June 4, 1969
Dear Diary:
The school nurse called my mother and demanded she take me to the doctor to discover the source of my stomach illness. That’s what she called it, but I know the nurse suspected the truth.
The hours of school crawled by the day of my appointment as I contemplated the visit to Dr. Rosenthal and anticipated the cataclysmic nuclear explosion when the doctor broke the bad news to Mother. At least it would save me the trauma of having to inform her myself, though there was no way to avoid having to listen to the woman yell and scream and call me rude names all the way back to the ranch.
The doctor, an elderly specimen who had delivered most of the last two generations of Sweet Creekers, gave me some tests. Mostly he questioned me about my symptoms and asked when I had last had sex as if that were simply expected of every girl over the age of fifteen. Just the idea this doctor thought any boy in town would touch me, let alone have sex with me, made my self-esteem swell a little. Nevertheless, I had decided to play dumb. If I couldn’t tell anyone who the father was, I would just act as though I had no idea how I ever got pregnant.
This, of course, was beyond frustrating for the doctor, infuriating for my hyper-critical mother, and soon became the same for the school principal, the Chief of Police, various clergymen and even the mayor. I flatly denied over and over that I had been raped and was afforded absolutely no privacy in regards to my predicament as rumors of a rapist loose in town spread faster than a grease fire. In practically no time the entire town of Sweet Creek knew the situation of the “poor strange Ross girl.”
That certainly explained the scandal that had darkened the Ross family’s reputation, but I was no closer to knowing the reason Charlotte took her life.
I could see how our local backwoods residents who let fear and superstition override any rational thinking might actually believe that Satan had chosen a friendless “weirdo” to give birth to his son, the Antichrist. Perhaps I could now understand how the scandal rekindled itself when I came to town. After all, that would make me the daughter of the son of the Devil, a grandchild of Satan himself. How does somebody fight that? How could I put an end to ingrained superstitious beliefs? September loomed. High school would be a total nightmare.
If I could reveal who my grandfather really was . . . no. Obviously nobody would believe that, and I wasn’t all that anxious to explore the insides of a mental institution quite yet. I’d have to find another way, or simply endure the craziness. Brad’s life and reputation would crash and burn if he chose to stay with me after school started. Like my dad, I wouldn’t be able to escape Sweet Creek or the Troll until I finished school. I was trapped in Penelope’s hideous web. How in the world had Charlotte coped?
August 24, 1969
Dear Diary:
I knew I would desperately miss Q. I just didn’t know how much or for how long. My dreams are filled with him and the good times we shared. And filled with nightmares, too, about the baby being born deformed because it came from old sperm. Or being born perfect but being snatched away from me because of my age or because I would neither name the father nor admit I’d been raped.
I thought it natural to miss Q for a few weeks, but it’s been three months since I last felt his arms around me and heard him declare his love. I can still see the light in his eyes when he guessed I was with child. I can still feel his joy and surety that now we’d be free to marry and share our lives forever.
The deep depression I feel wraps around me like a black shawl. The pain of not having Q in my life is still rapier-sharp and suffocating. If anything, I miss him more with each passing week, and the temptation to visit the spring gnaws at me. Now, though, I worry about the effects the spring water might have on our child. I can’t risk it.
I think I will miss Q forever. Sometimes it seems certain I will die of loneliness and a broken heart. At least I will have a part of him. The doctor says our baby should come in February of 1970.
The note from Brad in our “mailbox” said he had to see me. Urgently. He would meet me at the log tonight. We needed to talk. That sounded ominous. Maybe Lucas Long Bear, Melinda and her snotty friends, and all the other rumor-mongers in Sweet Creek had finally gotten to him. School was starting soon and he had realized how people would treat him if he was still seeing me. Our relationship would be ending long before I thought it would. Brad Ryland would be breaking up with me tonight.
The hours dragged by the rest of the day, keeping me on the verge of tears. I found it impossible to ignore the butterflies constantly taking flight in my stomach. I yearned to see Brad, to feel his strong arms around me, to find the right words to change his mind. It was no good. I knew what he was going to say. It was over.
Close to eight that evening, I shed my pioneer girl dress for a nice blouse, jeans, and a warm hoodie. The sun was setting earlier now. It would be deep twilight before I arrived at the log. With a heavy heart and a stomach full of knots, I squeezed through the miniature window, perhaps for the last time, and grabbed the same oak branch I always used to start my descent. A cool evening breeze ruffled through my hair. It was dusk already and harder to see, but I’d memorized every inch of the old oak and could have climbed down blindfolded.
The moment my feet hit solid ground a voice spoke out of the gloom.
“An’ where do ya think yer goin’ after ‘lights out, Missy?”
Oh my God. Simon! A swirl of adrenaline set my heart pounding. My knees turned to water.
Chapter 19
At first I couldn’t pick him out of the deep shadows swallowing the last dim grays of light. Then he moved toward me as if materializing out of the wall where the firewood was stacked. My empty stomach flipped over. I hadn’t thought this night could get any worse. I needed an excuse, some plausible explanation for what I could possibly be doing climbing out of my window in jeans and a hoodie at this hour. Not one came to mind.
