Such a Pretty Face (46 page)

“The real reason, Stevie, is because you can’t commit to me, or to us.”

“Jake, I’m trying here. There’s a lot in my past I haven’t worked through.”

“Then work through it.”

“Once you know about it, you probably won’t want me anymore anyhow.”

“I will want you. I do want you.”

I swallowed hard, and it felt as if I were swallowing a dolphin. “First thing. I’m not having kids. I mean, I want kids but I’m not having them myself. I’m not going to get pregnant.”

He seemed a little surprised, but then he nodded and said, “I’ve always wanted to adopt, anyhow. Lots of kids need homes. Especially the starving ones in other countries. What else?”

I felt my whole body tingle with relief. Had he said okay, had he said he would adopt?

“Come on, Stevie. What else?”

How do you break a silence, a secret that had lasted for decades, and tell someone your mother was schizophrenic, she killed your sister, tried to kill you, the grief killed your grandparents, you became hugely fat, married an abusive man, and lost two babies, without him thinking you were too much of a loon with way too much baggage to take on?

“Isn’t that enough for now? It’s raining.” I had no idea why I threw the rain part in.

He stared at me pretty hard, then said, “I have no idea what rain has to do with it, but I want to give you something before I leave, and we’re running out of time.” He pulled out a small box. Inside there was a ring, diamonds surrounding a blue topaz. “Let me be a little old-fashioned with you, Stevie. It’s a promise ring. I want you to promise me,” he said, as he slipped it on my finger, “that you’ll think about us when I’m gone. That’s it. Think about us.”

My grandpa would have gotten along with Jake, man to man, I knew that. He would have said that Jake was a man with integrity, who knew how to treat a lady.

And Grandma would have said, “Praise the Lord, let your heart sing with his and let your destiny be bound together from now till heaven.”

And me? In my head, I said,
I love you, Jake.

He kissed me long and warm and passionately, and I kissed him back; then he walked through the shadows swinging between us and left.

He left for Venice.

I was not with him.

I had said no.

I was unprepared for the stark, cold loneliness that struck after Jake left for Venice. It hit me like a steamroller. My whole life got…gray. I walked in the morning, but there was no one that I hoped to see. His house was empty. I went to work, knowing we would not go out in the evening. I had many chair orders, so I came home and worked on those each night, as our derby team was taking a break. I ate vegetables out of my garden, but they didn’t taste good.

The pleasure, the joy, the golden light, so much of it was gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. My hands started to shake, and my insomnia came back. I missed Jake so much, my whole body ached.

I started digging in the weedy corner of my garden, then pulled out a cylinder container I’d gotten at the nursery and sprinkled seeds all over.

Wildflowers. This would be my wildflower corner. Helen had loved wildflowers.

I studied my yard. I had grass to lie on and study the stars. I had tons of vegetables that I ate, and gave away to coworkers and neighbors. I had rose vines growing up three trellises, one for me, Grandma, and Grandpa. I had a circular patio with a mosaic design of china plates for Sunshine, blueberry bushes for Lance, camellias for Polly, pink and purple petunias in pots, daisies, marigolds, and sunflowers, because they’re miracles. I would have wildflowers in memory of Helen, and I had a bridge for my future.

My corn was starting to grow.

I had made something out of nothing.

That night I went to the attic and opened my hope chest. Me and Lance and Polly had shoveled things in there as quick as we could the day of my grandparents’ funeral while Herbert was downstairs yelling impatiently, “This is not a vacation, for God’s sake. Hurry the hell up.”

There were two quilts, both made by ancestors. There were the dollhouse figures that Sunshine and I had played with. Trinkets and Christmas ornaments and framed pictures of all of us and of the Schoolhouse House. There was artwork by me, Helen, Sunshine, and Grandma. There was little girl jewelry and books and a tea set and stuffed animals and two dolls, both Sunshine’s, that I had given her. There were our collections of buttons and shells.

Each brought back a memory.

I was up all night.

And I knew the time had come.

Ashville, Oregon—2005

A
shville had changed in twenty-five years.

