“Probably because I just had a hard time being around Virginia. It always hurt to know what she did.”
Vicki was shocked.
“You mean before his brain tumor? Are you talking about how Mom accused him of sleeping around?”
“I don’t know anything about that….. It’s about a far more serious secret.” Faye was very matter-of-fact.
Vicki took Faye by the arm. “Please don’t be so mysterious. Tell me more.”
“I live in Dallas. I’d be happy to see you,” Faye said. She handed Vicki a personalized, embossed card with her name and phone number.
“OK. I’ll call you. It’s so good to meet you, finally.” Vicki was curious. A far more serious secret…hmmm.
Iris asked the family if they could gather together and take a photo outside the cemetery. “It’s too bad Mary’s having a baby today,” Richard said, “she won’t be in the picture.”
“Mary gave me remarks to make at the dinner reception,” Joe said. “She knew the baby was coming about this time. We’ll have to have a toast to the new little guy.”
“Guy?” Bits asked with an arched eyebrow.
“I’m assuming it’s a boy so Mary can name it after VF,” Joe answered.
As he jostled for a space among his siblings, Hap noticed the critters crawling all over people’s shoes. “Good night, nurse! Look at all the fire ants.”
Virginia stood talking with her Wild Women friends, and waited for the limo. “No. No picture for me,” she motioned with her hand.
* * *
Both Vicki and Iris had otherworldly experiences of “seeing” their father after his death—either as himself or through reincarnation. When they were children, VF would take everyone who could keep up with him on hikes. “Our family adventures,” he called them. Usually they were campouts in pup tents in the Davis mountains, at Big Bend National Park, or hikes in the state parks in the east Texas piney woods. As they hiked he would tell stories of the history of Texas, from the age of dinosaurs to the American Indians.
Often they would find arrowheads. “This one is nearly perfect, just a tiny flaw in the notch here at the bottom. It’s flint. See the markings?” He would hold up the five inch sculpted piece of quartz with its scallops along the edge of the pointed arrow as if it was the finest 10-carat diamond. All of the children would gather around, ewwwing and ahhhing and wishing they had found this valuable weapon. “Now, keep looking. You never know when you’ll find the perfect one.”
He gave all the children an appreciation for the parklands, and especially the hiking trails. His expertise was finding just the right walking stick. It had to be about 4 ½ ft tall and have a notch about 3/4 of the way up on it so a person could hold it just so as she hiked. He would de-nude the walking stick with his pocketknife as they talked in the evening, whittling the bark to make way for a smooth, compliant surface. “This will keep you from having blisters,” he would say.
Less than a year after his death, Vicki was living in Colorado, often hiking up Pike’s Peak. One beautiful morning hiking alone, she saw a man about 100 feet above her with a sweat-rimmed Stetson and a hiking stick. As she hiked faster, and came within fifty yards of the apparition, he turned to her, took off his hat, bowed his head and smiled. Then he disappeared. She nearly sprinted to where he had stood, and looked around. At her feet stood the most perfect arrowhead. As she told her sisters, “I had chills, and at the same time I felt Dad’s calming presence. I picked up the arrowhead and held it, just knowing it was from him, telling me all is well.”
At the same time, Iris was hiking alone in Acadia National Park in Maine. It was a beautiful, crisp September morning. Unlike Vicki, she never used a hiking stick. She thought it slowed her down. She was on her favorite hiking trail called Precipice. The hazardous climb up the iron rungs brought her to the top of the small mountain. She sat down, assumed a meditative pose, and felt the ocean breeze. As she gazed across the Atlantic an eagle soared above and then gracefully landed next to her. He was a magnificent creature. “You’re beautiful,” she told him. He looked at her for a full ten seconds, as if he understood. Iris took his picture. Then he flew a wide circle below her, leaving a feather. She felt comforted.
Later, when Iris returned from her vacation, she had the photo enlarged, framed it tastefully together with the feather and hung it in her home office, a constant reminder of her dad’s deep affection for the outdoors. A calming reminder of the great beyond.
