September Wind (28 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning yet and the children were at each other's throats. Emily stepped from the shower, drying as she rushed into her bedroom. As she pulled on a robe and burst into the hallway, she heard Maria cursing at her brother.

             
Nathan had a world globe tucked under an arm, and he was twisting back and forth so Maria couldn’t take it away.

             
“
Give it to me, you brat!” she screamed, making a dive for him.

             
He shuffled the globe around to his back and grabbed her hair with the other hand.

             
“
Ouch. Let go of me. Ooouch!”

              “
Stop this nonsense, you little animals!” Donald rushed around the corner. He dropped his suitcase, grabbed them each by an arm, and shoved them at Emily.

             
Nathan landed at Emily’s feet as the atlas spun across the floor. He looked up at her through a tuft of dark locks and gave her an impish smile. When she realized he was enjoying himself, she rolled her eyes, hooked an arm around one of his, and pulled him up.

Donald wasn’t amused. “What did I hire you for anyway, young lady?” He picked up his luggage and brushed past her, turning at the stairs. “I’m gone for a few days,” he said, “but I want these...
hooligans
out by the time I get back. You hear?”

“Yes, I’ll talk to them, Mr. Schillings.”

              “
Well, you’d better do some quick talking.” He gave a glaring sweep of the three, reached for his cigarettes and headed down the steps.

             
The children watched him disappear then rolled their eyes over to Emily.

             
She folded her arms and glowered at them. “Well, good morning to you too. Humph. And I expect an apology from the both of you.” She turned then and marched back into her room.

             
“
Gee. What a way to start the morning,” she said, slamming the door.

She looked over to the nightstand cabinet, where the brandy beckoned behind its doors.
No, she wasn’t going to do it
. The bottle was down a fourth and she wanted it to last, save it for more desperate times. From the looks of it, more were sure to come.

Since the day she arrived—and even though she tried—she hadn’t completely gotten over the disappointment that there wasn’t going to be this loving big sister, little brother-sister thing going on between the three of them. Instead, there had been an overwhelming responsibility placed on her shoulders.

              She didn’t mind making sure they did their homework, got to bed on time, or up in the morning, dressed and down to breakfast, their teeth brushed, and then off to class; didn’t mind that is when they didn’t baulk against one thing or another, or start battles that always left her unsettled. What she didn’t like was the discipline, hated it, in fact, because then there was the arguing, saying things she didn’t want to say, hurt feelings, and sour faces. And then to top it off, if they did something wrong, she was at fault as much as they were. She didn’t think it was right to put the burden on her.

             
There had been plenty of resentment too at first. Although as time passed, she came to accept that there was more than just her feelings at stake here. They had lost their mother, for crying out loud. She tried to keep in mind how heartbroken she was when she lost her grandmother, and how hurt and angry she was when Haity died.

             
Life wasn’t exactly a breeze after her soul searching, far from it at times. And when she realized she was desperate for help, she had marched down to the library and found a number of books on child rearing. There she learned that once you lost control of a child they were more apt to take advantage of you. That piece of information came like a revelation to her, and it gave her the courage to put some muscle behind her words, and why she had given them a cold shoulder that morning. Tough love is what they called it.

             
After class, the children went out to the backyard where she was reading.

             
“
Sorry,” Maria said first.

             
“
Sorry,” Nathan mumbled, not quit as enthused.

             
She gave them each a long hard look, sighed, and then smiled. “Thanks for your, you know, little thing there. Say, you guys wanna play a game of basketball?”

             
The children’s eyes popped open. “Yeah…yeah we wanna play.”

             
She set her book aside, leaping to her feet. “Okay then, first one to the court gets the ball.”

             
Nathan was so proud of his skills that she held back on how good she was. Finally, she couldn’t help herself any longer, and as they ended the game, she turned back and swooped in a long shot.

             
“
Wow,” Nathan said, his eyes almost as round as his mouth. “How’d you do that?”

             
She thought about it for a moment and then tossed one a little short.

             
“
Maybe you just need a little more practice,” he said.

             
She chuckled, picked up the ball, and pitched it into his arms. “Maybe, but I’ll never be as good as you are.”

             
Maria gave her a narrow-eyed grin.

             
Emily put a hand on each of their shoulders with a subtle glance of warning to Maria. “Off you go,” she said. “It’s time for your homework.”

* * * *

The children’s tutor, Miss Hutchen, came in three or four days a week. Emily wondered about her sometimes, a slender woman with brown shoulder-length hair, always in heels and suits of tweed, and white cotton blouses. She was friendly enough, the little she spoke to her, but she always seemed in such a rush, off like there was a fire or something just as pressing.

Miss Hutchen made it clear early on when Emily tried to discuss the children with her that
Mr. Schillings
insisted he would be the one to notify if there were any problems. Although from everything Emily had seen, this just didn’t seem like him.

             
In time, she saw a spark of promise brewing behind Miss Hutchen’s eyes. And she began to believe that her distant, if not odd behavior toward her was related to Mr. Schillings’ need to have a constant, and sometimes harsh, control over his household.

