There was a time when I would lie in bed at night and listen to the muted sounds of soft-soled shoes in the corridors and repeat my children’s names until I fell asleep. I feared being snatched from my bed, hooked up to wires and gadgets, having what little bits of my memory that were still intact taken away. Of course, no one ever came at night, but still I found it difficult to let go of that fear. I don’t remember many of the treatments I received over the years, although I can recall on several occasions begging for them to be administered. They left me numb, but at least I was able to function on some menial level. All that started sometime in the sixties.
It’s impossible for me to explain what takes place in the mind, how your fears can be so overwhelming that you’re desperate for relief even when you become aware that each treatment pushes you further and further away from the person you once were. You try not to think about that, concentrating on the moment you are presently in and what feels right and manageable. You see your past slipping away and yet succumb to the notion that it was worth hanging on to in the first place.
Except for Jewel and Jacob, I surrendered more of myself than I might have wanted to. I was never going to relinquish their names, their tiny little faces, into some empty chasm and walk away wiping the dust from my hands. There came a point, I believe, where I clung to them out of my own stubbornness and nothing more. I often wanted to place them inside some larger memory, a trip into town on a hot summer day, a special Christmas we might have had, or birthday parties with games and prizes to be won, but it is useless for me to try. I wouldn’t know where to begin; which reality to set them in. If those times ever did exist I’ve never been able to remember, and couldn’t begin to make it up. Over time, I couldn’t pull their faces out of the fog. I was left with nothing more than their names, and the distant memory of tiny arms wrapped tight around me; the soft beating of their hearts against my chest.
I was married to a man I’m sure I didn’t love; for certain he didn’t love me. The bare finger on my left hand tells a tale of its own, that and the fact that he never came for me. He left me, dangling in the past from a thread barely strong enough to hold me. His name was Cliff. Cliff MacKay, and I remember little else. His name came to me in the middle of the night, waking me from a dream that I strained to remember. Nothing I did could bring the dream back or any of the secrets that might have been locked up tight within it. But once his name came to the surface, it wouldn’t go away. Not that it makes any difference now, after all this time.
Knowing things about your life is not the same as having memories of certain events. For instance, I know I once lived in the Forties Settlement, but couldn’t begin to describe the landscape or a thing about my life there. I was married to Cliff MacKay and had two children, yet I haven’t any specific memories that include them. I know that I became ill and that illness lasted for many years, and that same illness, or rather the treatments that went along with that illness, is what destroyed my memory over time. I know the names of the two hospitals I was a patient in, yet the rest is cloudy, as if the memories I have of those earlier years didn’t happen to me but to someone I know, and they’re something I was told, not something I experienced for myself. Perhaps I imagined all of it or suffered from hallucinations during my illness. What can’t be remembered can’t be ruled out, someone once said to me. The one thing I do know is if there were some way to control the things I remember, I’d hold fast to the happiest moments in my life and never let go.
I stop short of knocking on Mrs. Weaver’s door. A closed door means she doesn’t want to be disturbed, although not everyone here pays attention to that. The door is open, it’s all right to walk in without knocking, but still I pause. She’ll think I’m a nuisance for interrupting her again. Looking up from her desk, she sees me outside her office. “Dartmouth, then Divinity,” she says, moving the papers on her desk. Her answer helps centre me. The worry that was twisting and turning in the pit of my stomach escapes like a wisp of smoke. I sigh, feeling suddenly empty. I think, then, as I turn to leave, that Annie is right: too much worry can kill you, but a little worry at least lets you know you’re alive.
Today is not shaping up to be a very good day. I thought that the very moment I opened my eyes and saw the daddy long-legs crawling across the ceiling in my room. My room. I’m not to be thinking that way. The room is ours, mine and Mrs. Zimmer’s; Mrs. Weaver is adamant about that. I thought I had time to get rid of the spider before Mrs. Zimmer woke when I should have ignored it, let it sit there spinning a web for Belinda’s dust mop to catch. Most mornings I lie facing the wall, waiting until it’s time to get up and dressed, but this morning as I rolled over something beckoned me to glance upward.
