Her Father's House (24 page)

Chapter 18

T
he desk stood between the two windows, which overlooked in the middle distance the stable and the barns, while behind them rose the hills. Upon the desk lay a solid geometry textbook, a photograph in a narrow mahogany frame, and a thick red leather diary.

Laura flipped through the pages. Now, at fifteen, she was amused at her ten-year-old self, and even slightly embarrassed by her present self. She was thinking that there was something so
adolescent
about pouring out all this
emotion
onto paper. Probably she ought to give up the diary altogether.

On the other hand, was it not also an
adult
thing to be doing? Think of all the famous people who had kept diaries, people one read about in the history books. Perhaps they, too, felt more comfortable writing down things they wouldn't want to talk about.

There are times, she thought, when on a perfectly ordinary day like this one, a good day, when I look down as usual and can watch Mom giving the dogs a bath in the tin tub, or I see Rick—he likes to be called Richard now that he's in college—coming back from the fields with Dad, times when I feel a quick, sharp sadness. It doesn't happen to me very often, but it happens. I suppose they've told me all they can and they must be sick of my questions: Who was the other half of me?

I've been seeing this picture for so long that I can see it in the dark. I think I look somewhat like her, but not really. Her teeth show more than mine do when I smile. I certainly don't look like Dad. What do I know about her? Not much, mostly that she liked to paint, although she wasn't an artist. She would have liked to be an artist. She was very smart, Dad says. He says he's sorry he doesn't have a whole lot to tell me because it must be hard for me to get so few answers. The fact is that they weren't together very long. He met her, married her right away, then I was born the same year, and two years later, she died. That makes only three years, or a little more. What a terribly sad story.

But still I think, if you lived with a person even for only a month, you would know more than Dad knows. Not everything, but something not so vague. He only tells things about how she was a good dancer and played tennis and could speak fairly good French. What I want to know is: What was she
like
?

Mom says that when people you care about die, it hurts you to talk about them. You don't want to be reminded. But I don't think that's true. Rick—Richard—talks about Uncle Clarence pretty often. He and Mom even tell funny stories about things that happened, and they both laugh. Yet I know they loved him. And I remember when Coco, our springer spaniel, got sick and died, how for a long time nobody wanted to think of her. But lately when I speak of her, I remember how sweet she was, how happy she was in our house, and then I'm not so sad anymore. So is it possible that Dad didn't love my mother, and that's why he doesn't tell me things? My friend Emily's father and mother got divorced, and I'm very sure that if either of them should die, the other one wouldn't be sad at all, and wouldn't want to answer questions.

Or maybe it's the other way around. It's possible that Dad loved Rebecca more than he loves Mom. It's easy to see that he loves Mom, but you can't measure love in pounds and ounces, so maybe if he did love Rebecca more, he doesn't want to hurt Mom's feelings by mentioning her. But then, he really could tell me in private if he wanted to.

Once when I was about eleven and didn't know any better, I asked Mom an awful question: Did Dad love Rebecca more than he loves you? But I don't think I hurt her feelings very much because I remember she only told me very quietly that you can love two people in the same way. So maybe that's true. I'll never know because he surely won't ever tell me that.

He won't tell me anything about my ancestors, either. People around here are always talking about their ancestors. Julia Scofield has a great-great—I don't know how many greats—grandfather who fought at Gettysburg. Richard says the Bensons have lived on this property for two hundred years, since the time of George Washington.

Dad says he really has told me a lot. He's told me about his mother and the farm, and how he learned about his father's death on D Day in 1944. But I want to hear about the other half of myself. He keeps saying that he would tell me more if he could, that they lived in Europe and there's no way he can find out anything. It's almost as if I've been adopted. That I could understand, but this is different. Sometimes, although I know it doesn't make any sense, I feel a little angry. Not angry at Dad because I guess he can't help it, but just because it seems sort of unfair.

Even though I hardly ever mention all this to Richard, I think he understands it better than anybody else does. I think he knows that I have these moods. I don't know what makes me so sure, but I am. In some ways, he reminds me of Dad, sort of calm and serious, but he's much handsomer than Dad. Of course, he's a lot younger, nearer my age, so he can understand me better. I really miss him so much now that he's away at the university. Sometimes I think this is the beginning of love. Maybe I already am in love with him.

Once I put my arms around him and made him kiss me on the lips, the first time I ever kissed anybody that way, and I haven't done it with anybody else since. I remember he put my arms down and looked sort of scared.

“We mustn't,” he said. “You're only fifteen.”

Maybe he meant that when I'm older, we can do it. I hope so. We're not brother and sister, so we could get married if we wanted to, and the more I think of it, the more I want to. He will be a wonderful husband, very loving.

He wants to take care of the environment, polluted rivers, deforestation, and stuff like that. He just joined the Sierra Club. I'm sure he'll live on this farm all his life. It's his inheritance. Dad teases him, calling him Daniel Boone. You can see that Dad loves him.

