The Monsters of Templeton (16 page)

My mother stood and washed out her bowl. She seemed buoyant now, breezy. "I'd love to chat some more, I really would, but I'm off to ease the dying," she said. "Search long and hard today, and discover all you can. I'm here if you want to talk tonight." She moved toward the door, then turned around with a new idea, her fleshy face folded in delight. "And unless you want to pay rent for the rest of the summer, sweetpea, you really have to get going on your chores. The house needs a dusting. Maybe a vacuum. It should only take an hour or two. Have at it." And then, chuckling, she was gone.

IN THE MIDST of dusting that afternoon, my eyes still glued at the corners with sleep, I realized that my mother had been looting the attic. When she had first come back to Templeton and found herself pregnant, an orphan, in charge of a huge house, she'd been irritated with the overstuffed nature of her mother's taste and had packed all the tchotchkes and other unnecessary things away. The Averell Cottage of my childhood was spare, almost spartan, every shelf of the corner cupboard and every surface of the furniture bare, nothing on the mantels. She had taken away all the unnecessary furniture and most of the pictures, too. Had she had a choice of where to live, I believe my mother would have been most happy in a light-filled glass box, with blond Scandinavian furniture and slate floors. A house not unlike Primus Dwyer's, in fact.

Now, though, in the time I'd been away from Templeton, a little over two years, things had appeared. A little bronze model of the Mohican and dog statue in Lakefront Park on the formal parlor's mantel; ancient china and colored glassware in the corner cupboard in the dining room; many more old oils on the walls; everything presided over by a cunningly executed little horse on wheels on the vast dining room table, a cheeky-looking, very old toy. I lifted it from the table and held it in my hands. It was heavy, actual horsehair over a carved wooden frame, with bright glass eyes under the dust and a perfect little bridle and saddle set.

I looked the horse in the eye. "What," I said, "could Vi have meant by digging you up, little one?" And then I looked around the room, noting the new ferns in their antique willowware pots, the unnecessary sideboard, the paintings. The room felt, for the first time, comfortable and complete, as if Vi had reluctantly given in to the necessity of living in Templeton and had allowed herself to admit that she wasn't going anywhere.

"Aha," I said aloud. "I see my mother has decided to stay in Templeton."

But it wasn't until I came home that evening, exhausted after a fruitless trip to the library and little Peter Lieder's bright eagerness, that I began to understand the change. All day I had been looking into Sarah's half-brothers as the possible source of my father but had found no evidence that they ever came back to Templeton after they were sent off to private school. There were boarding school bills that Sarah's father, Henry, had paid, with extra charges for boarding over holidays and the summers; there were pleading letters in Henry's quiet, kind voice, asking his sons to forgive him for having married Hannah so soon after their mother, Monique, had died of an aneurysm, and to urge them to come and meet their sweet new sister.

"My boys," Henry had admonished in one letter. "There is nothing more important than family. Do not take out your anger with me on your new stepmother or your sister."

The boys, aged eleven and thirteen when their mother died, never did come to terms again with their father, and only reluctantly met their sister at her high school graduation from Emma Willard, when they were both married attorneys in Manhattan. Since they never lived in Templeton, or even visited the place, it was easy to rule them out as possible father-sources. But still, I felt sad for old Henry, Sarah's father, who died brokenhearted, with all his children already dead or turned against him.

On the long walk home, I began brooding over my other troubles. When I was in the house, my heart would race every other hour, sure that the telephone was ringing and Primus Dwyer was calling me. I was wrong--the phone never rang, and every other hour, the ache I felt that he hadn't yet called deepened. And the Lump was gathering weight in my gut, omnipresent, though I knew that at two months it was barely an eraser head, still splitting and splitting into nondiscernable parts. That evening as I walked into Averell Cottage, I was sunk in such a bog of my own thoughts that I ignored the pile of homely kicked-off shoes and walked right into the trap.

I first became aware of the air having changed--there was a slight coolness to it, a sense of damp wool. And then I heard the voice, a deep bass and yet unctuous, singsonglike--like an oiled bassoon.

