Lea at Ninety-Five

LIANNE SPIDEL

At fifteen, freed from school 
and the farm she hated, she washed 
the colored clothes for a family 
of seven to pay her keep, found 
work in a bookstore, bought white 
boots and a feather boa, fell in love 
with a boy thought far above her. 

When his father said they were too 
young, she raised her chin, 
went dancing every night, snared 
and scorned three fiancés in turn. 
When one turned stubborn, she threw 
his ice skates clattering 
after him to make herself clear. 

At twenty-three she knew she could get 
anything with her larkspur eyes 
and bookstore education. She won back 
her love, escaped Ontario, kept a house 
with peach walls and open windows. 
Her only child came as a surprise 
she made the best of. 

She sometimes lived again a blizzard 
on Christmas Eve, being sledded 
to safety as one of her sisters 
strangled with diphtheria. 
Her father lived afterward 
in a black Scottish mood, 
refused to keep Christmas again. 

Today all this comes back to her 
as I polish her nails and feed her 
with a slow spoon. Yet she has no 
idea where her man has gone, 
and the child she never wanted 
has become the sister she never 
liked, the one who didn’t die.

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