Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“Men will always care more about satisfying themselves than you,” Aunt Ellsbeth had told me time after time. “You’ve got to train them like circus animals. The best way is to insult them.”

“Insult them? How can you do that and still have them want to make love to you?” I’d asked her.

“You tell them they have too many premature ejaculations. You’ll see,” she’d said. “They’ll try to prove otherwise, and then you’ll enjoy sex.”

I had no idea why she thought I would be making love to many men. Maybe she thought I would be like Vera, who Arden once told me could go through a college football team in a week. Making love to so many different men in a short time was terrifying to me. It actually made me sick to my stomach. He tho

ught that was funny.

Sometimes I wondered if Arden had really seen what had happened to me in the woods. How could he have seen that and not expected me to have negative feelings when he talked like that about sex? But then why would he confess to his failure to help me and cry about how guilty and small that made him feel?

One night, I’d had a terrifying thought that answered that question. What if he wasn’t only a witness? He had never turned in any of the boys’ names to the police, and he never even mentioned them now. Was he worried they would turn on him? Thinking of that had made me throw up.

I couldn’t depend on my memory to deliver the truth about anything on that horrible afternoon. Faces and voices were forever blurred, so I couldn’t identify any of them, either. Even the rocking chair didn’t bring it all back, but I wasn’t going to complain.

When he was satisfied now, he rolled over and turned his back on me. Then I heard him say, “There. Baby, Sylvia’s baby,” and he laughed.

I lay there, still naked, my body smarting from the way he had rubbed and pressed on me. My legs were aching, the insides of my thighs feeling burned.

“Maybe,” I said angrily, “if there was more romance in our lovemaking, it would work, and I would get pregnant. If you would think of me as more than just a vessel in which to empty yourself, the magic of two people making a child would happen as it is supposed to happen. You once loved me that way, didn’t you? Or was that a lie? Or are you going to tell me it has withered like a grape on the vine?”

He didn’t answer for so long that I thought he had fallen asleep instantly, but suddenly, he turned on me. “You’re absolutely right. Romance comes from love, and love comes from respect and obedience. Your father taught me that,” he added. “He should have taught it to you better.”

I didn’t doubt it. How my mother loved my father despite his meanness and selfishness amazed me. When I asked her about it once, she smiled, stroked my hair, and said, “Love is forgiveness, Audrina. That’s all it really is, constantly forgiving someone for his weaknesses and hoping that it will bring about some good changes.”

Is that what she would tell me now? I turned my back to Arden and tried to think of good things about him, enough so I could find forgiveness. However, before I fell asleep, I thought I wouldn’t even dream of becoming pregnant as a result of this lovemaking. There was no baby on his or her way tonight. Sylvia could rock in that chair until daylight. There would be no magic.

No, as much as I wanted to believe it, Papa wasn’t whispering any secrets in Sylvia’s ear. What she was hearing were my thoughts. When she was rocking in that chair, she was hearing and seeing my dreams. But what would come of it? These dreams were like soap bubbles, capturing the rainbow light for seconds and then popping and dropping like tears to the hard, cold reality beneath them.

I think I passed out rather than falling asleep. For the first time in a long time, Arden was up before me, this time so quiet as not to wake me. That was unusual for him. Normally, because he was the one going to work and I was the one staying home, my having a good night’s rest wasn’t as important. I could always take a nap later, but he couldn’t. When I looked at the clock, I was shocked. I couldn’t recall when I had slept this late. My exhaustion from his rough lovemaking must be the reason, I thought, and I got up, wondering if Sylvia had gone down for breakfast. I had taught her how to make the coffee, and there were juices and cereals she liked, but I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she had woken, dressed, and gone down without me, and that was over years and years.

Now that I was up and recalled how Arden had attacked me, I decided I had to shower before getting dressed. My body still ached in places, and I found scratches on my thighs where he had seized me, clawing at me to mold me into a position comfortable for him. Just washing my face wasn’t going to be enough.

There was a chill in the air, and I realized the temperature must have taken a dive during the night. When I glanced out the window, I saw it was raining lightly, the drops sparkling like liquid ice. The wind had stripped many of the trees in the woods of their once pretty orange and brown leaves. The branches looked like the arms of spidery skeletons. I hated this time of the year. It lasted too long for me, and we couldn’t avoid it. Our house had woods on three sides.

But at least Whitefern was comfortable all year round now. A few years ago, Papa had upgraded the bathrooms and bedrooms and installed central heating in the old house, except for two unused rooms on the first floor in the rear. Before I took my shower, I put up the thermostat, and afterward, I chose warmer clothes to wear, a pair of heavier jeans and a pink cable-knit sweater. A good part of the morning had already passed. By the time I walked out of the bedroom, I felt certain Sylvia would be up and waiting for me in the kitchen. She hadn’t come looking for me. She probably thought I had gone down without her.

I started down the stairs and then hesitated. It was too quiet below. I listened for the sound of the rocking chair but didn’t hear that, either. She wouldn’t start painting without her breakfast. I went to her bedroom. Of course, my biggest fear was that she had gone out of the house and to the cemetery again. Maybe she had been there most of the night!

I breathed with relief. She was still sleeping, but her blanket was cast aside and she was naked. How odd, I thought. Had it been that hot in here? I looked at her thermostat. She had never touched any thermostats in the house. She didn’t understand them. Hers hadn’t been pushed up at all, and the room temperature was a little below sixty. I picked up her blanket and put it gently on the bed. She stirred and looked up

at me.

“Were you that hot last night, Sylvia?” I asked. Maybe her dreams and tossing and turning had put her in a sweat.

“Hot?”

“Your blanket was on the floor.” She looked at herself and then at me, seeming very confused. Then she shook her head. She looked like she was going to cry.

“It’s all right. Nothing’s wrong, Sylvia. Are you hungry? Let’s make a bigger breakfast this morning, omelets and toast, okay?”

“With cheese?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “With cheese. Do you want to take a shower first?”

“Yes,” she said. “Shower.”

I picked out clothes for her and set out her shoes and socks while she showered. Then I sat her at her vanity table and brushed out her hair. When I stood behind her and looked at her in the mirror, I thought she was truly beautiful, angelic. For some reason, even more so this morning. Her cheeks looked rosy, her lips full, and her eyes brighter than ever.