The Seary Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

smiled, chopped and browned the cut-up rabbit, added onions, salt, and covered it with an inch of water.
    â€œCalm out,” he said.
Calm in
.
    â€œYes. Beautiful.”
    On cue, the true night sky brightened, and stars began to wink.
    â€œWhat do you think of Stella?” Percy asked.
    â€œStella? Who’s Stella?”
    â€œFor a name, Del.”
    â€œCan you believe I’d forgotten about that?” There was a joyfulness tangled in around her words.
    Deep within Percy, a mouth was beginning to form a toothy smile, creating a permanent inner fissure that was crammed with optimism. Risky, he knew, allowing that crack to develop, creating a sure nest for hope. But the air was so weighty with love, there was no other choice.
    â€œAre you happy, Mother?”
    â€œYes,” she replied, revelling in the name he had used. “So happy I feels sore all over.”

chapter two
    As a baby, Stella’s birth mother also made people feel sore all over. When Miriam Seary was only six weeks old, she gurgled and cooed constantly, curled her raspberry lips into a variety of crowd-pleasing expressions for visitors. The skin on her plump face was a spring snow, set off by a crown of butterscotch curls. “Some sweet,” second cousin Bea said, touching the baby’s hair. “You almost want to dissolve a lock or two, drink it.” Being the first child of an avid knitter, Miriam was always dressed smartly in caps and sweaters, booties to match. Neighbours called her stout pink digits irresistible, threatened to nibble them clean off.
    But even though Miriam was adored, people sensed she was bound for a luckless existence. Amongst themselves, they prophesized,
God don’t offer up that kind of face without robbing you of something else
. ’Tis only fair. Miriam’s mother and father never heard a breath of the murmurs, and they continued their praise, stared at Miriam with jaws agape, chests clutched, toothy smiles plastered across their faces.
    Scrunched-up Aunt Opal, settled in the rocker beside the cradle, felt a constant irritation over the chitchat. Shebelieved it was un-Christian-like for her niece and husband to spend so much time admiring the product of their own loins. The heights of conceit. Evil vanity. And so, Aunt Opal decided to cut through the drivel with a dire prediction. After swirling the empty cup of tea she was holding, she peered in and saw the leaves clumped together in a dark dot at the very centre of the base. Though this meant nothing to her, she held it up, announced with thinly veiled satisfaction, “Just as I thought. No good’ll come to that child. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
    And old Aunt Opal was right. When Miriam was nine months old, Uncle Charlie had the drunken notion to play a rousing game of birdie with her. Just as his niece was reaching peak altitude during her inaugural flight, Uncle Charlie’s belly began to sputter and spew, and he redirected his hands to his heaving abdomen. Down, down little Miriam flew. All four wings outstretched, but still, she landed squarely on her precious downy head. Two of her vertebrae were crushed and she lost consciousness for a nerve-wracking number of minutes. Grabbing her up, her mother placed a hand on her head, sweet brown curls overshadowed now by bulbous swelling, purple bruising on a compressible skull. She survived the tumble, but when her back healed, she was left with a noticeable hump, a persistent crook in her neck. And soon after, people began to notice the babbling had ceased, a smile could not be coaxed, and Miriam Seary grew prone to staring off into sideways space.
    Miriam’s parents were never the same. Her mother fell into a deep unyielding depression, and she faded away to nothingness, died when Miriam was six years old. Her father’s despair was similar, though grittier, sloppier, and he was soon reunited with his wife when his liver grew scarredbeyond repair.