Miss Emily (13 page)

“And now it is over mine. I thank you.” I take out the small box I have been concealing in my pocket and hand it to her.

“There was no need,” Ada says, but she is pink with pleasure and fumbles open the lid hastily. “Oh, it would take the sight out of your eye.” She lifts the brooch I have given her and mock-pins it to her apron. “I've never owned anything like this. Anything as bright and lovely.”

I had sent Vinnie to Cutler's to purchase Ada's gift, with guidelines as to what would be acceptable. She had chosen well.

“The pearls remind me of snow, and . . . well, I thought they would suit your dark hair.”

Ada grins at me, reaches over and clasps my hand. “May God bless you, Miss Emily.” Gathering herself, she puts the brooch back into its box and slips it into her apron pocket. Sitting again, she polishes the brasses. “St. Brigid performed miracle after miracle, you know. She tricked a king out of land by spreading out her cloak. It grew and grew, sucking up more and more of his fields. Isn't that just marvelous? Tricking a rich man like that!”

She tells it so sincerely, with such belief in her tone, that I can only nod in agreement.

“Shall we try some of our cake?” I ask.

“Let me put the kettle on and cut us a lump each.”

Ada brews coffee and slices the cake. We are both aglow, made happy by our shared birthday. We sit at the kitchen table, a pair of avaricious birds, and gorge on wedges of Black Cake, celebrating the day our far-apart mothers gifted us our lives in this world.

Miss Ada Goes to Mass with Daniel

I
N MY DREAMS
I
HUMOR THE DEAD
. I
LET MY
A
UNTIE
M
ARY
bake bread in the Dickinson kitchen, as if that were her custom, and I say nothing when she soaks her clothes in the copper basin in the washroom. I watch her silently when she sits on the stool in my bedroom, taking everything in. Then we talk about things— her children and Ireland—and both pretend that she is still alive.

“You're as snug as a cap over the kitchen in here,” Auntie Mary says.

“Yes,” I say. “My little room keeps the kitchen warm as much as it warms me.”

Even in my dream, I realize that I sound like Miss Emily, and I laugh. The dream laughter is real, as it turns out, and I wake to find myself giggling. I also wake expecting to find Auntie Mary in my room, and I am disappointed that she is not sitting by me. But also a little relieved; I have long been frightened of ghosts. In my dream Auntie's cheeks are ruddy and we do not mention illness or funerals or her family or poor, lonely Uncle Michael.

Miss Emily told me that dreams are messages—“couriers,” she said—and they try to show us things that we can't see. I lie for
a few moments, eyes shut again, trying to reenter the dreamworld, so that I might spend more time with my auntie and find out if she wants to tell me something. But forcing a dream never makes it happen.

I remember another dream I had recently, one where I was harried by lions. They ran to my mammy's door every time I opened it, though it was not actually Mammy's door, because the house sat on Amity Street in Amherst. Lions. Roaming wild in Massachusetts and eager as dogs for notice. The dreamworld is an odd place.

It is Christmas Eve morning, and it is dark; I swish my legs into the cold parts of the bed and swiftly snatch them back. Soon I will have to get up; today will be a long day of preparations. But tonight Daniel and I are going to Mass together at Mr. Slater's home, there being no Catholic church in Amherst. Father Sullivan will travel from Holyoke to celebrate the Mass, and my only hope is that he has a stout sleigh.

I wear my red merino, at my throat the pearl brooch that Miss Emily gave me for my birthday. The ground is cleared of snow, and Daniel stays close by me for the short walk to Mr. Slater's house. His wife welcomes us, taking our coats, and we choose seats in the large parlor and wait for Father Sullivan to arrive. Patrick Crohan and his aunt and uncle sit near us, and Crohan turns in his seat and grins in our direction. Daniel nods a greeting, but Patrick continues to stare at me, like a goat who knows no better than to gawk. I fidget my head this way and that, made uncomfortable by his eyes.

“Ignore him,” Daniel says.

“It's all right. He's only being friendly.” I wave at Crohan, and
he waves back, and I wonder if there isn't something mocking in the slow way he moves his hand.

Uncle Michael comes into the room, and I smile at him; Cousin Annie links him, and she has a pious, put-upon look to her. She seems to revel in the glory of her mourning, in all the attention it gets her. Annie and Maggie were cut from the same cloth, and they couldn't be more different from their parents.

I kneel and pray for Mammy, Daddy and the girls; for Auntie Mary and Uncle Michael; I pray for Miss Emily and all the Dickinsons. I place my face in my hands and close my eyes. I am a little homesick. I imagine Mammy getting the bigger girls to hang stockings on the bed and the mantelpiece, ready for the nuts, fruits and gewgaws she will put in them when all are asleep. It was my custom to help her on Christmas Eve, and we would stay up late stitching the last few dollies that we made from scraps and old clothes. I hope she misses me tonight as I miss her, but I am sure Rose has taken my place and that their two heads are bent by the fire now, sewing button eyes into flour-sack faces.

