An hour later, the corridor resounded with Papa’s heavy tread. He didn’t bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard the latch banged into the plastered wall and made another nick. There was a key in the lock which I never dared to use, fearful he would kick my door down if I did. Papa strode to my room wearing a new suit he’d changed into since dinnertime, telling me he and Momma were going out. He’d showered and shaved again, and his hair fell in soft waves perfectly molded to his skull. He sat on my bed, caught my hand in his, allowing me to see his square, large nails that were buffed so much they shone.
Minutes passed as he just sat there holding my hand, which felt lost in the hugeness of his. The night birds in the trees outside my bedroom window twittered sleepily. The little clock on my night table said twelve o’clock, but it wasn’t the real time. I knew he and Momma wouldn’t go out at midnight. I heard a boat whistle in the distance, a ship putting out to sea.
“Well,” he said at long last, “what have I done this time to wound your fragile ego?”
“You don’t have to be nice to Vera one minute and nasty to her the next. And I didn’t push Vera down the steps.” My voice sounded faltering, and this was certainly not the kind of confident speech that would make anyone believe me.
“I know you didn’t push her,” he said somewhat impatiently. “You didn’t have to tell me you didn’t. Audrina, never confess to a crime until you are accused.” In the gloomy dimness his dark ebony eyes glittered. He frightened me.
“Your mother and I are going to spend the evening with friends in the city. You don’t have to rock in the chair tonight. Just be a good girl and fall into dreamless sleep.”
Did he think I could control my dreams? “How old am I, Papa? The rocking chair has never told me that.”
He’d left my bed to head for the door, and in the open doorway he paused to glance back at me. The hall gaslamps shimmered on his thick, dark hair. “You are seven, soon to be eight.”
“How soon to be eight?”
“Soon enough.” He came back and sat down. “How old do you want to be?” he asked.
“Only as old as I’m supposed to be.”
“You’d make a good lawyer, Audrina. You never give me a straight answer.”
Neither did he. I was catching his habits. “Papa, tell me again why I can’t remember exactly what I did last year, and the year before.”
He sighed heavily, as he always did when I asked too many questions. “My sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell you? You are a special kind of girl, with talents so extraordinary that you don’t realize the passing of time. You walk alone in your own space.”
I already knew that. “I don’t like my own space, Papa. It’s lonely where I walk. I want to go to school like Vera does. I want to ride on that yellow school bus. I want friends to play with … and I can’t remember ever having a birthday party.”
“Can you remember Vera’s birthday parties?”
“No.”
“That’s because we don’t celebrate birthdays in this house. It’s much healthier to forget about time and live as if there were no clocks and no calendars. That way you never grow old.”
His story was so much like Momma’s … too much. Time did matter, birthdays, too; both mattered more than he said.
He said good night and closed the door, leaving me to lie on my bed and wonder.
One night screams woke me up. My screams. I was sitting up, clawing at the sheet, covering myself up to my chin. In the long corridor I heard the pounding of Papa’s bare feet as he came running. On the side of my bed he perched to hold me in his arms, smoothing my tousled hair, hushing my piercing cries, telling me again and again that everything was all right. Nothing could harm me here. Soon I fell asleep, safe in his arms.
Morning light woke me, and Papa was in the doorway smiling broadly, almost as if he’d never left me alone. “Sunday morning, love, time to rise and shine. Put on your Sunday clothes and we’ll be off.”
I stared at him, sleepy-eyed and disoriented. Was it only last week that Vera broke her leg? Or was it much, much longer? It was a question I put to Papa.
“Darling, you see what I mean? It’s December now. In five days it will be Christmas. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
But I had. Time had such agility when it came to fleeting past me. Oh, God … what Vera said about me had to be true. I was vacant headed, forgetful, perhaps brainless.
“Papa,” I called out nervously before he closed the door so I could dress for church. “Why do you and Momma let everyone in church believe Vera is your daughter and not Aunt Ellsbeth’s?”
