Whitefern (10 page)

“Okay. Go get me a warm washcloth and some antiseptic gel and some Band-Aids,” she ordered.

When she took off her dress, I saw how Papa had hit her around her waist and thighs. She lay back so I could wash every welt and put on the medicine and bandages where she needed them.

“You know why he hit me so hard, don't you?” she asked as I worked.

“Because you did a bad thing to Sylvia,” I said.

“No. It's because he loves me the most and wants me to be the perfect Audrina, not you,” she said. Then she leaned forward to whisper, “He even told me to sit in the rocking chair so I could learn her special gifts.”

“No, he didn't,” I said.

She smiled through her pain and lay back. “He loves me more,” she insisted. I watched her close her eyes and smile, despite what must have been terrible stings and aches.

I went back to sit with Sylvia, who was asleep, and brushed her hair off her face.

“I won't let her do mean things to you again,” I told her. “I won't let anyone, sweet Sylvia.”

The memory drifted away like smoke, but also like smoke, it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“A toast, then,” Arden said now, raising his glass after pouring the wine. “To the baby who is coming, who is always coming.”

“A boy or a girl?” Sylvia quickly asked.

“Why, a boy, of course,” he said.

“Who told you? Papa?”

He looked at me and smiled. “Of course,” he said. “Who else?”

He drank his wine in one gulp and poured another. I looked at Sylvia. She drank hers quickly, too quickly, and he rose to pour more for her.

“Don't,” I said. “You know she can't handle it, Arden.”

“Oh, a little more,” he said. “To celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Sylvia is getting an art teacher, and I'm getting a partner, apparently.” He laughed and drank.

I served the salad, and we began to eat our first real formal dinner since Papa had died. I looked longingly toward his empty chair. Arden would never have said these things if Papa were still alive. Arden saw my gaze and read my thoughts.

“Tomorrow night, Sylvia,” he said, “you set my place there. It's time we faced the reality. I'm the head of Whitefern now, no matter what our estate documents read. Is that all right, Audrina?”

“No. It's not all right,” I said. “But you can sit there.
Maybe it will help you think more of yourself. No matter what happened to him or to people he loved, Papa kept his self-respect.”

“Why is it that after people die, we think only good things about them and forget the bad?”

“I think about it all, Arden. Your mother told me to be that way. She knew I was proud of my father, even though there were many times I disliked him, regretfully so. She taught me that none of us is all good or all bad.”

“Meaning me?”

“Meaning all of us, Arden, so yes, you, too.”

“What about you, Sylvia? Do you think about all this? Do you think everyone is bad and good? Do you think?”

“Stop teasing her, Arden.”

“Teasing? Am I teasing you, Sylvia?”

He laughed, and we began to eat in silence. When I looked at Sylvia, I saw how happy she was despite Arden's ridiculing her. At first, I didn't understand why. Then I thought about what Arden had said and why that would make her happy. She was already planning it, I was sure.

She could finish her drawing of the baby.

I saw it in the way she rushed cleaning up after dinner. I didn't want her to be deeply disappointed, even though I wished in my heart of hearts that it was all true, that a baby was going to come.

“You must not pay attention to everything Arden says, Sylvia,” I warned her. “He likes to tease you. He teases me, too.”

She nodded, holding her soft smile as if I was the one who didn't understand. I helped her finish so she could go up to the cupola to work, and then I went into the living room, where Arden was having a brandy. His face was red from all the alcohol he had consumed.

“You can leave the documents here tomorrow,” I told him. “I'll read them.”

He widened his eyes. “And?”

“I said I'll read them and talk to you tomorrow.”

“Right. Tomorrow.” He reached for the
Wall Street Journal
, but I knew he wasn't going to read anything. He was simply going to hold it up and fume behind it.

“I'm going up. I'm a little tired tonight.”

I scooped up the envelope and headed up the stairs. I had drunk too much wine myself, deliberately making sure there wasn't too much left for Sylvia—or for Arden. He'd wanted to open another bottle, but I had talked him out of it.

I prepared myself for bed and then went up to the cupola. I didn't want Sylvia staying up there deep into the night. She had no concept of time, especially when she was drawing or painting. She had the outline of the baby completed and was sitting there and staring at it. She turned and looked up at me.

