Whitefern (11 page)

“We'll hang them on our living-room wall next to the expensive ones we've had in our family for years, Sylvia. Wouldn't you like that?”

She was quiet, thinking, gazing out the window as we drove home.

“Sylvia?”

“The faucet by the washing machine leaks a little,” she said. “Maybe we need a plumber to fix it.”

Was I astonished? Yes. But was I more fearful than surprised? Yes. “I'll look at it,” I said. “Sometimes it's easy to fix.”

She wasn't happy with my answer, but I did get her mind on other things when we arrived at the house and brought her new art supplies up to the cupola. She didn't mention Raymond Hingen again. I thought
she might say something about plumbers and leaks when we sat with Arden at dinner that night. We had prepared a roast chicken with stewed potatoes. He didn't open another bottle of wine or make any nasty remarks. I was anticipating more about the papers Mr. Johnson had sent over with him, but he didn't mention them. Maybe he had asked someone's advice and had been told he'd get more with honey than with vinegar.

At times this evening, he reminded me of the young man who had courted me when I was a young girl. He was so sweet back then, always worried about me. He volunteered to take me on his bike to my piano lessons and was always waiting for me afterward. He was so protective. When I learned that his mother had lost her legs and that her husband had deserted her and Arden, I admired him even more for doing all that he could to make his mother happy. As insulated as I was, it was probably not unexpected that I would fall in love with the first boy who showed me so much attention and concern.

Tonight, he sounded so much like the Arden Lowe I remembered, giving Sylvia more attention than ever. Suddenly, he wasn't upset about spending money on an art teacher for her.

“You do great art without knowing anything about it. Imagine what you will do when you get all these lessons,” he told her. His soft tone brought smiles to her face, even though I didn't think she understood what he was telling her.

Afterward, while she washed the dishes and put
away the food, I complimented him on how nice he was to her at dinner.

He nodded, thinking. “It's important that we bring some happiness back to Whitefern,” he declared. “We have to change the landscape, as they say—as your father would say.”

He poured himself an after-dinner cordial and asked me if I wanted one. I decided I did, and we sat reminiscing about some of the happier times when his mother had first moved in and taken such good care of my father.

“Sometimes you had to remind yourself that she'd had her legs amputated,” I said.

“Yes. She had spirit. I hope I've inherited it.”

“You have.”

He looked at me with the pain of warm memories lost to time in his eyes. Nostalgia is always painful. You realize you can't bring back the smiles and laughter. In our house, reminiscences of past happiness often brought heartache. Sometimes it seemed better to forget them, no matter how wonderful they once were.

“I'm sorry I always talk about it, but we need a child, Audrina. We need someone who will strengthen our bond and give us more purpose in life. And I don't mean to blame anything on you.”

That brought tears to my eyes. “I know,” I said. “I want it as much as you do, if not more, Arden.”

He kissed me. Sylvia came in and stood there looking at us. “I'm going up to finish drawing,” she said.

“Good,” Arden said before I could. We watched her go up the stairs.

That night, we made love more softly and affectionately than we had in years. Maybe he was simply testing his theory that if I welcomed sex, my body wouldn't resist fertilization. Maybe if he showed me true love, he, too, would be more potent.

There was no twisting and jerking me around to make himself more comfortable. There was more concern for my comfort and pleasure. He entered me gracefully and waited for me to accept him and open myself to him. There were kisses and caresses to accompany his strokes. I had that elusive orgasm time after time. He laughed about it and then brought himself to a satisfactory climax. Breathless but happy, we lay there holding hands. I thought he was so different tonight that it was like being married to Dr. Jekyll. I hoped Mr. Hyde was gone forever.

We fell asleep in each other's arms. I didn't even worry about Sylvia. When we woke in the morning, I was expecting him to bring up the paperwork, but he surprised me again by not mentioning it. Like the morning before, he was up early, dressed, and gone before I went to wake Sylvia. I remembered he had said he had a breakfast meeting. He was working hard, I thought. I should be more considerate. I promised myself that I would look at the papers and maybe do what he asked. When would I study to become a broker anyway? Wasn't that too much like a fantasy now? How could I leave Sylvia alone?