Part II
Chapter Five:
El Rancho Diablo
1995-1996
“How generous of you, Ginny,” Patsy said, using her pet name for Virginia.
Virginia smiled, thinking of how very generous she was. Indeed. Paying for a little déjeuner was nothing.
It was mid-day June 17, 1995 and she and Patsy were sitting at a charming Parisian café sipping café au lait with croissants. The air was thick with French chatter. Bouquets of late springtime flowers blessed every corner of the 1st arrondissement. Virginia had convinced Patsy to accompany her to Paris by paying for first class tickets and accommodations. They were on a mission.
The large box sitting beside Patsy held Dottie, their mutual Wild Woman friend. Or rather Dottie’s ashes. Dottie, whom they both loved for her crazy French ways, had died in a car crash in March. Dottie’s will instructed Virginia to spread her ashes in the Tuileries Garden, near the Jeu de Paume museum.
Virginia trusted Patsy’s judgment and she was glad to share a quiet moment with her. “Ya know, Patsy, I’ve had time to think about what I want to do at Silvercreek. Lots of things are going to change around the homestead. I’m gonna auction the horses and Black Angus cattle, unless you want the pick of the litter.”
“Oh, I think I’ll pass on the Black Angus. I have some suggestions for a better breed. But I’d like to take a look at Thelma, your mare. She’s a beauty.”
“Sure. When we get back you should take her out for a ride.”
Virginia took a deep breath. “I’ve already sold the damned tractor. It was a mess anyway. I deeded VF’s truck to Richard, assuming he gets out of prison soon.”
“Ginny, you didn’t mention he’s in prison.” Patsy was surprised.
“Oh, it’s some trumped up charge. I really don’t understand how he keeps getting himself caught all the time. This time it was for DUI. Two years! Isn’t that just a little bit excessive? Last time it was for some kind of trafficking. I don’t even know what that means. He tells me he likes the attorney I got him. At the rates I pay he better be helpin’ Richard. It’s hard to help him when he’s cooped up all the time. I send him writing materials, books and magazines. I send him money for his commissary. Helter skelter, it’s probably better in there than out here! He gets to read and write.”
Patsy laughed nervously, knowing from friends’ accounts of the Texas prison system that it was definitely not a vacation in those non-air conditioned cells.
“Now I’m awaiting my request from Drippin’s town fathers to re-name the road to the ranch Landry Avenue. I appealed to Governor Ann Richards to come christen the opening of the road when it is re-named. I also bought a custom made golf cart to drive around the ranch.”
“That’s a lot to do in less than a year,” Patsy said, impressed that she had the temerity to contact the governor’s office. “Do you know Governor Richards?”
“Oh, she used to be the social studies teacher at Fulmore Junior High, where some of the kids went to school. I met her several times. Once at the school for a disciplinary meeting involving Hap and spitballs, and then other times during Jake Pickle’s many campaigns. She’s a hot ticket.”
Patsy absorbed the information, thinking how mysterious Virginia was.
“You’re right, Patsy, I have been busy,” Virginia said, “I decided the oldest, Vicki, should leave Colorado and come live in the smaller, redecorated house here at the ranch. I gave her a
n offer she couldn’t refuse. She can have her spa and all.”
As Virginia reminisced about all she had accomplished, Patsy re-focused on their final caper before leaving Paris.
“Ginny, I’ve mapped out the Tuileries and it’s a big place. I think we need to find an icon of some sort and leave the ashes there.”
“We’re gonna spread Dottie’s ashes, Patsy. We don’t leave the box there.”
“No, of course not. I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, sure you didn’t. How about the Arc de Triomphe? I love that monument.”
And so it was settled. Stealthily, at five a.m. on June 19, 1995, two older ladies took turns spreading Dottie’s ashes around the Arc de Triomphe, then spent the rest of their two-week vacation in sidewalk cafés imbibing bubbly and gossiping.
* * *
Ten months later, Virginia smiled and said aloud, “Oh, Dottie! Every time I see this beautiful pen, I think of you and Pair-ee!” She gracefully picked up the slim Mont Blanc pen, and considered what the future held.
