him formal. Maybe a traditionalist.”
Cynthia laughs. Stella’s father smiles and points at Stella. “Well, my daughter here is in good hands.” As though Stella is a child and Cynthia is the sitter he’s arranged.
“Stella, why don’t you come with me to Granny’s. She’s so excited to meet you. And wait until you see her house. My dad says you’re a historian, Mr. Sprague.”
Stella’s father does a funny back and forth with his head, blushing again.
“Well, yes I am, although I’m not a specialist in Georgian manor homes. My specialty is medical architecture.”
“Oh, I see. Wow. That’s fascinating.”
Stella can’t believe Cynthia is serious, but she looks totally serious. “Well, my grandmother’s house isn’t technically a Georgian manor home.”
“Yes, that’s right. It burned down.”
“All but —”
“— the stone walls.”
Cynthia smiles. “And it was rebuilt inside as an Edwardian home, with only the old kitchen in the cavernous cellar left intact.”
Her dad and Cynthia grin at each other.
“I see you appreciate history, Cynthia,” he chuckles.
“It’s hard not to with Granny. My mother just wants to paint. It started out as a hobby but it’s all she does now. She has a studio in the carriage house at Granny’s. She has what she calls an open studio policy for me. She never stays at the new house up on the Mountain near Seabury Gorge. She stays with Granny Scotia and me.” Cynthia reaches for the basket and takes out a muffin. She picks up Stella’s knife and butters the muffin and puts it on Stella’s plate.
Stella looks at the muffin and then at Cynthia and then at her father. They are smiling at each other, gabbing away now about mental hospitals. She can’t figure out if Cynthia really is that interested in her father’s work as he goes on about Kirkbride hospitals and their bat-like wings staggering out on each side, the curative effects of architecture. What Stella has heard over and over again. Imprinted on her memory. But it seems impossible Cynthia can fake this sort of enthusiasm.
Stella picks up the muffin and takes a bite. It’s moist and delicious. Her cheeks are hot. It’s the nasty sting of jealousy pricking her flesh. Her father never looks this way when he talks to her.
“Stella.” Cynthia’s voice echoes in the kitchen.
Stella jumps.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Don’t worry, Cynthia,” Stella’s father says while buttering another blueberry muffin. “She spaces out. Right, Stella? A result of the accident. A different girl came out of that car.”
Stella is shocked he would say this in front of a stranger.
Cynthia doesn’t allow a moment of graceless silence. “Whatever,” she says. “I love this Stella right here. Why don’t we go to Granny Scotia’s? Lots more muffins there. We can ride bikes. Did you see the one I left for you? It’s all tuned up. Granny got me one for my birthday and so did my mother, so I have two bicycles. The moral of the story is that adults should discuss presents before buying them.”
“Great! Why don’t you girls go off and I’ll do some work.” Stella’s father leans back in his chair. “Cynthia, do you know anything about Dorothea Dix?”
Stella gets up from the table.
“Dix was a Quaker from Maine, a trailblazer for moral treatment of the insane, a treatment that provided compassionate care rather than locking up the mentally ill in jails and poorhouses. Dorothea Dix even visited Sable Island, the shipwreck island, her father called it, where it was rumoured desperate families had abandoned the insane.”
“I have to brush my teeth,” Stella announces.
Stella’s father and Cynthia don’t even stop talking. The older girl’s laugh and her father’s booming voice follow her up the stairs. She closes the bathroom door and leans her head against the cool white wall and takes a deep breath. Then she splashes water on her face in the old porcelain sink. Stella looks at herself in the mirror, at her thin, drawn face, her lips drooping downward as though she’s already an old woman, her short hair, shaved on one side, her saucer eyes in her face resembling strange pools of water. She wishes she could cry, but since her mother died she’s been empty. She turns on the tap. And then Stella starts shaking — it’s as if grief is attacking her from inside, pounding and kicking her, tears now gushing from her eyes as she hyperventilates.
When Stella goes downstairs and into the kitchen, she sees Cynthia has placed the flowers in a vase on the centre of the table and is kneeling on the floor putting books neatly back in the bookcase while her father stands at the antique sink, filling it with water, squeezing a yellow plastic bottle of lemony dish soap. He keeps squeezing and the sink fills with bubbles and more bubbles. Soon they will overflow onto the floor. Stella hears a snort and it’s Cynthia, with her hand over her mouth. “Okay, see you soon, Mr. Sprague,” she sings, gone before Stella’s father turns around.
Stella waits until her father notices her. He holds up his hand, covered in bubbles, and blows. A glob falls to the floor. “Have fun. I’ll catch up with you later today,” he says, staring at the mess on the linoleum just as the sink water starts to overflow. Stella runs out into the porch and then through the screen door.
Outside, Cynthia leans on her bike. Stella smiles and takes a deep breath. They both explode with laughter.
Cynthia runs her fingers under her eyes and dabs at her tears of hilarity. “I guess your dad doesn’t do much cleanup. Mine either. The only way I can deal with parents is by laughing. Mine are fighting all the time. It’s one of the reasons I’m staying with Granny, not just because she’s old. And feeble. That’s what my dad says. That word makes me sick. I’ll never be feeble.” Cynthia speaks
