Free The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen Page B

window.
    “Let’s go do something, Maddie,” Avis said. “Let’s get out of here.” She put her braid back into the handkerchief and carefully returned the box to her drawer.
    “I have to work now. I can’t play with you all of the time.” Maddie stood up and shook out her hair. “Thank you, Idella, for the haircut.” Idella nodded but did not return her look.
    “I’ll help you work,” Avis said.
    Maddie laughed. “You want to peel the potatoes for the supper with me? Then come.”
    “Will you teach me more French words?” Avis asked.
    “Oui.” Maddie laughed. “Bien sûr.”
    “What’s potato?”
    “ La pomme de terre. ‘The apple of the ground,’ it says.”
    “Apple of the ground! Dad calls me the apple of his eye.”
    “He called Mother that.” Idella turned sharply and glared at Avis.
    “He calls me that, too. When you’re not around being prissy.”
    Avis went crashing down the stairs. Maddie looked at Idella, whose back was again turned. She paused but did not speak and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her. “Apple of the ground,” Idella whispered. She thought of Maddie, shapeless in her woolen folds. “Yes. Potato.”
     
    Maddie went into the downstairs bedroom. She went in slowly. She’d waited all morning till Avis and Idella went off to find fiddleheads. Dalton and Bill were both out working. She was alone in the house.
    It was dark in the room. The bed was all undone and tousled. There was a dresser with a mirror on top that must be where Emeline had done up her hair. Where he shaved now. She picked up the lathering brush. It was slippery on the handle and smelled sweet, still damp from his morning shave. She set the brush back and smelled her fingers. The soap smelled of him at breakfast, when she leaned down to put the plate of eggs in front of him. She loved that smell.
    She looked down at the dresser. The top drawer would have been for Emeline. Maddie pulled it open, making a quiet, shuffling sound; the smell of dried lavender floated up to her. Sachets tied with purple ribbon lay on top of neatly folded clothes. There was lace, and velvet ribbon curled into a corner—and a handkerchief with lovely blue embroidery. Maddie reached down and touched the soft blue knots gathered into flower shapes at the corner edges. Linen. And soft cotton. There were hair combs and barrettes made of tortoiseshell. She ran her fingers along their sharp prongs. Closing her hand around a barrette, she couldn’t help herself—she quickly put it into her pocket.
    There were blouses with lace collars and cuffs, and a camisole with tiny stitches and gathers, real womanly things, white and very delicate. Emeline must have made them herself, her special clothes. Maddie fingered the folded fabrics and lifted a blouse up into her hands. Underneath was something dark. It startled her. Coiled and tied with a ribbon on each end was a long, thick braid of hair. It had been given to him, she thought, touching it with a fingertip, after the funeral. It was for him to hold and smell and put his lips to as he did when she was living, when he had a wife.
    But he didn’t have a wife now. She was gone. There was no woman living here who would wear these clothes for him. Maddie lifted up the coil by one end and let it dangle. What long hair she’d had.
    She held the braid up against her own hair to see its full length. She walked over to the window and tried holding it against what light there was. Even in death it had shine.
    Without pausing, Maddie took the braid and went out to the kitchen and reached up to the sewing basket. She took the scissors and cut off a few inches of hair, retying the ribbon around the new end. Then she put the snipped length into her skirt pocket. She went quickly back into the bedroom, carefully curled the remaining portion of the braid back into a coil, and placed it under the blouse where she’d found it. She closed the drawer and looked for a moment at her reflection, dark