As I approach my seventieth birthday, I find myself thinking more and more often of Aunt Henrietta, and of the terrible thing my brother Harry and I did to her many years ago. Autumn has arrived, and I am growing old; perhaps that accounts for it. I have recently taken to spending an hour each morning on the porch. From my chair, I am occasionally lucky enough to see a balloon or two drift by, high and huge and wonderful, silent as clouds. Sometimes a breeze rattles the sumac leaves just the right way, or I catch a breath of apple cider on the air. Then I think perhaps I understand Aunt Henrietta as I never did when I was young. It isn't regret that I feel, exactly--something more like wistfulness. If only Henrietta had fully respected our childhood view of justice; if only Clotaire the balloonist had respected it a little less.
You see, when Harry was eight and I was ten, our mother fell ill. At that time, we had wonderful lodgings in the city, in an ornate copper-roofed house that overlooked one of the parks. Harry and I were in the habit of sneaking about in the dark after we were supposed to be asleep. One evening, early in spring, we peeked around the drawing room doorway. By the warm, uneven light of the fire, we saw Mother in her dressing gown and a quilt, seated in the largest and softest of the armchairs. Father sat beside her on the floor, leaning against her knees, an empty brandy glass tilted in his hand. I had never seen him sit on the floor before. Neither of them spoke or moved, but something about the way they stared into the flames made me feel quite empty and afraid. At that moment, I realized for the first time just how ill Mother really was.
Father's subsequent actions bore this out. In the middle of May we moved to a house in the country, where Mother spent most of her time lying in bed in a sunny room upstairs. The doctor gave orders that Harry and I were to see her no more than an hour each day, and that even then we must be quiet and try not to excite her. This news terrified and infuriated me. In retribution, I took to breaking vases and scattering silverware about on the floor, while Harry looked on in awe.
Two things happened because of this. First, Harry and I were firmly encouraged to stay outdoors most of the time, which is how we discovered Clotaire. And second, Father sent for his sister, Henrietta. So Clotaire and Aunt Henrietta entered our world together, the same way in which they departed from it.
One of those first country spring afternoons, as we stood with Father on the spacious lawn in front of our new house, Harry and I spied a balloon drifting high in the distance. I had never seen a balloon before and wasn't at all sure what it could be. I still remember just how it looked--shining silver, with a magnificent sun, moon, and stars about its circumference. It belonged to Clotaire, of course, though we didn't know it yet.
I jumped up and down, trying to see it better over the treetops, and cried, "What is it? It's so beautiful!"
"That's a balloon, Catherine," said Father. "There's a man hanging from it in a basket. He's taking a ride."
Harry leapt up as well, his cheeks all aglow, shouting, "Daddy, make him bring it here! I want a ride, too!"
Father laughed. His laughter in those days was brief and quiet, and always made me think of Mother, lying pale in her bed. "I'm afraid he's too far away to hear us," he said, reaching down to tousle Harry's brown curls.
Harry squirmed, but flashed one of those empty, sunny smiles of his. Father looked down at him, returned the smile rather stiffly, and said, "Come inside now, children. I have a surprise for you."
So, shielding our eyes and pointing at the receding silver balloon, Harry and I stumbled up the path to the front door, and ran directly into Father's surprise--Aunt Henrietta. He hadn't told us he was expecting her, and I suppose we must have been playing and thus missed noticing the carriage that brought her from the station. At any rate, the unexpected sight of her ample, stalwart figure in the doorway affected us like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky. Harry and I were dumbstruck.
Stubbornness and the smells of starched lace and lavender hovered around Aunt Henrietta, mothlike. We had never known her very well. She lived far away, visited our house only one week a year, and always brought with her a suit of scratchy new underwear for each of us. She taught at a private girls' school, and raised large maroon roses in her spare time. I had two vivid memories of her, both of which at that moment crashed around inside my head like trapped finches. The first was of her slapping my hand as I reached for a third piece of cake at tea time. The second was of Harry's gurgling screams as she held him by the ear and washed his mouth out with laundry soap. He had made the mistake of saying aloud that he "didn't give a hoot about the heathen children in China," a turn of phrase which he had picked up from Father.
I suppose Harry and I must have looked a little bewildered as we stared up at her on the doorstep. She possessed hugely expressive black eyebrows, which she now raised into swooping arches that reached almost to the line of her stone-gray hair. "Children!" she said, her voice warm and sweet as those disgusting fig tarts she loved to eat. "How delightful to see you again."
Father put a hand on each of our shoulders. "Henrietta's come to stay with us until Mother gets better. Isn't that good of her?"
The eyebrows dropped and a sort of smile crackled its way across Aunt Henrietta's powdery face. "Yes. I've come to help your father look after you for a little while. Won't that be nice?"
I suppose she thought she was doing the right thing. Perhaps she even thought this type of sacrifice would assure her of a place in heaven. After all, she was a solid and confident woman, with lucid ideas of the world. In all likelihood, it never occurred to her that she might only make matters worse by volunteering her services.
Harry and I were too young to see any of this, however. I knew only that Aunt Henrietta's presence at a time like this must mean that my mother was in terrible danger.
I started the new venture off well--with a blood-curdling scream followed by, "I won't! I won't let you look after me. It's Mother's job. Leave me alone!" I ran straight across the lawn and into the woods, where I found solace in the rough branches of a maple tree. I cried until dark, when, as no one came looking for me, I climbed down and made my way home, feeling hungry and deserted.
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