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as if to clear it. “Now, Annie, you know your Aunt Mercedes didn’t always watch what came out of her mouth,” she says evasively.
    Annie rolls her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me. You have to wonder though, is that why she never had a boyfriend?”
    Joe looks startled. “Oh, but she did. After she left New York and was learning to be a teacher in Nova Scotia. Callum was so excited you’d have thought she was his own daughter getting hitched.”
    â€œGo on! Aunt Merce was going to get married?” Annie is surprised her grandfather never mentioned it. “Who was this fellow?”
    â€œHe was from some well-to-do family in St. John’s. Apparently he was heading for the priesthood till he met Mercie, so his family wasn’t too happy about it.”
    â€œIs that why they broke up?” she asks.
    â€œI don’t know. All of a sudden it was over and no one wanted to talk about it anymore. Callum only said she was moving back here to teach.”
    â€œMom? Did she ever say anything to you about it?”
    â€œShe was never one to talk about days gone by, was she now?”
    Annie’s can’t disagree with that. In fact, Mercedes would often simply leave the room if someone seemed intent on dredging up old stories. Still, there’s something about her mother’s quick tight smile that makes Annie wonder if she knows more than she’s letting on. But it’s useless to push Lucinda, who can be as tight-lipped as Mercedes when it suits her. “So, Uncle Joe, tell me what was she like when she was little? What did she like to do? Did you all get along?”
    Annie realizes that she really does want to know. What made the child, Mercie, happy? What did she talk about when she sat down to drink her morning tea with her father and brothers? Did they love each other dearly and talk as only family can? Who was this matriarch whom Annie has feared and even hated at times, yet whom she feels such an urge to understand despite everything that happened?
    â€œThe older boys were all gone by then, fishing or working the mines. Dad was there but he wasn’t much good to us. So it was really just me and her and Cal.” He chuckles. “You know how I remembers her best? In our old clothes. We never threw out a darn thing, you couldn’t afford to ever do that. Mercie would take our old shirts, roll up the sleeves, sometimes cut the bottom off. She was only five or six, I suppose. Never complained, just got on with it, wandered around the house singing, or sat with Callum at the table practising her letters and stuff.”
    Lucinda leans in close and pats Joe’s hand. The need in her eyes tugs at Annie, and her heart fills at the sight of these two good people attempting to recall the warmth that long ago existed in Mercedes Hann.
    Annie slips into the chair next to hermother. “Shemust have been a sight in those big clothes, hey,” she prompts Joe before he loses his train of thought, “so small next to you two big galoots?” She is rewarded with an appreciative glance from Lucinda.
    â€œIndeed she was, but at least she was warm. You should have seen us. On really cold days when you could never get yourself warm for nothing, me and her and Cal would haul our chairs to the stove and pull down the oven door. Then we’d lay a pillow there and put our feet on it.” He laughs a beautiful young laugh. “Mercie called it our fireplace. We’d warm bricks in there too, wrap them in towels to take to bed with us.”
    â€œMust be why she put in the two fireplaces over there,” says Lucinda. “Her and Dad always had the heat raging.”
    â€œShe sure did a fine job fixing the old place up,” says Joe.
    Annie is struggling to fix the child in her mind, but all she comes up with is an unsatisfactory composite of her two younger sisters. “What did she look like, Uncle Joe? I have a hard time getting a face