"...oh, let us pray now," it was saying, "for she who is the child of our dear sister in Christ, Vivienne Upton, let us pray for her in this trying time in her life; not that her hardships fade and she lives a life free of them, for all men must have hardship; but rather that she learns from her travails, and that she feels the gentle grace of God's bosom, through the gift of the light of Christ..."

By that time, my stunned eyes were able to understand what they were seeing in the living room. A circle of people in dull clothing, hands held, heads bent, all lit golden from the last sun. A pillowy white mess of a preacher, his gelled comb-over flapping like a hand as he prayed. My mother at the head of the circle, looking up at me, inscrutable. And everyone sitting in my living room was wearing the same heavy iron cross.

"What," I said, interrupting the minister's deep drone, "in the hell do you all think you're doing?"

One old lady looked up at me, and though she had the sweet round cheeks of a grandma, a grandma's marshmallowy hair, the fury in her expression was searing.

But nobody else opened their eyes and the minister didn't stop, but, rather, hurried up so that his words elided; "and-keep-her-from-the-devil-and-give-her-strength-to-withstand-temptation-and-giveher-peace-in-the-name-of-Christ-our-Lord-Amen."

"Amen," said everyone, and looked up at me, beaming, save for Vi, who was gazing at her knees, avoiding me now.

"Vi?" I said. "What in the hell is this?"

The skim-milk minister rose to his feet and folded his fat white hands across his belly. "Wilhelmina," he said, "we were giving you a gift. A prayer for your time of trouble, for your everlasting soul."

"Oh, screw my everlasting soul," I said.

One old lady gasped; one old man clucked and said, "Devil got your tongue, missy."

"Screw the devil," I said. "You don't come into someone's house and ambush them with prayers, not if they don't believe in all that crap. You just don't. This is insane."

"Willie," my mother snapped. "You're being rude."

"Rude?" I said, puffed and self-righteous. "Me? Well, Vivienne, I'm sorry, but rude is telling the whole town that your daughter's a fuckup, Vivienne. Rude is forcing someone to be the beneficiary of a religion she finds insulting and the basis of everything that has gone wrong with the world. Vi, you were rude. You were the rude one. Not me."

"Wilhelmina," boomed the minister, pointing at me. "That is your mother you are addressing, and she deserves your respect. You should be ashamed."

I stared at him so darkly that a hint of a flush came over his pasty face. "You," I said, "are the one who should be ashamed. You are a nasty con artist. Now get your cult out of my house," and I spun and slammed the door to the dining room, and then I slammed the door from the parlor to the hall, and then I slammed the door at the top of the stairs, and then I slammed the door of my room.

I forgot for a moment that I was twenty-eight; I felt thirteen again, wild and hormonal. I pitched the stuffed animals from the bassinet against the wall, one by one, where on impact they puffed out seventeen years of dust. When the Bible-beaters lingered in leaving, I punched my pillow so hard my hand seized up for a few days. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and for the first time I saw that I was flushed prettily, back to my flashing, good-looking self. The stupidity of vanity at such a time. So silly. I gave a little low laugh.

It was unfortunate that my mother chose that moment to storm into my room. "Oh," she said. "I'm so glad you find it hilarious to humiliate your mother in front of her friends."

"Please," I said. "You insane person. Of course you're the put-upon one, aren't you. When you've told the whole town that I slept with a married professor and have been visited with punishment for my adultery in the form of some godless heathen bastard. I should be apologizing to you, right?"

"Actually, yes. They were only being kind. And I never told anyone why you're here."

"Right. Out of nowhere, they felt compelled to say a prayer for me in my time of need. Because they had no idea I was in trouble."

A ripple of--what was it? impatience? mirth?--came over Vi's face. "Reverend John Melkovitch is a very spiritual man," she said. "I'm sure he figured it out all by himself."

I turned away from my mother, then, toward the flat lake. Although it was a fine, hot day, nobody was out; there were no motorboats, no Jet Skis, no swimmers at Fairy Springs or the country club that I could see. The lake seemed lackluster, moody.

