Frank has dark blue eyes and he holds her hand in his soft, dry hand, squeezing it gently. Her father’s hand is always damp. Stella can’t help but compare. “I hope we equipped that old house in town with everything you need to start over here.” His face is serious. “It will take time to settle in and we’ll help you every step of the way, won’t we, Cynthia? Cynthia’s had a hard time too.”
Cynthia puts her arm around Stella’s shoulders. Stella doesn’t flinch or move away. She wonders what’s been so hard for Cynthia. Stella wants the Seaburys to take care of them, the Spragues, the distracted father and the motherless girl.
“Now let’s go outside. Your father’s out exploring the grounds. This house is far too much for my mother but I pick my battles, girls. It’s good you’ll be here with Granny this year, Cynthia, with your mother gone now.”
Cynthia skips ahead and takes Stella by the hand, pulling her behind, calling over her shoulder, “Daddy, I don’t want to talk about the fall. Let’s do what you said and enjoy the last of summer.”
Stella follows, with this new information flashing in her mind. Cynthia’s mother, gone?
The girls sit with Granny under the awning sipping lemonade. The sun is very bright now and Stella’s stomach growls. Frank walks off to where her father is out in the meadow, and then they both turn and stroll back on a slate path. Stella wants to ask where Sally Seabury is, why she left everything in her studio, but to break the quiet would feel irreverent. And then the sky seems to darken, the way it would if clouds had moved in, Granny Scotia’s face appears carved from stone and Cynthia’s hair lifts, her hair floating around her as it would in water.
Stella blinks her eyes. Granny smiles. “Dear, you look as if you’ve seen an apparition. I wouldn’t wonder. Just like your father’s mother — your grandmother, Morgana. You have that way about you, as she did, with those eyes of yours. My way is in the garden. We used to meet every week, she and I, as part of the Offing Society, as it’s called. We can talk about all of that another day —”
Frank calls out to them as he and William arrive, interrupting. “Why don’t we all go to the diner for dinner? We can show Stella the town, Cynthia. What do you girls say? Then we can go for ice cream.”
“That’s right,” says Granny Scotia. “It will be good for these poor motherless girls. Have you talked to Sally recently?”
“Mother, let’s not talk about that.” Cynthia’s father frowns. “Sally isn’t coming back. You have to accept that.”
Cynthia’s face doesn’t change. Implacable, the ocean on a windless summer’s day, impossible to read, to know what’s underneath. No signs of what it is capable of, in other conditions.
It’s too much, Stella thinks. Too many people. Too much sun. Too much history. Too many missing mothers.
But her father nods. Stella knows he doesn’t want to be alone with her.
“What do you want to do, Stella? I love the diner. And ice cream.” Cynthia claps her hands together. “And we can take you to the beach. It will be so much fun. I don’t know any other kids in Seabury. They all seem to have jobs babysitting and stuff.”
Stella’s voice is almost a whisper. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Granny takes a sip of lemonade. “They have jobs babysitting and working on farms, Cynthia dear, because they aren’t wealthy, as we are. You do not know what it is to live in rural Nova Scotia. Now, Stella darling, you need to make up your mind. If you can’t make up your mind about something as simple as luncheon, you’ll grow up into a woman who can’t speak her mind about anything. We don’t want that, dear. It’s no end of heartache.”
“Granny Scotia, that’s not very nice.” Cynthia’s hands are on her hips and the look on her face makes her appear much older. “Stella’s a great listener. There’s lots to be said for that. That’s what Mommy says.”
“Well, your mother isn’t here, darling, is she? Sally isn’t one who has any trouble making up her mind, so we have seen. You have to make sure your voice is heard if you are to make it through this life in one piece. Stella’s grandmother was very quiet and that was her undoing.”
“Mother, really. That’s enough. Get a hold of yourself,” Frank barks. Stella sees how tight and red Franklin Seabury’s face is. He towers over Granny Scotia but she doesn’t back down.
“Well, it’s true,” the old lady spits up at her son.
Stella’s father lets out a dry, nervous cough. “Yes, it is. My mother was afraid to challenge my father on anything. But everyone was.” He’s slurring his words a bit, and Stella wonders how many before-lunch beers he’s had.
Stella wants to go back to her grandparents’ house. She wants to putter around in the backyard, any backyard. She wants an adult to be in charge. She had wanted Sally Seabury to be her new mother. But there is no mother here.
“Now girls, girls,” Frank says, Granny lumped in with the children, Stella notices, “it’s just a dinner invitation, that’s all. We’ll reschedule. And there’s the town barbeque at the end of the week.”
Stella’s neck aches on each side — her skull feels too heavy, putting too much pressure on it. She doesn’t want to tell her father. She worries he’ll make her lie in her bed with the blinds pulled down. He looks disappointed. His eyes slide over hers and then down to his shoes,
