Sister Golden Hair: A Novel

by Darcey Steinke

  “Did you know in Hyannis Port the Kennedys keep a pony for the children to ride?”

  “I wish we had a pony,” Phillip said.

  Between places, while we were in transit, she always went back to the Kennedys. Once settled in a town she picked a nearby rich family. In Philadelphia it had been the Westerfields. She knew the girls went to Emma Willard for boarding school and that they summered in Lions Head, Maine. She knew that their house had six bedrooms and that each bathroom was fitted with delft tile.

  I was sick of the Westerfields as well as the Kennedys. I had to hear about Caroline, how she had christened the USS John F. Kennedy with her mother, Jackie, how she once received a puppy from Khrushchev and was moving schools from Sacred Heart to Brearley. My mother went on reviewing. John-John had spent the summer on a dude ranch. The Onassis yacht had a hot tub and a steam room. Then, as my dad tapped the brakes and took a left turn onto a road lined with freshly planted pine trees, she turned to new information she’d gotten out of the Roanoke World-News. She’d learned that the Vanhoffs were Roanoke’s first family. Mr. Vanhoff was president of Shenandoah Life Insurance Company. His great-grandfather had been governor. The paper said Mr. Vanhoff had hosted the fund-raising golf tournament at the Roanoke Country Club while Mrs. Vanhoff had taken her children to the family’s vacation compound on a private lake in Michigan. There they raised rabbits and took French lessons. While my mother spoke, I bent my fingers up and back so slowly I was able to slow time down, so the syllables of what she said were so far apart the words were unrecognizable. I imagined that I was one of the astronauts on Apollo 15 landing the Falcon on the Apennine mountain range, taking the lunar rover for a spin on the silent surface of the moon. After trying to catch our eyes in the rearview mirror she realized neither Phillip nor I were going to respond.

  “Here we are!” my dad said as we passed the Bent Tree sign and pulled onto a street lined on either side by two-story duplexes. Twenty-five units climbed up the side of the mountain, each a boxy red-brick building with six front windows, two doors, and tin chimneys like mushrooms springing up from the roof. My dad had made the place sound like a fancy mountain-top resort, the sort of hotel in which the young heroines in the books I read spent their summers. But the duplexes in Bent Tree looked more like army barracks.

  The manager, a short man with a comb-over and a huge set of keys dangling from his belt, was waiting for us. He looked like an even smaller version of Sonny Bono, bereft without his Cher.

  Dad followed the manager into the duplex and we sat in the car waiting. Insects throbbed and a bird shrieked back in the woods. My little brother crawled over the seat and got in Mom’s lap. The top half of each duplex was covered in beige aluminum siding; strips had fallen off here and there, exposing patches of gray cement. Most of the windows were covered with blinds, but a few people had strung sheets over the glass. One showed a Confederate flag. A rusty grill lay on its side and a few motorcycles were parked along the street. In the yard next to our unit was a concrete birdbath.

  As we drove out of Bent Tree, my father told my mother how the woman inside our duplex wouldn’t speak to him or the manager. The manager said Bent Tree’s owner felt once you’d signed the contract, you’d committed yourself to spending at least a year in the development. Still, if an annulment was needed, if we really wanted our deposit back, he would issue us a check. My mother didn’t answer; she just ran her hand through my brother’s hair as he slept on her lap. I kept waiting for Dad to tell us about his plan B but he was quiet. I knew my father wouldn’t get his first check for another week and we were down to our last forty dollars and that the motel room cost $19.95 a night. I knew, too, that we couldn’t go back to Philadelphia; our house held a new family, a young couple with a baby. Once, when a job hadn’t worked out, we’d gone to live with Dad’s parents. Another time we’d stayed with my mother’s sister for a few weeks, but my aunt had made it clear when we left that that would be the last time.