Steadying myself on the bed with a rolled-up copy of the weekly paper in my hand, I made a swat at the spider and missed. It scurried off into a small crack in the corner just as Mrs. Zimmer sucked in a gulp of air. Her snoring came to an abrupt stop and ended in a snort. When I went to get down off the bed, the mattress wobbled. Arms out to each side, I tried to keep myself from falling.
“That’s my paper you’ve got! My paper!” Mrs. Zimmer squealed as she threw back the comforter on her bed. Her bare legs swung outward. She grunted and pushed herself forward, trying to manoeuvre herself out of bed in a movement that neither her weight nor her age would allow. She was wild-eyed and ready for action. I saw that same look the day Belinda moved the teddy bears on her dresser. Mrs. Zimmer was in the family room watching her soap opera at the time. If Belinda had put everything back exactly where it had been she would never have known. Mrs. Zimmer was out for blood that day, huffing and panting with her fist raised high, until Belinda threatened to tell Mrs. Weaver if she so much as laid a baby finger on her.
I was ready to use that same threat if Mrs. Zimmer came after me.
As Mrs. Zimmer inched herself closer to the edge of the bed, the veins on the back of her calves bulged beneath the surface of her skin, looking overripe and ready to burst. Her nightdress bunched up to reveal a series of purple lines splattered across the back of her thighs. They resembled tattoos—and what a strange thought it was to imagine someone drawing on Mrs. Zimmer’s white, scaly legs. My feet kneaded into the mattress as I hurried to get down off the bed, my hand gripping tightly to the newspaper that I had no business being in possession of.
“That’s my paper! Mine!” Mrs. Zimmer bellowed with a force that would reach all the way to the kitchen if she didn’t soon quiet down. Jennie would come stomping down to our room, telling us in her raspy voice that we’d wake the dead if we didn’t smarten the hell up.
“Shut up!” I whispered fiercely. She only pretends to read it anyway, her finger moving across the page while she mumbles words under her breath. No one can read that fast. Sometimes the paper sits on her rocker, from one week to the next, folded exactly the way it came. I flung the paper in her direction. When it landed on the floor near her feet, she stopped squealing and bent down to pick it up. Just then, I caught sight of white flesh from the opening in her nightdress, wrinkled and flabby. I had a bird’s-eye view of it all. A quick flash of brown peeked out at me as her fingers sought after the crumpled paper, and I stared at it for a few moments, finally realizing that bit of dark flesh that had me momentarily wondering was Mrs. Zimmer’s dried, shrivelled-up nipple. I looked away, quickly making my way off the bed.
Days that begin with a kerfuffle spiral quickly downward. The day was bound to be spoiled. The nipple had been a sign.
“Dartmouth, then Divinity,” I repeat silently as I head back toward the family room. “Dartmouth then Divinity. Dartmouth then Divinity. Divinity then…No.” I stop in my tracks. Something sounded wrong that last time. The rhythm of the words got lost. It comes back to me in an instant. “Dartmouth then Divinity.”
I continue on my way to the family room.
I wish those words would settle down inside me, but they get jumbled up so I can’t add them to my list of important words. And the order of things is so important. Just ask anyone who would argue about the chicken or the egg, and right away they’ll tell you just how important order is.
“Perhaps you’ll remember more words over time,” Mrs. Weaver once said. In all these years I’ve found only a few important words from the past—five to be exact—that stay with me at all times. Five measly words hold the key to my truth, the one I’ve been searching for. There would be seven if I could add Dartmouth and Divinity. A reasonable person would have given up a long time ago, especially with the vague promise that came with Mrs. Weaver’s “perhaps.”
“This is your home, Nick. Your roots are here now,” Mrs. Weaver said a few months back. Nick was talking about wanting to leave Harmony House for good, swinging his arms and puffing his chest out as he demanded to speak to someone higher up than Mrs. Weaver.
