New Mercies by Sandra Dallas Page A

EWB. When Mother wound it, the watch began to tick, and a slender second hand made its way around the face. There was the head of a walking stick, a carved silver knob engraved with initials, a large
B
in the center, but the smaller letters on either side were worn off. The Bondurants seemed partial to monograms.
    “The name of the woman I notified when your father died isn’t here,” Mother said, a little put out with herself. Nor wasthere anything else in the box that identified the members of the Bondurant family—no letters, no family tree. “You’d think he’d at least have had a Bible with his family’s names written in it,” she said as we spread the contents across the table. “He must have felt so alone.” Her voice cracked, and I put my hand on her arm, but she shook it off. Mother was of a generation that believed you cried only in the bathroom, with the tap open.
    The last thing in the carton was a glove box filled with photographs held together with a black ribbon. Mother must have tied them into their little bundle, because on top was a picture of her with Father. It had been taken in the mountains. Mother wore a shirtwaist and long skirt and leaned against a boulder, while Father, in high-laced boots, stood beside her, towering over her. “He was tall,” I said.
    “Oh yes.” Mother’s face was very white in the picture, and the curls that peeked out from under her hat looked whiteblond. My coloring came from Father, whose olive skin in the photograph was even darker than usual, Mother said, because he worked outdoors. He had been a mining engineer, employed by a company that owned mines at Leadville, Colorado. Father had his hand on Mother’s arm, and they were smiling at each other. It was such an intimate photograph that I felt like an intruder viewing it.
    Mother took the photograph from me and studied it for a long time. Then she got up from her dining room table, where we had placed the box, and went into the kitchen. There was the sound of water running in the sink. Perhaps Mother had turned on the faucet because she was crying, or maybe she was just getting a drink of water. Mother and Henry had always seemed soromantic to me. I was the only one in my set who had lost a parent, and consequently, I was the only one whose mother had been courted. Henry had brought her bouquets of tulips, which were Mother’s and Grandmother’s favorite flower—and mine, too—and boxes of bonbons from Mrs. Stover’s Bungalow.
    Once, Henry gave her a bottle of perfume, but she told him sternly, “Mr. Varian, you know I cannot accept anything from you of such a personal nature.” That little bit of propriety had remained a joke between them, and Henry always gave Mother perfume on their anniversary. Had my father wooed her just the way Henry had? Like David and me, they must have shared intimate looks, little jokes. Perhaps the picture of the two of them brought back intense feelings, ones that Mother had long ago put behind her. She would have put away the photograph so as not to be reminded of a happy time with Father, just as I had hidden—no, destroyed—the photographs of David and me.
    When Mother returned, we spread out the other pictures that were in the bundle. They were formal portraits, five of them, about the size of playing cards. One showed an older woman, her hair parted in the center, wearing a severe dress with a high collar and long sleeves. The second was of a much younger woman. “They must be the same person,” Mother said, sitting down at the table. She picked up the photos and held them side by side. “No, they’re posing in front of the same background. And look at the dresses, Nora, especially the one on the younger woman. It’s quite fashionable. That was the style after the Civil War, and it cost a pretty penny. My guess is they are mother and daughter. They were quite the pair, weren’t they?” She handed the photos to me.
    The younger woman, tall, her hair parted in