Dollenganger 06 My Sweet Audrina (3 page)

Papa's Dream
.
Before darkness could steal the last rosy glow

of dusk, Papa was home from the hospital and carrying Vera into the Roman Revival Salon. As if Vera weighed only a feather, even with a hip-length cast on her left leg, and a fresh cast on her left arm, too, Papa tenderly deposited Vera on the purple velvet couch that my mother loved to keep for herself. Vera appeared very happy with the large box of chocolates she'd half eaten on her ride home from the hospital. She didn't offer the box to me, though I stood there longing to have just one. Then I saw that Papa had also bought her a new jigsaw puzzle to put together with her good right arm. "It's all right, honey," he said to me. "I brought you chocolates and a puzzle too. But you should be grateful you don't have to fall and break
your
bones just to gain some attention."

Immediately Vera threw away her puzzle and shoved the chocolates from the table to the floor. "Now, now," soothed Papa, picking up the boxes and handing them back to her. "Your puzzle is very large, Audrina's is very small. You have a two-pound box of candy. Audrina's box weighs only one pound."

Happy
again,
Vera smirked my way. "Thank you, Papa. You're so good to me." She stretched her arms forth, wanting him to kiss her. I cringed inside, hating her for calling him Papa, when he wasn't her father, but mine. I resented the kiss
he
put on her cheek, resented, too, that huge box of candy, that larger puzzle that had prettier colors than the one Papa gave me.

Unable to bear watching longer, I wandered away to sit on the back veranda and stare at the moon that was coming up over the dark water. It was a quarter moon, what Papa called a horned moon, and I thought I could see the profile of the man in the moon, old and withered looking. The wind through the summer leaves had a lonesome sound, telling me that soon the leaves would die, and winter would come, and I hadn't enjoyed summer at all. I had vague memories of happier, hotter summers, and yet I couldn't pull them out to clearly view them. I put a round piece of chocolate in my mouth, even though we had yet to eat dinner. This August seemed more like October, really it did.

As if he heard me calling, Papa came to sit next to me. He sniffed the wind as he always did, an old habit, he'd told me many times, left over from his days in the Navy.

"Papa, why are the geese flying south when it's summer? I thought they only flew south in late autumn."

"I guess the geese know more about the weather than we do, and they're trying to tell us something." His hand lightly brushed over my hair.

I started to put another piece of candy in my mouth when he said, "Don't eat but one of those." His voice was softer when he spoke to me, kinder, as if my sensitivities were as eggshell fragile as Vera's bones. "I saw you looking jealous when I kissed Vera. You resented the gifts I gave her. Somebody has to pamper her when she's suffering. And you know only you are the light of my life, the heart of my heart."

"You loved the First Audrina better," I choked. "I'm never gonna catch her gift, Papa, no matter how many times I rock in that chair. Why do I have to have her gift? Why can't you take me like I am?"

With his arm about my shoulders he explained again that he only wanted to give me confidence in myself. "There's magic to be had in that chair, Audrina. I
do
love you for what you are, I just want to give you a little extra something that she no longer needs. If you can use what she used to have, why not? Then your Swiss cheese memory would fill to overflowing, and I'd rejoice for you."

I didn't believe there was a gift to be gained from that chair. It was all another lie that gave me as much terror as it seemed to give him hope. His voice took on a pleading tone. "I need someone to believe in me wholeheartedly, Audrina. I need from you the trust that she gave me. That's the only gift I want you to recover. Her gift for having faith in me, in yourself. Your mother loves me, I know that. But she doesn't believe in me. Now that my First Audrina is gone, I'm depending on you to give me what once made me feel clean and wonderful. Need me as she needed me. Trust me as she trusted me. For when you expect only the best, that's what you will get."

That wasn't true! I yanked away from his embrace. "No, Papa. If
she
expected only the best, and was so trusting of you, why did she go into the woods against your orders? Was she expecting the best the day she was found dead under the golden raintree?"