I was in such deep thought that I didn't realize for a few moments what Sylvia's still-made bed meant. In a little bit of a panic, I hurried up to the cupola. She
wasn't there, and from what I could see, she hadn't done much more on her baby drawing. I descended and slowly walked to the rocking-chair room. As I'd feared, she was asleep in the chair. She was still dressed in what she had worn to dinner.

“Oh, Sylvia,” I said, and poked her gently.

Her eyes opened, but she didn't look happy to see me.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“The baby isn't a boy, Audrina. The baby is a girl,” she said.

“Okay, Sylvia. You fell asleep here. I'm not happy about that.”

She looked around and then stood up. Still very groggy, she let me lead her back to her room. I pulled back her blanket.

“Maybe you should rest a while longer, Sylvia. You want to be alert for your first art lesson this afternoon, don't you?”

“Yes,” she said.

I helped her take off her dress and then had her crawl into bed and fixed her blanket. I brushed back her hair. Her eyelids fluttered, and she closed them. She was asleep in seconds. I watched her for a while and then went down to have some breakfast and debate with myself about whether I should give in to Arden's demands and get rid of the rocking chair, clear out the room, and maybe even lock the door.

Perhaps he was right about other things concerning Whitefern. Maybe if it had the makeover he had once proposed to my father, things would change
dramatically. When the house you live in is changed, surely you're changed somewhat, too. Why didn't I want to wash away the darkness, brighten the rooms, erase the shadows, and replace the furniture, perhaps going more for a modern decor? We could change the floors, too, sell the rugs, and have most of the rooms tiled. And the kitchen needed new counters and new equipment, too. The stove we were using was the one my grandmother had used.

I couldn't help but recall how adamant Papa had been about not making such changes. He hadn't grown up in this house, but there was something about it that claimed him. Was it simply its history, with its variety of clocks and all its memorabilia? Was it because it held his secrets and still might, secrets he never revealed?

Of course, it wasn't only Papa who had felt something special about Whitefern. When I was no more than seven or eight, I would sit outside on the lawn and admire its grandness. For me, it was always a living thing. As I contemplated some of the changes Arden had been suggesting, I couldn't help being afraid that Whitefern would take some vengeance on us all, the way it had on Aunt Ellsbeth, Billie, and Vera. Maybe it was the wrath of our ancestors who hovered over us in sepia photographs and paintings. Seriously changing Whitefern was almost as blasphemous as disturbing the bones of the dead in ancient graveyards.

Where would the whispers go?

Sylvia surprised me by getting dressed, fixing her
hair, and coming downstairs a little less than an hour later. She said she was hungry and couldn't draw or listen to a teacher if she was thinking about eating.

“We have plenty of time yet, Sylvia. Don't worry,” I said, and fixed her some eggs. She said she wanted to make breakfast for herself, but I told her, “Today, I'll be your cook and waitress. You are the artist. You must be spoiled rotten.”

I then had to go into a long explanation about what being spoiled rotten meant. Afterward, she did go up and repair her room. Later, we had a very light lunch, and then we waited in the living room for Mr. Price. Sylvia had decided she would behave and warm up the biscuits we had when it was time for tea, without complaining that we didn't have chocolate ones.

Mr. Price was at the door just as our clocks, the ones that were accurate, were announcing the hour. Sylvia surprised me again by leaping to her feet and hurrying anxiously to the door. In her confused and simple way of seeing things, I thought she now must believe that Mr. Price's instructions would help her create the right baby on her canvas and thus do what Papa was telling her to do. How long could I keep Mr. Price from realizing what wild thoughts she had?

He was as jolly as ever and eager to begin. I followed them up to the cupola to be sure it all began well. He was happy with what we had bought and set up the first blank sheet on her easel. Sylvia sat in the chair, and he stood next to it with one of the drawing pencils. He glanced at me and began by explaining
what he would teach her first and what was important to a beginning art student.

“I'm an art student,” she said, nodding.

“Yes, you are. And I am, too, Sylvia. We are always learning. I'll learn from you,” he told her.