She sat at her inlaid teak desk with its cubbies for papers and classically appointed drawers with separators for pens, stationery of various sizes, paperclips, and stamps. I’m a letter writer and I need my special desk she had thought when she purchased it, justifying its five-figure price tag.
It was early afternoon on a beautiful March day, 1996. The bluebonnets, the Texas state flower, were abundant this year. A large crystal vase full of the lupines graced her desk. She could look out past the furniture, through the floor to ceiling windows, across to the fields smothered in them, her new herd grazing on golden sorghum within the carpet of wild blue.
It had been a year and a half since she laid VF in his grave.
Today was a day to bury the past and make plans for the future. Her friends said she needed a clean slate and she listened. She had just attended a weeklong bereavement session at Cedarbrake, a Catholic retreat center.
“I am closing another chapter of my life,” she said coyly to Father O’Keefe and the rest of the participants, as the retreat wrapped up. Ten adults were sitting outside in a circle, offering their gratitude for what they had learned about themselves. She continued, “for the first time in my life my decisions will be entirely my own, with the help of a stronger force that we call God. I will do my best to make my family and friends, both here and in heaven, proud of me for being able to be there for them in time of need.” She was saying what she felt people wanted to hear.
“Thank you, Father, and your staff for making everyone feel so special. When my husband died I was thinking only of myself. It was like I had no feelings. I couldn’t cry. I just saw the relief for my spouse. Here at Cedarbrake people’s stories have brought tears to my eyes, and I feel human again. Now, I can put this part of my life to rest and begin again as a widow until I come to rest someday in the family cemetery at Silvercreek Ranch.”
Old Father O’Keefe was her confessor. He had known her since her conversion to Catholicism when she was only nineteen and anxious to marry that handsome attorney, VF. He was unconvinced that she would be anywhere near her family in their time of need. But he had to hand it to her. Her gift of gratitude sounded genuine.
She was determined to do something with a package of letters she had kept for more than fifty years.
However, there was one in particular that she could not part with. The postmark was October 13, 1941, Abilene, Texas. It was written in pencil.
When she saw the swirly handwriting pangs of guilt gnawed at her.
“Dear Virginia,
I received your letter and sure was glad to hear from you and am sure glad you will get me for Thanksgiving. So I will be home for Thanksgiving and yes, we will have a big time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have been feeling pretty good, but was a little sick and became sicker but stayed only one day. I don’t need any stationery, but need my mother more than anything. And I can’t help but worry and get discouraged and anxious. And I want to be home for Halloween and before cold weather. So I wish you would buy me some Halloween candy and put away so I will have it. And I wish you would bring a camera so I can take some pictures. I will let you know if I need anything. And we’ve sure got a great day today. I miss you, too. Well, I’ve written all I can think of. So good night and take care of yourself. I hope to hear from you soon.
With love,
Evelyn
P.S. I say a prayer for you all. It’s a pretty day.”
Evelyn. Her precious little sister Evie. The letter was written from the Texas State Hospital in Abilene, aka the loony bin. Evie was just 13, five years younger than Virginia. A year earlier she had an epileptic seizure, then another and another until she could not attend school. She was taken to the hospital, examined, tested and told she was untreatable. The doctors suggested the care of the State Hospital since her mother was unequipped to keep her at home and had no resources for a private sanitarium.
Over the next twenty years, Evie endured shock treatments, experimental pharmaceuticals, sexual abuse from her doctor, surgery, teeth extractions, a transfer to the Austin State Hospital and God knows what else.
A hand-coloured photograph accompanied the letter. Virginia remembered the picture. It was taken just days before Evie started first grade. Evie was six, and stood with her arms wrapped around Virginia, smiling with abandon. Her curly blonde hair in ringlets was accented with a satin ribbon, and her million-dollar smile, so loving and tender, was framed with dimples. Virginia held it carefully, looking closely. She’s so beautiful--like a little movie star. She wore an adorable blue sweater with a velvet collar. She was a carbon copy of Jillian!
Two years after Virginia received that letter, VF and Virginia married. It was the beginning of World War II. Virginia begged to have Evie stay with them.
