Cynthia takes Stella’s hand and they walk out in the water to join Granny, who stands with her face raised and her eyes closed, the warm sun soaking her old skin. The sea is surprisingly warm and the sand under Stella’s feet oddly firm.
“You see, Stella, life is about cycles. You’ve changed now, even though you might not know it. But I think you do. No girl should have to lose her mother so young. And now here you are, in a strange land with strange people, and your body is releasing blood. We women have to teach each other these things. You have us now, my dear. You’ve come home. This means you’re a woman even though you are still very much a girl, both things at once, as we all are . . . as we all were. And you must be very careful, my dear. It’s a strange magic that comes about when we bleed, when we come to that time. You’re just at the beginning and I’m at the end, my cycle now completing.” Granny opens her eyes and gazes out over the sea.
Stella glances at Cynthia but she too is looking out over the water. Stella isn’t afraid, but she observes that they are not like anyone else she has ever known. They talk like people in a storybook. And just thinking about a book brings on a headache, or maybe it’s the sun, or not enough water. Stella doesn’t know. Granny turns to her. “We need to keep this between us. We don’t want your father to feel uncomfortable. God help the man, but he has no idea. Or maybe he does. That’s the problem — I’m unable to discern.”
Stella puts herself to bed. She wakes up in the dark. She can’t have been asleep for long. She’s not sure. Stella’s body wants her to go back to sleep, but her mind wants her to wake up. Her head is so heavy as she turns it on the pillow. A slant of light falls in on the floor through her slightly opened bedroom door, the pale green floor seeming to glow. Stella hears her father’s voice. The cast iron register in the floor is open, the louvres flicked back for ventilation. Is her father on the hall phone? Or maybe he’s talking to someone in the house . . . that’s it, he’s talking to someone in the kitchen . . . a low voice, “I see, yes, yes, I see, I hear you, I understand, it’s so hard, okay, yes . . . so difficult being a father.” The low voice reassures her father that it will get easier, that they’ll all help, that Cynthia and Granny will all help, and time will pass and things will get better, once he’s started his new job. He should go on a trip for Labour Day weekend. They can take care of Stella. He should think about it.
Violette. Stella thinks of flowers in her sleepy mind. Violette drowned. Stella sees rippling ebony water. Mercy Lake. Merciless . . . Her father’s voice. Frank’s voice. You can’t blame me, William. You aren’t an innocent. I’m sorry for your loss but you can’t change the past. Or reimagine it. Old pal, you need to toughen up. It’s a lot of money but we can work something out. Frank’s voice, firm. Her father sobbing now but Stella still not able to wake up, not able to surface in her room. Below her exhaustion her brain hurts and insists she let it slip away into the darkness.
An owl hoots and the wind blows. Stella thinks of “Sestina,” the poem her mother used to recite to her and she drifts off thinking of inscrutable houses and old-fashioned stoves and the little girl she used to be.
Charlotte Pacific.
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Now
They were on their way to Halifax in the Jericho Centre minibus. Dianne sat in the very back with Stella, looking out the window the whole way there, reaching out her hand and feeling Stella beside her, patting her and then pulling her hand away, reassured. Stella knew Dianne was happy to be away from the centre. If anyone was watching them, it might trick them. Grace wasn’t there because it was her staycation.
Fred was of course sitting in the middle, beside Charlotte Pacific, who had arrived the day before. Bob was on Fred’s other side, looking out the window. Karen, the yoga teacher, drove, the passenger seat beside her empty. She was picking up extra work because of staff vacations. No other residents had wanted to go to the city on a hot summer afternoon. Fred was bouncing on his seat. “Charlotte Pacific is here. She’s here. Here, here here.”
Charlotte patted him on the cheek and Fred settled, putting his head on her shoulder.
Stella found it hard to keep track of the days now that the Unscheduled Outing had bumped the weekly schedule. She turned her hands over and over and over, water wheels. Where was Isaiah? Who was watching them? What did that young woman in the yellow dress want? Why did her head hurt all the time now, whenever she tried to think about the past? Why was her brain not helping her?
Karen and Charlotte let them wander through the gallery at their own pace. It was air-conditioned inside and Stella wished she had brought her yellow sweater.
The number of paintings was overwhelming. Stella worried she might see something by Sally Seabury. Or rather, Sarah Windsor. Maybe a series of paintings that explored her guilt at having left her daughter behind, at how her own mid-life crisis had blocked out the danger awaiting young girls. Stella rubbed her ears. A rattle in her head, a sloshing sound. She stopped looking at the walls and followed Dianne, who looked left and right, and left and right, on the watch as they walked through the gallery.
