Remembering the Bones Read Online Free

healing is rest. That was easy.
    Memory floats in, memory floats out. You don’t have to move the whole distance at once.
    What distance? How far? I was certain I was floating when I fell. I saw transparent leaves, the glass tree. It was given to my grandfather and, years after his death, passed on to me. Grand Dan wanted me to have it. I heard glass breaking; fragments scattered over the floor.
    You’re shivering, Georgie. You’re cold. Gather your coat around you. Keep calm.
    My coat is unbuttoned, though I’m wearing my cardigan beneath. I’m supposed to find pigskin gloves in London for my mother. I drove to the Haven to say goodbye, and asked what she wanted me to bring back. She was sitting small on the seat of her walker, shoulders seriously humped. When did Phil last have her bone density checked? I towered over her, though we’ve both shrunk. She raised her head and said, “Bring me pigskin gloves.”
    “When will you wear pigskin gloves in here?”
    She clucked her tongue as if she’d brought me into the world only to discover, almost eighty years later, that I’m useless. “You asked what I wanted.”
    “What colour, then?”
    “Piggy colour, what else?”
    Oh, Mother. I loved her at that moment, but what a motherlode is she. She’s a true mistress of evasion, but she never gives up. She’s the only resident of the Haven who is over a hundred, and describes herself as “Edwardian—just.” I’m convinced that she has managed to live so long because she’s thin and wiry and moves her body easily. She holds on to her walker because it helps her balance, but she can movewithout it, too. And she’s small. She inherited the short genes of the family, and I the tall.
    She’s also a lurker, capable of moving into minds. She’s been hovering at the edge of my mind every day of my life and here I am in my eighth decade and I am still someone’s child. Maybe that’s the way it is with mothers and daughters. Maybe she lurks in my sister’s mind, too. Ally lives so far away, she’s probably immune. I’ll phone and ask her sometime, after I’ve been rescued.
    If I’m rescued.
    Don’t think bad thoughts, Georgie. You’re alive.
    True enough. But I’ve missed my chance to break bread with the Queen. I’ll be the only one not to show. Will the Master of the Household discreetly remove my fork, my silver goblet, my chair?
    Sometimes I talk to Elizabeth, though she’s never heard my conversations. The fact that my life and hers were following a pattern early on did not escape my notice, and I began to think fondly of her as Lilibet, a kind of parallel life-mate. Once, I even saw her up close—not so many years ago. She was visiting Canada and on her way to open a new agricultural college in the next town. Her limo was driven all the way from Ottawa with a police escort and had to pass through Wilna Creek, through the intersection of Ross and Main. A policeman stood in front of pedestrians at the corner, intending to hold us back. When I saw the limo approach, I peered around the uniformed shoulder, and there she was. She waved directly at me from the back seat as if we were old friends, as if she had heard me talking to her all these years. She wore a bemused look on her face: Look where we find ourselves today.
    Well, look where I find myself today. Mouth dry, lips thatfeel like parched earth cracking. Is this the day of Lilibet’s celebration? And who refuses the Queen? I’d gladly march to the palace if only someone would help me to get up.
    I’m not from a family of whiners. I shall be steadfast—a word Grand Dan loved. I need a solid plan that does not allow an inch of room for feeling sorry for myself.
    But thoughts creep from their shelter, welcome or not. My family riffles like cards through my head. My history peers back at me. Who is dead? Who is not? With a mother as old as mine, you want to know your stories. The endings, I’m not so sure of. People die holding their secrets, their