“Is he going to be a pretty baby?” she asked me.

“We're a handsome family, Sylvia. Everyone was very good-looking, as you can see from old photographs. Momma was so beautiful that Papa was afraid to let her out of the house.”

“Why?”

“Other men would look at her and want her to be
their wife,” I said. “And you're beautiful. Everyone who sees you says so.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, but you have to take care of yourself. It's time you went to bed. You need sleep to stay healthy and pretty. Don't forget, we're going shopping tomorrow for your art supplies,” I said.

She stood and gazed at her drawing. “I don't know what color eyes he'll have. Or hair,” she said, looking frantic.

“We'll worry about it tomorrow,” I told her.

She turned abruptly, the way Vera would when she became impatient with me, and marched out of the cupola and down the stairs. I followed her to her bedroom and watched as she prepared herself for bed. I remembered the early years when she could do almost nothing for herself. Papa was convinced that she was severely disabled and would be practically an invalid all her life. Every bit of progress I made with her had amazed him.

I was amused by how much care she was taking with herself right now. Usually, she did nothing with her hair, and I had to brush it and pin it back for her. Both Momma and Aunt Ellsbeth refused to go to bed without first putting Pond's Cold Cream on their faces.

“Your skin dries when you sleep,” they told me. “Wrinkles wait in the darkness ready to pounce.”

So I put it on, and I taught Sylvia to put it on. Vera made fun of it, but she didn't live to be old enough to see any wrinkles on her face.

Usually, I still had to tell Sylvia to do it, but she went right to it tonight, and then she looked at me and asked, “Am I really beautiful, Audrina?”

“Yes, you are,” I said. I smiled, happy that she was taking a female's interest in herself. It meant she was developing a little self-respect, something else Papa had never believed would happen.

Afterward, I returned to our bedroom and waited for Arden. I believed him when he said we would try again to have a baby. He always expected that I would be in the mood for lovemaking whenever he was. Most of the time, he didn't care if I was or not. I would never forgive him for telling Vera some of the details about our honeymoon night, how I had delayed and delayed coming out of the bathroom. If there was ever a time when I wasn't ready to have sex, it was then. But he had waited long enough and demanded his conjugal rights. He actually had tried to break down the door, claiming that a man had a greater need than a woman. He claimed that there was a buildup in him that had to be satisfied and that the same was not true for women.

Those memories always haunted me, along with the horrible memories that had come to me in the rocking chair. I didn't need a psychiatrist to explain my inhibitions now. Lately, Arden had come up with the idea that I was so psychologically wounded when it came to sex that my body might actually be preventing me from getting pregnant.

“Medical doctors like Dr. Prescott don't understand the emotional power a woman can employ
without herself even realizing it,” he'd said. “I read up on it. Until you really, really want to enjoy sex with me, you'll never get pregnant.”

I tried, fearing that he might be right. But even when I thought I wanted it as much as or even more than he did, I did not get pregnant. These thoughts tormented me. Often at night, I would toss and turn in and out of sleep, trying to throw off the haunting ideas and words. I felt like shouting, but I didn't want to make any noise and wake Arden. He'd be angry about it. He might ask why I was so troubled, and he'd repeat those claims about women and about me.

Now, as I waited for him, I wondered if it wasn't the other way around. Because he thought I was so troubled by sex, it was affecting him. He would never, ever admit that he could be affected, but deep down inside his angry heart, those feelings surely twirled about and worried him. What would bother him the most, and what did he fear other men would think about him? That he couldn't satisfy his wife, that he couldn't produce a child? Not Arden Lowe. He wouldn't stand for that.

I turned over in bed and closed my eyes. He was taking so long. How long did he expect me to wait? I fought sleep, but it was heavy tonight and easily forced my eyelids closed. I had no idea what time it was when my eyes snapped open, but I saw that the light beside me was still on, so I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and looked at the clock. It was well after one. Arden hadn't come up. Where was he? Had he started drinking again? Had he fallen asleep on the sofa? He'd
be upset with himself, I thought. I put on my robe and slippers and went out.

I had just started toward the stairs when I saw him. He looked like he had fallen asleep in the living room. His hair was wild, his shirt was unbuttoned and out of his pants, and he wasn't wearing his shoes. But he wasn't coming up the stairs. He was coming from the direction of the first Audrina's room and Sylvia's room.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What you should have been doing,” he said. “Why didn't you?”

