Ezra and Izzy had never had time to marry. They lived together for over 50 years in a small house on the square and raised goats, rabbits and four daughters. Until Izzy took ill, they had never spent a night or much of a day apart - all four girls had been conceived and born in the tiny back bedroom except for the first, who Ezra always claimed had come into being on the kitchen table after a particularly spicy meal of fried shortribs and Spanish rice sent to them by an old friend of Izzy's on the mainland. Izzy had a reputation for living on the domestic edge and was always willing to try something new and different but the story of the Spanish rice and the kitchen table was told and re-told on countless front steps and around multiple old black stoves and each time she blushed and hid her eyes.
The girls were named for the months in which they were born - April, May, January and June - each was delicate and slender, petite with dark hair and eyes and tiny feet, except for the first, who grew taller than both parents and who had a mass of caramel colored curls in contrast to her sisters' dark brunette and perfectly straight locks. Probably the Spanish rice, Ezra liked to tell folks, and Izzy would blush and hide her eyes.
Jan was different from her sisters in more ways than her hair and her height. April, May and June were homebodies with no great curiosity about the world beyond the the small island. All four girls were home schooled but resisted Izzy's carefully planned out lessons and reading lists, except for Jan who sought out anyone with books she could borrow. She read poetry, history and two versions of the Bible, all the local, discarded paperbacks the summer people brought, every classic the one room school had to offer. She read cookbooks and novels and magazines and seed catalogues and carried a pocket dictionary in her back pocket. If it was in print, she read it, learned it, retained it, despite the teasing and affectionate name calling from her un-curious sisters. Spanish rice must be brain food, Ezra told everyone and Izzy blushed and looked away.
By the time the girls reached their teens, the small house on the square was under siege from an onslaught of young island boys come to call. They eagerly helped Ezra with the chores, were always on hand for Izzy's errands, and they brought gifts - a box of maple sugar candy wrapped in brown paper with a makeshift bow, handpicked wildflowers or a piece of carved and polished driftwood, a jam jar of fragile, earth colored shells, a second hand book of old Scottish hymns. In exchange for cold milk and strawberry pie in Izzy's kitchen, they chopped firewood and repaired fences, rehung windows and fed the rabbits, learned to shear goats. Ezra watched all this with a mix of amusement and pride. Somethin' sure does draw a crowd to this kitchen, he told Izzy and his daughters all laughed except for the first born who blushed and hid her eyes.
By the time Izzy got sick, all four girls had scattered to make their own homes and their own lives although they returned often with their children and the little house was rarely empty. April met a soldier and moved to Annapolis,
May married a fisherman and moved across the passage, June found a job in the big hotel on the mainland. Only Jan stayed on the island, settling into a small house around the cove and dropping in on Ezra and Izzy daily. Goats and rabbits were replaced by grandchildren and a visiting nurse who came weekly. All was according to plan until one fine summer day when the ferry brought a strangely familiar figure - a tall, dark eyed, dark haired, slender and handsome man with a camera, a photographer who had spent time on the island when Ezra and Izzy were just starting out, a man now dying of terminal lung cancer, so it was said, a man who had come to make amends and die with a clean conscience. He sought out the small house on the square, then each of the girls in turn, except for the first born. It was said he stayed to a dinner of short ribs and Spanish rice with Ezra and Izzy and that he left behind a book of photographs but all that known for sure was that he left the following day.
On the day of the Izzy's funeral, while searching for one of her mother's treasured lace edged, lavender scented handkerchiefs - her only real extravagance - Jan came across a book of photographs concealed among a drawer of cotton nightgowns and practical underthings. There were pictures of fishing boats and rock formations, sunsets and seagulls and groups of old men in leather aprons and work gloves. There were pictures of flowers and driftwood scattered along the rocky coasts, abandoned shacks and lily ponds and families on front porches. And there were pictures of Izzy - dozens of pictures of Izzy, gathering shells in the secluded cove, wading through the creek above the cemetery, swinging on the old tire behind the schoolhouse with her petticoats showing. Izzy, with sparkling eyes and pale, unlined skin, young and laughing, without a care in the world - almost in love, Jan thought. It was a side of her mother that she had never seen but knew well from her sisters and feeling as if she'd intruded upon a hidden cache of very private memories, she decided to replace the book as she'd found it and promised herself to make no mention of it to anyone. She didn't hear her father's steps coming down the hall, didn't hear the bedroom door swing open until it was too late and she turned, picture book in hand, to see her father standing in the doorway. Come, January, he said gently, It's time. He took the book of photographs from her and placed it back in the drawer. Your sisters are waiting.
That night, as friends came to cook and tend the grandchildren, Ezra and his daughters sat on the front porch and watched the tides. April, May and June talked quietly while Jan, having no idea where to begin, leaned against her father's knees and breathed the scent of lavender. After a time, the three sisters kissed their father goodnight and went inside. Papa, she began, I need to know. Ezra sighed and dug for his pipe, took his time about lighting it and then spoke to his firstborn. There are things in this world that are better left untold, January, he said softly.
Here, my grandmother fell silent and when I opened my eyes to look at her, she had returned to her rocking and her knitting. That's it? I demanded of her, That's the end? But what happened to them? What about the photographer? She waved off my questions with a shake of her head and an enigmatic smile. Sometimes, she told me softly, we make mistakes and someone else has to make them right. Some things are better left untold.
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