“This ain’t the only place I’ve been, and I got rights,” he said, smiling like Mrs. Weaver didn’t know what she was talking about. “What about all the other places I lived in before I came here, or don’t they count no more? Maybe I want my own roots, not the one you made up for me.”
Someone huffed. Mrs. Weaver is the best thing that has ever happened to us here at Harmony House. Everyone knows that. Something had sent Nick into a tailspin that day. I can’t remember what. Knowing Nick, it probably wasn’t much. He’s usually bickering with someone, accusing them of some wrong. Most of us don’t pay attention to what he says anymore. But that day I was paying attention.
“Those other places don’t matter, Nick. That was all in the past, and the past is gone. The past doesn’t matter anymore. The important thing is where you are at the moment.”
“I want my old apartment back, the last one I had, and I don’t give a good goddamn about where I am at the moment.” Nick’s head was bobbing around in defiance. I couldn’t believe he was speaking to Mrs. Weaver that way. Taking a cigarette from his tobacco pouch, he held it between his fingers. Smoked herring, I thought, seeing the yellow stain on his index finger. No wonder he smells so strong after tobacco smoke. When he began feeling around his pants’ pockets, I thought he was going to light the cigarette right there in the family room.
“We all have a truth, Nick, and this is yours,” stated Mrs. Weaver, strong and steady in her unshakable voice. “That apartment’s not yours anymore. It’s likely been rented out a dozen times since you came here to live.”
“Well, look at me! I ain’t got no truth but this here one you gave me.” He slapped his thigh. By that time, people had gathered near the doorway, looking more anxious than when it’s time to head to the dining room for supper. Nick spun around with a foolish look on his face and pulled a silver lighter out of his pocket. A small click sounded when he flicked the cover open. I held back the gasp that was building in me. Mrs. Weaver has strict rules. He made a horrible face—his skin so red it looked as though someone had slapped him, hard—then stomped out to the verandah. I saw him through the screen door cupping his shaky hands around the cigarette. Blue smoke made a quick circle about his head before disappearing into the air. He was pacing the floorboards like a caged bear, fingers running through his greying hair. I couldn’t make out what he was mumbling. He stayed out there for the remainder of the day, refusing to come in for supper. Darkness closed in around him until all I could see of him was a small round light from a cigarette glowing in the dark. Finally, Clive told him to get his arse inside before he got locked out for the night.
“You want to get chewed up by a bear, you crazy old coot?” Clive shouted.
Nick won’t be allowed back to the apartment he once had or any other apartment. Anyone who knows him can understand that much. He hasn’t mentioned his apartment on Jones Street again. And I haven’t forgotten what Mrs. Weaver had to say about our truth. Ever since that day I’ve been trying to get to mine. Mrs. Weaver said we all have one. That means me, too. I’ve seen my truth in bits and pieces for a long time now. It comes in flickers—a word, a name, a colour, a smell that feels vaguely familiar. I struggle to draw the flickers together, melding the parts I know for certain with the parts I remember. All those little pieces must mean something. I just don’t know what. As hard as I try to hang fast to them, they leave me crumbling apart like aged cheddar. I might argue that these flickers are better than nothing, but they’re fleeting, as satisfying as a dream you can never quite reach.
I haven’t said anything to Mrs. Weaver, but I know how Nick felt that day. I don’t want my roots to be here either—not that there’s anything wrong with Harmony House. It’s a nice enough place. I just don’t want it to be all there is. I’m not interested in where I am at the moment, no matter how important Mrs. Weaver seems to think it is. Once upon a time I must have been someone, someone with more than a name. I lived in a house. I had a family. I was someone who had a truth, a real truth, not one assigned to me. Surely I can scrounge up enough pieces to find out who that someone was.
