Homemaker

Alice Ezard cried the day her clothesline broke and the secret she’d kept since girlhood came tumbling down inside her when she saw her day’s labour laying soiled on the ground.

She’d spent hours hauling clothes and bedsheets down the wooden stairs into the dirt basement where her wringer-washer machine stood. She’d hauled the wet linens back upstairs and outside to affix each item with a clothespin all the while feeling a sense of accomplishment by her work well done. With sheets flapping in the breeze she could smell the freshness of clean. It was more than a day’s work to do all the laundry of her household, and it was done amidst making meals, tending family, and general housekeeping, too. So when it all came crashing down to the dirt and grime on the ground she saw in an instant that she’d need to start all over again and she was tired now, hungry now, ready to quit now. So when the tears came, she willed the wet to wash away any defeat because the woman she was needed to get right back to it. Some perennial part of her continued to do what needed to be done not because she wanted to but because she knew how to draw forth the power sustaining her life and the lives of so many others. It kept her focused and when she was focused, she didn’t have time to think about the little sister they’d left behind.

Nobody here knew about Lily except, of course, their own mother who schooled them well in how to keep a secret. She and her elder sister, Emma, were bonded even before Lily arrived but after her entrance into their world they were forever bound to the secret and to each other in a way that felt like a pocket full of rocks pulling them down, down, down below the surface of watery existence.

The county of Lancashire in North West England had been the only home they’d known until they came here. Gone were the rolling hills of heather, the misty mornings of inclement weather, and the faithful furrows of days long in meadows for the sisters to meander through in a childhood lost to this barren prairie place the father they knew had called them to. When he’d departed from them on his adventure to discover wealth and fortune across the pond they were too young to realize it was an ocean he was crossing and it would be years before they’d meet him in the new world he’d made for their family. How could they have known what life would be like without him at home in England? All they were told was he must never know about Lily.

Alice had been excited when she learned there was a new baby coming into their family. She loved Lily the moment she saw her. Now Alice was a big sister, too! But then she had witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to see. Mother said, “Forget about the baby. Do not talk about the baby.” And they left the baby behind.

Alice knew she must keep the secret. It was the right thing to do. Her mother’s peace depended upon it. But it felt very wrong to her, too.

In the final days of Alice’s long life — she lived for a century — she would unpredictably burst into tears and cry out loud, “The baby, the baby!” She could never forget about the baby.

* * *

My grandmother was careful to tell me things she didn’t tell anyone else. The girl in her related to the girl in me. I was incessantly curious. I asked too many questions. And all she would say was she had a sister who stayed in England when she and Emma came to Canada with their mother. That sister’s name was Lily. They never saw or heard from her again.

Granny lived in a little farmhouse many miles from the nearest town, had given birth to five children, fed her family from a massive garden, clothed her children by the work of her hands and took refuge in reading historical romance novels about power, sex, and children either born out of wedlock or born to married women while their husbands were away at war. Granny kept her books tucked away in a box in the closet. Living a dozen miles from my grandparent’s farm, I loved spending weekends with her. At the end of the day, when Grandpa was in bed reading the newspaper or snoring in his sleep, Granny and me would sit in the living room together and watch TV. She in her rocking chair knitting or crocheting. Me in the big arm chair next to the piano. We’d watch the late movie or Alfred Hitchcock until the test pattern filled the TV screen. Then she’d tuck me into bed with a big box of comic books hiding beneath it. She’d bring me a piece of buttered homemade bread with a sprinkle of white sugar on top and a glass of milk.

She made everything from scratch: dolls, clothes, slippers, food, curtains, whatever was needed to make home and care for her family. Granny cooked, baked, sewed clothing and toys, knit sweaters and afghans, scarves, socks, and tended a huge vegetable garden. The only thing she didn’t do was play a musical instrument and she’d ask me to play the piano for her; her favourite song was Frank Mills’ The Music Box Dancer and I felt the power I had to lift her spirit when I played it. Once was never enough. She’d say, “Play it one more time for me.” And I could never refuse.

Sometimes I’d hear her humming to the radio when she worked in the kitchen. She enjoyed the Lawrence Welk Show on TV and was mesmerized by Liberace performing. She loved the Queen of England and kept a scrapbook of Royal happenings.

