The Taste of Ashes by Sheila Peters

Author:Sheila Peters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-894759-93-9
Publisher: Caitlin Press
Published: 2012-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

13

Isabel stood at Alice’s back door, afraid to knock. She gazed out across the brown fields, frozen hard and mean. It was a strange winter. After a few December flurries, the snow had all blown away leaving the whole valley stunned by the first green Christmas in memory. Except it wasn’t green. It was eight-hour days of brown and grey and sixteen-hour cloudy starless nights. It was going to be hell on her perennials.

The wind finally drove her inside. She opened the door and called out. A muffled hello came from the kitchen. Isabel shook off her jacket in a heap on the bench in the mudroom, stepped out of her boots, and drew a deep breath before opening that door. She was terrified.

Isabel Lee didn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. The New Year’s Eve her mother died, Isabel had been at a teenage party, a staggering drunk sixteen-year-old. When they called her to the hospital, she was afraid to go near her mother for fear she’d smell the booze. Afraid to say goodbye and then it was too late. The next year, married and pregnant with Jason, Isabel had sent her teenage husband out to party while she sat in the living room of their tiny apartment and talked to the photo of her mom hung on the kitchen wall. Told her what a fool her daughter was for getting into this pickle.

Instead of getting dressed up and drinking, she cleaned up and stayed sober. No matter what. She’d sit the kids down on New Year’s Eve day and they’d sort out their unfinished business before the new year began. Quiet apologies, lies confessed, projects finished or officially abandoned. The neighbourhood dogs did well with the freezer-burnt fish and the neighbourhood kids got outgrown toys. They’d clean the house and take down the Christmas tree. They’d cook hot dogs over the bonfire they made of it in the backyard, Isabel would cut their hair and they’d end the year bathed, brushed, and clear-eyed. As the clock ticked toward midnight, they’d talk to Grandma’s picture, telling her about the fish they’d caught or the races they’d won. The new friend at school. Janna drew pictures and tacked them to the wall beside the photo. The grandmother who was younger when she died than Isabel was now.

“Isabel!” Alice stood in the open door, hair tied back and hands white with flour. The front of her Christmas apron was dusted white. “How’d you get here?”

Her stomach churning, Isabel grasped her aunt by the shoulders and kissed her once on each cheek. “Alejandro lent me his car,” she said, shivering. “Its heater isn’t working very well.”

Clucking like a banty hen, Alice pulled her into the kitchen where a kettle steamed on the big old wood range and the south window caught the faint glow of sun behind the high clouds. She sat her at the table and prattled on about how she was finishing up some last pies for the New Year’s dance

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