What Is Left the Daughter Read Online Free

stretched her arm out the window and waved goodbye. It's my self-generated theory that Tilda assumed I'd be watching from the porch, not wanting her to leave—that she somehow knew, far in advance of me, that I already loved her, even though we'd spent virtually no time alone and had made only small talk.
    Two habits were set early on in my life in Middle Economy. One was set by my uncle, the other was set by me. Starting the first day of my apprenticeship, my uncle insisted that I join him every workday morning for breakfast in the kitchen at six A.M. , allowing us to be in the work shed by six-forty-five sharp. Then, with his permission, at ten I'd drive my DeSoto over to the bakery owned and operated by Mrs. Cornelia Tell and spend my half-hour break over a coffee.
    The bakery was in the center of town. On one side was MAUD'S SEWING (Maud Dunne sat in the window working her sewing machine), on the other BAIT AND TACKLE . Early on, I'd got a sample of how Cornelia Tell questioned all motives for politeness. I'd sat down and said, "Would it be too much trouble if I got a scone with my coffee?" Cornelia Tell shot back, "Even if it does cause me trouble, do you still want a scone?" I never put it that way again, believe me. I just said, "I'd like a scone." That same morning, while I sat eating a cranberry scone and drinking my coffee, Cornelia Tell was behind the counter, swirling frosting on cupcakes. "Today being Tuesday," she said, "do you know who you're going to meet back home at lunch?"
    "I have no idea," I said.
    "You'll be sitting down for lunch with Lenore Teachout. She's originally from Great Village, not too far down the road. Her parents still live there."
    "And why would Lenore Teachout be at our house today?"
    "Because every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—except earlier this week she had a cold—Lenore carries a box of pencils, a pencil sharpener, a notebook and an exercise book called
Shorthand Self-Taught
over to your house. She knocks on your door and your aunt lets her inside and serves tea. Then Lenore listens to your radio. She writes down what people on the radio say. She practices stenography—do you know what stenography is, Wyatt?"
    "There's a stenographer in Magistrate's Court, right?"
    "Right as rain. And that's the employment Lenore Teachout aspires to. And it's very sensible of her. Because Lenore potentially could find work in any Canadian city where there's a busy courthouse."
    "Why does she practice stenography in our house, though?"
    "Because she doesn't own a radio."
    "You seem to know a lot about her."
    "Your aunt Constance and I are dear, dear friends, Wyatt. True, even the dearest of friends keep things from each other, but they don't keep everything from each other. Your aunt keeps very little about Lenore Teachout from me."
    "Does Lenore know that?"
    "Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, you'll notice how tall Lenore is. She was always tall for her age. Wait here, I'll show you something."
    Cornelia Tell went out the door onto the street, then back in an adjacent door that led up a flight of stairs to her rooms. She'd lived above her bakery since her husband, Llewyn, a fisherman, had drowned at sea twenty-three years earlier. When she returned to the bakery she set down a copy of the Great Village Elementary School yearbook for 1914 and paged through the grainy individual portraits of administrators, the school nurse, teachers and students, and a photograph of all the students taken near the flagpole. "Aha!" she said, "found it!" She placed her finger on a quarter-page photograph of a Christmas pageant. "This girl, right here, is Lenore Teachout, age ten. Your aunt Constance brought this to my attention." I bent close and saw that Lenore was costumed up as a camel, on all fours, men's shoes for hooves, a bale of hay on her back, posed next to the Magi and a crèche. "They made her a camel," Mrs. Tell said, "because she was tall for her age, eh?"
    "She doesn't look too happy