Dear Dawn,
I am pleased to tell you that I have been released from prison. I'm still not sure how or why it happened so fast, but one day the warden called me in to tell me my parole hearing had been moved up. But jail ain't been the worst part of all this. The worst part's been my knowing how much I hurt you and Jimmy and Fern. I never meant it to be this way and I'm sorry. I surely wouldn't blame you for hating me forever, and I do hope that you're having a good life now that you're living with your real folks who I know are rich. At least you'll never have to scrimp and save the way we usta. No more grits and peas for dinner.
I've got me a good job. The prison authorities located it for me. I'm a maintenance man in a big laundry. I also got a nice little apartment not too far from where work. It's going to take me a while to earn enough money to buy me a car, but I can't travel far for a while anyways on account of the parole rules.
The nicest thing that's happened is Jimmy calling and writing me. We're becoming good friends again and I'm mighty proud of him. He says he keeps in contact with you, too. It hurts me that Fern is off living with strangers, but I've been told she's living with good people who are well-to-do folks and can give her what she needs and then some.
Of course, I'm hoping that someday soon I can get her back. I asked my parole officer about that, but he says that's something he don't know nothing about just yet. All he said was if the family goes ahead and adopts her, I'd have big problems. I'm just afraid it's going to take an army of lawyers to straighten it out, but since I'm to blame, I can't complain much.
Anyways, I wanted to write to you to tell you I'm sorry for the hurt and pain I caused you. You was always a good girl and I was always proud to be your daddy even though I really wasn't.
The truth is I miss Sally Jean and you and Jimmy and Fern so much it hurts like a punch in the chest. Some nights I don't sleep at all remembering. We had tough times, but we had each other then.
Well, that's all. Maybe someday me and you will meet again. But I don't blame you if you don't want anything more to do with me.
God bless you.
Daddy
P.S.: I wrote it because I still think it.
I clutched the letter to my bosom and sobbed, rocking back and forth on the bed. I cried so hard it hurt my stomach. Tears streamed down my face and soaked my blanket. Finally, I took deep breaths and choked back my tears. Then I stuck Daddy Longchamp's letter between some pages of my journal and went to my desk to write back to him.
I told him I didn't hate him and I knew everything. And I couldn't wait for the day we would meet again. I wrote pages and pages, telling him about my life at the hotel, how awful my real family was and how being from a family that had a lot of money didn't make life happier for me. Then I told him about New York and my school. The letter was so fat, I had a hard time putting it into an envelope. I sealed it and rushed out to get it mailed. Because of the delay, his letter having gone to the hotel and being kept there so long, he probably thought I didn't want anything to do with him. I wanted to tell him that wasn't so as fast as I could.
Trisha called a few times that first week to try to get me to take the bus to visit her and her family. I told her about my strange conversation with Agnes and what she had told me was in the vase in the glass case.
"Oh don't believe that story," Trisha said. "It's something she took from a play."
"I hope you're right. I feel funny every time I go in there now."
I promised I would seriously consider visiting her, but I had a wonderful surprise occur early one morning when Agnes knocked on my door to tell me I had a phone call from Madame Steichen.
"I've returned to the school early," she declared and paused as if that explained everything.
"Yes, Madame?" I said.
"I have an hour between nine and ten free every morning beginning today."
"Yes, Madame," I said. "I'll be there. Thank you."
"Very good," she replied and hung up.
I felt like I was walking on air and when I attended these special lessons, I sensed a change in Madame Steichen's attitude toward me. Her voice was softer, her commands given with a more loving tone. Also, I noticed that when my other teachers, and even teachers I had not yet had, learned about my special lessons with Madame Steichen, they treated me differently as well. It was as if I had achieved some celebrity status.
Trisha was the first to return from the summer break. We stuffed three hours worth of conversation into the first hour we spent together. I told her about the things I had been doing in New York and described my lessons with Madame Steichen. She was very excited and impressed. Then I showed her my letter from Daddy Longchamp. She read it and cried and was outraged when I explained how long it had been kept at the hotel and how it had been read.
