Authors: Irene N.Watts

When the Bough Breaks (14 page)

BOOK: When the Bough Breaks

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To make the quilt, we used scraps of red and blue and white diamond shapes, cut from remnants of old sheets, shirts, and blouses. Mother made a big white star for the center. Eddie loves bright colors. When he is older, I can tell him where all the patches came from. I'll say, “Look Eddie, this piece is from Mother's apron, and this one is made from the sleeve of Father's Sunday shirt….”

Breathing in the scent of lavender reminds me of Mother … how we talked and planned for the baby as we sewed. I sit back on my heels on the floor and think of the afternoon when Mother was sitting just the way I am now; of that awful day when Mrs. Bates read the tea leaves. A shiver goes down my back. I've tried hard to put the woman out of my mind, but every now and then, something like this brings everything back.

Father told us that the magistrate had ordered Mrs. Bates to a special hospital in Toronto. “Don't think about her anymore, Millie,” he said, and I do try not to.

Before I shut the lid of the trunk, I smooth the next blanket and there's a rustling between the folds. I pull out an envelope – my name is on the front and I recognize Mother's handwriting. I draw out a letter, and an old five-dollar bill falls onto my lap.
Five whole dollars?
I read:

July 1, 1935
(Mother must have written this the day before her death.)

Dear Millie:

Here I am, sitting up in bed, looking out at the branches of the apple tree, heavy with fruit. I'm thinking about all the jellies and jams and pies you and I will make in a week or so. Tomorrow Eddie will be three days old, and I shall be up and about once more.

Who knows when I will have a lovely lazy time like this again? I am going to use it to write you a
birthday letter, now, while the baby is asleep and you are busy downstairs, taking care of everything.

I feel blessed to have a daughter like you, and grateful for all the extra chores you do so willingly. When I finish writing this, I mean to hide the letter in the trunk, to give to you on your thirteenth birthday. I can't wait to see your face when you receive your gift. This five-dollar bill is for you, to do with as you wish: to spend or save or even give away. Take it with my love.

There is a story attached to this money. You love stories, Millie, and you have had so little time lately to sit and read. When I was about your age, a year older perhaps, I was hired by a kind lady to take care of her baby daughter, and that five dollars back in 1909 was my very first month's wages. The first wages I had ever earned.

Somehow, I never found an occasion important enough to spend the money on, until now. Often I was tempted, but when I thought about it, it didn't seem urgent enough, or the right time. Your birthday is the right time….

On the day that we were shelling peas, you asked me something. I should have answered more truthfully. Somehow I kept putting off telling you, until now. You asked if I had lived in an orphanage and I said no. It's true the cottage in which I lived looked beautiful, but it was still an orphanage – never a real home.

Your grandmother, my mother Helen, was a maid in a big house. No one was allowed to know she had a little girl – I was her secret. She had to board me out and come to see me when she could. I never told Helen how cruel the woman was to the children in her care, but I lived for those outings with her. She showed me there is always something better waiting for us if we look for it, something to laugh and sing about. Once we danced in the street, can you imagine?

“Yes, I can Mother,” I tell her, as though she can hear me, and maybe she is listening. “I can see you looking up into Grandmother's face, and holding her hands.”

When I was twelve years old, I was one of Dr Barnado's orphans, a Home Child, sent to Canada. I was foolish to keep this a secret from you – it was nothing to be ashamed of, but people made us feel ashamed because we were poor and unwanted. I grew up dreading to hear the words “Home girl.”

Millie, my life has been a good and happy one, with Father and you and Hamish and our new baby, and long before that, with the kind family for whom I worked as a nursemaid.

My birthday wish is that you will be happy too. That is what Father and I wish with all our hearts.

From your loving mother

I sit on the floor, and rest my head against the trunk, reading my letter over and over again. It is almost as good as having a long talk with Mother, the way we used to.

When I go to bed, I put the letter under my pillow – words from Mother to me, words for me to keep forever. The scent of lavender fills my room, and I sense that Mother is near. She will always be a part of our family, sharing our lives, watching over us. I close my eyes and imagine I hear her humming.

The End

Published in Canada by Tundra Books,
75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,
P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006940102

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced,
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system,
without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of
photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Watts, Irene N, 1931–
When the bough breaks / Irene N. Watts.

Companion vol. to Flower.

eISBN: 978-1-77049-026-0

I. Title.

PS8595.A873W44 2007 jC813′.54 C2006-906813-5

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP)
and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media
Development Corporation's Ontario Book Initiative.
We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the
Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.