Daniel kneels beside me, and I wonder if he is thinking of his poor dead mother. Or of his grandparents at home in Ringsend. Being with him here makes it easier to hold up under the yearning that threatens to topple me tonight. I glance at him, and he turns his head sideways and winks. Daddy says that only corner boys wink at women, but Daniel is no corner boy. No, he is not that way at all. I know that Daddy would like Daniel, and that is saying a lot, because Daddy doesn't take easily to anyone.

The lamp oil and tallow make the air in the room thick and comforting. The Slaters have put up a proper crib with plaster statues like you would see in a church. When Father Sullivan gives the final blessing, we all line up to say a prayer in front of the Holy Family.

“No baby yet, of course,” I say, looking at the waiting manger and the Blessed Virgin's sweet face.

Daniel reaches down and pulls a piece of straw from the crib. “Keep that with your money, Ada, and you'll have a prosperous year.”

I take it and thank him. He puts one finger on the pearl brooch at my throat.

“A birthday present from Miss Emily,” I say.

“She's the best of them.”

“She is.”

Outside, we wish Uncle Michael, Cousin Annie and the Crohans a happy Christmas and they wish us many happy returns. Annie sweeps Uncle away, and Patrick Crohan lingers as if he means to walk with us, but his aunt calls sharply to him and he skulks off. We say good night to the rest of the congregation, and I begin to walk back toward Main Street. People call “Merry Christmas” to one another, and my breath fizzes in the air. Daniel steps in beside me and presses a small pouch into my hand.

“Happy Christmas, Ada.”

I look up at him, mortified that I have nothing for him. I did go to Cutler's and touch every pair of wool socks in the store, and I even looked at caps, but nothing felt right to me, and I didn't buy a thing.

“Oh, Daniel, and here's me with one arm as long as the other.”

“I don't expect anything from you, Ada. It's only that I saw this and thought of you. And anyway, I missed your birthday somehow.”

We follow the lamplighter, who is turning dark to light all along the street with his tall staff. Stopping under one of the lamps, I open the pouch and fish out a tiny mirror with a red rose painted on its back.

“It's beautiful,” I say, taking Daniel's gloved hand in my own. He puts his other hand on my cheek.

“Would it be all right if I kissed you?”

I glance up and down the street; the rest of the Mass-goers have scattered, into sleighs and away on foot. “It would.”

He leans down and I stretch up, and our lips meet for a few seconds. His mouth is so soft that I feel as if my insides will slither out of me and dance away.

“Can I call you my girl now, Ada?”

“You can of course, Daniel.”

He pulls me up into his arms and swings me around, my feet dangling like a doll's above the ground. We both giggle, then compose ourselves and walk on, my paw crooked into his elbow.

Miss Emily is coughing when I go in to light her fire and pour her water on Christmas morning. I expect her to be up, so excited has she been about the day, but she is buried under the covers in her little sleigh bed, with only a tuft of russet hair on show. I set her ewer on the washstand; the steam curls into the cold air. Miss Emily coughs again, and I offer a soothing grunt to comfort her. I get the Franklin stove going with screeds of dry ivy and some sticks.

“I'll have a smart fire here in no time, miss.” She doesn't answer, so I slip back to my own room for a bottle of Father John's, then sit on the side of her bed and put my hand to her long back. “Now, Miss Emily. Sit up there and get a couple of swigs of this into you.”

“Happy Christmas, Ada,” she says, her chest rattling like a clatter of old spoons.

“Many happy returns, miss.” I hold up the bottle of Father
John's. “This will have you on your feet before you're twice married and once a widow.”

“What is it?”

I prop the pillows behind her and help her to sit; I pull her Indian paisley over her shoulders, and she grabs the edges of the shawl and holds them tight to her neck.

“This is Father John's Medicine—it's like a miracle for coughs, colds and sore arseholes.” I slap my hand over my mouth. “Oh, saving your presence, miss, that just slipped out. My daddy always said it. Says it. I'm sorry.”

Miss Emily sniggers, but the laugh gets caught in her throat and she has a fit of spluttering; the cough is like a dog's bark, and the more she tries to swallow it, the worse it sounds. I pat her shoulder and tell her to keep going until she can't go anymore. I pick up the bottle of medicine.

“Illness makes desolation, Ada.”

“Try not to feel sorry for yourself, miss. See, it says here this works on ‘consumption, grip, croup, whooping cough, and other diseases of the throat.' My daddy swears by Father John.”

Miss Emily takes the bottle and has a gulp. “It's not so bad. Aniseed.” She coughs a little, and I can hear that her throat is softening already. “I cannot be confined to bed today. Susan is coming. And the children and Austin. I cannot miss sitting at table with them. With Sue. I missed her birthday, you know. She is a December baby, too.”

“Now,” I say, “stop babbling and get into your clothes. You won't have to stay in bed on Christmas Day, miss, not if I have anything to do with it.” I take her white piqué from the closet and her blue shawl from the chair. “Your brother and his wife will be brokenhearted for sure if you of all people don't turn up for breakfast. Come on, now. The mantelpiece below is decorated with nuts and
leaves. Miss Vinnie was up late hanging garlands and the place looks very lovely.” I help her to her feet. “The fire in the stove is taking. Come stand by it, and we'll get you washed and dressed.”