The Sister's Tale by Beth Powning (e reader for manga .txt) 📕

dead and so was Ma. Father and mother, stronger than walls and roof, shielding Flora and Enid—guardians of hope and of life’s goodness. Both gone, for Papa had died in an accident at the farm the previous month. She and Enid held each other, too shocked to weep. Women came to the cottage. Through the bedroom door, the sisters glimpsed the women at work: rags dipped in a basin of soapy water, Ma’s arm being lifted, her hair being brushed. Moans and whispers. Men, arriving, with two boxes, one long, one tiny. At the funeral service, they could hear rocks rolling in the river, a hollow sound like the clopping of hooves.

Hapless, the rocks. Worn smooth as eggs. You could see them when the river was reduced to a stream in August.

If Enid were here, Flora thought, rummaging in a trunk, I could ask her. Did she remember Papa’s funeral and then Ma’s? At least Maud and Lucy and Josephine had one another, and George, and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and all the people of the town. But I want the funeral here, Josephine had cried, before leaving for Ocracoke. I want the cornet band. I want the procession. I want Simeon buried in our own churchyard. Face, swollen, her cheeks chapped from tears. Her eyes, bloodshot. Staring and not seeing. Handkerchief, twisted in her hands.

Eat, now, Ellen had coaxed, the morning after the letter’s arrival, setting oatmeal and applesauce on Josephine’s lap as she huddled in bed—eat for your strength, now; and Flora sensed the cook’s tenderness and wondered why she was unmarried and mentioned no children. For days, Ellen insisted on carrying meals to Josephine’s bedroom. Holding the door as the cook staggered beneath a laden tray, Flora had glimpsed Josephine sitting in bed with letters clasped to her breast, like trying to hold an armload of autumn leaves. Her hair down, her dressing gown fallen open.

—

On Ocracoke Island, the lighthouse keeper’s wife stood in her garden, bonneted and skirt-blown, deadheading roses. Chickens blustered at her feet. Her eyes were deep-set, sad; a thin-lipped mouth warped downwards. Simeon’s father bent, gravely, and shook the woman’s hand.

“Please give our thanks to your good husband and his crew for saving so many of my son’s sailors and passengers.”

The woman clutched a handful of crinkled dead roses. “Your son’s body was respected and washed. We saved all we could find for the widow.”

Josephine could not speak. She stared up at the white-shingled tower with its light that had not saved her husband’s life.

“You’ll be wanting to have the dog. Sweet thing, it is…”

She broke off, looking at Josephine, and released rose petals into the wind.

They followed the woman across the scoured grass. Refusing tea, they waited by the door. She returned with a small wooden box. Sailor pressed past her; seeing Josephine, he began to bark. He ran to her, and she fell to her knees and tried to hold him in her arms but could not. The dog was in a frenzy, whimpering, wagging his tail, licking every piece of exposed flesh he could find.

They walked back along the dirt street, having elected to stay at the inn. The dog trotted, anxious, at their heels. Simeon’s father carried the box. He and Josephine went up to her room; he set the box on a table by her bed. She did not touch it, waiting until he left. He stopped in the hall to ease the door shut, making only the smallest click.

She listened to wind in the evergreen oaks, constant as the distant, murderous roar of surf. She heard Sailor, below her window, barking as Simeon’s mother threw a stick for him. Slowly, Josephine lifted the lid of the box. Inside, she found five items: a folding knife with an ivory handle, a pocket watch, the garnet ring she had given Simeon, which he wore on a chain around his neck, a lock of her hair wrapped in a square of ironed cloth, and a mass of swollen paper, dried, bearing the faint traces of her own handwriting. She hung the ring around her neck, tucking it out of sight beneath the crepe mourning dress.

Later, they walked to the beach where his body had been found. From behind her black veil, she watched the waves, building and surging and breaking towards her, like breath that could not be stilled.

—

The dog searched for Simeon in the Creek Road house. He raced up the stairs, panting. He sniffed under Simeon’s chair, the bedposts, the crack of Simeon’s closet door. He came back downstairs and begged to go out. Josephine stood on the back step, weeping. The dog ran to the barn and pawed at the door.

A funeral was held.

The cornet band came to the house.

The family followed it down the hill to the church.

—

On a warm Tuesday in the second week of April, Josephine sat in the office of her lawyer, Mr. Eveleigh.

“We could not find a will,” she said.

His skin was as if pumiced; dark eyebrows accentuated a humorous expression. He wore a high, stiff collar and a pocket handkerchief with blood-red edging.

“Did you ever hear him say he had written a will?”

“I think so. But I can’t be sure. He was most business-like about his voyages. When he was home, he was so…Well, he was happy to be home with me and the children. He did not want to attend to business, just for awhile.”

She paused.

People passed the window, heading for the grand opening of the new tin store.

“My maids told me that they opened every drawer, every box, they searched to the back of every cupboard. I sent Mr. Dougan to tap with his hammer for hollow places. We looked in the carriage shed. We found one loose floorboard. Nothing. I fear it slipped his mind, although I know what his intentions were.”

“What do you mean, his intentions?”

“That he intended to write a will. And I am certain that he intended for me to be