GENWiki

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LETTER TO LILLIAN

by Gay Bost

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Oh! Look! Mama! A tr-u-nk!" Childe bounced in exaggerated

abandon, fluffy tangles and curls, mop-top that might have been in eyelet and satin, rather than denim and little else. Childe had discarded sensible outfit after sensible outfit in favor of her brother's denim coveralls, no shirt, no shoes and no decorum at all.

"Hush. You'll wake the rest of them and I don't want sticky

boys before I've had a chance up here . . . in relative peace." Lil glanced meaningfully at Childe, wishing her to settle, softly, if at all possible. "Now, let's have a look. Open it."

"Oh! Mama!" Delighted, Childe pounced upon the slightly domed lid

of the old trunk, its wooden braces still structurally sound, metal hinges and attachments time pitted but unrusted. It would, more than likely, survive Childe's attentions.

Lil pulled a dubious looking chair from its canted exile and

tested the seat. She sat, gingerly, secretly smiling at Childe's attempts to free the locking mechanism. Slipping her hand into her apron pocket, noisily patting the key ring within to attract Childe's curiosity, she waited. Not long, the waiting, with this, her youngest issue and only daughter. Childe's bright eyes flashed with shared mischief, catching the mother at play. Like a wild kitten she leapt at Lil's lap, batting at the larger hand and claiming the rather large, old fashioned key ring.

"Wicked Mama!" Childe laughed, rattling the keys above her head,

dancing about the front of the trunk, bending industriously to the task at hand.

Lil had a momentary flash of hidden memory, an imposition of

short term over long. When the house had come to her at her estranged father's death she'd rejected, immediately, the idea of possessing it or anything it held. But the keys had come from the lawyer, boxed, quite ridiculously, as if they were a precious jewel, in a brass case shaped like a book. Copper strips bound the "book" as old school books had once been bound by leather straps. Two copper "buckles" the closure.

Then, as now, a face, framed by silken mahogany brown curls, wispy

as Childe's, had peered down at her. She shook her head, cleared ancient cobwebs from unseen corners, as she supposed she must, soon, in this attic.

"Mother!" Childe said, adult and perturbed at the ripe old age of

three-going-on-four, "You'll simply have to assist me."

"I think the smaller brass key, my love," she said.

Childe separated said key from the others and held it aloft,

quite suddenly the image of pained patience. Lil wrapped her fingers around the small hand and guided the key into the lock, her cheek brushing against Childe's hair. "Now . . ." the key fit snugly, turned as if thirty years of abandonment had never passed "so!" the latch popped loose. "Voila!" Lil lifted the lid and set it back on its hinges for Childe. "Carefully," she added in a whisper.

"And WHO does this trunk belong to?" Childe wanted to know --

now that the treasure had been breached, the lace and satin freed. Morning light mixed with silent melodies, dancing with attic dust in narrow beams which fell from window to floor, as if the opening of the trunk had somehow altered the quality of illumination.

"I think perhaps this attic will make a fine sewing room, once

it's had a good cleaning." Lil brushed a strand of her own honey brown hair away from her temple and looked about the room. "Yes, and perhaps a little girl will learn to be a little girl here." She had her doubts, well founded, but she could dream. Brothers coming before could alter a young lady's life before it had begun, especially if the young lady was, at three-going-on-four, already a match for boys of 5 and 7.

"Mama!"

Her attention demanded, Lil bent double over her own lap and

leaned her elbows on her knees, peering into the trunk with a Childe-like interest of her own. "Carefully, one item at a time. Lay them outside the trunk neatly. This is our treasure and we don't want it tattered anymore than time has already done."

Childe lifted a lace edged hanky, long tapered fingers, scruffy

but clean, slipping beneath the damask, lifting oh so carefully the feather light and age fragile relic. "What is it?"

"A hanky."

"It is not!"

"But it is, dear." Lil accepted the thing, laid it on her apron

and spread it upon her knee.