I can’t ask for anyone’s help. I tried that once when I was at Divinity and it didn’t work out. I sent a letter and it came back and I was left to live with the disappointment, watching it fester with each passing day until finally I had to give up. You can only starve hope for so long; eventually it needs something for nourishment. I had nothing to offer, not even a small morsel from the past.
But all that has changed. I have changed. This time I won’t give up so easily. The hard part will be doing it all on my own, something I’m not sure I’m brave enough to do. But truth is a powerful thing and must surely be something worth fighting for, and if it isn’t then I have to wonder what purpose there is in living at all.
I remember suddenly that Rebecca is still waiting for me in the family room. A group of us are going on an outing to the used-clothing store in town. We were almost set to go when my truth started niggling away at me. I told Rebecca I wouldn’t be long, that I just couldn’t go into town before I spoke to Mrs. Weaver. That’s why I went back to Mrs. Weaver’s office for the second time. The smell of floor cleaner is strong as I walk down the hallway and round the bend. The Caution: Wet Floor sign is in place. Donna’s red bucket is right up ahead. Her mop slips and slides; the floor is glistening and wet.
“Slow down, Elizabeth. You fall and break your neck, who do you think they’ll come after? You want me to lose my job?” I glance back over my shoulder at Donna, her hands squeezing the mop strands. Mrs. Zimmer would have told her she’s a sloppy old cow and deserves to lose her job. She might even have raised her fists and told her to go straight to hell and back. I could resent the implication that I’m too dim to look out for myself, but I won’t. I can’t. There’s no time for that with everyone waiting for me.
“Dartmouth then Divinity.”
I stayed at the hospital in Dartmouth first, and was later sent to Divinity. The order should be easy enough to keep straight, and would be, if they didn’t both start with the same letter. It’s that darn D constantly mixing me up. Another letter would make all the difference. I could put both places in order if they started with two different letters. Each time I get it firmly in my mind, something comes along to undermine my certainty and I’m confused all over again. It could be that Sophie won’t settle down until I sit with her, or Nick causing another fuss because Marie’s helping out in the kitchen and he doesn’t want to eat anything that Marie “messed over.” It could be Mrs. Zimmer and her constant annoyance with me over the piddliest little matter. As soon as something shakes up my day the order of the words slips out of my mind. I’ve tried so many times to put them in my secret word place, but they won’t stay put. If they are part of my truth, I often find myself wondering, why won’t they stay where they belong? Truth should come easily, a slip slide as smooth as Donna’s mop on the glistening floor.
“Do you have your purse, Elizabeth?” Rebecca asks from the doorway when she sees me coming. Of course. My purse! Someone in the group sighs. I turn around and hurry back to our room. Donna looks up and shakes her head as I pass by again.
“Dartmouth then Divinity,” I whisper, remembering then why I forgot my purse in the first place. Mrs. Zimmer is sitting in her rocker fully dressed by this time. Pages from the newspaper are now strewn over the foot of her bed, wrinkled and half torn. Ignoring her, I look through my wallet to see how much money I have. Two fives, a two, three ones, and a ten. I put the wallet back in my handbag and snap it shut. If it wasn’t for the comfort money I get each month, I wouldn’t have two cents to rub together. We can’t all have rich nieces like Mrs. Zimmer.
“Going out on the town?” says Mrs. Zimmer before I have the chance to make my escape from the room.
“Frenchys,” I answer, heading toward the door with my handbag hooked onto my arm. She twists her face up. I could kick myself for telling. Mrs. Zimmer hasn’t been to Frenchys for a very long time. She’s never invited to come anymore.
“You have yourself a good old time, Elizabeth MacKay. I’ll just stay here by myself. Don’t mind an old lady with bad knees.” Squeezing my purse, I hurry through the doorway. If she stays in our room all day, it’ll be her own fault.
Sophie runs to greet me as soon as she sees me coming, squealing my name, grabbing my arm and grappling fast. They haven’t left without me. They’re all still waiting by the front door.