Richard says that Dad was a big help to him when Uncle Clarence died. Dad is very, very helpful to a lot of people in town. A lot of people come to him for advice because he is very smart. At first I did not realize that he helped me get my volunteer job at the hospital. Probably I would have gotten it anyway, but I got it faster because he is on the Board, whatever that means. I really like the job. It's quite important. I wear a pink uniform, which is professional-looking when I take the book cart around to the patients' rooms, or when I read to little kids on the children's floor.

Sometimes I think I might like to be a doctor. I get A's in science, so maybe I would be one of those people who find out about cancer, that killed poor Uncle Clarence and my mother. Dad says it's possible. He told me that I have a very keen mind, and that's why he bought the microscope for me, so I can see things deep inside. It's interesting how an ant or a leaf looks so different under the microscope. Yes, I really think I might be a doctor if I work very hard. Dad says it's amazing what you can do if you try.

Chapter 19

T
his is my last week at home. Next week, I'll be in the Midwest on the other side of the Mississippi, and I'll be gone for four years. I don't quite know how I feel. I'm excited, curious, and a little sad. Some of everything, I guess, filled as I am with random thoughts.

Dad really didn't want me to go anywhere in the Midwest. Actually, he would be happiest if I had chosen someplace in the South, near home, or if not that, at least some beautiful place like California. For some reason he didn't like the Midwest. But two of the girls from my class are going where I'm going, and that will be great.

The days are noticeably shorter now, but even so, you can tell it's summer's end by the locusts, drilling and rattling in the trees. I'll remember that. I'll remember frogs croaking in the spring. You wouldn't imagine, in the life I've led in a quiet place like this farm and this town where I've gone to school, that there would be so much to remember.

Yet when I think about it, the days here have been very full. People are all remarking how the town has grown. Dad says he can hardly believe the changes since he arrived here fewer than twenty years ago. They've built a new spur to the main highway, and the mall is only six miles beyond that. You can hardly park on Main Street, especially on weekends. There's a new movie theater, really nice, with three screens and comfortable seats. There are at least fifteen new shops, a fancy hairdresser who gave me a great cut, and a gourmet food shop. The hospital has almost doubled in size, and somebody has built a beautiful new inn to accommodate people who are visiting patients.

Richard says Dad was the mover and shaker when they built the children's wing that brought so many new doctors to the hospital. I'm proud. I heard so much mention of him when I worked in the lab last summer doing slides.

“No backwoods town anymore,” Richard said yesterday when we went in for the summer fair. It was our last day together until Thanksgiving, and we made the most of it. We had lunch in one of the new restaurants, and it was fabulous. They made us chocolate soufflés, the first time I ever had one. It was an awfully expensive place, but Richard said this was a celebration for me and my going away.

When we got home, we saddled the horses and took a long ride up to the lookout, where we tethered them and sat down in our special spot above that stupendous waterfall. There's something mysterious about that spot. You can be having an interesting or even a hilarious conversation, and then suddenly a wistful thought interrupts it. Richard said thank goodness we live far enough away from the town so that this place will never be spoiled. The town isn't likely to spread in our direction because of the hills and all the big places like ours that people will probably never want to sell. I know Dad and Mom would never think of selling. I call Richard a hillbilly, too. He said he's glad to be one, and I agree because I love him just the way he is.

Yes, I truly, truly love him, and not as a brother. We were standing on the cliff ready to mount and ride home, when we kissed. We haven't done it more than three or four times that I can remember. There is always a feeling like a shock when we do, and I don't want to stop. I can tell he doesn't want to, either. And today, as on those other times, he let go of me.

“You're too young,” he said, which is hardly true. “They trust us, Laura.”

I know that, and I know he is right. He talks very wisely.

“Besides, you're going away, and you'll meet someone else.”

But there he is wrong. I am not going to meet anyone else. If any two people can ever be perfect together, we are those two.

PART

THREE

Tornado

1996

Chapter 20

D
iary number four, bound like the earlier ones in red leather, lay on the desk, again between two windows, these overlooking the rolling grounds of the university. Above it hung a vertical row of photographs: Dad and Mom stood together on the front porch, Richard was on horseback, and Rebecca wore the only expression she had ever shown to Laura, her charming smile.

One other picture in the room was a large framed snapshot of Laura and Gilbert Maples taken on the day a few months ago when they had, albeit quite informally, acknowledged to each other their engagement. They both looked as if they had been laughing. While his light hair was windblown, hers hung long and smooth in a ponytail. His brown eyes smiled. She always thought of them as twinkling, as if he had a big secret that nobody could ever guess.

Next year they would be graduating, he from the law school, and she from the college, with medical school yet to come. It was all like a dream, she thought as she studied the photograph. This was one of those days when everything from the bright weather to the A on the biochemistry exam was perfect. And having a sudden urge to write in the diary, she began.

