Free The O'Briens by Peter Behrens Page B

Cordelia, hurrying through with a tray, tripped over her and let out a startled yell.
    Cordelia telephoned the doctor, who arrived in an automobile and gave Iseult an injection that allowed her to breathe normally; within a few moments she was in a deep stupor. Cordelia summoned the Japanese gardeners to carry her upstairs, then undressed her and got her under the sheets.
    Iseult had woken up the next morning with a sour taste in her mouth and a cracking headache. She dressed and went downstairs without first going to check on her mother as she usually did. She was drinking coffee in the breakfast room when Cordelia walked in, placed a brown hand on her shoulder, and said, “I tell you, girl, your mama is gone.”
    She had, in fact, died during the night. The sitting nurse had awakened Cordelia, then packed up and left at dawn.
    Cordelia poured herself a cup of coffee and Iseult went upstairs alone.
    The room had been scoured and the windows opened wide, and much of the smell was gone. Cordelia had gathered flowers from the garden and set them on a table at the foot of the bed. Iseult’s mother lay with peculiar stillness under a fresh white sheet drawn up under her arms and crisply smoothed. Her hands had been placed one on top of the other. The pillow was fresh and plump.
    First her father, then her mother — each death had hardened her a little. She was alone now, and more boldness was going to be required. Life had to be engaged, life had to be started.
    No, she would not stay in Pasadena.
    Even with the windows open, the atmosphere in the trolley car stank of hot metal, rubber flooring, and sweet, stale food. Steel wheels made a steady, flatulent grinding underneath. Every seat was taken. Across the aisle a sunburnt girl had fallen asleep with her head on the shoulder of the young man holding her hand.
    Animal appetites were embarrassing because they would not be denied, and only with difficulty could they be controlled. Before her parents sent her to Sacred Heart Convent, while she was still taking her lessons at the schoolhouse in their town in New Hampshire, there had been that one rough, wool-smelling boy, Patrick Dubois. One bright afternoon in April, Patrick had forced her, step by step, down the wooden stairs that led to the school’s cellar. It was supposed to be a game: she was supposed to be his helpless prisoner.
    Confident that she was the one really in charge of this exciting little contest, she had lingered on each step, challenging him. “You can’t make me.”
    â€œAw, yes, I can.”
    â€œTry it, then.”
    That was the signal for Patrick to place big, meaty paws on her shoulders and apply pressure until she took another step down. Thirteen steps in all, then they were standing on the dirt floor of the cellar. It must have taken ten minutes to get down there. Patrick was just tall enough that he had to crouch a little below the floor joists.
    Patrick Dubois lived with his parents and sisters in one of the tenements her grandfather had put up during the Civil War. He was a pupil at her school but he also had a paid job. Three or four times a day, all winter long, he left the classroom and disappeared into the cellar, where he shovelled and spread coals in the furnace. He kept a towel and a bucket of water warm down there, and a scrap of yellow soap to clean himself with, but it did no good. When he resumed his seat in the back of the classroom, there was always a gash of wet soot somewhere on his face, neck, or forearm. She could smell coal on him; anthracite had a scent like an old, dead fire, the scent of underground.
    At the bottom of the cellar stairs they stood facing each other. There was just enough daylight coming down that she could see his expression, and what frightened her was that he looked so nervous.
    â€œAren’t you going to give me a kiss?” he said. Licking his lips. His eyes shiny and wandering. He had probably dared himself into that