Annie has her black sequined purse and Marie the bright pink contraption on her head she got the last time we went to Frenchys. Missy is leaning against the door, teased brown hair and high-heel shoes adding inches to her height. The blue jeans and purple shirt she’s wearing do little to hide her bony frame, but at least she looks presentable today. The first day Missy showed up at Harmony House I couldn’t shake the idea that she somehow looked familiar. Keeping my distance, I studied her movements, the way she nervously moved her hands when she spoke, and even the way she’d take a drag off a cigarette. But no matter how hard I struggled to make that connection, nothing concrete ever came to me. But then, I reasoned, if I had met Missy sometime in the past, wouldn’t she recognize me? The answer seemed obvious.
“Well, if it isn’t the queen herself, making the rest of us wait,” Missy says, smacking her gum while rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.
“What’s your hurry, Missy?” says Annie. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do—or maybe you’ve got something else pencilled into your day.” A noise from within the group indicates their amusement. Annie has a way of lightening a situation, and I’m grateful for that today. Clearing my throat, I turn toward Rebecca.
“Are we all set?” she says, smiling at our little group. Shuffling begins, people moving toward the closed door. “Now, let’s try to stick together this time. Annie, I don’t want you hurrying on ahead.”
Rebecca’s the one bright light in our day. Her smile has a way of warming the coldest room. She never has a cross word for any of us, and I’ve yet to see her lose her temper even when someone refuses to follow instructions. The last time we went out, Annie disappeared on us. We found her up the street, sitting on a bench across from the liquor store, waving at the men coming out with brown paper bags in their hands. You’d have thought she was drinking herself, the way she was carrying on. We could hear her calling out, “Nice day, honey!” every time someone walked past. No one coming out of the store that day spoke to her or even nodded. They walked past looking in the opposite direction, scurrying away like field mice. Seeing Annie from that distance, I felt suddenly embarrassed. Rebecca wouldn’t have cared about her going off like that if Annie had just told her where she was going. Sometimes Annie takes the bus to Halifax to visit her sister. At Christmas she goes for a few weeks. It’s not like we’re prisoners here at Harmony House.
Rebecca doesn’t say anything about the bright pink hat Marie is wearing as she opens the door for us. Rebecca believes in being yourself no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Mrs. Zimmer says that’s like giving everyone here a licence to behave like a simpleton. “They already think we’re a bunch of lunatics from the nuthouse,” she says. They, meaning the people in town who either stand back and stare or else ignore us altogether. After seeing Annie that day outside the liquor store, a part of me agrees with Mrs. Zimmer. I step out on the verandah. The bright blue sky greets me. White fluffy clouds bunch together like marshmallows floating in a giant cup of cocoa.
“Dartmouth then Divinity,” I whisper. Hard to believe a day so brilliant could have started with a daddy long-legs spider and quick flash of Mrs. Zimmer’s puckered-up nipple.
Annie and Missy take off as soon as we get outside. They light cigarettes while waiting at the end of the driveway for the rest of us to catch up. When the faint smell of smoke reaches me, there comes a flash. A flicker. A burst of memory. Dartmouth or Divinity—the memory comes from one of those places. I’m certain of it. Most everyone at the hospitals smoked. Sometimes the air would be blue. I reach out to grab hold of the memory, can feel it beneath my fingertips, but then the flicker is gone. A strange feeling passes through me, and I’m left with nothing. There’s not a thing I can do about it, no way to get that flicker back. They come and go, as inconsistent as the weather, always leaving me longing for more.
Sophie hangs off my elbow like a trained puppy as we head down the street. It’s the only way to keep her on the sidewalk; otherwise she becomes distracted by little things along the way. A while back she nearly got hit by a car while chasing after a candy-bar wrapper that was blowing around in the wind. No one noticed she’d fallen behind. Rebecca yelled out for me to stop Sophie just as the car came to a screeching halt. Sophie remained ignorant to it all, finally grabbing hold of the wrapper as it settled next to the curb.
“I got it, Elizabeth! I got it!” she cried.
