“Bless her heart; she did try so didn’t she?” Ruby agreed.
“The least her niece could have done was hold a memorial service at the church instead of dragging her across country to be put in that family mausoleum,” Cally complained. “A little mass wouldn’t have hurt any. She was part of our family too.”
“It makes me wonder why she was in such a rush to get away. It’s not like the old lady had anything of value,” Ruby replied.
“I don’t know about that,” Cally corrected. “She could have had her mattress stuffed with hundred dollar bills for all we know.”
Both women laughed and resumed their work.
Althea said nothing while her mother and aunt scrubbed the porch. She sat on the railing with a dust rag lying limply in her lap as she watched Mr. Lindt work. She sat with one leg tucked up underneath her and the other swinging casually alongside the railing. She watched Mr. Lindt as he scooped up another load of insects and tossed them onto the burn pile. The little carcasses sparked, and were carried upward by a soft breeze. She noticed that, as they burned, they became fireflies once again as their remains floated in the cornflower blue sky.
“You’re not getting any work done lazing up on that railing like that,” Ruby said.
Althea shifted on her perch, her mind a million miles away. “I got the bugs off of the railing like you asked.” She sighed. “I’m resting now.”
“For what?” Ruby asked, smiling faintly at her daughter. “I don’t see how cleaning off the porch rails could have made you that tired.”
Althea sighed, breathing in the acrid scent of smoke, cypress and cedars. “I’m just daydreaming a bit.”
“About what? The wedding?”
“I suppose.”
Cally laughed. “So you’re ready to get hitched after all aren’t you?”
“No, not especially,” Althea said folding her arms across her narrow chest. “I just don’t have any say in the matter.” She shrugged. “I guess I’m just accepting things for what they are.”
**Things change in the blink of an eye**. Mr. Lindt’s voice echoed in her mind. She jolted and turned toward the man who was steadily tossing shovelfuls of dead fireflies onto the burn pile. She was shocked. Although she’d heard him in her mind before, it had been somewhat faint. This time his mental voice was so clear, it was as if he had spoken directly to her.
“What got you?” Ruby asked. “An itchy, bitchy bug?”
“I thought I heard something.”
Cally and Ruby stopped working, alarmed. “What did you hear?”
“I thought I heard someone call my name,” Althea lied. She shivered slightly as she watched Mr. Lindt continue to work. His back was turned to her and he stopped momentarily, removed a handkerchief from his back pocket, mopped his head with it and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. He returned to shoveling. In her mind, she could hear Lindt laugh. **Why should you be surprised now?** he asked her. **After all, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard me.**
“I guess I was just imagining things,” Althea said, staring out across the lawn.
“That’s why you shouldn’t be doing no daydreaming,” Cally said. “All it’ll do is addle your brains.”
“He really shouldn’t be doing that,” Ruby said, gesturing towards Mr. Lindt. “I told him I’d hire a man to come do it but he insisted.” She frowned slightly. “He said it’d take his mind off things. I wonder what he meant by that?”
“I supposed he’s just as upset about poor old Mrs. Ramsay as we are,” Cally replied. “He was quite fond of her. They spent all their afternoons out here on the veranda, just talking.”
“Talking nonsense if what Mrs. Ramsay said before she died was true,” Ruby stated as she took a bucket of water and a mop and began swabbing the porch.
“I wouldn’t hold much to anything Mrs. Ramsay said about that, Sister. She was just a confused, lonely old lady, and Mr. Lindt liked to humor her, that’s all.” Cally straightened as she dropped the sponge into a bucket of pine cleaner and water. She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Lindt, who was still hard at work. “I figure he told her some funny stories, though. Maybe to keep her amused. She might have gotten everything mixed up in her mind. You know how old people get sometimes.”
“That makes sense, I suppose,” Ruby grunted as she scrubbed at a large purple stain. “It’s still tragic though.”
“Very,” Cally agreed as she retrieved the sponge and, wringing it out, resumed scrubbing bug specks off the wall. “It’s odd,” she grunted as she scrubbed. “The front of the house looks terrible, but the sides and back of the house are not so bad. I could get Althea,” she hinted loud enough for the girl to hear, “to take the garden hose and wash off the rest of the house.”