When I read back what I wrote three years ago, I can see a tremendous change in myself. Is it merely the natural difference between the teens and twenty plus, or is it the fact that I am so far from home, forced to grow up because I have no dad and no mom to shelter me? But to be fair, they did much more than shelter me; they pushed me gently ahead on the way they knew I wanted to take. When I think back over those days, I clearly see how I was helped.

Dad got me the summer job in Dr. Barrett's office. I didn't do much there, but I looked and listened. So many people have helped me. The surgeon who pulled out my wisdom teeth gave me some articles about oral surgery because I was curious. Dr. Scofield wrote that wonderful recommendation for college. Mrs. Bondi, the chemistry teacher, and so many more, did the same. People are still helping me. When I volunteered to work in the university hospital talking to cancer patients, Dr. O'Rourke let me watch an operation; I thought I would be horrified, but I wasn't. I was fascinated. Then there was Professor Reich, who praised my paper on bioethics. He's promised to have it quoted in his article—quoted with my name on it!

I am so lucky. When I'm feeling superstitious, which I don't feel very often, I wonder whether all these things are too good to last. Gil says that's absolute nonsense. He has so much practical common sense. You have a legal mind, I tell him. I feel his strength. I felt it the first day we met. I didn't realize then how unheard-of it is for a student in law school even to notice an undergraduate. But as they say, something happened between us. And it's still happening wherever we are, in the cafeteria, on a hike, at the movies, or in bed—especially in bed.

I remember when I was in love with Richard. Now and then I feel a touch of guilt about him. It's not that any definite words were ever spoken, but hadn't our feelings been strong enough, it seems, to warrant some sort of mention now? On the other hand, maybe not. I still love him, but not in any way compared with the way I feel about Gil, or in any way I can easily describe. Maybe an English major could do it, but language is definitely not my field.

One thing I can say, though: Different as those two men are from each other, each of them reminds me of Dad. Of course it's true that women generally, without even realizing it, choose men who remind them of their fathers. Not one of these three, Dad, Gil, or Richard, is really like the others, but each is sensitive, determined, wise, and kind.

When Laura closed the red book, she locked it and put it away. Someday, no doubt, she would read what she had written and see herself through the glass of distance much as she now could see her ten-year-old self. Oh, if you could witness the future . . .

She smiled, yawned, and having moved to the armchair, laid her head back. The day had been long, and the air was heavy with the scent of oncoming spring, not to mention the scent of Mom's gardenia plant. Mom had provided this chair and had dressed the bed with a flowered chintz comforter and pillows; lovingly, she had adorned the stark little room for her daughter.

“Dr. Fuller, I presume?” The door was ajar, but Gil always knocked before opening. “Loafing again, while I've been in the library since two o'clock?”

“And I've been in the biology lab.”

“Hey, what smells so good in here?”

“The gardenia. It arrived today. Mom raises them. That's her department, fancy shrubs and stuff.”

“I liked her that time she came here. She's an interesting lady. And her son sounds interesting, too. I've never known anybody who has a degree in forestry.”

“You'll like Richard. I guarantee.”

“Was there ever anything between you?”

“Not really. What makes you ask?”

“Oh, a guy that good-looking, at least in the picture, and not related, growing up with a stunning girl. It's very possible, isn't it?”

“Anything's possible, darling. But I happen to be your girl, not anyone else's.”

“Move over, the chair's big enough for two. My God, you've got the bluest eyes I've ever seen.”

“They're my mother's, I'm told.”

Gil turned toward the wall where Rebecca smiled, and then, looking back at Laura, shook his head, declaring that Laura did not resemble her at all.

“You must be your father's daughter.”

“Well, you'll meet him when you come down to visit during spring break. Then you can decide for yourself.”

“Has he never visited since you came here?”

“No, he doesn't like to travel. Doesn't like leaving the farm.”

“A typical farmer. A man of few words? I always picture them like that.”

“What on earth can a New Yorker like you know about farmers? No, he's quite the opposite. He's a historian, a scholar, even an orator. I've heard him at town meetings, and I hear him at home.”

“How did he happen to end up on a farm?”

“I guess he just liked it. He grew up on a farm, in Maine.”

“Well, I'm looking forward to the visit. He needs to know that I'm a responsible man. In the meantime, tomorrow's Sunday, so what about a five-mile hike, a few laps in the pool, and then a fancy dinner at Romeo's?”

“Romeo's? Hey, listen. It's not
my
father who's on Wall Street. I've got to watch my money.”

“What? The daughter of Foothills Farm?”

“Dad's not the owner. Mom is, and he gets a salary.”

“I was going to treat you, anyway. I'm old-fashioned, behind the times. Haven't you noticed that I don't let women pay?”

“I've noticed that you're the sweetest man in the world.”

“I am? Fine. Show me how sweet I am. Get up from this chair and lock the door.”