My Sweet Audrina (Audrina 1)

I took Vera with me on Friday to introduce her to Mr. Rensdale. “Why, beauty must truly run in the Whitefern family, just as everyone in the village says,” he said as he held out his hand and smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever met two prettier sisters.”

It seemed to me Vera’s fingers gripped his hand so that even when he wanted to stop shaking hands, she wouldn’t let go. “Oh, I’m not nearly as pretty as Audrina,” said Vera in a shy, small voice, fluttering her mascaraed eyelashes. “I only hope I’m half as talented.”

I had to stare, really stare. This girl talking to Mr. Rensdale wasn’t the Vera I knew. He liked her, I could tell that, and he was grateful for another student, especially one who flattered him and couldn’t stop staring at him. Whenever she could, she was picking lint from his suit or brushing back that lock of hair that kept falling on his forehead.

On the way home she confided all she knew about him from her school friends. “He’s very poor, a struggling artist, they say. I’ve heard he composes music in his spare time and hopes to sell his songs to some Broadway producer.”

“I hope he does.”

“You don’t hope it nearly as much as I do,” she said fervently.

The months passed so swiftly by without Sylvia coming home that I grew more and more apprehensive about my unseen little sister. I knew my father had taken my aunt to visit her several times, so she truly did exist, but not once did Papa allow me to go with him. He took me to the movies, to the zoo and, of course, to the First Audrina’s grave, but Sylvia was still out of bounds.

Papa refused to bring Sylvia home no matter how much I pleaded. It was over a year now since my mother had died and Sylvia had been born.

“Surely she’s weighing over five pounds by this time?”

“Yes, she weighs a bit more each time I see her.” He said that reluctantly, as if he wished she didn’t.

“Papa, she’s not blind, without arms or legs—everything is there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said in a heavy voice, “she’s got the right parts where they should be, and all four limbs, same female equipment you have. But she’s still not strong enough,” Papa explained for the zillionth time. “She’s not exactly normal, Audrina. But don’t ask for more details until I’m ready to give them.”

My thoughts about Sylvia kept me from feeling good. I longed for her as I dusted and pushed the vacuum. Vera couldn’t vacuum because it made her short leg ache. She couldn’t dust because she had little control of her hands and she dropped what she picked up. That also excused her from setting or clearing the table. I did every one of her chores. I even made all the beds, which was the one duty my aunt insisted Vera do. Perhaps because she was grateful, Vera seemed to like me more. Trustingly, I tried to treat her as a friend. “How’s your music proceeding? I never hear you practicing like I do.”

“That’s because I practice at Lamar’s,” she said with a small insinuating smile. “I told him you wouldn’t let me use your mother’s piano, and he believed me.” She giggled as I frowned and started to speak. “He’s so handsome he sends chills over me.”

“I guess he is, if you like his type.”

“Not your type, huh? I think he’s exceptionally handsome. He’s told me all about himself, too. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you anything. He’s twenty-five years old and graduated from the Juilliard School of Music. Right now he’s composing a musical score for some play he’s writing, too. He’s sure he’ll sell it to a producer he met when he lived in New York.” She pressed forward to whisper. “I’m hoping and praying he does sell his musical and he’ll take me with him.”

“Oh, Vera, Papa would never let you go with him. You’re too young.”

“It’s none of Papa’s damn business what I do, is it? He’s not my father and he doesn’t own me like he owns you. And don’t you dare tell him I’ve got designs on Lamar Rensdale. We’re just as good as sisters … aren’t we?” I needed her friendship and gladly promised not to tell Papa anything.

Wishes Come True

It was spring again. Momma had been dead for more than a year and a half. She was gone but far from forgotten. I pored over her gardening books and taught myself to care for her roses. Each rose petal reminded me of Momma with her creamy skin, her glorious hair, her rosy cheeks. In the backyard my Aunt Ellsbeth tended the onions, the cabbages, radishes, cucumbers and everything else she grew to eat. Things that grew and couldn’t be eaten were valueless to my aunt.

Vera was sometimes hateful to me, sometimes nice to me. I didn’t trust her even when I wanted to. Now that Vera had claimed the rocking chair, I avoided it as I had before, though Papa believed I still rocked in it, believed sooner or later the gift it had would be mine.

“How old did you say you were?” asked Mr. Rensdale one day after he’d explained again how I had to “feel” the music as well as learn to strike the right keys. For some odd reason tears began to streak my face, when long ago I’d learned to accept my unique plight.

“I don’t know,” I wailed. “No one tells me the truth. I’ve got a smeary memory full of half-seen images that whisper I might have gone to school, yet my father and my aunt say I never have. Sometimes I think I’m crazy and that’s why they don’t send me to school now.”

He had a graceful way of rising, like a ribbon unfolding. Slowly he came to stand behind me. His hands, much smaller than my papa’s, caressed my hair and then my back. “Go on, don’t stop. I’d like to hear more of what goes on in your house. You confound me in so many ways, Audrina. You are so young, and so old. I look at you sometimes and see someone haunted. I’d like to take away that look. Let me help.”

Just the tender way he spoke made me trust him, and out it all came, like a river bursting through the dam. All that confounded me came gushing out breathlessly, including Papa’s insistence that I sit in that rocking chair and “catch” the gift that had once belonged to my dead sister. “I hate having her name! Why didn’t they give me my own name?”

He made some compassionate sound. “Audrina is a beautiful name, and so right for you. Don’t blame your parents for trying to hold onto what must have been an exceptional girl. Accept the fact that you, too, are exceptional, and maybe even more so…” But I thought I heard a something in his voice that said he knew more about me than I knew about me, and he pitied me, and wanted most of all to shield me from whatever it was I wasn’t supposed to know. And it was that one thing I didn’t know that I had to know.

Then, before I knew what to expect, he had his fingers under my chin and was looking deep into my eyes. It was strange to be so close to an adult man who wasn’t my father.

I pulled away from him, a mixture of emotions stirring me into panic. I liked him, and yet I didn’t want him to look at me in the way he was looking. I remembered Papa’s warning about being alone with boys and men as flashing visions of the rainy day in the woods dazzled my eyes, making him seem a smeary vision of the past, too.

“What’s wrong, Audrina?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to reassure you. You’re not crazy, you’re quite wonderful in your own special way. There’s passion in your music and in your eyes, too, when you lower your guard. Nature is going to wake you up one day, Audrina; then the sleeping beauty inside you will come into her own. Don’t smother her, Audrina. Let her come out. Give her a chance to set you free and your dead sister will haunt you no more.”

Filling with hope, I stared at him pleadingly, unable to voice my needs. Still, he understood. “Audrina, if you want to go to school, I’ll find a way to see that you go. It’s against the state law to keep an underage child home unless that child is mentally or physically unable to attend. I’ll talk to your father or your aunt … and you’ll go to school, I promise.”