The Swan House (24 page)

I found Ella Mae in the den, ironing in front of the TV with her back turned to me. I tiptoed away, and that's when I decided to go to Mama's studio. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked down the hall of the west wing with my heart racing. It was somber, almost dark, because all the doors leading to the rooms were shut and there was no window at the end of the hall. I hardly ever went into Mama's studio, and I had no idea what I expected to find.

The door to the studio was shut but not locked. When I pushed it open, it creaked. Then a burst of sunlight rushed upon me. The studio had one wall that was nothing but big wide windows. That made me smile unexpectedly. The room was big and airy and smelled of oil paints, especially after having the door closed for four months.

Several paintings were stashed on shelves; others, unfinished, leaned against chairs and a table. The unfinished self-portrait that had appeared in
LIFE
magazine was still sitting on an easel. I looked away quickly. Another easel held the bare beginnings of an outdoor scene of dogwoods, about to sprout blossoms of pink and white. Except that Mama had never gotten to finish it.

I walked to the window that looked out on the backyard and pressed my nose to the pane, trying to remember something important about this room. I closed my eyes and saw myself pumping my legs, the swing on the hickory tree carrying me higher and higher as I squealed with delight. And Mama was there with her paints and easel and palette. That made me smile again. I had always been happy when Mama was painting.

Then I remembered another day when I was about four or five. Ella Mae must have been sick or tending to a family matter, because she wasn't there. I was home with Mama. She had just put Jimmy down for a nap and she said, “Would you like to come into my
atelier
and watch me work?” She always called her studio her
atelier
and pronounced the word with a delicious French accent.

My eyes got really big and excited, and I just nodded. Mama's
atelier
was off limits to everyone else. We never dared to intrude on her privacy there. Consequently, I had rarely ventured inside. On this day, Mama took my hand and led me in, as if it were a big castle. I was immediately entranced by the smell of the paints and the vivid colors that were splashed on her canvases and all the many different sizes and textures of paintbrushes.

“It smells good in here, Mama. A different kind of good.”

“Mmm, yes, Swannee. Isn't it heavenly? Paints and life and nature. That's what it smells like.”

Daddy and Mama had moved into the house in 1949, right before Jimmy was born. Right away Mama, eight months pregnant, had wanted to set up a place to paint. She had picked her room—in the back right-hand corner of the house with the windows that opened out onto the backyard, giving a view of the flowers and the hickory tree and the green, green grass. And she had Daddy put in enormous glass windows so that light came in from every direction. Her easel was always facing these windows, and usually two or three dirty coffee cups lay around on the floor.

“All you can see is the woods and the yard, everywhere you look!” I had exclaimed in childish wonder.

“There's your swing and the hickory tree. I can sit in here and imagine you swinging every single day.”

“And sometimes I am swinging with Ella Mae and Jimmy, Mama. Sometimes I can look up and see you painting!”

“Look, Swannee, I've set up your own little easel here. You can paint while I paint.”

“Oh, Mama! Thank you!”

Looking back, I can see Mama's idealistic, spontaneous nature taking over and her imagining that I would sit calmly in my little corner and paint. But of course I didn't. I spilled my cup of water and I cried over my first painting and I asked Mama a hundred questions. And I didn't see how nervous she was getting.

“Stop your whining, Swannee! Stop it right now!” she yelled at me finally, just as her mother Mamie often did when she was mad. “If you can't sit still and be quiet and paint, then you'll have to find something else to do and leave me alone. Mama has to work. Do you understand?”

I nodded and bit my lip, unsure of what to do.

“Well, don't stand there like that, Swannee. Go to your room!”

I ran out of the
atelier
and flopped on the bed in my room, which was at the time just down the hall from her studio. I waited for Mama to come and console me, but she never did. A few minutes later, I heard Jimmy starting to wail from the nursery. I tiptoed back to Mama's
atelier
. She was humming happily to herself and painting, oblivious to anything else.

Heart pounding, I approached her easel and squeaked out, “Mama?”

“Swannee! What are you doing out of your room? I told you not to bother me!”

I sniffed. “But, Mama, Jimmy's crying. He's crying really loud.”

“Well, go tell Ella Mae to take care of him!”

