Thunderclaps sounded and the rain gushed down from the eaves of my family home in Aberystwyth as Jeannie and I dressed for church. She was trying on a variety of hats, attempting to match one to her multi-coloured tweed skirt suit, while I sat at our vanity dresser and stared dully at an array of half-finished lipsticks, my mind elsewhere. Jeannie was in a festive mood; I was not.

We always went to the Christmas Eve service; my father had missed the years he was away in the air force, but my mother, sister and I had never missed a year. We attended a small Anglican church made of stone, with a white plaster facade and dusty stained-glass windows. On Christmas, the interior was always decorated with sprigs of holly tied with ribbons, wreaths of twigs and evergreen decorated with seashells painted sparkly gold, tall candelabras framing the altar with dripping red taper candles. I usually enjoyed the Christmas Eve service. I didn't follow the sermon and hymns, but relaxed and enjoyed the scent of pine needles and the cocooning warmth of the crowded pews. But that Christmas of 1958, I was feeling down, and I wished I could just stay home.

"Why are you so quiet?" asked Jeannie.

"I'm not being quiet."

"Yes, you are," she insisted. "Normally, when you come home, you have all sorts of complaints to make about this thing and that, and how difficult Irene is."

"Is that all I do?" I wondered aloud. "Complain?"

"It's not all you do," said Jeannie. "It's just what you do with me."

"Mmm." I was already not listening. I reached for a lipstick at random and applied it, using the tip of my pinkie finger to wipe off a little notch in the centre of my lips to create a cupid's bow. The desk lamp on the dresser emitted cast a dim, yellow glow that seemed to age every object in our bedroom into an antique version of itself.

"I really don't feel like going," I admitted.

"But you love Christmas."

I sighed. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just not feeling it this year."

Jeannie sat down on her twin bed, which emitted a loud squeak in protest. "You've been gloomy ever since you got home," she said. "Why aren't you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"I told you what's wrong," I said, leaning my cheek against a hand, elbow propped up on the dresser. "I don't like it in Cardiff. I don't like my job and I don't like the people there."

"What about Lyall?" said Jeannie, in an almost entirely innocent voice. Almost.

"I don't like Lyall either," I grumbled, not really meaning it.

"What do you mean, you don't like him? I thought you were good friends," she insisted, leaning over to take a pair of pantyhose off the floor. She rolled the pantyhose up first one leg, then another, in the sexy way that I knew she had learned from the movies. Jeannie always took notes on that sort of thing, and remembered to apply them to her daily life. The result was that she had a mesmerizing effect on men, like a snake charmer surrounded by eager cobras.

"It's nothing," I muttered.

"What is it? What did he do?"

I sighed again, this time more dramatically, in an attempt to demonstrate how very tired I was and how little I wished to have this conversation; it had the opposite effect, as Jeannie interpreted my sigh as a kind of dramatic entr'acte leading into a marvelous piece of gossip.

"Tell me," she coaxed.

"He invited me to a dance."

"Ooh! Was it fun? Did he kiss you? Did he kiss someone else?"

"No. He invited me to a dance, so I went, and then he didn't dance with me the whole night until his friends felt sorry for me, and practically made him, and then we only danced for two songs."

"What a tease!" she exclaimed, with delight. "Oh, he's making it difficult, isn't he."

"He's not making it anything," I whined. "There's nothing to make."

"Hope, I don't believe you," she said.

"How would you know?"

"Because," she said coyly, "I met him, and I know you. And you don't have to pretend you're not interested in him. I'm on your side."

"I told you, I don't want to talk about this," I said. I pushed my chair back from the vanity and leaned back, tilting my head to my chest and gazing down at my knees. "I'm done with this topic."

"I'm not done with this topic," Jeannie said playfully.

"Jeannie, stop it!" I demanded, more forcefully. "Just leave me alone."

"God, Hope," she said, sounding hurt, "You don't have to be this way. I mean, it's not like we only see other twice a year, or anything."

"Leave me alone," I whined again, more weakly this time. Jeannie, sensing that her prey was no longer up to fighting back and was, therefore, no fun, left the room in disappointment.