  The sun had gone down and my dad turned on the car headlights. After a while he stopped on the side of the road and spoke to a hitchhiker waiting on the soft shoulder. The man wore a small backpack, a cheesecloth shirt, and jeans with a V cut in the bottom of each leg and a triangle of paisley material sewn in to make the bell swing wide. His curly brown hair fell at his collarbone and he had a mass of freckles. Most thrilling was the string of seeds—Love Beads—around his neck. The young man got into our station wagon. I was all the way in the back lying on my stomach, reading the funny pages of the newspaper with a flashlight. I peered over the seat. My mother had smeared white cream on a rash around my mouth and I was terrified an actual hippie might see my greasy face, or worse, the red dots all over my chin.

  “Hi, everybody!” he said. “My name is Guy.”

  “Where you headed, Guy?” my father asked in the nothing-to-lose voice he always used when talking to hippies.

  “Up to Floyd,” Guy said. Floyd was farther up in the mountains, the place local hippies hung out. I could tell my father was disappointed with Guy’s reply. I knew my father felt if Guy was free enough to be a real hippie, he would march in protests against Vietnam, or head for the Deep South to register black voters. I knew Dad had been sad to miss the fund-raiser that spring for McGovern, the one where James Taylor and Carole King sang.

  “Do you live up there?”

  “Oh no,” Guy said. “I’m just checking it out.”

  Wow! I thought. Guy doesn’t have a home either. But unlike us, he didn’t seem to care; he was living free and easy. Sitting sideways in the backseat, looking out the window, he told us he’d hitched up to Maine, which was crazy beautiful. He was thinking about checking out Japan. A guy he knew was teaching English. My mother pressed her body against the passenger-side door, as if Guy might have head lice. Just before we pulled off the highway we let Guy out. I turned to see him receding in the glow of our headlights. He walked backward carrying a cardboard sign that read: HELLO, FELLOW HUMAN! CAN YOU SPARE A RIDE?

  After Guy was gone, my father talked about life on the road, speculating on the potential for adventure. We could buy a camper and just take off, live in the moment. I knew he was saying this so he wouldn’t have to talk about Bent Tree. Finally he asked my mother what she thought we should do. She didn’t answer. She stared out the window, her lips pressed together.

  Back in the motel room she went into the bathroom to change into her nightgown and take off her makeup. When she came out she flung herself on the bed. At first my dad continued to try to talk to her, saying if the woman—whose name was Miranda—wasn’t out by Sunday, that was it, that was absolutely the cut-off date. Mom didn’t say anything. She just lay on the bed staring at the dull ceiling, her eyes open and empty like a dead person’s.

  After a while Dad gave up trying to talk to her. He got us changed into our pajamas. I heard the television in the room next door and in the parking lot a car door slammed. My brother fell asleep immediately. I pretended to sleep, every now and then letting out a long dramatic breath to prove I was unconscious.

  My mother stood up and walked over to the phone on the dresser beside the television. She had on her mint-green nightgown and she’d taken off her mascara so the skin around her eyes was smudged.

  “I’m going to call my parents and see if I can take the children there.”

  “Don’t do that,” my father said from behind his newspaper.

  She picked up the receiver and put her finger into the plastic dial.

  “I’m sick of this,” she said. “I’m calling right now.”

  “Don’t!” My father lowered the paper.

  My mother pulled the rotary to the end and let it ratchet back.

  He stood up and tried to take the phone from her hand, but she held on so hard the skin over her bones turned white.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, holding the receiver over her head.

  “You’ll feel better when you’re in the duplex,” he said, taking the receiver
from her hand and placing it back into its cradle. “You’re just tired.”

  She let him lead her over to the bed, but when he tried to put his arm around her she shrugged him off and moved back to her earlier position on the far side of the mattress, her face to the wall.