Afterward, we went to George's for what had become our famous ice cream sodas and to listen to the juke box.
We returned to the house slowly. It was a very hot and humid late summer day, so we were grateful for the long, thick shadows cast by the sun's falling behind tall buildings, as well as the slight breeze coming of the East River. Even in summer though, the traffic and the pedestrians didn't slow down. I had come to see that New York had a rhythm of its own and anyone who wanted to live and work there either took on that rhythm or was run down by it.
A second big surprise was awaiting my arrival at the house. Agnes stepped out of the sitting room, smiling.
"It's about time you've come back," she said. "You have a gentleman visitor, Dawn."
"Visitor?" I shrugged at Trisha. Jimmy wouldn't come without calling first, I thought. We walked quickly to the sitting room doorway, but the moment I looked in, I felt as if my feet were nailed to the floor. I didn't want to go a step farther. Sitting there and smiling up at me was Philip.
"Hi, Dawn," he said, leaning back on the sofa with his arm across the top. He looked more handsome than ever with his thick, flaxen hair brushed up in a wave and his cerulean blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "I was able to get away for a day to come see you before I have to return to school."
"Isn't that nice?" Agnes said, smiling. I didn't say a word. "Why don't you introduce Trisha to your brother?" she asked when I didn't move.
"I didn't ask him to come," I said sharply.
"What?" Agnes looked at Philip as if he had to translate my words.
"I thought you might be glad to see someone from the family," Philip said, his arrogant smile fading quickly.
"You were wrong," I said. I felt blood rush to my face and my stomach turned sick somersaults with anger and fear. I couldn't look at Philip without remembering his lips and hands all over my body. "I don't care to see you. Just leave me alone," I said. "Leave me alone!"
I turned and ran toward the stairway.
"Dawn!" Agnes cried. "You get right back here."
I took the stairway two steps at a time and rushed up and into my room, slamming the door quickly behind me. Then I threw myself on my bed and folded my arms across my chest as I glared up at the ceiling.
I wouldn't pretend all was hunky-dory, I thought. I wouldn't forget what he had done to me.
A few moments later Trisha came in. She closed the door softly behind her and stared at me, her mouth agape.
"How could you do that to your own brother? He's so cute and he seems very nice. I mean, I thought it was only Clara Sue and Grandmother Cutler who . . ."
"Oh Trisha," I said. I bit down on my lower lip. "What?" She came to my bed quickly and sat down. "I lied to you that day when you asked me why I was disturbed about Arthur walking in on me in the bathroom."
"Lied?"
"I told you it was a handyman who had attacked me."
"But then . . . who did it?"
"Philip," I said. "My brother." I buried my face in my pillow. "I'm so ashamed," I moaned. "And he has the nerve to come here and act as if nothing happened between us."
"How horrible," Trisha said, stroking my hair. "Poor Dawn. You have so much to try
to forget."
I turned around to look up at her. I could tell she no longer saw my life as some kind of fantasy. No longer would she regret how boring her own life seemed next to mine. Facing reality had made me grow up more quickly than I would have liked, but I had no choice.
4
A VISIT WITH JIMMY
When it was clear to Philip that I wouldn't come back down and visit with him, he left. He had brought me a box of candy that he told Agnes to give to me with the message that he would call me some time in the near future.
"Your brother was heartbroken," she said. "And such a nice young man, too." She sighed and then looked at me harshly and shook her head. "That's not the way for a well-bred young lady to behave," she chastised. "Your grandmother was hoping your manners would improve here."
I bit my lip to keep myself from uttering any reply. I wanted to shout back at her, to cry out and tell her she didn't know what she was talking about; she had no idea what sort of terrible things had happened to me and if there was anyone who had to have her manners improved, it wasn't me; it was Grandmother Cutler who lorded it over everyone as if her hotel was her plantation and we were all her slaves. But, I said nothing. Instead I went to help Mrs. Liddy since it was my turn. I gave her Philip's gift of candy, which she was more than pleased to accept.