Jeannie and I sat in the backseat of our father's 1953 Morris Minor on the way to church, not speaking. Narrow streams of rain snaked their way down the windows, conglomerating at the window's base, and liquefying the passing Christmas lights into pools of red, blue and green. As he drove, my father rattled on about work and the latest threats of a strike at the factory; the usual gossip that no one, including my mother, really listened to. In fact, she didn't listen to him much of the time. He talked too much, and lacked the sense to know when other people weren't interested anymore; and sometimes, he didn't care, even if he did know. My mother's affection for him curved around this particular character flaw, like a snail shell around a hermit crab. Their marriage included a silent understanding that while he was permitted to gossip, complain, boast or lecture us at will, she was not obliged to pay attention to what was, essentially, his own verbal self-soothing.

One thing I love about Lyall is that he prefers listening to speaking.

At church, we mingled and greeted old friends, neighbours and acquaintances, marking our territory by draping the pews with coats, hats and scarves. I noticed every tiny diamond ring that flashed on a hand as gloves were removed and folded into coat pockets. Every year, more and more girls I grew up with were taken; gone to the land of the married and respectable, the grown-up side. The side my father was very desperate for Jeannie and I to end up on, before it was too late. I found myself searching for those few female hands that didn't sport anything but a child's birthstone ring, worn on the index finger. I noticed one girl I had gone to ballet lessons with; she wore no ring, but I knew for a fact she was married, to a childhood crush of Jeannie's. When I saw her velvet maternity dress, I knew her fingers must be too swollen for it. I thought of Mabli again, and felt sick for her.

My two weeks in Aberystwyth seemed to be swelling and congealing into a viscous substance, a sort of time syrup that ever so slowly oozed onward, like honey from a bottle. Two days after Christmas, a card arrived for me in the mail. It was the yearly Christmas Card that Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Winchfill sent out en masse, to every tenant or recent former tenant or prospective tenant they had. The matrons spent November laboriously hand-writing their cards at the dining room table, Mrs. Owens with her rotund ballpoint pen, and Mrs. Winchfill with a slender fountain pen so sharp that as she wrote, she left scratch marks on the paper. The front of the card was a colourized old photograph of a street in Victorian London at Christmastime, a wreath on each front door. I opened the card, wondering what biblical passage would be foisted on me this time.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," Jeannie read aloud, emphasizing certain choice phrases in sarcastic joy. She was lazing about on the sofa beneath the bay window, her knees tucked to her side. Her tights had not even a single run in them. She must have owned a hundred pairs.

"Oh, you got one too?" I said.

"Mmhm," she said, waving her identical card at me from the sofa opposite my armchair.

"I'm disappointed," I said. "Last year, it was that 'the wages of sin are death.' For some reason, they've gone a bit brighter this time around."

"It's a long quote to copy," Jeannie mused. "Say, how many cards do you think they send out, if you and me both got one?"

"It's got to be at least two hundred," I said. "Handwritten, all of them."

"And everyone gets the same Bible verse?"

"I guess it's more efficient that way."

My mother came to stand in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her floury hands on an apron trimmed with pink rickrack. "I think it's a lovely verse," she said. "The prince of peace—isn't that a nice thought?"

"Daddy wouldn't like it," said Jeannie, "he prefers the war."

"Hush, you," she chastised. "Why do you have to be so negative?"

"Hope, you got another card," said Jeannie, who was riffling through various pink, red and green envelopes, most of which were addressed to her. "It's very neat handwriting."

I flushed a very deep pink as Jeannie leaned forward to hand me the card, which was tucked in a plain white envelope. Just as my finger grazed the envelope, Jeannie snatched it back.

"I wonder who it's from," she sang.

"Give it to me!"

She held it up to the light. "I can't see anything," she complained. "Stupid cardstock is too thick."

"You better give it to me now," I said crossly.

"You're blushing," Jeannie said, with a giggle.

"It's mine. Give it to me."

"Girls, be nice, " sang my mother, from the kitchen, as though we were three and five years old and fighting over our Betsy Wetsy doll. Betsy Wetsy's selling point was that she really did wet herself, which was positively thrilling to Jeannie and I as children, but which my father thought was disgusting and unnecessary.

