Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“I’m not going to wait,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m going to paint something new tonight right after I help clean up,” she said.

“Oh, good. You don’t have to help clean up tonight,” I said. I really wanted to occupy myself as much as I could to diminish how angry I was feeling. Arden should be thinking more about us now and not clients. He should be comforting me. Papa’s death was far too fresh.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes, really.”

She rushed to finish her dinner and then, remembering to excuse herself politely from the table the way Papa and I had taught her, hurried up the stairway to the cupola and her makeshift studio. I smiled to myself, happy to have some respite. She could be a full-time job, especially during these dark days.

I took my time cleaning up and putting things away. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I felt so drained and tired that when I w

ent out to wait for Arden in the living room, I had no sooner sat back than I fell asleep. Hours went by. I was in so deep a sleep that I didn’t hear Arden come home. I woke when a draft of cold air splashed over my face, and I looked up at him standing there gazing down at me, a dumb smile on his face. He looked like he was swaying a bit, too.

“Oh. I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, grinding the sleep from my eyes and sitting up.

“I’m happy to say that I talked Mr. Camden into putting his pension plan with our firm. While you were playing nursemaid to Snow White, I was building our net worth,” he bragged.

Now that I was fully awake, I could smell the whiskey on his breath, even though we were far apart.

“Don’t call her Snow White, Arden. When you do things like that, she knows you’re making fun of her.”

“Oh, please. She doesn’t know top from bottom. Well? What do you say to what I just told you?”

“You’re drinking too much, Arden.”

“What? That’s what you have to say? After I tell you I’ve just talked a millionaire into placing his pension portfolio with us? That’s your comment? I’m drinking too much?”

“I’m just worried about you. That’s all.”

“Yes, me, too,” he said, turning restrained. He ran his palms over his face. “I’m tired. There’s a lot to do tomorrow.” He started to turn away.

“The reason I was with Sylvia last night was that she had gone out in her nightgown to the cemetery to dig up Papa’s grave,” I said quickly. “And although you slept through it, it was pouring cats and dogs. She could have gotten pneumonia.”

“What?” He stopped turning and smiled, incredulous. “Dig up his grave? Why?”

“She’s confused. You might recall when someone else was buried and then figuratively dug up.”

He stared at me, not angry and not sorry. “So what did you do when you found her in the cemetery?”

“I dragged her back, and then I had to put us both in a hot bath. You slept through it all.”

“Glad I did,” he said. He started away again, then stopped and turned back. “I don’t know about her, about us keeping her here,” he said. “This might be getting to be too much. I’m afraid to bring some of our clients here now.”

“What? What else would we do? She’s my sister. We won’t put her in some institution.”

“Well, that’s why I want you to sign those papers ASAP. You’ll be spending most of your time caring for a mental case,” he said, shrugging. “I’m going up to bed. I need my sleep.”

I sat for a while longer, thinking about him, how disappointing he could be. I remembered once talking about him with Aunt Ellsbeth when I was just seventeen and Arden had given me an engagement ring. She and I went for a walk, and she asked if I really loved him. When I said I did, she told me she hoped I would always feel that way about him, but she warned me, “He’ll change. You’ll change. You may not love him as much as you think you do now.”

I didn’t want to give her credit for ever being right about anything—she was so mean to my mother and especially to Sylvia—but not considering the things she had said as true or important was just foolish self-denial. It was also self-denial to ignore how lonely I was and how much I longed for the company of another, more experienced woman.

I went up to the cupola to get Sylvia and have her go to bed. For years now, I’d been the one who told her it was time to go to sleep and the one who woke her in the morning. I was her living alarm clock. Sometimes, even though she was very hungry, she would wait for me to tell her it was lunchtime. How would she live without me, especially in this house? If something happened to me, she would surely be sent to an institution, where Papa was sure she would be abused.

When I stepped into the cupola, she was still hard at work on her painting, so entranced by it that she didn’t hear me enter and likely hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. I watched her for a moment, amazed and pleased at how devoted to her art she could be. Anyone watching her would never believe there was anything seriously wrong with her. She looked so beautiful and so intense, focusing her mental abilities and talent on her work.