“Remember what we agreed?” VF asked Virginia. “We agreed that our home was our home, no relatives will ever live with us.”
“Yes, Daddy…but,” she said, deferring to his judgment. She called him Daddy even before they were married. She fell into a little girl mode with him, perhaps because she felt he had the good sense to be a daddy.
“But what?” he asked.
“Yes, but they are killing her. She now looks like a zombie, with no teeth, her hair shaved, a string bean of a thing. Daddy, when I pick her up for an hour or two every month she just looks at me with those soulful green eyes and says ‘I just want to be put in the right place in Austin.’ She can’t even eat solid food.”
Her entreaties fell on deaf ears. “Honey, our lives have enough drama, with the war beginning, and my not knowing where the Air Force will ship me or even if I’ll survive…” VF was adamant that their household held enough upheaval without a lunatic living with them. Of course Evie was no lunatic. She was an abused, drugged up epileptic.
Virginia hugged the letter, thinking of the times she would braid Evie’s beautiful long, blonde hair when they were children, and how she lulled baby Evie to sleep in their mahogany rocking chair. They were a pair.
“Oh, Evie, Evie, Evie,” she said aloud. She did not cry.
She thought about the nights Evie endured the loneliness and sheer terror of being in that horrible place. Now, all these years later, at least she was at peace in the south Austin cemetery with their mother.
Another letter from the package stood out for its distinctive penmanship. Written in blue ink pen with crisp, clear small cursive, it was from her father, dated December 28, 1961. His pet name for her was Gingo.
“Dear Gingo,
I assume your mother left a will and hope you girls will equally share. I recall putting $1500 into remodeling the place shortly before your mother and I broke up. Do you suppose there ought to be any chance of my getting that back when the final settlement is made? Understand, dear, it would be entirely voluntary on the part of you girls as you know I have no claim whatsoever. Just re
called that I am getting older all the time and I don’t have as much income….”
Of all the gall, she thought anew. Her mother had died of a brain aneurism and her father never even sent a condolence note. It was he, a city manager and engineer, who had left the family penniless when he divorced her mother, moved to Ohio with his secretary, and remarried.
She wondered why she ever loved her father. True, she had been his favorite. She was so proud of him teaching her to drive when she was twelve. He told her “no one will know you’re underage because you look eighteen, and you carry yourself like a lady.”
She smiled, thinking of that happy memory. Then she recalled how things at home turned ugly when his alcoholism became apparent, with his risk-taking, his cussing, and with Evie’s sickness. He was always working on a scheme. “Big oil,” he would boast, “it’s going to come through.” All the money he earned was gambled away. He was cheating on her mother for years. He never helped the family after the divorce except to bring Virginia to Ohio for visits, which were probably paid for by her stepmother.
He died of colon cancer soon after the letter was written. Good riddance.
It was time for her to focus on this estate. This land and her inheritance.
She drew up a list in her perfect penmanship with the treasured Mont Blanc pen from Dottie.
Meet with attorney to subdivide
Art and music lessons
Re-do the kitchen
Alaska, Hawaii, Yellowstone Park
Ranch hand
The jingle of the phone broke her concentration. It was Bits calling from Canada. “Mom! How are you? How’s the new herd? I’m coming to Austin next week to see you. Will you be around?”
“Bits! I’m happy to hear your voice.” Bits was Virginia’s favorite daughter. They resembled each other and bonded like none of the rest of the siblings. If Virginia had had her way, Bits would have been named Virginia, too. The only reason she named her Elizabeth Taylor Landry was because VF had nearly swooned when he saw National Velvet starring the young Elizabeth Taylor. When he first held his little infant girl in his arms he said, “Her eyes look violet, and she has the deepest, darkest black hair—like that little Elizabeth Taylor. Let’s name her Elizabeth Taylor.” Virginia did not protest. She adored movie stars. Elizabeth Taylor Landry sounded regal. But as soon as Elizabeth was old enough to write her name she stuck to the nickname Bits, which was given to her by Jillian when they were ages three and two, respectively.
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