Family Storms (11 page)

She looked at me and smiled. “I know you do. You're an exceptional young girl and will be an exceptional woman someday. I am determined to make you happy, healthy, and safe again,” she said with such firm determination in her eyes that I couldn't help but believe her.

She hung up the rest, and we left the closet.

“Will I meet your husband tonight?” I asked.

“No. He's at a conference in Texas, something about
new home-building materials. I'm not sure when he returns. I don't pay much attention to his work. It will just be you and me for dinner.”

“But what about …”

“Kiera is at a friend's tonight,” she said, almost before the words were out of my mouth. “I wasn't going to let her go, but I thought it would be nicer if you and I had your first night here alone. Okay?”

I nodded. Did she know that Kiera and her friends had spent the afternoon at the pool? Should I mention it? I felt funny about spying on them. What if she asked me what I had seen?

“Did you take a nap, at least?”

“I dozed off for a while. I don't feel tired.”

“That's amazing. I know the excitement of going somewhere new can wear you out, but I forget how much energy you young girls have. I'll come up later and help you decide what you'd like to wear to dinner.” She moved toward the door.

Why was it important what I would wear to dinner if it was going to be just the two of us?

“Enjoy your new iPod,” she said, and left.

I simply sat there staring after her. My head was spinning. I looked at the closet, the sitting room, the magnificent bed, the television on the wall, everything I could have ever dreamed of having up until now was there. We hadn't had very much before my father deserted us, but it still had been sad to leave it. How much more difficult had it been for a little girl to lie here and know she was dying and would leave everything, especially parents who adored her?

I embraced myself as if I could feel the cold sorrow closing in around me, even in the wonderful suite full of color and warm things. Then I looked at the bed. Could I sleep in that bed, and when I did, would I hear Alena March's voice, maybe her sobs and cries? Would I dream her dreams?

I could feel what Jordan March was hoping for when she brought me there, and it intrigued me and yet at the same time made me feel sick and afraid. She wanted to look at me, blink her eyes, and see her daughter returned.

I wasn't all that different from her.

I'd want to look at her, blink my eyes, and see my mother returned.

Either we'd both be happy or, in the end, both of us would end up blind.

8
Dinner

I
fell asleep again in my chair. I had wheeled myself to the window in the sitting room and sat gazing at the pool, the tennis courts, and the beautiful grounds. I opened the window slightly and could hear the drone of the lawn mowers. Because the house was so high up on the hill, I could see the ocean just behind the tops of the trees. At this time of the day, it looked like blue ice but gradually reddened with the sinking sun.

When I was eight, my father brought home a doll he had found on a job site. It was in a basement next to a washing machine he was repairing, and he just put it into his tool kit. Although it was old, faded, and dusty, I cherished it, because it was one of the only times I could remember that he thought of me while he was working and brought me something. Mama bawled him out for giving me something so dirty-looking and seized it to put into our washing machine. I never saw another doll like it.

The doll was a sailor girl. Daddy didn't know what it
really was, but Mama did. She admitted it was something of a collector's item, because it was a doll depicting a member of the WAVES. She said she had a great-aunt on her father's side who had been a member of the Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service, which was a U.S. Navy organization during World War II.

Once it was washed, the blue uniform had faded even more, but I thought it was the most beautiful doll in the world, and when I understood more about the WAVES, I began to fantasize about myself on boats and ships. Even during the struggle, when Mama and I were on the beach selling her calligraphy and my lanyards, I would look out at the sailboats and the bigger ships, and I would recall my fantasies.

Sailing off toward the horizon always seemed to be an escape from sadness and hardship. Nothing was as promising as the distant horizon. I envisioned myself standing at the bow and looking ahead toward a new life full of brightness and happiness. Mama was always on the boat with me, standing beside me or right behind me, with just as big a smile on her face, just as much hope in her eyes. We would never look back at the dark clouds.

I thought about my doll now as I looked out at the Pacific Ocean. I had played with it so much and kept it with me so much that the uniform thinned and the doll began to come apart. Mama tried sewing it a few times, but the threads would break. When I was older, I put it aside. Somewhere along the way, with our packing quickly, dragging our belongings along, it got lost. I told myself the doll had gone back to sea, back to that boat, to seek a better place than the places I could take her.

Now, I imagined her out there, sailing toward the horizon. I could vaguely make out a boat and watched it until I could see it no longer.
At least she's safe,
I thought. I smiled to myself and relived some of my childhood moments talking to my doll.

Mrs. March's return to help me decide what to wear for dinner broke the spell and ripped me out of the happier moments in my past and pulled me back to cold reality. It was as though I had lost my doll again.

“Let's look for something comfortable for you,” she began, and headed back to that enormous closet. I wheeled myself to the doorway and watched her rake through the garments, pausing at some, shaking her head at others. What was she looking for? How could this be so important? I almost came right out and asked, but she plucked a blouse and a skirt off the rack as if she had found something she had tried and failed to locate many times. I saw the look of delight spread over her face.

“Yes,” she said, talking more to herself than to me, “this was it.”

