“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.”