She looked at me, astounded. I nodded and smiled, which made her even more enthusiastic.

“Here are the lessons I will use,” he continued, now more for my benefit than hers, I thought. “Accuracy of size, how to use basic shapes like circles and squares, contrast and tone, stroke techniques, and pencil techniques.”

She looked at me again.

“Don't worry, Sylvia. Mr. Price will explain everything so you understand.”

He was patient and constantly complimented her. It was going well, I thought. Sylvia was finally doing something that would give her some self-confidence. I told them I would wait downstairs and have some tea and biscuits ready before he left.

“How kind,” he said. “I do love your biscuits.”

“Sylvia makes them all the time now,” I said.

She was beaming with pride.

I watched for a few more minutes and then went downstairs. While I waited, I read the papers Mr. Johnson had sent home with Arden. There was no question about the end result once I signed them. Arden would have complete control of everything, even of the disposition of Whitefern, because it had been added as a company asset. If Arden made tragic mistakes, the house itself could fall into jeopardy. I
knew enough about business to predict that he would leverage it to raise more money to invest in the stock market.

I would never sign this, I thought. It might bring our truce and tender loving to a quick end, but it truly was as though Papa were standing right behind me and reading over my shoulder. I could hear him whisper.
Don't do it, Audrina. Don't sign those papers.

“Don't worry, Papa,” I whispered back. “I won't.”

I smiled, thinking that I should never criticize Sylvia for imagining that Papa was still here.

Maybe we were both still children of Whitefern.

Maybe we'd never be anything else.

Awakenings

Arden's upbeat temperament was unchanged for the remainder of the week. He came home from work happy and excited about the successes he was having in the stock market and the compliments he was getting from clients. He practically bounced when he walked and always charged up the stairway with a show of energy that brought smiles to both Sylvia and me. We could hear him singing upstairs while he showered and changed his clothes.

At dinner, he would go on and on about the maneuvers he had made and how brilliantly they had turned out. I had never heard Papa brag as much about his business achievements. Although he'd enjoyed making money, especially after failing so much in the beginning, he never seemed to have Arden's passion for it. Perhaps it was because Arden was younger and was surprising himself with his success, or maybe he thought it was important to impress me.

The pleasure he was getting at work spilled over into everything we were doing at home. According to Arden, our dinners had never been as good as they
suddenly seemed to him, especially some of the new recipes I had found. He used to accuse me of experimenting on him and complain about being a guinea pig, but now he even complimented Sylvia on her contribution to our dinners, even if it was something as simple as whipping up mashed potatoes or chopping onions.

He would even pause once in a while, look around, and tell me the house had never looked as well kept. I waited for the inevitable suggestion that it would look far better if we got rid of the old furniture and redecorated, but he didn't say that. He didn't even suggest it by harping on the threadbare rugs.

Any compliment he gave me he shared with Sylvia. Through the years, especially before Papa died, he would avoid looking at her and never spoke directly to her, only about her. According to him now, Sylvia was surprisingly bright, even funny. Sometimes he even gave her a hug and kissed her on the forehead when he came home at the end of the work day.

“How are my women?” he would cry, and Sylvia would look so pleased. “My beautiful women.” It didn't sound at all like a false compliment, and truthfully, it couldn't be, for Sylvia was looking more beautiful.

“Those lessons must be doing her a world of good,” he declared one evening at dinner. He gazed across the table at Sylvia, who looked as surprised as I was. “You were very wise to arrange for it, Audrina. What a wonderful mother you would make,” he added, but not with any note of sadness. “Oh, no,” he went on to correct himself. “
Will
make. Won't she, Sylvia?”

“When there is a baby,” Sylvia said, and he laughed.

I had to laugh, too, at how positive she sounded.

“That's right. You can't be a mother unless you have a child,” Arden told her. “You want Audrina to have a child to care for and spoil like you've been spoiled, right?” He looked at me quickly and added, “Any woman as pretty as you two should be spoiled.”

“A baby is coming,” she said.

She looked at me as if she and I shared a secret, but Arden didn't seem to notice that conspiratorial expression. As far as I knew, she had never told him about her drawing, and if she had, he had never mentioned it to me. All he knew was my saying that she had dreamed about it, not that Papa specifically had instructed her to draw a baby as the way to bring a child to Whitefern.

