The Amber Photograph

by Penelope J. Stokes

  She was trapped—locked in a gilded cage, perhaps, but imprisoned nevertheless. And even though love had compelled Diedre to volunteer for the duty, she still felt shell-shocked, captive to a war that seemed to have no end.

  She changed the subject. "Is Daddy home?"

  "Mr. Mayor? He hightailed it outta here about seven-thirty this morning. Said something about a breakfast meeting with a bunch of those real estate investors." Vesta frowned. "He needs to be here, with his wife, where he belongs."

  Her eyes widened suddenly, as if she had shocked herself with this outburst. Diedre, however, was not surprised. This might be the first time she had ever heard Vesta speak an unguarded word about her employer, but with Vesta, words weren't always necessary to convey her innermost thoughts.

  "Give him a break, Vesta," Diedre said softly. "He's hurting, too; he just doesn't know how to show it. It's hard for him, watching her like—like this."

  Still, Diedre had to admit that she felt the same way about Daddy sometimes. He was loving and concerned, even to the point of smothering her. She had spent years trying to convince him that she was an adult, capable of taking care of herself. But occasionally, she caught a . glimpse of something in him that held back. Something hidden, as if he nursed some secret wound that rendered him incapable of giving himself fully. He had been this way with Mama of late. Apparently watching her waste away was simply too much for him to bear, and so his only choice was to withdraw, to take his pain to work and bury it there.

  "You look tired, honey," Vesta said, interrupting Diedre's thoughts.

  "I didn't get much sleep."

  "Worrying about your Mama?"

  "Yes." Diedre paused. "And the dream."

  "You been having that dream a lot since you came back home."

  Diedre nodded. It made sense, she supposed, that returning to the house of her childhood would resurrect what she had always called the Spinning Dream. In the vision, she was young, maybe three or four years old. The other girl, she was pretty sure, was the older sister she had never known.

  For years the dream had haunted her. But no one ever wanted to talk about it. It made Mama cry and made Daddy sullen and silent. At last she had given up with everybody except Vesta.

  "Tell me about Sissy."

  Vesta shook her head. "It don't do no good, resurrecting the dead." Although the words were harsh, the tone was kind, compassionate. Almost wistful.

  "But I need to know, Vesta. She was my sister"

  Vesta gathered up the breakfast tray and got to her feet. "Why don't you get cleaned up and go see your Mama? She'll be awake by now."

  She paused at the door and turned back toward Diedre, her ancient eyes watering. "You need to let it go, child," she declared. "It don't have to mean nothing. Sometimes a dream is just a dream."

  3

  The Photograph

  Diedre paused outside the music room and listened at the door. If Mama was sleeping, she would come back later. But she didn't hear the shallow, rasping snore that had grown steadily worse as her mother's lung capacity had declined. All was silent.

  She pushed the door open a crack and peered in. Mama lay on the chaise with her eyes closed and a book turned upside down on her lap. Diedre felt a jolt in her chest, as if her heart had stopped beating for a second or two. Every time she entered this room she held her breath, hoping that her mother wouldn't just slip away without a chance to say good-bye.

  Protracted dying wore on everybody in different ways. Daddy was in denial, going about his business as if his wife of more than forty years had merely holed herself up in the music room to finish reading a compelling book or to decide on a new wallpaper pattern. Vesta—always there, always faithful and loving—had steadfastly refused to take part in any discussion of what would happen when "Miss Celia" finally passed over. And Diedre found herself vacillating between the two—longing to flee, wishing she could take refuge in denial—but able to do neither with any degree of success.

  Six months earlier, before the pain medication had been increased, Diedre and her mother had talked about dying. "Don't let them put me on any machines," Mama had made her promise. "No more surgery, no more chemo. I've had enough. Just keep me comfortable and let me go."

  The cancer had first appeared three years ago in the right breast, but Mama adamantly refused to allow Diedre to leave college during the last semester of her senior year. After a double mastectomy, the doctors seemed to think she might be able to beat it—she was not yet sixty, and a prime candidate for survival. But then the tumors began to appear—in the lungs, in the liver, in the pancreas. It was like fighting mildew in a shower stall, Mama said—you scrub and scrub, but when you come back a day later, there it is again. Different corner, same mess.

