Olivia (16 page)

something."
I climbed the stairs and went to Mother's room.
She was dozing. Her nurse looked up at me. "I'll stay with her awhile," I said.
"Very good." She rose. "I'll just go down to
have some coffee," she said looking at Mother. She
shook her head, her eyes dark. "Call me if you need
me," she said before leaving.
I sat by the bed and studied Mother's small,
burdened breaths that made her chest look heavy. Her
bald head ravished by the chemotherapy was wrapped
in a silk scarf. Her skin was so pasty white, she looked
like she had no blood.
After a few more moments, she whimpered and
grimaced and then opened her eyes to see me sitting
there. "Oh, Olivia, dear. Have you been here long?" "No, just a few minutes, Mother. I came to tell
you something so you would be the first to know," I
said, despite the fact that Daddy had been in on
Samuel's plan, perhaps even before Samuel had
thought of it himself.
"What, dear?" she asked trying to turn toward
me. I fluffed her pillow and helped her sit up. Even
though my hand moved around her face like a
hummingbird, she didn't notice the ring. It was as if
she had grown partially blind.
"Samuel Logan was just here, Mother." "Really? What time is it? Is your father
dressed?"
"It's early: Samuel didn't come to take me to the
engagement party. He came to declare his own
engagement."
"Oh, he did!" She started to shake her head. "I
didn't know he . . ."
"To me," I said.
"What? To you?"
I lifted my hand to exhibit the ring. She gazed
at it and then I got the smile I wanted, the smile I had
hoped for, the smile my mother wore so often in her life, that bright, happy, hopeful beaming that turned her eyes back to the jewels they had once been. Color
even returned to her sweet face.
"Oh Olivia, how wonderful! What a beautiful
ring. You're engaged. What a wonderful piece of news
to give me!"
"So you really have to get better, Mother. We
have our own engagement party and wedding to plan,
and I have a house to build. You'll have to help me
with the architect. There's so much to do. We don't
have time for this illness nonsense, Mother." She lowered herself back to her pillow and
smiled strangely at me.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Mother?"
I asked, feeling a dark shadow cross over my heart. She sighed and closed her eyes. For a moment I
thought she had actually passed away. She was that
still and her eyes were closed that long.
"Mother!"
She opened her eyes.
"You just sounded more like me than ever,
Olivia. You were never one to ignore the hand before
your eyes. All these years, whenever I refused to see
hardships or pain, disappointments and defeats, you
would chastise me. Stop pretending, Mother, you would say. It doesn't make it disappear if you ignore
it. It's still there. Remember?"
"Yes, but . ."
"Well, I have come to a point in my life when I
have to follow your good advice, Olivia."
She turned to gaze at her rose-tinted glasses,
sitting atop her bedside table.
"There's no point in putting them on now. It
won't change things. Living in my own imaginary
world was comfortable, but it wasn't the right thing to
do. I always knew that, Olivia. The truth is I was
selfish. In that respect Belinda is more like me than
she is like her father. Funny," she said with a small,
weak laugh, "you turned out to be more like him. It's
pleased him. I know. It's made him feel better about
what he did years and years ago," she said, her eyes
out of focus now as she gazed at pictures inside her
head.
"What do you mean, Mother? What did he do
years and years ago?"
Her eyelids fluttered and she turned to gaze
back at me, her face now full of resignation. "I am dying, Olivia. Doctor Covington was here
earlier and you know how brutally honest he can be.
It's his philosophy to be direct and honest with his
patients."
"Mother . ."
"No, no, the results are in again and they're not
good, Olivia. It's spreading, raging through me. I can
almost feel it oozing through my bones," she said with
another small laugh, more maddening.
"Daddy never said . ."
"Don't pretend you didn't know I wasn't getting
better, Olivia. You're not good at telling little white
lies because you can't tolerate any falseness or
dishonesty, no matter what the purpose. The ends
never justify the means for you, my daughter. I am not
silly enough to go to my Maker thinking He can
tolerate any dishonesty either. This is
^-
a day I've
dreamed about, a day I've dreaded, and not because
it's a day when I have to face my own demise. It's a
day when all my make-believe gets swept out the
door, when the winds of truth come rushing through
and wash out the pretend, the facades, the masks.