Every time I sat with her and Mr. Price after one of her lessons, I listened carefully to see if she had said anything to give him any idea of why she had been working on a drawing of a baby. Apparently, she hadn't, because he never revealed anything remotely associated with it. He talked about her natural artistic talent and praised her for how quickly she grasped visual concepts. I went up to watch every lesson for the first week and a half and saw that he was right. He didn't have to show Sylvia something more than once. How I wished Papa had lived to see this. It occurred to me that she really was visually brilliant. How ironic, but how wonderful, I thought.

It had been so long since we had such a pleasant and hopeful atmosphere at Whitefern. I worried that
it wouldn't last. Every night, I anticipated Arden's asking me about the papers, whether I had read them and agreed to sign them, and every night, he surprised me by not making the slightest reference to them. Why had something that was so important to him, something that he was adamant and angry about, drifted away? My suspicious mind began to explore the darkest possibilities. Being leery and apprehensive was not an unexpected feeling in this house. If there was one thing Whitefern was fertile with, it was the dark weeds of human wickedness. After all, I grew up with the admonition never to trust kindness or believe in smiles.

I began to consider possibilities. Would Arden have forged my signature, even my fingerprint, or could he have paid off Mr. Johnson to accept it? He would certainly feel confident that I would never take my own husband to court. I wondered if I should call Mr. Johnson to ask. Would Arden be enraged that I even suggested such a thing, especially if he didn't do what I suspected? I couldn't ask Mr. Johnson not to tell him I had called. Why would he keep my confidence over Arden's? I had met our attorney only a few times at social events in the house, and he had spent very little time talking to me. I had the sense that, like Papa and certainly Arden, he didn't think women were capable of doing well in business or even understanding it.

Could it be that Arden believed that if he didn't bother asking me about the papers for quite a while, I would lose interest in them, too, and whatever he
had done would go unnoticed? I hadn't mentioned anything about my becoming a broker since I had broached the subject the first time. I hadn't even researched what I would have to do to get a license or asked any questions about it, and Arden hadn't brought it up. Maybe he was simply being cautious. Papa used to say, “If you don't ask questions about things that will upset you, you'll never get upset.” He believed that just ignoring something often made it go away. If I remembered his advice, Arden certainly would, for despite how critical he was of Papa, he did respect him when it came to worldly and business knowledge.

Perhaps he was complimenting Sylvia and accepting her being tutored because he believed it meant I would be more involved in her life and, as a result, I would drop the idea of doing anything more than caring for Whitefern, Sylvia, and him. Maybe our lovemaking and talk of a baby were designed to keep me dreaming. As long as I did that, I did nothing to challenge the status quo.

However, the nicer he was to both of us, the guiltier I felt about having any suspicions. I made an effort to put them aside. With Sylvia devoting more and more of her time to her art, I really did have more to do in the house anyway. It took time to get her to prepare herself for instruction, and after the lesson was over, she was too excited to polish furniture or wash a kitchen floor, sometimes even to help with dinner. Whatever assignment Mr. Price gave her for the days in between she took very seriously and devoted all her
energy to it. I didn't have the heart to pull her away for menial work.

Often now, I left her alone in the cupola and did my grocery shopping without her. I knew she didn't hear me say I was leaving; she was concentrating too hard. So I put a note on her door reminding her. I felt less insecure about it, knowing she was too occupied to get into trouble like going out on her own and wandering.

Winter, although it came roaring in like a lion, seemed to have calmed down. We had less snowfall than most years I remembered and fortunately few days of sleet and icy rain. There were delightful sunny days when the air felt crisp and fresh. Occasionally, Sylvia and I took walks, during which she was far more talkative than ever, describing her artwork and what she intended to draw and paint in the future. Before she had begun her lessons, she would never pause in the forest and look at a tree or a bush and tell me that it would look nice in her new picture.

Mr. Price, Sylvia, and I didn't have tea and biscuits after every session, but I saw how well Sylvia was getting along with him. She liked being complimented, and he never stopped giving her praise. I concluded that this was because of his experience with special education students. Who else would have such patience and understanding?