“Well? I’m waitin’ for an answer, girl. You lie to me, Missy, an’ you’ll spend the rest of this summer up in yonder oven with that window nailed shut.” He jerked a nod at my window.
It wasn’t the threat. I had grown used to them, though this one I believed to be true. It was just that suddenly I was sick of all the half-truths and lies, the sneaking around, the denials. This whole family was hopelessly mired in dark secrets and lies, and I’d had more than my belly full.
I stood straighter. “I’m on my way to meet Brad.” I held my breath, waiting for the explosion.
Simon stuck his thumbs under his suspenders. “I suspicioned that. Seems to me yer pretty good at climbin’ down trees in the half dark. Almost as if you’d done it afore. Almost as if you‘d done perfected it long afore tonight.”
I felt my eyes widen. If he truly suspected that, I’d be in for more than just a grounding.
“Cat got yer tongue, girl? I know yer sneakin’ out a lot. I’ve watched you do it practically ever’ other night ever since I caught you with that boy.”
And he’d never said anything? Or even told the Troll? If he had, I’d have died of old age long before she stopped calling me nasty names and screaming at me. It was true. Simon didn’t miss much. I stared at him, trying to see his eyes and mouth in the dark to give me a clue as to what he was feeling.
“What ya have to say for yerself, little lady?”
I sucked in my breath. “It’s all true. Every bit of it.” I waited for the axe to fall. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go hear Brad break up with me tonight after all.
Simon pulled his thumbs out of his suspenders and walked closer to the oak tree. He put a hand on it and gazed up into the branches. I thought I heard him chuckle. Maybe he chuckled softly. Maybe it was just the breeze rattling the oak leaves.
“Right glad you chose to tell me the truth, Miss Emma. It woulda gone hard on you if’n you’d lied to me. You know, y
ou got me to thinkin’ about what you said about Miss Charlotte after I caught you and an’ that Brad fellow in the woods behind the house. I knowed that Miss Charlotte had no friends. No means of escape with her baby neither, ‘ceptin’ the one she chose in the end. Barring that, she woulda ended up like me, never findin’ love nor marriage, never havin’ a family of her own, trapped on this dyin’ ranch by her mother until Miss Charlotte grew old an’ her heart rusted. I knows how that feels. I plumb missed out on all that in this life. An’ Miss Ross? She done wrapped herself in misery after her husband died when that cable snapped an’ the log pitched ‘round an’ near took his head off. She hoarded that grief an’ despair ‘til it burned into hate an’ fear. Then she done took it out on ever’one. If she’s not in tight control of ever’body an’ ever’thing, she gets scared an’ hateful. T’ain’t yer fault, young’un.”
Simon began to pace between the oak tree and the woodpile. “Never knew how hurt an’ scared my pa was after Mama took off when I was young. I Just knowed I never saw my daddy take a chance on a woman ever again. Cook went into house service at age eighteen an’ stayed so busy keepin’ herself supported she never did find the time to meet a nice young man. She craved havin’ herself a family, but missed out on that too.
“And here be the three of us growin’ old in this dilapidated house, all of us lonely, none of us happy, an’ then along comes you. I’m right glad you did, Miss Emma. You brought yer own kind of sunlight with you an’ sorta waked us up. It finally come to me that we’re all gettin’ in yer way of findin’ the happiness we never had, almost like we’re tryin’ to set you on the path we’ve all traveled, an’ it’s high time we stopped it.”
He quit pacing and approached me.
“Miss Ross drove Charlotte to the noose. Think we all knowed that an’ felt guilty we didn’t try to change things while we had the chance. That old lady purposely took most of Charlotte’s earnin’s so the girl couldn’t save enough to leave. If she’d found a way, which she did in the end, Miss Ross would have been as lonely an’ miserable as she become when Benjamin left at eighteen. An’ now, if she had her way, she’d keep you prisoner here as long as she lives an’ there would be no college nor career or husband an’ no children waitin’ for you down the road neither.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and his tone grew gruff again.
“You might as well use the front door to come an’ go at night from now on, Missy. The old lady won’t never know, and I’d plumb hate myself if’n you broke your neck fallin’ out this dang tree.”
Great. Now I can use the front door like a human and not worry that someone will catch me sneaking out. Just in time for Brad to break it all off.
“Mind you lissen up,” Simon continued. “I want you home by midnight or I’ll skin you two ways from Sunday. Hear, now? You come an’ knock on my front door up to the carriage house to let me know yer home. Got me one of them fancy glowin’ clocks by my bedside, an’ if yer even a minute late, I promise you there’ll be consequences. An’ bye the bye, don’t you never disappoint me with what you do with that Brad or any other male. You’ve got you a good future ahead of you an’ you’ll bollix it up if’n you follow Charlotte’s lead.”
~ ~ ~
In the dark, Brad and I spread the blanket over the yellowing grasses carpeting the banks of Sweet Creek. His face carried an expression of solemn determination that sent the butterflies in my stomach circling into a tight cyclone. Whatever this was about, it couldn’t be good. If, as I expected, the rumors and lies spread about me had finally taken their toll on Brad, I wouldn’t try to talk him out of leaving me. I loved him too much to put him through the hatred and pain I faced when school opened. Life without him would be unendurable, yet seeing him crushed under the steamroller of superstition and fear waiting for me from the town of Sweet Creek would be far worse. He didn’t deserve that. My hands trembled and the tears threatened to spill before he said a word. Couldn’t he just get this over with and take me home?
