glass of the storefront, nothing more. I repeated this explanation to myself over and over again as I walked home. Eventually, I realized I left my change and the taffy on the counter, but I didn’t care. Seeing Ellen woke something inside me.”
“Why did you say nothing of this before?” Matilda asked.
“To whom? Ma and Pa would not have believed me, and the three of us rarely spoke back then. I had no one to tell. By the time I arrived on our doorstep, I convinced myself it had all been in my imagination anyway,” Thornley said.
I changed my mind about the whiskey and poured two fingers into a glass, held the bottle out to Matilda, who vehemently shook her head, then carried it back to the sofa and set it on the small table. “You said ‘the first time’ you saw her. It happened again?”
Thornley retrieved the bottle and refilled his own glass. “I was nineteen years old the second time I saw Nanna Ellen; I recall the event vividly as if only a week ago. It was a Saturday. I was in the Trinity Library at one of the small tables towards the back, with windows looking out on the Fellows’ Garden. I had been awake for nearly two full days, preparing for an anatomy exam scheduled at Queen’s that Monday. A thick rain fell for most of the day, and I remember thinking the square would surely flood unless there was a break in the weather. I overheard two instructors discussing the rain over lunch; this had been one of our dampest autumns, and they fully expected the dismal conditions to carry over into an equally harsh winter. Personally, I thought the rain could not have come at a better time because the bad weather kept me off the rugby field and firmly planted in my studies, exactly where I should have been. After I had devoted so many hours staring at texts, the lack of sleep began to take a toll on me—I needed to stand up and walk around in order to stay wake. I found myself drawn to one of the large windows, and I stood there for a good long while, my eyes transfixed on the heavy raindrops as they riddled the deep puddles. The entire ground danced with all this activity. Nobody was afoot, mind you, not in these conditions, the student body and faculty walled away behind closed classroom doors. When I spied a girl in the rain across the square, it gave me pause. She didn’t rush through the storm from one door to the next, as one would expect; instead, she stood perfectly still, facing me, with her arms hanging slack at her sides. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was observing me as I looked out. And I found something vaguely familiar about her stance. And while she was too far away for me to clearly see her face, I believed I knew her.
“We both remained still for a long while, me peering out into the storm at her and her peering back at me, neither of us moving, just staring at each other from a great distance. I am not sure how I knew it was Nanna Ellen, but when the thought dawned on me, there was no shaking it—I was certain, as certain as I am now that I am talking to the two of you. When I embraced this realization, I stepped closer to the window and placed my open palms against the glass. The harsh iciness of the storm bit at my skin, and at that moment the glass seemed extraordinarily thin. Then she was right there—one moment she was across the square, the next she was inches from me, separated only by the window.”
“And it was Ellen?” Matilda asked.
Thornley nodded. “There was no mistaking her; she stood as close as you and I, maybe closer. Her eyes were the deepest blue, and her skin appeared flawless. I think I noticed that first of all, watching the rain trickle down her perfect cheeks. I caught my own reflection in the glass and suddenly thought of myself as old, at least older than she. I think my mind grappled with this calculation simply because the last time I saw Nanna Ellen, I was but a boy; now I was on