Page 15 of Mad Mabel

We don’t talk about Kitty, my father had said at that dinner party when I was little.Certainly not with Mabel.

I was starting to suspect my parents had had another child—Kitty. But why didn’t they talk about her? And why certainly not with me?

“Well,” Ness said. “If they’re too stupid to appreciate Mabel, you and I will have to do it.”

“Is that right?” I heard the smile in Cess’s voice.

“Damn straight,” Ness said.

From outside the door, I smiled, even though I had no way of knowing at the time that that conversation changed the entire course of my life.

While my parents were away for months at a time—in England, Hong Kong, or South Africa—my mother and I wrote letters. Mum was a beautiful letter writer. With pen and paper, she seemed better able to distill her thoughts and feelings. In this, and perhaps only this, my mother and I were the same. She wrote on stationery that was floral and embossed, the ink dark and precise, as if every letter had been carefully chosen. I felt more connected to her by reading her letters than I did when in her physical presence.

You would love Italy, Mabel. Everywhere you turn there is something magnificent—the Colosseum, the Duomo, the statue of David! I feel like I’m in a history book. As you walk about, you can practically feel the souls of the people who walked before you. In a place like this, you can’t help but reflect on your life, and what’s important. Several times a day, I see it through your little observing eyes, I smell it through your sensitive little nose. I hear your funny little questions—“Why is the air full of happiness here, Mummy?”

You may seem bookish, darling, but in your heart, you’re an artist.

Lovely, right?

That particular letter was in grave danger of disintegrating from so many nights under my pillow, days in my pocket or sweaty hand. The paper had begun to yellow at the edges, the ink smudged where my fingers had touched it too many times. It was a silly yearning, I suppose, to be so desperate for a mother’s love. So desperate that I didn’t mind that I couldn’t recognize myself in the letters at all. The word “little,” for example, used three times in this paragraph, wasn’t one typically used for me. The comment about the air being full of happiness was whimsical in a way I could never be. And she was wrong about me being an artist, a poet. I was bookish, nothing more.

It was almost as though she were writing the letters to someone else entirely. Some days, when I could distance myself enough, I’d wonder who she was actually writing to.

As a librarian, Ness was always on the hunt for books I might enjoy. Each time I finished something, it became her mission to find something I’d enjoy more. Each search began with a quiz.

“What’s the best book you’ve ever read?”

“The worst?”

“What did you just finish?”

“If you could invent a book, what would it be about?”

I’d answer as best I could, shy at first, but with more confidence when I realized she genuinely cared. Every time—without fail—she’d press the perfect book into my hands.

One day, that book wasAnne of Green Gables.

“The protagonist, Anne, reminds me of you,” she said, eyes sparkling behind her cat-eye glasses. “She’s smart and creative and has fiery red hair. And she’s an orphan.”

I blinked and took the book from her, startled.

“Not that you’re an orphan,” she added quickly, flustered. “You know what I mean.”

I wasn’t sure I did. My mind scrambled to make sense of it, to decode what she meant. But before I could ask, she did something unexpected: She pulled me into a hug. It was brief and a little awkward—her cardigan smelled like peppermint and old paper—but it was warm. Intentional.

I stood stiffly, heart racing, until something in me softened. And then I understood. Not just the Anne comparison, but something bigger. This woman saw me. And she cared.

It was, I realized, the first time in my entire childhood I could remember someone hugging me without being asked or obligated. Just because they wanted to.

9

Of course I started a diary. As Ness suggested, I wrote about my thoughts and my feelings and my imaginations—whatever came to my mind. It felt strange. I’d been raised in a house where feelings were something you folded up and put away, like winter jumpers in the spring. But with a pencil in hand, I found I could make sense of my feelings. It was like cracking open a secret room in my own brain.

Oftentimes I found myself writing about Cess and Ness’s friendship. It seemed to me that there was something magical about it. Part of it was that it was unusual. Most women their age spent most of their time with their husbands and children, or occasionally with their husbands’ friends’ wives. It was uncommon to see two unmarried women attending Mass together, doing their grocery shopping, visiting the theater. Because of this Cess and Ness were often the subject of whispers about town. Perhaps this was the reason Ness spent a lot of time at our house, away from gossip and prying eyes.

Cess and Ness loved to talk. I remember marveling that after so many years of friendship, they still had so much to talk about. Eavesdropping was among my favorite pastimes when Cess and Ness were talking. They always had the most salacious gossip—about our local priest, about the neighbors, about the fathers of kids I knew who had become a little too friendly with one of them at the parish ball. The only thing better than listening to their gossip was listening to the wonderful, baffling way they knew what the other was saying, without needing to use full sentences.

“Cess?” Ness would say. “Do you—”