Pages for Her by Sylvia Brownrigg

Author:Sylvia Brownrigg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2017-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

15

‘Oh, Pellegrino. Perfect.’

Tricia had been sober for several years now, having by her own account turned into one of those ‘weepy winos’ during her first post-divorce stretch of single motherhood and precarious finances. Her work and home life had settled since, and if Tricia was too proselytizing about AA for Anne’s taste, clearly it had helped stabilize her, and would prevent the alcoholic viciousness that had sometimes soured the sisters’ time together in the past. It also meant Anne would be drinking alone, a melancholy prospect.

‘At least I had a clean T-shirt in my carry-on, so I feel like a human being,’ Tricia said, and, showered and refreshed, she did look more herself. ‘Honestly, I haven’t traveled in a while, I’m out of practice.’

They settled on two cast-iron chairs that occupied nearly the entirety of the bathmat-sized balcony, from which they had their view of Venice: a murky green lapping diagonal of their nearest canal, below a collage of taupe and terracotta rooftops and variously sized sky-shaded domes.

‘I’ve counted eleven different churches here named for Santa Maria.’ Anne sipped an Aperol, her free hand resting on the guidebook she had been reading. ‘Her mercy, her rosary, her visitation. Her health.’

‘Dad’s favorite lady.’ Tricia sighed. ‘She was his great comfort.’

‘More than our mother was.’

‘That’s for sure.’

Santa Maria had without doubt helped Frank Arden to tolerate, or at least endure, over five decades of marriage to a bitterly dutiful wife who yearned to return to France, and possibly someone she had known there.

‘That wooden Virgin he kept in his room . . .’ The couple had not shared a bed for as long as either sister could remember, though for years Frank continued to refer to where he slept as ‘the spare room’. ‘He prayed to her daily.’

‘I remember her,’ Anne said. The Madonna had been modeled after the figure in Lourdes, a subdued saint, her head down and her hands pressed together in symmetry. ‘I helped drive her over when we moved him to the facility.’

‘Yeah,’ Tricia confirmed. ‘Mary, clothes, a few books — that was pretty much it.’

‘And the Chopin sheet music. Though I doubt he played.’

It was one of the coinages of families, economical means of summarizing previous arguments. I tried to be there for our father. It was only our mother’s care that I left up to you. I couldn’t be part of that. ‘He traveled light, when he left their house.’

‘Can’t blame him. He left Chère Irène to deal with all the boxes of photographs and letters. Not that she ever did. We’ll have to sort through them.’

‘Chère Irène! God. I’d almost forgotten about that.’ Anne shook her head.

‘Really?’ Tricia’s gray eyes had a cool skepticism much like Anne’s own. ‘Come on.’

‘Well,’ Anne said, truthfully, ‘I have tried to bury most of those occasions when’ — she searched for the right euphemism — ‘our mother had a heavy hand.’

They were children at the time — Tricia was eight and Anne twelve — and up in the cluttered attic they rummaged like squirrels, making a nest amongst the boxes.

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