When she turned and held it up to show me, I nearly fell out of my wheelchair. It was a sailor girl's outfit. I felt a hot flow move up from my chest and into my neck and face. The words crackled when I spoke. “Why that?”

“Alena was so excited when Donald bought our boat that I went right out and bought this outfit for her. When she tried it on, she didn't want to take it off. Donald and Kiera were away that evening, so it was just Alena and me for dinner. Even though we were alone, it was a very special night. I remember how talkative she was, how happy, and
this was shortly after she had been diagnosed. Just like you, she refused to be depressed.”

Just like me?
What had I done to lead her to believe I wasn't depressed and unhappy? Did she think that just because I was overwhelmed with the house and the gifts, all of my sadness was dead and buried? Could she possibly believe that I had already forgotten what had happened to my mother?

I think she saw the look on my face and understood. Her smile flew off, and she grew serious as she approached me with the outfit.

“Oh, I know how unhappy and terrible you must feel,” she began. “I don't want you to think for one moment that I don't know or don't care. I want you to remember and love your mother forever. I promised I would have whatever you wanted written on her tombstone, remember? As soon as you think of it, you tell me, and we'll have it done, and then you and I will go there to see it. But in the meantime, you've got to survive and grow and be healthy again. Don't blame me for trying to help you do that. I know you must hate me always talking about my Alena, but …”

“No, I don't hate you for that,” I said quickly. I glanced at the framed photograph of her. “She was a very pretty girl, and I'm sure she was very nice.”

“Thank you, dear. If you don't want to wear this,” she added, holding up the skirt and blouse, “you don't have to. You can pick out something else.”

“No, it's all right,” I said. I almost told her about my doll but somehow felt that there were things so private that they
still belonged only with Mama and me. Despite what Jackie called her charity, Mrs. March had not earned that trust. She was not my mother; she was not even a friend yet. She was simply someone who felt sorry for me and felt guilty because of what her daughter had done. It was I who was being the charitable one. I was letting her live with the guilt. That's what Jackie had told me, and it made sense to me now more than ever.

I reached for the outfit.

“Can I help you get dressed?” she asked.

I nodded, and she began by helping me take off the blouse I wore. She moaned at the sight of the fading black-and-blue marks and mumbled, “Poor child. What a horror you've gone through.” She looked as if she was going to burst into tears, so I made sure to tell her that none of it hurt as much as it had.

After I was dressed in the sailor outfit, she wheeled me in front of the vanity table. I was amazed at how well it fit.

“Let's do something with your hair,” she said, and began brushing it. “You do have beautiful hair, and thick, too. I bet your mother's hair was beautiful.”

“Yes. She used to wear it down to her wing bones.”

“I wish I could have long hair, but Donald says it makes me look older, and if there is one thing Donald hates, it's my looking older.”

“What about him?”

“Men can always look older and call it distinguished, didn't you know?” she asked, smiling.

She opened a drawer in the vanity table and chose some hair clips. When I saw how she had shaped my hair,
I looked at the framed photo of Alena and realized it was very similar.

“There now,” she said, stepping back. “Don't you look very pretty?”

“I hope someday I'll be half as pretty as my mother was,” I said.

She kept her smile, but it lost its excitement and warmth. She nodded and turned me away from the vanity table. “I do hope you like Irish stew. Mrs. Caro makes the best.”

“I don't remember ever having it,” I said as she pushed me to the doorway.

“Well, you eat just what you want. She's made a special dessert for us, a surprise, too. Here we go,” she said, and turned me down the corridor toward the elevator.

I had seen only a small part of the house when I arrived. When the elevator door opened, she pushed me to the left and around a corner. The hallway seemed endless, but along the way, she pointed out the game room, the formal dining room, the den and library, the entertainment center, and then a hallway that branched off to the right. She said that was where the indoor pool was located.

Right off the kitchen was what she called their informal dining room. No room in this house was small to me, but she called it one of their smaller rooms. It had a beautiful dark hardwood table with twelve cushioned hardwood chairs. The walls were paneled in a lighter wood, and a large window looked toward the rear of the property.

“Is that a lake?” I asked, looking out.

“Donald's lake, yes. It's man-made. He says he's going to
stock it with fish. What fun is that, right? It would be like shooting fish in a barrel, but once Donald sees something someone else has, he wants it, too. There are two rowboats. That's fun, at least.”

She pulled a chair away next to the chair at the end of the table and fit me into that place. Two dinner settings, glasses, and silverware were already there. Almost as soon as Mrs. March took her seat, Mrs. Duval came through the door that led from the kitchen. She carried a bowl of rolls and a jug of water.

“Good evening, Mrs. Duval,” Mrs. March said, sounding very formal all of a sudden.

“Good evening, Mrs. March.”

“Doesn't our little girl look pretty tonight?”

Mrs. Duval paused after she poured Mrs. March's glass of water and looked at me as if I had just arrived. I caught the slight tic in her eyes, the little moment of surprise. She glanced at Mrs. March and then forced a smile and said,
“Sí, muy bonita.”