21
The backdoor was open, not on purpose, Jerry in his excitement had forgotten to lock it when he came back in. Una tiptoed through the kitchen, down the vast, dark hall and up the battered staircase.
Faith had taught her the trick of those stairs many moons ago. The second, third and tenth ones squeaked, if you could get by those no one would notice if you happened to come in late. Una noticed of course, because Una shared a bedroom with Faith and Faith was the sort who kicked off her boots and said her prayers out loud before she went to bed.
Faith's side of the room, with the red painted shelf (it used to be brown) crammed with books she hadn't read for years; the porcelain doll with her broken hand, Mother's music box, a keepsake tin painted with animals walking two by two, and all her hockey medals. Her empty bureau, her closet of dresses that VADs couldn't hope to wear; the hat hooks holding her bright summer hats, her ice skates, and a faded wreath of everlasting that Walter had made for her.
And Una's side; not the blank walled spartan cell one might associate with a girl who was never seen in anything more colourful than navy. Here were paintings, old, ugly, faded, and shelves and what-nots brimming with trinkets, figurines, brushes, vases and all the little things that families didn't want to keep and couldn't bear to throw away. Who better than Una to give them to. Una who brought hot soup and lap blankets and most precious of all, her company, to the old and infirm as she saw them through the last days of their lives. Holding their hands, reading to them, and sharing their fearful silences.
Was someone there to hold Walter's hand, some radiant nurse like Faith, or a tired chaplain, or perhaps no one at all. Did he lie there for hours, watch the smoke clear, the sun set, the stars prick through the night sky. Did he know the end was coming - but of course he did. The Piper was calling him, Walter had written. And he must follow.
Una opened the big old atlas she used as a writing desk when she was in bed and went to the map of France. To the pink coloured Picardy that made up the top of a teapot, green Alsace was the handle, yellow Brittany was the spout. And the letter from Walter written to Rilla and given to Una (could she ever repay such a gift) pressed flat in the middle.
She never read it anymore, she would not let herself for fear of the paper falling apart. And so little by little over the years the words he wrote shrank to only what she remembered, the eternal thorn in her pale pink heart.
I shall never be afraid of anything–not of death–nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face–for it could never be beautiful for me again…
Her hand was pressed hard on the letter, his words like morse code beating through her palm. It wasn't a seance or anything so unchristian as that, she knew she was really talking to herself.
"Someone asked me to marry him tonight. Not that he meant it, but I can at least say I have heard the words… Have me! Have me? The very thought. Good grief, what a fool."
And no one in that room, not the doll, the figurines, Noah's entire menagerie or even Una herself, quite knew which fool she was referring to.
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