It got so I didn't interrupt the lessons by appearing anymore. Although he never said anything about it, Sylvia did. After one of Mr. Price's visits, she surprised me by telling me it was better when I wasn't looking over her shoulder while she learned and worked.

“Why?” I asked.

“You make me nervous when you're there, Audrina,” she said.

I was speechless. Nervous? Had I used that word enough for her even to understand what it meant?

I told Arden what she had said, and he raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement. “I must say, it's all quite a surprise.” He thought for a moment and then added, “But perhaps a nice surprise.”

I should have thought likewise, but that persistently suspicious mind of mine wouldn't hibernate, not in Whitefern. Sylvia would never before say or do anything even to suggest she didn't want me to be with her or watch her do something. Although seeing her develop some sense of independence should have pleased me, it didn't. Of course, I asked myself, did I want her to be dependent on me forever? Did it make me feel more important? Did it fill my empty moments? Had I used her as an excuse for not pursuing my own ambitions? Was I being unfair to her?

Perhaps it was Arden's continued comments about how Sylvia was changing that kept me wondering about all this. The more he said it, the more I looked at her with unreasonable and unwarranted worry. But I couldn't help it. I told myself that it was a result of my not having a passion for something the way Sylvia did. I was spending too much time thinking about her and not myself. The Vera in me was showing its envious face.

One morning on a day when Sylvia was having a new lesson, I noticed that she was taking extra care
with her appearance. I no longer had to hound her about brushing her hair or wearing clothes that coordinated. Colors had become important, and she wanted to be correct about them. She was even good about the shoes she chose, and she did all of it before I had a chance to tell her or make suggestions. In fact, she was waking up on her own and three mornings in a row was up and dressed before I had arrived at her bedroom. There were times when she showed some interest in wearing a little lipstick and even a little makeup. Now that she was learning about colors and contrast and how important that was in her artwork, I could tell that she was looking at herself and thinking about it more and more. Again, I was surprised to see her do anything about her face without my instruction, but she did, and she did it surprisingly well.

When I mentioned it to Arden, he said, “Why are you surprised? Isn't that all part of art? Women paint their faces. They look in their mirrors and sometimes turn pale, homely mugs into faces a man would at least glance at. Of course, when they wash it off, you'd rather not be there.” Then he leaned over to whisper, “That's why most men like to make love to their wives in the dark.”

Papa would say something like that, I thought. “Then they married them for the wrong reasons,” I countered, irritated.

Of course, he simply laughed and went on reading.

All of this was riling up some unexpected anger and discomfort in me. I marched about the house pouncing on things out of place or anything left on tables.
My intolerance for the smallest imperfections, like a vague stain on the kitchen floor, sent me into a cleaning frenzy, mopping and sweeping while I muttered to myself. I envisioned Aunt Ellsbeth observing and nodding with approval. “Repair, repair, repair!” she would chant. It felt like a whip.

One afternoon nearly a month later, I put on my coat and boots when Sylvia and Mr. Price went upstairs to work. I stepped out of the house and looked at the skeleton forest. I felt I had to have some air. All my worried and jealous thoughts were stifling me in Whitefern. I had no shopping to do, no friend to visit, only the outside world around our home to distract me.

It was a partly cloudy day, with the sun playing hide and seek on the forest pathways. I recalled the first time I had gone through the woods to see the new family that occupied the gardener's cottage. That family was Arden and his mother, Billie. I'd still believed there was a first Audrina back then, and as I snuck away from Whitefern, defying Papa, and ventured into the forest, I'd felt myself grow uneasy. Little butterflies of panic had fluttered in my head, and the warnings I had heard for years seemed to echo now, years later:
It's dangerous and unsafe in the woods. There is death in the woods
.

Once I'd learned what had happened to me in this forest, I understood my innate trepidation. How brave I'd been to go forward when I was so young and had been told so many terrible things. The horrible memories thundered around me, but they were blurry now. No amount of time in the rocking chair would bring
back the gruesome details. It was still frightening, but it was vague.