Free Burden of Memory by Vicki Delany Page B

class, I was. I do know the more sordid facts of life. But my father did not abuse me in any way, physically, mentally, or sexually. In fact, my father didn’t even know I was there. He must have sometimes wondered why the dining room chair was speaking. I was not a boy, nor was I pretty or talented. Ergo, of no consequence.”
    “But you went on to do wonderful things. To get out in the world, and to make something of your life.”
    “I did, didn’t I? And how shocked they were when I told them I had decided to study for a nurse. My mother once again locked herself in her bedroom with her beloved gin and my father forbade me to even mention it again. I suspect that he had already lined up a junior partner to be my husband. My great-aunt died in 1935. She never married and had no children, and so she left us three girls a bit of money of our own. A wise woman, my aunt.
    “I was twenty-one years young. Old to go for a nurse in those days, but at last I had my own money, and all the wonderful freedom and independence it represented.”
    Elaine scribbled notes as fast as she could. The tape recorder whirled away. This was great. Better material than she had dared hope for. “Tell me about your grandparents, on your father’s side. I’ve seen their portraits in the stairway. Impressive.”
    “They are. My grandmother was a powerful influence on my life. My mother was somewhat…shall we say, uninvolved…in her children. She was happy to leave us to a succession of nursemaids and nannies. But Grandmother Elizabeth would step in and act as mother. Particularly over the summer when we were here, at the cottage. We weren’t quite as close when we were all in the city. We had our own house. Maeve lives there now. Megan and her husband have Augustus and Elizabeth’s home.
    “Grandmother Elizabeth was the only truly caring and loving adult I had in my childhood, other than a stream of nannies. I loved her dearly. She died when I was still in Europe, after the war.”
    Outside, Alan the gardener strolled past the big bay windows. A streak of mud ran down one side of his face and dead brown leaves were tangled in his hair. He carried a rake and shifted it to his left hand to wave cheerfully at the watching women.
    The voice drifted off. Elaine looked up, another question poised on her lips. Moira’s eyes were closed and her head bobbed. A touch of drool slipped out of the corner of her mouth. Elaine cleared her throat. She could see Alan clearing out dead brush from a flowerbed, his slim hips swaying lazily as he worked. Hamlet and Ophelia danced eagerly at his heels.
    Moira didn’t move and Elaine coughed again, trying to be discreet. The old woman started and shook her head, blinking her eyes back into consciousness.
    “I have more than enough for this morning,” Elaine said. “I’d like to start into your correspondence, if that’s okay?”
    “Oh, yes. Let me call Ruth. She’ll show you where we keep everything.” Moira pushed a button on the intercom. “I would come with you myself, if I could.” She shrugged and indicated the wheelchair. The gesture was tinged with so much hopelessness that Elaine felt tears prickling behind her eyes.
    “Bring anything down that you want to talk about. I’d love to see some of the old letters and pictures again. It’s been so long. But be warned. Nothing has been sorted. My mother merely stuffed correspondence into a pile and then tied everything up with a ribbon.”
    “I’ve been through worse. Believe me.”

Chapter Eight
    The winter of 1940-41 was harsh. Not harsh compared to February on the Prairies, or even a cold day in Toronto, but the nurses’ accommodations were, simply, freezing. Try as they might, women used to central heating or roaring fireplaces and thick clothing couldn’t get warm. Moira’s spirits fell with the thermometer and she wrote home, complaining of the cold and the damp. As fast as the mail could travel, her mother wrote back beseeching her