CAN I HAVE SOME MORE? Beatrice asks. She has scrambled down from the bed and planted herself in Mother's way. I prefer the burnt part.
Doubling over to stoke the fire, Mother grunts before she gives her permission. Save some for your father, she says.
Beatrice sidles up to the sleeping princess and surveys the devastation: one leg lost, from the knee down. The open wound looks tempting and buttery, but she likes the acrid edges best, where the dough has blackened, and breaks off an entire hand. Before biting, she examines it. It looks exactly like the hand of her sleeping sister: shiny and tempered and mitten-like. The fingers are no longer articulated because baking has sutured them all into one.
Why did only the hands burn, Maman? she asks through a mouthful of crumbs.
Because only her hands were wicked, Mother says.
This makes Beatrice pause and consider. Finally, she objects: She will never be able to sew or play the piano!
It is no great loss. Mother pats her on top of her head, leaving the floury trace of her five fingertips. And, she adds, they will always remind her of her childhood. As you grow older, it is often easy to forget.
Mother hitches her skirts up to her thighs. See. Scars are remembrances. This slender, sickle-shaped one—she runs her finger along her shin—reminds me of my best friend, of stealing eggs, of a shard of glass glinting in the sunshine. And these here—she caresses the white piping that striates the back of her knees—put me in mind of your grandfather.
Beatrice nods, but secretly she disagrees. When she deposits the last bits into her mouth, she keeps her back turned to Mother. She lowers her eyelids and sticks out her tongue as she has seen the older girls do in church.