Mennonites Don't Dance

by Darcie Friesen Hossack

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “I’ll take care of things here until arrangements are made.”

  That evening Penelope’s father drove into town, but it was Annabelle’s mother who spent the night, and the next three after that. And although she knew better, Penelope began to hope she would never leave.

  One afternoon, Penelope’s Aunt Gutherie, Ada’s oldest unmarried sister, arrived on the train from Winnipeg to take over.

  With an enormous carpetbag and hair wound so tightly into a bun that it made her face look as though it was being tightened by a screw at the back of her head, Penelope could already tell that Aunt Gutherie didn’t have a bone of nonsense in her whole being.

  “Your mother needs quiet. Lots of quiet,” she said once she assessed the situation. Already she’d found and flicked two mice out the front door with a straw broom and installed poison in all the places they might be likely to come back. Now she bobbled her head disapprovingly, causing a generous pinch of wattle under her chin to jiggle with authority. “That father of yours ought to have known better. Thinking he could bring a woman like my sister into the wilds and turn her into a milk maid. Well. It’s a good thing I’ve come is all I can say.”

  Within hours of Aunt Gutherie’s arriving, a curtain of silence was pulled around the house, quarantining them from the rest of the neighbourhood. Inside, the atmosphere was like a funeral home. Voices were hushed and clutter forbidden, with Penelope sent to her room except when she was needed, or when Ada called for her.

  “Don’t go tiring her out,” Aunt Gutherie said before she’d give Penelope permission to enter her mother’s room. So Penelope sat mouse-like on the corner of the bed and quietly worried the plain hem of her school dress, stopping only long enough to answer her mother’s questions. When she fell asleep, Penelope crept slowly, noiselessly, out of the room.

  Under Aunt Gutherie’s care, Ada began to improve. Not suddenly, as when they first moved into town. This time it was gradual until, after several weeks, she even began to wait for Penelope on their front porch after school, standing and waving when she saw her coming up the block. Together they’d go inside and share a pot of tea while Aunt Gutherie hovered nearby.

  Some days Penelope’s father would drop by with sacks of flour and sugar, and boxes of fresh fruit, then leave, saying the cows’d soon need to be milked. At the door, Joseph would pull a nickel from behind Penelope’s ear. And then he’d be gone for another week.

  One Friday, as Penelope was on her way home from school, she saw Ada as usual, standing on the porch, and when she got closer, there was Joseph too, on hands and knees, removing successful mouse traps from under the porch. His overalled legs and manure-encrusted barn boots stuck out from under the structure like half of a scarecrow. At irregular intervals, he flung traps, still clamped around dead mice, onto the grass at his side.

  “Hey, there,” he said when he finally emerged and saw Penelope.

  “Hi,” she said, looking over his shoulder to her mother.

  “Seems you ladies have a few more mice than you need.” He chuckled, a sound like pebbles tumbling, and turned his attention back to the traps. Levering the springs to release the dead mice into a bucket, he smeared fresh daubs of peanut butter on the mechanisms and crawled back under the porch.

  “There,” Joseph said when the job was done. “That ought to do you for a little while, don’t you think?”

  “Probably not,” Penelope said. “It would be better to have a cat around. We have more mice than you do at home on the farm.” She walked up the front steps and left the door open for her mother to follow her inside. A little later she realized her father had left without saying goodbye. Later that evening, after Ada had gone to her room for the night, he returned carrying a box with holes punched into the sides. Aunt Gutherie met him at the door.

  “Brought a little something to help out with your mouse problem,” he said. He held the box high and peered over top of the woman until he saw Penelope standing in the kitchen door, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “It was your idea,” he said to Penelope, taking half a step inside. Aunt Gutherie held her ground, but Joseph was a large man and pushed forward until he’d gained his way inside.

  Penelope could smell fresh hay, and there were sounds coming from inside the box. Scratching and mewling. She felt her whole face stretch into a smile.