There's nothing left now but honesty."
"Please don't do this to yourself, Mother. We'll
get another doctor. We'll . ."
She held up her hand, weakly.
"I'm not as upset about it as I thought I might
be. When you live a life that's essentially built on lies, you think you are going to panic when that false foundation crumbles, but do you know what, Olivia? I feel a sense of relief. I feel . . . strangely enough, stronger because of it. You were right about facing
reality and how that makes you a stronger person." "I'm not making head nor tail of what you're
saying, Mother. I'm going to have my own discussion
with Doctor Covington and your other doctors and . .
."
"This doesn't concern him or them," she said.
"It concerns you and me, Olivia. You and me first,
and then your father," she added.
She closed her eyes again and was silent so
long, I thought once more that she had passed on.
Finally, she reached out for my hand and gazed at me. "I want you to understand and believe that your
father and I have grown to love each other as much as
any two married people can and do. He blusters about,
complains about my spending, or the way I handle the
servants, you and Belinda, whatever, but after he's
made his speeches and swung his arms about like a
human windmill, he collapses in my arms in this bed
and we hold each other before we sleep and we
comfort each other and we do what we must to
strengthen ourselves for the days to come. You and Belinda have never seen that part of him, but it's there. Believe me, Olivia, it's there and it's important. I do
love him very much."
"I know that, Mother."
"Do you?" She smiled. "You always believed
your father had his hands full with me, didn't you?
You always believed he fumed and raged about this
house like a man trapped. Be honest with me, Olivia.
Don't pity me today because of what's coming
tomorrow."
"Yes," I admitted. "There were many times I
felt that, but he always seemed to deal with his
dissatisfaction and go on."
She nodded, smiling.
"That's the strength that comes from our love,
Olivia. I hope you will have it with Samuel. Of
course, you won't have it immediately. It comes with
time, with respect, with the realization that together
you are one in the end."
"I know, Mother. I don't expect more," I said
lowering my head.
"You deserve more," she said. "You've been an
ideal daughter, both to me and your father. He's very,
very proud of you, Olivia," she said, paused, and then
added, "as proud as he would be were you his own
daughter."
I looked up sharply.
"What?" Surely she's has lost her wits now, I
thought. "I am his own daughter."
She shook her head.
"The day you were born, Winston and I made a
vow. It was more his vow than mine."
"What vow?"
"Never to reveal the truth. He swore he could
live with it. I hadn't fallen in love with him yet, but I
don't think I ever loved him more than I did at that
moment."
I shook my head.
"What are you telling me, Mother?"
"You know that your father and I were brought
together by his parents and mine. Our lives were more
or less planned by other people. I didn't think I could
live with him, much less love him. There was
someone else, someone not half as desirable in the
eyes of my parents, a young man, a fisherman who
worked for your grandfather and your father. Now,"
she said looking off, "he seems like a dream to me,
nothing more."
I thought my heart had fallen into my stomach.
My chest felt that empty and cold. I shook my head. The room began to spin so I closed my eyes and
breathed deeply.
"Don't hate me. Don't hate anyone," Mother
said, almost in a whisper now. She was getting very
tired.
"I don't understand what you're saying,
Mother."
"You don't want to understand, Olivia. You're
acting like me again. While I was engaged to your
father, I still saw this young man. We were intimate
and I became pregnant right before my wedding. Your
father knew. My fisherman left and Winston and I
were married. My fisherman wasn't the sort who stood
by his actions anyway. He was a drifter, a free soul,
handsome and as harmonious as a songbird. His laugh
was like a melody to me. Sometimes now, I think he
wasn't real. I think maybe I did imagine him. Maybe it
was all a fantasy. That's how you know me best,
pretending," she said. "Well that was the old me; the
new me must strip away the lies and stand naked with
the truth.