“Do what?”

“Come and get her.”

“Why?”

“Why? She was making enough of a racket in that damn rocking chair. I thought someone was cutting up the floor. She's lucky she didn't go over backward in it, the way she was rocking back and forth. I heard it above me. I didn't know she would go rocking. It sounded like animals eating away at the roof. You were dead asleep, so I went to check, and there she was, rocking away. Do you know why? She thinks your father talks to her when she's rocking.”

“I know,” I said, a cold chill rushing through me as I recalled my own rocking-chair memories and my childhood faith in its power to take me into another world. “I'm sorry. Where is she?”

“I got her out of that chair damn fast and practically dragged her back to her room. I imagine she's fast asleep, which is exactly where I should be,” he said, and walked past me toward our bedroom.

“I'm sorry, Arden,” I said again.

He paused and looked back at me. “I told you years ago that we should throw that chair out, empty that room, and give away all those toys and things. Maybe now you'll listen. I can get someone here tomorrow to take it all away.”

“I can't do that, Arden. I just can't.”

“Suit yourself. I'm tired, and I have to get up in a matter of hours,” he said.

I went to Sylvia's room and looked in on her. She was asleep, her blanket up to her waist, but her hair was down. She always liked it up when she slept. A few times when she was younger, she got strands of her own hair in her mouth and choked on them. I watched her sleep. There was something more about her, something different, I thought, and stepped closer to get a better look at her face.

She was smiling.

Maybe she was having a pleasant dream. I wouldn't want to interrupt that. I fixed her blanket a little better and then returned to our bedroom. Arden was already curled up, clutching his pillow like a life preserver.

The funny thing was, he was smiling, too.

Shadows in the Darkness

Arden was up, dressed, and gone before I got up. I had to wake Sylvia, too. For a moment, she acted as if she didn't know where she was, but it wasn't unusual for her to wake up with a look of confusion on her face. It was almost as if she never expected there would be another morning. I wondered what sort of dreams she might have had.

Did she dream?

Sometimes I felt a little confused when I first woke up, and I imagined everyone did at one time or another. For a moment or so after you awaken, no matter who you are, how intelligent or mature you are, you can feel like a stranger in your own room, in your own house. You have to let everything you know and have gotten used to as belonging to you return, sort of fade in like a movie scene. Sunlight awakens it all, pulls it all out of the shadows, and fills your eyes and your mind with your identity. If you are pleased with who you are, you are happy, grateful, even relieved, but if you are not, you wish you hadn't woken up. You wish you had
remained in your dreams being who you'd rather be, what you'd rather be.

Did Sylvia ever hate who and what she was? There were many times when I did. Did she look with envy at me, or had she felt envy toward Vera, especially when Vera had returned from her failed marriage, looking prettier and more sophisticated? Could Sylvia even experience jealousy? She never complained about one of us having more than she had. Vera used to claim that when Sylvia was very young, she was jealous of Billie's wagon, a device Billie used to get around because she had lost her legs to diabetes, but I never believed much in the things Vera would say. She was the epitome of jealousy in this house, her eyes of green envy converting anything beautiful that any of us had.

Once Sylvia realized what was happening when I woke her, she usually broke into a beautiful smile. This morning, however, she looked happier than I had seen her in a long time. She was, in fact, radiant. She wasn't groggy or sleepy and moved quickly to get out of bed. There was excitement in her eyes and an eagerness to start the day that I didn't often see, especially when Vera had come back to live with us and tormented her every chance she had.

When she stood, she stretched and looked at me as if I had just popped out of thin air.

“Hello, Audrina.”

“Good morning, Sylvia. I overslept, so it's later than usual.”

“Me, too. What do you want to do, Audrina?”

“Do?” I asked, smiling with amusement. She never began a day asking me that.

I remembered when I was a little girl, my mother would wake me and put me through her morning rituals. I had to stretch and then brush down my body before taking a shower so I could get rid of the dead skin cells. After I dressed and she brushed out my hair, she told me to sit before my mirror and smile at myself for thirty seconds so I could immediately think well of myself. She was adamant that I didn't put on a goofy grin.

