Chapter 4
A critical part of Mother’s plan was to pretend they had different names.
Together the three of them — Maureen, Mother, and Arthur — sat around the white table underneath the matching gazebo overlooking the yard. It was Mother’s favorite place, second to the conservatory, as it was covered on nearly all sides by trees and nature. The branches stretched under the awning, and poked into the back of whoever was unlucky enough to get there last. Today it was Arthur.
“Pass me that pillow Maurie, I think I need extra padding.”
Maureen handed him the pillow from her wicker chair in smug victory. Arthur stuck his tongue out and Maureen did so back.
“Alright mes amours. Pay attention now.” And so they did. Mother looked very professional despite her lack of shoes and unbrushed hair. The wisps went everywhere, and framed her face like a halo. She passed around the table the cards from Father’s office. The letterhead was scratched out, so instead of saying “Byron Davis M.D” , Maureen’s said Maureen Black.
“Now then,” Mother said, buttering a scone before layering on a thick glob of black currant preserves, “first order of business. Your names.”
“Mine says Arthur Black.” Arthur looked serious again. “Why Black?”
“My little detective. Very observant.” Mother took a bite. “That is my maiden name. Maurie dear, do you know what that is?”
A test. Maureen racked her brain through any and all vocabulary she’d had to learn. She did not. Abashed at her idiocy, she shook her head no.
“It means what Mother was called before she married Father.” Arthur explains. He caught Maureen's morose gaze in his, and smiled patiently.
“Yes.” Mother responded simply. “When we leave, that is the name you are all to presume. Not Davis.” Mother sucked the jam from her thumb and her eyes glazed over. “The surname is very old and you should be very proud to have it. Our house was —” Mother stopped. “Our house is a very noble, very ancient one. Be very proud.”
Maureen stood up straighter and preened. She imagined herself in regal robes and gowns before a full court. They applauded her every move and would call her very smart, the smartest actually.
“Then why did you leave?” Arthur and Mother had always had “a strange back and forth”, as Nanny would call it. Mother would say one thing, Arthur would interrogate, so on and so forth.
She smiled and it didn’t look real. “Short or long?”
Mother’s frankness was what Maureen loved most about her. That and her cigarettes. She would do tricks with the smoke, twist them into shapes and animals that felt somehow beyond circustry. “Just practice.” She would say.
Mother had one resting on her knee, fingers seemingly effortlessly elongated. Maureen placed her fingers in an approximation, absent with her admiration, it was that steady.
“Short, then long,” Maureen decided before Arthur could open his mouth.
Mother’s eyes fell on her and the smile blunted at the seams. “Short? Well…” she took a second to think. “I was root rot, like at the base of our peonies. And they did what one does to cure root rot.”
“But you’re not rotten”, Maureen said, “You’re all the flowery bits.” Mother glowed, and Maureen was happy.
“Long. Well. I had a sister. We were twins, actually…” She rubbed at her lip with her burnt down stub, before dragging. “There were four of us, Cissy, Andie, Bella, and I. Now Cissy and Bella were perfect. Well, Cissy was,” She laughs, “Bella was and I’m sure still is, a great big handful.”
The smile faded. Mother dropped her stub in her tea, before pulling out and lighting it with a match from the table. She never liked to talk about herself. Whenever Maureen and Arthur asked, she calmly but firmly laid the topic to rest. Arthur had stopped, but Maureen was just so curious. Who was Mother before she was Mother? In fact — “Mother, what are you called? To other people, I mean. When you’re not Mother.”
Arthur’s smile meant she had said something silly. And it didn’t make her feel like when Mother smiled, but instead curdled the shine.
“I’m not stupid!” Her ears burned. “I was being serious. Do you know it? I’ve just never heard it, that's all! So stop it!”
“What did I do? I didn’t even say anything!”
“You did, you laughed!”
“Maurie.” Mother stopped smiling and her eyes were firm. “No one has called you stupid. Do you know why? Because no one here thinks you are stupid. And that is because…?”
“...”
“Maureen.”
“Because I’m not stupid.”
“Good. Arthur?”
“But I didn’t…fine. Because Maureen’s not stupid.”
“Good. Shall I continue?” Arthur shuffled his pillow in muggy silence. “My first name is Cassiopeia. Like the constellation, the stars Maurie. We were all named for them; it was tradition.” On the next bit her eyes grew flint. She looked the two in their eyes by turn. “And it was tradition that pushed me out. Tradition wrought with hypocrisy and meanness. Arrogance and cruelty.”
“So why are we going back?” Arthur asked.
“Yeah,” Maureen agrees, “I don’t think I want to go to meanness.”
“…Because I fear the one in our home has grown beyond that of theirs.”