"One good honk and it'd fall apart!" Sane eyes, reasoning with

an irrational concept, demanded the world be set right, indignantly.

"Ladies didn't honk into their hankies, Childe.

"Mama!"

"Ladies didn't scramble over fences and fly from trees into

rented dumpsters, either."

Childe searched for something else of interest within the trunk,

a sudden convenience to distract a reproachful mother. She produced a dresser scarf, tiny faded pansies the edging, presented it regally to her mother and awaited explanation, all innocent expectation.

* *

Half way into the right side of the trunk, after numerous

discussions on the fine details of life in "the old days" with explainations of such things as dressers, scarves, hand mirrors, perfume atomizers of cut lead crystal, silver filigree letter openers and matching wax seal stamps – a tousled head appeared at the top of the stair.

"Oh neat!" Thundering footsteps, a temporary retreat in search

of backup, pounded away. The scout had found the women encamped on prime real estate.

"Childe," Lil said. "It is time we took our stand." She stood,

took her daughter's hand in her own, led her to the head of the stairs and bent to whisper into her ear. They two placed themselves across the threshold and awaited the invasion.

Not long in the coming, two sets of hooves approached, expensively

shod in the finest synthetic substance available. Nikes advanced, matched in stride. Two heads appeared. Two sets of eyes looked up, two boys, advancing.

Childe squared her shoulders, stood tall and announced, herald

of the bright morning, "We claim these heights of Womanhood!"

Lil bit her lip, stifling a loose giggle, released a stage

whisper from the corner of her mouth, "That's `We claim these heights *FOR* Womanhood'."

"But Mom!" their arms crossed over their chests, as they whined,

in unison.

The boys advanced a step upward. Childe advanced three,

instinctively realizing the advantage of established occupation and glared at them. Lil mirrored the glare, her head cocked a tad to the right for emphasis. "Done deal, boys."

A larger head appeared, a stouter foot upon the bottom most

steps, advancing. A dark head, furrowed brows, soft eyes which, thankfully, the children shared, lifted, assessing the silent scene. He winked at Childe, clapped a hand on each of the boy's shoulders and bent to murmur between their heads, "What stands before you, my sons, is the unmovable, the inevitable, the reason for your very existence." He stood erect, patted each shoulder firmly and added, "Looks like Cheerios are on me this morning."

"Bill?"

"Yes, Beloved?"

"Nut n' Honey." She winked back at him. "We're out of Cheerios."

"It's ours?" Childe asked. She knew a too-easy win when she saw

one.

"Well, Love, with diligence and an ever watchful guard, it will

be."

* *

"What *is* it?" Childe wanted to know. Lil blinked, trying to

count off the times her daughter had bounced and bobbed, her face up-turned, expectantly demanding, cheerfully yet another explanation.

A tidy hand had covered a wooden cigar box with padded fabric,

trimmed it in lace and tied it off with satin ribbon. Lil's fingers worked at the knotted bow. Something, many somethings rattled within. Childe's hands twitched, nearing. Lil gave her a warning look and smiled.

"Patience. Patience is a virtue," she said, a rote recital she'd

performed as a child.

"No she isn't. Patience is a Moore. Her mommy always said she

wished she had more patience and then when she had a little girl she named her Patience."

Another rote recital, Childe style, her father's playful

attitude forever imprinted upon the name of a playmate. The ribbon came undone, at last. Lil lifted the lid and peaked inside, teasing. Childe's hands came up, imploring. Lil chuckled and handed her the box.

"Buttons!" Childe exploded, jiggling the box recklessly. "Oh,

Mama! May I count them?"

Lil nodded at her daughter's retreating back, a bit relieved to

see Childe perch on a quilt-piled day bed near a window. "Don't . . ." she began.

"Oops!" The first button had found the floor. Childe scrambled

after it.

