Whitefern

  The following week, Sylvia began complaining about lower back pain, and one day, she had some blood spotting on her panties. I called Mrs. Matthews, who came over quickly and examined her. She said Sylvia was all right, but she decided that the time had come for her to move in with us. To make Sylvia happy, I complained about lower back pain, too. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I actually felt it.

  It wasn’t until Mrs. Matthews physically moved into the house that the reality of what would happen struck me. Every moment of our day and all our waking hours at night, there would be a stranger present. The privacy we had enjoyed, even the privacy associated with our family memories, would be invaded. I was, of course, afraid of what would come out of Sylvia’s mouth. Mrs. Matthews was to be there at our dinners, breakfasts, and lunches. She would hear everything Arden would tell us about the business, or as much as he would want to share. There would be real privacy only in our bedroom or if I met with him in his office. I kept telling myself that it would only be for a few months.

  But if anyone knew that months could seem like years at Whitefern, it was I.

  As soon as Mrs. Matthews brought her things, she ordered that Sylvia be moved downstairs immediately, which meant that I would move, too. During all the time those rooms were being prepared, Sylvia had never asked me why. When I had to tell her now that Mrs. Matthews was here and insisted that Sylvia sleep in one of those rooms, she looked as frightened as she had when she was a little girl of five or six. She retreated from me, nearly backing herself against the wall behind her bed.

  “I can’t go downstairs to sleep,” she said, shaking her head. “No, Papa won’t like that.”

  “Papa would want you to be safe,” I said, and explained again why Mrs. Matthews required it.

  Sylvia clutched the bedpost.

  Would Mrs. Matthews and I have to tear her away from it and force her downstairs? I couldn’t do that.

  “I have to stay here, Audrina.”

  “It’s only for a little while, Sylvia. It will be okay. I promise. Remember, I’ll be sleeping downstairs, too. I’ll be in the room next to yours.”

  She shook her head even harder. “I can’t be downstairs at night.”

  “Why can’t you, Sylvia?”

  “I have to talk to Papa. I have to be in the rocking chair,” she said.

  “You’re still going there? When do you go there?”

  “When you’re asleep.”

  It stunned me for a moment. Had Arden ever heard her doing that again?

  “I won’t sleep downstairs,” she repeated, raising her voice. “I won’t!”

  “What’s going on here?” Mrs. Matthews asked, entering quickly when she heard Sylvia shouting.

  “I told you she wasn’t going to like sleeping downstairs. Why can’t I bring her things? I don’t mind going up and down the stairs, and . . .”

  “It’s not simply bringing her things. I thought you understood,” she snapped at me, then turned to my sister. “Now, you will go downstairs, Sylvia, and that’s that.”

  Sylvia was close to crying.

  “This can’t be good for a pregnant woman,” I said.

  “Woman? Don’t you mean child?” Mrs. Matthews said. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. There are things to do.”

  “Okay, okay. I tell you what, Sylvia. I’ll have Arden bring the rocking chair down and put it in your room for now. Okay?”

  “Rocking chair?” Mrs. Matthews said. “This is all about a rocking chair?”

  Sylvia thought for a moment, relaxed, and then nodded.

  “Well, now that the nonsense has ended, let’s get on with it,” Mrs. Matthews said. “Let’s move the things we need downstairs.” She went to Sylvia’s armoire to choose what she would be wearing.

  “Audrina’s things, too,” Sylvia said.

  Mrs. Matthews looked at me. I thought she smiled, although with her you could never be sure it wasn’t a smirk of disgust. “Yes, Audrina’s, too,” she said. And then she really did smile when she added, “Maybe she will rock in the chair, too.”

  Sylvia widened her eyes. “Papa would like that,” she said.

  “Well, then, it’s settled.” Mrs. Matthews laughed. “We’ll be able to sing ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’ and mean it.”

  Losing Track of Who I Am

  “Did you know that Sylvia was still going to the rocking chair at night?” I asked Arden as soon as he had come home and I could be alone with him in our bedroom.

  He paused as he changed out of his business suit and stood there thinking. “You know, there were times when I woke to the sound of her shuffling along, I think, but frankly, I was too tired to get up and chase her back to her room. Audrina, I’ve told you many times to get rid of that chair and everything in that room. Why do you ask?”

  “She would agree to go into the downstairs bedroom only if we brought the rocking chair to the room. I told her you would.”

  “You told her I would? Half of the problem here is that you feed this insanity,” he said.

  “That’s not fair, Arden. Sylvia is delicate.”

  “Don’t blame it on Sylvia. You’re still afraid to throw out that chair and empty that room. You’re the one keeping the ghosts alive here, Audrina, not Sylvia.”

  I looked down, tears bubbling like boiling milk. I thought I heard footsteps in the hallway. Mrs. Matthews had moved into her room, which was only a little way down and across from ours. The old wooden floors creaked and complained whenever anyone walked around up here. Was she eavesdropping? How much did she know about us? How much did she want to know? There were more than ghosts watching and listening to us now. It was embarrassing to have arguments in front of a stranger. How did people in big homes with servants keep their privacy?

