Dear Life

gathering was to be kept secret from him. And what about keeping it secret from Bernice, who went home at suppertime and would surely get a whiff of the preparations? I don’t know. And, most important of all, I don’t know how Aunt Dawn got the invitation through to the performers. Had she been in touch with Mona all along? I shouldn’t think so. She surely didn’t have it in her to deceive my uncle on a long-term basis.
    I imagine she just got giddy and wrote a note, and took it to the hotel where the trio would be staying. She wouldn’t have had a Toronto address.
    Even going into the hotel, she must have wondered what eyes were on her, and prayed that she would get not the manager, who knew her husband, but the new young woman, who was some sort of foreigner and might not even know that she was the doctor’s wife.
    She would have indicated to the musicians that she did not expect them to stay for more than a little while. Concerts are tiring, and they would have to be on their way to another town early in the morning.
    Why did she take the risk? Why not entertain the neighbors by herself? Hard to say. Maybe she felt unable to carrya conversation by herself. Maybe she wanted to preen a little in front of those neighbors. Maybe—though I can hardly believe this—she wanted to make some slight gesture of friendship or acceptance towards the sister-in-law, whom, as far as I know, she had never met.
    She must have gone around dazed at her own connivance. Not to mention with various crossed fingers and good-luck prayers, during those days before, when there was a danger of Uncle Jasper’s accidentally finding out. Meeting the music teacher on the street, for instance, and having her gush her thanks and expectations all over him.
    The musicians were not so tired after the concert as you might have expected. Or so disheartened by the small size of the Town Hall crowd, which had probably not been a surprise. The enthusiasm of the next-door guests and the warmth of the living room (the Town Hall had been chilly), as well as the glow of the cherry-colored velvet curtains that were a dull maroon in the daytime but looked festive after dark—all these things must have lifted their spirits. The dreariness outside provided a contrast, and the coffee warmed these exotic but weatherbeaten strangers. Not to mention the sherry that succeeded the coffee. Sherry or port in crystal glasses of the correct shape and size, and also little cakes topped with shredded coconut, diamond- or crescent-shaped shortbread, chocolate wafers. I myself had never seen the like. My parents gave the kind of parties where people ate chili out of clay pots.
    Aunt Dawn wore a dress that was modestly cut, made of flesh-colored crepe. It was the sort of dress an older womanmight have worn and made look proper in a fussy way, but my aunt could not help looking as if she were taking part in some slightly risqué celebration. The neighbor wife was also dressed up, a bit more perhaps than the occasion warranted. The short, thick man who played the cello wore a black suit that was saved by a bow tie from making him look like an undertaker, and the pianist, who was his wife, wore a black dress that was too frilly for her wide figure. But Mona Cassel was shining like the moon, in a straight-cut gown of some silvery material. She was large-boned, with a big nose, like her brother’s.
    Aunt Dawn must have had the piano tuned, or they wouldn’t have stuck with it. (And if it seems odd that there was a piano in the house at all, given my uncle’s soon-to-be-revealed opinions on the subject of music, I can say only that every house of a certain style and period used to have one.)
    The neighbor wife asked for
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
, and I seconded her, showing off. The fact was I didn’t know the music but only the title, from studying German at my old city school.
    Then the neighbor husband asked for something, and it was played, and when it was finished he begged pardon from Aunt Dawn for having been so rude, jumping in with his favorite before the hostess had had a chance to ask for hers.
    Aunt Dawn said, Oh no, not to bother about her, she liked everything. Then she disappeared in a towering blush. I don’t know if she cared about the music at all, but it certainly looked as if she were excited about something. Perhaps just about being personally responsible for these moments, this spread of delight?
    Could she have forgotten—how could she have