Olivia, Mourning (6 page)

“Don’t you remember? Whenever Avis or me started acting smart, he’d elbow us in the ribs and say, ‘Well, I guess you’re a pretty fart smeller, aren’t you?’ Then he’d laugh.”

Olivia forced a smile and they walked on in silence.

“Have you seen
her
since that day?” Olivia nodded ever so slightly back toward “Jettie’s Place.”

“No. You?”

Olivia shook her head. She didn’t know if her father had loved her mother and she had no idea what he might have felt for Mrs. Jettie Place. She did know that the rumors about him carrying on with “his whore” were true. He’d left them no doubt of that. The day before he died Seborn had ordered Tobey to bring Mrs. Place to him.

The last morning of his life Old Seborn had been wheezing and rheumy-eyed. After bathing him, Olivia asked, “Are you needful of anything else, Father?”

He retched, spit an enormous gob of brown phlegm into a blue and white porcelain teacup, and nodded toward the bottle of rye whiskey on the dresser. Olivia poured a shot into a clean cup and watched him take a sip and cough.

“Yes, I am most needful – of having Mrs. Jettie Place brought to me. Tell Tobey to go fetch her.”

Olivia expressed no objection. Once she recovered from the shock of this request, she was more curious than anything else. Excited. At last something to relieve the numbing boredom. The past two years had been one long, dull blur of caring for her father, going to the store, and walking along the river bank alone.

Tobey was unpacking stock in the back of the store when Olivia touched his arm. “Our father wants you to fetch a visitor for him.”

“And who would that be?”

“Mrs. Place.”

He blinked and froze for a moment, then continued unloading the crate. “Would that be right now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then I guess I’d best go fetch Mrs. Place.” He stood up straight and removed his apron. Olivia need no longer wonder if Tobey had heard about their father and Mrs. Place; the sharp edge of resentment in his voice left no question.

“Am I hearing you correctly?” Avis’s head bobbed in the doorway. “Are you intending to bring that woman into our mother’s home?”

“Father asked for her,” Olivia said, not about to let Avis spoil the show.

Tobey put on his coat, while Avis continued to protest. Mabel Mears also appeared, hands on her hips, poised to oversee the commotion. She placed a soothing hand on Avis’s arm and told him there was no choice but to obey. You could not deny a dying man his last wishes.

“Take her in the back door,” Mabel said, now grasping Tobey’s arm, issuing her instructions through clenched teeth. “Carry a box with you, so if anyone does see you, they’ll think she’s making some kind of delivery.” Mabel marched back out to the front counter. Resigned, Avis trailed after her.

“The way she swishes those crinolines, it’s a wonder she doesn’t set herself on fire,” Olivia muttered.

“Would have expected her to howl louder than Avis,” Tobey said as he patted his pockets, looking for his gloves.

“She’s no dummy,” Olivia said. “You think she’s going to get herself on the wrong side of our father now, while he can still change his will?”

He pulled his hat and gloves on and went out the back door. Poor Tobey. He had a hard time making small talk with the customers. Olivia tried, and failed, to imagine the conversation in which her brother and Mrs. Place might engage. When Olivia got home and opened the back door she could already hear Seborn’s bell clanging and went straight upstairs.

“So, has he gone for her?”

“Yes, Father.” She turned to leave the room.

“No. You stay here. I’ll be needing a witness.” He nodded at the rocker that stood next to the bed. “You can read to me till she gets here.”

Olivia obediently sat down and picked up “Gulliver’s Travels.” She read until they heard the front door open and Tobey’s voice at the bottom of the stairs. “Up there, second door on the right.” Unfamiliar steps tapped hesitantly up the stairs, followed by a tentative knock on the open door.

“Come in, come in,” Seborn rasped.

Though Mrs. Place wore a thick red woolen coat, she shivered as she stood in the doorway, looking as if she expected to be arrested, if not shot. Olivia set the book on the bed and rose to face her.

Mrs. Place visibly steeled herself before she spoke. “Good afternoon to you, Mr. Killion. It’s good to see you looking so well. Afternoon to you, Miss Killion.” Mrs. Place nodded toward Olivia’s chair, but avoided looking directly at her. “Did you want to place some kind of special order from the bakery?”

