Michael Rowe - Enter, Night

Adeline Parr heardthe sound of wheels on the gravel below her bedroom window and thought: Now it begins . She sighed. I hope it’s not all too awfully unpleasant .

She stared intently into the bevelled mirror of the nineteenth century Biedermeier burlwood dressing table at which she sat and took her own measure in the glass. The result was pleasing, if slightly severe, and it suited her purposes admirably. She adjusted her pearls, and then took a piece of tissue paper from the enamelled box and expertly blotted the lipstick on her bottom lip till it, too, was flawless. By habit, she glanced at the silver-framed photograph of her dead husband and smiled at it as though waiting for Augustus Parr to tell her how beautiful she still was.

Her gold Piaget watch read eleven-thirty. She sighed again. Adeline stood up and smoothed her dark grey skirt, crossed the floor of the bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Then she went downstairs to greet the adventuress who had stolen and murdered her favourite son; her bastard granddaughter; and her great mistake of a second son.

The smile Adeline had been practisingfroze on her face when she first laid eyes on Morgan, hanging shyly behind her common slut of a mother, in the doorway of Parr House.

Adeline barely registered Christina, but she felt her heart might stop when she saw Jack’s face staring back at her. Jack’s face, except it was the open and trusting face of a young girl, with none of the rage Jack had shown Adeline before he left. The girl’s hair was the same as Jack’s- thick and dark brown, with caramel highlights when the light hit it just so. Her eyes were the same as Jack’s, too: dark brown, almost-black irises with pupils like dark pools.

“Welcome, Morgan,” she said. “I’m your grandmother, Adeline Parr. It’s nice to meet you.”

Adeline extended her hand and Morgan shook it politely. Under other circumstances, she would have been delighted to see that the girl had been inculcated with some measure of good manners, but she was still privately reeling from the shock of meeting the ghost of her eldest son. The girl’s skin was lighter than Jack’s but more like Adeline’s own, which she knew would please her when she recovered.

“It’s nice to meet you, too… Grandmother.”

For Morgan, there was an edge of a question in the way she said it, as though she were uncertain-not about who Adeline was, but what to call her. Certainly nothing in Adeline’s severe elegance inspired cuddly appellatives like “granny” or “grandma,” nor had stories about Adeline been any significant part of Morgan’s childhood mythology, apart from the odd cryptic reference by one of her parents.

“Yes, you may call me Grandmother,” Adeline said, smiling graciously as though she were bestowing a great favour on Morgan. “I dislike diminutives, especially when addressing one’s elders.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, yes, Grandmother.”

Adeline smiled down at Morgan again, then looked past Christina, whom she still hadn’t greeted, to where Jeremy hung back behind them in the doorway.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Behold the prodigal son returns,” Adeline said. Her expression was neutral. “That’s Luke 15:11-32, son. I trust that, even given your lifestyle, you haven’t entirely forgotten the word of God?”

“Have you been rehearsing that for the last ten years, Mother? Or did it just spring to mind when you saw me?” Adeline’s eyes shifted quickly to Morgan, then back at her son. “I wouldn’t expect you to say something as simple as ‘welcome home,’ but still-The Bible? Luke? My ‘lifestyle’? Before I even cross the threshold?”

“Don’t be insolent, Jeremy. I won’t have it. You’re not back in Toronto .”

She spat out the word Toronto as though it were foulness-the way a religious fanatic might have said Babylon or Sodom . “You’re in my house, in the town founded by your ancestors on a site made holy with the blood of Catholic martyrs. You can behave and show me respect, otherwise you needn’t cross the threshold at all.”

“I’m not seventeen anymore, Mother,” Jeremy said. “I’m almost thirty. It’s been a while since I’ve been susceptible to that tone of voice, or those phrases.” He met his mother’s eyes evenly. “It’s been a very long drive and we’re very tired, especially Morgan. Shall I bring our bags in from the car, or should we drive down to the village and see if the Gold Nugget motel is open at this hour? I’d rather not start the talk in town about us being back by signing my name-the Parr name-in a motel register at this hour, especially not for three of us. But I will if that’s what you’d prefer we do. It’s your call, Mother.”

Thwarted fury passed across Adeline’s face like summer lightning, but too quickly for anyone but Jeremy to have seen it, and he only noticed because he’d seen it before and recognized it for what it was. Jeremy had played the one card he always had at his disposal-Adeline’s particular personal horror of scandal. The threat of exposing their clandestine return-the slut who’d gotten knocked up by Jack Parr, then married him; the faggot; the illegitimate daughter-to public discourse was a powerful one. Adeline’s face was very pale, and two spots of colour had appeared high on the ridge of her cheekbones. But the neutrality of her expression hadn’t changed.

“Quite,” Adeline said, calmly. “Welcome home. You’re most welcome, all of you.”

“Mrs. Parr-” Christina began.

“Morgan?” Adeline said, cutting Christina off in mid-sentence, turning instead to her granddaughter. “Why don’t you help your Uncle Jeremy with the suitcases? I have a nice room prepared for you upstairs. It’s very pretty. I think you’ll like it. And you must be tired. It has a canopy bed. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes, Grandmother.” There was an unfamiliar impressed awe in Morgan’s voice that chilled Christina to the core. “I’ve seen pictures of one. They’re beautiful.”

Adeline laughed, a silvery hostess laugh. “Well, hurry up and get your bags out of your car and you can see your bed, darling. Uncle Jeremy can show you the way.” She turned to her son. “Morgan will be in the east wing. In the yellow room, Jeremy. You’ll have your old room, of course.

We’ll put dear Christina next to Morgan. Everything has been prepared.” When Jeremy and Morgan had gone out to the car, Christina turned to Adeline. “Mrs. Parr, thank you so much for taking us in. As you can imagine, it’s been a very difficult time for all of us, especially Morgan.”

“Christina, please listen carefully to what I am about to tell you,” Adeline said coldly. “I will only say it once, and then we will never have this conversation again. Let me be perfectly plain: taking you and Morgan into my home is an act of charity, one I’m very happy to extend. She is, after all, my granddaughter-my eldest son’s child, and very likely the end of our family line. What you and Jack did was unforgivable, and I do not-and will never-forgive either of you for it. You took my son away from me, and now he’s dead.” Adeline paused, composing herself.

“That said,” she continued implacably, “as my son is dead, I can only do one thing-the right thing. And that is to take you into my home and extend to you all the privileges of a daughter-in-law, if only for Morgan’s sake. You will live here at Parr House as long as you need to. Morgan has already been enrolled in the town high school, and instructions have been given to the administration that any harassment of her based on any… past questionable history involving her birth, Jack’s death, or Jeremy’s perversion, is to be dealt with immediately and harshly. When she has graduated, I shall see to it that her university tuition is paid for and that she is properly prepared for life in the way that you ensured my son, Jack, would never be when you got pregnant and ruined his life.”