  “No. Absolutely not. There will be no animals in my house,” Aunt Gutherie said, folding her arms across her chest.

  Penelope’s expression collapsed.

  “But this is not your house,” Joseph said. He carefully opened the box flaps to reveal a mother cat, blinking against the lamplight, and four kittens. He bent down to set them on the floor.

  “Are they going to live here?” Penelope said, already kneeling next to the box as the mother cat began to bathe the bottom of a kitten who, although his eyes were still glued shut, was more intent on exploring the inside of the box than getting cleaned.

  “The big one can live outside and take care of the mice. But those little ones have to go back. Tonight.”

  “Gutherie,” Joseph said. “These kittens are too young to be separated from their mother. Surely you can see they’ll have to stay with her.”

  “There’s no reason on God’s earth to keep them. You’re a farming man. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to deal with an unwanted brood.”

  Penelope felt heat flood her chest like hot wax that spread through her whole body until her legs felt weak like a warm candle. She knew what sometimes had to be done when there were too many kittens on the farm.

  “No, you can’t!” she cried and leaned protectively over the box, wrapping her arms around its sides. She could hear the mother cat purring as she flopped onto her side and, one by one, the kittens began to nurse, paddling against her loose belly with their tiny, flat paws.

  Aunt Gutherie was quiet for a moment. She had only one move left.

  “Think of your poor wife. Her nerves can’t take this kind of shock.”

  Penelope could feel her father backing down. He stood up straight but his hands disappeared into his pockets.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let my wife decide what to do with them. Until then Penelope can have them for company. They won’t be a bother to anyone for a night or two.”

  “Just take them back,” Penelope said. “We can get more traps for the mice. I can empty them out.”

  “I have too many cats already,” Joseph said. “Now be a good girl and listen to what your mother decides.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Aunt Gutherie said. “They’re just animals. There’s more where those ones came from.”

  Penelope wanted to say that there were plenty of people too, and more where they came from. But she knew it wasn’t the same thing.

  All that night Penelope guarded those kittens from Aunt Gutherie, who hovered like a buzzard in a lace collar.

  When the mother cat needed to be let out to “violate the flower beds”, Aunt Gutherie gave it a not-quite-mean shove with the side of her shoe and closed the door tightly behind it. She seemed satisfied to have gotten rid of at least one of them. When the cat came back and scratched at the door half an hour later, Penelope scooped it up along with the kittens and carried them all up to her room, pushing a dresser in front of the door to keep Aunt Gutherie out.

  The next morning Penelope found her aunt and mother sitting at the kitchen table. The sound of the kettle nearing a boil came from the kitchen.

  “Did she tell you what Dad said?” Penelope said, crossing her arms.

  “I told her it won’t do any good letting you get attached when we each of us know full well they can’t stay,” Aunt Gutherie said. She stood up and lifted the kettle from the stove. “Soon those cats’ll be full-grown toms, out doing their filthy business, caterwauling at all hours and messing in the neighbours’ yards.”

  Penelope was prepared to argue, but Ada patted her arm and said, “They’re just little kittens. Harmless. Penelope
will take care of them and they won’t be any bother.”

  “And who’ll look after them while the girl’s in school?” Aunt Gutherie said. “No. It’s unfortunate, but they have to go.” A moment later, she set down a cup of camomile tea for Ada. The tea, if it wasn’t needed at the moment to calm Ada, was always a good way to remind her that she could have a nervous episode any time.

  Ada’s hand trembled a little as she lifted the cup, a splash of tea spilling over the side.

  “Before long those ones will grow up and be after each other and we’ll be overrun with inbreds,” Aunt Gutherie said. “It’s a mercy to do away with a few now instead of a few dozen later. Now, Penelope, go on up and get them. No sense putting it off.” Penelope looked to her mother, but Ada was a fly caught in honey. Or vinegar.

