The Shrouding Woman

Papa's Sister
I was eleven years old when she came to live with us. My little sister, Mae, was five. She came from the western part of Minnesota, where only the hearty survived the summer's prairie fires and the winter's bitter cold. She traveled to our small white house on a buckboard, her green bag caked with the dusty road. Her dark hair was tucked under a round hat with a short brim, and a fine netting covered her face. Although she was Papa's sister, I'd never met herbefore. All I knew about her was from a charcoal drawing of her and Papa when they were children, both with light hair and frowns upon their faces. I remembered that she was called "the Shrouding Woman" because Papa had used those words to describe her. I didn't know what it meant, but I figured it had something to do with dying. I had just lost Mama, and I didn't want to hear anything more about death, so I took Mae and hid under the front porch, peeking out through the slits in the boards between two mulberry bushes.
We heard Papa run outside; the large wooden door creaked, then slammed shut; his heavy boots shuffled on the porch above us. He helped her down from the buckboard. She clutched a Bible in one hand, and her bag was strapped over her arm.
She had the same wide nose and square shoulders as my father, but I couldn't see her eyes under the black netting. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Papa. She gave Papa a hug and said something about what a fine woman my mama was and how shewished she'd been here to help. Papa just nodded as he carried her green bag up to the house.
"Evie and Mae, get out here," Papa called. "Come meet your aunt Flo." Mae started to move, but I shushed her still.
Mae darted a nervous glance at me. She didn't want to get a whipping, even though Papa was always soft on her.
"Don't know where they wandered off to. I guess they'll be in later." Then we heard Papa take Aunt Flo into the house.
I squeezed a fistful of dirt between my fingers. "Mama would have known we were under the porch," I said to Mae as I looked around at the piles of rocks we'd gathered to protect us against spiders.
We sat for a long time. Mae drew pictures in the dirt with a long stick, her straggly blond hair mingling with the black earth as she bent over and hummed quietly to herself. I sat in the cool darkness, watching the hot winds blow across the plains, whipping the long grass into a graceful bend.
I remembered what Mama had told me shortly before she died, her pale lips struggling with the words as I wiped her forehead. "Love your aunt Flo and make her feel welcome, Evie. She is going to take care of you and Mae for me."
The image of her lingering sickness was still fresh in my mind. Now as I sat under the porch, I thought about Mama and I wondered how I would ever live with a shrouding woman.
Text copyright © 2002 by Loretta Ellsworth. All rights reserved.