Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

“No!”

“Shsh. We can’t keep it.”

“We could bury it.”

Frances considers…. “In the garden.”

Frances and Lily are crouched in the garden, working by the cautious light of a candle stub. The Virgin Mary is in Lily’s pocket. Together they manage to dislodge the big rock — a catastrophe for a whole community of soft-shell creatures that go scrambling in all directions. Lily marvels at how they all managed to thrive under that rock without being crushed by it:

“For them the rock is the sky.”

“Come on, Lily, we haven’t got all night.”

Even though Mercedes is the gardener of the family, she is unlikely to go digging under the rock, so the garden is actually quite a good hiding-place. Daddy put the boulder in this spot, “the year he decided to make it a rock garden,” says Frances. “Up to then there was a scarecrow, but one night it pulled itself out of the ground and walked away.”

Lily pauses and looks at Frances, but Frances is calmly digging with a spoon, not using a spooky voice or anything.

“Nobody knows where it went. Maybe it’ll come back and visit us someday if you’re lucky, Lily. Anyhow, Daddy never made the rock garden because Mumma died around that time and he didn’t have the heart to continue.”

“Around the time that I was born, eh.”

“That’s right. You and Ambrose.”

“Frances, you said Ambrose was just a story.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Frances, don’t!”

“Don’t be a baby Lily, jeez, you’re so easy to scare.”

“He was just a story, Frances,”

“All right Lily, he was just a story.”

“He was, Frances!”

“Lily, you think what you want to think and I’ll think what I want to think. And if you’re not mature enough to help me here then we’ll just burn your stupid drawing in the furnace and Daddy will know about it, is that what you want?”

“No.”

“Then quit whining about Ambrose, he was just a story.”

Silence. Lily, satisfied, picks up a spoon and digs obediently.

Frances grins; “No he wasn’t.”

Lily controls herself and manages not to respond. Frances starts laughing. They keep digging. Frances calls softly, “A-a-ambro-o-ose…. Ambro-o-ose, Lily wants you-ou-ou.”

Giddy gales of laughter. Prickly lights in her eyes and the little white stripe. Frances rolls over in the dirt and shakes her hands and feet in the air like a dog and giggles demonically. The only thing to do when Frances gets like this is to ignore her until it wears off, otherwise you make it worse. Lily just keeps digging.

“That’s deep enough.” Frances is suddenly back in command. “We don’t want to dig up the bones of the orange cat.”

Lily draws back. She had forgotten about the cat, now only inches below. Frances lays the scroll in the shallow hole. “Rest in pieces.”

Lily looks up sharply but it’s okay; apart from a gleam in her eye, Frances is safely this side of the verge.

They each toss in a handful of dirt, then bury the scroll and roll the rock back into place. A perfect job. Just place these loose bits of dry corn husks around its base and no one could ever tell in a million years.

“Okay Lily, go on inside now, I’ll be right there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to say a little prayer.”

Lily obeys. Out of the garden and onto the little foot-bridge over the creek in her steady uneven gait and whap , she catches a dirtball right in the back of the head. She turns. Frances is doubled over in the centre of the garden. She’s off again. Oh no.

“Frances, come on. Someone will see you.”

Frances runs in a crazy limp out of the garden, down the bank and right straight splash through the creek, waving her arms, doing her impression of Lily — “Fwances come on, come on Fwances!” laughing, limping all the way back to the house. Lily follows slowly. Frances can’t help it, Lily knows that. She just hopes Daddy hasn’t heard them out at this hour. Because if he has, Frances will get a good talking-to. And there won’t be anything Lily can do about it, except to bring her warm milk after and let her sleep with Raggedy-Lily-of-the-Valley.

But it’s all right. Daddy is out. He isn’t working, he just couldn’t sleep. He went for a walk and wound up at the graveyard, longing for a drink. He drank salt air instead. Now at dawn he turns homeward, listening for the sound of pit boots along Plummer Avenue, expecting to hear the mine whistle. Then he remembers the strike. For no reason his throat tightens. His eyes sting but he isn’t going to cry, there isn’t time. He wants to be home when his girls wake up.

“Here, Daddy.”

Breakfast. It’s a new day and the night is gone and I’m here with my girls. “Thank you, Mercedes. Eat up, Frances.”

“I’m not hungry, Daddy.”

“Eat.”

Frances skims her porridge. It’s still hot underneath but the surface has congealed to a thin skin and a few viscous strands cling to the end of her spoon.

“Don’t play with your food.”

“It’s cold.”

Daddy gestures to Mercedes, who adds another steaming spoonful to Frances’s bowl. Frances grimaces.

“Men in the trenches would have given an arm for what you’re turning your nose up at.”

Frances pictures the severed arm. She sees an apple-cheeked young Tommy; he smilingly detaches one of his arms, sleeve and all, and says in a fetching cockney accent, “No ’arm done mate, can Oy ’ave yo’ gruel now?” Don’t laugh. Just stare down into the glistening grey muck. There are dead men under there.

“I said eat.”

Frances places her spoon in her mouth. Snot.

“Swallow it.”

Who will save Frances? Lily is eating every bite of her own porridge, little brat. Is there any way to sneak some into her bowl? Will Mercedes intervene discreetly? Frances racks her brains for a diversion. She knows her throat will not open again. It will gag and she’ll spew and Daddy will —

“Answer your sister.”

“What?”

Mercedes quietly repeats, “Are you all right, Frances?”

“Yes thanks, it’s really good, Mercedes.”

Who will save Frances?

“That godforsaken cat is in your garden again, Mercedes.”

“That’s okay, Daddy.”

“It’s digging.” He sets down his spoon, “We shouldn’t eat a thing from that garden with that animal around.”

“Trixie never relieves herself there, Daddy.”

Everyone turns and sees Trixie out the window, her tail bobbing around the rock. James tolerates Frances’s cat because Lily is attached to the thing. But he is running out of patience, already composing a kind lie about how Trixie had a long and happy life but cats sometimes just run away. He gets up from the table.

Frances watches him head for the back door — oh thank God, thank Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints, I will never sin again — she waits till he’s halfway across the yard, then jumps up and empties her bowl into the garbage by the stove. Mercedes doesn’t comment, but Lily looks suddenly worried.

“Relax Lily, he’ll never know,” says Frances.

But Lily isn’t worried about the porridge. She’s been watching Daddy bending over the rock in the garden.

He comes back into the kitchen, but does not sit down. He stands at the head of the table with his arms folded and asks quietly, “Who moved the rock?”

Frances feels sick. She knows now that life was easy when there was just porridge. Lily turns bright red.

“I did, Daddy.” Nice try, Lily.

Daddy strokes her hair. Mercedes is at a loss — if she knew what Frances’s crime was, perhaps she could — “Perhaps I dislodged it while gardening, Daddy.” That was pretty lame.