"You carried out a preventive strike. Good work," he told me. "You're going to be all right. Rose. You're going to be just fine."
After we pulled into my driveway, he gave me a quick kiss before I got out of his car.
"I'll call you later," he promised. "Maybe we can do something this weekend, huh?"
"Maybe," I said.
Somewhere very deep inside me, I sensed that grief would thin out no matter how thick and terrible it had been. I would never forget Daddy of course, but in time, he would grow distant. It would be as if we had let go of each other's hands and he had drifted back, back into the shadows, back into the vault of my memory.
Spirited by my return to normal life, I was hoping Mommy would be somewhat revived in spirit when I entered the house. Soon our lives would start to resemble some of what they had been, but the moment I set eves on her. I knew it wasn't so, not yet.
"What's wrong, Mommy?" I asked, She was sitting on the sofa staring at a dark, mute television set.
"Mr. Weinberg hired someone else for the position at his insurance agency. He said he had made the decision before your father died or he would have given it to me. He looked sincere, even sick about it. but I don't want to be hired out of charity. I want to be hired because people believe I'm qualified.
"Now what?" she asked the dark television set, "I've got to search for something I'm suitable for, and what am I experienced to do? Work in a fast-food restaurant, find a counter-girl job in a department store? They pay bare minimum wages. We can't survive on that."
She turned to me. her eyes filled with rage as well as self-pity.
"When you get married. Rose, don't put all your faith and hope in your husband. I should have developed some skill, some talent, some means of being truly independent. Who would have expected I would have to start over like some teenager at this point in my life?" she moaned.
"I should just quit school and get a job. Mammy. I can finish my high school diploma later."
"No," she said. She pulled herself up and sucked back her tears of remorse. "I've got an appointment at social services. We're entitled to some money and if we have to..."
I didn't want to hear the word welfare, but it lingered on her lips. I could practically see its formation.
"I'll at least look for a weekend job. Mommy. Please." She sighed and shook her head.
"Where's your father when I need him to say his famous 'Whatever' now?"
She rose with great effort and started out.
"I'll start fixing something for dinner. Go do your homework or call a girlfriend and jabber on the phone. Rose. I don't want to see you lose your chance to live, too," she added and shuffled off.
What a sad sight she made. It left a lump of lead in my chest. I had to swallow hard to keep the tears back. Daddy had let us down so badly. Even the memory of his smile was losing its shine for me.
But I had no idea how much it would.
Not until the door buzzer sounded an hour later.
I was on my way down to set the table and see what else I could do to help Mommy. so I went right to the door and opened it. A stylish woman who looked to be in her late forties or early fifties stood there. She wore a navy blue three-button suit and had her reddish- blond hair done in a square cut with the front ends at a slant. She wore medium high heels and looked to be about five feet four or five. Her aquamarine eyes scanned me so intensely. I felt as if I was under a spotlight. She didn't smile, but her eyes were filled with interest and curiosity. Although I was absolutely sure I had never seen her before, there was something vaguely familiar about her. It came to me before I spoke. She had the same slight cleft in her chin as did the mysterious woman in the photo Mammy had found in the closet when we were packing Daddy's things for charity.
"Am I correct in assuming that this is the home of Charles Wallace?'" she asked in perfectly shaped consonants and vowels, despite her thick Georgian accent.
"Yes," I replied. I looked past her and saw the late-model black town car with a chauffeur in our driveway. He sat with perfect posture, staring stiffly ahead like a manikin.
"I would like to see Mrs. Wallace," she said. "Who's there, Rose?" Mommy called from the kitchen. "My name is Charlotte Alden Curtis," the elegant woman told me.
I stepped back and she entered. She looked at our hallway, the walls, the ceiling as if she was deciding if anything was contaminated.
"There's someone here to see you. Mammy," I called back.
"You are the daughter," the woman said. nodding. "Yes," she added as she confirmed something in her mind after studying me a bit longer. "His daughter."
Mommy came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "Who is it?" she asked as she approached us.
"My name is Charlotte Alden Curtis, Mrs. Wallace," she said and looked like she expected that would mean something to Mammy.