"Who told you that?" he asked sharply. "I don't know!" I cried, unsettled to hear my own words. I didn't even know what a golden raintree was. His face bowed down into my hair as his hand gripped my shoulder so hard it hurt. When he finally found something he could say, he sounded miles and miles away, like the warm place those geese were going to. "In some ways you're right. Perhaps your mother and I should have given her more explicit warnings. As it was, we were embarrassed and didn't tell our First Audrina enough. But none of it was her fault."
"None of what, Papa?"
"Dinnertime," sang out Momma, as if she'd been listening and knew exactly when to interrupt our conversation. My aunt was already at the round table in the family dining room, glowering as Papa carried Vera into the room. Vera glowered back. The only time my aunt seemed to like her daughter was when she was out of sight. When Papa was around she could be so cruel to Vera even I winced. She wasn't as cruel to me. Mostly she treated me with indifference, unless I somehow managed to irritate her, which was often.
Papa hugged Vera before he went to sit at the head of the table. "Feeling better, honey?"
"Yes, Papa," she said with a bright smile. "I feel fine now."
The minute she said that, Papa beamed a broad smile my way. He gave me a conspiratorial wink that I'm sure Vera saw. She dropped her eyes and stared down at her plate, refusing to pick up her fork and eat. "I'm not hungry," she said when my mother tried to coax her.
"Eat now," ordered Aunt Ellsbeth, "or you won't eat anything until breakfast. Damian, you should have known better than to give the children candy before dinner."
"Ellie, you give me a pain in a certain part of my anatomy I won't mention in front of my daughter. Vera will not die of malnutrition. Tomorrow she'll stuff herself as she stuffed herself before her fall."
He reached to squeeze Vera's pale long fingers. "Go on, darling, eat. Show your mother you can hold twice as much as she can."
Vera began to cry.
How awful of Papa to be so cruel! After dinner, just like Momma did, I ran upstairs, threw myself on my bed and really bawled. I wanted a simple life with firm ground beneath my feet. All I had was quicksand. I wanted parents who were honest, consistent from day to day, not so changeable I couldn't depend on their love to last for longer than a few minutes.
An hour later, the corridor resounded with Papa's heavy tread. He didn't bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard the latch banged into the plastered wall and made another nick. There was a key in the lock which I never dared to use, fearful he would kick my door down if I did. Papa strode to my room wearing a new suit he'd changed into since dinnertime, telling me he and Momma were going out. He'd showered and shaved again, and his hair fell in soft waves perfectly molded to his skull. He sat on my bed, caught my hand in his, allowing me to see his square, large nails that were buffed so much they shone.
Minutes passed as he just sat there holding my hand, which felt lost in the hugeness of his. The night birds in the trees outside my bedroom window twittered sleepily. The little clock on my night table said twelve o'clock, but it wasn't the real time. I knew he and Momma wouldn't go out at midnight. I heard a boat whistle in the distance, a ship putting out to sea.
"Well," he said at long last, "what have I done this time to wound your fragile ego?"
"You don't have to be nice to Vera one minute and nasty to her the next. And I didn't push Vera down the steps." My voice sounded faltering, and this was certainly not the kind of confident speech that would make anyone believe me.
"I know you didn't push her," he said somewhat impatiently. "You didn't have to tell me you didn't. Audrina, never confess to a crime until you are accused." In the gloomy dimness his dark ebony eyes glittered. He frightened me.
"Your mother and I are going to spend the evening with friends in the city. You don't have to rock in the chair tonight. Just be a good girl and fall into dreamless sleep."
Did he think I could control my dreams? "How old am I, Papa? The rocking chair has never told me that."
He'd left my bed to head for the door, and in the open doorway he paused to glance back at me. The hall gas-lamps shimmered on his thick, dark hair. "You are seven, soon to be eight."
"How soon to be eight?"
"Soon enough." He came back and sat down. "How old do you want to be?" he asked.
"Only as old as I'm supposed to be."
"You'd make a good lawyer, Audrina. You never give me a straight answer."
Neither did he. I was catching his habits. "Papa, tell me again why I can't remember exactly what I did last year, and the year before."
He sighed heavily, as he always did when I asked too many questions. "My sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell you? You are a special kind of girl, with talents so extraordinary that you don't realize the passing of time. You walk alone in your own space."
