The Legacy of Eden (10 page)

We did not understand then, the power such an action has. We shed our blood on Aurelia, willingly, to claim it, to be part of it, just like our grandmother: yield for us and we are yours. And so we are tied to Aurelia and to each other until the day we die. Somehow when I think of that, despite a sliver of horror, I feel less alone.

My childhood was filled with stories of my father. My mother focused on telling them to me in particular because I was only seven when he died. So whatever we were doing, no matter how small or banal, she would try and find a way of twisting the conversation to incorporate some story about my father and his life. This was a few years after his death, when she could finally mention his name.

Those stories were, of course, ones he told my mother himself, though in time I would come to know much of the truth behind my father’s memories, from a completely different source. My father was an incredibly intuitive man, observing and detecting all the unsaid things that hung in the air of his memories while growing up on the farm, storing them in hidden vaults until a later time when he could draw them out and reminisce about them. He was a man who lived inside his imagination and memory.

This made sense when people described him as a child. Theo was a golden boy: he had curly blond locks and milk-and-honey cheeks, but it was his temper that set him apart. While Julia was an extrovert and Ethan a simmering cauldron of emotions that always got the better of him, my father was temperate, placid—in short, exactly like his father.

To say that he was Cal’s favorite would be going too far, because Cal spoiled and indulged Julia far more than he ever did the boys, but my father and he shared a quiet bond of kinship, the like of which he never had with his other children. Whether it be the way they both cocked their heads to the left as they sat and watched
Dragnet,
or the way they both walked, arms swinging, their bodies springing from hip to hip. Theo was Cal’s boy and so, in contrast—maybe even because of it—Ethan became Lavinia’s.

My uncle and his mother would come to share a complicated relationship, the seeds of which were sown in his youth. Lavinia poured all her energies into her eldest child. She watched him, she analyzed him; she questioned and prodded him so much that in the end she came to know him better than anyone, better even than he knew himself. One day when she had mused over the choice of colors he had used in a drawing he made her, Piper had snapped at her and said, “Jesus, Lavinia, they were the only crayons left in the box, that’s all.”

Piper thwarted her in every way she could. She was always encouraging the children to run off and play together away from the watchful eye of their mother. Lavinia recognized her attempts to undermine her and complained to Cal, who, naturally seeing nothing wrong with the notion of kids playing alone, lamented his curse that with two boys in the house he was still beset by the constant problems of women.

Almost as soon as they arrived, the children became a battlefield between Piper and Lavinia. Piper observed the way she made factions between them: her constant eye on Ethan, her dismissal of Julia, and she believed herself to be a neutral party, pouring balm on the oil fires their mother created. She saw the way Lavinia watched Cal and Julia together and her increasing irritation at the child’s hold over her father, which caused her to push Ethan to try and be the same, but the boy just didn’t have it in him. A solitary and thoughtful creature, Ethan was an introvert, constantly absorbing everything about him in such a way that he was perpetually affected by every aspect of his environment. It was a trait Lavinia preyed on. But Julia was different. She grew into a hedonistic, savvy creature, already aware of the ways in which to manipulate and control the men around her, beginning with her father and brothers. Perhaps you may have thought Lavinia would have seen in her more of the prodigal elements that could be molded into her own likeness. But this was the problem. The likeness between the two of them was too striking and she soon saw her stepdaughter as less of a child, and more of a rival.

The feeling was more than mutual. My father often said that his childhood was beset by arguments between his sister and his mother with Piper or Cal acting as an intermediary. They were at constant war and what my grandfather failed or refused to realize was that he was the battleground. In the end, it was Julia who took home more victories than my grandmother. She had only to wrap her arms about his neck and my grandfather would remember his three-year-old daughter in her blood-spattered dress and his mind would twist and turn to find a way to absolve her of whatever infractions she had been accused of.

It took several years, but eventually Lavinia learned her lesson. When she heard the way her husband talked of the impact of the death of his first wife and his relief that his daughter had been spared, she realized that direct confrontation with her stepdaughter would always be to no avail. No matter what, her husband would always take her side because for him, time had stopped in a hospital ward in Oregon. She watched over her sons and the farm and whenever she thought of their future and the land, a sharp thorn of remembrance pierced her reverie as she heard Julia’s singsong voice carry out of the windows toward her. No matter that she was Cal’s wife, or that she had given him two sons, she could not deny the unassailable fact that Julia was not only his firstborn, but that she had also faced death and survived. That one act held her above everything, even her clutches, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Never was this fact made clearer than when Julia became a teenager. Once, the family had traveled to the Iowa State Fair. It was 1955 and Julia was thirteen years old. A huge attraction, it covered about four hundred flat acres of wooden campsites littered with people, farmers, produce, food stalls and rides. It was a great place for families and even more so for farmers. With its huge emphasis on all things grown and reared, farmers from all over the state came to show off wares, make business deals and forge new connections with suppliers. That was why my grandfather went, but the rides and contests meant that the whole family could enjoy it, too. I would be taken along to these often as a young girl.

My father said that his favorite thing at the fair had been the butter cow. Every year they would produce a cow sculpted from butter like some latter-day version of the golden calf. My father would reach out his hand and try to stroke the smoothness of its skin before his mother caught him and smacked it back.

At some point after they had eaten, my grandfather had gone off to meet a supplier who’d recently advertised their new business. There was a talent contest later that afternoon and Julia had wanted to sing in it. My grandmother had rolled her eyes at this, but as usual Cal hadn’t noticed and had promised to be back in time for it. Besides he wanted to enter the arm-wrestling contest himself, he’d said with a smile before challenging Theo to an arm wrestle in midair. My father had grappled with his father, laughing as he tested his strength with his idol. His mother was less than impressed. She soon took him and his brother by the hand and kissed Cal goodbye, while Piper listened to Julia jabber excitedly over what song she thought she should sing.