  And so Diedre had put her own dreams on hold and returned to Heartspring. Mama had held on for nine months, but she was beginning to lose the battle. Diedre could see it in her mother's eyes, hear it in every labored breath, feel it in the paper-dry touch of those trembling fingers. Even smell it in the odor of antiseptic and decay that lingered in the corners of the room.

  Well-meaning friends said Diedre was lucky—or blessed, depending upon their religious beliefs and philosophies. Here she was given the opportunity to spend time with Mama, to express all those unsaid feelings, to say a proper farewell.

  But despite months of grieving the inevitable loss, Diedre knew she wasn't really prepared for that moment. She would never be prepared. How do you steel your heart to let go of someone you love?

  "Mama? Are you awake?" As Diedre pushed the door open a little farther, Sugarbear shoved past her and launched herself onto the chaise lounge where her mother lay. "Bad dog!" Diedre hissed. "Get down!"

  "Let her be, sweetie."

  Mama's eyes didn't open, but one hand reached out slowly to pet the dog's silky ears. Almost as if she understood the situation, Sugarbear settled herself on the edge of the chaise, careful not to crowd her mistress. Her tongue reached up and kissed the hand that stroked her.

  "Miss Barrett will receive you now," Mama said wryly, her voice little more than a whisper against the morning.

  Diedre smiled. Ever since Mama had been moved to the music room, she had likened herself to Elizabeth Barrett Browning—the elegant invalid, couched with her faithful spaniel Flush upon a velvet chaise, welcoming visitors in proper Victorian majesty.

  "How are you feeling this morning?" Diedre pulled a chair up close to the chaise and took her mother's hand.

  "Like Death, not quite warmed over." Mama's eyes fluttered open. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

  Tears stung Diedre's eyes. "Let's not talk about my birthday."

  Mama frowned. "Why not? It's not every day you turn twenty-five. This is a big day. I have a present for you—the last one I'll ever be able to give you." She pointed toward the bay window. A brightly wrapped box sat on top of the grand piano.

  "Mama, how—?"

  "Vesta helped me. As always." Diedre's mother struggled to sit upright, and a fit of coughing overtook her so that she couldn't continue for a moment. "My last gift, and my best."

  Diedre went over and retrieved the package, then came back to her chair. "Do you want me to open it now, or wait until tonight when Daddy comes home?"

  A shadow passed across the woman's face. "Everything is now," she insisted. Her brow furrowed as she summoned the strength to wave a hand. "Open it."

  Carefully, Diedre removed the wrapping and opened the package. Inside, in a nest of pale blue tissue paper, lay a scarred wooden cigar box. Nothing more. It had finally happened—in the last throes of the disease, her mother's mind had gone completely. "It's . . . nice, Mama," she stammered.

  A flash of fire briefly illuminated Cecilia McAlister's expression. "Not the box, Diedre." She rolled her eyes heavenward. "What's inside the box. That's your gift. It's what you've always wanted, what I've never been able to give you . . . until now."

  Diedre started to lift the lid, but her mother reached out an
d stopped her.

  "Sweetheart, I need to explain something to you . . . "

  Diedre stared down at the hand that gripped her own. A claw. A skeleton with skin. Not her mother's hand. She inhaled sharply.

  "Yes, Mama? What is it?"

  "I should have told you a long time ago. Things . . . aren't what they seem to be."

  More than the words, it was the tone of Mama's voice that sent a shock coursing through Diedre, as though someone had shot ice water into her veins.

  "What do you mean, Mama?" Against her will, she tried to extract her hand from her mother's grasp.

  "Just—" She pointed a trembling finger in the direction of the box. "Open it."

  Diedre obeyed. There, in the box, lay an old photograph, yellowed with age and worn around the edges—a black-and-white picture of a small child. An image trapped in amber.

