What Is Left the Daughter Read Online Free Page B

"Wyatt," she said, "I'd like you to meet our friend and neighbor Lenore Teachout. She's here quite often to practice her stenography. Or the stenographic art. Didn't you once call it that, Lenore, the stenographic art?"
    "Just the word 'stenography' does the trick," Lenore said. "Glad to meet you, Wyatt."
    "Take a close look, Wyatt," Tilda said. "You'll see authentic shorthand, which at first might look like children's squiggles and doodles, but it's a method." I leaned over to inspect Lenore's notebook. "Is this your first opportunity to see shorthand?"
    "Yes, it is," I said.
    I stared at Tilda, and she stared right back and held her stare. She looked ravishing. (I'll later tell you why I used that word.) Tilda was about an inch taller than me, "shapely and mostly modest about it," as my aunt later said. Tilda had green eyes, the only student who did in her elementary and high school career. A lovely mouth, slightly tilted smile, only slightly, though. "Rambunctious, with a mind of its own" is how she described her thick black hair. Mornings before school she'd attempt to discipline her hair with a hundred strokes of a brush, tightly combed and organized it with no fewer than eight bobby pins and two barrettes, yet still there'd be unruly precincts. At table, Tilda always sat like a marionette held stiffly upright on a string. At age eleven, she'd injured her back in a spill off one of my uncle's sleds. A patch of ice hidden under the snow had spun her every which way and finally into a tree. Once out of hospital, she'd been trussed up and assigned to bed for several weeks. She had to see a specialist in Halifax. He prescribed exercises to keep her limber, one of which was to sit as upright as possible at each meal, let alone at her desk in school. "At first she cried and cried, the pain worse for sitting up so straight," my aunt had said. "But our Tilda impressed us all, what with the diligent work it took to hold her posture."
    My aunt walked in carrying a Grundig-Majestic radio, which she placed on the kitchen table, stretched the cord and plugged it into the outlet near the sink. When she looked at us, Tilda's and my eyes were still locked. "Great glory's sake, Wyatt," she said, "cat got your tongue?"
    I snapped out of whatever I was in. "Oh, hello, Aunt Constance," I said. "I just came in out of the cold rain into this warm kitchen." No doubt, I'd obviously just described how I'd felt while looking at Tilda. But it must've sounded loony.
    "Interesting, since it's not raining out," my aunt said.
    I tried to regain some balance and said, "Uncle Donald's not feeling well enough to eat. He'd like tea later, though."
    "Well, sit yourself down, then," my aunt said. "How's my husband treating you out there, anyway?"
    "I'm learning a lot," I said.
    I noticed Lenore writing away, taking down everything she heard.
    "Don't let him bend over your work and hurry you," my aunt said. "You're not a sewing machine."
    "No, I won't."
    I sat down opposite Lenore. Once she had served carrot soup and bread, my aunt sat opposite Tilda. I ate too fast, which my aunt noticed. "Wyatt," she said, "in this house, if a meal's not satisfying, you want it over with fast, one way or the other."
    Tilda and Lenore exchanged glances, and I said, "No, no, the soup's delicious. I think I just need some air. The shed's close quarters, Aunt Constance, that's all. I think I'll take a short walk down the road and back."
    "It's a nice day for a walk," my aunt said.
    "The soup was delicious," I said.
    "You've said that twice. The second time convinced me less, but thank you," my aunt said.
    I stood up from the table and started toward the front door. "You don't have any shoes on," Tilda said.
    "Maybe in Halifax they take walks in stocking feet," Lenore said.
    "Don't trip on the dog porch," Tilda said.
    See, Marlais, in local parlance "dog porch" meant the floor. So by saying I shouldn't trip on the dog porch, Tilda was declaring how I could hardly handle the