  In the night, when the train whistle woke me, rattling the window beside my bed, I saw through the dark that my mom was still lying on top of the covers, now in her quilted bathrobe, her back to me, her face toward the wall. I thought she was at a 2 moving toward a 1, but then I heard her long, even breaths and realized she’d fallen asleep. My dad was sitting in the vinyl chair by the television. At first I thought he was sleeping too, but then I saw the whites of his eyes gleam in the parking lot light slanting through the break in the curtains. Of course he was worried about my mom, where we’d live, if we had enough money, but I think his grand plan was also failing. He’d given up church stuff, the prayers, the creeds, the vows that he had told me were a waste of time. He didn’t want to dig a channel, he wanted to find the spring and let it flow over us. We were, he had told me with great enthusiasm, in a period of devolution, unlearning what we knew. It seemed crazy to me that my dad was trying to get to a place without maps, or directions. He was tired, confused, despairing. And what if God actually was dead like a lot of people said? Then, rather than finding Him, my Dad was going to have to invent Him all by himself.

  Early in the morning, Dad came in with donuts. He told us he’d already been back up to Bent Tree. Miranda was gone and we could move in. We got dressed and threw everything into our suitcases. On the drive Dad played the radio, and he kept glancing over at my mom in her paisley head scarf and sunglasses.

  “You look like a movie star going incognito,” he told her.

  She turned her head toward him and softened her mouth.

  As we pulled up in front of our duplex, Mr. Ananais, the manager, stood by the curb waiting for us.

  “She’s still in there,” he said. “I had her out earlier this morning but she got spooked and locked herself back in.”

  “Now what?” my mother said.

  “Well,” the manager said hesitantly, “I think if she heard the children’s voices—”

  “No way,” my mother said. “I’m not having my kids exposed to some lunatic.”

  “Come on,” my dad said. “It’s worth a try.”

  “I’m not going,” my mom said, looking straight out the window.

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Phillip.

  Inside the duplex a few boxes were stacked against walls. The floor was covered with mangy gold shag and the walls were white, holes here and there where pictures had hung. The rooms smelled like incense.

  Mr. Ananais led us upstairs, down a short hallway to a closed bedroom door.

  “Miranda,” Mr. Ananais said, “the new tenants are here.”

  Beyond the door, mattress springs released and I heard soft footsteps moving closer. I could hear Miranda breathing against the wood.

  “I’m in a very bad mood,” she said.

  “Do you want me to tell you more stories about my cat?” Mr. Ananais asked.

  Dad looked at me with his eyes wide open. Mr. Ananais was more accommodating to the woman than either of us had expected.

  “Yes,” Miranda said, “that would be nice.”

  “Well my cat, Hector, likes to watch TV. Bonanza is his favorite show. He knows exactly when it comes on each afternoon. If it’s not on, he gets mad and goes to the television and meows until I turn it on. I put a pillow down and he lies with his paws folded in front of him.”

  Mr. Ananais looked at my father, who was flushed and smiling. More than anything else in life, Dad grooved on surreal situations. If my mom had been here, she’d have been whispering that this was crazy.

  “Why don’t you say hello, kids?” Mr. Ananais suggested.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Jesse. I’m twelve . . .”

  What else would she like to know about me? I could tell her how I loved to read or that lavender was my favorite color, but in the end I went with my favorite candy bar.

  “. . . and I love Almond Joy bars . . .”

  “I like fire engines,” Phillip said. “And pizza!”

  There was silence but it had a different texture, more like macramé than leather.

  “Come on, koukla,” Mr. Ananais said. “Remember how we talked about having to call the police? I really don’t want to do that.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No, no, no,” Mr. Ananais said. “But really, what do you want us to do? This nice family wants to move in here, these children need a place to sleep, you can’t just stay locked in there forever.”

  “What if he comes back?”

  “I already told you,” Mr. Ananais said. “His mother says he’s gone to Texas.”

  There was quiet from behind the door.

  “Are you still there?” Mr. Ananais asked.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “Are you coming out?” he asked.

  “Could you sing me a song?” she asked. “I think that would settle my nerves.”

  The only song we all knew was “Jingle Bells,” and before we got through the first verse, our car horn sounded.

  “That’s him!” Miranda screamed.

  Mr. Ananais looked at my father. I knew he was worried that any gains would be lost if Miranda got frightened.

  “We’ll go,” Dad said. “We’ll come back in an hour or so.”

