A/N: Okay, everyone. I'm hoping for wakefulness here. (Please, don't scan looking for flaws.) Please, DO look for highlights of what you enjoyed! Savour it, take care of it. Remember how to enjoy something. Thank you.
(The bride's: Maggie/Josette's, perspective of view. This chapter is taking place in 1985.)
Chapter 45: Joie de Vivre
Upon the following afternoon, after David's meeting with us to report the years' tutelage, I was sitting outside our home, staring up into the light of the noonday sky touched with golden glints amidst drifting clouds, and wondering if I could speak to my mother. She wouldn't come but I kept wishing she would. That was when my little daughter approached me and asked, "Maman, what are you thinking?"
"What makes you believe I was thinking anything?" I requested Sarah.
"The way you looked," she answered, promptly, "You were looking into that cloud. It reminds me of a story. A girl who lives with a monkey and a horse has a father who is a sea captain and a mother in Heaven who she can talk to through a hole in the cloud over her house."
"Well, it's true," I confessed, "I was wishing to talk to my mother in Heaven. Although I'm hardly as wild as the girl you describe."
"Do you know the story?" Sarah asked, excitedly.
"Of course, I do," I nodded, "But we must be thankful that your grandfather is with us in town and hardly The King of the Kurrekurredutt Island."
This trivial relaying of story details tickled my little one and I touched her bright face with my own and a smile.
"Then," she squeaked out, "you should go and talk to him, Maman. I think he's painting on the cliffs."
"Is he?" I wondered, surprised.
"Yes. I didn't want to bother him while he's painting, but I know he likes you bothering him."
I didn't know about that. But I wasn't about to argue with my daughter. I trusted her to look after herself as she'd already done, as well as looking after me.
I arose and ventured forward to the cliffs of our estate, with no fear of ever falling from them again.
And even if I did happen to fall, I'm sure that would be the time I would finally learn, in human form, how to fly.
I wended my way through the woods, hours before sunset, looking over the grounds in which I peeked at various buildings of Collinwood near and far. There I stepped observing the cottages, statues, grand houses, small homes, as well as the thoughts over my adventures in different centuries up into now, and how the present day resonated with happiness more than ever before.
I could hear the whispering ocean slowly increase into its usual crashing roar, the silver and gold of sun playing in fragments on the ground through the ever changing precipitation above as I found my way to the high rise beyond our rocky shores, the lapping of waves sounding more and more welcoming the closer I came.
I noticed near the cliff a man standing in front of an easel and canvas, recognising him for who he was: my father, of course. He was certainly in the area Sarah had mentioned him to be, but very focused upon the details of an empty bench which was facing seaward. Sam Evans, nee Andre duPres, was busy fussing amid brushes, pallet and canvas in all the consternation and simpers I could recall him displaying when heavily engaged in his work. The only difference was I could often tell when he needed a break and that "when" was now.
And so I approached this opportunity to break his concentration by ambling toward the empty resting place of the bench he was painting and I sat down as leisurely, and as boldly, as I could.
It seemed almost a minute before I caught him blinking and truly seeing that I was there. (Many an artist will maintain resolute focus before any obvious distraction sinks in.)
"There now, Maggie," Pop accused, "Are you already after ruining this picture, too?"
I laughed, "What? Won't I improve the painting?"
"No doubt you would, but the point of this image is to have the bench empty."
"Empty? Why?" I asked.
"Don't ask me why the request was for an empty bench by the sea, ma petit demoiselle! Just get out of the way!"
"No," I teased, "you take a break to come over and sit with me."
"Just as well," Sam Evans asserted with a snorting breath, placing his brush on the ground beside his palate and taking up the cup and thermos that rested nearby. He began unscrewing the lid and I reached out my hand to take it as he sat beside me, "I've just about had it with these clouds that can't seem to make up their mind today where they want to be."
"Heh. Any reason to pester with your art, eh Pop?"
"Well," he answered as he poured the coffee into his cup and into the lid that I held up as a cup, "as long as it's only my art that they want to make more difficult. I prefer that to the storms they tend to stir up in our lives around here."
"Me too," I agreed as I sipped what I knew would to be some of the strongest coffee brewed from here to the Pacific.
