October 2003
‘We need a funeral,’ Franklyn said.
She’d been joking about it for a good few days, but now she squared her shoulders, as if prepared for a physical argument. Daniela could tell she was serious.
Stephanie, predictably, was happy to argue. Daniela wondered why Franklyn had bothered telling Stephanie, rather than just going ahead and hoping she wouldn’t find out, like usual.
Although, this time, Stephanie did have a point. ‘It’s weird and morbid,’ she said. ‘Funerals are for dead people.’
‘She might as well be dead, for all we’re going to see of her,’ Franklyn said. It was only dinner time, but Daniela suspected Franklyn had been drinking already. ‘We need some closure. It’s for us, not her. Funerals always are. We’re closing one part of our lives so we can open another.’
And perhaps, privately, Stephanie agreed, because she took herself off somewhere else in the house while the rest of them made plans.
‘How’re we actually going to do this?’ Auryn asked. She and Daniela had trailed Franklyn into the garage. Franklyn dragged out the cardboard boxes their father had stored away six months earlier, once it’d become obvious that wherever their mother had gone, she wasn’t coming back.
‘We each take whatever we want,’ Franklyn said. ‘Two or three items each max.’ Franklyn had a way of talking like she’d thought of everything in advance. ‘Any more than that and he’ll know what we’ve been up to.’ Franklyn rarely referred to their father by name anymore. If he walked into the room, she left.
There was a time – maybe as little as two months ago, maybe as much as six – when they’d each believed their mother was coming home. Franklyn, the eldest of the four sisters, gave up hope first. Stephanie, second oldest but most mature by some distance, had been practical enough to accept the situation quickly. That left Daniela and Auryn. At thirteen and twelve respectively, it’d seemed impossible to them that their mother could’ve just walked out. For weeks afterwards Daniela would wake with clear certainty: today she’ll come home.
A month after their mother left, their father went around the house and systematically removed every trace of her. Pictures, trinkets, jewellery; everything went into cardboard boxes to go into storage. When Auryn asked if she could keep the ceramic kittens from the mantelpiece, their dad had snapped at her. Auryn was used to being the favourite, being granted every whim, but apparently that was about to change as well.
Franklyn started taking items out of the boxes and setting them aside. Some she studied for a moment then put back. Others she wouldn’t even touch. Her eyes were narrowed, as if she was focusing so hard, she could see nothing except what was right in front of her. Daniela watched her, fascinated and a little worried.
Franklyn glanced into the bin bags of clothes but then shoved them out of the way. She paused over the wooden crucifix that used to hang in the hallway. Daniela had never liked it, with its sad Jesus that watched her every time she left the house. Secretly, she was pleased their father had taken it down. Now, she felt a tinge of regret as Franklyn put it back in the box, tucked securely under a pile of magazines.
At length, Franklyn settled on three objects. A silver-backed hairbrush, a small vanity mirror, and a set of wind chimes, which she had wrapped with newspaper to shut them up.
‘All right.’ Franklyn sat on her heels. ‘That’ll do for a start. You guys pick something to add.’
Daniela and Auryn shuffled closer, on their knees like supplicants. It felt almost like a game. Daniela was tempted to smile, but Auryn was chewing her lip and Franklyn looked as serious as Daniela had ever seen her.
‘What about Stephanie?’ Auryn asked.
‘If she wants to join us, she can,’ Franklyn said. ‘If not, whatever.’
Auryn ran a finger over a string of jade beads. ‘Mum will be upset if she comes home and finds her stuff gone.’
If, she said. Not when. Not anymore.
‘She took everything she wanted to take,’ Franklyn said.
Auryn was more rational than Daniela, able to analyse options and make a choice, even when all choices seemed equally bad. Onto the pile she added the jade beads and the ceramic kittens that her father hadn’t let her take before.
Franklyn gave her a gentle look. The whole family was gentle with Auryn, as if she was the most likely to break. Except Stephanie – Stephanie treated Auryn like everyone else, with barely concealed impatience. ‘Whatever you pick isn’t coming back,’ Franklyn said.
‘I know that,’ Auryn said. She set the cats down next to the jade beads, turning the ornaments so they sat parallel to the hairbrush.
Daniela pulled out a handful of bracelets and laid them on the floor so she could study them. On an intellectual level, Daniela knew the jewellery was pretty, but other than that it held little fascination. She’d never developed an enthusiasm for dressing up like most of the people at school.
Maybe she had her sisters to blame for her rough appearance. Franklyn had no tolerance for posh clothes or nice shoes, which she just wrecked anyway. Stephanie was entirely practical. At sixteen, she was in the midst of another growth spurt, and wore whatever fit her frame. Auryn had been getting their hand-me-downs for years, giving her a mismatched style that she was rapidly losing patience with. Daniela sometimes looked at her sisters, then at the girls from school, and wondered where she fit in.
No, she wouldn’t take the bracelets. Daniela couldn’t remember her mother wearing them anyway.
She looked for something else. It was a delicate balance, choosing objects that reminded her of her mother, whilst also being something she wanted rid of. Should she take a cheap and nasty item, like the plastic clip-on earrings that even her mother had hated? Or something expensive, like the vintage satchel, to show how angry she was?
But Daniela had spent enough time in the antiques shop, helping their father price up stock, to know how much the small items in the boxes were worth. Her stomach twinged at the idea of destroying anything valuable. So instead she took up the bundle of postcards, sent by her mother’s friends from various exotic places, each filled with cramped, excitable writing. Of no value to anyone except her mother.
She took everything she wanted to take.
Franklyn made no comment on the choices. She simply put all the items into an empty box, then stood up.
Their dad was in the sitting room at the front of the house, talking shop with Henry. Henry owned a half-share in the antiques shop, and more than a half-share in their lives. ‘Give your Uncle Henry a hug,’ he’d often say to Daniela and Auryn. Their mother had always puckered her mouth whenever he spoke like that.
About a year ago, Daniela had realised Henry was an honorary uncle at best. That was a relief – she didn’t want him as any kind of uncle let alone a relative. But his son, Leo … she’d grown up thinking Leo was her cousin. That’d been a blow, to discover he wasn’t.
Her dad and Henry used to do their talking in the actual shop, in the centre of Stonecrop, all of half a mile distant. But, since Daniela’s mother could no longer object, Henry had started showing up at the home, usually mid-afternoon, to discuss business. Dinner time would come and go while the two men remained sequestered in the sitting room, and the kids foraged whatever they could find to eat from the scant supplies in the kitchen.
Daniela, Franklyn and Auryn carried their contraband through the house. This was the riskiest part of the plan. If their dad caught them, he’d take the items and hide them away