the china cabinet

Flo tottered to the stairs and leaned backwards, at their angle, bracing herself between the rounded banister heads, “Henrí! It is almost time to eat!” With surprising strength, she righted herself, once again perpendicular to the floor, and tottered back toward the kitchen, stopping to straighten a picture that sat on the mantle. Chewing on the inside of her cheeks, she tried to recall what it was her great niece, the blond one, had said earlier that afternoon.

“He looks so young!”
Maybe that was what she said?
Or was it,
“Which one’s Pop?”

It was hard to remember. Flo squinted at the dusty frame that contained Henrí and his brother Marcel. “You know, Henrí? Your brother was always right, you may have been a looker, but he got all the looks!” She ribbed her husband loudly, yelling in the direction of the stairwell. Like creaking wood, Flo heard the oven make that noise that told her it was plenty hot. Listen to you! she thought. Talking to that man all day while your roast burns to a crisp. Flo made a mental note to turn up Henrí’s hearing aid at supper.

She rounded the corner. In eyesight from the doorway was a crowded counter of pots and pans, accented by the beautiful vase of powder white lilies her sister-in-law and nieces had left that afternoon. Such a pity those girls live so far away, they’ll not see Henrí’s garden in the spring. Holding the flowers in one hand, and reaching toward the oven with the other, Flo created a balancing act like the pink tutued Mademoiselle Danielle used to do at the circus, one hand full of flowers, the other full of flames. She coughed at the smoke escaping from the oven and grimaced slightly at its familiar heat. Why he likes his pot roast blackened is beyond me, Flo thought in exasperation. Henrí always has had the most peculiar tastes. He was unlike his twin brother in that way, pickier, more exacting. But Henrí gave his preferences such elaborate defense, it was no wonder he was always getting his way. His sister, Marie, warned me of that, Flo thought. She told me before we got married that he was, “lisse.”

“Slick, like a varnish. A smooth finish on stubborn wood,” she had said.

Sixty-three years later and nothing changes.

Her eyes followed the roast as she set it gingerly on top of the oven. But her mind traveled, from that conversation with Marie, to Henrí and Marcel’s graduation, to the evening he proposed, to the flower garden on summer mornings, flickering through decades and stopping, uncertainly, at this afternoon’s comment from the other niece, the one with heavy brown hair. This one laughed loudly like a man. She had said, in a quiet voice that Flo imagined took incredible restraint,

“Aunt Flo, what was Henrí like?”

Flo had leaned backward in her chair, fluttering her hands about wildly. What was Henrí like when? Yesterday what was Henrí like? Forty years ago what was Henrí like? As a child what was Henrí like?

“That’s not really a question one can ask about Henrí,” she had told the girl.

She murmured this again into her smoky kitchen. “Not a question one can ask about Henrí at all.” But a question one could ask, a question Flo did ask was, “Henrí, are you deaf? It is time for your dinner!” Before the r closed at the roof of her mouth, the house shuddered, as if it were a ship lolling with cargo, and released an aching sigh. Flo rolled her eyes. “You are a bull, Henrí! And I am a china cabinet!” That was one of the English expressions Henrí’s mother never delivered correctly. Her attempts left the children choking with laughter. Now it was one of their favorite inside jokes. Flo thought that the girls from the afternoon, the brown and the yellow nieces, knew a lot of inside jokes. They giggled whenever their watchful grandmother turned away. Which was whenever Flo spoke. If only Henrí hadn’t been so long at the store, he would have been here to help her entertain. He was such a good host. Lisse, Marie would say. Smooth-talker. Ow! She brushed her hand against the metal roasting pan. “Hen-rí! Dinner!” her voice released more heat than she’d expected. “Henrí! Do! You! Hear! Me!?!” Stumbling back and than forth, like Mademoiselle Danielle did to please the crowd, Flo performed an embellished balancing act by fluttering the sore hand in front of her face. “Henrí!” she shouted, “it is getting cold!” even though it wasn’t. With flourish, her scalded palm crashed down on top of the white lily vase, sending loose petals and the small note card flying.

“We’re so sorry, Aunt Flo.” Was it the brown or the yellow one who had said this, and kissed her lightly on the cheek? The one who laughed like a man?

She had been relieved to see them go.

What were they sorry for? Had she invited them to dinner? Henrí wouldn’t have liked guests, unexpectedly. Her hand burned. She bit her cheeks. “S'il te plaît! Henrí!” Were they sorry for not staying longer? “Henríííí!” she wailed. Flo bit her cheek harder and leaned back against the counter. Her hand was starting to blister. “Je me suis fait mal! Henrí!” Her elbow swung. The vase toppled. Water and stems and slender white petals stampeded the air. Her tears broke in shards with the glass. Flo landed softly among the pieces, like china, on the floor. “Henríííí, nous sommes cassés Henrí!!”