"Your mother hedges in that same direction, you know," Pop told me.
"Of course she does," I nodded, "Have you heard from her recently?"
"Yes, I have," he smiled an almost crusty but more romantic smile as he looked out into the ocean, "her midnight vigils come and go and the last one brought so much gratitude, more words than feeling this time."
"Maman seems to take my place as the guardian spirit around here now," I mused.
"Mmm-hmm! Someone's got to do it, Josette. She told me that," Pop said, "The Widows being all but gone now."
"More confused at having near nothing to wail about," I reasoned, "I hear more wind than ghosts in the night."
Pop put his cup on his lap, holding it, "But there are ghosts, even still."
"Yes... yes, there are," I nodded, continuing to sip, "there will always be ghosts at Collinwood. Calmer, more curious, perhaps, but they remain here. And Mom does seem to be one of them."
"She's waiting for me," Pop explained, "though... she's not in a hurry."
"I'd hope not," I simpered, "your granddaughter and I aren't done with you yet."
"Nor me to you all. How is my littler lady?"
I was ruffling through little musings beneath my breath until I told him, "She's making comparisons, Pop."
"Oh?" Pop asked, "What kind of comparisons?"
"Between myself and Pippi Longstocking."
Sea waves splashed below as if laughing at Pop's silent confusion.
"What you, of all people, have in common with that red-headed snippet is beyond me... so... you ought to just explain it, Maggie Evans..." he finally exhaled.
"Papa Ephraim," I joked at him, "I have a Mother in Heaven that I talk to through a hole in a cloud."
Sam Evans finally smiled and then looked into his lap to laugh, knowingly, "of course, of course... The strongest girl in the world with big shoes and red hair."
"Red hair? Like Dr. Hoffman?" I asked, quizzically, but desperately trying not to laugh.
Pop's expression had suddenly become muddled and I could tell why: My comparison had ignited his imagination into a shocking visualisation of Julia with braids that stuck straight out on either side.
"Well," I managed to compose myself with better reserve, "Perhaps Dr. Hoffman's shoes aren't quite as large as our Pippilotta's..."
"She doesn't have braids that stick out, either, Maggie."
Pop and I finally let out the demented laughter that was failing to be kept down in the very notion of Julia having any resemblance, braided or otherwise, to the little heroin described by Astrid Lindgren.
"Now, truly. How is Sarah? I know you had 'Tutor David' out to The Old House yesterday for a rather sparsely populated PTA meeting. That likely brought up the news in her studies and accomplishments."
"Oh," I started to tell him, "she is hitting some of those troubles with her studies. Mathematics being the most worrisome decline. She's just not able to whip out the results as quickly as she did before."
"Uh-oh. It's important to have a fair grasp of maths in a family with money."
"Papa... I am not worried. David explained she's excelling at everything else and we have to allow for some take with the give on that. Besides, she doesn't have to be a wiz at figures in order to be decent at them. She still enjoys it but she's not as lightning quick as when she started in second grade."
"The boy is going to tease her," Pop warned.
"Too late," I smiled.
"Ah, really? Is he getting a rap on the knuckles for that?"
"So far a good tut-tutting and a raised eyebrow are keeping Caleb's jeers from getting the better of him."
"Though I am sure Caleb preys on Sarah in secret."
"And Sarah gets him back, too. You know our little girl. She's got her own methods of seeing through a soul."
"Well put. She's been seeing through souls since her last life, as well as the ghost she was before... before you gave birth to her again." Pop finished, slapping his knee, ever so lightly, in the recognition of how strange it all was.
"There's a new shortcut to the trouble," I reasoned.
"Which is what?" Pop inquired.
"Calculators. Sarah could practice her mathematics better with that and she'd have less worry over concerning herself with sums like you and I once did."
"Calculators?" Pop questioned.
"Yes, they are marvellous. It's like a miniature of the cash register at the Collinsport Inn and coffee shop. Really something when I've played with one." I smiled.
"More tinkering machines infiltrating the system..." Pop sighed.
"Yes, but the children will be expected to use them in college. And no worries here, Papa. We only allow so much of the new-fangled to enter our lives; only when necessary."