  Penelope went upstairs as she was told. But instead of delivering the kittens to her aunt she crept past the living room and into the kitchen. A few more steps, avoiding well-known creaks in the floor, and she was at the back door and into the porch-like summer kitchen that held a stove for canning and a small fridge that was kept unplugged and propped open to keep it from smelling. Penelope let the mother cat outside and turned her attention to the kittens.

  Even though they’d never even turned on the oven to see whether it worked, Penelope couldn’t bring herself to hide the kittens in there. It brought to mind too terrible a possibility. When she finally decided where to hide them she went outside and waited, hiding around the corner when her aunt stuck out her head and called.

  After a long while, when Penelope returned without the kittens, Ada was sitting alone at the kitchen table, her hands folded calmly around a teacup.

  “Maybe we can find homes for them when they’re a little older,” she said. “What do you think? Might a few of your friends like to each take one?”

  Penelope bit her lips in confusion. She had been sure Ada would agree with Aunt Gutherie.

  “Really?” she said, twisting her fingers together. “I could keep them until then?”

  “Of course you can,” Ada said, the dark blue of her eyes bright under a film of tears. She reached out and held Penelope’s hands so lightly it was like being held by a pair of empty silk gloves. “I know you didn’t want to move away from the farm. The least I can do is let you have a little bit of it here for a while.” She held out her arms, and Penelope was drawn by them until she was almost sitting on Ada’s lap.

  “My poor Nella Pea,” her mother said. “You’ve had to be so strong, haven’t you?”

  After a few moments Penelope moved to the chair next to Ada, who pushed a teacup towards her. Together they sat in silence, sipping tea and sniffling from time to time.

  “I hid the kittens,” Penelope finally said, laughing a little, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, even though she knew it was a disgusting thing to do. “I thought Aunt Gutherie would have a fit when I didn’t come back right away.”

  “Well, she did. But let’s not think of that. Come, why don’t you introduce me to those kittens of yours.”

  Together Penelope and Ada went out to the porch, hand in hand. Penelope felt like a bottle of soda pop that would let out all its bubbles if opened. She wanted to hold in the feeling forever. But when she led her mother to the fridge where she’d hidden the kittens, closing it tight to keep their cries from giving them away, she felt Ada’s hand go slack. Penelope looked up to see that her mother’s face had become ashy.

  “Oh, no, Penelope. Tell me they’re not in there. There’s not enough air,” She closed her eyes and withdrew her hand.

  “I–I wanted to hide them from Aunt. I just. What’s wrong? What did I do?” Penelope clasped her hands over her throat before she swung around and tugged open the fridge door. “They’re fine. Look. They’re asleep.”

  When Penelope reached for one of the kittens though, it was limp like a tiny pair of pyjamas.

  Sound seeped from Penelope’s mouth like air from a balloon. “Oh, no.” She knelt and her hands shook as she checked each kitten until she found one that was still alive, but barely. Penelope drew it to her chest and lowered her head. She turned to her mother, but Ada was already going back inside the house, calling for Aunt Gutherie.

  In a moment Aunt Gutherie was there to help Ada away, leaving Penelope kneeling on the floor, cradling the nearly dead kitten. The mother cat, when she pawed her way back through the unlatched porch door, would no longer accept it.

  For the next two days, every few hours, while Ada closed herself in her room, Penelope nursed the kitten, filling up an eyedropper from a bowl of warm milk, painstakingly squeezing a drop at a time into its mouth. Even though it seemed at first to recover a little, soon it could no longer keep the milk down. It aspirated more than it swallowed and vomited tiny puddles of curdled liquid into Penelope’s hands until it finally died.

  When Penelope went to Ada’s room to tell her, she was sent out of the room by her aunt.

  Over the next weeks, things began to return to the way they were before the kittens. Ada got out of bed and was ready to meet Penelope at the front door after school. But Penelope knew something unnameable had shifted. When they went inside for tea, Ada’s expression was thin and brittle. She held onto a fragile china cup, cradling it with two hands as though it was an eggshell.

  It’s hard to tell from Penelope’s diary exactly how much time passed between what happened with the kittens and when Ada took her own life.

