Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

Frances dances on, high kicking into Offenbach, singing in a Scottish accent, “Can, can you do the cancan, can you do the cancan” — accelerating — canyoudothecancancanyoudothecancan —”

Lily has collapsed at the bottom of the attic stairs, beside herself with giggles, trying not to pee; Mercedes starts to succumb in spite of herself —

“What’s all the commotion up there?” It’s Daddy on the first step.

Mercedes snaps to the banister and calls down, “Nothing, Daddy, we’re coming.” She hurries down the stairs, heading him off, “Supper’s ready when you are, Daddy,” while Frances undoes the leather straps of the heavy steel brace and gives it back to Lily.

They say grace around the kitchen table, “Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive through Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, amen.” Frances adds, “Inshallah.”

James eyes her and shakes his head slightly. Lily grins behind her napkin. Mercedes serves.

“Mmmm,” says Frances, “leather and onions.”

Clip to the ear from Daddy, she earned that one. Let’s all just ignore her.

“These carrots are from our own garden, Daddy,” says Mercedes.

James had let the garden go to seed, but Mercedes resurrected it last year because she knows how much it meant to him at one time. Before all the sad things happened. She is very proud of the scrawny carrots and strange potatoes it produces and she always announces the fact that the family is being nourished by the bounty of their own backyard. James nods, gives her his faint distant smile and goes on eating. Frances, however, experiences difficulty.

Eat. Chew, chew, chew, offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory. Frances has difficulty getting through a whole meal at the best of times — maybe if I smuggle the liver into my pockets bite by bite — I know, tonight while everyone’s asleep I’ll glue a big envelope to the underside of my chair so that from now on —

“Eat,” James tells her.

Lily’s forehead has puckered, there are tears in her eyes, but she eats bravely on.

“It’s all right, old buddy, you don’t have to finish it,” says James.

Lily looks to Mercedes, hating to hurt her feelings. “That’s okay, it’s delicious. Thank you Mercedes.”

James smiles mature complicity at Mercedes, who forms a smile in return and removes Lily’s plate, saying in her kind voice, “Lily, would you like a toasted cheese?”

“Yes please, Mercedes.”

“Atta girl,” says James.

“I could use a filet mignon, personally,” says Frances.

James shoots her a look — she’ll feel the back of his hand in a minute.

He turns to Lily and tugs one of her braids. So like her mother, her mother’s lovely mouth and perfect nose, her eyes. So like Kathleen but for the blight. That only makes her more precious to me. In the right way.

Lily doesn’t know whom she looks like. She knows she had a sister who died, and Mumma died of a broken heart right after, and Daddy loves us very much.

James strokes Lily’s sweet head and she caresses Daddy’s hand with her cheek. The hand turns into a spider and tickles her under the ear; she wriggles and squeals and makes him stop with a little kiss. Lily senses that Mercedes disapproves, probably thinks she’s too old for this game, but Lily can’t imagine ever being too old to play with Daddy. She never wants to get that old.

On the whole James is satisfied with his life, and in some ways very happy. Mercedes is a pillar. And Lily is precious. They make up for Frances. “How was school today?” he asks her.

“Great, we looked at a bunch of fossils and spent the whole day on Jane Eyre.” Which is true, Frances did look at fossils; she spent the day at the shore, reading and skipping rocks.

James looks at her and in the silence Frances feels a little prickly, but takes another bite of liver. Mercedes waits by the stove. She will leave it till later to reprove Frances for borrowing her book without permission. For now she watches Daddy. Will he drop the subject? James opens his mouth but Mercedes chirps, “Daddy, you’ll never guess what happened today,” placing the toasted cheese before Lily and resuming her seat. “Ronald Chism’s pet frog escaped from the pocket of his trousers.”

“What happened?” asks Lily, all ears.

“Well, the errant frog was nowhere to be found until Sister Saint Agnes started from her chair and the creature leapt from behind the hem of her habit, to the great amusement of the class and the consternation of Sister Saint Agnes.”

James chuckles politely, Frances yawns audibly.

James returns his attention to his plate and Mercedes breathes again. She ponders Daddy’s love for Lily. And his anger at Frances. She picks up her fork and feels lonely.

That night, Mercedes creeps into the room Frances shares with Lily and into bed next to her sisters, and whispers, “Frances… are you awake?”

“No, I’m talking in my sleep.”

“You have to come to school tomorrow.”

“‘Oh Daddy, ‘twas so-o amusing, Mistah Froggy was moast impehtinent, methought he would leap right up the dingy crack of Sister Saint Agnarse.’”

“Frances!”

“You’re laughing.”

“I am not.” Mercedes laughs silently into the pillow for a while. Finally she collects herself, wipes away tears and, “Frances?”

“What?”

“Promise me you’ll come to school tomorrow.”

“What for?”

“Sister Saint Eustace will have to get the truant officer after you and he’ll tell Daddy.”

“So what? We could use a little excitement around this joint.”

“Frances, please.”

“All right, all right.” Frances rolls over and starts snoring.

“Frances, can I sleep here tonight?”

“I don’t care.”

“Thanks.” Mercedes snuggles in, tucking Frances’s always icy feet between her own.

“Aa’di aa’e’ley, Habibti .”

“Don’t worry, Mercedes.”

“Te’berini.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Goodnight, Frances. I love you.”

“Barf.”

Mercedes giggles and falls asleep.

James is doing well off the Nova Scotia Temperance Act. He’s doing even better off the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as Prohibition. Frances doesn’t know it for a fact but she suspects. In Our Lady of Mount Carmel schoolyard, two brothers, both named Cornelius in case one dies, flung the truth at her. “Your old man’s nothing but a bootlegger!” Frances retorted, “Oh yeah? Well your old man’s a silly bitch!” They came after her but she ran, and no one can catch Frances on the run.

Frances has already learned that boys and fishermen have a richer vocabulary than girls and nuns — even if she’s not always sure of the exact meaning of the powerful words she likes to use. She knew she wouldn’t find “bootlegger” in the dictionary, any more than she had been able to find a satisfactory entry for “bugger,” so she went to Mr MacIsaac. His red face split in a grin, he wheezed out his laugh like a busted accordion and told her what it meant, quick to add, “But your Daddy’s not a bootlegger, lass, where’d you get that idea?”

Frances figured Mr MacIsaac was just saying that to be nice. Either that or he’s stupid. Why else does he fail to notice how sticky her fingers get whenever she passes the bin of cinnamon hearts and jellybeans? Frances let Mercedes in on her theory about the true nature of Daddy’s work, but Mercedes just said “silly nonsense”.

James is a bootlegger. When he works, he works at night. He leaves the house around eleven o’clock and locks the girls inside. He lights a lantern in the shed, where his cobbling tools sit gathering dust. Then he leaves the shed too and locks the door. He drives away, leaving the light to burn all night in the window.