"Alright, alright," said Jeannie. She reluctantly put the card down on the coffee table, and pushed it toward me. I tried not to rip it open with too much excitement. I carefully slit the envelope open and found a cheap Christmas card inside. It was the kind of card you bought at the grocery store. When Lyall wrote to me, he always used a thick, yellowish paper, richly textured, almost like parchment.

Jeannie must have noticed my face fall, for she asked me what was wrong before I even opened it. I ignored her, and read the short message.

Dear Hope

Happy Christmas and New Year. I hope you have a nice time with your family. I just wanted to ask if you could please remember to ask your sister if she knows anyone else who might be able to help me out with my trouble. I would be so much in your debt. I am absolutely desperate. I only have a few more weeks until it's too late.

Happy holidays.

Mabli

"You look like you've seen a ghost," said Jeannie. "What did he say?"

I silently handed her the card. She scanned it, and I watched her expression melt into an echo of my own.

"Oh," said Jeannie.

"I don't know what to tell her."

"There's nothing to tell."

"But what's she going to do?" I asked, lowering my voice to a whisper, so that my mother would not hear us.

"Whatever girls in her situation do," said Jeannie dully. "Go to a convent. Unless she finds a doctor. But you can't just ask."

"Of course not."

"She'll probably go away, then," murmured Jeannie. "Stay for a year, or however long, until she gets her figure back."

"She won't be able to keep it, will she?" I asked.

"They never do," said Jeannie.


I finally did receive a Christmas card from Lyall, though he had already included a small one in the gift he gave me before we left for our separate homes. It arrived in the New Year. My mother handed it to me silently while Jeannie was showering. It was as though she knew I wanted the privacy, though I hadn't said anything to her about him.

I recognized Lyall's tiny, neat cursive and ran to my room and shut the door. The card was lovely—a beautiful four-colour pop-up card embossed with metallic gold. When I opened it, three-dimensional snowflakes seemed to scatter over a wintery cottage whose windows and doors could fold open and closed. The snow was dusted with real glitter; each tiny grain changed colours as I moved the card back and forth in the light.

"It's beautiful," I whispered, to no one in particular. His message was short, simply wishing me a happy Christmas and New Year, but it was the intricate beauty of the pop-up card that sent electric eels through my stomach. That sort of card didn't come cheap. And I could tell he had chosen it just for me; I doubted he would send a card with such feminine script to a man. I traced the cut-out edges of the cottage chimney with my fingertip until I heard footsteps in the hallway. I shoved the card back into the envelope and quickly dropped it into the drawer in my bedside table. Just as Jeannie came back from the shower, wrapped in a yellow towel and matching turban, I shut the drawer, determined to let the imaginary inhabitants of the wintery Christmas cottage enjoy their papery snowstorm in peace.


The rain continued, on and off, as I finished my week in Aberystwyth. It was time to go home, or rather, to leave home—either way, I had to head back to Cardiff for work. I wasn't looking forward to it, though there was the (slightly heartbreaking) prospect of seeing Lyall again. But things had changed, ever since the dance-that-wasn't. I felt the twin forces of attraction and rejection, alternately pulling me towards him, and pushing me away, making me hesitate on the telephone when he asked me to meet up with him. I knew he hadn't done anything wrong, but I felt wronged. But then I spent a miserable Christmas in Aberystwyth, thinking about him all the time. On the train ride back to Cardiff, I took a paperback novel, and reread the opening sentence several hundred times, uncomprehending, my attention elsewhere.

On my first night back at St. Dwynwyn's, the matrons decided to serve us some leftovers from their Christmas charity bake for dessert. After the usual greasy fried cod and limp, boiled leeks, we were grateful to experience some variety.

"What a treat," cooed Mrs. Owens, as she placed a tray of biscuits and several slices of stale cake down before us. "Now, don't eat too many, girls, or you'll lose your figures."

"I can't help myself around gingerbread," giggled Val. She took two gingerbread snowmen off the plate, and passed it to Irene, who selected the tiniest possible biscuit by pinching it between her cherry-red manicured nails. Irene had to stretch to pass the plate on to Norah, because Edith's empty chair was between them. She was out "studying" again.

