matchbook

y mother put down her needle and thread and button and sighed as she lifted my chin. “What will become of you, Cinderella? Will you remember me?” She coughed and raised her apron up to her mouth. She closed her eyes, but I saw three drops of blood among the flowers embroidered on the apron. She leaned in and whispered, “I wanted to attend your wedding.”

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She persisted in sewing my trousseau—a green wedding dress, white nightgown, and brown work dress—though I was only eight and years from getting married. She hurried to finish my work dress, pricking her fingers, losing more blood.

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My father fell asleep on his chair watching over her after he shambled back from the fields. And when he woke, she was gone. My aunts washed her body, all the while humming a hymn about heaven. “You’ll see her there,” Aunt Minna said.

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I stepped back. I didn’t want heaven.

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The plague burned through our village, and we could not travel away from it as the lords and ladies did. We had to endure its devouring of the population. We all wished we could be lords and ladies, princes and princesses, though some of them died too.

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My aunts joined their sister in heaven, and then it was just my father and I who went to church on Sunday, who ate a stew of potatoes, who brought flowers to the cemetery. Mother visited me in my dreams and promised I would have a happy and long life if I was virtuous, if I went to bed early, did not waste my time, wore my good dress to church and not to dances.

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My father rubbed his forehead. “What will become of you?” He coughed and was afraid he’d die. He decided to marry a widow who had children. “We can combine families,” he said. “We’ll share the work. I’ll have three happy daughters.”