"I thought about dying without telling you. I
asked myself what good will it do? You might have a
terrible reaction, hate me, love your father less, hate
your sister, but then I kept returning to the realization that I was going to stand before the great Judge and without a clear conscience, without relieving myself of the guilt, I would not be able to raise my eyes and look into His. So, maybe I'm doing this for selfish reasons, Olivia. Forgive me and please, please don't hate me. I'm a frightened woman who is trying to get
strong enough for what is to come."
I simply stared at her. So this was why my
father forgave my sister so easily, why he cared more
about her future than he did about mine, why he had
tried to get her married and secure first. This
explained the aloofness, the gap, the slight formality I
always sensed between myself and him.
I went from shock to anger and rage and then to
simple resignation. What could I do about any of it
now? How could I be angry at my mother when she
was at death's doorway? I did feel a surge of
resentment for Belinda, a jealousy I never imagined,
but I had no time for it now, no time to feel sorry for
myself, no time to rant and rave, no time to confront
Mother and Father and berate them for living a lie and
for betraying me and forcing me to live the same lie. "Winston never loved you less, Olivia. He
decided he would think of you as his own and he
never faltered. I swear to you. He never once brought this up or threw it back at me. Your father, the man you respect for being coldly realistic and strong never gave up the illusion. He accepted what was and made it his reality and mine and I love him more for it. Please, please love him more, too," she pleaded. "Say
something, Olivia."
I shook my head.
"It's so much to take in at once, Mother." "I know, but I'm going to ask you to make a
promise to me on my death bed, Olivia. Promise me
you will never tell anyone, never tell Belinda, and
never tell your father what I have told you. It's the last
thing I will ever ask of you," she said. "Will you,
promise? Please."
I closed my eyes. It was like swallowing down
the truth and burying it inside me.
"I promise," I said.
"And you never lie," she reminded me. She
smiled and with all her remaining strength, sat up to
reach for me.
I hugged her and she put her arms around me as
firmly as her weak arms would permit. I held her
longer than I had expected, held her as if I were
holding onto her for dear life. She kissed me on the
cheek and closed her eyes.
I lowered her back to her pillow. She smiled
again and reached up to take my hand.
"I've made myself a bit tired. just rest, but wake
me when your father comes home. I want to celebrate
your engagement to Samuel with him," she said. Her
hand softened and fell back to the bed like a small
sparrow losing the power of flight.
I fixed her blanket so she was comfortable and
then stood there looking down at her. She seemed to
diminish right before my eyes, shrink into a little girl.
I left her sleeping, her mind surely filled with
lollipops and candy canes.
I didn't remember walking across the hallway to
my room. It was as if I had drifted on a black cloud.
Suddenly, I stood before my vanity mirror and looked
at my face, laughing at myself now for the
resemblances I had once imagined I had to my father.
Lies and deceptions were truly brothers born from the
same desperate need to survive in a world filled with
entrapments, most of which we created for ourselves
out of our own lusts and fantasies. What a fool you've
been, Olivia Gordon. The lesson was clear. Survival
was more important than honesty.
Honesty was perhaps the greatest luxury of all,
and those who could afford it, who could house it and wear it and walk with it were the really blessed people in this place we called our home. They were never
afraid to speak, to be heard.
The rest of us? The rest of us had nothing but
muted voices.

9
A Turn
for the Worse
.
Daddy put on an Academy Award performance

when he returned and I showed him the engagement ring. Of course, I was tempted to shatter the illusion of surprise about my engagement and tell him I knew that he had already known Samuel's intention, that I knew he had been part of the planning, but with Mother dying in the room upstairs, we so needed some good news. I decided I would join him in the world of make-believe. We were a family out to sea, grasping desperately for a life raft of hope. As for the revelations Mother had told me, I was determined that for now and perhaps forever, I would keep them well hidden inside me. Daddy would never look at my face and see what I knew.

"I'm very happy for you, dear," he said. "I'm happy for all of us. It's a perfect union. You'll be happy together and we'll build something profitable. The bottom line is marriage can be a sensible partnership, too."