Free All for a Sister by Allison Pittman Page A

side of the nursery door, your father telling him that Mother wasn’t feeling well yet and that she would be better soon. Soon has little meaning to a child’s mind, and he eventually stopped coming to the door. I couldn’t remember the last time the boy had even crossed my mind. His very name eluded me in that moment, and I simply stared until all the letters tumbled into place and I could say Calvin with some confidence.
    “There’s a lady at the door.”
    A lady?
    “Mrs. Lundgren.”
    The food in my stomach worked itself into a panic, and I clutched to keep it still. Fearful it would spew out if I opened my mouth, I held my jaw clenched and told him to send her away.
    “She asked for Father, and I told her he wasn’t home. And then she asked for you, and I said you were sick, so then she just told me she would wait for Father.”
    She told him? As if she had any right to tell anybody anything.
    “Are you feeling better?” My little man stood, his eyes taking in the mess of soiled dishes and platters scattered throughout the kitchen. It’s then that I noticed the circles under his eyes, his pale skin, and a mixture of fear and sadness that should have been far beyond his years.
    I told him to go upstairs and play, handing him the slice of cheese, which he took with dubious thanks. I assured him I would speak with Mrs. Lundgren once I’d had enough time to put on the kettle for tea and that he shouldn’t give the visit another thought. This pleased him, and he bounded up the kitchen stairs, whistling a popular tune of the day. It was the first bit of life I’d seen since putting my Mary to bed that night, and I watched and listened, hating him for every bit of it. I suppose that, too, is a confession I hadn’t foreseen making in this document, but there it is. Once his existence came back to my realm of consciousness, I resented his very being. Every breath he took was one Mary would be forever denied. Never again could I smile at my baby girl, so I refused to smile at him. My daughter was cold, and I adopted the same frigidity. It seemed grotesquely reasonable at the time, and his father experienced no such interruption to his affection, so I left them to each other’s good graces.
    Not forever, of course. When you came into our lives, darling Celeste, you brought life with you. But in that dark time, those months stretched out between Mary’s death and your birth, poor Calvin had little more than a shell for a mother. And yet, remembering the blackness in my heart, I wouldn’t dare to wish to return and make things right. I couldn’t change a thing, you see, because if I did, I might not have you.
    I did not, of course, put on a kettle of water to make tea to share with Mrs. Lundgren. Instead I poured a glass of cold buttermilk, drank it down, and waited for the rest of my food tosettle while I used a soiled towel to attempt to clean my face and hands. Mrs. Gibbons had a small room behind the kitchen, and I popped in there long enough to inspect my dress and hair in the oval mirror above her washstand. The gauntness of my face was somewhat surprising, as I’d always had such rounded features; and my hair, for all its neatness, was dull, like that of an old woman. All I really cared about, though, was that there were no traces of crumbs on my bodice, nor any particles trapped between my teeth, and a close inspection granted that assurance.
    The sound of a mighty battle being waged with wooden soldiers drifted from Calvin’s room upstairs, and I prepared myself for a battle of my own as I walked to the entryway to see just what Mrs. Lundgren could have to say to us. Upon seeing an empty hall, I felt a surge of relief, thinking the woman had come to the end of her patience and left, but then I saw a shabby coat and fashionless hat hanging on the brass tree, and I knew Calvin must have invited her to wait in the parlor. Certainly, knowing her place in our home, she wouldn’t have invited herself to such a