The Umbrella Lady

by V. C. Andrews

  It was about a twelve-year-old girl named Laura who lost her hearing when she was ten because of a serious illness. She had to use sign language and read lips, but she still went to a regular school and had girlfriends and was getting more and more involved with a boy.

  “Most kids today don’t listen to their parents or other adults, anyway,” Mazy muttered as she realized what the show was about. “They might as well be deaf.”

  Although Laura was deaf, no one was permitted to feel sorry for her. As I had when I watched the show back home, I started to practice sign language. Without thinking about it, I mimicked Laura when I knew what she was going to say.

  “That’s a good skill to learn,” Mazy suddenly said. I looked at her, surprised, surprised I had been doing it. “Maybe you’ll work with deaf people someday.”

  She didn’t get up until the show was over and I switched to something she didn’t like, a program about bees.

  “Well,” she said, starting out. “You can watch this show and then go to your room to read. As long as you choose good things and don’t abuse it, I’ll be happy I bought you this for your birthday. We’ll celebrate with the cake tomorrow. I might have something else for you.”

  Really? I thought. Could it be the letter I was waiting to get from Daddy?

  She left me wishing time would rush by.

  Sometimes I wondered if a day in the Umbrella Lady’s house was longer than twenty-four hours, because it seemed to take so long. I had gotten used to looking at clocks now, because so much of what I had to do was governed by time. This hour was set aside for that, and that was set aside for this. I’d move with accuracy to each assignment, afraid that if I didn’t do something right, she’d only make me do it again and then add something else as punishment.

  After dinner the next day, she brought out the cake she had made. During one of our meals together, I had mentioned I liked a vanilla cake with chocolate icing. Mama had made that cake for me for every birthday I could remember. It was one of Daddy’s favorites, too.

  Mazy had the candles ready and lit them. I blew them out, and to my surprise, she sang “Happy Birthday” to me like she really meant it. Then she opened a drawer and handed me a black velvet case. I opened it slowly and saw a pretty watch with a dark-brown leather band. The face of the watch was oval. It didn’t look new.

  “That’s a very special gift for you,” she said. “It was my mother’s watch.”

  I looked up at her, surprised.

  “I know you wished your father had saved your mother’s watch. You told me a few times. Well, that’s a mother’s watch,” she said, nodding. “You can pretend she was yours.”

  I took it out slowly, and she came around to help put it on my wrist. It just fit.

  “You just wind it once a day, and be sure you don’t overwind it. I had it checked by a jeweler a few years ago.”

  I touched it and looked at her. “Thank you, Mazy,” I said.

  “Happy birthday. You’re a good girl,” she said, and shocked me by leaning down to kiss my cheek. “Let’s have some cake.”

  She cut my piece and cut one for herself.

  “When is your birthday?” I asked.

  “Mine was yesterday,” she said.

  I nearly dropped the fork. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe,” she said, “I’ll tell you next year.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Next year?

  I was happy she had given me a watch and a kiss and made my birthday so special, but when she said “next year” so casually, saying it as if I should know I’d be here, I felt an icy surge of fear travel up my stomach and into my chest.

  What made her say such a thing? Had she learned something more about Daddy? How could she even think it, imagine a whole year would go by and I would still be here, waiting for Daddy? What had he told her? Had something serious happened to him? Were there more questions for him to answer back at his new home? A year! Something had to have happened. Did he send another letter, or did he call her? If it was a letter, that letter might have been so terrible that she couldn’t get herself to give it to me. But she had to. It was for me. Did she hide it, rip it up?

  She had just given me a wonderful present. I didn’t want to make her feel like I hated it here, but surely by now, Daddy and I were supposed to be in our new home, and I was supposed to be in a real school, where I could make friends. Next year, I hoped I’d have a real birthday party. Mama had promised me. I didn’t want to believe that I was going to be here another year. When would I have friends?

  “Did my daddy call you and you didn’t tell me? Or did he write another letter?” I asked. “A letter you forgot to give me or read to me or maybe thought was too terrible?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Please, tell me.”

  Her face seemed to swell as it turned apple red. “Tell you? Tell you what? Wouldn’t I tell you if he had called or there was a new letter? Why would I keep any of that secret? That’s not a very nice thing to think about me. And after all the things I’ve done and am doing for you. I’ll tell you what, Saffron, from now on, you be the one who goes out at two o’clock and brings in the mail every day. You can sift through it and look for a letter from your father. Snow, rain, or shine, you be the one,” she said, and quickly walked out of the room and to the stairway.

  She left me trembling.

  The thump of her footsteps on the stairs sounded like Mama’s after she had said something angrily to Daddy and had gone up to her room. Sometimes I would hurry up after her. She would pout, sit, and stare. Even though her eyes were open, she wouldn’t see me. She wouldn’t hear me, either. I would feel how much my body wanted to be next to hers, how much I wanted to feel her arms around me as I cuddled my head on her shoulder and fell asleep. I was afraid to touch her when she sat looking so frozen. Tears wanted to stream out of my eyes, but I would force them back. They fell inside me. Mama wouldn’t see; she wouldn’t know how frightened and alone she made me feel.