"Aren't they just delicious?" said Mrs. Owens, whose rotund face was stretched into an oval when she smiled broadly at the thought of her own baking.

"I'm sure the poor very much appreciated them," said Mrs. Winchfill, who was as narrow as Mrs. Owens was wide. "Every year, we get so many letters of thanks from the Canton Ladies' Society from people who have received our boxes."

"What a wonderful thing to do at Christmastime," simpered Irene. She took a nearly non-existent bite of the very edge of her biscuit and smiled gracefully.

"Well, I'm sure you girls understand that there are so many people in the world who are much less fortunate than you," said Mrs. Winchfill. "You're very lucky to have a roof over your head, and food to eat. Why, Mrs. Sayer at the Ladies' Society was just telling me about the poor children who have nothing at Christmas, and they're so grateful to the Society, and the church, of course, for providing them with presents for Christmas."

"Just heartbreaking," cried Mrs. Owens enthusiastically. "All those poor children with nothing. You just have to wonder about their parents." She gave Mabli a sad, sympathetic smile. "I remember back during the war, when there were so many orphans."

"You know, they stay orphans, " muttered Mabli. "Even when they're grown."

"Would you please pass the teapot?" I asked. The biscuits were exceedingly dry, and had coated my throat with a layer of crumbs that felt like sand.

"I'll pour it for you," said Mrs. Winchfill, hastily snatching the teapot out of my reach. "I don't want drips on the tablecloth."

The telephone in the front hall began to ring.

"I'll get that," said Mrs. Owens, hastily rising from the table. A cascade of crumbs poured off her skirt as she stood up. "I do hate when we get calls at dinner time, but I suppose nobody knew we were to have dessert today."

I could have pointed out that other people didn't necessarily ever know when we sat down to dinner, especially since we ate so much earlier than most people, but I remained silent.

"There's no need to eavesdrop," said Mrs. Winchfill, as everyone at the table had remained silent, trying to pick up on Mrs. Owen's muffled conversation. The call had to be for one of us girls; the matrons had their own separate telephone line, which connected only to a phone in their private office.

"I wouldn't dream of it," said Norah drily.

Mrs. Owens ducked her head into the dining room. "Mabli, dear, it's for you. I asked them to call back later, but the lady on the line says it's rather important."

Mabli, who had already been looking pale, was drained of any remaining colour. Stiffly, she rose, laying her teacup down on the table with extraordinary care. I noticed her hands seemed to be trembling. I felt a vicarious pang of anxiety in my own stomach.

Mrs. Owens returned to the table, having passed off the call. She and Mrs. Winchfill shared what may have been a significant look.

"The biscuits are excellent," announced Norah, in a voice like painted cardboard. "Aren't they delicious, Hope?"

"Yes, I think so," I replied. "I guess you have a hidden talent, Mrs. Owens."

She beamed at the compliment.

"That's very high praise for you," said Irene sweetly, "as Hope certainly knows her way around a biscuit! You've always had a sweet tooth," she said, turning to me. "It's a good thing for the orphans that most of their baked goods were boxed up and sent off during the holidays!"

"I suppose that's the truth," I replied, my voice light and airy as a meringue. "Some people just love sweetness, whereas other people are predisposed to be—sorry, to like anything sour."

"I love sweets," said Val dreamily.

"I quite agree with Hope," said Mrs. Owens. "The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning," she recited, and then pinched another biscuit off the tray.

"I do think young ladies like yourselves ought to be sweet in demeanour, but not too sweet with men," said Mrs. Winchfill. "There is a time and a place for loving kindness, but it is certainly not at a dancehall at a late hour, around the sort of young men whose intentions are not respectable or conducive to appropriate conduct."

An image of Ogilvy's grinning face appeared in my mind, uninvited. I stifled a laugh.

"Henry is taking me to a dance on Sunday," said Val. "I think he's very nice."

"You always think they're nice," said Irene, and I couldn't disagree.

"Niceness isn't what's important in a husband," said Mrs. Winchfill.

"Isn't it?" asked Norah, genuinely bemused.