I know when you go home, after leaving as a child, that everything usually looks smaller—your home, your school, your neighborhood—than you remembered it.

That wasn’t the way it was for me. Ashville had grown, in particular its main street, which was about three times as long as I remembered. There were art galleries, three ice-cream shops, restaurants with outdoor seating, coffee shops, bookstores, even a chocolate shop. On the hill the old outdoor theater had been torn down and a new one built, along with a new indoor theater for the plays the region was more and more famous for.

I walked to the park and sat on a bench in front of the fountain that my grandparents had paid for and Helen had smashed through. Off to the side, there was a statue of a woman, which I paid no attention to as I watched the water splash, the kids playing, people around me chatting. What caught my attention was a blue jay flying by, three feet from my face. It flew to the shoulder of the statue and cawed at me.

I blinked a couple of times.

Blinked again, and stood up.

It couldn’t be. The statue was of a woman smiling, her arms out, as if she wanted to hug you. She had long, curling hair and was wearing a dress and cowboy boots.

It was Grandma.

There was a statue of Grandma.

I am not impulsive, and I am not given to public displays of emotion, but I couldn’t help myself.

I ran to the statue, my hand to my mouth. That was Grandma! There she was!

Grandma.
A flood of memories came pouring in, all the love and kindness that that woman had given me. Her strength under unimaginable stress, her compassion for people, her leadership as mayor.

“Oh, Grandma.” I sighed.

I am such a sap. And I am so ridiculous. I hugged that statue.

It was in the midst of my tears that I heard a few women whispering behind me. I didn’t even care. That’s how far gone I was, floating around in my own well of emotions, my own loss. What did I care what a bunch of people I would never see again thought of me?

And then I heard it. “Stevie, sugar…Stevie, honey,
is that you?
”

“You didn’t know that the Schoolhouse House is yours?”

I shook my head, dumbfounded. “No. It can’t be. He said he sold it.”

“He lied. It wasn’t his to sell. It was willed to you, not to Janet,
to you,
in your grandparents’ will.”

I closed my eyes against yet another onslaught of pain.

It had been Aunt Teresa and her daughters, all about my age, who had seen me hugging the statue of Grandma. Tay, the oldest of the three and a liberal hippie, insisted that we all hug together and hug Grandma at the same time. All of us cried.

Tay said, “Oh, my God.”

Her sister Shar said, “She doesn’t know.”

The other sister, Clem, said, “How could she not know?”

“I’ll bet no one told her. Chad died six months after your Grandpa, and then the jerk who bought his law office got disbarred and then he went to jail for embezzlement and drug dealing and shooting a cat. Maybe something got messed up then.”

“It was that muskrat-faced uncle of hers. It was him. Vermin man,” Shar said.

Things in front of my eyes started to swim and I had to sit down, right in the middle of the square in front of the statue of Grandma with her arms spread out, smiling.

“She needs something to eat,” Clem said, sitting down next to me. She had one long brown braid down her back. She had a horse farm outside of town. “If she eats she’ll feel better. You sure are a
skinny
thing, aren’t you?”

“She looks so much like her mother, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does. Not the hair, but the cheekbones.”

“The mouth is Helen’s, too, and that heart-shaped face of hers.”

“Your mother was the most beautiful girl in Ashville,” Teresa said with a sigh. “No one more beautiful, we all knew it, and you’re just as beautiful.”

I felt my chest heave.

“Oh, no, oh, no,” Clem said. “Why did you have to upset her?”

“Me? You did it, too!” Tay cried.

“You’re always blaming us, Clem,” Shar said.

“I am not always blaming you, but you didn’t need to go on and on. We’re seeing Stevie for the first time in decades—”

“But we were talking about love!”

“That’s all you talk about, you romantic fool—”

“I do not. At least I don’t go on and on about horses—”

“You’re always talking about your weird collection of—”

“Girls!” Aunt Teresa snapped.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” And, it was okay, in a way. I was with people who remembered my childhood here. They remembered people I loved. I burst into tears again. Gall. When will I not be a mess? Losing weight had released all my tears, I swear to you.

