Everything My Mother Taught Me

by Alice Hoffman

She was the sort of person who saw only herself and her shadow, and the rest of us disappeared in the bright sunlight.

scullery

I abolished all language on the day of my father’s funeral. I did it to honor my father and outrage my mother, who slapped me when I refused to answer her. Let her, I thought. She still couldn’t make me cry. “You’ll regret this, Miss Adeline,” she said, mocking me. Well, maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t, but after a day and a night of self-imposed silence, I didn’t know if I could speak even if I tried.

skiff

I saw how interested he was. I could tell about such things. When men were interested, they had a faraway look, as if they were trying to figure out their attraction. Was it a dream, or was it real? Did they want a woman, body and soul, or was it only the body that appealed to them? Sometimes it took them a while to figure it out, sometimes only minutes.

He was shy with most people but not with me. The fact that I didn’t talk brought out his chatty side.

cairn

currants

gooseberries

Lu...

accomplice.

“Oh her,” my mother said when the third lighthouse keeper had glanced at me, concerned, after their kiss. He still had some heart and soul back then. “She doesn’t even speak.”

dolt,

I broke a piece of crockery in the kitchen, and I suppose I closed my eyes tightly, as if I expected to be slapped. Instead she merely said, “I always disliked that cup. Now I’ll have a good excuse to buy another when I get to town.”

She was older than my mother, and quiet, like me. She was pretty, but you had to search for her beauty, which was hidden in her kind eyes.

“What shall I do?” she asked. I wasn’t certain what she meant or why she would want my advice. Perhaps she didn’t want an answer, for she was asking someone who was mute by choice and therefore clearly had nothing to say.

My idea was simple. She would leave a note and disappear, and no one would search for her because they would all believe she had taken her own life. Mr. Ballard and my mother would be blamed for her suicide and lose their jobs as their punishment.

What the heck is she planning on kiing her