             
Emily might have let this realization slip by without notice except for the fact that back home she had been under the thumb of control herself. Yes, it was more intense back then, at least as far as she knew, but it was control nevertheless. It had been sort of like having her mind imprisoned. Like when the men caught her distraught, befuddled and red-eyed from crying. Claude would tell them she’d gotten into mischief, that he’d caught her stealing from him, or that she broke something he needed to punish her for. One time he had gone as far as to break a window on Steven’s pickup and then blamed it on her just to cover up the reason for her tears. A week earlier, she’d cracked a house window; that probably gave him the idea in the first place. She didn’t have a chance in hell of defending herself. The success of Claude’s manipulations was baffling. It seemed she was under the spell of fear and had a hard time defending herself, but it was different now that she was in charge of the children.

Her attitude about her job had changed through the many ups and downs. And yet, there were still days when she made trips up to her room for... well, a drink. It was a simple solution. Alcohol put her into a world of fantasy. Oh, how she loved those fantasies. It made her feel good, helped her to relax, and brought a smile to her face even when things weren’t going so well.

* * * *

After spending so many years scrambling to take care of the men at the break of dawn, it seemed odd having to look for things to do. She felt guilty at first whenever the children were in class and she was free to explore. Although it didn’t stop her from doing just that. Her favorite spot was the wooded area in the back yard. Eventually the guilt subsided and it wasn’t long before she took two or three strolls a day.

Right in the midst of the island of trees was the flower garden where she first met Maria. That’s where she ended up most days, sitting on the bench with her feet up, reading, or sprawled across the grass, looking up at the sky and enjoying the peaceful sounds of the forest. That’s where she felt most at home.

One afternoon, she decided to take a path around the flower garden. She had been out meandering around for a while when she heard Maria talking to someone. She moved closer to the bushes and realized the little girl was visiting what she now thought of as the kneeling tree inside the flower garden.

              “
And God,” the little girl was saying, “I’m still waiting for you to tell me if Mommy is there with you? The Sunday school teacher said all we need to do is to ask, and believe. So all I want is to know if Mommy is up there with you? You can whisper it, if you want.”

             
Emily clamped her hands over her mouth, wanting to say something. Although, what could she say? She didn’t think God was going to whisper anything to Maria. This sad little scene made her angry, and in desperation she looked up into the heavens, clenching a fist.
If you won’t come down and talk to her, will you at least give her... something?

After her prayer, she tried to sneak back to the house, but she ran into Maria anyway. The little girl was dragging her horse behind her, looking distraught.

              “
Hey, Maria. I was just thinking about you,” she said, coming up beside her.

             
“
Really? What about?”

             
“
Well, I just thought I should let you know that... uhm, any time you need to talk to someone, that I’m here to listen.”

             
Maria stopped and glowered up at her. “Where were you just now?”

             
Emily pointed. “Over yonder, a-around there.”

             
“
You heard me in the garden, didn’t you?”

             
“
Uhm... I didn’t intend to. Sorry.”

             
Maria mounted her stick horse and started up the walk again. “Well, don’t tell Father.”

             
“
Of course I won’t,” Emily said, following after her, “but... why not?”

             
“
He doesn’t believe in God.”

             
“
Oh.”

             
“
He made me stop going to Sunday school with one of my friends. Said it was nothing but a fairy-tale.” She stroked the head of her horse then turned to gaze up at Emily. “Do you think it’s a fairy-tale?”

             
“
No... no, I don’t.”

             
“
But... how do you know for sure?”

             
Emily thought for a moment. “Well… See, for a time, I wasn’t so sure. Then I thought about it, questioned everything... probably like you’re doing now. And then one day it all became clear to me.”

             
“
But how? How’d you do it?”

             
“
Oh, I don’t know. It may be a little complicated, especially for someone your age.”

             
“
Tell me, anyway. Please?”

             
Emily knew she had to say something and hoped she wouldn’t mess it up. “Okay. So, it has to do with space and how I came to believe that it never ends. See, I used to spend hours staring up at the sky. I still do sometimes. And then one day I figured that if space never ends… why can’t there be a God who never ends.”

             
Maria wrinkled her nose. “Space’s got to end somewhere.”

             
“
What would be at the end, a wall?”

             
“
Maybe it’s just nothing.”

             
“
But isn’t that what space is? Space is nothing in a sense that it isn’t tangible. And yet, it’s something in a sense that it allows a home for everything that exists. You know what tangible means?”

             
“
Is it... something real, that we can see?”

“Yes, I guess it is. So then it struck me just how... I don’t know, I guess how unique space is. It’s the only thing that exists that can’t change, and yet nothing can exist without space. Space can’t be created, it can’t be destroyed, just filled with everything that exists. The way I see it, everything that comes to an end must change in some form or another. If there was an end to space then it would have to change somehow, but there is nothing to change. And if there was no space, then the universe and everything in it couldn’t exist because there would be no place to put it.” Emily stopped. “That’s probably a lot to take in. But, do you understand a little of what I’m saying?”