"Anyone can be nice so long as they want something from you," said Mrs. Winchfill. "Nobody is nice all of the time. When you get married, you are going to find that out, sooner or later."

Of all the unsolicited advice the spindly, stern, self-righteous old matron ever gave us, I'll always remember that one evening in January of 1959 when she said something true, truer than I could possibly understand at that time. Isn't it odd how someone can say something to you off the cuff, and you will remember it for the rest of your life? I think about Mrs. Winchfill now—who is obviously long dead—and I wonder about whoever the late Mr. Winchfill was, and how she came to her beliefs about the world.

When I lived at St. Dwynwyn's, I disliked both matrons, but the lion's share of my silent, seething, agonizing antipathy was directed at Mrs. Winchfill. She was cleverer than Mrs. Owens, and her sanctimonious lecturing was less religious in nature. Tall, eagle-eyed, permanently possessed of a pinched facial expression, a wearer of clip-on earrings because she believed body piercings were disgusting, Mrs. Winchfill did not specifically dislike me so much as she disliked young people in general. And yet, at the time, I never wondered how she came to be who she was, and whether there was a time when Mrs. Winchfill—whose Christian name I only ever learned when I saw her obituary in the newspaper, years later—was young and open to the unexpected and spontaneous pleasures of the world. But then, I suppose she must have come of age during the First World War. It affects you. Remus would know that, better than anyone.


Several days later, on the weekend, I sat at my desk in the attic bedroom, scratching out an attempt at poetry on the creamy leather-bound notebook Lyall had given me as a gift. I heard a soft scratching on the door, far different from Irene's vengeful banging or the matrons' polite but insistent knocking.

I opened the door. Mabli stood before me, wearing a baggy argyle jumper that looked like it came from the thrift shop. Her blond hair looked clean and brushed, for the first time in weeks, but her facial expression was complex, unreadable.

"May I come in?" she asked.

"Yes, of course."

I stepped back, and let her enter and close the door behind her. I went to sit on my bed and patted the mattress beside me invitingly, but she simply stood before me.

"I just thought—" she began, then swallowed. "I just wanted to let you know I have a plan now. I mean, since you were trying to help."

"I wasn't of much help," I said. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. Not your fault." She shrugged listlessly.

"Have you found a doctor?" I whispered.

"No," she said. Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact, but thickened—like a brick wall around an estate blocked from view by thick foliage. "Norah's aunt knows people—a couple. They can't have a child."

"Oh," I breathed.

"They offered me a lot. The wife's grandmother is elderly, and needs someone to stay with her. Look after the house, fetch her things. It's not hard work. And they're going to give me some money, too."

My curtains were drawn. The cool, wintery sunlight trickled over Mabli's pale features, illuminating broken capillaries around her nose and in the whites of her eyes.

She continued. "They—the couple—they don't want me around their neighbourhood while I'm..." She gestured to the sagging wool across her belly. "When it's born, obviously, they're going to take it. And they're going to let me stay with the grandmother while I recover."

She looked out the window, gazing at nothing. "Obviously, people will know that it's adopted, but they're going to say the baby's an orphan. A relative of theirs. They had a whole story worked out, already. Norah's aunt said they've been looking for a—for someone like me for a long time."

"Well...I'm glad you have a plan," I said softly. "I mean...if you feel it's right for you."

An unreadable flicker of emotion passed over Mabli's face. She folded her hands before her like a nun.

"Well, it's right for them," she said. "And it's—it's plan."

My heart sunk in my chest. I watched through the window as a naked branch swayed in the harsh January wind.

"If there's anything I can do...anything at all, I would really like to help. I mean it," I said.

She squinted at me, coolly appraising my obvious guilt.

"If you need help packing or, if you want me to write to you. Or if you need some things..."

"They're going to pay my expenses," said Mabli. "Travel and everything."

"That's good to hear."

"Well, anyone would protect their investment, wouldn't they." It wasn't a question.

"Oh, Mabli," I cried softly. I stood up and stepped towards her, holding my arms open to her. She looked at me as though I was something she had never seen before, and shuffled back, towards the door. I dropped my arms.

"I don't have a lot to pack anyway," she muttered. "I'm leaving next week. Might as well use up the last of this month's rent."