  “Okay, okay,” Arden said. “I’ll bring down the rocking chair. It’s not light, you know.”

  “I can help.”

  “I’ll manage,” he said. “Or I’ll ask Mrs. Matthews to help.”

  “Why her and not me?”

  “You’re pregnant, Audrina, remember?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to convince yourself, or you won’t act properly in front of people. And it would set a very bad example for Sylvia if she saw you carrying something heavy while she’s been told not to do that. When you’re taking special care of yourself, you’re taking special care of her. I thought you understood that.”

  “I do. I just forget sometimes. You can’t blame me, Arden. I’m not really pregnant.”

  “Well, we’re doing this for Sylvia as much as for us,” he said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “Shouldn’t you be moving what you need to your room?” he asked as he started to put on more casual clothes.

  “I’m just as unhappy as Sylvia is about doing this. I don’t know why Mrs. Matthews is so insistent about her being downstairs. She acts like going up and down the stairs is the same as climbing a mountain. She’s not elderly.”

  “The woman knows what she’s doing, and making the right decisions is what we’re paying her to do. She’s been hired to make sure this all works out well for us.”

  “I would have hoped you would be more unhappy about my moving out of our bedroom, Arden.”

  What really bothered me was that our space for any sort of privacy would be even more limited once we didn’t share the bedroom, but he thought I was referring only to sex. He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you company until you’re tired enough to sleep. I’d do more, but we have to be careful. We don’t want to get a pregnant woman pregnant.”

  He laughed, and before I could protest that I wasn’t referring to that or say that he could use birth control, he went into the bathroom and closed the door. For as long as we had been together, he hadn’t used any protection. We were always supposedly trying to have a child. I didn’t
want to emphasize that now, because it wasn’t the point I was trying to make.

  Frustrated, I started choosing the clothes I would bring downstairs, and when he came out of the bathroom, I went in and gathered my toiletries without saying another word. I had to have as much in my downstairs bedroom as Sylvia did, or she would wonder why I didn’t. At times, she seemed more intense about my mimicking her pregnancy than Arden, Mrs. Matthews, or I were. As it was, we were taking the prenatal vitamins together and being examined together. We were now eating the same foods, too. Mrs. Matthews explained that she didn’t want us gaining too much weight. Of course, she was saying this for Sylvia and not for me, but the way she looked at me when she spoke gave me the eerie feeling she really meant it for both of us. It was as if she was so focused on her work that she forgot or ignored that I wasn’t really pregnant.

  “It’s a tricky balance sometimes, because you have to eat enough for two, and in the case of twins, three,” she continued to explain at dinner. “But I’m relying on the most up-to-date nutritional information for pregnant women.”

  Arden smiled and complimented Mrs. Matthews on how thoroughly she went about her work. He thought it was wonderful. He thought almost anything she did or said was wonderful. Again, I wondered how he knew so much about her abilities. What gave him so much confidence in her medical abilities, or was it simply that she was someone who would keep a secret? I would have thought that was the main reason he had any interest at all, if it wasn’t for how much concern he sincerely showed for Sylvia’s well-being. Whenever he could, he would cross-examine me like a nervous father.

  “Are you making sure Sylvia’s following Mrs. Matthews’s orders, Audrina? Are you helping to keep Sylvia calm? Are you letting her do too much when Mrs. Matthews isn’t around?”

  I constantly reassured him about Sylvia, but he was just as anxious about how well I was mimicking her pregnancy so that Sylvia would be happy. As time went by, he was more intense and nervous about it. If I questioned him about that, he would explode in a rant about his reputation. Any exposure would destroy our ruse.

  “I can’t even imagine how I would explain it,” he said.

  He couldn’t have had a better co-conspirator than Mrs. Matthews. I had to admit that. She’d had someone she trusted create the girdle-like apparatus I wore under my clothes. It had a large zippered pocket into which we stuffed large wads of wool that Arden brought home. As Sylvia expanded, so did I. Mrs. Matthews took great pains to be sure we were the same size.

  At first, I felt terribly foolish wearing it. Early on, it was almost as burdensome as a real pregnancy. I’d forget and reach for something or bend down to pick something up and practically topple. I questioned Arden and Mrs. Matthews about it, pointing out that no other part of me reflected my simulated pregnancy.

  “That’s why you should eat on the side,” Arden suggested. “Don’t follow Mrs. Matthews’s diet designed for Sylvia. Gain some weight.”

  “That would work,” Mrs. Matthews seconded.

  “What? I don’t want to gain unnecessary weight.”

  “It’s not unnecessary,” Arden said. “You just made a good point about your appearance. We want people to believe you’re pregnant, don’t we?”

  “But—”

  “I’ll buy some high-calorie foods for you to eat,” Mrs. Matthews said, nodding. “You know, cakes and cookies and ice cream.”

  “Is that a healthy thing to do?” I asked. “Force myself to gain weight?”

  She shrugged. “You’ll go on a diet as soon as Sylvia gives birth. It will make sense then that you lose weight, although I must say, I’ve known many mothers who didn’t. There are women, you know, who won’t have children because they are afraid they will lose their precious beautiful figures.”