“Look at you,” I said, smiling, as I pulled her back onto the sidewalk with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. Finding the nearest garbage can, she threw it in. I didn’t start shaking until I saw the dark green verandah when we got back to Harmony House that day. Later, I kept reliving that awful moment. Each time I saw it in a totally different way—Sophie being hit by the car, her body dragged down the street, arms and legs flapping. Screaming. Lots of screaming. And blood. Always there was blood. A frozen eye staring off into space. “You look like something the cat just drug in,” Mrs. Zimmer said as I sat rocking on the edge of the bed, unable to say a word. Even the nerve pill they gave me that day didn’t help.
We take our time walking. There’s no point in trying to hurry Sophie with her short leg. Even that special shoe she wears doesn’t help a lot. Sophie has one speed, and we can’t get her to change. Rebecca looks over her shoulder at us. She gives a tiny wave that starts Sophie waving back, fast and furious. Some people on the opposite side of the street look at us. I take hold of Sophie’s hand to make her stop.
“That’s good, Sophie,” I whisper, grabbing fast to her arm as I pull her along.
As if to cause a distraction, the feather on Marie’s hat shifts back and forth in the breeze. I point it out to Sophie, who is suddenly taken up with its whimsical play. The hat was a find on our last trip to Frenchys and Marie modelled it for us right in the store. She smiled from ear to ear and said she’d always wanted a feather in her cap. Rebecca laughed and told her it was quite the find. I imagined it being part of her costume come Halloween, not something she was planning to wear into town when she went shopping. Cars whiz past. A horn honks. A young boy is looking out the rear window of a red car, sticking his middle finger up at us. His lips are moving and he’s making a face. I have no desire to hear what is coming out of his mouth. Missy gives two fingers back, both arms extended.
“Little asshole,” she says, her lips curled into a gritty snarl. I look quickly at Rebecca, but she isn’t watching. She’s talking to Annie, her hands busily moving as she speaks, and so she doesn’t see a thing. As we near the Frenchys, Sophie starts squealing with excitement.
“We have to be quiet when we go in a store. Remember what I told you, Sophie,” Rebecca reminds her. As if a switch has been turned off, Sophie quiets down. It’s hard to ignore the look on her face as her smile disintegrates right before us. But it’s important for her to mind. Bad things happen when Sophie doesn’t listen. We line up, waiting to go inside, the same way we do in the evening when it’s time for juice and cookies.
“Now, let’s raise our heads high and conduct ourselves with civility,” Rebecca says as she holds the door open. “The world might not be ready for us, but we’re here all the same.”
We waddle through like baby ducklings all in a row before heading off in different directions. The store has that rummage-sale smell about it, familiar in a way I can never quite place. Marie and Annie head toward the shoes and handbags, gibbering about what all they’re going to buy. Missy hurries toward a bin below the Ladies’ Lingerie sign. Quickly pulling out a black lacy bra with tiny cups, she begins to inspect it.
There are five other customers in the store, ten if I count us too. One time the store was so full I sat on a bench and waited until it was time to go home. There seemed no point trying to find a place at one of the bins with so many people there. When a worker came out and dumped off some clothes, two women started a tug-of-war over a blue flowered bedsheet. They were both hanging on tight, refusing to let go. It reminded me of the time Mrs. Zimmer tried to take the afghan one of the volunteer ladies had knitted for me off the foot of my bed.
There’s a radio playing in the background, just loud enough to be heard. I head toward the rack of dresses with nothing particular in mind to buy. A bright red dress is dangling on one of the hangers. I immediately go for it, excited by the possibilities. Red has been inside my head for a few weeks now. It’s been showing up in the oddest places. It began the day Mrs. Zimmer’s niece showed up wearing a scarf so bright I couldn’t stop myself from staring. It was mesmerizing; a colour that until then I’d never considered wearing. That night I dreamed about hundreds of red scarves, all shades and colours, billowing and blowing like flags in the wind. Since that dream, I’ve continued to see red most everywhere I go. Each time I wonder what, if anything, it could mean.