As they wandered about the fair and saw the largest rabbit and the sheep shearing race, Julia continued to dance around them, her arms splayed, her voice strangling Patsy Cline in a timbre that lacerated at the tight bonds of self-control protecting her stepmother. Lavinia held on to her sons and sucked in her cheeks, but her eyes still found the figure of her preening stepdaughter nonetheless. At one point, as Julia half pirouetted in the air in front of her, her stepmother could no longer resist her near murderous impulses. Lavinia felt her self-control snap and grabbed Julia, pinching her underarm violently between her finger and thumb.

“At least attempt to conduct yourself like a young lady,” she spat.

Julia rubbed her arm and, staring over her shoulder, narrowed her eyes and mouthed the word
bitch
.

My father said that before he knew it his mother had smacked his sister with such ferocity, the ringing clap brought the people near them up short. Julia, who had been preening at the time and unaware of what was coming, had overbalanced and gone sprawling to the floor. She looked up at her stepmother in a mixture of shock and alarm before a glimmer of triumph raced across her features, for what she saw in front of her was a trembling tower of unbridled fury.

She screamed, raised an accusing finger at her stepmother and said, “She hit me! She always hits me! I didn’t do anything. What did I do to you?!”

Lavinia swept down and grabbed the girl to haul her up, her nails digging into the pink flesh of Julia’s upper arm so that she buckled and twisted in pain.

Piper came running. She had been lagging behind with Ethan, but at the commotion and Julia’s screams she was behind Lavinia in an instant. She wrestled the girl’s arm from her stepmother and as Julia crumpled back to the floor crying and twisting her arm in her hands as she doubled over, Piper stared at my grandmother with a mixture of fury and fear. Lavinia looked down at the child with a seething hatred that seemed to have burst its banks and was now coursing through her with heat. Her skin began to flame and her temples throbbed. She could not control it, she could not mask it—she looked at the girl and in her mind she knew she could not stand her; she could not wish her anything but harm. She knew then that this girl was perhaps the greatest enemy of her life and try as she might she could only see her childish form as a disguise, not an excuse.

It was the first and last time she ever lost her composure in public and it was also the last time she ever allowed anyone to know the strength of her feelings. She saw Piper inspect Julia for bruising and as she gently moved her arms, she found the small red half moons where Lavinia’s nails had dug into the skin. She helped Julia to her feet and they both stood there, accusations flying from their eyes.

What did my grandmother do? What could she do? She fled.

She said she must have walked the whole length of the fair but she didn’t see anything. She was afraid of Cal’s reaction and there was nothing she could say that could justify her behavior in order to abate it. She remembered the time in his truck when she had still been married to Lou, and how she had walked along the dirt road holding her hand to her lip feeling the same isolation, the same confusion, but this time without the bolt of inspiration that had made it bearable. And then she remembered her sons.

She knew where they would be. An hour later, she found them at the singing contest just as Julia was midway through her performance. She watched the infectious excitement in the girl’s movements and how she played to the crowd, and she saw the waves of pride and amusement run through her husband’s features. She came to stand by him and when he saw her he did not inquire where she had been, but put his arm around her and drew her in close so that in appearance, they looked just like the doting parents he believed them to be.

Julia didn’t win, but afterward Cal took her to one of the stalls and bought her a whole box of caramels, her favorite. Lavinia watched them, waiting for the storm to come, but it didn’t. Piper said nothing, though she refused to meet her eye, and the boys were lost in their own amusements. In the car Julia appeared to be normal as she licked her fingers happily as she ate the caramels, and everyone but her stepmother talked about what they had seen and done at the fair and how much they’d liked it.

Because they’d eaten so much they only had a light supper and as they’d done so much walking the children went to bed early. As Lavinia came up to say good-night, she hesitated outside Julia’s room. The door was slightly ajar, and she could see that the child’s small bedside light was on. Cal had bought Julia a small gramophone for Christmas and it was playing a Bill Haley record. Gingerly, Lavinia opened the door and went inside. Julia was lying in bed, the covers pulled down, her washed hair wrapped up in a towel. She saw her stepmother in the doorway and pulled the needle from the record so that the music was scratched into silence. Julia beckoned to Lavinia to come closer and, casting a quick glance over her shoulder, Lavinia did so.

In a small voice Julia said, “I just wanted you to know, that I made Auntie swear not to tell and neither will I.” She paused, watching her stepmother for effect. Lavinia willed her face to show nothing. Julia frowned and then continued. “I won’t ever tell Pa what you did.”

Here is where the discrepancy lies. Julia would later say that she meant it. That this was her way of making a peace offering, holding out the proverbial olive branch. She was only a kid she’d say, how could she have had any malicious intent? But Lavinia would feel differently. To her this was the child’s way of throwing down the gauntlet; letting her know that it was she who had the power.

My father believed his sister. He said that by the time they could recount this memory too much had been done by either side for them to think straight, but to his mind Julia was never clever enough to be that calculating. When he said this to my grandmother, she gave a little smile and simply replied, “The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince people he didn’t exist.”

Years later when she was forced to tell me about her life, my grandmother made a confession to me. What she said was this:

“I would not have done anything differently, you know? Not really. It all had to be done for the good of the family even if they couldn’t see it at the time, but I could. I always could. I don’t regret anything and even the things I might have cause to regret I was proven to be right in all along.”