I already knew that. "I don't like my own space, Papa. It's lonely where I walk. I want to go to school like Vera does. I want to ride on that yellow school bus. I want friends to play with . . . and I can't remember ever having a birthday party."
"Can you remember Vera's birthday parties?" "No."
"That's because we don't celebrate birthdays in this house. It's much healthier to forget about time and live as if there were no clocks and no calendars. That way you never grow old."
His story was so much like Momma's . . . too much. Time did matter, birthdays, too; both mattered more than he said.
He said good night and closed the door, leaving me to lie on my bed and wonder.
One night screams woke me up. My screams. I was sitting up, clawing at the sheet, covering myself up to my chin. In the long corridor I heard the pounding of Papa's bare feet as he came running. On the side of my bed he perched to hold me in his arms, smoothing my tousled hair, hushing my piercing cries, telling me again and again that everything was all right. Nothing could harm me here. Soon I fell asleep, safe in his arms.
Morning light woke me, and Papa was in the doorway smiling broadly, almost as if he'd never left me alone.
"Sunday morning, love, time to rise and shine. Put on your Sunday clothes and we'll be off."
I stared at him, sleepy-eyed and disoriented. Was it only last week that Vera broke her leg? Or was it much, much longer? It was a question I put to Papa.
"Darling, you see what I mean? It's December now. In five days it will be Christmas. Don't tell me you've forgotten."
But I had. Time had such agility when it came to fleeting past me. Oh, God. . . what Vera said about me had to be true. I was vacant headed, forgetful, perhaps brainless.
"Papa," I called out nervously before he closed the door so I could dress for church. "Why do you and Momma let everyone in church believe Vera is your daughter and not Aunt Ellsbeth's?"
"We don't have time for that kind of discussion now, Audrina. Besides, I've told you many times before how your aunt went away for almost two years, and came back with a one-year-old daughter. Of course, she was expecting to marry Vera's father. We couldn't let everyone know a Whitefern had given birth out of wedlock. Is it such a crime to pass Vera off as our own and save your aunt from disgrace? This isn't New York City, Audrina. We live in the Bible Belt, where good Christians are supposed to abide by the rules of the Lord."
Vera belonged to some nameless man and my father was generous and was doing the decent thing, and I was his one and only living daughter. Vera liked to pretend he was her father, but he wasn't. "I'm so glad I'm your only daughter. . . who's alive."
He stared at me blankly for a moment, his full lips thinning. I'd been told many a time that eyes were the windows of the soul, so I ignored his lips as I studied his dark, shuttered eyes. Something hard and suspicious rested in them. "Your mother hasn't said any differently, has she?"
"No, Papa, but Vera has."
Suddenly he laughed and hugged me so tight against his chest that my ribs ached afterwards. "What difference does it make what Vera says? Of course she wants me for her father. After all, I'm the only father she's ever known. And if all others think Vera is your mother's child, let them think what they will. There isn't a family anywhere without skeletons in its closets. Our skeletons are no worse than anyone else's. Besides, wouldn't the world be a boring place if everyone knew all there was to know about everyone? Mystery is the spice of life. That's what keeps people living on and on, hoping to uncover all the secrets they can."
I thought the world would be a better place without all the skeletons and mysteries. My world would be a perfect place if only everyone in my home knew how to be honest.

The Rocking Chair
.
Vera came to my room that night, soon after I'd

climbed into bed, determined to have only happy thoughts before sleeping, hoping they'd lead to happy dreams. Hobbling with considerable skill on the crutches she'd grown accustomed to, she managed to carry things in a bookbag she'd slung over her shoulder--only this bookbag was different from any I'd seen before.

"Here," she said, tossing me the bag on the bed. "Educate yourself. Those two women in the kitchen will never teach you what I will."

I felt a little skeptical but happy, nevertheless, that she was interested in my education. I knew there were many things I was missing by not going to school. Shaking the bag's contents onto my bed, dozens of photographs cut from magazines fell to my bed in a ragged clump. I couldn't believe my eyes when I picked them up and started to separate them, staring all the time at pictures that showed naked men and women in lewd, weird embraces. The hateful things clung to my fingers, so tacky I plucked them free from one hand only to find them sticking to the other. Then, to my consternation, I heard the heavy tread of Papa's feet as he came toward my room.