“We don’t have time for that kind of discussion now, Audrina. Besides, I’ve told you many times before how your aunt went away for almost two years, and came back with a one-year-old daughter. Of course, she was expecting to marry Vera’s father. We couldn’t let everyone know a Whitefern had given birth out of wedlock. Is it such a crime to pass Vera off as our own and save your aunt from disgrace? This isn’t New York City, Audrina. We live in the Bible Belt, where good Christians are supposed to abide by the rules of the Lord.”
Vera belonged to some nameless man and my father was generous and was doing the decent thing, and I was his one and only living daughter. Vera liked to pretend he was her father, but he wasn’t. “I’m so glad I’m your only daughter … who’s alive.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, his full lips thinning. I’d been told many a time that eyes were the windows of the soul, so I ignored his lips as I studied his dark, shuttered eyes. Something hard and suspicious rested in them. “Your mother hasn’t said any differently, has she?”
“No, Papa, but Vera has.”
Suddenly he laughed and hugged me so tight against his chest that my ribs ached afterwards. “What difference does it make what Vera says? Of course she wants me for her father. After all, I’m the only father she’s ever known. And if all others think Vera is your mother’s child, let them think what they will. There isn’t a family anywhere without skeletons in its closets. Our skeletons are no worse than anyone else’s. Besides, wouldn’t the world be a boring place if everyone knew all there was to know about everyone? Mystery is the spice of life. That’s what keeps people living on and on, hoping to uncover all the secrets they can.”
I thought the world would be a better place without all the skeletons and mysteries. My world would be a perfect place if only everyone in my home knew how to be honest.
The Rocking Chair
Vera came to my room that night, soon after I’d climbed into bed, determined to have only happy thoughts before sleeping, hoping they’d lead to happy dreams. Hobbling with considerable skill on the crutches she’d grown accustomed to, she managed to carry things in a bookbag she’d slung over her shoulder—only this bookbag was different from any I’d seen before.
“Here,” she said, tossing me the bag on the bed. “Educate yourself. Those two women in the kitchen will never teach you what I will.”
I felt a little skeptical but happy, nevertheless, that she was interested in my education. I knew there were many things I was missing by not going to school. Shaking the bag’s contents onto my bed, dozens of photographs cut from magazines fell to my bed in a ragged clump. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I picked them up and started to separate them, staring all the time at pictures that showed naked men and women in lewd, weird embraces. The hateful things clung to my fingers, so tacky I plucked them free from one hand only to find them sticking to the other. Then, to my consternation, I heard the heavy tread of Papa’s feet as he came toward my room.
Vera had done this on purpose! She knew Papa came to my room each night around this time.
“I’m going,” said Vera with a delighted grin. She hobbled toward the door of the bedroom that adjoined mine, planning to escape Papa. “Don’t you dare tell him I was here if you know what’s good for you.”
But on her crutches she couldn’t move fast enough. Papa threw open the door
and glared at the two of us. “What’s going on in here?” he asked.
With the guilty evidence stuck to my fingers, I hesitated and thus gave Vera the chance to dump all the crime in my lap. “I found that bookbag in a closet, and since it was monogrammed with her initials, I thought this Audrina should have it.”
Scowling darkly, Papa came to me and tore the clippings from my fingers. He took one glance and howled in rage; then, whirling around, he thrust out his arm and sent Vera reeling to the floor—and she was already broken enough. Like someone demented and dying, Vera screamed out her rage. “It’s hers! Why are you hitting me?”
Papa picked her up and held her as if she were some stiff-legged puppy from the gutter. He held her over my bed. “Now pick them up!” he ordered harshly. “My first Audrina would no more look at that filth than she’d tar and feather you—which I’ll do if you don’t stop tormenting me! Now you have to eat them,” he added when she had them in her nervous, pale hand. I thought he was joking; so did she.
“I’m going to scream for my mother!” threatened Vera. “I’m hurt! I’ve got broken bones! I could die! You let me go, or tomorrow I’ll go to the police and tell them you abuse me—”
“Eat them!” he bellowed. “You’ve coated them with glue, they shouldn’t taste worse than your mother’s cooking.”