"And about that Reverend Milky, anyway," I said. "What a total creep. So bland and nasty. You can tell from a mile away he's just a total phony. I'm disappointed in your choice of spiritual guides, Vi. As if you couldn't choose some yogi or monk or anything more suited to who you are. I mean, a Christian Coalitioner! Probably doesn't believe in Social Security or women's rights. Probably thinks the best people I know are going to hell just because they don't see the world in the same, narrow, revisionist sort of way that assholes like that do. I'm afraid you've been taken in, there, Vivienne. I'm afraid for you, really afraid."

There was a long silence then and when my mother spoke, she was close to my ear and her voice was very low. "Well, that's a shame," she said. "Because he's more than my minister, Willie. We've been dating for about nine months. Seriously. Just so you know."

I was too stunned to say anything, and so she just turned triumphantly and stomped out the door. There, she said in her martyr's voice, "Dinner will be at seven, Sunshine. Tomates farcis, your favorite," and then she went out the door.

"Reverend Milky is so not your taste," I called out, but she just heaved an enormous sigh and clomped down the stairs.

WHEN I CALLED Clarissa and the answering machine picked up, Hey, it's Clarissa Evans and Sullivan Bird. Be brief but nice, I put on my best Nancy Drew voice, a WASP y chirp.

"The Mystery of the Miraculous Christian Transformation is suddenly revealed; call for your exciting new installment of Willie Upton, girl detective. I'll be up all night doing genealogical questing and praying for a phone call from a certain dark, handsome Brit, so call at any time, and don't be offended if I am at first disappointed. Love you both. Bye."

I was lighthearted, almost ditzy, but when I hung up, I felt wrung out. And when I went downstairs for dinner, I ate my tomatoes before my mother even finished her prayer and took my glass of milk upstairs, to be alone. I had come home to become a child again. I was sick, heartbroken, worn down, teetering between either abortion or unplanned motherhood, and my mother was allowing me to act like a child. I was carrying on like a teenager, all hormones and grief. Though I was furious with her, there was a little tired piece of me that was grateful, relieved.

Chapter
11

Hetty Averell

MOST TIMES, I can look at a man and see if I can run him. Most times I can, even ones who don't look like any woman could. See it straight out in Duke. That day in Philadelphia he's buying slaves to make Templeton, in the stinking slavehouse. Big, silent Mingo to help build things. Cuff, the Indian boy, to write for Duke. Duke can't spell, and Cuff, he writes like the brightest angels in the sky.

Duke goes to the door with those two behind him. I put my eyes on him, I like his looks. Red hair under all that powder. Tall, built like a bull. Good, dark clothes like Quaker clothes, but I know he's no real Quaker because no Quaker buys slaves. So I burn my eyes on him. He feels it. Turns around, slow-slow, looks at me. Got my shirt off and the men are examining my breasts and teeth and they are beautiful and my skin is shining like water. I am eighteen or twenty then and a beautiful girl. I'm not vain, it's a truth. Already have two babies though they left back in Jamaica. I come at age ten, eleven from Africa to Jamaica, eighteen, twenty from Jamaica to Philadelphia. They sell me for having a long tongue but that is all lies. Truth is, my master, MacAdam, I run him easy. Make him a rich man. When he dies Widow MacAdam don't like me, puts a hot poker around my neck, one by one, makes me a pink necklace on my skin. Hate her then, but can't say I blame her, running her man like I done.

That day, Duke don't want to buy slaves but don't have a choice, no good dentured servants anywhere. All is sickly, none have any skills. So he comes to the stinking slavehouse but not ready to buy humans, gets sick, almost leaves. But then he sees Cuff almost took by an evil-looking man. Duke sees the evil clear, that fat man licking those red lips at the pretty Indian boy. So Duke buys him. Has a son Cuff's age, and I think it is because of Richard he buys Cuff. Then he sees Mingo, sees how he does good woodwork, buys him too. Thinking, I'm already a slaveowner, might as well get a house out of it. When he's about to go, I burn my eyes on him. Turn him around. We look at each other and there's a flash between us. He buys me.