I pull the dress out for a closer look. Leaving the hanger in place, I slowly spread the material outward, the way Rebecca often does. My hopes drain. Just as I suspected. It’s not the right size. It would hang off me like an old burlap sack—not that anyone at Harmony House would care. I’ve been thinking I might be brave enough to wear that colour, but my heart dips. Red is a colour best worn by someone who wants to be noticed. It’s really too bright a colour for me. So I put it back, a tiny bit of relief hidden deep inside me. My side of the closet is filled with greens and browns and navy blues. Mrs. Zimmer likes flowered patterns and polka dots, blouses with thick vertical stripes that I wouldn’t be caught dead in. Nor could I dress like Missy, low-cut blouses and tight-fitting jeans, short, short dresses and bright colours that scream, Look at me! I’ve always preferred to blend into my surroundings like a chameleon, and so red following me about, even entering my dreams, is not like me at all. Yet I am powerless to make it stop.
I continue to look through the remainder of the dresses without interest. The hangers squeak across the clothes rack as I slide them along. I haven’t time to linger or to take a second look. If I stay in one spot for too long, Sophie will become restless. Annie is holding out a pair of brown shoes, insisting Marie try them on for size as I walk toward the ladies’ sweaters. Missy is still rooting through the lingerie bin like a dog digging for a buried sausage. From the corner of my eye, I see a young woman holding up a pair of black pants.
“What do you think of these, Jewel?” she says.
Stopping what I’m doing, I turn to see who is speaking. Jewel is one of my important words, secret in a way that makes my heart flutter whenever I think of it.
“Almost like new. They’ll probably fit you, too.”
The answer is coming from the checkout department, but from where I’m standing I can’t see what the woman looks like. I hold my breath. I can’t get my hopes up. Yet I have to know, at least see for myself. Yes. No. I’m suddenly frightened by both possibilities. But it’ll run around the inside of my brain for days, weeks, months if I don’t find out for sure. I will my legs to move, to get a better look. This chance can’t slip away. If I don’t go now, she might disappear into the back of the store to sort clothing, and then I’ll never know for sure. This could be the only chance I have. As I move toward the checkout, Sophie keeps pace with me, hanging off my elbow again. I stop near one of the bins and pretend to be interested, hoping to distract her so I can see the woman behind the counter. Sophie begins rummaging through the tangled mess of clothing inside. There are bright colours hiding near the bottom, and as she reaches in deep, I slip away. I could have told her to stay put, not to move, and she would have listened, but it takes a harsh voice to make Sophie mind. I can’t bring myself to talk to her the way Mrs. Weaver sometimes does.
As I draw near, my gaze rests on the nametag above the woman’s left breast. The letters jump out at me: J-e-w-e-l. Could it be? My body trembles from head to toe. Clasping my hand over my mouth, I stifle the cry that wants to escape. My past, my truth, my secret word, is staring me in the face. Jewel. Is it even possible that she could be my Jewel, the daughter I left somewhere in the past? What age would she be now? I try to make a quick calculation but it is useless. My thoughts are all jumbled. I have no idea how old she’d be, the colour of her hair. No idea at all. Tiny beads of excitement run up and down my spine. But as I get up the nerve to step closer, a woman in a green jacket brushes past and drops an armload of clothing on the counter in front of me. Just then Sophie calls out, hurrying toward me in uneven steps, clip-clopping like an old mare.
“Look, Elizabeth! A scarf! A pretty scarf. It’s orange and red and yellow.”
Embarrassed by Sophie’s outburst, I look quickly toward this Jewel. She holds up a sweater and rings in the price while smiling at the woman in green. I study this Jewel’s face, unable to take my eyes off her. Sophie pulls on my coat sleeve, harder and harder until I’m forced to look down at her. Holding the scarf out to me, she waves it about.
“It’s lovely,” I say, wishing she would quiet down. When I look back, this Jewel is leaning across the counter.
