Whitefern (6 page)

I didn't want to think about it any more tonight, so I closed my eyes and tried to remember happier times, especially the early days, when Arden was so loving and devoted to me.

I dozed off dreaming about a Christmas dinner when Momma and I put up decorations, but something woke me not more than a half hour later. My eyes just popped open. There was a familiar sound in the house, a sound that belonged in nightmares. I turned slowly toward Arden, but he was dead asleep, breathing heavily with an occasional snore.

I sat up and listened harder. It was there. I was not dreaming or imagining it. The sound was hypnotizing. I didn't need anyone to tell me why. It buzzed in my brain. I rose like a sleepwalker and left the bedroom. I thought the hall lights flickered as if the house was sending warnings:
Stay back. Don't go
. The floor creaked, and the wind seemed to be scrubbing the windows. There were many cracks around frames in this old house. The wind whistled through them. Curtains danced, and above me at one point a chandelier gently swayed.

My heart began to pound. Despite all I had learned about the deception under which I had been raised, I couldn't help imagining that there was a first Audrina. For most of my childhood, I would swear on a stack of
Bibles that she whispered to me whenever I was alone.
Be me. You must be me, or I will be dead forever and ever.

When I told my father about that once, he smiled and kissed me. “Yes,” he said. “That's good. That's what we want. Listen for her always.”

Practically tiptoeing now, I walked toward the first Audrina's room. It would always be called that, and it would never be used, nor would any of the toys and dolls ever be taken out of it. Arden thought that was sick and sometimes ranted about it.

“We could give all that stuff to the children of poor people. We'll make a big thing of it and have the newspapers take pictures. People will commend us for our charity, and guess what, we'll get more clients, more business. That's the reason most people announce their charitable gifts, most companies. They want more business, tit for tat.”

“Just leave it alone,” I warned him. At an earlier time, I would add, “Maybe our daughter will have those things.”

“Daughter?” He shook his head. “Go call Santa Claus and tell him you've been a good little girl. We'll find a baby wrapped in ribbons on Christmas Day.”

When I was just about at the door, I stopped. There was no doubt. I heard the rocking chair rocking. I stepped up and gently opened the door. The sound stopped. I leaned to my left and found the light switch, my heart thumping.

Sylvia looked up at me.

“Sylvia, what are you doing? Why did you come in here? Why are you in the chair?”

She smiled, unafraid, looking at me as though I was the slow-witted sister and not her.

“Papa told me to,” she said. “He said whenever I wanted to talk to him, I should rock in the first Audrina's chair, because that was the way you spoke to the first Audrina.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“I don't know when. I don't have a watch, and calendars are just full of numbers and days and numbers and days.”

“Was this the secret you wouldn't tell me, the secret Papa told you never to tell?”

“Yes, but he said if I came here and rocked in the chair, he would tell me more secrets, Audrina.”

For a moment, standing there and looking at my sister, I thought Arden was probably right. I should have emptied this room. Maybe we could erase the past, if not forever, for years and years, or at least put it so far in the back of our minds it wouldn't ruin our present lives.

“Oh, Sylvia,” I said. “Poor Sylvia. Come back to bed. Come.” I held out my hand.

“You can talk to him, too, Audrina. Just come here and rock,” she said, starting to rise so I could take her place.

“Okay. But it's very late, so not tonight. Please, Sylvia, let's go back to bed.”

“But Papa's still here.”

“He'll always be here, won't he?” I asked.

That pleased her, and, still reluctant, she rose to take my hand. I turned off the light and closed the door behind us.

“Let's try not to wake up Arden,” I warned, afraid she would start talking loudly. “You know how cranky he gets when he's awakened in the middle of the night.”

She nodded. When we were almost to her room, she paused. She seemed very excited. I looked around. What was she seeing or hearing now?

“What is it, Sylvia?”

“I almost forgot to tell you,” she said. “Papa did have a secret for you that I was supposed to tell you.”