Althea grumbled at the suggestion. Cally laughed good naturedly at her. “I know you did the bulk of the inside, dear,” she said. “We’ll let you slide on the outside work.” She winked at her sister. “This time. But that’s only because you’re finally getting interested in the wedding.”
“Interested in getting out of it,” Althea grumbled. Cally gave her a startled look. Althea smiled and shrugged. Cally wrung out the sponge as if she were strangling a chicken. Ruby rubbed at another dark purple blotch on the floor, muttering to herself as great dollops of sweat poured down her nose and dripped onto the floorboards.
Althea shrugged again, and gazed back up at the milky blue sky. A small flock of birds were spiraling lazily in the distance. Watching them made Althea’s eyes water. She blinked.
Althea was indeed thinking about wearing white, but not the white that her mother and aunt were considering. Earlier in the day, Althea rummaged around in her closet and found the nurse romance novels that she managed to spare from her mother’s latest purge.
She sat down with Sue Barton and absently flipped the pages, thinking back to the time she had come home from school and discovered to her horror that her mother had loaded up all of her books and donated them to the library.
Althea begged and pleaded with the librarian to let her have the books back, but she refused. However, the librarian did give Althea a library card and told her in a cutesy voice that she could come and visit them any time she liked.
Althea was furious and screamed at her mother for the first time in her life. Ruby simply stared at her from over the rim of her coffee cup and proclaimed that those books just put silly ideas into girl’s heads.
Althea had let that dream die out, but Mr. Lindt in his subtle wisdom had managed to dust the ashes off and rekindle the embers smoldering underneath. Now it seemed as if the idea of becoming a nurse wasn’t so farfetched after all. The idea went from the pleasant afternoon daydream of an eleven-year-old girl to a reachable goal to the now eighteen-year-old-Althea. A goal that was not only attainable but highly desirable. College costs money, Althea thought. And I don’t have any, and I won’t be able to get any either. She cast a glance at her mother, who had put away the mop and began wiping down the round wooden tables. Even if we could afford it, she’d never let me go. Not ever. Althea frowned. Would Hank let me become a nurse? She laughed to herself. Of course not. He’s just as broke as I am, and going to school would shatter his parent’s illusion of affluence. Besides, Althea added, you can’t be married and a nursing student. Beverly Mayhaw, the nurse who works out at Sunny Hills Nursing Home, told me that herself.
**There are other possibilities,** Mr. Lindt’s voice filtered through her mind, **some you’ve already considered, but only in a visceral way. . Remember the bus trip?**
She focused on Mr. Lindt. He was still shoveling dead insects into the fire pit. She frowned, confused and vaguely frightened. Not of the voice in her head, which was wise, fatherly and comforting, but of the knowledge that her life didn’t have to take the course her mother had set. For an instant she knew what Eve must have felt when the serpent offered her the forbidden fruit. And yet, on some level, she found her mother’s plans for her were somewhat comforting as well. There
were no variables to play with, no fears of the unknown to contend with as long as she went ahead with the wedding.
**Uncertainty is to be embraced, not feared** Lindt’s thoughts projected out to her. **Things can change in a blink of an eye. There’s no guarantee you will be married soon, despite all your mother’s machinations. You can create your own destiny. The question is, do you have the courage to do so?**
**That doesn’t make a damned bit of sense**
Lindt chuckled. **Of course it does. You know what you have to do. You’ve been thinking about it for quite some time now. All you need now is to find the strength of heart to make it happen.**
“Did you say something Althie?” Cally asked.
“No Tante. Just thinking out loud I guess.”
“That’s a bad sign, talking to yourself,” Ruby said.
“Nah, that’s only if I start answering myself.”
Ruby laughed, shook her head, and returned to work.
“Mr. Lindt looks positively exhausted,” Cally said, changing the subject. “I’m going to take him some nice sweet tea,” She scooped up the glass neglected by Mrs. Ramsay’s unpleasant niece, and with a swish of her skirts, walked down the steps and out onto the lawn.