“No need for play-acting,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Do you suppose the world is full of fools? I didn’t raise any, I can tell you.”

Olivia took a few awkward steps toward Mrs. Place and stuck out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Place,” Olivia said, astounding both Jettie Place and herself. That kind of social grace wasn’t in Olivia’s nature. She always felt like the most awkward person in any group, not the one who helped put anyone else at ease. Mrs. Place paled, but took Olivia’s hand and smiled.

“Set yourself down here.” Seborn nodded at the rocker Olivia had vacated and Mrs. Place did as told. Olivia edged around to the other side of the bed, to a vantage point from which she could observe both their faces. His showed no emotion, as if he were performing a task to be checked off a list. Jettie Place looked both nervous and resentful.

“Look here, we both know I won’t be getting out of this bed.”

“Please don’t talk like that.” Mrs. Place put her hand on his, uneasily tracking Olivia out of the corner of her eye. Olivia thought she had never seen a worse liar.

“I’m only saying what’s true. And here’s something else that’s true – you may have cultivated expectations over the years, but there’s not going to be any mention of you in my will.” He paused and coughed. “So I want to do right by you now, while I’m still breathing. And I’m not saying that Avis might accuse you of tricking me out of that money, but there’s no harm in having Olivia here as a witness.”

“I’m sure you don’t owe me anything, sir.” Mrs. Place took her hand off his and averted her face.

“You’ve been good to me. Kept me a man. Until now.” He looked at the pitifully small mound his frail body made under the covers and shook his head. “And you’re a woman, aren’t you? Woman always thinks a man owes her the world and a half.”

Mrs. Place’s face collapsed, as if all the flesh were melting off.

He waved his hand toward Olivia with a dismissive motion. “Don’t worry about her. It’s time she knows the things go on between men and women,” he said. “She’ll take a husband soon enough.”

Olivia turned her back to them and stared out the window, but her gaze returned to her father when he broke the thick silence that had engulfed the room.

“This is for you,” he said, wheezing as he leaned over to remove a thick white envelope from the drawer of the nightstand and hold it out to Mrs. Place. “Cash money. No waiting for the blasted lawyer. I had to have Avis get it from the bank for me and you can bet he’s going to want to know where it disappeared to.” He stopped to cough again. “That’s why Olivia is here, so no one will be able to say I didn’t give it to you of my own free will, or that you put an evil spell on my poor senile mind. You can trust her. She’s got her share of faults in her character, but it’s her bad luck that lying ain’t one of them.”

Mrs. Place stood up and arranged her skirts. “Well, thank you Seborn. I can assure you, I’m most grateful to you.” She slipped the envelope into a deep pocket and chattered about the cake she was going to go right home and bake for him.

He cut her off with a wave of his hand and closed his eyes. “You’d best go now. Good-bye, Jettie.”

She paused for a moment before she moved to his side and bent down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be seeing you, Seborn. You get yourself all better. You hear me?”

Eyes still closed, he made another impatient gesture with his hand.

“Let me show you out, Mrs. Place,” Olivia said after a moment’s silence. Mrs. Place followed her out to the hall where they heard voices downstairs – Tobey, Avis, and Mabel arriving home for their noonday meal.

“Perhaps you’d like to step into my room, take a moment to collect yourself before you go down there,” Olivia said. Mrs. Place had been looking down the stairs as if they descended straight into hell.

“Yes, I would. You’re awfully kind,” she said, suspicion creeping into her voice.

“Come in.” Olivia opened the door. “Why don’t you sit over there on the window seat? I could fetch you a pitcher of water, if you’d like to freshen up.”

“No. That won’t be necessary.” Mrs. Place walked quickly to the window and seated herself, suddenly the picture of composure.

“He never talked much about you.” She looked Olivia over with a cool eye. “Always griped about Avis the conniver and Tobias the spineless weakling, but I can’t remember any complaints about you. I’d see you in the shop, of course. You were always such a sweet little thing.”

Olivia suddenly realized that her father’s mistress was as curious about her and her brothers as Olivia was about her.

