Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“I taught special education students,” he said. “No worries at all.”

“She has taken to art, loves to draw and paint. She can spend hours and hours doing it. I’ve been doing the best I can with other aspects of her education, but when it comes to art, no one has taught her anything formally. She doesn’t have that long an attention span except when she’s working on her art, but I’m not sure how she would pay attention to instruction.”

“A challenge. Love it,” he said.

I had to smile. He was truly a bored man. “Okay, then let’s see how it works out today at three.”

I immediately started up to the cupola to tell Sylvia and to talk to her about our lunch, but the phone rang before I reached the stairs. It was Arden. Apparently, telling him I had called had become possible for Mrs. Crown.

“What?” he said sharply when I answered the phone.

“What? Can’t you at least pretend to be courteous, Arden, and ask how I am first?”

“I’m busy, Audrina. There is no time for small talk here. I know women feed on small talk like birds on grass seed, but it’s a particularly busy day. There’s been a big drop in crude oil this morning. You know what crude oil is?” he asked, raising his voice bloated with sarcasm.

“Stop it, Arden. Of course I know what crude oil is. I called to tell you I’m arranging for an art tutor for Sylvia. I’ll be paying him from the household account.”

“Waste of money,” he said. “What about the papers I want you to sign? I’ll tell you where to meet me, and . . .”

“We’ll talk about that later, Arden. I’m just letting you know I have the art tutor coming at three today to meet Sylvia. Unless there’s a problem the teacher sees, I will contract with him today.”

“Who is he?”

“Arthur Price, a retired high school art teacher.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s not that old, Arden.”

“I’m not worried about him being too old.” He sighed. “All right, do what you want. I repeat, it’s a waste of time and money, but I have to get back to important things.”

“This is important, Arden. She’s my sister, and she’s your sister-in-law. My father expected we would look after her.”

“Oh, spare me. Your father expected . . . Well, I expected things, too. Women can get so emotional. It’s like they have a trigger finger on their emotions, which is why they don’t belong in business, especially a business like this,” he emphasized. “ ’Bye,” he said, and hung up before I could say a word in my defense.

I was so frustrated that I wished I could strangle the phone and squeeze every last word he uttered out of the wires and out of my mind. Up the stairs I went, pounding every step as if I was stamping on Arden’s face. When I entered the cupola, I found Sylvia sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper, her pencil in her hand, poised in the air like a knife she was about to stab into something.

“Where’s your picture?” I asked.

She turned to look at me, her face twisted in an expression of anger and frustration. “Done,” she said, nodding to the picture now lying on a long table.

I looked at it and saw that not much more had been added to it. It still fascinated me. I put it down and turned back to her. She had returned to staring at her blank sheet.

“What are you trying to draw and paint now, Sylvia?”

She looked at me, deciding whether to answer, I guessed. “What makes a baby a boy?” she asked.

“What?”

“Boys and girls come from the same mother, so who’s first? And why didn’t Papa ever have a boy?”

How was I going to explain this? Explain the X and Y chromosomes? No way. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because Papa told me a baby, but he didn’t tell me if the baby was a boy or a girl,” she said. I nearly laughed at the way she said it. She sounded condescending, like I was dumb not to realize that.

“Why is that important right now, Sylvia? Many people, maybe most, like it to be a surprise. Except for those people who want to paint nursery rooms and choose clothes way ahead of time,” I added, more for myself. “So?”

“I have to draw the baby, Audrina. If I don’t draw the baby, the baby will not come,” she said.