Brad sat down on the blanket and patted a spot next to him, indicating I should sit there. I sat, uncomfortable at being near enough to feel his body heat. When he told me we were through, I didn’t want to be this close.
“I’ve been thinking,” Brad began.
I braced myself, determined not to be embarrassed by having an hysterical meltdown before he finished. I would stay cool, even if my insides dissolved in the kind of agony I’d endured when my parents died. I’d show him nothing but calmness, as if none of this mattered much to me. I’d be fine without him. At least that’s what I’d let him think.
Brad took a deep breath, as if unsure how to continue the death knell of our relationship. “I’ve been thinking that sometimes the right thing comes along at the wrong time.”
Oh, great. He was going to blame the breakup on bad timing. That way it wouldn’t be his fault.
He turned his lady-killer eyes on me. I shifted my gaze to the blanket and clenched my jaw. Here it comes. Just spit it out, Brad. Make it quick. Don’t torture me by dragging this out.
“I had my whole future planned, y’know?” he continued, turning away again. “I was going to set that football stadium on fire this season, go for broke, do anything I had to do to get the college scouts to notice me. Anything to get a four-year football scholarship. My folks could help out with college tuition and books, but I would rather they save it, use it to help me get though law school. I’ve set my heart on a career in law.”
Yeah. And I was in the way. How could he focus on nailing a football scholarship with me distracting him, right? Good excuse for shaking me loose now so his status and popularity at school wouldn’t be tainted by my presence.
“After law school, after being picked up by a prestigious firm in Portland or San Francisco, then I’d think about finding someone to love if I had the time.”
My stomach felt sick. I wondered if this was how it had gone with Melinda. Had he just chewed out her heart piece by piece like this instead of cutting it out quickly?
What Brad said, much as I hated to admit it, made sense. It was practical, logical, orderly. It had a sensible rhythm to it. The way a perfect life should unfold.
“And you,” he said, turning toward me again. “You have plans too. College for four years, then that two or three years’ worth of graduate schooling to become a Physician’s Assistant. You’re going to have to work to support yourself and pay for college, making it take much longer. You don’t need a guy hanging around, making demands on you.”
I said nothing, trembling all over now with the effort of holding back the tears.
He continued. “That’s what I meant about the right thing coming along at the wrong time. I thought I had everything planned out exactly the way it should happen. I never planned on you.”
I drew up my knees and wrapped my arms around them, holding on tightly to push back the pressure building inside my chest. It proved useless. I managed not to make a sound, but those hated tears began to spill over like hot wet beads tracking down my cold cheeks. In the dark, I knew Brad didn’t notice.
“You’re everything I ever wanted in a woman, Emma. Pretty, smart, strong, ambitious, independent. The problem is we’ve both got long hard years ahead of us if we want to accomplish our goals. Neither of us can afford to put our focus on hold or get sidetracked by anything if we’re going to make it.”
“Stop it, Brad!” I figured on having two or three minutes left before I lost total control. “If you want to go your own way now, just say so. Let me go. You don’t have to say anything else.” I put my forehead on my knees and gave in to my tears.
“Emma? Hey, are you crying? What did I do? Was it something I said?”
Was he kidding? Were all men this clueless, this ham-fisted when it came to women? Did he think all this complicated explaining was going to make this breakup painless for me?
That if I saw the sense in it, I would wonder why we hadn’t done it long ago?
He put his arm around my shaking shoulders and drew me closer. “Honey, I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he whispered. “You didn’t let me finish. What I’m saying is, I don’t care. You’re strong, I’m strong. You’re determined, so am I. If any two people who love each other as much as I love you could stay together and pull this off, it’s us. I’m asking you to marry me, Emma.”
It took a minute for his words to penetrate the nest of misery I’d crawled into. I wiped my nose on my sleeve like the true and graceful lady I am, and raised my head, the last hot tears running down my face.
“Marry you?”
“Not right away, of course. A ways down the line. Once I finish law school and pass the Bar, I could support us and pay for the rest of your education. We could marry then, if we can wait that long, and meanwhile, we can still be together as much as possible. We can do this, Emma. Say yes. The only thing that can distract me enough to fail is worrying about you and being crazy jealous, knowing all the guys you meet will be chasing after you. We can be secretly engaged for now. That way my parents and the Troll don’t freak. Emma, any life without you in it would kill me. What do you say?”
Instead of answering I threw my arms around him and smothered him in kisses. We fell back onto the blanket and for the next while, neither of us noticed how cold the night air had become.
~ ~ ~
I tapped on Simon’s carriage house door at three minutes to midnight before entering the Ross house like an actual person—through the front door. Radiating complete happiness, I climbed the stairs to bed, cradling the secret knowledge that I was engaged to the one man I couldn’t live without.
A Certain Twist in Time Page 17