“They’re from Harmony House; you know…that place in town. Did you see the pink hat?” She gives a nod in Marie’s direction, smiling behind the pair of blue jeans that she’s now holding up. The woman in the green jacket is laughing. I don’t need to see her face to know that.
“That’s seventeen ninety-five,” this Jewel finally says. The woman in the green jacket digs into her handbag. The register rings and the drawer pops open. Quickly making change, she puts the items in a used grocery bag. Laughter is dancing in this Jewel’s eyes when she hands the bag to the woman in green, and I wonder exactly what it is she finds so funny.
I wait. Stand still. Wait. Watch for this Jewel to look me in the eye, to suddenly recognize who I am. She cranes her neck around and says something to the young woman who spoke to her earlier about the pants. By this time I’ve lost all interest in shopping. It would be difficult to keep my hands from shaking, my mind from wondering, my lips from quivering. And Sophie will no longer care to look in the bins now that she has a bright scarf. We step up to the counter, Sophie gibbering non-stop about her special find.
“I’ll wear it on Sunday, Elizabeth, when I go to church.” She places it on the counter and opens her change purse, her face beaming like a brilliant star.
“You’ll look beautiful,” I say, gazing directly at this Jewel. She rings in the scarf and tells Sophie the price. My hand trembles slightly as I help Sophie count out the change. She slides it across the counter toward this Jewel, grabs the scarf, and wraps it around her neck two times. Gazing up at me, she smiles like a child just given a lollypop. I look once more at this Jewel. Our eyes meet this time, but there’s no truth in what I see. My heart quickly plummets like a dusty stone kicked from a cliff. Surely her colouring is all wrong. She’s far too old. There is no possible way she is my Jewel, my truth, one of my secret words, and yet this realization does not feel unpleasant.
Sophie and I go sit on the bench outside the store while the others continue to search for some hidden nugget in the bins. Rebecca never minds our leaving the store early to wait outside. She knows where we’ll be when she comes out. She has told me how reassured she feels knowing that I’m always there to look out for Sophie. I have often wondered where this sense of responsibility comes from, what part of me feels the need to look out for Sophie even when there are times that it feels more like a burden than a responsibility.
Looking out at the street for a fleeting moment, I think about running off, racing down the sidewalk by myself and never looking back. My leg muscles tense as I scan the street with a deep longing in my heart. But what would I do with freedom when the life I want lies somewhere in the past? I can barely function on my own; I need the safety of Harmony House and all that is familiar to me just to get through most days. Mrs. Weaver and Rebecca need me to be responsible, and most of all Sophie needs me by her side when we go out on errands.
The main road is visible from where we sit. It is a slow day, an empty day, the traffic sparse, the walkers few. A warm breeze blows through the trees, the coloured leaves tremble but hold tight to the branches. Rebecca might take us down to the little store at the end of the street for a chocolate bar, but I don’t mention this to Sophie in case we don’t go. Listening to her bellyaching all the way home won’t be good for my nerves today.
Sophie becomes excited by a small, hairy dog being walked down the sidewalk by its owner, pulling me suddenly back to the present. She makes sucking noises, encouraging the dog to come over to her. The owner pulls on the leash when the dog pauses in front of her. He smiles quickly and hurries them both away. I look up into the azure sky, at the thick white clouds moving out across the horizon. There is a touch of freedom on my face, a whisper in my ear, a gentle breeze that is warm and willing.
I didn’t find my truth today, but that’s okay. In fact, it’s good. I wouldn’t have known what to do with it. It’s not as if the truth can be given back, exchanged for something more to our liking. If that Jewel had been my truth, a small part of me might have disappeared for good, dried and puckered up like Mrs. Zimmer’s nipple. My truth still waits for me to claim it. Bits and pieces have been scattered along the way. I have five words to start with, maybe seven if I can keep them straight, and all things must have a beginning.
“Divinity then Dartmouth,” I say to no one in particular.