“I hate that rat Herbert. He ran your grandpa’s company into the ground. Our town almost went belly up,” Aunt Teresa said.

“We should tar and feather him,” Tay said.

“That’s illegal,” Shar said. “So we should get Cousin Robby to do it. He’ll handle it and not get caught.”

“Perfect idea, Shar,” Clem said, in all seriousness. “You do always know how to commit criminal acts without enduring the consequences.”

“I do my best,” Shar said. “And Cousin Robby learned a lot in jail.”

“Sure did,” Tay agreed. She nodded at me. “We’ll have Robby right things for you.”

I assured them we did not need to do that. I remembered Robby. He was wearing diapers the last time I saw him.

“This is an event! A historical day!” Aunt Teresa declared. “This, truly, is one of the best days of my life. Wait till The Family hears!”

The girls hugged me and I hugged them back, then we hugged Grandma again.

Oh, how The Family heard.

The ladies took me up to the Schoolhouse House. I saw the bell tower in the distance, then our shiny red doors, newly painted, the front porch where Sunshine and I used to play, the stained glass windows, the back deck where we’d watch the sun go down.

Tay lifted a flowerpot on the deck for the key, then they all stood back as I walked through the doors. I did not bother to attempt to contain my emotions. There was our kitchen table where we baked gingerbread men, the coatrack with Grandpa’s cowboy hats on it, my Grandma’s rubber boots, Helen’s red heart chair, two antique school desks, china plates hanging on the wall…and I swear it still smelled of chalk.

There wasn’t a lot of time to reminisce, though, as we were mobbed by The Family and former friends. They came by the truckload, one long line, and out spilled old people, young people, and all ages in between. They all ran straight toward me, arms stretched out, laughing and crying and kissing me, and crying more.

They came with food, loads of it, piles of it, too.

It was an all-day party, and I cried my way through it. We laughed, too, and I saw scrapbooks The Family had, pictures of my extended family, pictures of Helen as a baby, a girl, a teen…all her photos when she was in the musicals at school….

“Your mother, darlin’,” my great-uncle Marv said to me. “She was so sick. So sick. Your grandparents did everything they could. They were heartbroken. But I know”—Marv wiped his eyes and thumped his cane—“I know Helen loved you. Beneath the sickness, sugar, she loved you more than anyone.”

“That’s the truth,” Cousin Melody said. “She did. I knew your mother, Stevie, before and after she was ill, and I know she loved you.”

The stories came: One girl had no friends, Helen was her friend. Helen smacked one boy for teasing another, he was no longer teased. Helen sang Happy Birthday to each kid, every year, in her class. One kid was sick on his birthday and so upset he missed his song that she went by after school to his home. She was kind. She volunteered to help with old people in high school and taught songs to kindergarteners. She played tennis and let the other girl win the state championship, they all believed, because the girl’s father had recently died.

And, during it all, I sat on the same couch I sat on as a kid. My grandma’s things and my grandpa’s things around me. I had gone upstairs, but then had to come back down.

“Not ready yet, Stevie?” my cousin Shar said, so gentle. I shook my head.

This is small-town living, folks. The ladies and gentlemen of that town had taken turns. Once a month the house had been dusted and cleaned and aired out.

“The Schoolhouse House,” my beloved great-aunt Dorothy told me, “has been waiting for you. It has been waiting and waiting and waiting. We thought you knew and chose not to come home, darling, because it was too painful.” She kissed my forehead. “We have been waiting for you, too. Welcome home, Stevie.” Her face got all scrunched up and her tears burst forth like the Rogue River. “Welcome home.”

There were hard truths that night, too, as some people stayed until well past two in the morning to talk. They
had
written letters to me in Portland when I left, but they all went to Herbert’s post office box, which is why I never received them. They
had
called. They
had
come by to visit at the mausoleum and at Herbert’s office to plead with Herbert to let them take me home or at least to come for a visit. Herbert had refused to let them have contact with me. When he had finished grinding Grandpa’s business into the ground, there was no further contact, even with him.

