“Maybe,” I say slowly, “we’ve been looking at the story all wrong. We’ve been building up to the rapes as if they justify everything that comes after. As if suffering that sort of violence at the hands of a family member is what drove Essie to fake a relationship with Roarke and try to buy her way to freedom. We’ve been using the rape to explain away the money those two will be getting for their marriage, for the wedding, for pretending to be something they’re not.”
“You don’t think it does justify all that? You don’t think she’s entitled to every cent she can get?”
“Sure I do. And screw anyone who says otherwise. But still, this shouldn’t be a story about a victim.”
“What is it, then?” Margot asks.
“It’s a story about a mother.”
Margot is silent for a time. She holds her mug between her hands as if drawing warmth directly into her palms. Then, abruptly, she turns and crosses the living room, sets her cup down on the coffee table, and begins to select pieces of paper seemingly at random from the piles arranged on the floor. I follow and stand waiting beside her until she thrusts a stapled section of the diary into my hand and taps the page to indicate a paragraph near the top.
“Here,” she says. “This should be chapter one.”
She relinquishes the sheaves of paper that are labeled Esther 16 and sits down to wait for my reaction. As soon as I start to read, I know that Margot is right. Essie’s story begins right here.
* * *
—————
When Mother was five, Grandma Lou drove a knife into her husband’s left thigh and left him bleeding in a lawn chair while she went inside to call the police. The chair was the kind that folded, with the seat and back woven from plastic tubing that had gone sticky after so many years out in the sun. Mother remembers this because it was her job to hose off the blood after her stepfather had been taken away in an ambulance and Grandma Lou had been placed in handcuffs in the back of the sheriff’s car.
Mother was barefoot. She only had one pair of shoes and she couldn’t afford to ruin them. As she sprayed down the chair where her stepfather had sat bleeding, the water pooled on top of the dry earth and made a pink frothy puddle that lapped at her toes. It ran past the cinder blocks on which their small house rested and drove away a stray dog who had taken shelter in the shade. Mother felt proud that she had thought to take off her shoes. Her older brother, Cyrus, would not have remembered and then they would have been stained and no longer presentable. Cyrus was always getting beaten for one thing or another and yet he never seemed to learn. Mother, on the other hand, learned early. This was something she prided herself on. I should say here that it wasn’t Grandma Lou doing the beating. It was the man in the folding lawn chair, the man Grandma Lou had stabbed. But Mother needn’t have worried about getting beaten over a pair of dirty shoes, because she never saw that man again.
Grandma Lou was unshackled and released from the police car without even a trip down to the station. She shook the sheriff’s hand and then went into the house to pack. Everything they owned fit in four tattered suitcases, which she had loaded into the back of their secondhand station wagon by the time Cyrus came home from school. They drove for what seemed like three straight days until they ran out of money for gas. Grandma Lou would do odd jobs in whatever town they found themselves in until she made enough to fill up the tank. They slept in parking lots for the better part of a month. What Mother remembers best is crying herself to sleep every night, blaming Grandma Lou for their misfortunes and missing the only home she had ever known.
The point of this story, when Mother tells it, is how Grandma Lou let her temper get the better of her. By then the woman was long dead and could not argue with this assessment. Maybe she wouldn’t have. I don’t know. I never met her. But I do know that this story was Mother’s way of letting us know that everything we had as a family had been built on character. Her character. The character of a woman who prided herself on quiet deliberation and dispassionate logic, on never losing her head. Mother was the sort of woman who often said things like “Let cooler heads prevail” or “Simmer down!” or even, for one mortifying summer, “Take a chill pill.” That last one I begged her not to say in public, and lucky for me, it didn’t test well with audiences, so she agreed to give it up.
It took me years of hearing Mother tell the tale of how Grandma Lou chose to make her children homeless in a fit of rage to finally ask the obvious question: What had her stepfather done to deserve it? Why had Grandma Lou taken out the kitchen knife and stabbed him? She must have known there would be no taking it back once it was done. So what was it that made it worth all that they would lose?
At this Mother’s eyes glazed over and she said, “I really don’t remember.”
“You must,” I insisted, sure that she was hiding something because she remembered everything else there was to remember about that day, right down to the fact that her single pair of shoes was the only thing that they had forgotten, the only thing that got left behind.
“He hit me,” she then said reluctantly. “He did that sometimes if we broke something or woke him up when he was sleeping. He whipped us with his belt until our legs or backs were bleeding. But that day I hadn’t done anything and he whipped me anyway. That day he beat me just for fun.”
That’s when I realized that Mother had been telling the story wrong for all those years. Grandma Lou’s temper wasn’t her fatal flaw, though that was the way Mother always spoke of it. It was her strength and her redemption. She had not acted recklessly. No. She had plunged the knife into his leg as an act of measured caution, to let him know what she would be capable of if he ever struck her child again. To make sure before she took her family away that he had been clearly warned and would not follow.