“But, Mama, Ella Mae isn't here.”

That seemed to register vaguely, but then she got this nasty, angry look on her face. “Oh, that child! Impossible child!” She pushed her chair back impatiently, and it scraped against the floor and knocked over a half-full cup of coffee. She ran down the hall in those tight pants and ballerina slippers with me following behind.

When she got to the nursery, Jimmy, red-faced and hysterical, stood in his bed whimpering, “Ma, ma, ma . . .” with his little chest heaving up and down. Mama scooped him up, all anger erased momentarily from her face.

“Oh, the poor little boy. Jim, Jim. Now, don't cry. Mama's here with you. Right here.” She rocked him a minute and changed his diaper, but Jimmy was inconsolable. She took him on her hip downstairs into the kitchen, sat him in his high chair, and tried to fix him a bottle or something, but Mama was getting tenser by the minute. And Jimmy kept crying so loud. Wide-eyed, I watched from the door of the kitchen. That's when I realized that Mama didn't know how to fix the bottle. She didn't know what Jimmy had after his nap! But I did.

I ran to the cupboard and grabbed a chair and climbed up, the way I always did with Ella Mae, and got the baby food jars and picked out one for carrots, because Jimmy loved carrots, and a chicken one. “Here, Mama,” I said proudly, handing them to her. “This is what Ella Mae gives Jimmy after his nap.”

She bent down and touched my hair, and there were tears all over her face and she looked kind of scared and wild in her eyes. “Oh, Swannee, sweetheart. I scared you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” She hugged me tight, which made me feel not quite so scared.

Jimmy was still crying. I got his bib, and Mama opened the jars and started feeding him from a way-too-big spoon without even warming the food. So Jimmy spat it all out, and Mama started saying awful things and crying. And I thought she might even hit Jimmy.

So I turned and ran out of the kitchen and out the front door and down the long, long driveway and across the street and ended up breathless in front of Trixie's door. I banged on it, in tears myself, until Trixie's maid Tottie opened the door.

“Mary Swan, dahlin'! What in heaven's sake is the matter?”

“Is Trixie here?”

“She's busy right now, honey chile.”

My bottom lip quivered and I blurted, “But I have to see her! Ella Mae's gone and Jimmy's mad and Mama's crying!”

A moment later, Trixie appeared in her nightshirt with rollers in her hair. “Swannee, what in the world. . . ?”

“Mama's crying and Jimmy's screaming and Ella Mae isn't home.” I was sobbing by then.

In less than a minute Trixie was dressed, with a bandana wrapped around her curlers, and we both ran across the street. When we got to the kitchen, Mama was sitting on the floor bawling right along with Jimmy, and they both had baby food all over them.

Trixie tried to act as if she was laughing, but I could tell she was nervous. “Sheila, for goodness' sake, get up and give me that child.” She turned to me and said, “Swannee, you go on over and play with Lucy and Tottie. You be careful crossing that street, you hear?”

She scooped Jimmy out of the high chair and followed me to the front door, leaving Mama, I guess, crying on the floor. She watched me go back down the driveway and across our wide, calm street, and I felt so thankful that she cared.

That was what I remembered, staring out at the hickory tree, letting my tears well up in my eyes and my heart hurt. That memory was another confirmation that Herbert's accusation and Trixie's confession about Mama were true. But I couldn't bear that squeezing kind of pain, so I turned and left the studio, closing the door behind me.

Rachel rang the doorbell at four-thirty. “You've been crying again,” she stated in her matter-of-fact way.

“I'm sorry I was such a pill last night, Rach. I was so awful.” I started crying again, and Rachel put her arm around my shoulders.

“Quit thinking about it, Swannee. It won't do any good.”

I sniffed and nodded and laid my head on the kitchen table. That's when I saw the note again, the one from Jimmy.

Rachel snatched it up and demanded, “Jimmy's at Andy Bartholomew's? Hmm. Well, it doesn't matter. You've got to call Robbie right now.”

“I can't. I'll die if you make me talk to him. It was the most awful, embarrassing evening of my life. Anyway, look at me. I'm a wreck.”

In response, Rachel got the address book that sat by the phone in the kitchen and started leafing through the pages. “Aha! It's here. Bartholomew.” She picked up the phone and dialed the number and then held out the phone to me. I could hear it ringing.

