Downhill Chance by Donna Morrissey Page B

dreamed Daddy smacked you last night. I did, then,” she countered as Clair groaned. “And my dreams comes true, don’t they, Mommy? Don’t they?” she asked, gazing imploringly at her mother. “And I was dreaming about you, too,” she added, her voice softening, “you and Daddy—and he was buying lots of presents for you, and hats and ribbons—”
    “You’re lying,” said Clair.
    “No, I’m not. It was a real dream, and you were bad, Clair, and Daddy smacked you—”
    “Mommy—”
    “It’s true—and he was in a box, Mommy, and he was trying to stand up—and he was singing out to you.”
    Sare’s eyes fastened onto Missy. “What kind of box, child?”
    “Don’t listen to her,” said Clair.
    “A pantry box—”
    “A pantry box?”
    “Like a small pantry and I was singing out, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ but he wouldn’t answer me—”
    “Perhaps he couldn’t hear you—”
    “But he did hear me. He was looking right at me. And— he was scared.”
    “Mercy,” moaned Sare, clasping her hands to her mouth. “All right, Missy, that’s enough. No more dreams, now.”
    “But, Mommy—”
    “No more dreams, Missy,” Sare all but shouted, her voice trembling. And running into the stairwell, she flew up over the stairs.
    “Now, see what you’ve done?” said Clair. “You’ve made her cry. That’s what telling lies does …”
    Clair’s voice trailed off as a look of utter misery turned down the corners of her sister’s mouth. Far was she now from the lamb bleating for its teat. Trailing into the stairwell as she was, the sheen of her hair burying itself in shadow, she more resembled the butterfly whose wings had fluttered briefly, and finding only winter, was withdrawing into the dark whence it came.
    “Missy—”
    But Missy was fleeing up over the stairs. Clair sighed as she heard their room door close ever so softly. She slumped against the window, laying her forehead against the cool of the pane, seeking out the withered remnants of the sweet williams that lay beyond it, encased within a film of October frost. The cold of the pane brought an ache to her forehead, and she held back her head, hearing only the ticking of the clock. Unlike those early days when her father had just left, the house was no longer pressing with yesterday’s noise, as if it too had forgotten its maker.
    Summer came, then winter again. As if to compensate for their refusal to allow their men to take up arms, the women from the Basin had responded ardently to the British government’s requests for knitted caps, mitts and socks to send to the soldiers overseas. Shearing, carding, spinning— the entire outport had turned into a sheep farm overnight, with the baa-ing of the sheep, and the burring, creaking and clacking of spinning wheels, Clair thought as she walked down over the hill to the store. Except for her mother’s house. She looked over her shoulder. Aside from the thin trickle of smoke drifting out of the chimney, the house appeared deserted, with its closed doors and draped windows.
    “We never sees your poor mother,” said Johnny Regular’s wife, Rose, in a rough tone that forever accused, whether it was to babies or men that she spoke. It was a dirty fall day, wind, drizzle and fog, and Clair was about to duck inside the store to pick up some tea and soap. She paused in her step, nodding politely to Rose and Alma, the postal clerk, as they picked amongst the dozen or more turrs Ralph was tossing up from his boat onto the wharf, murmuring something about her mother being fine. But it was onto Alma her eyes were fastened, as they always were whenever she caught sight of the postal clerk these days, hoping for word or a letter that might be lying in the post office, that had thus far escaped notice, and was now in her pocket, waiting to be delivered. The last letter had been several months ago, cursing the African heat blistering his back, the sand-blasted sirocco wind, and the flies that drank