"Tell me if you'd like—" I began, but she stepped out of my room and shut the door while the useless words were still tumbling out of my mouth like coins from a broken turnstile.


Lyall and I were going out quite often that January. He told me all about his family Christmas in Foxhaven—or rather, I thought he told me all about his family Christmas. He described his great-aunt's burnt gingersnaps, and told me how he had grown up thinking that was the way they were supposed to be and wondering why the gingersnaps at his boarding school weren't blackened enough. I asked him about his cousins, and he told me about his Uncle Thaddeus, whose poor wife had died young, leaving their two sons behind. Lyall had no siblings, and very little immediate family, as his mother was also an only child, but he told me he was close with his uncle.

"I had an uncle," I said to Lyall, as we walked through the steamy indoor greenhouses of the botanical gardens. "But I never came to know him well. He died during the war."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright," I said. "I was so little when Uncle John died, I don't remember him that well. But my father was very upset, of course."

"Was he a soldier?" Lyall asked, before quickly adding, "I'm sorry. You don't have to—that was rude of me."

"No, no, it wasn't rude at all," I assured him. "He was a soldier, in the infantry. They had very bad casualty rates."

"Oh," he said simply. We stopped so Lyall could examine a Solomon's seal plant. A row of timid-looking white petals dripped from the stem.

"Fascinating," he said brightly. "Do you know they eat these in China?"

"Goodness, no," I said. "How do you know that?"

"I saw a diagram of them in a book I have," he said. "But I had never seen them in person."

"Do you recognize a lot of the other plants in here?" I asked, amused at how animated he had become.

"Oh, no," he said. "Only the ones with medicinal value. It's an interest of mine."

"You have many hidden talents," I laughed.

"Perhaps just one," he replied quietly.

We continued walking throughout the greenhouse, enjoying the humidity and greenery around us while the city around us was grey, brown and freezing cold. I had dressed for the occasion in a Liberty print dress patterned with tiny leaves, sprigs of berries and scattered flowers. Unusually for him, Lyall had commented on my dress, saying that he liked it because it matched the occasion. It gave me a small thrill to know that he noticed what I wore.

He paused before a display of yellow and pink roses. A bee crawled up one thorny stem.

"Do you like those?" he asked.

"I love roses."

"Pink ones?"

"All colours," I said, my mouth very dry.

"I heard you aren't supposed to give white ones," said Lyall. "They're for funerals, aren't they?"

"I don't know. I've seen them at weddings, too."

"Just for funerals and weddings, then," he said. He pressed his index finger against a thorn until a pinprick of red appeared on his fingertip.

Nervously, I asked, "Who are you buying them for?"

"Ah, I'm, er—" he stammered. "I was just thinking, you know. Valentine's Day. I had wondered what the rules were. About roses. You know, it's just...all these things you're supposed to know."

"I'm sure any girl would be pleased to receive roses," I said shyly. "Even if they were the wrong colour."

"Duly noted," he said.

We moved past the roses and passed through the glass archway into a second greenhouse, this one filled with exotic plants of South America. An array of riotous colours greeted us. I breathed in the heady scent of hundreds of flowers. Some smelled sickly sweet, while others were tinged with mildew and mustardy whiff of pollen. My heels clicked on the tiled floor as we walked passed potted plants, climbing vines and carnivorous plants with enticing, waxy red mouths. Drips of water fell from small holes in white plastic pipes hanging from the ceiling.

"Don't stick your finger in the Venus fly trap," I warned him, jokingly.

"It's alright," said Lyall. "You have to touch three of the little hairs before it will close." He eyed me with a slight smile. "And it doesn't hurt that much, if you do."

"Don't tell me you've really tried that!" I exclaimed.

"I did once, I'm afraid," he said. "At school. All the boys did."

I giggled. "I guess that's why my Mam says she's so lucky she only had little girls."

"Oh, girls are much better," he said mischievously. "In so many ways."

That made me blush. Lyall looked taken aback; he stepped away from me. I felt an icy shard of disappointment inside my chest, a shard that melted when Lyall surreptitiously broke a cantuta flower off of its shrub and handed it me.

