About this story
Over the first supper, Aunt Martha and the preacher condemn a man neither has read, while your cousin Ephraim asks the plainer question of what anyone actually witnessed. A kitten breaks the prayer meant to save him from himself, and you laugh before you can stop, on a night that leaves welcome intact and judgment undecided.
How it opens
Your journey from Kingston ended beneath the vast gray roof of relatives you had never met.
New Manchester's manners made even welcome feel like an examination conducted in silence.
Martha CroomSusannah is the name your mother gave you, child, whatever softness Canada added.
She called me Susianne, Aunt Martha, and I would like to keep what remains of her voice.
A name can cross a border without surrendering its history at the door.
Choose
Please use Susianne until I decide otherwise.
Either form is mine if it is spoken kindly.