  One day Penelope was walking home from school. A block away she stopped to pick a few stems of lilacs, their hundreds of purple blossoms still tightly closed like tiny fists. She’d had to twist their supple green branches from the overgrown bush on the corner of Spinster Shellenberg’s yard, keeping out of sight so she wouldn’t get caught and scolded away with a broom.

  Lilacs were Ada’s favourite flower, so Penelope twisted the stems until they were free and her hands were sticky with lilac sap. When she lifted the blossoms to her nose she breathed in their sweet, cool perfume, feeling her posture straighten like a cut stem put into water. She walked, skipped a little, the hem of her dress a pale-yellow bell around her knees.

  Within sight of the house Penelope began to run, the wands of lilacs held out to her sides, trailing scent. As she came to the exact square of sidewalk where she could suddenly see her own front door, she stumbled to a stop. The lilacs fell from her fingers, their dense clusters bouncing apart into separate stems beside her feet. Instead of Ada, Aunt Gutherie was on the front steps, wringing her hands together and looking down the street towards Penelope.

  Penelope felt her breath being forced out of her as though she’d suddenly been squeezed. She wanted to take off in both directions at once, but found she could only move forward.

  “The doctor’s on his way. There’s no need to go up there,” Aunt Gutherie said, trying to block Penelope from going inside. She was visibly shaken by whatever had happened, and a poor guard. Penelope pushed past her as though she were a heavy curtain and came to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

  Penelope was out of breath, but not from running. Now that she was here, she didn’t want to go up. Slowly though, she began to climb the stairs. When she reached her mother’s room, the cold weight of the doorknob filled her hand. The door seemed heavier than she remembered. Its bottom edge pushed over the carpet with a hush, as though telling her to keep quiet.

  Without making a sound, Penelope went in and knelt down next to Ada’s body. She’d fallen from the bed onto the rag rug she insisted on saving to stop the chill from seeping through the floor. A froth of red-streaked saliva, from the sleeping pills Penelope would learn her mother had swallowed, was smeared across her cheek.

  “For Godsakes, child,” Aunt Gutherie said, her voice shrill and obscene, like laughter in church.

  “Leave us alone,” Penelope said, stroking Ada’s damp hair, stringy with sweat. “She doesn’t need you anymore.”

  “She needed someone a half hour ago is what. In fact, she needed someone to
stop her from running off to this province in the first place. It’s what killed her, as surely as I know anything. She should’ve stayed home.”

  Still, Penelope refused to move until the doctor came.

  “I thought I told you to keep the child out of here,” he said, looking at Aunt Gutherie as though she was as stupid a woman as he’d ever met. He made a short irritated sound. “I don’t suppose you can tell me when the husband might arrive.”

  “No, well, you were the only person I thought to call,” she said, stammering. It was the first time Penelope had ever seen her aunt cowed by anyone.

  “Go down and call him this minute.” To Penelope he said, “Come away, now. It’s time to let me take care of her. You go with your aunt and wait for your father. It shouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes, don’t you think?”

  Penelope waited at the bottom of the stairs for the doctor to come back down.

  Penelope stopped writing in her journal after Ada’s funeral. But the rest is what I’ve always known.

  Aunt Gutherie raised Penelope until she was old enough to marry. A short time after that, she and my father had me. And except for the two things I destroyed, Ada’s teacup and, later, her rag rug, the house stayed exactly as it was since the time of Ada’s death.

  Not long after the rug incident, the day I learned that Socks had been killed out on the farm, my mother met me at the front door after school and tried to say she was sorry. I wouldn’t hear her.

  “It’s your fault. It’s all your fault!” I ran into the house and up the stairs, into her bedroom. I snatched the rug my cat had soiled, the rug Ada had died on, and stomped back down and out of the house into the backyard. I climbed the fence and as a train approached, threw the rug onto the track.

  “What have you done?” My mother was stiff with anger when she found me, having discovered what I’d taken. The train was still clamouring past, car after car.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”