“Do I have to go to school? I'd rather stay here with you and help around the house.”
“No, you have to stick to the plan. If anyone found you hanging around here, they'd wonder why you weren't in school.”
“So why don't you take me?”
“I need to be invisible, at least for a while. Too many prying questions. The less they think about me, the better. If you're going to stay in my house, you must follow my rules. Tell them that I am a shut-in and cannot come into the school. Too many memories.” Margaret opened the hasp and eased the lid on its hinges, then knelt before an open casket.
“Well, I don't need no Sean Fallon—”
“Hush.” From the top of the treasures, she lifted out a prom gown and laid it gently on the bed. Thrilled by the taffeta, Norah leapt to the floor and peered over to see the inside of the trunk, balancing her small hand upon the woman's back. In the seven years since Paul had died, no one had touched Margaret so. Together they agreed upon a white blouse, a woolen skirt, a pair of Mary Janes, leather stiff. Near the bottom of the trunk, a thick embroidered poncho was draped atop the christening gown, pastel sleepers, and other relics of infancy. Mrs. Quinn ran her hands over the designs and smiled to herself, having nearly forgotten this prize. She displayed the patterns to the girl: two llamas stood on the hem, and behind them loomed the appliquéd Andes.
“My little sister brought that back from Peru one Christmas, and Erica wore it every winter's day when she was your age. You'd like Diane—she is as cunning as a crow, like you.”
“It's beautiful,” said the girl. Margaret flipped it over so the girl could see on the other side a stylized round red face surrounded by swirling wings or clouds. Norah's eyes widened. “Look, a seraph.”
“Whatever are you talking about? It is the sun, smiling on us all.”
“No, a seraph. You know, seraphim and cherubim.”
“Stop talking nonsense.” She gathered a pile of clothes in her arms. “Big day tomorrow, so time for bed.”
The girl finally fell asleep, and Margaret ran the washer and dryer late into the night and folded the fresh laundry while the eleven o'clock news unspooled. Her muscles stiffened and she felt short of breath but managed to bundle all of Norah's clothes into a neat package, impossibly small, like a doll's outfits, the edges and hems frayed with wear and soft with age. She smoothed the pile and laid the girl's things against the bedroom door, as her mother had long ago when Margaret and Diane were children. Two stacks for two girls, but she inevitably mixed the sisters’ clothes, and they would unjumble the socks and underwear while complaining to each other how poorly their mother knew her own daughters. Or else they'd steal one another's favorites without a word.
Diane would never understand why she had decided to keep the little visitor. Margaret barely knew her own reasons, responding more to the powerful pull the child exerted, as if she had been in her life all along. No one had come to the door despite ten years of prayer and pleading, and she would not refuse an answer, would not turn away the child. If it meant a few lies, she thought, so be it, though her sister would be shocked at the depths of her deception. From the hallway, ear tuned to closed door, she listened to Norahs steady breathing. She could still feel the warm impression on her back where the girl had touched her.
7
Winter mornings Paul would send her to school, bundled against the cold, and from their bedroom window, Margaret watched their daughter fling back the hood, unzip the overcoat, and rush to join her friends, her bundle of books hanging by a single strap. Erica had a life apart, outside the confines of their home, but her father never noticed until too late, when he was no longer her guide and protector. At age ten, she sassed him at the dinner table, a joke at first tinged with sarcasm, but soon enough she would roll her eyes at his faint attempts at endearment, his increasingly desperate maneuvers to win her back. The onset of puberty widened the gulf. She was running away, and he did not know how to bridge the distance between his adoring little girl and sullen adolescence.
From her vantage point behind the kitchen window, Margaret watched the children in the yard. She scanned the treetops in the backyard, remembering a kite Paul and Erica lost years ago, wondering if some tattered cloth still clung to bare branches. Perched high in a massive oak, a falcon screamed at first light, startled by the stranger blazing through the empty forest. The figure huddled deeper into his coat, tried to hide his identity.