“That gal,” Ruby muttered as she straightened. “I swear she’s as man hungry as they get.”
“I think she’s just lonely,” Althea said as she watched her aunt catch up to Mr. Lindt and offer him the glass. He removed his hat, wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, and accepted the glass gallantly.
“What makes you say a thing like that?” Ruby asked. “She has us doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” Althea said. It was hard sometimes to articulate things you feel, and Althea was having an especially difficult time trying to put into words that odd empty sensation she herself was experiencing.
“Death always makes everyone feel somewhat insecure,” Ruby said as if reading her daughter’s mind. “She might be feeling her mortality. It catches up to all of us sooner or later. That realization that we won’t be around forever.”
“That scares me, thinking that I won’t be with the two of you any more.”
“What makes you think that? I’m your mother, darling. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”
“Even if Hank takes me all the way to France?”
“Even then. I’m just a phone call away, bay bay, you know that.”
“Mom? Who was my daddy?” Althea asked abruptly. The question shocked her. She’d often wondered about it, especially when she was little. When the other children teased her about not having a father, she approached Ruby about it. She only received a tight lipped, “never you mind” response which caused little Althea to burst into tears. Although she never asked again until just now, the question haunted her throughout her life.
On this particular day, when the water was glistening as it sloshed against the blackened docks, and the sky was a strange cornflower blue, etched with contrails that came from B-52 bombers on patrol from Barksdale AFB, and a thin line of white smoke curled up from the crackling fire, it seemed like the perfect time to ask.
Althea cast her attention to the couple standing next to the burn pile. Mr. Lindt was wearing a t-shirt, khaki slacks and Hushpuppies. His small paunch and slightly flabby love handles came dangerously close to spilling over his belt, which was expected, Althea supposed, from a man of his age. Her aunt looked trim and neat in her denim blouse and red gingham skirt with the frilly pale yellow apron, the ties fluttering like ribbons behind her as she spoke to him.
Watching them made Althea feel strangely empty and somewhat nostalgic. She wanted to know—no—needed to know about her origins. It’s time Mom let me know, Althea thought. Even if she gives me the never you mind answer, I won’t let it go. Not today. She turned and stared frankly at her mother, her eyebrows raised, her body language demanding a response.
This time, however, Ruby didn’t balk. Althea watched as her mother regarded her, her face soft, her expression far away.
“You have his eyes,” she said softly. “They’re the same shape and color.” She frowned then, as if the memory disturbed her. “Maybe that’s why I can’t abide to look into them.”
Hurt and shocked Althea whispered, “Why do you hate me so?”
“I don’t hate you bay-bay. Not a bit in the world.” She regarded her daughter. “Now what brought all of this on? Why are you asking now after all these years?”
Althea’s turned her gaze on Mr. Lindt and Cally. “I think I feel like Tante Cal.”
“Well worry not, if that’s what you’re concerned about. You’ll have a man of your own soon enough.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Althea said. “I mean. I miss—”
“What? Your father?” Ruby made a rude sound. “How can you miss something you’ve never had? Now come and help me move this table a bit.”
Althea helped her mother shift the table. “But why won’t you talk about him?” She persisted. “Did he die in the war or something?”
“No.” Ruby grunted as she pulled the table towards her as Althea pushed. “He was just a boy I knew, that’s all.”
“What was his name?”
Ruby straightened, her face flushed from both exertion and annoyance. “Why do you need to know that?”
“Because maybe I want to go find him.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Why not?”
I need to stop now, Althea thought, but she could not. Her mother was angry, the expression on her face dangerous. Nevertheless, Althea plowed on, her voice was so loud that Cally and Mr. Lindt paused in their conversation to look up at her.
“You don’t need to know him,” Ruby hissed. “He was bad. He was as bad as they get. He—”
Ruby uttered a sob, slammed the rag she was using to clean the table onto the polished surface, turned and ran into the house.
