She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “No. We won’t be able to attend.”
I grimaced.
“Don’t worry. You’ll see us again.” She narrowed her eyes. “I will be sure to come by in not three, but four days.”
I stood there on her stoop, pleading with my eyes, as if I were still eight. “But, I’ll be dead.”
She clenched her eyes shut and pointed out to the street. “Lauraline, just go. Please.” She shook her head. “Damn Silvia for doing this to you.” Then she slammed the door.
~~~~
I rode two streetcars, then caught the train out of San Francisco back to Colma. About 40 minutes passed before I spotted the milky white of sculpted wings, carved pillars and rugged monoliths, obelisks, and rows and rows of tombstones. The fog had lifted and now hovered like a wool blanket in the sky. The moisture persuaded the grass and clover to turn exceptionally green this time of year, and it flourished among the dead. The train stopped at a few cemeteries before I exited at my station.
Colma is where San Francisco buries its dead. It’s a little, unincorporated community just south of the city, close enough to visit by carriage, streetcar or train. There are 10 cemeteries already and talk of more ever since San Francisco passed that ordinance forbidding new burials within the city. All the dead come to us now. My grandfather was a sexton, and after he passed, my grandmamma said she had stayed in Colma to be closer to his whispers. She had asked if I could hear my father’s whispers, but I never could.
I walked from the station, passing three cemeteries on the way to the house my grandmamma left me after she died. I had little other choice than to occupy it, despite my sisters’ desire for me to move to the city. I wasn’t exactly frugal with the little I earned taking down headstone engravings, so the house was of some use. Besides, I couldn’t abandon the place where we grew up, a place that had so much of our grandmamma entwined within in its walls. They had avoided coming back to this place, but I insisted if they threw a party, they had to do it at the house. They’ll forget Grandmamma when it’s gone. They’ll forget me too.
I stopped outside the iron-rod gate and stared at the house, recalling how it felt to lay eyes on it for the first time when I was eight. My parents must have avoided the house too because we did not see it until that dreadful day. To me, the house resembled a stack of decorative matchboxes stood on end, narrow and lofty as if it had wanted to rise above the clouds. A Belvedere tower loomed one level above the third story, and iron rods stuck up around the pointed roof. The doors and windows all stretched and thinned, and the wood carvings coiled and burst, manifesting puzzling ideas on the gabled pediments.
I looked over my shoulder, across the street to the edge of one of the graveyards, an area of which had been left vacant since I was a child. In the winter, the fog concealed the tombstones in the distance, and the grass and little purple forget-me-nots almost had a luminescence against the white. Just once, I told myself, just once I should go over there. But I knew I wouldn’t. I had never set foot in that special place, not even as a child.
After my sisters called our grandmamma a witch, I spent a lot of time hiding in the labyrinth that was our new home. I slipped behind the secret doors in the paneling, played on the staircases inside the walls, and slunk around in the abandoned rooms. I used to skulk up the tower staircase into the attic and stare out the window, pretending that beyond the fog, the graveyard across the street was a meadow that went on forever. I used to imagine myself walking into the fog, disappearing into the endless white.
~~~~
“What did you expect after telling the children that?” Carol-Anne lit the range with a match.
I plunked down and smashed my face between my hands. “How is it she can still make me feel like a child?”
Carol-Anne shrugged. “She’s the oldest, the closest thing to our mother besides the Grand Silvia.”
I laughed and sat up. “I completely forgot you used to call her that.” Our grandmamma truly was grand. She was a wild and gaudy woman, which was why Myrtle took on a lot of the responsibility of raising us.
“Might I ask...” Carol-Anne grunted as she heaved a pot of water onto the range. “Why did you tell them?”
I took a deep breath, then let it out. “Grandmamma isn’t around any more, so the responsibility to warn them falls to me. Myrtle certainly wouldn’t tell them.”
“Just to spite Grandmamma.” Carol-Anne scooped up a mound of chopped onions, barley and peas, and carried them over to the pot.
“I thought... I don’t know. I want them to remember me.”
She tossed in some peeled potatoes. “Oh, I think they will remember you.”