Mother may have been too close to see it, but Grandma Lou was never the villain. True, she had brewed her fair share of moonshine and even gone to jail for a spell when a police officer made the mistake of trying to blackmail his way into a cut of her profits from the still. Even so, she was never the black sheep of our family. It was just the opposite. She was the hero.
* * *
—————
Margot and I are in the exact same spots where we’ve spent much of the previous two days when Mike comes back a few hours later.
“How was class?” I ask without looking up.
“Riveting,” he answers with more than a touch of sarcasm and throws himself into a chair. “How are things going here?”
“Pretty well, believe it or not. We’ve rearranged the early chapters and I think the book reads much better now. I’m beginning to think it might actually be possible to have it ready by the rehearsal dinner so that Essie can take a final look.”
“So she’s really going to go through with this?”
“It looks that way. And I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t.”
“I guess you wouldn’t,” he tells me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, even though I already know.
Mike shrugs and doesn’t answer. It’s Margot who says out loud what we’re all thinking: “Because you did the same thing and your life is better for it. You’re happier without your parents, but who’s to say Essie will feel the same when all’s said and done? There are ways to get to Caleb but not lose her entire family.”
“Maybe she won’t lose them.”
Now Mike does speak, if only to say, “I think you know better.”
They’re both right, but it’s not something I want to talk about. I’m relieved when my phone rings, even though I don’t recognize the number. I shoot Mike a look that I hope is defiant and take my phone into the hall. When I hang up, I stand looking at my phone long after the screen has gone dark, not at all sure what I should do next.
“Who was it?” Mike asks when it becomes clear that I’m not going to volunteer this inform
ation.
I don’t answer because my mouth has forgotten how to speak. Eventually I manage to say, “It was him. It was Caleb Hicks.”
Suddenly Mike and Margot are talking over each other, but I can’t understand anything that either of them is saying even though their lips are working furiously. It feels like minutes have passed by the time my ears are able to focus on Margot’s voice and I hear her ask, “What in God’s name does that asshat want?”
“He wants to take us to dinner,” I answer, and from their faces, I can see that more is expected. “Not you,” I tell Margot, “don’t worry. Just Mike and me. He and his wife are coming to town for a fund-raiser on Friday night at the Hilton. Something about orphans, or maybe it was refugees. I can’t remember. He kind of glossed over the particulars. The point is that he and Naomi bought an entire table and they have two extra seats. Judge Whitmore and her husband will be sitting with them along with two members of the school board. He said he thought Mike might like to meet them.”
Mike’s eyebrows shoot upward and he sits forward as he says, “Judge Whitmore’s clerkship is one of the most competitive summer positions in town. Half of the people in my class have applied.”
“You included,” I remind him.
Margot rolls her eyes at this. “For some reason I wouldn’t be surprised if Caleb Hicks already knows that. Don’t tell me you’re actually considering telling him you’ll go.”
“I already said yes,” I say. “It just seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“Thanks,” Mike says.
“Well, in that case,” Margot decides, “you’ll get a chance to observe the weasel in his natural habitat. There has to be some usefulness in that.”
* * *
—————
By Friday, the manuscript is almost done. I text Essie to tell her that I’ll have a copy for her by the rehearsal dinner the following night and that she should wear something with pockets so I can slip her a flash drive. She doesn’t text back and I’m seized by a sudden fit of paranoia that she’s found out I’m going to the fund-raiser with Caleb and is angry with me. I have to remind myself that most of the time she keeps the phone off and hidden beneath her mattress, so she probably hasn’t even gotten the message I just sent.
After googling the fund-raiser, I learn that it’s not for orphans or even refugees but for veterans wounded overseas. I try to unravel the thread of memory that’s all that’s left of my call with Caleb, convinced that I’m so tired that I must have misheard him, but I’m nearly certain that he had said something about Syria and orphaned children. In the end, I decide that he must go to so many fund-raisers that they all start to run together or else he doesn’t care enough to try to keep them straight.
Margot insists that I let Farai come over to do my hair and makeup, and I reluctantly agree. Mike is out picking up his rented tux when she arrives, so we have the apartment to ourselves. Farai raises one arched eyebrow at the mess in the living room, where Margot sits eating from yet another takeout container.
“What?” Margot asks with a withering look of her own and Farai turns away to usher me into the bathroom.
She has brought her own lights and mirror and a case of small tubes and brushes as well as other sundry beauty products, products that make me angry when I see them advertised on TV, products that tell our generation of women that to be beautiful, we must transform ourselves into something different from what we are. I balk when it is time to look into the mirror, but I have to admit that when Farai has finished, I still look like myself, only brighter, softer, less careworn. She helps me step into my dress so that it doesn’t muss the curls she has so painstakingly conjured from my thin blond hair. Then she steps back and gives me an admiring look.
“I’ve had to be careful when getting you ready for interviews. It wouldn’t do to upstage your guest, whoever she might be. I’ve never really been able to do you justice until now.”
I stiffen at the sound of my sister’s name, even though I know that the mention of it was unintentional. Farai grew up near Pretoria. There’s no reason for her to know that I was once famous, and even if she does, she probably doesn’t care. She has seen much deeper tragedies than mine firsthand. She has traveled a much more dangerous road.