"For your hair," he said, "but only after we've left!" I zipped my lips in a promise of secrecy.

Spending a whole afternoon with Lyall felt luxurious, like ordering champagne and lobster in a five-star hotel. I only got to see him once or twice a week, and then we disappeared into our separate worlds: mine, mundane, and his, mysterious. I had never even seen where he lived. When we were together, invisible doors seemed to unlock. He knew people I didn't know, and he took me to places I had never been to; he knew so many things, but he wasn't egotistic or convinced of his own brilliance. I found myself getting frustrated by how infrequently I could see him, and how little I really knew about his interior life. He was so private, and I was so curious; the more I knew about him, the more I wanted to know. The growing awareness of my feelings for him was painful, for I thought he had no interest in me romantically. If he had, wouldn't he have asked me out sometime over the past year? The desperate feelings I tried to lock away grew as Valentine's Day approached. His talk about roses made me anxious that he might be planning on asking someone out, and I didn't know how I would feel when he told me he had a new girlfriend. Longing was hard, but jealousy—I didn't think I could take that.

When the afternoon drew to a close, Lyall and I went out for coffee at a small coffee shop with a fancy red door. Over steaming mugs, he asked me whether I had found his friendly entirely intolerable at the dance.

"No, of course not," I said. "They were very nice." (In truth, it had been Lyall who was the rudest of all of them.)

"I'm glad you thought so," he said, sipping his coffee. "I think Felicia was nice to you."

"They were all very kind."

"Well, if you don't mind them too much, I was going to ask you, er...do you skate at all?"

"Oh, I used to skate all the time in Aberystwyth," I said. "Jeannie and I were in the Girls' Figure Skating League. We used to perform at fundraisers for the parent-teacher association at school."

"Well, that's impressive," said Lyall. "I've only been once or twice in my life. But Felicia has gotten it into her head that we should all go skating next weekend, and I was going to ask you to come along in the hopes that I would not be the only one making a total fool of myself. But now it seems that you might just make my humiliation worse."

"Oh dear," I said, laughing. "Am I not invited, then?"

"You are very much still invited," he said warmly. "But perhaps I should uninvite myself."

"No, don't! I'll teach you!" I promised.

"I don't know if I'm really teachable," he said, picking up the dessert menu. "But you can try your best."

"I will," I said. I giggled at the thought of Lyall being clumsy and falling on the ice—he had never seemed so undignified in my presence. "Are you looking at desserts already?"

"Are you opposed?" he asked.

"Oh, no. I just don't want to be the only one!"

His face softened into a real smile, washed in the lavender-tinted evening light of winter seeping through the window. I wanted to trace the outline of his nose and mouth; well, I wanted to do a lot of things, but I did none of them. Instead, I promised to come skating with Lyall and his friends, and I exchanged cheerful banter with him all afternoon, and spent that evening lying on my stomach in bed, attempting to read a novel, though my eyes were glazed over and half shut. A trickle of mascara ran down my cheek. I was dreaming, but not asleep.


Breakfast was served promptly at half-seven on weekdays. Mrs. Owens set the large, metal coffee dispenser on the dining room table, and Mrs. Winchfill rang a loud bell in the foyer. I was one of the first to stumble downstairs in my work pumps. Norah followed behind me, in her starched, white uniform and cap. She had begun her nursing school placement work in a government home for the elderly and handicapped, and every night, she came home smelling of camphor and disinfectant.

After helping ourselves to coffee, porridge and brown sugar, we sat quietly, not yet eating. We were not permitted to begin breakfast until every girl was at the table, excepting Edith, who had early morning breakfast at a diner with her father every Tuesday.

"Valerie! Mabli! Ireeeeene!" sang out Mrs. Winchfill, as she clanged the bell with zest. "Time to get up!"

I eyed a particularly enticing lump of brown in my porridge. If they didn't get to the table soon, it might melt entirely.

Mrs. Owens sat down at her place at the foot of the table, her chair complaining loudly as she lowered her considerable bottom onto it. Mrs. Winchfill waited in the doorway until Irene, Valerie, and finally Mabli slumped into the dining room and sat down at the table. Only then did Mrs. Winchfill sit down at the table's head and tuck her napkin into her stiff, white collar, a signal to the rest of us that we could begin eating.

