Family Storms (13 page)

“I don't teach on a computer. Everything I need for now is right here,” she said, patting her black leather briefcase. She walked into the sitting area to place it on the table. Then she looked around again and nodded. “Would it be all right if I opened these drapes to get more light?”

“Oh, of course. Let me help you,” Mrs. March said, rushing to open the drapes.

“Why don't you come to the table, Sasha?” Mrs. Kepler said. She turned to Mrs. March. “I'll test her to see what levels she's at in math, science, reading, and history, and from there we'll know just how much we have to do to bring her up to speed.”

“Yes, good idea. Would you like tea, coffee, a soft drink?”

“Not right now, thank you.”

“Okay. Well, then, I'll have Mrs. Duval check back in an hour or so?”

“That would be fine,” Mrs. Kepler said.

I noticed that after she said something, she pressed her
lower lip tightly against her upper one, crinkling her chin. It was a small gesture, but one I thought she had used on her students in her classroom, because it made whatever she said sound like words chipped in cement. Arguing or challenging her was out of the question.

“All right. Good luck, Sasha,”

Mrs. March said, and left. Mrs. Kepler opened her briefcase and began to take out some papers. “Come closer,” she told me, and I wheeled myself right up to the table. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“All right. You were in what grade before you left school?”

“Seventh.”

“So you've basically missed the entire eighth-grade year?”

“I guess so.”

“Either you did or you didn't. Did you attend any school after you left the seventh grade?”

“No.”

“Then you missed a whole year, which would have been your eighth-grade year. I like to start with reading skills,” she said. “Everything we do requires a good foundation in reading.”

“I still read a lot even though I wasn't in school.”

She looked at me long enough for me to feel she was finally seeing me. “What did you read?”

“Books other people on the street gave me from time to time. Sometimes we went into the library to get out of the rain, and I read there.”

“What people gave you books?”

“Street people,” I said, and she widened her eyes.

“I can just imagine what sort of things to read that was,” she said.

“No, you can't,” I replied sharply. She raised her eyebrows. “Unless you've been there,” I added. “Not everyone was a bum. There were college graduates and people who had good jobs once. Someone gave me a copy of
Huckleberry Finn,
and someone else gave me a copy of
A Tale of Two Cities.
”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I have no reason to lie about it. Not all street people are thieves and liars. Many try to keep themselves clean and have clean clothes, too.”

I felt the heat in my face. I had never spoken to any of my teachers like that, but in my mind, any criticism of the street people was criticism of Mama, and I wouldn't permit it.

For a moment, I thought she was going to shove her paperwork back into her briefcase, shut it, and walk out, but she surprised me by finally smiling. “Well, you're not easily intimidated. Do you know what
intimidated
means?”

“Yes. Pushed around, made to give up or give in to someone or something,” I recited.

“Okay, then. Maybe I'll be happily surprised. Let's get started.”

She began explaining the tests she wanted me to take. We worked for hours. When Mrs. Duval stopped by to see if she wanted anything to drink, she had barely opened her mouth before Mrs. Kepler snapped, “Nothing, not now.” She wouldn't tolerate the slightest interruption. I thought she would even make me work through lunch, but she agreed to stop so we could eat.

Mrs. Duval came up with the cart. Mrs. Caro had prepared chicken salad for us. I was afraid there would be a duplication of yesterday's mammoth lunch, but apparently the order had been put in earlier. We cleared the table, and Mrs. Duval served from the cart. It was when we began to eat our lunch that Mrs. Kepler stopped being the school-teacher and spoke with warmth and concern. She wanted to know where I had lived and gone to school. I didn't know how much Mrs. March had told her about me and why I was there, but from the questions she asked and the way she spoke about Mrs. March, I was convinced that nothing had been said about Kiera.

“I'm sure this is all overwhelming for you,” she said. Then she smiled and added, “It certainly is for me. I heard about this house, but until now, I had never set foot in it. I bet you feel a bit like Cinderella.”

“Except there's no prince,” I told her, and she laughed.

“No, I imagine not. There's not even a pumpkin.”

Now we both laughed, and I finally relaxed. I hadn't thought I would, but I liked her. Even after lunch, she was different, warmer and more complimentary.

Mrs. March tiptoed into the room at about three o'clock. We were just finishing, and Mrs. Kepler was putting papers back into her briefcase.

“How is it going?” Mrs. March asked. Mrs. Kepler sat back and was silent for a long moment. I could see that Mrs. March was expecting bad news.

“I'm afraid I'm not going to earn very much money here, Mrs. March.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“She's not as far behind as one would expect. Her reading skills are better than those of most of the students going into the ninth grade, I'm sure. She certainly has a very good vocabulary, and she picked up very quickly on the math, too. There are some weak areas with history and science, but most of that she's going to strengthen with her own reading.”

“That's wonderful,” Mrs. March said.

Mrs. Kepler rose. “I'll prepare the work assignments to help her catch up quickly. I'll start her off tomorrow and then stop by every other day for a few hours at most. I hope she'll get out a bit, get some fresh air and sun.”