  I felt like that now, felt as alone as I had felt when I was on that bench at the train station.

  Mr. Pebbles was looking at me as if he was waiting to see what I would do about it. I was caught between feeling frightened and feeling guilty. I decided to sit in the kitchen and wait a while, hoping she would come back down and tell me everything was all right. She didn’t mean to shout at me. She just lost her temper a little. I shouldn’t worry. I didn’t really have to get the mail every day.

  But she didn’t come back downstairs. The clock ticked. It seemed to be getting louder and louder every passing minute. Otherwise, the house was silent. No sounds came in from the outside. There were snow flurries rushing across the kitchen window, and since we were on a cul-de-sac, there was rarely the sound of a car. We might as well be on a street where there were no other houses or people. I had no one else but the Umbrella Lady. For a little while, when we were celebrating my birthday, that didn’t seem to matter, but now that something terrible had happened, I had no one to turn to, no one to comfort me.

  How could such a happy time become so sad and scary so quickly? This was like being under a cloudless sky one moment, and then, after you looked down, you looked up and saw that it was completely overcast and dark. Magically, the warm air had turned chilly, and you couldn’t stop quaking inside.

  Suddenly, I realized that maybe she had expected me to feel sorrier for her than I did for myself. After what she had told me, shouldn’t I have stopped thinking about myself first? Who has to treat her birthday as if it was just another day? Didn’t she ever celebrate it? Didn’t she get nice presents from her parents before her mother had left them? Was that when she stopped having birthdays? Why didn’t her father make her birthdays? There was no sister or brother calling, not even an aunt or uncle. Why didn’t any of the neighbors stop by to say hello, or even call to wish her a happy birthday? She might as well be sitting on a train-station bench every day, waiting for a train that would never
come.

  Maybe that was why she had said next year. She was hoping that now that I was here, she could have a birthday again. Maybe I’d make her a cake. She’d let me try. She must have thought that I was acting like I didn’t care, that I was concerned only about hearing from Daddy and leaving. If I did leave, she thought she’d never hear from me again, especially not on her birthday. Maybe Daddy would send her or bring her a thank-you present, but once I was used to a new home and friends, I’d forget her. Other people obviously had.

  I looked at the watch she had given me and felt even guiltier. Instead of raving about how beautiful it was, I had demanded to know about Daddy, demanded to know when I’d be out of here and away from her, never returning, probably for good. Now I truly did feel terrible. I got up, glanced at Mr. Pebbles, who stood up, too, and headed for the stairway.

  I walked slowly up. Maybe she was going to tell me more about the watch and more about her mother. I never let her even start. I saw that she had left the door of her bedroom open. I went to it and looked in to see her lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. She didn’t turn to me, but I could tell that she knew I was standing there.

  Before I could ask anything, she began. She spoke like someone thinking aloud. I didn’t move or make a sound, afraid she would stop.

  “I told you my mother had left me, too. I must have told you at least a dozen times if I told you once. She didn’t die like your mother did, but she might as well have died. I never heard from her again once she boarded that train. She was just like a dead person, silent in her grave, never here to hug me and give me a birthday present. The difference between you and me was, my father couldn’t go looking for another wife. He wasn’t a well man when my mother left us. I told you how I had to take care of him. But there is no doubt in my mind that if he could have looked for another woman, he would have done just what your father has done. He would have neglected me, practically forgotten about me. Only I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to have someone like me to take care of me.”

  She pulled herself into a sitting position and turned to me.

  “That’s why I felt sorry for you from the moment I set eyes on you at the train station and then decided I would care for you. I thought of myself and how I had felt, and I was sure you were feeling the same… lost, with no one to care for you. I wasn’t going to let you be lost. I still won’t. I’m going to make you into a fine young lady who won’t be dependent on a man or another woman. Someday, when you’re my age, you’ll think back and never stop thanking me. I know you’re too young to realize it now, but you will.

  “Men need a lot more than women need. They’re weaker, and not just on the inside. You’ll see. Your father is so desperate that some woman will have an easy time taking advantage of him. It’s probably what’s happening now. It’s his own fault, but in the meantime, there’s you. Why should you be neglected?”

  Then she quickly added, “You won’t,” before I could utter a sound.

  Maybe she thought I would still cry to find Daddy. Maybe she thought that was the real reason I had come up the stairs.

  “You’ll be here, safe, growing stronger and wiser. You will be happy, too. I promise you that.”

  She stared at me, now almost daring me to disagree.

  I walked into the room, right up to the bed, and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t know about your birthday, Mazy. I have nothing to give you, but I would have drawn a picture for you if you had told me when it was going to be.”

  I wasn’t sure what else I should add, but that seemed to be enough.

  She smiled. “You can still do that. I’d like that. I’m sure it will be good enough for us to frame and put up in the kitchen. How nice of you to think of it. What a wonderful and strong young lady you will be.” Then she looked serious again, her lips quivering as if she was going to cry. “You had some very sad thoughts before, didn’t you? All sad thoughts about your daddy, right? That’s why you snapped at me like that.”

