The Thief of Lost Time

Chapter 37: "Nothing is Colder Than the Grave"

Home from college for Christmas vacation. Day five and looking forward to returning to school. I was like a guest obliged to entertain his hosts as a thank-you for their invitation. Rachel and her family were with cousins in New Jersey. I tried to get a head start on my reading for next semester.

That evening, the telephone rang during dinner. Dad answered it in the hall. "Hello?" and "Give us a call," he said before hanging up. "That was Uncle Neal. The doctor is at the nursing home. He doesn't expect Aunt Ellen to live through the night."

No one said a word. Leslie acted like she was about to cry.

I said nothing knowing my throat would choke up. I tried not to think of Aunt Ellen in the nursing home. Instead, I remembered the stories she'd told me when I was a child: sailing to England with a friend from work, dancing with her beaus as a debutante, and visiting me when I was a baby.

"I covered my face with a scarf," she told me. "When I took it off, you laughed and laughed. Your mother said you wouldn't fall asleep if I stayed, but you screamed when I tried to leave. You sat in my lap, playing with my locket, watching the reflected light. Cuddled against me, you closed your eyes and fell asleep."

We remained at the dinner table, quietly talking. Mom told Leslie about the time Aunt Ellen traveled with Grandma out west on the train. Hadn't Leslie heard that one before? Maybe telling an old, but familiar, story made Mom less sad.

"Mom, I remember Aunt Ellen visiting when I was in my playpen on the lawn."

"In your playpen? What happened?"

"You wanted me to take a nap, but I screamed when Aunt Ellen tried to leave."

"You screamed all the time in your playpen. That was just a story she told you. You can't remember anything that far back."

Mom's disbelief hurt. I remembered a large, empty lawn surrounding my playpen. I saw Aunt Ellen coming towards me down the street. And something else: the locket she always wore. I remembered the flickering sunlight. An image that distinct must have happened. Why would I make up something like that?

While Leslie and I washed the dishes, the telephone rang again. "Hello?" Dad listened a moment. "Tell us the details when the arrangements are final." He hung up. "Aunt Ellen died ten minutes ago."

Crying was childish but I didn't care. So what if I was old enough to be in college. She was an important part of my childhood and now she was gone. But ever since Christmas dinner four years ago, she hadn't been the great-aunt I'd known all my life. I had never seen anyone change so dramatically. All I remembered about visiting her in the nursing home was hearing her talk about Grandma's baby and seeing the red scar. Grandma was right when she said her death would be a blessing.

***

Before leaving for college that fall, I arrived home at one o'clock after a date with Rachel. During the inevitable midnight tête-à-tête in the kitchen with Mom, she told me she'd asked Grandma about her sister's scar, but her mother brushed her question aside. "I never knew all the details of her life."

"But you'd have known if she'd ever been pregnant."

"Not necessarily. She was always off with her young men. She certainly had enough of them."

"I didn't argue," Mom told me, "but I was shocked by her bitterness. They risked a scandal with her being unmarried and pregnant." She topped off her wine glass. "In those days, unwed mothers were never mentioned. Perhaps the baby died soon after its birth and the family kept everything hush-hush. I won't ask my mother again. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm sorry I ever saw the scar. I know it upset you."