Whitefern (Audrina 2)

Prologue

Papa died with my name on his lips. I would have thought his final words would be a call for my sister, Sylvia, or for Lucietta, our mother, who had died giving birth to Sylvia. For years afterward, I would think about the way he had said my name in those final moments. Was his call to me a plea for help, or was he begging for forgiveness? Was it merely pleasure at having his last thoughts be about me? Did he see my much younger face before him?

Arden, Sylvia, and I were there in his bedroom when he took his last breath. Sylvia and I were sitting beside the bed. Sylvia held his hand, and my husband, Arden, standing beside me, had his hand on my shoulder, his fingers drumming with impatience. He had been on his way out the door to go to work when Papa took a sudden turn for the worse. Of course, he’d thought it was another false alarm, but he quickly returned and saw that this time, it was very, very serious.

The ticking of the dark oak miniature grandfather’s clock on the dresser seemed to grow louder and louder, impressing us with every passing moment. I imagined it was like Papa’s heartbeat. I would swear that it paused when Papa took his final breath. A cloud passed over the sun, and a shadow rushed in through the windows and fell like a dark sheet over his body and his face. I felt a shawl of ice slip over my shoulders as Arden lifted his hand away.

The week before, Papa had nearly passed out going up the stairs. His eyes had closed, and he’d swayed almost at the top step. Sylvia had been following him up, just as she often followed at his heels, eager to do his bidding, and that had kept him from falling backward. A fatal accident on those stairs would come as no surprise. They’d already had too much tragic history. Sylvia’s scream had brought me running. I’d seen her hands on his back. Before I could reach them, he had regained his composure, the color coming back into his pale face.

“I’m all right,” he had said, but without admitting that something wrong with him had caused him to lose his balance, he also declared that Sylvia had saved his life.

“We should call the doctor,” I had said.

“Nonsense, no need. Everyone loses his balance occasionally. Maybe a little too much blackberry brandy.”

It was futile to contradict him or insist. Papa never changed his mind about anything once he had made it up. My aunt Ellsbeth would say, “He’s as stubborn as a tree stump when he digs his roots into an argument.”

Nevertheless, at his insistence, we had celebrated Sylvia as a heroine at dinner that night. I was told to make her favorite cake, vanilla with chocolate icing. We had champagne and, later, music so Papa could do a little dance with her. While I’d watched them, I’d been reminded of how he would waltz with my mother sometimes after dinner when they were young, and our world would look like a world of eternal spring. Momma’s peals of laughter and joy would echo off the walls. The only one who scowled would be Aunt Ellsbeth.

Sylvia had been so happy when Papa called her “my little heroine.” She’d loved repeating, “I saved Papa,” every morning for days afterward; it was the first thing she’d say to me when I roused her to dress and come down for breakfast. Compliments and applause were rare birds in her nest. Perhaps she thought she could do it again the day he died, save him and keep him from falling into the inevitable grave. She clung so tightly to his hand.

Arden often called her “your father’s extra shadow,” but he wasn’t saying that because he thought what she was doing was cute or loving. No, he thought it was both annoying for Papa and embarrassing for us, mainly for him, whenever anyone he knew from work saw this grown woman still so attached to her father, sensitive to his every move, eager to do the simplest things for him, like fetching his slippers or lighting his pipe.

“He can’t even go to the bathroom without her waiting for him at the door like a puppy. Can’t you make her see how foolish she looks? Do something!” Arden had demanded. “You’re the one she’ll listen to.”

“Papa doesn’t mind,” I’d said in Sylvia’s defense, “so you shouldn’t, either.”

Papa never did complain, nor did he ever criticize my sister or make her feel silly or foolish. If anything, he liked females hounding him. I had no illusions about my father. He was always a woman’s man. He would always flirt, even with me when I was older. Of course, Sylvia was special. Perhaps he should have tried harder to have her become less dependent on him. A girl can love her father, adore him, but at some point, she has to step out into the world with independence, or she will not mature and enjoy what other love awaits her.

No one, including me, had much confidence in Sylvia developing an independent existence or finding the love of another man. She had been born prematurely and was mentally slow. Once everyone viewed her that way, she’d become comfortable with that image. She liked being babied so much that she never tried too hard to become a mature woman with a mature woman’s responsibilities. At least, that was my theory. Everyone criticized me for it. Arden, in fact, once accused me of being jealous of my father’s affection for her.

“Maybe you think he’ll turn her into ‘my sweet Sylvia’ or create a Sylvia Two,” he said, with that wry smile on his face that usually irritated me. “He thinks he’s God and can change anyone to his liking.”

But accusing me of jealousy wasn’t fair. With the exception of my father, no one ever loved or treated my sister more tenderly than I did. She used to follow me around the way she was then following him. Perhaps that was why I didn’t openly criticize her or try to get her to be less fawning. Many times, I was tempted to do what Arden wanted and tell her to stop clinging so hard to our father. Let Papa breathe, I wanted to say, but I swallowed back the words. She probably wouldn’t have understood it, and if it was explained to her, I was afraid she would go into one of her hysterical fits of sobbing and others would accuse me of the same thing Arden had. I feared even Papa would admonish me.

So when I saw Papa die in front of us, I looked quickly at Sylvia, anticipating an outburst of sorrow from her.

But then I realized she had no idea he was gone. She still clung to his hand. She shook it softly, expecting him to open his eyes and smile at her as he had done only minutes ago.

I put my arm around her. “He’s gone, Sylvia,” I said, my lips trembling and tears streaming down my cheeks. “Papa has passed on. You have to let go of his hand. He’s gone.”

She looked at me, scowled, and then looked back at him, but she didn’t move, nor did she let go of his hand. The words apparently made no sense to her. I knew what she was thinking: How can he be gone if he is still here in his bed? Sylvia always took everything literally, expecting the truth to be straightforward, the way children did.