Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"Good, darling. Now you'll have a little to eat and then go to sleep early, okay? In the morning everything will look better and brighter; it always does," she declared. "Now, do you want any help getting ready for bed?"

"No, Mamma."

"Louella will be up with something in a little while," she repeated, and left me sitting on my bed. I took a deep breath and then got up and went to the window that looked out toward the pond. Poor Cotton, I thought. She did nothing wrong. Her bad luck was she was born here at The Meadows

. Maybe that was my bad luck, too—to be brought here. Maybe that was my punishment for causing my real mother's death, I thought. It made me feel so hollow inside that every beat of my little heart echoed and pounded down to my stomach and up to my head. How I wished I had someone to talk to, someone who would listen.

An idea came to me and I left my room quietly, practically tiptoeing down the corridor to one of the rooms in which I knew Mamma had stored some of her personal things in trunks and boxes. I had spent time in the room before, just exploring. In one small metal trunk fastened with straps, Mamma had some of her own mother's things—her jewelry, her shawls and her combs. Buried under a small pile of old lace petticoats were some old photographs. It was where Mamma kept her only pictures of her sister Violet, my real mother. Mamma wanted to bury any trace of sadness, anything that would make her unhappy. As I grew older, I would come to realize that no one lived more under the credo "Out of sight, out of mind" than Mamma did.

I lit the kerosene lamp by the door and set it down beside me on the floor in front of the old trunk. Then I slowly opened it and reached in under the petticoats to come out with the small pile of pictures. There was one framed picture of Violet. I had looked at it briefly once before. Now, I held it in my lap and studied the face of the woman who would have been my mother. I saw a gentleness in her eyes and a softness in her smile. Just as Mamma had said, Violet had the face of a beautiful doll, her features small and perfect. As I sat there staring down at the photograph that had already taken on a sepia tint, it seemed as if Violet were looking at me, too, as if her smile was a smile for me and the warmth in her eyes was warmth meant to comfort me. I touched her mouth, her cheeks, her hair and uttered the word that rushed forward.

"Mamma," I said, and hugged the picture to me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you die."

Of course, the smile never left her lips; it was just a picture, but in my heart of hearts I hoped she was saying, "It wasn't your fault, honey, and I'm still here for you."

I put the framed picture on my lap and sifted through some of the other old photographs until I found one with my mother and a young man. He looked tall and broad-shouldered and had a handsome smile with a dark mustache. My mother did look very young beside him, but they looked happy together.

These were my real parents, I thought. If they were alive, I wouldn't be so miserable. I was confident my real mother would have felt sorry for me and for Eugenia. She would have cared for and comforted me. In that moment I began to sense something that 1 would sense more and more, in bigger and bigger ways as I grew older: I sensed how much I had lost when dreadful fate was permitted to swoop down and take my real parents from me, even before I ever heard their voices.

In my mind I heard their voices now, distant and small, but loving. My tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped into my lap. My little heart pounded with sadness. Never had I felt so alone as I felt that moment.

Before I could look through any more pictures, I heard Louella calling. I put everything back quickly, turned out the lamp and hurried back to my room, but I knew now that whenever I was feeling terrible or very unhappy, I would go back to that room and hold those pictures in my hands and talk to my real parents who would listen and be with me.

"Where you been, honey?" Louella asked, standing beside my tray on the table.

"No place," I said quickly. It was going to be my secret, a secret with which I could trust no one, not even Louella, and not even Eugenia because I didn't want her to know yet that we weren't really sisters.

"Well now, you just eat something, honey," Louella said. "And you'll feel a whole lot better." She smiled. "Ain't nothin' warm a body's heart and soul as quickly as a full stomach of good food," she said.

Louella was right about that; and besides, I was hungry again and happy she had brought me a piece of her apple pie for dessert. At least I could eat without having to look at Emily's face, I thought, and was grateful for small blessings.

The next day Henry told me he had given Cotton a Christian burial.

"The good Lord puts a little of Himself in all living things," he declared. He took me to Cotton's grave site, where he had even erected a small marker and scribbled "Cotton" on it. When I told Eugenia, she begged to be taken out to see it. Mamma said it was too cold for her to go out, but Eugenia cried so hard, Mamma gave in and said she could go if she bundled up really good. By the time Mamma was finished dressing her, Eugenia had three layers of clothes including two blouses, a sweater and a winter coat. Mamma tied her head in a bandanna so that just her little pink face peered out at the world. She was so weighed down with garments, it was hard for her to walk. Once we left the house and stepped off the porch, Henry lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way.

He had put Cotton's grave behind the barn.

"I wanted her to be close to where she'd lived," he explained. Eugenia and I stood holding hands and gazing at the marker. We were both very sad, but neither of us cried. Mamma said tears would give Eugenia a chill.

"Where do cats go when they die?" Eugenia wanted to know. Henry scratched his short, curly hair and thought a moment.

"There's another Heaven," he said, "just for animals, but not all animals, just for special animals, and right now, Cotton's strolling around, showing off her pretty coat of fur and making the other special animals jealous."

"Did you put my hair ribbon in there, too?" Eugenia asked.

"Surely did, Miss Eugenia."

"Good," Eugenia said, and looked up at me. "Then my ribbon's in Heaven, too."

Henry laughed and carried her back to the house. It took so long to undress her, I had to wonder whether the short trip was worth it or not. But from the look on Eugenia's face, I decided it was.

We never took on a special pet again. I think we were both frightened of the pain that would come if we lost it the way we had lost Cotton. That sort of pain was something you didn't want to experience more than once if you could help it. Besides, we both had the unspoken but strongly felt belief that whatever we really loved, Emily would find a way to destroy and then later justify that destruction with some Biblical quote or story.

Papa was very proud of the way Emily embraced religion and learned the Bible. She was already helping the minister in Sunday School, where she was even more of a tyrant than she was in Miss Walker's classes. Children were more apt not to pay attention in the church school, shut up on nice days when they wanted to be out playing. The minister gave Emily permission to whack the hands of those who misbehaved. She wielded her heavy ruler like a sword of vengeance, cracking the knuckles of any little boy or little girl who as much as smiled or laughed at the wrong moment.

One Sunday she made me turn my hands over and whacked my palms red for daydreaming when the minister left the room. I didn't cry or even moan; I simply fixed my eyes on her and swallowed the pain, even though I couldn't close my hands for hours afterward. I knew it would do me no good to complain to Mamma about it later, and Papa would only say I had deserved it if Emily had to do it.

That year, my first school year, it seemed to me that winter turned to spring and spring into the first days of summer more quickly than ever before. Miss Walker declared that I was doing the work of a second-grade student, reading and writing just as well and even better at math. Words were truly fascinating for me. As soon as I came upon a new one, I wanted to sound it out and discover its meaning. Even though all of Papa's books were still beyond me, I cherished my attempts to read them and understand. Here and there, of course, I did understand sentences and captions under pictures. With each discovery, I felt myself grow more and more confident.