Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

“Hello. Miss Piper?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know me, although we actually have the same name, I knew your sister, Miss Mercedes Piper. My name is Anthony Piper.”

Lily looks at the young man. Rose doesn’t take her eyes off Topo Gigio while growling out the side of her mouth, “Someone cack and leave us money?”

“I, no, I don’t think so, heh.”

“Then go away.”

Eddie, kees me goodnight .

Lily says to him, “Aloysius.”

Anthony says, “I beg your pardon?” convinced now of his mistake, wrong apartment, a senile old couple, ancient smell of cabbage….

Lily says, “Come in.”

He says, “You are Lily Piper?”

“That’s right.”

“In or out, make a decision,” Rose is beginning to enjoy herself.

He steps in. What a day. His first time in New York City. Subway to the black metropolis so strange and familiar, he belongs everywhere and nowhere. Anthony has experienced the feeling before — no matter where he is, there is something about people’s struggles to keep their memories that bruises his heart, because it’s too soft too break. The world is his orphanage. Why he should feel so sorry for the other people on the planet is a mystery to him. He’s actually a very happy person. It’s just that he doesn’t know there’s a difference between love and empathy, nor does he question why he should be overcome so frequently with nostalgia for times and places not his own. He can’t see differences. Only variety. He travels well.

The soft heart feeds a wire frame that is never still. He plays spoons, fiddle, mouth harp, and is learning the bones from a man called Wild Archie — odd, Archie came out of an orphanage too — whom he met at the Cape Breton Club in Halifax. Anthony is wearing desert boots, white jeans, a black turtleneck and an Afro. Slim and eager, a bright penny. Green lights in his hazel eyes.

“You grew up to be happy,” says Lily.

He looks at her more closely, not trusting his sense that he’s met her before, which happens to him so often. As does the reverse. So familiar.

“I guess you must know,” he says carefully, “Miss Piper passed away. Quite recently.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

Lily mourned Frances long ago, on the night she left, but she never imagined Mercedes dying, although she has prayed for her soul every night.

“I’m sorry,” he hands Lily his handkerchief.

“That’s all right … she was my sister….”

“I don’t know what you’re blubbering for,” snarks Rose, “she tried to have you extradited.”

“Exorcized.”

Where am I, thinks Anthony, and who are these people?

Lily blows her nose, “Aloysius, did you know Frances? Did Frances ever get to see you?”

“Actually, my name is Anthony. Um — Frances who?”

“What do you do for a living, Tony?” Rose probing for a percentage.

“I’m a musician —”

“Shit,” shifting back to the TV.

“— and I teach ethnomusicology.”

Rose turns up the volume. Another damn rock ’n’ roll band from England.

Anthony is not giving up. “I should explain that Miss Piper more or less adopted me from afar, if you know what I mean, and when she died she left me her house, and she asked me to —”

“Any money?” Rose’s last attempt.

“No. I think she spent all her money on me. I don’t know why. She was a nice lady.”

“Our Lady of Lourdes,” says Lily.

Our Lady of Loonies, thinks Anthony, instantly contrite, can’t help the things that pop into his head, his love of humanity notwithstanding.

“The cocoa tin,” says Lily.

Cuckoo, thinks Anthony. Then he remembers his errand. He opens his knapsack and takes out a sealed cardboard tube. “When Miss Piper died, she left me a note with your name and address, and instructions for me to give you this personally.”

He hands the tube to Lily. She breaks the seal at one end and withdraws a paper scroll. She spreads it out on the table.

Anthony asks, “What is it?”

“It’s the family tree,” Lily says. “Look. We’re all in it.”

Rose flicks off the TV, scuffs over on her dilapidated slippers, fishes for her glasses.

“See?” Lily tells Anthony. “You have quite a few brothers and sisters. Your father’s still alive, although, oh that’s too bad, your stepmother Adelaide is gone.”

“‘Leo (Ginger) Taylor,’” he reads aloud.

“That’s your father, dear. And your Aunt Teresa too, she’s still living according to this — and look, you have a cousin too. ‘Adele Claire’.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There you are, there.”

Lily points to the issue of Frances Euphrasia and Leo (Ginger). Sprouting from the union of their branches is his name in green ink, “Anthony (Aloysius)”.

Ambrose is there too, twinned with Lily, and under his name the words “died at birth”. Brother and sister hang by a twig from a branch that joins James to Kathleen. Rose looks at Lily. But Lily just folds her hands.

Next to Kathleen, an “equals” sign joins her name to Rose’s. Rose takes off her glasses.

It could be the stale air, the reeling sense of the familiar awash with the foreign, the ocean finally giving up her dead — Anthony is suddenly seasick.

“Sit down,” says Lily.

He drops to his haunches and puts his head between his knees. Lily gets a cool wet cloth from the kitchen and places it on the back of his neck.

“Breathe,” she says.

He does.

That’s better.

“What the hell is ethnomusicology?” Rose wanders off to the piano.

Anthony stands up carefully. “Sorry —”

“Here, dear,” says Lily, “sit down and have a cuppa tea till I tell you about your mother.”

THE END

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an inadvertent omission or error, please notify the publisher.

Ambrose, Sister Mary, O.P., “For A Happy Death,” from My Gift To Jesus , copyright © 1929 by Adrian Dominican Sisters. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

Baum, Bernie, and Stephan Weiss, “Music! Music! Music!” copyright © 1949 (renewed) 1950 (renewed) by Cromwell Music, Inc., New York and Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Los Angeles, California. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the Richmond Org. (TRO).

Florence, Nellie, “Jacksonville Blues,” copyright © by Enterprise Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

Grainger, P., and E. Robbins, “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business (If I Do),” copyright © 1922, 1949, 1960 by MCA Music Publishing, a division of MCA, Inc. All Rights reserved. Used by Permission. Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured.

Lashley, Clarence, “Sly Mongoose,” from Cape Breton’s Magazine , no. 18, copyright © 1977 by Ronald Caplan. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Ledbetter, Huddie, and John A. Lomax, “Goodnight, Irene,” copyright © 1936 (renewed) 1950 (renewed) by Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, NY. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the Richmond Org. (TRO).

Mercer, Johnny, and Harry Warren, “Jeepers Creepers,” copyright © 1938 (renewed) by Warner Bros., Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S., Inc.

Montrose, Percy, “Oh, My Darling Clementine,” copyright © 1884.

Paton, John Glenn, VACCAI: Practical Method of Italian Singing (for Mezzo-Soprano [Alto] or Baritone, vol. 1910 , copyright © 1975 by G. Schirmer, Inc. (ASCAP) International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of Music Sales Corp.