“Pa … pa,” she wailed, “don’t make me eat paper and glue!”
Snorting in disgust, he carried her out of the room. A few seconds later I heard her screaming as he applied his belt to her bare skin. I didn’t truly know if he used his belt when she was naked, but ten to one she’d tell me he did. Vera could scream if a fly lit on her arm, so how could I know unless I got up and found out for myself? I never did because for some reason I was afraid what she said might be true.
Minutes passed while my heart raced. Eventually Vera’s screams ebbed away, but still Papa didn’t come.
Somewhere downstairs a clock chimed ten times, but that meant little. Every bone in my body ached, every muscle was tensed. I knew I’d have to sit in the rocking chair again tonight.
Finally, when I felt I could bear the suspense no longer, knowing I’d never fall asleep until I did what he’d force me to do, I heard a door close and soon heavy footfalls sounded in the corridor. Papa’s tread was even, heavy, squeaking the old sagging floorboards.
Softly, he eased open my bedroom door and stepped inside. Quietly, he closed the door behind him. He loomed up in the night like some huge monster, casting a long shadow in the dimness of my moonlit room.
“Sooo,” he drawled in his most beguiling southern voice, cultivated over the years from his clipped Yankee delivery, “now you’ve taken to looking at obscene photographs that will dirty your mind. That shames me, Audrina, really shames me.”
“Not me, Papa,” I said. “Vera brought them in here—but don’t hit her again, please. You could break her other arm and leg, or maybe her neck. You shouldn’t whip her when she’s hurt.”
“I don’t whip her,” he said harshly. “I just scolded her, and she started screaming that I didn’t love her. God, how can anyone love someone who makes so much trouble? Even if Vera brought in those nasty pictures and gave them to you, you didn’t have to look, did you?”
Didn’t I?
“I thought better of you than that. Don’t let Vera destroy the best that’s in you.”
“Why are boys dangerous for me and not for Vera, Papa?”
“Some girls are born to be what Vera is. Boys can sniff them out from miles away. That’s why I don’t bother about her. It wouldn’t do any good. It’s you I care about because it’s you I love. I used to be a boy, and I know how boys think. I’m sorry to say most boys cannot be trusted. That’s why you have to stay out of the woods, and close to home, and out of school, too. It’s dangerous for a beautiful, sensitive girl like you. It’s the kind of woman you’ll grow up to be that will be the salvation of mankind. That’s why I struggle to save you and protect you from contamination.”
“But, but … Papa—”
“Don’t protest, just accept the fact that parents worry. Adults are far wiser about the world, especially wise about their own flesh and blood. We know you are ultrasensitive. We want to spare you those unnecessary pains. We love you. We want to see you grow up healthy and happy, that’s all.”
He came to sit on the edge of my bed as I lay on my back, frozen and trying not to breathe. Tightly I squeezed my eyelids together. My lids parted a bit to peek and see if he believed I’d fallen asleep, so deeply asleep I might even be dead, and maybe in death I’d gain the nobility of the First and Best Audrina and would never have to sit in her chair again. But he leaned closer. I seized hold of the sheet and pulled it up high under my chin. Papa’s ironlike hands closed down on my shoulders. His strong fingers digging into my tender skin made my eyes pop wide open and clash with his. Our gazes locked, and in a silent duel of wills we fought until my mind went vague, out of focus, and he was the winner again.
“Now, now,” he soothed, beginning to stroke my hair, “it’s not so bad, is it? You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. I know sooner or later you will catch the gift, if you are patient and keep trying. You can help me, Audrina.”
“But—but,” I stammered, wanting to make him stop. But he went on and on, inundating me with his needs, which had to be my needs too.
I was afraid. Still, my love for him made me an easy subject, willing to be cajoled, flattered and won over to feeling I had to be wanted just for my “gifts” when I had them.
“And all you have to do is dream, Audrina, just dream.”