“Because we're so behind schedule, let's go down first and have our breakfast, Sylvia. Then we'll repair our rooms, shower, and get dressed to go out and shop. We're buying your art supplies, remember?”

“Oh, yes, I need them.”

“I know. Mr. Price gave us a list, remember? That's how we know what to buy.”

“Is he coming back?”

“Yes, Sylvia. He is coming tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to post the schedule on the wall here in your room. For now, we have to get everything ready. Let's get a move on. It's a sunny day and not as cold as yesterday,” I said. “There's much to do first.”

“Much to do,” she said. “Repair, repair.” She repeated it as though she was making fun of me.

I looked at her with a half smile. “Yes, repair, Sylvia. We always repair.”

She nodded. Although Arden certainly would be the first one to ridicule the idea, I sometimes looked at Sylvia when she wasn't aware that I was there and
thought she looked brighter than she did when she was with Arden and me. She would study a painting or an object, look at pictures as if she remembered relatives she had never met, and then tilt her head as though she was hearing their voices. If I made a sound, she'd go right back to her cleaning or polishing like someone afraid she had been caught doing something wrong. I shook off the impression and told myself Sylvia was just not clever enough to put on an act and probably never would be. Of course, I told myself, she wasn't being sarcastic when she repeated “repair.” It was only my imagination.

It was Aunt Ellsbeth who had first used that word to mean clean up our rooms, make our beds, and periodically change sheets and pillowcases as well as vacuum our rooms and wash our windows. The perfection in Whitefern had been broken merely by our living in it. According to her, especially after my mother had died, there was much about our home and our lives that needed mending. In the beginning, Papa had growled after every one of her critical remarks, but in time, he put up with it and made her the lady of the house. Every once in a while, I had to remind myself that I was the lady of the house now. The care and maintenance of Whitefern were my responsibility. Arden simply wasn't as devoted to it as I was. That was understandable, I guess. It wasn't his family heritage, and after all, his mother had died here tragically. Yet he knew I wouldn't live anywhere else, and neither would Sylvia.

Sylvia had more of an appetite than ever this
morning. She ate almost twice as much as I did. I rarely saw her exhibit as much energy, too. She went about our chores vigorously, cleaning up after breakfast. I imagined she wanted to get her art supplies as quickly as possible so she could do a better job on everything she drew now. I should have been happier about her enthusiasm, but I couldn't help feeling there was something wrong about it.

I chastised myself for feeling this way. Why couldn't I simply be happy for her? After all, this was what I had been hoping to see all these years and why I worked so hard to help and educate her. If I was hesitant and suspicious, what could I expect from Arden?

We went into town and bought the supplies Mr. Price had listed. I rarely took Sylvia anywhere but to the supermarket, clothing stores, and the dentist. Today I thought I would take her to a restaurant for lunch. I called Arden before we had left and asked him if he wanted to meet us at Danny's, a simple hamburger restaurant in Whitefern with booths and a long counter. It was like an old-fashioned diner.

“Are you sure you want to do that? We've never taken her to a restaurant, Audrina.”

“She's very excited about the idea, Arden.”

He was quiet so long that I thought he had hung up.

“Arden?”

“I can't. I have to meet a client for lunch. Did you spend the morning reading the papers I brought home from Mr. Johnson?”

“I haven't had a chance yet.”

“Well,
get
the chance,” he ordered. Then he hung up without saying good-bye.

At the restaurant, we took a booth. Sylvia looked at everything and everyone as though she had just landed from another planet. The conversations and the laughter, the work of the short-order chef, and the music piped in had her turning every which way and gaping.

“Don't stare at people like that, Sylvia,” I instructed.

“Why not?”

“They'll think you see something wrong with them, and it will make them self-conscious,” I said, which was exactly how I felt when people stared at me.

“What's ‘self-conscious'?”

“Aware of something that you think might be wrong with you, like your hair is messy or you put too much makeup on or that you have food on your face like a baby. Understand?”

She shook her head.

“Just look at me and think about your food.” Sometimes it was easier to give up explaining something and leave it hanging in the air to be plucked again another time like an apple.

I ordered for both of us, knowing what she liked—cheeseburgers with tomatoes and lettuce and lots of ketchup, which she could have drooling down her chin.

“That man is staring at me,” she said, looking toward the far end of the counter.