“What?” I said, so tired I had only inches of patience left for her.

“He said you'll have a baby, not to worry.”

“What?”

“He didn't say girl or boy, just baby,” she added, and then went into her bedroom.

I followed her, feeling dazed now. I had never mentioned to her that Arden and I had been trying to have a child. She never asked, and she was never in a room when he and I talked about it or my failure to get pregnant. I wasn't confident that she would understand any of the medical information anyway.

I tucked her in and stood there in the dim light spilling through her doorway from the hallway.

“Papa told you I would have a baby?”

“Yes.”

“When, Sylvia? When did he tell you this?”

“Tonight,” she said. “He was here first in my room.
I knew he was here, so I went to the rocking chair because I knew he had a new secret, and he told me,” she said.

“Okay. Just go to sleep now,” I told her. I tucked her in, and she turned onto her side, looking very contented. I stood there looking around her room as if I expected to hear or see something.

I went back to Arden's and my bedroom and paused outside our door. For a few moments, I actually debated with myself about returning to the first Audrina's bedroom and sitting in the rocking chair. Regardless of all I knew, despite how the deceptions were exposed, I couldn't completely disregard the power of the rocking chair. There were too many emotional memories. It called to me, not just tonight but many nights, and in the beginning, after I had learned all the lies, I still wanted to feel its power.

It took a great deal of self-control to push these feelings back, but I was in more of a daze than ever, and when I entered our bedroom, I just sat on the bed for a few moments thinking. Of course Sylvia couldn't have gotten such an idea from the spirit of my father while she rocked in the chair. I tried to be logical and decided that Sylvia was more alert than either of us knew, than anyone knew. She might be sitting and looking at pictures or playing with a puzzle, but she wasn't completely shut off from what people were saying nearby. It was wrong to underestimate her. If anyone should know that, I should.

“What the hell is it?” I heard Arden demand. His shout made me jump. He must have turned, opened
his eyes, and saw me sitting up, or else he had heard me walk out and back in. “What did she do now?”

My immediate thought was
Don't dare mention the rocking chair
.

“She didn't do anything terrible, Arden. She merely had a dream,” I said.

“A dream? Did she scream?”

“A little,” I lied.

“Why does that not surprise me? What was the dream?”

“She dreamed I had a baby,” I said.

“Oh, she did, huh? Well, that should do it. We don't even have to make love. It will be an immaculate conception. We'll call the baby Sylvia's Wish. Go to sleep, or go back to her,” he ordered. “It's the middle of the night. How I do as well as I do under these circumstances is a miracle. Thank goodness I'm dedicated.”

I lay back and pulled the blanket over me.

“Baby.” I heard him rustling about and then heard him whisper, “Okay.”

“What?”

He turned sharply and threw the covers off us as if they were on fire.

“What are you doing?”

“It's baby time. Sylvia has declared it.”

“I don't understand, Arden.”

“Nothing to understand,” he said. “Only to do.”

He reached down and pulled my nightgown up and out of his way, practically tearing it off me. I cried out, but before I could say another word, he scooped
my legs up and pressed his hardness into me, so roughly I lost my breath for a moment. I was shocked at how fast and easily he could be ready. He didn't bother kissing me or touching me tenderly anywhere. Instead, he hovered above me like a hawk, pouncing.

“Baby, baby, baby,” he chanted, as he pushed and prodded, twisting me this way and that so he could be more comfortable. His grunts made it sound like he was lifting a heavy weight. I couldn't stand the sight of him like this and put my hands over my eyes. On he pushed and prodded. I felt like he was tearing me up. The bed sounded like it would crash to the floor. At one point, my head hit the headboard, but he was oblivious to everything but his own animal satisfaction. This wasn't even sex to me; it was anger and revenge.

As so often when we made love, he had his orgasm before I even began to enjoy one, not that I could tonight. It reminded me of our earlier years, even our honeymoon, when he practically raped me because of my fears and hesitation.

