sugar and banana sandwiches and color in Pocahontas, too?â
âIf thatâs what you want.â
Daddy hears us come in. âWhere have you kids been?â he calls from the living room.
âJust to the library,â I say, giving Livvy a little push up the stairs.
A thunderstorm rolls in after the heat of the day. Great waves of sound rumbling across the sky, and sheets of light.
âYouâre supposed to unplug the TV in electrical storms,â I tell Daddy and Grandma.
âWeâll live dangerously,â Daddy says, slipping a cassette into the VCR. âYou kids want to watch this before you go to bed?â
The movie is called
Sarah Plain and Tall.
I know the story from a book I got in the library when I was in grade four. It is about a family inpioneer days, and the dad is raising his two children after his wife dies. He decides they need a mother so he advertises for one.
âWhoâs in this one?â Grandma asks. Sheâs lost her cigarettes and searches for them as much as she can without getting out of her armchair, her hands checking through the mound of dishes and potato chip packages and tissues that have accumulated on her TV tray, patting the pockets of her housecoat, reaching toward the carpet.
âGlenn Close,â Daddy says.
âNever heard of her.â Grandma sounds disappointed. âShe must be a new one. Livvy, be an angel and see if you can find my cigarette package. Claudette Colbert. People used to say I looked like her. I never saw it myself, but I did used to do my eyebrows long and thin with eyebrow pencil.â
Livvy has found the cigarettes. âI want one,â she says.
âLord have mercy,â Grandma cackles. âWhere did you ever get such an idea? You give those over now, and you can have some of that apple cider Mrs. Perth brought when she came by today.â
âSheâs not supposed to have sweet drinks before she goes to bed,â I say.
Grandma fumbles with her lighter and finally gets her cigarette lit. Then she levels a gaze at me. Sometimes her eyes seem to be covered with fog, but not tonight. âI donât know what weâd do without you, Barbara,â she says, as if she were cutting each of the words out with a pair of sharp scissors. âA little bit of apple cider isnât going to hurt this child.â
âYummee!â Livvy dances around with her drink, slopping it onto the rug.
Daddy is rolling his eyes to the ceiling. He doesnât like it when people talk during the movies. âYou want to talk, Iâll put it on Pause,â he always says. He puts it on Pause now. âCan I pour you a little something, Ma?â
âI donât mind,â Grandma says.
With juice glasses of sherry poured for him-self and Grandma, and warnings about no more talking, he starts the movie again.
Glenn Close is too beautiful to be Sarah Plain and Tall, but I let myself sink into the movie. I wonder if people nowadays still send away for mail-order brides. What would happen if Daddy got a wife, a mother for Livvy and me? Would anyone marry someone Daddyâs size? Maybe he would diet and quit drinking.
It isnât long before both Grandma and Livvy have fallen asleep. Daddy winks at me. In the old photographs with Mama, he is a good-looking man, overweight even then, but with dark wavy hair and a moustache. I think of him and Mama holding hands at the movie theater where they worked. And I can feel again the feeling, like the little spark of electricity that went running up my arm and then went racing around my body when Nathanâs fingers kept brushing against mine as we were walking home. Different than the touch of Cosmoâs fingers, so smooth with white greasepaint. Cosmo said it was a touch connecting us to the world of the clown.
In the world of
Sarah Plain and Tall,
the pioneer family gathers by a pond for a picnic. Green meadows stretch as far as you can see. The
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