Mortified, I shot her a hateful look, breathed in deeply, and took the phone out of her hand.

Amazingly, thankfully, it was Robbie who answered. “Hello?”

“Robbie?” My tongue was pasted to the roof of my mouth.

“Yes?”

“Robbie, this is Mary Swan.”

“Mary Swan! Did Jimmy tell you I called? How are you?” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“Okay. Better. Lots better.” This was torture. Rachel glared at me all the while. “Look, um, Robbie. I'm sorry about last night. I . . . I was, well, wretched.”

“Don't worry about it, Mary Swan. It wasn't your fault.”

I chuckled nervously. “Oh yes, it was. No one made me drink all that stuff. Anyway, I'm sorry, and, and I really did have a good time with you, honest . . . until all that stuff about Mama.”

“I'm glad you feel better,” he said, and then there was an awkward pause.

“Well, thanks.”

“Well, bye.”

“Bye.” And I hung up the phone.

“Good, Swannee. I'm proud of you,” Rachel said with a smug smile on her face.

“He hates me. I could hear it in his voice. He thinks I'm out of my mind, just like Mama.” That brought tears again.

But Rachel refused to let me dwell on my misery. “Ridiculous. You can be as mean as you want to Robbie Bartholomew. He's smitten.”

I gave her an incredulous look. “Smitten. Are you crazy?”

“No. I'm smart. And even the biggest dummy there last night could see how he looked at you. Smitten. Too bad you had to pull that drinking spree.”

I started to protest, but she added, “At least you apologized.”

That Robbie Bartholomew could possibly like me, let alone be “smitten,” was beyond my comprehension. Then I thought about the dancing and the silly poem and the way I'd felt when he held my hand. Maybe I was smitten too. Maybe. But mostly I was just completely confused.

Rachel insisted that I get away from my house for a while, so we walked over to hers. I liked Rachel's house. It had that Tudor look, the red and white brick and the dark brown wood interspersed. I think there were five chimneys popping out of the roof and, in the wintertime, it seemed like every room had a fire burning in its own private fireplace. Somehow, even though the rooms were big and the ceilings high, her house had a cozy feeling.

We hopped over the low flagstone wall that sat near the street, instead of taking the driveway on the left, and walked straight up the gentle incline that was her front yard. It was every bit as long and wide as mine, and we loved to sled down it on those rare occasions when Atlanta got half an inch of snow. Today, nothing but the September sun beat down on the grass that was showing signs of thirst in certain dry patches.

“Hello, Mary Swan,” Mrs. Abrams greeted me when we came in the kitchen. She'd obviously just returned from a golf game, because she had on plaid shorts and a polo shirt and golf cleats, and she wore a sun visor over her blond hair. “I heard you all had such fun at the Back-to-School Ball last night.”

I shot Rachel a look that said,
What am I supposed to say?

She filled in the blanks for me. “Yeah, I told Mom about the yummy food and how good the band was. And how you and Robbie danced the night away.”

I smiled sweetly as Rachel handed me a glass of iced tea and pulled me out the kitchen door into her backyard. “Sorry,” she whispered once we were out of her mom's hearing. “I didn't think she'd be back from the golf course yet.”

As I've mentioned before, Rachel didn't have a pool in her backyard, but she had something much better: a stable with five horses and, beyond the stable, a riding ring. I hadn't been riding all summer, despite Rachel's numerous pleas. True to their word, the Abramses had graciously cared for Bonnie all summer long without a word of complaint. But Rachel knew that if she could just get me to the stable, the smell of the horses, the hay and grain, and even the manure would transport me into another world, far away from my personal pity party.

I set down my glass of tea in the tack room where the bridles and saddles hung on wooden racks nailed to the walls, and I breathed in deeply. Then I picked up a currycomb from a bucket filled with brushes and opened the door to my mare's stall.

“Hello there, Bonnie,” I said in a voice I used exclusively for her. She was a big chestnut, over sixteen hands tall, with an off-center star on her forehead and a white ring around her left front fetlock. At that moment, her fiery mane and tail were filled with new shavings. She nickered as I rubbed my hand on her smooth muzzle. “Sorry I've been away so long.”