Olivia (Logan 5)

When I was very young, not even seven, I

think, I believed that my parents had been together all their lives. I had seen pictures of them as children, of course, and seen pictures of them with their own parents, but none of that seemed real to me. I remember I thought that family albums and old photographs were like children's books, fairy tales and legends. How could my parents have had a life before the life I knew? They were always here, immortal, frozen in time, forever young. Daddy was always Daddy, firm, strong, smelling of cigars, his footsteps heavy, loud on the stairs, his laughter resonant, manly. Mother was always Mother, dainty, soft, full of smiles, redolent of perfume, her clothes colorful and her steps as light as her laughter, feminine.

Not until I was much older did I begin to wonder about Mother's first day of her new life, her life with Daddy. When she returned from her honeymoon, did she enter her own home full of excitement, eager to explore every moment of her new identity? Or was she terrified that she had made a disastrously wrong decision?

Daddy didn't carry her over the threshold, I know. She used to tease him for not having done that. Belinda and I often heard how he was too busy ordering his servants, supervising the unloading of luggage. I was sure she had entered the house first and stood there thinking, this is my new world for better or for worse. I am here. I wondered if she had an urge to turn and run out.

Samuel offered to carry me over the threshold, but I refused.

"It's a silly tradition. It makes no sense to me," I said pushing him away.

"Never say I didn't offer," he declared and stepped aside for me to enter our new home.

Actually, I could have used some assistance by that time. We had, as the weather report had predicted, good sailing weather for our honeymoon, and we did all the things Samuel had planned for us to do on the trip, including docking at ports and going to fine restaurants, but instead of returning refreshed and exuberant, I found myself feeling worn and frazzled. We had made love a number of times, and it did get more pleasurable for me, but he always seemed to enjoy it more than I did and that bothered me. The day before the end of our honeymoon, my period came. It wasn't supposed to, but I was never as regular as most women. When I told him, he immediately said I shouldn't feel bad. I didn't. I wasn't complaining. I actually felt relieved, but I let him be as solicitous as he wanted.

I had a great deal of input into what our house would look like, of course. Samuel didn't disagree with any suggestion I made, even when I insisted that we have separate bedrooms in our home. He was satisfied that we had an adjoining doorway.

"It will be like a romantic adventure every time I come to you, Olivia," he said when we first considered the architect's plans that included my revisions. "I'll knock softly and you can ask who's there? We'll pretend we're meeting secretly."

"I think we're both too old for games and pretending, Samuel."

"Oh, you're never too old when it comes to that sort of thing, Olivia. You can leave the lights off, as you like, and I'll make believe I'm some handsome stranger who on passing saw your lit window and then saw you gazing out," he said with a dashing smile.

"Ridiculous," I said, but I did feel my heart flutter with the images that crossed my mind, especially a fantasy that involved Nelson Childs. In my daydream Samuel had told him of our little games and he came to my house when Samuel was away. He knocked on that adjoining door and I turned off the light, not knowing until he was at my bedside that it was Nelson and not Samuel. I felt myself blush with the illusion. Samuel laughed, snapping me back to reality. "Are you teasing me, Samuel?"

"No. Well, maybe just a little, but that's what loving husbands do, Olivia."

"Not in this house and in this marriage," I announced. He laughed again, but he saw the firmness in my eyes and grew serious.

"Well, then, we'll behave as you wish . . . respectable to the core of our very beings. Even . . . when we make love," he said. He knew how that expression annoyed me. What a ridiculous way to put it . . make love, as if love was something that was born out of lust.

I saw to it that there was a lock on the adjoining door and even though it was unspoken, it was understood that whenever that lock was in place, I would rather he didn't come to me. I had already decided that it would be in place quite often.

"You can rest assured that I will never lock the door from my side, Olivia," he quipped.

"And you can rest assured that I will never come into your room for any purpose other than to discuss something in private, Samuel. I'm not aggressive in that regard," I pointed out.

He smiled.

"Unlike your sister," he replied.

"What do you know of Belinda?" I demanded.

"Only what your father has told me, confided in me," he said quickly. Then he smiled. "I can see why men are thankful when their wives give birth to sons."

"Belinda can drive anyone to thinking that way," I agreed.

As soon as we had settled in after our honeymoon, I decided to visit my father to see how he was getting along without me. In a way I hoped the whole house had fallen apart, that my supervision of the servants and the meals had been so necessary, nothing worked well without me there. My ego demanded it, but what I found did more to break my heart than prop it up.

Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the house was dark, all the curtains were still drawn. I had kept my house key, so I simply entered. There was no light on in the entryway or in any of the rooms. It was so quiet, I thought no one was at home, not even Carmelita. I stood there for a moment listening, hoping to hear someone's voice, but I didn't even hear Belinda's idle chatter. I gazed up the dark stairway and then walked to Daddy's den.

At first I thought he wasn't there. It, too, was dark, the curtains closed, no lamps lit. I was about to turn away and go up the stairs to see if Belinda was in her room when I heard a small moan and stepped farther into the den. I saw Daddy asleep in the leather chair, slumped, his arms dangling over the sides, his head resting on his right shoulder. Beside the chair on the floor was an opened bottle of bourbon and a glass with at least two fingers of liquor in it.

I turned on the reading lamp above the desk and the light washed over Daddy, revealing he hadn't shaved for days. His white shirt was open at the collar and it was stained by food and bourbon. His hair looked like he had been running his fingers through it for hours. He grunted, licked his lips and then shifted in the chair.

"Daddy?" I said.

He grimaced as if the word brought him pain, but he didn't open his eyes.