Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a tradeoff. Don’t worry about it. I have it all under control.”

He picked up his magazine, glanced at it, and then lowered it again. “The best part of this, Audrina, is that you will be a mother after all. But,” he said cautiously, “let’s wait for Mrs. Matthews to confirm that Sylvia’s pregnant.”

He started to read his magazine as if I had agreed to everything. It wasn’t that easy for me. For one thing, I would be pretending to be something I wasn’t again. I’d have to act a part, like in a play. It was still painful to remember how I’d been convinced that I was a second Audrina. Even when I’d believed it, I had wanted so much to be myself. For another thing, this would be as much as admitting that my becoming pregnant and having my own child was truly a dead idea. It would never happen.

I felt his eyes on me as I crossed the room to the bathroom to prepare for bed.

“I hope you enjoyed our dinner otherwise,” he said when I reappeared in my nightgown. “I thought Sylvia did very well, too. That’s all thanks to you. You both did look beautiful.”

“I enjoyed it, yes.”

“Well, if there is a baby, when he or she is old enough, we’ll go out a lot more. I’ve always envied fathers taking their wives and children out for Sunday brunch. Just think. We can really be a family . . . finally.” And as if that explained everything, he put out his lamp and lay down.

“You told Mrs. Matthews about Sylvia, right?” I asked. “She understands that she’s special and needs special treatment?”

He turned. “Of course I did, Audrina. You’ve got to stop worrying. As I said, I have it all under control now. You will have to trust me.”

After a moment of thinking, I said, “That horrible man. He shouldn’t get away with this.”

“Don’t start that again. If we accuse him of something, we’ll ruin our plan. For now, just let it go. We have more important things to occupy our attention. And if you cross-examine Sylvia about it, about how it happened, when it happened, where it happened, any of it, you’ll make things worse. I know her well enough after all these years to predict she’ll feel guilty and terrible and sit around crying all the time. A bad thing happened. It’s done, over with. Now we have to be sure nothing else terrible occurs, like a miscarriage. You probably remember Vera’s vividly enough to know what that could mean for Sylvia.”

“Papa would have taken out his Civil War pistol and driven over to the Prices’ and shot him,” I said.

“You mean like he shot the boys who raped you?” Arden asked.

It was a cold and cruel thing to say, but I understood why he was saying it. I was implying that he wasn’t doing the manly thing for Sylvia.

“Clever people handle things like this in a way that doesn’t bring more pain and trouble to themselves,” he continued. He looked away as if he was remembering something. “Stop thinking about it, or you’ll never fall asleep.”

He turned toward me again, and although there was just a glimmer of light from the moon peeking between trees, I could see his wry smile.

“Think about being a mother instead,” he said.

If he meant that as a comfort, he was wrong. That kept me from falling asleep even more.

Living a Lie

Arden had said that Mrs. Matthews was scheduled to come to Whitefern at around eleven in the morning. Right after we had cleaned up our breakfast dishes and put everything away, I had Sylvia sit on the settee in the living room, and I began an explanation to prepare her for a stranger coming to our home to examine her. The way she smiled at me was eerie. It was almost as if she knew exactly what I was going to say, and, contrary to what I might think, that made her happy.

“Something is going on inside you, Sylvia,” I began. “Arden and I think you might be pregnant.”

She nodded. There was certainly no shock, surprise, or fear on her face. This was unexpected. Perhaps she didn’t understand and was simply trying to please me.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Sylvia? When I say we think you might be pregnant, we mean there might be a baby forming inside you.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. Then she smiled and said, “Papa told me, and he said the baby would be forming in you, too, Audrina.”

For a moment, I was speechless. If I ever said anything clever or prophetic when I was little, Momma would always smile, tenderly brush my hair, and say, “Out of the mouths of babes . . .” I felt like saying that to Sylvia. Even if she had somehow overheard the things Arden had said, his plan in particular, she would never be able to comprehend it and embrace it. However, I couldn’t imagine her coming up with this idea herself. Her even suggesting such a thing gave me a chill. Out of habit, I looked at Papa’s chair. So often when I was teaching something to Sylvia, he would sit there and half-listen, occasionally smiling at how hard I pursued something with her until she had grasped it. I could easily imagine him sitting there now, with a similar smile on his face, encouraging me to go on.

“This is a house that welcomes ghosts,” Aunt Ellsbeth had once told Vera and me. She’d hugged herself when she’d said it, and both of us had looked around, expecting to see some spirit whisk past us.

“When did Papa say this to you, Sylvia?” I asked now. It was like following someone you knew was lost, traveling down roads that led nowhere, but I had to question her.

“One time when I was in the rocking chair,” she said.

“What time? When?”

“I don’t know the time, Audrina. I didn’t look at a clock.” She looked like she was going to cry because she was disappointing me. “I don’t remember.”