  She smiled at Arden, who smiled back as if they shared her medical histories and he knew exactly the women to whom she was referring.

  What if they didn’t have a beautiful figure to begin with, like you? I wanted to fire back. She could be so infuriating sometimes—actually, most of the time. The part I was playing to enable Arden’s plan to work sometimes made me feel foolish, but of course I understood why we were doing it. When I waddled around and sympathized with Sylvia, who really was beginning to feel the weight and slow down, complaining about her lower back pain, with me echoing about mine, I could see Arden and Mrs. Matthews off to the side watching us, smiling and whispering something that made the two of them laugh.

  Sylvia was starting her seventh month, and Mrs. Matthews really began to restrict her activities. Arden had brought down her easel and her art supplies, but she wasn’t doing much with them now. The new sheet on her easel remained untouched.

  “Why don’t you draw something new?” I asked her finally.

  She looked at the easel and shook her head. “Papa wanted me to do my art in the cupola, Audrina. I need to be in the cupola.”

  I had the feeling she was about to tell me that it was only there that he could tell her what to draw and when to draw it. Mrs. Matthews came around just then, and I decided not to discuss it. Without her artwork, however, Sylvia’s days were longer, and she looked so lost. When she just naturally, out of habit and routine, began to clean the kitchen or attempt to vacuum the carpets, Mrs. Matthews would lunge at her and take away dust cloths and cleaning sprays and practically tear the vacuum cleaner handle out of her hands, chastising her for disobeying orders.

  She complained to me. “I told you she isn’t to do these things now. I can’t be following her around every moment of the day. You’re supposed to be part of this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “She’s bored.”

  “Don’t you have any jigsaw puzzles? It might take her months to finish one, and by then, she could go back to being your maid.”

  “She’s not my maid; she’s never been our maid. This is her house, too,” I snapped back. “She takes pride in what it looks like.”

  Mrs. Matthews looked at me without any sign of emotion. Any complaints directed at her were like water off a duck’s back. After all, Arden had put us in a situation where even the thought of firing her was impossible.

  When I was a little girl, Papa had impressed on me how important it was to keep our secrets. “When you trust someone with a secret, Audrina,” he had said, “you make them your master. They can always threaten you with revealing it. Be careful about that.”

  Of course, he’d been talking about all the secrets involving me, but it was still very true now.

  “I don’t want you lifting things or pushing things now, Sylvia,” Mrs. Matthews told her. Her angry tone brought tears to my sister’s eyes, so I had to intercede quickly and explain that I couldn’t do those things, either.

  Mrs. Matthews apparently thought housework was beneath her. She wouldn’t even wash a glass, much less a dish. I was permitted to do that, but only behind Sylvia’s back. The house was beginning to run away with itself. Half the time, we weren’t even making the beds.

  I complained about it to Arden, but he said, “For a while, we’ll have to put up with it, Audrina. All of us have to make sacrifices. We certainly can’t hire a temporary maid and have some stranger in our home witnessing all this.”

  “I’d be embarrassed to have anyone see how far behind we are with the upkeep of Whitefern.”

  “It’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I have no intention of having guests until this is over. Just leave it all be.”

  It was easy for him to say that. He wasn’t haunted day and night by images of Aunt Ellsbeth outraged at how Whitefern was being treated. She would explode over muddy feet on a carpet or food left on a counter in the kitchen, and if our beds weren’t made, she would have Vera and I make them twice just to teach us that we should care more.

  Mrs. Matthews’s rules and orders left me feeling armless, but what could I do but try to amuse Sylvia, who looked lost most of the ti
me?

  Consequently, I spent most of my time watching television with Sylvia, something we hadn’t done that much of because I had to explain so much about what was happening that I couldn’t keep up with the program anyway.

  Growing tired of the chore one day, I went looking through my old things and found a jigsaw puzzle rated for children ages nine to twelve. I began it with Sylvia, and when she fit a piece in, she was very pleased with herself. Mrs. Matthews saw us doing it and nodded with that bony-looking smile of hers. This was a woman who lived to be right, I thought. I couldn’t help feeling that she enjoyed wielding power over us, especially me. Sometimes when she told me to do something or criticized me for doing something, I sensed a little vengefulness, bitterness.

  Was there something about her that I was missing? Did she dislike my family for some reason? I felt at such a disadvantage. I knew only what Arden had told me about her, and there was still that secret that she feared would be revealed, the secret he held over her head like a flaming sword.

  When she wasn’t tending to Sylvia, Mrs. Matthews would leave the house to look after her own needs. As far as I knew, she never contacted her son while she was living at Whitefern, and she never spoke about other relatives. What about friends? I wondered. Wouldn’t they be asking her questions about us? About why she was living here now?

  When I asked Arden about that, he said, “Don’t worry about it. She can be trusted to say the right things anyway.”

  She was doing all our shopping now, buying what she preferred to eat and drink. After I complained to Arden about this one night in his home office, he told me to accompany her the next day when she went to the supermarket.

  “You can choose what you want, if it fits the nutritional principles Mrs. Matthews has set out for Sylvia. Besides, it’s a good idea for you to go with her to the supermarket this week.”