After a streak of six sons came a seventh child, finally, a daughter, the brood complete as if in direct response to the father’s prayers, he a man who believed in the power of invocation, of a coin tossed in the fountain, a four-leaf clover, or rabbit’s foot in the hand, in his ability to summon good luck by naming his new daughter after a number, not just any number, seven, as in colors of the rainbow, wonders of the world, continents, heavens, days of the week, days to create the earth, Seven, the family’s lucky charm, a daughter who would bring good fortune, something so desperately needed, the poor mother exhausted from chasing the boys, keeping them fed, clean, out of trouble, and off to school, the father juggling two jobs, pulling twelve-hour shifts, and dragging a glut of debt.
14
Fourteen years passed, candles blown out fourteen times, as many wishes, more like a promise that Seven kept to herself, never even hinted at with the father, especially now while the banks called in their loans, the roof leaked, and the transmission had failed on the car, none of the misfortune Seven’s fault or was it, so the father had begun to wonder and, therefore, asked that she devote herself more sincerely to their cause, something she did by taking on cleaning jobs after school and weekends, earning enough to help pay for the mother’s visit to the doctors or to anyone who might lessen the pain that ran from her lower back down the leg to the ankle, miniature bouts of torture like little electrical charges suffered in silence.
21
The celebration of her twenty-first was postponed, the mother in bed with a backache, a symptom of a more serious illness, the father on an extra shift, relieved to avoid Seven’s birthday, a reminder that good fortune passed them by once again, as if a horseshoe hung upside down on the front door, their misfortune his fault for trusting in the power of a number, the name of a daughter, Seven, who now made a living cleaning houses, so unlike her brothers, two engineers, two still studying, another two married, providing for their families.
49
Her forty-ninth birthday saw little fanfare, the mother only a memory, gone sixteen years already despite Seven’s efforts, no expense spared for the best treatment, the father crippled by loss, cursed by bad luck, or so he called it that, Seven’s name a constant reminder of his failure, not hers, at least that’s how she explains it to herself, a birthday wish come true, she now Susan, Nurse Susan at work, and with a daughter taught to be unafraid of black cats or broken mirrors.
Born and raised in the Newfoundland of E. Annie Proulx’s Shipping News, Elizabeth breathes, reads, and writes in Nova Scotia, Canada. The novel, An Imperfect Librarian (Breakwater Books, 2008), was her first fiction publication. She loiters on the fringes of Twitter and Instagram @ospreysview.