Lillian returned to the trunk. Beneath the button box was

another fabric covered cigar box, less securely tied, which held short lengths of lace, twists of ribbon and a pincushion. She set that aside, having uncovered an off-white piece, soft satin ribbon edging a tiny yoked bib. She inhaled sharply as she lifted it, her throat tightening with the caught breath. By size for a smallish child, the long skirt meant to brush the tops of patent leather shoes, a dress sewn for her too many years ago.

There was so little memory left of the soft hands that must have

started this gown, sewn this ribbon into the piping, gathered these sleeves. She laid her cheek against the fabric, ignoring the slightly musty smell time had imparted to it.

There had been Aunt Clarinda, but she'd never sewn. Lil

wondered, her eyes gone distant focused. On the day bed Childe murmured, having stilled long enough to fall asleep, the button box held tightly against her chest, the ribbon hopelessly knotted by inexpert fingers.

Lil smiled at her sleeping tomboy, the two of them somehow

caught up in a world of lace and old buttons, a world she herself had rarely seen as a child and wished to capture for her own sleeping angel. There were rhinestone covered buttons in that box, ceramic and bone. She'd wager very few were of plastic. She shook the dress lightly, preparatory to refolding it. A dry rustle slipped from the hanging folds of the skirt and fell into the trunk.

Slow, frozen for a moment, she looked from Childe to the piece of

paper and back. The attic room was silent, Childe's breathing even, shallow, barely discernible. Outside a bird chirped. Another joined it. They'd probably discovered a lazy long haired tabby sitting in the pantry window, watching them.

"Never fear," she consoled them, her hand reaching for the

fallen note. "Mr. T. Tom would rather dream you than actually chase after you."

Shadow grew across her wrist and forearm as the edge of the

trunk cut off the sunlight coming through the window. Soon the sun would warm the room. In summer curtains would need to be drawn to reduce the heat.

She watched her own fingers open the folded paper, things separate

from herself. For a moment the dark lines refused to come into focus. Reading glasses occurred. Her eyelashes fluttered as she realized she had none to her name. The line cleared.

"My Dearest Lillian; " it began, a flowing scrawl cut short. The

rest of the page was blank. The aged paper had been wrinkled and smoothed, folded a bit unevenly and slipped into the skirt of the gown.

She folded it and unfolded it, her fingers pleating the ancient

crease over and over again.

"My Dearest Lillian," she whispered.

From the small day bed Childe spoke. "I would have written pages

and pages, but your father found me and tore me away. They said I was unfit. They said I was crazy. Sent me away to a Rest Home where I rested little. I loved you, my sweet baby. I love you still."

Lillian rose slowly, quietly, so not to awaken Childe, if indeed

the frail pale lashes were lowered over the lively eyes, if indeed she was talking in her sleep, again.

Bending over the sleeper, wistfully marveling at the dreamer in

denim and scuffed elbows, she whispered, "My Dearest Lillian," her breath touching the hair above Childe's delicate ear.

The lips moved, "They took my house. They took my baby. I was

too "flighty", they claimed, to raise a child. But your father was too stern. I loved you, Lillian. I loved you." Childe's voice was deeper, devoid of its usual exuberance, a strange mix of urgency and melancholy. Lil fancied she was listening to the adult voice that would be.

Lillian wondered how many of her mother's words could be gotten

from Childe's dream before the approaching line of sunlight crossed the sleeping face and woke her daughter.

"My Dearest Lillian," she prompted, again --  waiting . . . .

                             #  #  #

Gay is a Clinical Lab Tech with experience in Veterinary medicine. From NORTHERN California, she's resided in S.E. Missouri with her husband and an aggressive 6 year old boy, since 1974. Installed her first modem the summer of '92, has been exploring new worlds since. Her first publication, a short horror story, came when she was 17. The success was so overwhelming she called an end to her writing days and went in search of herself. She's still looking. Find Gay's great stories in the best Electronic Magazines.