Dream, dream. That was the one thing I didn’t want to do. Was he going to keep it up until I was an old lady, or would I be able to seize hold of the First Audrina’s gift and satisfy Papa? Pray God the First and Best Audrina’s gift would help me end up differently than she did. Why didn’t he ever worry about that?
“Dream, Audrina, my love, my sweet. Shakespeare wrote about it: ‘to sleep, perchance to dream.’ To dream and know the truth. Come back and give me your dreams, Audrina, and make all your father’s hopes for the future come true.”
I stared at him sitting there on my bed. His dark eyes were no longer glittering and frightening, only pleading and full of love—how could I keep on resisting? He was my father. Fathers were supposed to know right from wrong. And I did owe him a great deal. “Yes, Papa,” I whispered. “Just one more time. Won’t just one more time be enough?”
“Perhaps it will be,” he said, his smile lighting up his face.
Appearing happy, Papa led me by my hand down the hall, to the very end room. Once there, he released me and took out a large key to unlock her door. I felt a cold draft that made me shiver. It was the first Audrina’s grave breathing on me.
I looked around as I always did, as if I’d never been here before. I couldn’t say how many times I’d been here. This room seemed to be the one thing that filled all the holes in my memory, looming larger than any other experience. Yet each time I came it was a shock to hear the wind chimes in the cupola begin to softly tinkle, tinkle. Even in the dark, crystal-prism colors flashed behind my eyes. Perhaps I had seized hold of a memory—the memory of this all too familiar room. Perhaps I was beginning to benefit just from being here.
If it hadn’t once been her room, I’d have wanted it for my own. It was huge, with a big tester bed under the fancy canopy. There were two giant dark armoires filled with all the pretty clothes that had once been hers, clothes they didn’t want me to wear. Little shoes were lined up in neat rows, from one-year sizes to those a nine-year-old girl would wear. Some were scuffed and old, some were shiny and new. The dresses that hung above grew longer with each succeeding year.
Toy shelves lined the walls, full of everything any little girl could ever want. There were dolls from every foreign country dressed in native costumes. There were toy tea sets and dinner sets, picture books and storybooks, beach balls and bouncing balls, jumping ropes with fanc
y handles, jacks, boxes of games, puzzles and paint sets … oh, there was nothing they hadn’t bought for the First, the Best and the Most Perfect Audrina—far more than they’d bought for me. On those dark and brooding shelves where the toys sat eternally grieving and waiting to be loved again were dozens of soft, plushy, pastel animals, all with dark button eyes that glinted and gleamed and seemed to follow my movements. Even baby rattles with small teeth marks were there, and worn-looking bronzed baby shoes in which she’d taken her first steps. They hadn’t saved mine and had them bronzed, nor had they saved Vera’s.
Beneath the wide windows covered by fussy white Priscilla curtains was a dollhouse. A child’s toy table with four chairs was set and ready for a party that was never given. Fancy rugs were scattered about to make stepping stones across the room, compartmentalizing it into rooms within a room, or mazes within a maze.
Quietly as vandals we left the doorway and stole inside that room that breathlessly awaited us. My bedroom slippers were left in the hallway outside, as were his, to show our respect to this room where the perfect daughter had once reigned. The very way Papa had taught me to bow my head and lower my eyes and speak in reverent whispers once I was in this room instilled fear in me. Expectantly, he kept his eyes on me, as if waiting for her specialness to jump into my brain and fill my Swiss cheese memory with the First Audrina’s gifts.
He kept watching me, waiting for something to happen, but when I only turned in circles, staring at one thing and then another, he grew impatient and gestured toward the only adult-sized chair in the room—the magic rocking chair with the lacy calla-lily back and the rose velvet cushion. I inched toward it reluctantly, holding my breath as I forced myself to sit. Once I had stiffly settled myself on the seat, he came to kneel at my side. Then began his ritual of kisses rained on my hair, my face, even my arms and hands, all meant to tell me that he loved me best. He murmured endearments in my ear, his breath hot and damp, and before I could protest, he bounded to his feet and raced from the room, slamming and locking the door behind him.