“Oh, yes. For sure. Mrs. Caro will be taking her out after lunch in the afternoons. You certainly can work on one of our patios, if you like.”

“We'd like,” Mrs. Kepler said, winking at me. “I'll be by tomorrow, then, same time. I'll bring the books.”

“Wonderful,” Mrs. March said. “Are you happy, Sasha?”

“Yes,” I said, even though I thought she meant about everything and not only Mrs. Kepler's tutoring.

“I'll see you out,” she told Mrs. Kepler.

“'Bye, then,” Mrs. Kepler told me, and followed Mrs. March out of the suite. I heard Mrs. March's melodic laughter echo down the hallway.

Part of me didn't want her to feel better. Part of me wished she'd be suffering as much as I was, even though it wasn't literally she who had hit Mama and me. Just as Mama had once been responsible for everything I did, Mrs. March and her husband were responsible for everything Kiera did. Maybe her husband was more responsible, if I
believed what she had told me, but still, it felt strange making anyone happy in that house. In that house, the cause of Mama's death resided.

From that house, Kiera March had emerged carefree and reckless, arrogant and self-centered. She had taken her drugs and, like some asteroid, come flying out of space to smash two people who had never done her any harm. Also like that asteroid, she was indifferent and unrepentant.
Look at how she was at the pool,
I thought.
She laughed and frolicked right beneath me.

No, I hated the sound of laughter in that house. I even hated the sound of my own laughter. Eating well, trying to improve my education, wearing beautiful clothes, enjoying everything in that magnificent suite, suddenly felt more like a terrible betrayal. I almost wished I would never get better. I had to suffer in order to honor Mama's memory.

Try as hard as she will,
I thought,
Mrs. March will not take the pain away from me.
When and if she did, it would be like me burying Mama again and again. These thoughts overwhelmed me. I sat there sobbing and made no effort to stop the tears from dripping off my cheeks. It reminded me of that night when the rain came pouring down over us, pelting us so hard that it was as if the heavens were expressing their anger.

Or maybe it was meant to be a warning, to make us stay on that beach and not dare try to cross that highway, not dare try to go home.

10
Family of the Blind

P
robably because Mrs. Kepler had made an issue of it, Mrs. March sent Mrs. Caro up immediately to wheel me down and onto the patio. She found me crying and rushed to me.

“What's wrong, dearie? Are you in pain?”

“No,” I said, wiping my face quickly.
Not the kind of pain you mean,
I thought.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “Being brought like this to a strange house ain't easy, I'm sure.”

I didn't say anything, but
strange
seemed to be the perfect adjective.

“Well, let's get you out in the sunshine and fresh air. It's no good being indoors so much, anyway. People heal better and faster when they get into fresh air.”

She turned my chair toward the doorway.

“I grew up in Cork, Ireland, and I can tell you it wasn't always easy getting into the fresh air. When I tell my family back home that I live in a place where the sun shines
at least three hundred days a year without rain, they're amazed.”

She pushed me onto the elevator.

“You always live in Southern California?” she asked.

“Yes. My mother was from Portland, though.”

“Don't say? Weather there can be like weather in England, I hear. You have any of your people still there?”

Her question didn't surprise me. I was sure everyone who was working there wondered why I wasn't with family.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Yes, it's a shame how fast we all lose track of each other in this world. I have a sister I haven't seen in nearly twenty years now. She married a man who lives in South Africa. You know how far away that is?”

“Yes. It's at the tip of Africa.”

“I bet you've been a good student. How did your schoolin' work go today?”

“Good,” I said.

“You'll be up and around in no time, I'm sure. Right now, it looks like forever to you. I can't think of a better place to recuperate from anything,” she added.

I looked up at her. Was it really possible that no one in the house except the Marches knew what Kiera had done and why I was there rather than with some relatives or in an orphanage? Mrs. Caro looked sincere. I wondered if Mrs. March believed that I would never say anything, or was she so confident that even if I did, no one would risk repeating it or discussing it? From the way she described her husband and how he always excused and buried whatever wrong things Kiera did, I imagined that
he had given Mrs. March strict orders to keep it all from their servants.

It didn't take me long to understand that it was a house built on secrets and whispers. There was more living in the shadows than in the light, despite the bright chandeliers and lamps. A family that lived more in the shadows was a family of the blind.

The patio Mrs. Caro wheeled me to faced the pool and the tennis courts. There were two tables with chairs, a settee with a small table, and what looked like a pile of stones in a circle with benches around it. I asked Mrs. Caro what it was, and she said it was a fire pit to keep people warm when they sat out there on cooler nights. Right then, the sun was still high in the blue, nearly cloudless sky. It was about the same time of day as when I had seen those teenagers there. Would they return? What would happen when they saw me, if they did return?

“I'll set you in this shady spot,” Mrs. Caro said. “Not too warm for you?”

“No. I'm fine.”

“Will you be all right here by yourself for a while? I have to check on some things in the kitchen for tonight's dinner,” Mrs. Caro asked. “It could be twenty minutes.”