"Why don't you like my mother? Is it only because she didn't have ancestors that went back to the Pilgrims?"
"We're all sinners," he said. "Our first parents, Adam and Eve, caused us to be cast from Paradise and wander the earth struggling with pain until we're granted mercy. No one's better than anyone else."
"She said you treated her poorly because she was an orphan," I threw back at him.
"That's a no-account lie," he snapped.
"Then why didn't you and my daddy talk all these years?"
"That was his doing, not mine," Uncle Jacob said. He lit his pipe.
"What did he do?"
"He defied his mother and father," he replied, a hard edge in his voice. "It says in the Bible to honor thy mother and father, not defy them."
"How did he defy them?"
"Your mother never told you?"
"And my brother, he never said nothing about it either?"
"Nothing about what?" I asked.
He tightened his lips and pulled himself back in the chair. "This ain't a proper conversation for me to have with a young woman. The sins of the father weigh heavily on the shoulders of his sons and daughters, too. That's all I'll say about it."
"But . ."
"No buts. I've taken you in and asked you to behave while you stay. Let's leave it at that."
I held back my tears.
He lit his pipe again, took a few puffs, and looked at me. "Sunday you'll meet my parents. We're going to their house for dinner. You be on your best behavior. They ain't happy I took you in."
It was as if an electric shock had passed through me. What sort of grandparents were these? How could they hold a grudge so deeply?
"Maybe I shouldn't go," I said.
He pulled the pipe from his mouth sharply. "Of course you'll go. You'll go anywhere this family goes as long as you're living under this roof, hear?" His eyes seemed to sizzle as they glared at me.
"Yes, sir," I said.
"That's better." He rocked gently but continued staring at me.
I started to rise from the chair.
"It ain't proper to leave without first asking permission."
I sat again.
"May I please go?" I asked in a brittle voice. I felt like bone china myself and feared I would shatter any moment.
"This place you lived in West Virginia--"
"Sewell."
"Yeah, Sewell. It's in the back hills, ain't it?"
"Hills. Yes, I suppose."
"Where those families have those rotgut whiskey stills and feud and marry their cousins."
"What?" I started to smile, but saw he was deadly serious. "No, it was just a coal mining town," I said.
He snorted with skepticism. Then he leaned forward, pointing at me with the stem of his pipe. "There are places in this country, havens for the devil where his own do his work. The fiend's at home there as much as he is in Hell itself," he added. "It don't surprise me Chester went to such a place directly after leaving here with Haille." He sat back again and took a puff on his pipe, rocking and thinking a moment. "Maybe Sara is right. Maybe God did send you here to be saved."
"My daddy was a good man. He worked hard for us," I said. "He was no sinner."
Uncle Jacob continued to rock and stare. Then he stopped. "You might not even know what a sinner is. You've been brought up a Godfearing girl?"
"I went to church with Daddy."
"That so? Well, maybe Chester made his peace with the Lord before he was taken. I hope so for his soul's sake."
"My daddy was a good man. Everyone in Sewell liked him. More than his own family," I added, but Uncle Jacob was lost in his own thoughts. He didn't hear me.
He blinked and looked at me again. "Who was this man brought your mother here?" he asked.
"A friend of hers who knows people who can help her," I offered weakly. He heard the doubt in my voice and shook his head.
"She know him before or after your daddy's death?" he asked, his eyes small and suspicious.
"She knew him before, too," I reluctantly admitted.
"Thought so." A wry smile was smeared over his lips.
I looked away so he couldn't see how thick my tears were getting. It stung my eyelids to keep them from flooding my cheeks. "May I please go now? I want to take a walk," I pleaded.
"Don't go far or be out there long. Sara has to take you to school tomorrow and get you started."