Mrs. Place removed the envelope from her pocket and turned it over. “Wondering how much is in here? I suppose you think it’s rightly yours.” She sighed and gave Olivia a tired smile. “Don’t worry. It can’t be much. He always was tightfisted. Never even gave me a present. Not once, all these years. He cost me money, if you want to know the truth. There he was, Old Man Killion, my rich fancy man, with the big house on Maple Street, but all he ever did was come over and grant me the privilege of serving him a meal. At my expense, of course. I did have to borrow from him a few times, but he always let me pay him back.”

“So why did you … why were you … his friend?” Olivia sank to the bed, shocked by the audacity of her question, but too curious to keep her mouth shut.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mrs. Place leaned back. “I suppose because no one else was there – and he was. Let me feel like maybe someone thought about me once in a while.” She suddenly stood up and moved toward the door.

Olivia was reluctant to let her go. “Did he ever talk to you about my mother?”

“Nola June, the saint?” Mrs. Place stopped and turned to face Olivia. “Just all the time. She was so frail, so pure, so righteous.” Then, after a pause, she put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder and added softly, “He truly cared for her. Loved her with all his heart.”

Olivia knew she was supposed to be angry with Mrs. Place. Despise her. But she felt nothing like that. She was too busy being amazed by this woman who broke all the rules. “You’re awfully strong,” Olivia blurted out.

“Now that’s something you don’t never want to be saying about a woman, not if you like her even one little bit.” Mrs. Place shook her head and smiled sadly at Olivia. “People will forgive just about anything in a man, except being too weak, and the one thing they absolutely cannot forgive in a woman is being too strong.”

She nodded good-bye to Olivia and stepped into the hall. The voices had drifted to the kitchen at the back of the house and Mrs. Place quietly slipped down the front stairs and let herself out.

When Olivia and Tobey arrived at the cemetery they followed the path to their parents’ resting place. Seborn’s headstone wasn’t ready yet; a piece of plywood with lettering in black paint marked his grave. Nola June’s was of intricately carved marble.

Seborn Killion

July 6, 1794

January 26, 1841

Nola June Sessions Killion

September 26, 1800

February 3, 1829

“I was almost six when she died,” Olivia said. “Seems like I ought to be able to remember more about her.”

She stared at the graves and felt nothing, thinking something must be wrong with her. Nearby were two more headstones. One belonged to her little brother, Jason Lee. He had died of the fever when he was two and Olivia was four. She had no recollection of him at all. The other grave was that of her Uncle Scruggs.

“It’s so sad that Uncle Scruggs is buried all alone here, while his Lydia Ann lies out there in Michigan. They ought to be together,” she said.

Tobey said nothing. He clapped his arms around himself and Olivia knew it was his way of saying he was ready to turn around and go home.

“Remember how Uncle Scruggs always liked to show us the deed to his land, brag about how it was signed by President John Quincy Adams’ own hand?”

Tobey nodded with obvious disinterest. “Where were you planning on getting green branches to lay on the graves?” he asked.

Olivia ignored the question. “He was so proud of that wooden floor he put in their cabin, all hand-planed lumber, so smooth you could run your fingers over it and never know there was a trap door to the cellar.”

“Can we get going?”

“And he built a stone fireplace and chimney –”

“Olivia, can we talk about this at home?”

“I like remembering the way he –”

“I know, I know. It was a magical paradise, wild strawberries as big as your fist, corn higher than a house, trees taller than the birds fly, and trout that leapt out of the river into his frying pan. The forest was so green it hurt his eyes to look at it. Oh, I forgot, Lydia Ann had to go out every morning and bang on a cooking pot to chase the deer away from her laundry tub. Just enough curious bears, sly wolves, and cunning-but-noble Indians to keep life interesting. Can we please go home now?”

“Wouldn’t you like to go see that land some time?”

“Why would I want to do that? Everyone knows there’s no good farmland out there in Michigan. And all he built was a little one-room cabin. Chopped down trees and piled the logs up on each other, bark and all. And it’s been out there rotting for twenty years.”

“Thirteen.”

“There’s probably nothing left standing.”

Olivia turned to face her brother. He was wearing the thick winter coat that made him look like a little boy, his arms sticking out to the sides. He removed his foggy spectacles to wipe them on his sleeve, but fumbled and dropped them in the snow. She bit her bottom lip as he bent to retrieve them.