By late afternoon Agnes was back to her old self, flitting about the apartment house, all excited about a luncheon she was going to attend on the weekend in honor of the contribution to the theater made by the Barrymores. She was full of stories about Ethel and John and claimed she had been in two productions with Lionel Barrymore. By evening the excitement centered on the impending arrival of the other student residents.
The next day the Beldock twins were the first to arrive. Agnes called Trisha and me down to meet them and their parents. I knew the twins were fourteen, but when Trisha said they were small, I had no idea how small. They were like cupie dolls, both standing less than five feet tall. But they were adorable with their button noses and small, round mouths. They had chestnut-brown eyes and hair the color of summer hay, which they had cut in an identical style at their shoulders and tied with pink ribbons. They wore identical pink and white dresses with saddle shoes. I was sure that for one to look at the other was the same as looking in the mirror. Even the dimples in their cheeks were in the exact same places.
I loved the way they anticipated each other's moves and often finished each other's sentences. Trisha had already told me that Samantha was called Sam and Beneatha was nicknamed Bethie by all their friends. They were both clarinet players and so good at it that they were already first seats in the orchestra.
But I found myself even more fascinated by their parents, a young, vibrant couple. The father was handsome with that all-American wholesome, devastatingly good-looking face and charming manner. He was at least six feet tall with a suntan that highlighted his silvery blue eyes. It was their mother from whom they had obviously inherited their small facial features and graceful hands. She had warm blue eyes and a tooth paste advertisement bright smile. I loved her mellow voice and the loving way she held and kissed the twins.
How I envied them their happy childhood. They looked like the perfect little family, always secure, always comfortable. When I lived with Momma and Daddy Longchamp, we had love in our home, but the strain of making enough to feed, clothe and shelter us kept Daddy Longchamp grouchy and sad most of the time, and all I could remember about Momma was her being sick or tired and defeated. And, of course, the family I had now was far from perfect.
What made some children lucky enough to be born to happy homes? Were we like seeds in the wind, some falling on fertile, rich earth, some scattered onto bone-dry land full of shadows and darkness, fighting their way toward every inch of sunlight? I wondered if someone first meeting me, someone like Mr. or Mrs. Beldock, could take one look at me and see how miserable I was inside, how poor my soil had been and still was.
Trisha and l helped the twins move into their room. They were full of stories about their summer.
"Oh Trisha," Sam said, "we're so happy . . ."
"To be back," Bethie concluded. "That's all we've been talking about."
"Our return to Bernhardt," Sam added, nodding. "And it's so much fun to meet someone new," she said, turning to me. I had to smile at the way they organized their things, one reminding the other what drawers each had last year and where each piece of clothing had been hung.
Trisha and I invited them into our room and spent the rest of the afternoon talking about music and movies and hairstyles.
Agnes was truly worried about her last student resident, Donald Rossi, because he didn't show up all day. Then at dinner, the door buzzer was heard and she got up from the table to greet him. He had been delivered by his father's chauffeur because his father, a famous comedian, was performing at some night-club in Boston. The chauffeur carried Donald's bags as far in as the entryway and then left. Agnes brought him in to meet us immediately.
Donald was a short, very plump fifteen-year-old with curly blond hair and freckles even on his nose. He had an oval-shaped face with remarkably rubbery lips that twisted through all sorts of contortions whenever he spoke, usually attempting to do some imitation of a famous movie star like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson. I had never met anyone as forward and nervy the first time he was introduced to new people.
"I'm starving," he said and plopped himself down next to Arthur who acted as if someone with the plague had just been placed at the table. He cringed and pulled his chair as far to the left as he could.
"Wouldn't you like to bring your things to your room first, Donald?" Agnes asked him.
