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By Root 599 0

were cheerful. When I asked my mother why Dora had so many visitors, she told me that the house was a shop, selling things that people liked but did not need. This I took to mean food, and for a time I imagined a secret cellar full of rare delicacies and sweetmeats. But when I asked whether we could not taste the things she had for sale, my mother said they would not appeal to us. To me this meant food from the sea: oysters, cockles, jellied eel, and the like, which I have always disliked. When I asked my mother whether this was the type of fare Dora served, she paused and said it was much the same. So I came to think of her house as a sort of tavern, where men could come and gorge like kings, and feel contented. Later, when I was old enough to know the truth, I wondered at my mother’s explanation, for it seemed to me that the men who crossed her doorstep did so as much out of need as desire.

For life was often hard, and there was little enough to relieve it. In winter there was famine and sickness and bitter cold to contend with. In summer, there was fever and pestilence. When I was five nearly half the village succumbed to plague. My mother did not let me out of the house for weeks on end, and I remember watching through the cracks of the doorway as the bodies were taken away on horse carts to be burned in fields outside the village. Throughout my childhood Dora plied her trade, entertaining both the men of the village and those passing through on the road to London. It dawned on me eventually that my mother did not have such a need, for as long as I could remember she preferred her own company to that of others. She was not reclusive, only purposeful: when she did keep company, it was with women, and these were usually great-bellied. Her work was her life, and even I felt incidental to it at times. My grandmother had birthed children, and her mother before that, and as far as I knew my own mother had done nothing but reach into wombs since she had come of age. That she’d once been a child herself seemed unlikely; that she’d actually conceived one was unthinkable.

But this was not the case with most of the village. As soon as I was old enough to understand, I kept track of those who visited Dora’s house. I have a good memory for a face, and an even better one for a voice, and a great deal could be heard through the cottage walls. At one time or another, every able-bodied man in the village came her way, as did a sizable proportion of those who were not-so-abled. She did not discriminate but welcomed all of them with an easy smile and a ready hand. And as I have said, the women came as well, their baskets full of new-picked apples and just-baked bread. They came less often, but to me their need seemed just as great. They were drawn not by lust but by the desire for her presence. For Dora had chosen to bestow herself upon us: she gave us grace and generosity and compassion. And, for me at least, a glimpse of what might lie beyond our small horizons.

That is why we are now stricken by her death. Even my mother is bereft. Perhaps especially my mother, for Dora was the closest thing she ever had to a friend. Yesterday, during the funeral procession, my mother stumbled on some loose stones and nearly fell. She pitched forward suddenly, grabbing my arm for support, and for an instant I was reminded of the moment we had first met Dora. My mother again gripped me so hard I nearly cried out, though she appeared not to realize it. But this time, there was no one there to carry off her anger, nor her loss. My mother clutched my arm all the way to the gravesite, so hard it later brought blood marks to my skin, but still it did not raise Dora from her grave.

After the funeral, I took my mother home and put her to bed. These past few months age has made its mark upon her, a process only hastened by the events of the last three days. I heated some broth for her to eat but she refused, sinking down into her bed with a raspy breath. My mother has been a party to death more times than I could number (in some years, more babies are born