Read Housekeeping: A Novel for Free Online

reprimand.
    “The time went by so fast,” Lucille said. “We’re really sorry.”
    “You see, we can’t go out looking for you.”
    “How could we find you?”
    “We might get lost, or fall down on the road.”
    “The wind here is terrible, and there are no streetlights. They never sand the roads.”
    “Dogs are not on chains.”
    “And the cold is so bitter.”
    “It could freeze the life out of us. We feel it even in the house.”
    “We won’t come back after dark any more,” I said.
    But since Lily and Nona were not really angry, they could not really be mollified. They felt only alarm. Here we were, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, already febrile, or lethally chilled, but, it may be, destined that night to plunge dreaming to the cellar floor, where we would lie under tons of snow and planks and shingles while above us neighbors scavenged in the ruins for kindling. And granting that this and even subsequent winters might spare us, there were still the perils of adolescence, of marriage, of childbirth, all formidable in themselves, but how many times compounded by our strange history?
    Lily and Nona considered our prospects, and were baffled. Their appetites suffered, and so did their sleep. That particular evening a blizzard of remarkable ferocity blew up while we were eating our supper, and continued for four days. Lily was ladling stewed chicken over our biscuits when a limb from the apple orchard flew against the side of the house, and not ten minuteslater a cable snapped somewhere, or a pole fell, and all of Fingerbone was plunged in darkness. It was not an unusual thing. Every pantry in town had in it a box of thick candles, the color of homemade soap, for use at such times. But my aunts grew silent, and watched each other. That night when we went to bed (with Vicks on strips of flannel pinned round our throats) they sat by the stove, turning over and over the fact that the Hartwick Hotel had never been known to accept a child, even for a single night.
    “It would be lovely to take them home.”
    “They’d be safer.”
    “Warmer.”
    They clicked their tongues.
    “We’d all be more comfortable.”
    “So near the hospital.”
    “That’s an advantage, with children.”
    “I’m sure they’d be quiet.”
    “They’re very quiet.”
    “Girls always are.”
    “Sylvia’s were.”
    “Yes, they were.”
    After a moment, someone poked up the fire.
    “We’d have help.”
    “Some advice.”
    “That Lottie Donahue could help. Her children are all right.”
    “I met the son once.”
    “Yes, so you said.”
    “He had an odd look. Always blinking. His nails were chewed down past the quick.”
    “Oh, I remember. He was awaiting trial for something.”
    “I don’t remember just what.”
    “His mother never said.”
    Someone filled the teapot.
    “Children are hard.”
    “For anybody.”
    “The Hartwick has always kept them out.”
    “And I understand that.”
    “I don’t blame them.”
    “No.”
    “No.”
    They were quiet, stirring their tea.
    “If we were Helen’s age . . .”
    “. . . or Sylvie’s.”
    “Or Sylvie’s.”
    Again they were quiet.
    “Young people understand them better.”
    “They don’t worry so much.”
    “They’re still almost children themselves.”
    “That’s the truth. They haven’t seen enough to worry like we do.”
    “It’s as well.”
    “It’s better.”
    “I think it
is
better.”
    “They enjoy children, I think.”
    “That’s better for the children.”
    “In the short run.”
    “We think too much about the long run.”
    “And for all we know the house could fall tonight.”
    They were silent.
    “I wish we would hear from Sylvie.”
    “Or at least hear
about
her.”
    “No one has seen her for years.”
    “Not in Fingerbone.”
    “She might have changed.”
    “No doubt she has.”
    “Improved.”
    “It’s possible. People do.”
    “It’s possible.”
    “Yes.”
    “Perhaps some attention from her family . . .”
    “A family