“Thank you,” I tell her, stepping back and spinning slowly.
The fabric of my dress, green to match my eyes, lifts away from my legs as I twirl and when I stop, it keeps twisting so it wraps itself around me. It feels cool where it brushes against the backs of my ankles, and though I’m again reminded of the feel of Justice’s nightgown, this time I’m able to banish the memory the first time I try. I lean forward to readjust a strap on my left shoe and just then Mike bursts in.
“Five minutes,” he says and starts to unzip the bag that contains his tux.
Farai returns to the bathroom to gather her things and I drift into the living room and perch awkwardly on the arm of the chair where Margot sits poring over Essie’s manuscript.
“There,” I say, and point.
“Yep, got it,” Margot answers and cuts and pastes a paragraph from one section to another.
Farai kisses the air in front of my cheeks before she goes, and a few minutes later, Mike emerges from our room. He still looks vaguely flustered, but the tuxedo fits him well.
“You look nice,” I tell him.
“You too. Very nice. I’m sorry, I should have said that before.”
He pats his pockets to reassure himself that his wallet and phone are where they should be.
“Ready?” I ask, amused at how nervous he looks.
“I think so. Yes. I’m sure I am.”
“Enjoy yourself, kids,” Margot calls before the door swings shut. “But not too much. And remember your curfew. Be back before you get brainwashed into thinking Caleb Hicks is an actual human being and not a Borg drone.”
* * *
—————
Caleb and Naomi greet us warmly when we arrive and Caleb steers Mike expertly into the open seat closest to Judge Whitmore. Only her husband is between them. He’s an authority on extinct languages and has just returned from a monthlong research trip to Papua New Guinea. He looks as if the noise and the lights are a bit too much for him. Mike tells a joke and the man laughs, relieved (it seems) that he remembers how, while Naomi compliments my dress or my hair or some combination of the two. I sit down next to her and am relieved when Caleb immediately falls into conversation with the man on his other side.
Things go on like this for a while, then there are speeches. I try to pay attention, but by the fourth speaker I’ve started counting the crystals on the chandelier overhead as a way to pass the time. The evening wears on. Mike and Judge Whitmore launch into a heated discussion about the threatened teachers strike and eventually swap seats to be next to each other while Mr. Whitmore regales the woman on his other side with a story about a man he met in Papua New Guinea who hasn’t set foot on the ground for more than fifty years, preferring to live out his life on a platform built into the branches of a tree.
Before I know it, I’m being swept back toward the coatroom and Judge Whitmore is handing Mike her card. He waves as she and her husband walk toward the doors and, a few minutes later, the coat check returns our jackets and we follow the stream of bodies exiting onto the street. Caleb says something and I laugh because in that moment it seems funny and then immediately I feel guilty and forget what it was he’d said.
“It looked like you and Judge Whitmore really hit it off,” Caleb tells Mike when we’ve reached the pavement. “I was hoping that you would.”
“Yes. Thank you,” he says, and I notice the stiffness reenter his body as he remembers that this is a person we are supposed to hate.
I can see this, but I know that Caleb and Naomi would never guess. Mike’s coat buzzes faintly and he fishes his phone out of the pock
et of the jacket, checks the number, and looks back up at me.
“Excuse me,” Mike says, then he moves a few steps away and lifts the cell phone to his ear while Naomi tells me about how her daughter, Millicent, recently took a pair of scissors to her bangs. This means that she’ll have to leave her Easter bonnet on for the entire wedding to keep from ruining the pictures, but it won’t really matter because Millicent looks so darling in the bonnet that Naomi would have made her leave it on anyway.
Mike rejoins us and something about his face makes Naomi stop midsentence. He takes my wrist and tries to pull me away from Caleb and Naomi, but for some reason I resist. Whatever it is Mike has to say, I don’t want to hear it.
“Your mom,” he says helplessly, “she’s in the hospital. She’s unconscious, on a breathing tube. They’re still not sure what’s wrong. Someone will call when they know more.”
“You poor dear.”
Before I can object, Naomi’s arms are around me and I can feel that the hug is genuine. Her eyes are misty when she pulls away.
“We’ll let you go,” Caleb says with the same tone of real concern his wife had just used. “But please, let us know if there’s anything we can do.”
Somehow my feet find their way to the car. Mike pulls the seat belt across my chest. He puts the key into the ignition but doesn’t turn it. We sit like that, in silence, until I find the strength to speak.
“Why did he call you?” I ask, meaning my father.
“He was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”
I feel the panic burn my throat. “This is all my fault,” I say.
“How on earth do you come to that conclusion? You think that because you told your mother something she didn’t want to hear, her body just gave out? That’s not how medicine actually works. You need to stop thinking like that. Just like you need to stop thinking that your father blames you for not being there when Justice died. Maybe he said things right after that he shouldn’t have. He was grieving. He had just lost a child. It was the grief itself that said those things, not your father. Your parents love you. Otherwise why would they still be making so much of an effort even after all these years?”
The Book of Essie Page 24