I rose. I wanted to turn and shout at him. I wanted to scream back and say "Who do you think you are? I thought you said no one is better than anyone else. What makes you so perfect and how dare you judge my daddy and mommy and say such things?" But my tongue stayed glued to the roof of my mouth. Instead, I fled the room and hurried out the front door. I felt like a coiled fuse attached to a time bomb. Sooner or later I was bound to explode. However, right now I wished I could run into my father's steel arms.
But there was only the strange darkness to greet me. Except for the light from the windows of the house, there was nothing to illuminate the street. Behind the house, the dunes were draped in thick darkness. A sea of clouds had closed away the stars. The wind twirled the sand. Beyond the hill, the ocean roared.
This world was completely different from the world I had lived in all my life. I felt cold and alone, without the trees and songbirds and flowers of my past. Instead, I heard the scream of terns. Something ghostly white flapped its wings against the wall of night. Someone could have easily pluck my nerve endings and hear them twang like my fiddle's strings.
Embracing myself, tears streaking down my cheeks, I walked over the cobblestones to the driveway and then went a little way out toward the dunes and the sea. I stared up at the sky, hoping for sight of a star, just one star of hope and promise. But the ceiling of clouds was too thick. Nothing but darkness greeted me everywhere.
I wondered where Mammy was tonight. Was she thinking about me? Surely her heart was as heavy as mine was at this moment.
Or was she drinking and dancing and laughing with Archie someplace? Was he introducing her to so many exciting people that I never came to mind?
I wanted desperately for her to call me on the telephone.
I started to turn to go back into the house, when Cary appeared out of the darkness like some night creature. I gasped when his silhouette first took shape and then gazed with astonishment when he drew close enough to be caught in the dim light from the house windows.
He looked just as surprised to see me.
"What are you doing out here?" he demanded. "I'm just taking a walk. Where were you?" I asked.
"I had to check something on the boat and didn't want to have to do it in the morning," he said, walking toward me.
"But it's so dark out there."
"Not for me. I've been back and forth over that piece of beach in storms and in darkness more times than care to remember," he said. "You get to know it as well as the back of your hand and your eyes get used to the darkness." He stared at me for a moment. "You look cold."
"I am cold," I said. I was shivering more from emotional ice than from the weather.
"So why don't you go inside?"
"I am going."
"Fine," he said curtly before continuing toward the house.
"Why don't you like me?" I asked. He stopped and turned back to me.
"Who said I didn't like you?"
"I did."
"I don't know you enough to not like you," he said. "Wait until I get to know you and then ask me again," he added.
"Very funny." I started back to the house. "How do I learn sign language?"
"You want to learn sign language?" he asked with surprise.
"Of course. How else will I communicate with May?" He considered a moment.
"There's a book I'll give you," he said.
"Could you give it to me now?" I followed quickly. He glanced at me again.
"Yes," he said and continued toward the house. I was right behind him, but he walked quickly to stay ahead. When we entered,
he went to speak to Uncle Jacob and I went up to my room where I found Aunt Sara waiting for me at the closet.
"Oh hi, dear. I thought I would choose a dress for you to wear to school tomorrow. This one is the one Laura wore the last day she attended school," she said holding out a dark blue, ankle-length dress. It had a matching belt. "It should fit you perfectly."
"I brought some of my own things to wear, Aunt Sara, things I wear to school."
"But this is such a nice school dress. Laura often wore it," she insisted.
"All right," I relented. It really was a nice dress.
"That's good, dear. Well, do you feel a little more at home now?"
"It's very different here," I said. "But you've been very kind," I quickly added before she took on a look of disappointment.
She smiled and put her hand on my cheek. "You're a very pretty young lady, a sweet girl. It is like having Laura back." She drew me to her to hug me and kiss my hair. "Have a restful sleep, dear, so you can be fresh and ready in the morning. Good night." She kissed me again.
Aunt Sara was fragile, but she was a nice lady. I wanted to make her happy, but I was frightened by the look in her eyes, too. She expected too much of me. I could never be the daughter she had lost.