I groaned, covered my face and spoke through splayed fingers. “She’s not coming to the party tomorrow.”
“Well, we will be there, but please indulge me—don’t tell Benny and Theresa any family stories.”
“That was the last time I will ever see them. If they do remember me, it will be as the lunatic who told them if they have three children, the third girl is doomed to an untimely death.”
“They won’t. If the Grand Silvia was a loon, you’ll have more time with them.” Carol-Anne rubbed my back with her damp hand. “But if she wasn’t, you’ll be exonerated.”
I looked up at her, amazed by her ability to make me feel better. How did my older sister become such an accomplished woman? Carol-Anne married a preacher, taught at a Methodist school for girls and spent her spare hours feeding the needy out of the church’s dining hall. If anyone had an impact on this world, it was Carol-Anne. One merely had to spend an hour with her to witness her ability to turn any situation into that rare moment when a person’s life can change. If only I could perform such a consequential act, then perhaps my life would have meaning, even if it was only in one person’s opinion.
The kettle whistled.
Carol-Anne pursed her lips. “Didn’t you come out to help?” She grabbed an apron and flung it at me.
I stood and slipped the apron over my head, tied it behind my back.
Carol-Anne lifted up a tray of graham biscuits and vanilla teacakes. “Fill the teapots and meet me out there.”
I poured the steaming water into four mismatched porcelain pots, heaved up the tray and entered the dining hall where my sister had already delivered her treats. She was kneeling down to speak with a homeless girl. Blast. Another one lost to Carol-Anne.
I scanned the room and spotted an old man, hunkered down, rubbing his hands together. It was a perfect opportunity. I’d pour him tea and say something that would change his life. I started in his direction, holding the tray high and my head too, when I felt a tug. I had stepped on one of my apron strings, and with my next step, my foot snagged the taut line. “Oh God.” I hobbled, and the teapots slid to the right. “Damn! No!”
The clunky pots shattered at an old woman’s feet, and scorching water splattered across her before completely spilling out and soaking her shoes. I covered my face with my hands and cringed as the tray clanged to the floor.
The woman leapt up, flapping and squawking like an angry chicken.
I reached out. “I’m sor—”
She recoiled. “Get away from me, you vulgar thing.”
I stiffened, realizing that not only had I made a scene and worsened an already suffering woman’s day, but I had also just shrieked several uncouth words in the church’s soup kitchen. I looked around. Everyone glared at me as if I were Dickens himself. I turned toward Carol-Anne, whose upper lip had curled into an expression that demanded, What on God’s green earth is wrong with you?
Five minutes later, Carol-Anne had wooed the woman back into graciousness, grabbed my coat and hat, and shuffled me out the back door. “At least you know the Lord, Lauraline. Count your blessings.” She closed the door and clicked the lock.
~~~~
I just want to be remembered when I die or at least feel confident that I did something meaningful in life. Clearly, it has come down to the l
ast hour, and I want to have faith that I will fulfill a purpose, that I have one. You should know I do have faith in the Lord’s design, even if I begrudge it a little.
I grimaced. “Don’t write that part about begrudging it.”
She scratched it out.
I took a breath.
The third girl in every Rosland family drops dead at the age of 30, the morning after the dreaded birthday, blood dripping from eyes, ears and nose. Tragically beautiful, is what Grandmamma used to say. Death only the day after one’s youth has truly ended. This day seemed to come so fast, too fast to have prepared. What have I been doing for the last 30 years?
I stopped, pulled out my handkerchief, dabbed my eyes.
“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know what else to say,” I said.
Sarah, the youngest of us four, wrote for a women’s magazine, so naturally she had suggested I dictate my final words. I’m sure she had expected—even I had hoped—that in doing so I’d realize I had already made a difference. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. To pile on the miseries, I had exhausted my time. The day was coming to a close. Tomorrow—the dreaded birthday. And then the day after that...
“I don’t have anything to say that matters, no wisdom or life lessons to bestow, let alone anyone who will read this when I’m gone.”
