Easter Friday

It's frigidly unacceptable for Easter Friday, but that's what we get living in this Northern Hemisphere. Spring it may be, but it remains unseasonably, unreasonably cold. Snow flurries swept by a polar wind decorated our landscape this morning. The emerging tulip bulbs have suspended animation, most wisely. Then the sun slips through the clouds scuttling the horizon and it's possible to think once again that the warmth that spring promises has merely been delayed.

I'm cleaning up from our prolonged breakfast, drying the dishes, when the doorbell rings and the dogs chorus their response. We've an etched-glass plate set into the front door and through it is seen the brightly anxious figure of a little girl who lives four houses down the street. Michaela is her name, one of four siblings. For some reason she has taken to us, despite all the company she has at home.

On the few occasions when we see her outside at this time of year she mentions she has dropped by, rung our bell, but we obviously weren't home. "Hi" she chirps at my husband as he opens the door, "I haven't seen you for a while, and wondered how you are." She is invited in, leaves her shoes and coat in the foyer and follows my husband into the living room where he shows her the luminous glory of our new stained glass windows.

He takes her around the living room, demonstrates for her how the many clocks he has collected are wound, and encourages her to gently wind them one after another. This child is interested in everything around her, willing to listen as things are explained to her. She questions and respects the responses her enquiries elicit. Into the kitchen she comes and watches as I scoop the scum from the chicken soup I'm starting, asks if I need help cutting the vegetables.

I place a bowl under her nose and ask if she can identify what is in it. Eggs? she asks, but no, I tell her, it's yeast softening and rising in a little bit of water. She likes the smell, she says, and no she doesn't know what yeast is. So I explain to her, and she watches as I add salt, a few scoops of oat bran, then flour. Her face brightens watching me knead the dough; she's done something like that with her mother.

No thank you she says sweetly, when my husband offers her a cookie, a muffin. Because it's Easter Friday, she tells us, she and her mother have decided in deference to the solemnity of the day not to eat very much of anything. She'd make up for it, she tells us, tomorrow. She speaks of her pet, the family dog, a 7-year-old boxer mix, whose favourite place to sleep is on her bed, with her, then asks where ours sleep.

Shouldn't she telephone her mother, I ask her, to make sure she knows where she is. No need, she responds, her mother knows. She returns to my husband and they discuss the power outage two nights ago. I sit down too in the family room and we discuss her family's recent move to this city, and does she miss Nova Scotia? What's her opinion about her new school, school friends? She likes this city, misses Halifax a bit, likes her school, although the rules are different, and likes her classmates, although the boys aren't very well behaved.

When I go upstairs to make up our bed she asks to come with. She tells me how much she enjoys looking around our house, there's so much to see. She likes antiques and art, she says, she likes the bright colours of the stained glass windows. It must cost a lot, she says, tipping her head toward me, to get all these things. I tell her we've been collecting these things for over 40 years, and when we started no one else seemed interested and prices were low.

She listens attentively to everything. She follows me into the library where I return the camera which I used to snap a few photographs of her with my husband when they were in the living room, winding clocks. She remembers this room; she was here with her mother when they first moved in. Soon the dogs are barking their chorus again, and there at the door is her little sister; six years to Michaela's mature nine.

Although there's a middle sister, it's Michaela and her sister Tessa who are always together. Tessa hates missing anything. As we let her in, Michaela bends her head toward her sister and whispered "I got to wind clocks". The girls' father is mestizo, and their skin colour is a gorgeous hue, their hair thick and dark and lustrous, their features sweetly rounded. We explain we're getting ready to head out for our morning ravine walk.

The children are a little disappointed; Tessa, realizing her sister wasn't home was obviously informed where she was and had rushed out of the house sans coat. She confided in me that she almost forgot her boots, and stuck her feet into them in a hurry, not bothering with her jacket, despite the cold. On their earlier visit I had offered a porcelain Anne of Green Gables doll to Michaela.

She'd said she was happy enough with the small stuffed animals I'd given them. I asked Michaela if she'd like to change her mind about the doll this time. Yes, she said, she would. Downstairs we all went, to look at the porcelain dolls. Tessa had wanted a Chinese doll with luscious brocaded clothing and I had told her she was too young for a doll like that, not meant to be played with.

Again, Michaela expressed mild interest in the Anne doll, her eyes turning instead to the oriental dolls. "Choose one" I encouraged her, and she turned to me, "really?". Yes, I said, really. And she selected a braided-hair doll with gold brocade pajamas. "What about me?" half-wailed Tessa. What about you Tessa, would you like one too? Beaming, she chose a short-haired doll with bright green brocaded dress.

I disassembled the stands and placed them into plastic bags. Exacted a promise from the girls that they would respect the dolls and value them for their great beauty. They would have to understand the dolls were meant for show, to appreciate them aesthetically, not for play, and they assented readily. They made their way home after effusive thanks.

And we made our way to the ravine for a really invigorating walk.