“Men will always care more about satisfying themselves than you,” Aunt Ellsbeth had told me time after time. “You've got to train them like circus animals. The best way is to insult them.”

“Insult them? How can you do that and still have them want to make love to you?” I'd asked her.

“You tell them they have too many premature ejaculations. You'll see,” she'd said. “They'll try to prove otherwise, and then you'll enjoy sex.”

I had no idea why she thought I would be making
love to many men. Maybe she thought I would be like Vera, who Arden once told me could go through a college football team in a week. Making love to so many different men in a short time was terrifying to me. It actually made me sick to my stomach. He thought that was funny.

Sometimes I wondered if Arden had really seen what had happened to me in the woods. How could he have seen that and not expected me to have negative feelings when he talked like that about sex? But then why would he confess to his failure to help me and cry about how guilty and small that made him feel?

One night, I'd had a terrifying thought that answered that question. What if he wasn't only a witness? He had never turned in any of the boys' names to the police, and he never even mentioned them now. Was he worried they would turn on him? Thinking of that had made me throw up.

I couldn't depend on my memory to deliver the truth about anything on that horrible afternoon. Faces and voices were forever blurred, so I couldn't identify any of them, either. Even the rocking chair didn't bring it all back, but I wasn't going to complain.

When he was satisfied now, he rolled over and turned his back on me. Then I heard him say, “There. Baby, Sylvia's baby,” and he laughed.

I lay there, still naked, my body smarting from the way he had rubbed and pressed on me. My legs were aching, the insides of my thighs feeling burned.

“Maybe,” I said angrily, “if there was more romance in our lovemaking, it would work, and I would
get pregnant. If you would think of me as more than just a vessel in which to empty yourself, the magic of two people making a child would happen as it is supposed to happen. You once loved me that way, didn't you? Or was that a lie? Or are you going to tell me it has withered like a grape on the vine?”

He didn't answer for so long that I thought he had fallen asleep instantly, but suddenly, he turned on me. “You're absolutely right. Romance comes from love, and love comes from respect and obedience. Your father taught me that,” he added. “He should have taught it to you better.”

I didn't doubt it. How my mother loved my father despite his meanness and selfishness amazed me. When I asked her about it once, she smiled, stroked my hair, and said, “Love is forgiveness, Audrina. That's all it really is, constantly forgiving someone for his weaknesses and hoping that it will bring about some good changes.”

Is that what she would tell me now? I turned my back to Arden and tried to think of good things about him, enough so I could find forgiveness. However, before I fell asleep, I thought I wouldn't even dream of becoming pregnant as a result of this lovemaking. There was no baby on his or her way tonight. Sylvia could rock in that chair until daylight. There would be no magic.

No, as much as I wanted to believe it, Papa wasn't whispering any secrets in Sylvia's ear. What she was hearing were my thoughts. When she was rocking in that chair, she was hearing and seeing my dreams. But
what would come of it? These dreams were like soap bubbles, capturing the rainbow light for seconds and then popping and dropping like tears to the hard, cold reality beneath them.

I think I passed out rather than falling asleep. For the first time in a long time, Arden was up before me, this time so quiet as not to wake me. That was unusual for him. Normally, because he was the one going to work and I was the one staying home, my having a good night's rest wasn't as important. I could always take a nap later, but he couldn't. When I looked at the clock, I was shocked. I couldn't recall when I had slept this late. My exhaustion from his rough lovemaking must be the reason, I thought, and I got up, wondering if Sylvia had gone down for breakfast. I had taught her how to make the coffee, and there were juices and cereals she liked, but I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she had woken, dressed, and gone down without me, and that was over years and years.

Now that I was up and recalled how Arden had attacked me, I decided I had to shower before getting dressed. My body still ached in places, and I found scratches on my thighs where he had seized me, clawing at me to mold me into a position comfortable for him. Just washing my face wasn't going to be enough.