My Sweet Audrina (Audrina 1)

To stay home,

Safe in my playroom, safe in my home …

I thought I’d never heard such a pitiful tune, the sad way she sang it, as if she’d sell her soul to the devil to be me, and to be forced to sit in the chair I despised.

Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen again, where an inexplicably jovial Papa was telling a grouchy Momma a party was indeed just the thing she needed to lift her spirits. “How’s Vera?” Momma asked. I told her Vera was fine and not broken, though I didn’t mention she was using the rocking chair and must have stolen that key from Papa’s keyring.

“Didn’t I tell you?” said Papa. “Lucky, as soon as Audrina finishes her brunch the two of us are taking a stroll down to the river.” He stood, and it seemed he deliberately tossed his linen napkin so it fell into his half-full coffee cup. Momma plucked his napkin from the cup and gave him an expressive you-have-again-proved-your-self-a-slob stare. But she didn’t dare to reprimand him. It wouldn’t have done any good. Papa did as he wanted and always would.

He led me by the hand to our back lawn, which gradually descended to the river. Its sparkling ripples made the day seem wondrously fine. He smiled at me and said, “Tomorrow’s your ninth birthday, darling.”

“Papa,” I cried, staring at him, “how can tomorrow be my ninth birthday when I’m only seven today?”

Momentarily he seemed at a loss for words. As always when he lacked ready explanations, he caressed my hair, then lightly rubbed his curled fingers over my cheeks. “My sweet, haven’t I told you many times that’s why we don’t send you to school? You are one of those rare individuals who has no sense of time at all.” He spoke precisely, looking directly into my eyes as if to engrave his information, “we don’t celebrate birthdays in our house because somehow it confuses your own special calendar. Two years ago, or one day short, you were seven years old.”

What he said was impossible! Why hadn’t he told me that I was eight years old and not seven? Was he deliberately trying to make me crazy? I put my hands over my ears to shut out anything else he had to say. My eyelids squeezed tightly together as I racked my brain to remember someone telling me I was eight years old. I couldn’t remember anyone mentioning any age but seven.

“Audrina, honey, don’t look so panicked. Don’t try to remember. Just trust what Papa tells you. Tomorrow is your ninth birthday. Papa loves you, Momma loves you, and even shrew-tongue Ellie loves you if she’d dare to admit it. She can’t because Vera is there, and Vera envies you. Vera could love you, too, if I showed her more affection. I’m going to try, really try to like that girl just so you won’t have an enemy living in your own home.”

I swallowed, feeling a sore throat coming on and tears filling my eyes. Something was weird about my life. No matter how many times Papa told me about my specialness, it wasn’t natural to forget an entire year, it just couldn’t be natural. I’d ask Arden. But then he’d know something awful was wrong with me and he wouldn’t like me, either.

So it seemed I’d have to believe Papa. I told myself that I was only a child, and what difference did it make if I lost just one year in the process of growing up. And if time skipped past quicker than I could keep track of, what difference did it really make?

Sometimes unconscious fears tried to sneak out, whispering slyly, disturbing me, threatening my tentative acceptance. Inside my brain, colors were flashing and I felt the rocking motion of my body, to and fro, to and fro, singing voices whispering to me of birthday parties when I had been eight years old and I’d worn a white dress with ruffles tied round with a violet satin sash.

But what did rocking chair dreams mean, except that the First and Best Audrina had worn a ruffled white dress to her party. All those visions of birthday parties were her parties. Where could I go to find the truth? Who was there who was totally honest with me? There was no one who would tell me the truth because I might be hurt if they did.

Papa drew me down on the grassy slope beside him. The sun was high over

head and burning hot through my hair as I sat on and on with Papa. Every word he said washed clear images from my brain and replaced them with smeary blots. I watched the geese and the ducks that were using unseen paddle feet to swim like mad to where Momma liked to feed them. They had a fondness for eating her tulips and daffodils in the spring.

“Let’s talk about what you dreamed last night,” Papa said after we had been silent for a long time. “Last night I heard you moaning and groaning, and when I went to check on you, you were tossing in your bed, mumbling incoherently in your sleep.”

Feeling panicky, I looked around to see a red-headed woodpecker working on one of our best old hickory trees. “Go ‘way!” I cried. “Eat the worms on the camellia bushes!”

“Audrina,” said Papa impatiently, “forget about the trees. The trees will be here long after you and I have come and gone. Tell me what you saw in the rocking chair.”

If Papa believed in Mrs. Allismore’s string-and-ring trick, it seemed only right that I could use the same method to please him. I was about to speak and tell him when I felt the hackles on my neck rise. Turning my head quickly, I glimpsed Vera in the room where the rocking chair was. Still up there, still rocking. Let her rock on and on forever; there was no gift but the one imagination concocted to please somebody who wanted magic in his life. And maybe in the long run imagination was a special gift.

“Okay, darling. I’m not going to plead further. Just tell me what you dreamed last night.”

I spoke the name of the stock my pin had touched on twice, and then twice again. Papa looked incredulous, then angry. Immediately from his reaction I guessed I’d done the wrong thing.

“Audrina, did I ask you for a stock tip?” he asked with annoyance. “No, I did not. I asked you to give me your dreams. I’m trying to help you restore your memory. Don’t you realize yet that’s why I put you in the rocking chair? I’ve tried to make it seem your loss of memory is natural, but it isn’t. All I wanted you to do was regain what you’ve forgotten.”

I didn’t believe him. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to turn into the First Audrina! That’s why he had all those books about black magic and psychic powers hidden away in his study.

Pulling away, I stared back at the house again, terribly upset now. Back and forth Vera was still rocking. Oh, God, suppose she had the only dream the chair ever gave me? Would she scream? Would Papa go running to save her?

Or just suppose everything Papa had told me was true, and there was a gift to be gained. Then, any second, she might replace me in his heart. Breathlessly I gushed, undecided no longer. “There I was, Papa, a grown-up woman, working in a huge place with business machines all around. They glowed, changed colors, talked in strange voices and sent messages through the air. I was up front instructing a large class how to use them. So that’s why I thought—but, of course, I should have let you decide what it meant. The letters I told you were on all the machines, every last one, Papa.”

IBM.

For a reward, his smile came tight and thin, though he did embrace me. “All right, you’ve tried to help me financially, but that’s not what I wanted. Memories, Audrina, fill the holes in your brain with the right memories. We’ll try the rocking chair again later and see if the next time doesn’t skip the woods and put you down in the right place.” I was about to cry, for I had had a funny dream about machines, and the pin had wanted to stop on those initials four times. “Don’t cry, my love,” he said, kissing me again. “I understand, and I might even put some money on that stock, even though it has had a thirty percent run-up and is due for a sell-off. Still,” he went on thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t hurt to wait for the profit-taking to end, and then buy in heavily before another climb. She is intuitive and her heart is pure even if—”

Jumping to my feet, I ran to escape his embarrassing ruminations. Now he was going to put money on that stock. What if it continued to go down after the profit-taking? Poor Momma was slaving in the kitchen, preparing for a stupid party she didn’t need to have when she was feeling so rotten. I ran to a window where I could watch Papa still down by the river, standing now and skipping pebbles across the water as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Momma didn’t say a word about tomorrow being my ninth birthday. Was that because tomorrow truly wasn’t my birthday? I went to the closet under the back stairs and checked the newspapers. Tomorrow was September the ninth, and just like me, I forgot today was the eighth. Was reaching the age of nine really so meaningful? Yes, I decided as the day wore on and no one but Papa mentioned my birthday, reaching nine was dangerous.