Sarah stuck the pen in its stand. “What about your nieces and nephews?”
“I don’t want them to read this.” I shook my head. “My life wasn’t special. It was average and mediocre and eventless.” I gestured toward the words on the Grand Silvia’s yellowing stationery. “This won’t last. Words and paper fade, new generations forget, lifetimes turn to smoke and drift away. Only those who have done something remarkable are held in others’ memories. I don’t even know why this matters to me so much. I’m just... I’m afraid.” Her eyes met mine for a moment, and I had to look away because if I looked at Sarah, I wouldn’t keep my wits about me. I gazed out the window at the people from the last train, ambling along, searching for the right cemetery before nightfall. Mourners always gawk at Grandmamma’s house. It’s such a curiosity and in such disrepair, I couldn’t even donate it—another failed attempt to leave something behind.
“Don’t think that way,” Sarah finally said. “You shouldn’t be sad these next two days. Remember good things, do something you love, be with family.”
I twisted my handkerchief. “Myrtle’s not coming.”
She sighed. “I’ll talk to her. She’ll come.”
I nodded but didn’t expect her to persuade Myrtle. We sipped our tea, and I noticed the ticking of Grandmamma’s assorted clocks.
Sarah set her hand on my knee. “I will stay with you... until...”
I forced myself to look at her, and when I did, my chin trembled and my body quaked. I couldn’t do it any more. I folded over and wept into her lap. She would stay. She would stay until I collapsed and blood seeped through the lace of her dress, but I didn’t want her to remember me that way.
Finally, I sat up and dabbed my eyes with my handkerchief, blew my nose and steeled myself again. “I want you to know.” I sniffled. “I have accepted it. I have made my peace with God, and I am ready. I just don’t want to be forgotten. That’s all.”
“You shouldn’t worry so much about being forgotten.”
I grasped her hand. “How would you feel?”
She lowered her eyes. “Lauraline, you can’t—”
“I know,” I said. “I know.” I dropped her hand and looked back out the window.
The clocks ticked, and I heard Sarah’s teacup clink on its saucer. She had given up and so had I. Outside, a gentleman craned his neck to peer in at us. We looked surprisingly young for such a rickety abode. Witches, presumably—young forever. I looked past him across the street at my eternal meadow and imagined disappearing.
~~~~
After Carol-Anne, Sarah and I attended an emotional church service, we ate lunch and went to a vaudeville in the city. Then we rode the train to Colma. While it was still light out, Sarah collected flowers from the path by the gate, and Carol-Anne and I hung streamers in the dining room, squealing and laughing when the cobwebs caught in our hair. Our cooking efforts burst into an absolute mess in the kitchen, clumps of flour stuck in butter and chopped onions scattered across the floor. We hadn’t cooked together since we were little, but we slipped right back into our girlhood ways. We teased and joked until Sarah and I made Carol-Anne fall to her knees in stitches. We had gotten into the currant wine by the time Sarah’s husband knocked at the door.
When Carol-Anne’s family arrived, Theresa and Benjamin, seven and nine, rushed over to me, excited to finally see my mysterious house.
“Do you want to go exploring?” I asked.
“Yes, yes!”
We slipped into the kitchen, passing Carol-Anne as she exited with drinks. “Not too long now,” she called.
I revealed the hidden door next to the pantry, and we crept up the servant stairwell, and then escaped out the secret door behind the paneling in the second floor hallway. I whispered, “The last keeper of this house was a witch. Good or bad—no one knows.”
“But you live here Aunt Lauraline.”
“That must mean…” I bent down and widened my eyes. “I am the witch!”
They gasped dramatically and scurried away, giggling. We ran down the hallway and up the tower stairwell into the attic. Then we rifled through some of the dusty wardrobe trunks. I draped an old fur cape over my niece’s shoulders and put my grandfather’s faded derby on my nephew. I tucked an old autograph book from my 10th birthday under my arm. When we simmered down, I walked to the window that looked out over the graveyard in the gloom of day’s end. I knelt down without minding the dust, and my niece plopped down in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her. “This was my favorite place when I was little,” I said.