"Well, as long as paints and pigments don't drastically alter," Pop reasoned, "I have enough to do without craft companies mucking with my tools. And I'm grateful your husband understands the meaning of that. Some things just ought not to change."
"You and Barnabas have agreed on that many times, Papa." I told him.
Pop sipped his coffee and smiled at me, "The supernatural won't change, and with the classical bent of Collinwood, it especially won't change around these parts."
"Not if I or Maman can help it." I reasoned, with a smile.
Pop and I watched the waves and layers of sunbeams through the clouds floating about to dance along the waters below. Somewhere above that giant star warming the world was preparing to descend and I looked forward to how the painting would turn out from its connection to the reality we were witnessing as we sat there.
At last, Pop clapped his hand upon mine in my lap, "There you are. Have you finished that cup, or shall I?"
I gulped down the remains of my coffee and handed him the lid, "All done."
Pop took the lid, shook the drops out and screwed it back on the thermos, saying, "Well, want to watch this master painter continue, or get back to home and hearth?"
"I'm going home, but you're welcome to come around. We're having roast beef and corn pudding tonight."
"Corn pudding?" Pop nodded upward in approval, "I'll be there for that! Would love to see how Wadsworth and Willie manage it."
"I'm making that part actually," I teased, as I headed to leave.
"Even more reason to show up!" Pop called, picking up his paint brush and waving it happily.
As things played out that evening, I came to recognize that whatever troubles Sarah had in mathematics was only of major concern to her own feelings about it. The life she lived before was to have been the more sorrowful span of things. It was a large concern, nonetheless, but in comparison it helped me to adapt to that change in how we lived now. It was so difficult to grasp after centuries of catastrophe and catastrophizing all the possibilities of what things meant and could mean. Was the highlight of terror in our new days to be a scholastic lack of achievement? I suppose it was...
Within Sarah's playroom I managed to use as many toys as I could to arrange for her ideas of mathematical understanding. Manipulative structures of block building helped, just to keep her sight of the distinct numbers in practice. The only trouble was that she was so busy creating fantasy lands and stories in her mind while we played. No matter how I tried to focus her attention on the amount of wood pieces, I could practically hear her inner mind shuffling notions around to build a world that was made far more of words and emotional insights than anything to do with counting objects.
"David was right," I thought to myself. Then we heard the bell resound for supper time.
"Come, now," I spoke aloud to my daughter, "Grand-père is going to arrive for the corn-pudding."
"Does he like it as much as I do?" Sarah asked, grabbing my hand.
"Oh, he possibly likes it more than you. I made as big a batch of it as I could," I told her, "Hopefully there will be enough to go 'round."
Our little one stood up immediately, "Let's go!"
Off we went, and down the stairs, Barnabas, our patriarch, found us and scooped Sarah into his arms, asking, "How is my darling this evening?"
"Hungry, Papa!" She announced.
Putting her down, Barnabas reasoned, "Then we ought to be in the dining hall as soon as ever."
Sarah scampered off and her father took my hand with the graciousness he forever bestowed to me, "And are you hungry, my dearest?"
"Surely," I chortled, "but mainly for you. As always."
"As I am for you, Josette. How do we manage, do you think?"
I kissed him at that bottom step to make our height even. Then I told him, "We do so together, as we have always done."
We held hands entering the dining room to find Sarah, Papa, Willie and his wife, Cora, to share in a meal of food Barnabas and I didn't need to eat, but would do so anyway.
{*} {*} {*}
A/N: Here are some discussion prompts to get you started, if you need them, but maybe, maybe, maybe? You can discuss the narrative in your own words.
1) Observe what is going on in the beginning of the chapter between Maggie and her daughter, Sarah.
2) As Maggie (Josette) reaches her father, Sam (Andre), to update him about what's going on at home, what struck you as most delightful in their discussion?
3) How does Sam feel about the passing of time and the changes taking place?
4) Describe how Maggie is attempting to instruct Sarah better in mathematics and how it turns out.
5) What did you especially enjoy in how this chapter wraps up as the family comes together for supper?
A/N: Always remember; you can discuss the narrative, as you follow it, as you see fit. Looking forward to your discussion! :) Blessed be...