How ironic, I thought sadly. My mother gave me away so nonchalantly and Aunt Sara would cut off her right arm to have her daughter back for an hour.
I threw myself down on the bed and buried my face in the comforter. I was lying there, forgetting the door was still open, when I heard a knock and looked up quickly.
"Here," Cary said. He tossed the book onto the bed. "Don't lose it or spill anything on the pages," he instructed. His eyes lingered on me for a moment and then he turned away quickly, as if in pain, and marched down the hallway to his room.
I gazed at the sign language book and then I sat up, took a deep breath to help swallow back the tears, and opened the cover.
May would never hear the sound of my voice, but right now I thought I was as small and as vulnerable as she was. It seemed she would be the only one in this house who would understand how deep my well of tears went.
I sat at the vanity mirror and practiced the hand movements until my eyelids drooped. It had, after all, been one of the longest days of my life, second only to the day Daddy died. After I put on my own nightgown, I realized it was too sheer for me to walk around in, so I put on Laura's terrycloth robe and went to the bathroom.
When I came out, Cary was waiting to go in. He had the strangest expression on his face, a pleasant look of surprise.
"Is May asleep?" I asked.
"I put out her light and say good night first," he replied.
"I learned how to sign good night. Can I try?" "Don't keep her up," he said, returning to the bathroom.
I went down the hall to May's room and looked in. She was in bed, reading a young adult novel. I had to move up to the bed for her to see me. She lowered the book and smiled. Then I signed good night.
Her face beamed and she signed back. Then she held out her arms. I embraced her and kissed her cheek, signed good night again, and left her room. Cary glanced at me and as we passed in the corridor I said, "Good night."
"Good night," he mumbled, sounding as if I had forced him to say it.
It brought a smile to my face.
I returned 1.a my room, closed the door, and slipped under the comforter. The windows were still open, but I didn't mind the breeze. It was a
comfortable bed, the sort I could snuggle in.
I gazed at Papa George's pocket watch, running my fingers over its outside. Then I opened it carefully and touched the blade of grass I had taken from Daddy's grave. The watch tinkled its tune. It gave me comfort.
I didn't want to think of anything sad. I didn't want to remember Mommy driving off. I didn't want to hear Uncle Jacob's harsh words, yet they rang in my ears. "The sins of the father weigh on the shoulders of his sons and daughters?" What sins?
Outside the window, the sound of the ocean's waves stroking the shore resembled a lullaby. In the darkness of the room, I wondered about Laura falling asleep to the same rhythmic ocean song. I wondered about her hopes and dreams, and her fears, too.
Then suddenly, I couldn't help crying for my mother. I closed Papa George's watch and put it back on the night table.
I took a deep breath and then I signed good night to myself. I closed my eyes and hoped for the magic of sleep.
7
"Grandpa" Cary
.
Sunlight filtered through the wall of morning
fog. First it trickled, then it poured through my bedroom windows: lifting darkness and sleep from my eyes. I blinked and stared at my new surroundings, feeling still embroiled in an-elaborate dream. This entire journey, Mommy's leaving me in the home of my estranged relatives, my waking in my dead cousin's room, had to be part of some nightmare I had suffered after Daddy's death. Surely, if I blink again, I thought, I will be back in Sewell. Any moment I might wake up, get dressed, have breakfast, see Mama Arlene and Papa George, and then be on my way to school. I'll just close my eyes, take a deep breath, make a wish, and when I open them again, all will be as it was.
But the door of the room opened before I could make my wish. Aunt Sara stood there, her lips formed in an 0, her eyes wide. Her palms rested on her chest. Then she blinked rapidly and smiled down at me.
"Good morning, dear," she said. "I'm sorry if I frightened you, but when I opened the door and looked in and saw you there in Laura's bed. . . just for a moment it was as if Laura hadn't . . Laura was still here. Did you sleep well? But of course you did," she said, answering her own question. "Laura's bed is so comfortable, isn't it?"