I turned. There were actually two men looking our way and talking. I recognized the older man. “That's
Mr. Hingen. He's a plumber. He was at Whitefern two months ago to fix our hot-water heater.”

“Repair,” she said.

“What? Oh. Yes, repair. Very good.”

“Should we tell them it's not nice to stare?”

“No, just ignore them, Sylvia. Open your napkin and put it on your lap the way we do at home, so you don't drip anything and ruin your dress.”

She did, but every once in a while, she stole another look at Mr. Hingen and the young man with him. I tried to get her attention on other things, talking about some of the pictures in the restaurant.

The waitress brought our food, and we began to eat.

Sylvia smiled after taking two bites. “Better than your hamburgers, Audrina,” she commented.

“Well, thanks a lot.”

“You're welcome,” she said, proud that she had remembered to follow up a thank-you and, of course, missing my sarcasm. Vera was the first to tell me that talking to Sylvia was like talking to yourself. It was true, but I never let her or anyone else see that it bothered me. Most of the time, it didn't.

Before we were finished, Mr. Hingen stopped at our table to say hello, introducing the younger man as his son, Raymond. He was a good-looking, dark-haired man with light brown eyes, probably in his twenties. It was obvious that Raymond was quite taken with Sylvia and had asked his father to introduce him to us.

“How's everything at the house?” Mr. Hingen asked.

“Fine, thank you.”

“My son is working with me now, so if you have any problems, just give us a call. This is your younger sister?”

“Yes.”

“You're very pretty,” Raymond said to Sylvia. “Where have you been hiding?”

“I don't hide,” Sylvia said, indignant. “Do I, Audrina?”

“No, of course not.”

“Do you go to college?”

“No, she doesn't attend college. She's at home with me.”

“There's a lot to do here for a small town. You'd be surprised,” Raymond told Sylvia. “Do you like to dance?”

She looked to me. “We dance, don't we, Audrina?”

I shook my head. “Not like he means, Sylvia. Thank you, Mr. Hingen, but—”

“Raymond, please.” He turned back to Sylvia. “If you're not seeing anyone, I'd like to call you one day.”

“I see Audrina and Arden, and I'm going to see Mr. Price tomorrow,” Sylvia told him.

I wondered how long it would take him to realize whom he was talking to.

“Price?”

“He's a retired art teacher, ain't he?” Mr. Hingen asked me.

“Yes. He's giving my sister lessons. Right now, that's all she has time for. Thank you for stopping by,” I said curtly.

Getting the idea, he poked his son. “Nice seeing you,” he said to us.

“Yes,” Raymond said. “Looking forward to the next time,” he told Sylvia.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me the moment they left. “When is next time?” she asked.

“Not ever,” I said. “Forget it, Sylvia. It's just something someone says.”

“Well, why do they say it if it's not true?”

“Just to make conversation. Most people hate silence. C'mon, let's finish. You need to fix up your art studio with the new things we just bought.”

She nodded, but she watched Raymond Hingen leave the restaurant, and I thought she was more than just curious. His smile and the twinkle in his eyes had stirred something in her, something she might have felt for the first time. I was confident she didn't understand it. I remembered when I first had it, actually when I first met Arden. It both frightened and excited me simultaneously. I wanted to understand it, this tingle in my budding breasts, this thrill that traveled through my body, but I didn't want anyone to know about it, especially Vera or my aunt Ellsbeth.

I had brought Sylvia a long way from the disadvantaged little girl who had been treated so poorly by others in our family. Even Papa had to talk himself into accepting her as his daughter at the start. Was I wrong now to assume that she wouldn't ever be interested in young men? Was the idea of a romance, a relationship, as far off as another solar system when it
came to her? If she could have a passion for art, why couldn't she have a passion for a man?

Eventually, she might have these feelings; she probably did at this moment, I thought, but no man would treat her well. And even if there was a man who cherished her now, when she lost her beauty, as we all did eventually, he would have far less tolerance for her and would surely cast her aside. Maybe it was cruel of me, but I wouldn't let Raymond Hingen or any young man date my sister, no matter how far she had come. It would only mean deeper suffering for her.

I could see that after I paid the bill and we were on our way out, she was still looking for Raymond. I tried getting her mind off him by talking about her artwork, her lessons, and what beautiful paintings she might do someday.