Two thoughts spun in Althea’s mind. I’ve got his eyes, and he was as bad as they come. She felt queasy, faint, as if all the air in the world had dissipated and she was left alone gasping for breath.
She was dimly aware of Cally and Mr. Lindt approaching from behind. She felt Cally’s arm around her shoulder and Althea leaned against her aunt for support.
“Now what was all that about?” Cally asked as she led Althea to a seat. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I asked her about my daddy,” Althea said as she sat down and placed her hands over her eyes. She paused, thinking, her head spinning. “Tante, did you know my father? I want to go find him. I want to hear what he has to say, why he and Mom never got along.” She swallowed hard. “It’s my right ain’t it? No offense, Mr. Lindt, but since I’m getting married whether I want to or not, the least I can ask for is to have my father walk me down the aisle.”
Looking flustered, Cally said, “I need to see if Sister is okay.” Without waiting for a response she went inside, the recently repaired screen door squeaking as it swung shut.
Mr. Lindt was looking out at the lawn, at the small fire now smoldering beside the docks. He’s deliberately not looking at me, Althea thought. Why is he doing that? What does he know?
“Mr. Lindt, why won’t anyone talk to me about my father?” Althea asked again. When she got no response, Althea laughed harshly. “The way everyone goes on you’d think he was in prison.”
Mr. Lindt flinched.
“You know, don’t you?” Althea asked. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, he really is in prison, isn’t he? What did he do? Did he knock over a bank or kill someone? Did Tante Cal tell you, or did you just read my mother’s mind? Where’s he at, Angola?”
“Angola,” Lindt whispered. He looked at her and said, “Some things are best left alone. This is one of those things.”
“Don’t I have a right to know who my father was?”
“It’s not a matter of rights,” Lindt replied as he pulled his shirt on, buttoning it as he spoke. “It’s about respect. Respecting your mother’s
privacy most of all.”
“But—”
“—No buts. It’s best that you don’t know. You’ll be much happier if you do not know.”
“Who told you?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tante did tell you didn’t she?” Althea said feeling deeply hurt and angry. “Why is it they’ll tell the whole world and not me? Don’t I matter at all? ”
“Of course you do, mon chere, it’s just that—”
“—That what? My mother was some kind of whore who couldn’t keep her legs together? That she slept with a crook and spawned me? Is that what the big secret is?”
“Althea,” Mr. Lindt said, looking helpless.
“Oh my God, it’s worse than that ain’t it? My mother doesn’t have a clue as to who my father is.”
“That is not true,” Lindt said, rising, reaching out to grasp her hand. Althea flinched. His eyes were kind, his lined face looking old and tired, and now he looked somewhat hurt that she would not allow him to touch her. “Your mother went through a terrible ordeal,” he whispered, glancing at the screen door. “More terrible than you can imagine. You must not think ill of her or of any decisions she’s made in the past, especially decisions she made on your behalf.”
“Why shouldn’t I when my whole life has been a lie?” Althea shouted. “How bad could it have been if she can’t even tell me his name? It’s because she doesn’t know. She has no idea.”
Mr. Lindt dropped his hand and flopped back into his seat. He looked as if he were about to be overcome by grief. “She knows, pretty girl. She knows oh too well.”
Heartbroken, Althea rushed upstairs, pushing past Cally and Ruby who were speaking Cajun in the hallway. She ran to her room and slammed the door. She leaned against it, her heart pounding, as she tried not to allow sorrow and angst to overtake her. Anger, mixed in and then replaced grief, burning sharp and bitter. “If nobody will tell me then I’ll find out for myself,” Althea grumbled. She flounced into her mother’s room, ignoring the white wedding dress spread out on the foot of the bed. She opened the closet door, and rummaged around in the top shelf, dumping antiquated hat boxes and cardboard cartons stuffed with flotsam from her mother’s past. Standing on tiptoe, her fingers reached the old yellow silverware box that contained her mother’s important papers. The box was made from solid wood and was quite heavy. She struggled to take it down. The weight yanked her arms downward as she turned to dump it onto the bed.
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