I rose on my elbows and then sat against the headboard and ground the traces of sleep from my eyes. "What time is it?"
"Oh, it's early. We rise early. Jacob wanted me to wake you with everyone else, but I told him you had such a trying day yesterday you needed a little extra sleep. Cary and your uncle Jacob have been up for more than an hour preparing the boat. I've already made them and Roy breakfast."
"Roy?"
"Jacob's assistant."
"Oh. Then May is up, too?"
"Yes, she's eating breakfast." Aunt Sara spotted
some-thing and entered the room. "She and Cary will be off to school soon. But that's all right." Aunt Sara went to the dresser and moved a picture of Laura back to the exact place it had been. She turned to me. "You and I will have a little time together and then we'll walk to school, stopping at Laura's grave in the cemetery. I visit her every morning." She returned to the doorway. "Come down as soon as you're ready." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "It's going to be a glorious day. I can feel it."
She left and closed the door. I gazed at the picture on the dresser. I had obviously not put it back exactly where I had found it.
The room was brightening with the
strengthening morning light. More than ever I felt that I was invading a shrine. I felt guilty enjoying the things my cousin Laura should be enjoying--her bed, her clothes, her beautiful vanity table.
Nevertheless, after I showered, I put on the dress Aunt Sara had chosen for me to wear on my first day in a new school. I had seen how important it was to her that I do so and I didn't have the heart to refuse. I gazed at myself in the mirror. Were there any resemblances between me and my dead cousin? There were none I could see beyond the general things: both of us being about this height and weight when she was my age. Our hair color wasn't the same, nor our eyes, nor the shapes of our faces.
Cary and May were already gone by the time I went downstairs.
"I knew that dress would fit. I just knew it!" Aunt Sara flitted around the kitchen excitedly. She had prepared something she called flippers, fried dough that accompanied my eggs. It was good. She sat and sipped coffee, watching me eat, describing the town, the school, the places Laura enjoyed, the things Laura liked to do.
"She was always in the school plays. Were you eve
r in a school play?"
"No, but I was in the school's talent show, playing my fiddle."
"Oh. Laura wasn't musically inclined. She sang in the chorus, but she didn't play an instrument." She thought a moment and then smiled. "I imagine she could have though. Laura could do just about anything she put her mind to.
"I was so different," Aunt Sara continued. "I only went as far as high school. My father didn't believe a young girl needed much formal education. My mother wanted me to go to college, but I didn't know for what. I was never the best student. It was finally decided I would marry Jacob and be a homemaker."
"What do you mean it was decided?" I asked.
"Jacob's father and my father were close. They were matchmaking Jacob and me before we went to high school." She followed that with a light laugh that re-minded me of tinkling glasses.
"But weren't you in love with Uncle Jacob?"
"I liked him, and my mother always said love was something you grow into rather than something that explodes in your heart the way romance novels and movies portray it. Real, lasting love, that is." She nodded, her face firm. "It makes sense. That's why there are so many divorces nowadays. People claim to fall in love rather than grow into love. Growing into love takes time, commitment, dedication. It's as Jacob says, marriage and love are just other kinds of investment."
"Investment? Love?" I nearly laughed at the idea.
"Yes, dear. It's not as silly as you think it sounds."
"My father fell in love with my mother," I insisted. "He told me so many times."
"Yes, I know," she muttered sadly and looked away. "Isn't it true that everyone in the family was upset about it only because my mother was an orphan?"
"Who told you that?" A curious, tight smile appeared on Aunt Sara's face.
"My mommy."
"No one disliked your mother for being an orphan. That's silly. Everyone was always kind to her, especially Samuel and Olivia."
"I don't understand. Why else did this family stop talking to my daddy? Wasn't it just because he married her?" I continued.
Aunt Sara bit down on her lower lip and then rose and began clearing the dishes.