  I didn’t snap at you, I wanted to say. I just asked a question.

  Instead, I nodded.

  “What do we do?” she asked. “What do we do when we hear sad thoughts in our heads? Well?”

  “I’ll get my pennies,” I said, and she smiled again.

  “Exactly. Then you won’t even think of being nasty and belligerent.”

  She got out of the bed and put her hand on my shoulder. We walked out together and down the stairs. I went to my room, took some pennies out of one of the rolls she had given me, and went to the kitchen, where she had the jar on the table. She watched me drop them in.

  “You don’t have to think about your daddy for a while now,” she said. “And you don’t have to go out to get the mail. That was a silly thing for me to say. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Come on. We can forget anything unpleasant now that we’ve put the pennies in the jar. We’ll watch television together.”

  She took my hand and we walked to the living room. After we sat on the sofa but before I turned the television on, I took a deep breath and asked, “Did you mean it when you said I would be here another year?”

  “Well, you’ll certainly be here until your father comes for you, won’t you? If it’s another year, it’s another year. I won’t be throwing you out or taking you to some social service agency that will file you away.”

  “But my father said I would go to school when we had our new home.”

  “Well, you are going to school. I’m a certified teacher with years more experience than your mother had. You’re in a classroom. You’ll be taking the official tests. And when your father comes and you go to a public school, you’ll be so far ahead of the other children your age, they won’t know what to do with you. They’ll have to move you ahead. I’d say you were pretty lucky I found you at the train station, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t feel at all lucky.

  “So then, let’s not worry any more about school. I can tell you I’d promote you already. Come on, turn on the television. I like your programs.”

  She sat back and waited. I turned it on, and for a while, I didn’t think about anything else or ask her any more questions. I knew that was just what she wanted. Silence sometimes is the best answer to everything, I thought, and then thought she would tell me that was a wisdom quote.

  Later, she did something she rarely had done. She followed me to my room, waited for me to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and get into my pajamas, and then she fixed the comforter around me and sat on my bed.

  “Many little girls have their mothers read them a story or tell them a fairy tale when they go to bed. Did your mother do that?”

  “Not for a long time,” I said. I said it sadly, because I had been missing it. “But my father used to tell me a bedtime story sometimes.”

  “Did he?” she asked, surprised.

  “He talked about Mama when she was prettier and happier and all the nice things they used to do together.”

  “Well, you see, some fairy tales or bedtime stories don’t have a happy ending, do they? Many don’t have happy beginnings, either. When I was a teacher in a public school, I liked to tell my students the truth about some fairy tales. Children who grow up believing in make-believe and fairy tales get burned by reality.”

  Burned? Was she talking about Mama?

  “Did your mother ever tell you about Humpty Dumpty?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, and recited it.

  “Very good. Now, here’s the truth. Humpty Dumpty was a powerful cannon used in the English Civil War. In an English town known as Colchester, the cannon was put on the roof of the church known as Saint Mary’s by the Wall. The attacking soldiers fired on the roof, and the gun came tumbling down. It couldn’t be fixed and brought back up there. Do you still feel like singing Humpty Dumpty now, singing about some cannon?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s why you have to be careful of fairy tales. See t
his hand?” she said, holding hers up. “Believe in what you see and touch and hear for yourself.”

  I stared at her hand. She closed it into a fist and looked at me. I focused on her eyes. I could almost feel what she was saying.

  “Was Daddy’s last letter a fairy tale?”

  She smiled and sat straight. “Like Humpty Dumpty… we have to let time pass to see what is the truth.”

  “If it’s a fairy tale, then it’s a lie?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. She rose and fixed my blanket. “I’ve had my share of those sent my way. I’ll do my best to keep your share away. Happy birthday, Saffron Faith Anders.”

  “And happy birthday to you, Mazy Dazy.”

  She laughed and went out, closing my door softly. Mr. Pebbles leaped onto my bed and curled up at my feet.

  “When’s your birthday?” I asked him. He stared and then lowered his head and closed his eyes.

  Somewhere far-off, Daddy must have thought about me today. He must have remembered. Oh, yes, today is her birthday. But he didn’t send a present or call me.

  I’d never tell Mazy what I was really thinking.

  I was really thinking Daddy was afraid I wouldn’t love him anymore.

  Mazy would see how sad it made me, and she would jump on me at the first signs of it. She’d whip out the jar and go into a long lecture about how hard I should try to avoid sadness. Why was she permitted to believe in a fairy tale—because that was all the jar of sadness was, a fairy tale—and I wasn’t? I didn’t stop thinking about these things I wished for. Did she stop thinking about all her wishes? Why was some make-believe all right but some not? I wanted to ask but was afraid to make her angry again. The jar was so important to her that she’d surely be even more enraged.

  I tried not to think about Daddy for quite a while afterward. Whenever she brought in the mail, I didn’t anticipate a new letter from him, nor did I ask her if there was one. I was starting to have different hopeful dreams, too. If I was really getting to be as smart as she claimed I was, she was probably right: kids my age would want to know me more when I finally did go to school.