She knelt on a piece of green foam when she washed the kitchen, porch, and bathroom floors, and scrubbed my grandfather’s back when he’d call to her from the bathtub. I never heard her call out to anyone when she was taking a bath. Did anyone scrub her back?

She canned fruits and vegetables to sustain her family through winter. She ironed everything from clothing to curtains. She cleaned windows inside and out. There was no running water in her kitchen so she hauled water for dishes, boiled it in a kettle, and added it to the dishpan sitting on the counter across from the wood burning stove. Her electric stove sat out in the porch so she was constantly walking back and forth between the kitchen and the porch while she cooked and baked. I can still hear the stove timer dinging from the porch and remember how she was teased by her sons for burning things, but is it any wonder?

Her kitchen cupboards were pantry shelves with curtains, which she sewed herself. How she had time to sew clothes and dolls and everything else she made, including curtains, after completing the sheer volume of work she accomplished alone is a mystery to me. What I see now is she was a force of nature keeping home and all its occupants alive.

I don’t recall her ever being sick. Surely she must have been but I never saw it. For me, she appeared to be invincible, reliable, and always available. She’d say: “Change is as good as a rest!” And I remember watching her move between creative projects — sewing to knitting to baking to planting — in her steady, peaceful manner.

She had a safety pin perpetually pinned to her blouse, over her heart, and from it would dangle other pins she’d find and use all the day long. She constantly stuffed a tissue up the sleeve of her sweater. When she wasn’t wearing a sweater, she’d tuck it into the top of her brazziere.

When did she sleep? She was the last one to bed at night and the first one up in the morning. As a vortex of creativity, I felt a certain kind of freedom when I was with her. It was her silent softness that drew me near. For I never once heard her raise her voice to anyone.

One day we went to town together from her house. I don’t remember Granny driving much. Grandpa usually drove. But on this day, the two of us were going to get groceries and she was driving. It was fun being able to sit in the front seat next to her. Just the two of us.

On the way back from the store, the car hit ruts in the dirt road that must’ve caught her by surprise because she quickly lost control. She cranked the steering wheel one way and then another as the car bounced from one side of the road to the next. I didn’t have time to be afraid. In fact, I thought it was funny until the car finally came to a halt. We’d landed back on the road but facing the opposite direction than where we were headed. It was then I noticed my heart was racing. Granny said something under her breath and then looked me square in the eye while shaking her finger in my face. In that moment I saw a part of her never before revealed to me. She was full of fear and her words were angry.

“Now, you don’t tell anybody about this … not ever! Do you hear me? Not ever. Understand? This is our secret.”

I wondered why she’d be worried about telling anybody. It was confusing. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She wasn’t thinking if she was okay. She was just terrified. And I had the potential to make something bad happen to her.

Some part of me knew it had to do with Grandpa and rules. It had to do with humiliation. Granny’s right to drive was at risk. So I was sworn to secrecy. It was an initiation into the dynamic between living with or without freedom. Yet it was a kind of freedom that could be taken away. I was sad to realize Granny was afraid and she felt she had no authority. From that day forward I saw her through a different lens. I was on the lookout for what she held in her shadow. I’d learned a great lesson on that afternoon. A lesson about what it means to be a woman in this world.

I have kept Granny’s secret until now. The girl I was then had vowed to always be free. I’d come and go as I pleased. Nobody would be the boss of me! For I understood there was power in me to choose and decide when Granny gave me the authority over how she’d be affected by this incident. I didn’t want to be beholden to whatever it was that haunted her. She’d initiated me into the field of truth by demanding I be silent.

* * *

My grandmother may have carried her mother’s shadow but what girl doesn’t?

All those years being with Granny were teaching me how to make home. She was possessed by her creative spirit. She never complained. She created. The endurance and fortitude in me was instilled through her presence. And without secrets, what woman can survive the life she is born into?

In time all will be seen for what it is for nothing has ever been made so wrong that it will not be made right again. A secret is only ever the power of life finding its way back into truth. And a daughter’s existence can change everything.

Stories are meant to be told and retold until all is revealed for what it is — life living itself as life.

Alice and Emma lived. Lily lived, too. Their lives delivered my own. And secrets are just inner doors to be opened when one is ready to hold the truth. Restoration of life is a passage undergone through the ages and stages of being woman. The essence of which is to carry what comes in grace. For life demands not perfection, only recognition of the basic requirement to make home in the world and take care of the children.