“He got control of the company, because your grandparents left it to Janet…but she wasn’t up to running it. His fancy lawyers got the papers drawn up and signed in Portland, shoving out the employees your grandpa wanted running it…. Herbert overleveraged the company…tried to expand…. We warned him, told him it would ruin the company…. He got into shady deals…. He took on debt, your grandpa never did that…. He told us he knew more about running companies in his toe than we did in our whole body, then he fired a whole slew of people. Brought in his own guys. They proceeded to follow Herbert’s insane business philosophy. Two of the guys Herbert brought in ran off with the money. They were caught. It was too late. It was all gone. The company buckled…. We just hate Herbert.”

Fortunately, at rock-bottom prices, a whole bunch of employees bought the company back. It was employee owned. They hired the employees back who had been fired, and the company thrived. “Your grandparents’ legacy still keeps giving back to the town of Ashville through the company. Did you see the statue of your grandpa?”

I shook my head. “Only Grandma.”

“We got your grandpa, too. He’s in the park with his cowboy hat and boots on.”

I had to see Grandpa, too.

“We cried because you had to live with Herbert,” Cousin Tore said, wiping off his glasses when they got fogged up with tears. “So many of The Family tried to get custody of you, sugar honey, or at least some court-ordered visitation, but your uncle put his foot down, asshole. Your uncle Marky, your great-aunt Lot, your older cousin Richard and his wife, Claude, your second cousin twice removed Court and his wife, Tok. No luck. You stayed with your aunt. Now, we love your aunt, sugar honey, but we didn’t want you with Herbert. I just hate Herbert.” He sighed.

“Your uncle tried to get a restraining order against The Family so we wouldn’t contact you…. His lawyers all came down and read us the riot act, threatened to sue, came after us for stalking, yada yada. Grandpa Thomas shot at the ceiling of the town hall again…had to go to jail overnight…. A bunch of your hot-headed relatives got into a scuffle with those slick attorneys, and a whole slew of them ended up in jail, too.”

And finally, they thought, maybe it was better. Better for me to have a new life, step away from that tragedy. Not to be reminded. But, oh, they hated Herbert.

But hell. They were “so damn glad to see you, let me give you another kiss and a hug, darlin’…. I cannot remember a better day…. You’re staying, right?…We’re having a dinner tomorrow night…. The tractor pull is this weekend…pancake fund-raiser for the school….”

It did alleviate somewhat the bitterness that had started to swell in me over what Herbert had done.

Hate is not a good emotion to have, but I was teetering on it.

I eventually thought long and hard about my decision but did end up calling Cherie.

I decided to sue Herbert. Half of the company had been left to Janet, half to me. He had run my grandpa’s company into the ground with appallingly poor business practices that a fifth grader would have avoided. He had sold off all the farm equipment, the trucks, and cars and kept the money.

What Herbert had done was unethical and criminal. I would not let him get away with this. I would not let him continue to abuse me now or the child I had been. I would not let him skate off into the sunset without any consequences.

I knew now why he was so frightened about me coming to Ashville. The man was even worse than I thought. He’d taken money from a vulnerable child who had lost everything and then he lied to the woman she had become about a home left to her by her grandparents.

“Hee haw,” Cherie told me, when I told her the whole story. “That’s a clear case of breach of fiduciary duties and unethical behavior. A judge will slice and dice him, and we will nail him to the wall. Leave it to me, Stevie, this’ll be fun!”

He will have nothing left,
nothing,
when I am done.

I moved into the Schoolhouse House. I slept on the couch. I did not, at first, have the courage to go upstairs. I walked along our stream and through the fields and into the barn. I climbed up into the hayloft and lay there for hours remembering all the fun me and Sunshine had there. I remembered the horses, the chickens—especially the chicken that thought Grandpa was her father. I watched the sun go down on the deck. I put both hands out on either side, as if I were holding the hands of my grandparents.

I heard their voices, felt their smiles, their warmth.

And then I had a vision of Sunshine. She was running around in front of me, blowing bubbles, her golden hair flying out behind her.