Free Colette and the Silver Samovar by Nancy Belgue Page A

flattened on one side as if she’d been sleeping with her head pressed against the chair.
    â€œHe thinks I should come to see my mother all the time,” I blurted out.
    â€œDid he?” Grandmama looked at Grandpapa. “Well, let’s see about that.” She smoothed down her skirt and turned back to the bed. “Don’t stay up late, Colette,” she added. “We don’t want you to get sick.”
    Grandpapa was silent until we pulled into the driveway. Then he asked, “Are you hungry?”
    â€œI guess,” I said.
    The house smelled like cooking, and I followed my grandfather into the kitchen. Elena was dishing out the stew my grandmother had talked about. She put a bowl on the kitchen table.
    â€œThank you, Elena,” Grandpapa said. “It was good of you to stay.”
    â€œHappy to do it,” she said. “Now eat.” She squeezed my shoulder as she put a glass of milk in front of me. “I’ll be off now,” she said as she hung her apron in the closet.
    Grandpapa sat down and stared tiredly at the wall. The giant clock over the stove ticked off the seconds. When I had eaten as much as I could, I asked if I could go to my room. He just nodded.
    It was like living in a morgue. A morgue is a place where they take dead bodies. I know about morgues because my father used to tell my mother and me stories at the dinner table about taking people there in his taxi. In downtown Toronto, there are lots of accidents, and people need help going to the hospital or to the morgue. My mother used to tell my father that this was a grisly subject for the dinner table, but my father always said that dying was part of living and we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it. My mother would roll her eyes, and then we’d have another big discussion about the differences between what my father believed and what my mother believed. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I thought of my mother’s face twitching in her hospital bedroom.
    I decided I would go to visit my mother every day and talk and talk. I would tell her about Ethelberta Jarvis and how I had met Grandpapa and Grandmama. She would think it was funny, and she would want to tell me so many things that she would come back from the strange land she was in and everything would be all right.
    I heard voices. Grandmama had come back from the hospital. I crept down the stairs. They had moved into the den. My grandmother was sipping tea from a china cup. She placed it into her saucer and drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair.
    â€œShe can’t go back there, Richard. I won’t have it,” she said.
    My grandfather stared into the flickering flame in the fireplace. “I think it might be good for Alice, Emily.”
    â€œNo! I agreed you could take her there today, but that’s the end of it. You can’t subject our daughter to any more stress.”
    â€œDr. Maluk said it is helpful for coma patients to hear the voices of people they love.”
    â€œOur daughter wouldn’t want anyone to see her like that!”
    â€œEmily, Emily. Colette is her daughter. She has a right.”
    â€œShe has no rights! She is a child, and she will do what we tell her. Look what happened to Alice. Did your permissive attitudes help her? No! You were the one who agreed to let her go to art school. You supported her crazy idea of working in that neighborhood where she was exposed to all those street people and foreigners! And then when she married that man, you refused to stop her! You always took her side against me. Now you are doing the same thing with Colette, and I won’t stand for it, Richard! I won’t stand for it, do you understand me?”
    My grandfather ran his hands over his face and stared at the fire.
    â€œSo while she’s in this house, she will do what I tell her to do, Richard,” my grandmother said. She leaned forward and stared at him until he looked away from the