Page 121 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
The puppy, a blue heeler named Birdy by the breeder’s daughter because she liked budgerigars, turned up at the same time as the baby, but luckily Cecilia still works for her two days a week so Grace Maud has delegated some of the puppy raising to her.
‘My life is a madhouse,’ Grace Maud said to Cecilia one day as she held a grizzly Nicholas and Birdy did a wee on the kitchen floor.
‘Didn’t you volunteer for this?’ Cecilia said, laughing as she put newspaper over the wee.
‘Not the puppy-wee part.’
Sandrine was delighted when Grace Maud told her what she was doing, after she’d noted that Grace Maud was more enthusiastic than usual for relaxation.
‘I’m exhausted,’ Grace Maud had muttered, then listed her duties.
‘How wonderful!’ Sandrine clapped her hands. ‘All that love, Grace Maud, and it was just stuck.’ She poked Grace Maud between the shoulder blades. ‘You kept it all in here, you see? Trapped inside your shell. Now you have let it out – marvellous!’
Grace Maud has never thought of herself as having a shell but had noticed herself hunching over more as the years went on. She used to have such a straight back; she didn’t notice when the change began but always thought it was old age.
She’d pondered Sandrine’s words for a while afterwards. What did she mean by ‘all that love’? Grace Maud has never thought of herself as an especially loving person. Yet there is something that caught her by surprise recently: she doesn’t think of Ellie Maud so often these days. She knows it isn’t because she loves her less, but perhaps her heart is not as broken as it was. If she developed a shell it may have been to protect that heart, and now she doesn’t need that protection any more.
Because the truth of her life – if she has time to think about it – is that she may have thought of herself as difficult and solitary all these years, but she’s really not. That was a version of herself that suited her at the time; in fact, it was the only way she could function. She never believed she could rely on others as much as she could rely on herself, so it was easier to never try. Yet she lives in the world. She hasn’t chosen to be a hermit. She is here, in this town, on this street, in this house that now has people coming and going, noise and laughter and a yapping dog.
Grace Maud thinks Ellie Maud would approve of this. So, at last, she feels she can let her go. The love they shared has sustained her through hard times and good. It has been the one true thing she has known.
Now she has another truth: that love was preparing her for this new phase of her life. Her heart could not expand to allow these other people in if she hadn’t loved her sister so voluminously first.
A knock at the door is answered by Cecilia’s shout from the back of the house. ‘I’ll get it!’
It will be Dorothy at the door; it’s her time to arrive to take Nicholas home.
‘Hello, hello!’ she says, hurrying past Cecilia to Grace Maud and kissing her on the cheek before she kisses Nicholas softly on the head. His little face responds with a burbling smile.
‘I brought in your mail,’ she says to Grace Maud, handing it over.
On top is a postcard showing a temple and Grace Maud immediately turns it over. In Patricia’s neat, schoolteacher handwriting is a short message that says she and Dennis are heading for Kashmir and that she sends her love.
‘I still can’t believe she didn’t tell us she was going with him!’ Dorothy says as she hugs Nicholas to her chest.
‘I don’t think she knew herself until the very end.’
Grace Maud looks at the front of the card again. Once upon a time she’d minded that she had never travelled; now, she doesn’t. There are riches to be found everywhere, and she knows what she has right here.
‘She’ll be back before we know it,’ she murmurs as she puts the card on the coffee table in front of her.
‘I miss her,’ Dorothy says, patting Nicholas’s back.
‘I’m sure she isn’t really missing us,’ Grace Maud says. ‘But I know Sandrine misses you. She asks after you every week.’
‘I’ll get back one day.’ Dorothy lifts Nicholas in the air and makes a silly face at him.
‘She also says that yoga will always be there for you whenever you’re ready,’ Grace Maud adds.
Dorothy nods. ‘I do practise the breathing, you know. Sometimes if it’s been a hectic day. It helps.’
‘I’ll let her know.’
‘I’d better take Nicholas home before he’s hungry again,’ Dorothy says. ‘Thanks so much, Grace Maud. Again. I don’t actually know how I’ll ever pay you back.’
‘I don’t recall asking you to.’
Grace Maud stands, a little stiffly. Sandrine has told her that she needs to stretch throughout the week and lately Grace Maud has been forgetting.