  In the car my mother’s face was fixed in a smile that was not a smile at all. She’d moved over to the driver’s side and before we had our doors shut she took off down the mountain, speeding past the ranch houses in the subdivision below.

  “Getting us killed,” my father said, placing a hand on the dashboard to steady himself, “isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “Is she coming out?”

  “I think so,” my father said. “Though you may have ruined it by laying on the horn.”

  “Now it’s my fault?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  My mom swung around a corner, coming so close to a boxwood hedge that the branches scraped against the side of the car.

  “Remember that guy who came to our door in Philadelphia saying he was a narcoleptic?” my mother said.

  “He was very convincing,” my father said. “He fell asleep several times right in front of me!”

  She pulled onto the highway and sped out toward the interstate. We were going so fast that the buildings and trees melded into one long ribbon, unfurling behind the car.

  “Remember the time you gave a hundred dollars to that slut?”

  “She was a member of the congregation and she was pregnant,” my father said.

  “Remember how you used to go to the loony bin every single Saturday?”

  “I was making pastoral visits.”

  “When you let that drug addict sleep in our guest room he drank all our cough syrup.”

  “For God’s sake slow down,” my dad said.

  “You want me to stop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say please,” she said.

  “Please,” my dad said.

  She hit the brake and we all flew forward, then fell back hard against the seats as she rolled the car onto the shoulder. The tires crunched on the gravel and the fender pressed against a patch of weeds.

  Throwing open the door, my mother stumbled out of the car and started to walk down the side of the highway, her dress whipping around her knees in the wind and the silky tails of her head scarf bobbing. Heat made the air muzzy and thick as if she were going through a time warp, moving away from us into another dimension.

  My dad slipped into the driver’s seat. I made funny faces at Phillip. We were screwing up our mouths and shaking our heads, but when Dad turned around we froze.

  “Your mother’s upset,” he said.

  “Understatement of the universe,” I said.

 
“I want Mommy,” Phillip whined.

  My dad put on the hazards and drove up behind her. He kept so close that I could see the muscles flexing in the backs of her legs. She was pretending to enjoy her little walk along the highway, looking at the weeds in the ditch, glancing up at the hazy sky.

  “Just tell her you’re sorry,” I said. “That’s all she wants to hear.”

  Dad leaned his head out the car window.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “OK? Just please get back in the car.”

  She turned, took off her sunglasses, and looked at us through the windshield. Her face was pink and wet and her eyelids were so swollen she looked like a sea creature. Behind her was a string of fast food restaurants, a McDonald’s followed by the Long John Silver’s and the Hardee’s. Every time a car sped by, her clothes sucked against her body. She stared at us for what seemed like a very long time—at least a million years.

  This is it, I thought, this is when she decides to leave us and start her new life.

  Maybe because Phillip was so much younger, moving didn’t seem to bother him in the least; he loved packing up his toys in his old suitcase, and once we got to Bent Tree he knew how to hang around out front in the mornings, running his remote-control tank up and down the sidewalk, until he attracted a kid his own age.

  At Bent Tree, Eddie was the first kid to come around. Though he was only four, the same age as my brother, he looked like a tiny adult, his white hair cut in a mullet, short in the front and past his shoulders in back. He had a white plastic knife tucked under his belt and a bandolier made of toilet paper rolls attached with electrical tape to his T-shirt.

  My mother was pleased Eddie had come over because she wanted Phillip to stop running in and out of the duplex. All week, while she tried to unpack, he’d been sliding down the banister and jumping off the couch. Mom agreed that Phillip and Eddie could play together in the woods if I walked with them. On the way, Eddie showed us the unit next to ours; it looked OK from the outside, but inside wires hung from all the ceilings. The wood frame next in line was overgrown with weeds. On the lot beyond, the builders had given up completely. There was only a large hole and a few bags of cement ruined by the rain and dried to hard chunks in the sun. Eddie told us that in the spring, rainwater collected at the bottom of the pit and he had caught tadpoles there in a Dixie cup.