We ate in drowsy silence, the occasional ting of silverware against plates and the creaking of chairs on aged floorboards our only conversation. The windowpanes rattled against the gusting January wind.

"I have sad news to share this morning," said Mrs. Winchfill when Valerie stood up to help clear the plates. She sat back down. "Mabli will soon be leaving us. Isn't that right, Mabli?"

Mabli lowered her eyes to her egg-smeared plate. "Yes, Mrs. Winchfill."

"When one journey ends, another begins," added Mrs. Owens. "We wish her the best."

"We'll certainly miss her," said Irene sweetly. "Where are you going to, Mabli?"

"Swansea," she said curtly. "I've got a new job there."

"It must be a wonderful offer," said Irene, "for you to leave us so suddenly. I hope you enjoy yourself out in Swansea."

When the urge to physically assault Irene was too strong, I settled for accidentally spilling my coffee in her direction. She sprang out of the way of the spill, but could not escape several brown drips falling directly onto her beige tweed sleeve.

"I'm so sorry," I cried, "I had a tremor!"

"We'll have to use white vinegar on the tablecloth again," grumbled Mrs. Winchfill. "Hope, you must be more careful of your surroundings! These things aren't easy to clean!"

"My jacket is ruined!" huffed Irene. "Do you know how much this cost me?"

"It's alright, I'll help clean up," said Norah, calmly gathering napkins to dab at the spreading stain on the tablecloth.

"You're paying to have this dry-cleaned!" whined Irene petulantly.

"Now, now, Irene," said Mrs. Owens, "I'm sure it was just an accident, and there's no need to take that tone—"

"A very careless accident," added Mrs. Winchfill dryly. "Hope, you must be more aware of your surroundings."

"I apologize," I said, glancing at Mabli. The corners of her mouth had turned up somewhat. She had pushed her plate of food away, only half-eaten.

"I think it was intentional," said Irene.

"Oh, it's alright," said Val, "I know how to get coffee stains out."

"They can get all sorts of stains out of our uniforms, believe me," said Norah brightly. "And you don't want to know the kinds of stains us nurses get."

"But you have to pre-soak it in in cold water," said Mrs. Owens, " and then you scrub..."

As Mrs. Owens continued to explain her laundering technique, Mabli quietly stood up and slipped out of the room, like a wraith. Mrs. Winchfill glanced at her plate, but said nothing. Her lips were pursed. I wondered what she knew. I never found out. The day before I was set to go skating with Lyall and his friends, I came home from work to see a black cab stalling outside the house, puffing clouds of exhaust into the frosty air. I went up the steps and unlocked the door. Two brown leather suitcases, one tall and one short, were standing upright next to the worn wooden balusters of the stairs. The late afternoon sunlight cast bluish diamonds of light onto the floor through the lead-paned transom window.

After a minute or so, Mabli stepped out of the kitchen, carrying a brown paper bag of food. She wore a felt coat, and greying gloves that were once white. She looked at me. Her face was bloated and puffy.

"I wish you all the best," I said. It was hard to speak; my mouth was so dry.

She picked up a suitcase in each hand, one still clinging to the brown paper bag as well.

"Do you need some help with that?"

"No," she whispered, carrying her cases past me, and into the doorway. She turned to face me, backlit by the watery winter sunlight.

"I won't see you," she said. "So, happy Valentine's day."

Mabli carried her suitcases downstairs, and I stood in the doorway as the cab driver got out of his seat to open the boot for her. He lifted the suitcases into the cab, and slammed the boot shut, but the sound was muted, as though I were a thousand leagues away. He and Mabli had a brief exchange, and then he opened the passenger door for her and she stepped inside. With another puff of smoke from the tailpipe, he pulled away from the curb and drove off.

I have a single photograph of Mabli, from a group shot of the St. Dwynwyn's girls taken in September of the year before. She wears a red gingham blouse, and a circle skirt. Her eyes are ringed with make-up. A cigarette dangles from her index and middle fingers, like a lucky charm. You asked me, but I never found out if it was a boy or a girl.