Amazing Grace by Lesley Crewe Read Free Book Online Page A

memories. The voices come rushing into my ears. “We’re still here....”
    Melissa pokes my arm. “Gee?”
    â€œWhat? Sorry.” I try and gather myself. Melissa looks unsure and that’s the last thing I want her to be.
    â€œCome. I’ll show you around. This is the parlour, or at least that’s what my aunts called it.”
    Melissa looks about. “You had aunts? I didn’t know that.”
    â€œI had parents, too. I didn’t just drop out of the sky.”
    The stuffed sofas in their big-blossomed patterns look shabby against the worn rose wallpaper. Nothing matches and everything clashes, but I personally love this look. A chintz cottage, Aunt Mae once called it. Two armchairs flank the small fireplace in the centre of the room, the white scrolled mantel chipped and covered with old candle sticks and porcelain figurines. There are a pair of tiger salt and pepper shakers, a Humpty Dumpty egg cup, two cow creamers, and a donkey hauling a wagon of wooden matchsticks. I’ve thought about taking them home with me, but they firmly told me they like it right where they are.
    Beside one of the armchairs is a floor lamp and a frilly lamp on a walnut side-table. The dusty braided rug covers most of the linoleum, which is a blessing. Faded lace curtains hang like cobwebs at the dirty windows.
    Seeing the house through Melissa’s eyes makes me aware that I have neglected this property for far too long. Everything is neat and tucked away, but its heart is in a deep sleep. I should never have let that happen.
    We explore the kitchen, with its imposing wood and coal stove on one side of the room, and the large farmhouse sink on the other. There is even wallpaper in here, a village scene with peasants, wooden shoes, and Swiss cuckoo clocks. A large strip of wallpaper over the stove is hanging on for dear life.
    Melissa points to the right. “What’s that small room for?”
    â€œThat’s the pantry. It’s where my aunts would bake. Cans and jars of all kinds lined the shelves, and flour, brown sugar, and molasses were stored in big barrels under the counter. It always smelled like cookies in here.”
    My granddaughter loves the old claw tub in the bathroom and gets a kick out of the elaborate metal headboards on the beds upstairs. I show her the quilts that are stored in the trunks, and she falls in love with Aunt Pearl’s old vanity dressing table with a round mirror and a plush stool sitting underneath. The handles are made of ivory and Aunt Pearl’s brush and comb set are still on the mirrored tray, along with her perfume atomizer.
    â€œThis looks like one I saw in Vogue! They were doing a piece on the thirties! That was such a glamorous era. Were you born then?”
    â€œThanks a bunch. Don’t they teach you math at school? If I’m sixty, then when would I have been born?”
    â€œIn the fifties?”
    â€œBingo. Now come downstairs and I’ll show you how to light a fire.”
    We sit in the armchairs, with wool throws over our shoulders. I don’t want to turn on the oil stove to drive away the damp—the fireplace will do for now. There is no sound other than the flames crackling. This is so far removed from the place Melissa calls home, but if you want to know who you are, you need to stay very still and very quiet.
    â€œIs this a solution?” she finally says. “Keep me away from civilization in the hopes that I’ll forget about my life and be a farmer and milk cows?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo what are you trying to prove? Eventually my mother will be back from her perfect honeymoon with the boy wonder and she might notice I’m gone.”
    I sip tea out of a thermos. “So you don’t like her new husband?”
    â€œHe’s only ten years older than I am.”
    â€œYikes.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œIs she happy?”
    â€œI’m assuming so. I don’t see her all