Stella is tired. The phone had clanged in the middle of the night, waking her. Her father had spoken loudly, oblivious to his sleeping daughter upstairs. Then he had lowered his voice to an absurd almost-shouted whisper. You have to take her to the hospital? Yes, makes sense to have her checked out . . . hopefully just a spell or some such thing . . . Yes, I’ll have Stella go keep Cynthia company in the morning. Yes, yes, I understand. She’s old now. No, no, you don’t want her going around talking that way, Frankie. I understand.
As Stella pedals she wonders what it was her father understood. He didn’t seem to understand anything but his damn work or where the liquor store was. Stella is braver on her bike outside of town, where there’s no traffic. The fields are covered in Queen Anne’s lace and purple clover, such a contrast to the stale air of the Sprague house. She hopes her period never comes back. Granny Scotia told her it might come and go for the first year or so, before settling into a cycle. She hopes it simply goes. She doesn’t want to be a member of this club, a woman, a grown-up. She doesn’t want to be let in on the secrets. Canada geese honk out in the middle of the marsh water. The late-summer goslings are indistinguishable from their parents in appearance now, full grown in body but without any survival skills. They’ll migrate in the autumn, Cynthia has said, but right now their parents are teaching them how to fly, life skills. They mate for life, Stella remembers Cynthia saying.
Stella rides down the lane, to the back near the carriage house, and leans her bicycle against the copper beech. To the side of the carriage house there’s an expensive-looking black car. It’s that Jessome man from the barbeque, the same car that almost ran her over. Stella takes the straw hat off and hangs it on the handlebars. She walks to the house and from the open dining room window she hears loud muffled voices. Stella stands beside the window.
“I told you to go.” It’s Cynthia, yelling.
“You can’t tell me what to do. Who do you think you are, with the disgusting hair? Dressing like a tramp.”
Cynthia whimpers. It’s Cynthia . . . whimpering . . . shrieking.
Stella creeps closer to the window and peers through the heavy grey screen. She can see nothing so she takes off the sunglasses and looks through the screen again, smelling the old house through it, so different than the outside, the smell of goldenrod and asters and clover, the tangy air meandering in off the marsh, from the bay beyond.
Cynthia runs to the back of the dining room but Tommy Jessome is fast behind her, surprisingly nimble for a man with a gut. She almost escapes him but not quite. Her hair is messy. Her face is streaked and smudged with runny black eyeliner. He pushes Cynthia up against the wall and a chair falls over, the crash covering up Stella’s gasp. Neither Cynthia nor Tommy move for a second, and then Cynthia starts yelling at him to let her go. Her fear is now rage. She spits in his eyes. He slaps her face, his thick hand thudding and smacking on her young skin, Cynthia screeching. This seems to further enrage him and he pushes her harder against the wall, with his hand around her neck, pushing his body against hers, his stomach keeping a bit of distance between them. Tommy whispers in Cynthia’s ear. Stella can’t hear what he’s saying. The hushed tone ominous, slithering into a hiss. Cynthia lunges to the right but Tommy Jessome pulls on her arm, twisting. She falls and a crystal water glass crashes down behind her. Some bumps and bangs and then Cynthia lurches up. Stella sees bright red blood smeared on Cynthia’s arm and watches her pick up a linen napkin from the table.
Tommy pants and puffs. Stella hopes he has a heart attack, that something will intervene and strike him down, but he looms over Cynthia, wheezing and huffing. “Think you’re tough, like your old grandmother? Don’t you think about telling your father. He’ll never believe you. He’s busy trying to deal with that senile old woman and your slut of a mother. You say one word, one word, and your dear old Granny Scotia might not do so well, if you get my meaning. She’s old now, forgetful. Worrying your father with her goings on. Her mind’s out of balance and so is that old, twisted body.”
Stella is frozen at the window, her fingers tense on the ledge, as though she’s some strange lawn ornament the O’Clearys brought over from Ireland and propped up against the house, some fairy from a thorn tree spying on the humans. Neither of them are talking now, just breathing heavily, Tommy grunting, Cynthia whimpering. Stella wants to run and get her bike but she doesn’t want them to hear her. She wants to be back on Sunnyside Drive sitting on a chair on the wide wraparound front verandah with her mother on a summer evening counting fireflies. Stella knows she should start yelling but she’s paralyzed. She should ride home as fast as she can and get her father. He’ll help Cynthia. Stella’s mouth opens — her body is taking over, her body knowing the moral thing to do, but her mind is not co-operating. Her mind says to run. She pants through her open mouth. She can’t make a sound. No words. Nothing but shaking all over.
There is a crash outside from back near the carriage house. Tommy and Cynthia both look towards the window. Stella ducks down. She doesn’t know if they’ve seen