“It’s so pretty,” Theresa said.
“It’s a graveyard,” Benjamin said, unimpressed. “Dead people.”
“Stop it Benny,” Theresa said.
“But they are.”
I touched his arm. “It was my place to be alone. This time of year, the fog rises in the morning, so it doesn’t resemble a cemetery at all. I used to sit here and think it went on and on into forever.”
“You played in a cemetery?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I never went over there.”
“Why?” Benjamin asked.
I sighed. “Because I didn’t want to pretend. I wanted to walk into eternity and never come back.”
My niece lay her cool cheek on my arm. “I’m glad you stayed, Aunt Lauraline.”
I patted her shoulder. “Come along. Your mother is surely calling.”
We raced down the narrow stairwell and into the front foyer where my niece and nephew spotted three blond children. They ran up to their cousins and begged permission to show them the house.
“Quickly then,” Myrtle said.
I stared at Myrtle. “You came.”
“Of course,” she said with that motherly look in her eye. “I was angry before. I’m sorry.”
I swallowed. “No, I’m sorry. I should never have—”
She embraced me so unexpectedly that I jumped. “Let’s not speak of it,” she said and then stepped back with my hands in hers. “This is a happy occasion.” She nodded with big eyes, and I couldn’t help but return a smile.
With that, Carol-Anne clapped her hands and announced dinner. The men heaved themselves up, and Carol-Anne called after the children. We moseyed into the dining room, and the children romped in chatting away about my house’s secrets, which pleased me to no end. As we ate, my sisters and I monopolized the conversation: “Do you remember when Silvia insisted you wear that hideous fox?” “What about when I slipped on the ice and that dashing boy—oh what was his name?” “You hemmed it sideways, and I had to wear it or you’d cry.” “Wait—you did what to that pudding? Lord, I ate it!”
For dessert, we enjoyed coffee and layered ribbon cake topped with pink buttercream icing. The children devoured their helpings and danced off into the parlor to play. Eventually they drifted to sleep and the husbands did too, but we sisters drank port and laughed until we exhausted ourselves. The rooms were prepared, so I insisted they stay. Myrtle and Carol-Anne nudged their families upstairs, but Sarah left her husband on the sofa, intent on staying with me.
Sarah and I fell into the Grand Silvia’s plush loveseat, and I revealed the autograph book I had uncovered in the attic. By candlelight, we flipped through the pages, bemused by how we couldn’t place the children from their names but could when we recalled a specific event or humorous attribute. We tried to think if we knew what had come of them. I pointed out how multiple children had written the same poems in the book, and which one I favored. We chatted between yawns until Sarah’s head finally fell to the side. I fought the urge to kiss her cheek as I did the day she was born. Instead, I left the autograph book open to the poem we’d discussed.
I took a candlestick, crept upstairs and peeked in on Carol-Anne, squeezed into her childhood bed with Theresa. The men and the boys had taken Myrtle’s old room, and Myrtle and her two girls slept in the Grand Silvia’s room. I hovered in the doorway, certain my entrance would wake her. “You are a good sister and a good mother,” I whispered. “Thank you for taking care of us.”
I felt dizzy from the port but slipped behind the paneling into the secret passageway. Hunched down, I covered my mouth to keep from giggling with the memories of adventure I had in these walls. I exited into the kitchen and smiled at the foggy morning. I set the candlestick on the flour-coated table and blew out the flame. Then I pushed aside a headache and warm flush, and headed to the front door.
When I stepped outside, the chill stiffened me but felt fine upon my burning cheeks. The haze was so thick and the hour so early that it seemed as if no one existed at all. I went down the front steps, out the gate and across the street. I reached the edge of the graveyard, illuminated by the glow of the clover and the little purple forget-me-nots—my meadow. I stopped only for the briefest of moments before taking my first step into the sacred space. The grass crunched, frozen beneath my feet. Soon the morning frost would melt into a dew, making a cool bed for me to lie upon. I stood there for a moment, considering this first step, a simple act that I had been dreaming of since childhood. I took a deep breath and began to walk, steady, confident.
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