"Oh, they'll wait," he said. "But my stomach won't," he added and laughed. Then he looked at Arthur. "Looks like you let your suitcases come first all the time," he said and laughed at his own joke. Arthur shot a glance at me and then his face reddened. "That reminds me of a joke my father just told me," Donald said, stabbing a dinner roll with his fork quickly as if he thought it might run off the dish. "These two guys were starving to death in the desert when they come upon this dead camel. The first guy says, 'I'm dying for a camel sandwich but I can't get over the smell.' 'Smell?' the second guy says, 'I can't get over the hump.' " Once again, he roared at his own joke.
The twins gaped at him, both their mouths open the same way. Arthur sighed and shook his head.
"Oh dear, Donald," Agnes said, "I don't think the dinner table is the proper stage for that kind of humor, do you?"
Donald looked up from his plate of food. All through the telling of the joke, he had been dipping his serving spoon into one thing after another and dropping gobs of potatoes and vegetables on his dish. Now he was hacking off a chicken leg.
"Oh, you want food jokes, huh? All right," he said, pushing on. "There was this rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel, and this housewife comes along and starts digging down because she thinks she's going to get the best apples on the bottom, only she comes up with a handful of gook, see . . ."
"Excuse me, Donald," Agnes interrupted, "but dead camels and rotten fruits are not the sort of things we like to hear about when we're eating."
"Oh." He stuffed the roll into his mouth in one gulp and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "You know the one about this midget who dies and goes to heaven?" he began.
There didn't seem to be any way to stop him short of shooting him. I looked at Agnes. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Like it or not, our little student residency family had been formed. The twins had their room, Arthur had his, Donald, thank goodness, was the farthest down the corridor, and of course, Trisha and I had ours.
Before the week was out, Arthur and Donald had a bad argument when Donald continued to tease him about his weight. Agnes interceded and a fragile truce was declared, but it got so we didn't look forward to dinner as much as we had before because it was only a matter of time at most meals before snarling and snapping started between Arthur and Donald. It came again th
e week Donald had kitchen duty. Somehow he had gotten into the kitchen without Mrs. Liddy knowing it and skinned all the meat off a piece of chicken.
He served Arthur the bones with a teaspoon of potatoes and one pea. It was funny and Trisha and the twins started to laugh, but Arthur became enraged and left the table.
Agnes asked Donald to go up and apologize to him.
"There has always been peace in this house," she lectured. "We've always been a good cast and a good cast can't perform well if there is dissension."
"Hey, I'll do anything for show business," he said, flicking an imaginary cigar and leaning over like Groucho Marx. He was incorrigible, but he did go up to apologize. He returned soon after saying he didn't mind talking to a door if the door would at least squeak.
Later, when I met Arthur in the hallway alone, I advised him not to pay so much attention to Donald.
"He's an exhibitionist," I said, "trying to be like his father. Just ignore him and he'll stop teasing you."
"I thought you considered him funny," Arthur snapped.
"Sometimes, but most of the time, he's just obnoxious. I don't like to see anyone teased and made the butt of someone else's jokes."
Arthur's face softened.
"You're right," he said. "He's not worth it." I smiled and started away.
"Dawn," Arthur called. "I . . . um . . . wondered if I couldn't show you some of my poetry one of these days. I think you might like it."
"Why of course you can, Arthur. I'd be very happy to read it. Thank you for asking," I said. I never saw his face light up so quickly and his normally dark eyes turn so bright.
"Okay," he said.
I didn't tell Trisha because I knew she would advise me against becoming involved with him in any sort of way, but I did feel sorry for him. I thought he was easily the loneliest and saddest boy I had ever known.
Not long after the new school year had begun, I received a letter from Daddy Longchamp. He said he had been heartened and grateful for my letter. He claimed he missed me a great deal and he had wanted to say so in his first letter, but he didn't think he had a right to anymore. The rest of his letter was filled with details about his apartment and job. He sounded more hopeful because he was making some new friends, one in particular being a widow in the same apartment building.