  The girl, perhaps four or five years old, sat perched on a man's lap. He leaned back in a ragged, overstuffed chair, and behind them Diedre could make out a dingy living room scene: a sparse Christmas tree and a cardboard fireplace with three stockings pinned to the fake mantle. The girl had dark curly hair and scuffed black shoes with bows on the tops. But it was the face that made Diedre's skin crawl—a round little face with huge brown eyes, white, even baby teeth, and one deep dimple in her left cheek.

  Diedre's face.

  "It's a difficult thing to lose a parent, Diedre," Mama was saying. "But it's even more terrible to lose a child . . . "

  Diedre focused on the photo again. It could have been her face, but it wasn't. The clothes were all wrong. The room was totally foreign to her. The man, however, seemed familiar. He was smiling broadly, his arms wrapped around the child in an attitude of pure joy.

  Then the significance of the picture struck her like a physical blow.

  "It's Sissy," she breathed. "My sister! With Daddy!"

  "Gone," her mother wheezed, her breath more labored now. "Gone forever." Alarmed, Diedre leaned forward. "Mama, are you all right?"

  "I will be . . . now." With monumental effort she reached her hand in the direction of the photograph. "Find yourself," she whispered. "Find your truth." She sagged back against the pillows. "Just don't expect it to be what you thought it would be."

  4

  The Visitation

  Diedre sat on the chaise lounge in the music room and absently fingered the soft cream-colored afghan Mama had made for her more than twenty years ago. In recent months Mama had kept it close, as if holding it and feeling its warmth might chase the chill of death away.

  But it hadn't worked. Cecilia McAlister had died in her daughter's arms, here in this very room, and Diedre had been able to do nothing except hold her and watch as the light faded from her eyes.

  "I love you, Mama," she whispered to the empty room, just as she had whispered to her mother in those last moments. Diedre had been expecting the moment, waiting for it, fearing it, yet when it came, it left her numb and disbelieving.

  The one thing Diedre wanted was the very thing that money couldn't buy, that wishing couldn't retrieve, that even God denied her. Time. Time to say I love you again. Time to see her mother's smile and hear her laughter. Time to ask the thousand questions that crowded into her mind.

  But there was no time. No time for explanations. No time for grief. The ambulance had finally pulled out of the driveway, taking her mother's lifeless body away, and now Diedre braced herself to be thrust into a frenzy of activity. Decisions had to be made, a funeral planned. Mama might be resting in peace, but the rest of the household was moving into overdrive.

  Tired. She was so, so tired.

  Heartspring was a small town, but even the largest parlor at Dower and Gray Funeral Home wasn't nearly big enough to accommodate the hundreds of people who would come to pay their last respects. After much discussion with Mr. Dower, Diedre and her father reluctantly decided to give in and hold the visitation at the McAlister home.

  That meant food. Caterers. Hiring extra help. Removing Mama's hospital bed from the music room. Getting ready for an onslaught of guests.

  The expansive rooms of the big stone mansion might have been more spacious than the Serenity Parlor at Dower and Gray, but the effect was still a little like stuffing sumo wrestlers into a Volkswagen Beetle. It seemed that every one of Heartspring's 3,159 citizens had decided to show up—all at once. Diedre had trouble just negotiating her way from one side of the room to the other. The place was packed with wall-to-wall mourners—at least that was what they were called, according to tradition. A good many of them, as far as Diedre could tell, had apparently come for other reasons than to grieve the passing of Cecilia McAlister from this world into the next.

  At first she hadn't noticed it so much. She had been caught up in the daughterly duties of arranging flower sprays, shaking hands, receiving hugs, and trying to suppress fresh tears as she listened to everyone who came through the door tell her what a wonderful, sainted woman her mother had been.

  It was true, of course. But every kind word about Mama became a knife-thrust into Diedre's wounded heart, and soon the emotional involvement became too intense to bear. If she caved in now, she'd be in shambles within the hour. Better to disengage, to withdraw a little. The real grieving, no doubt, would come later. For now she simply had to get through this any way she could.

  But distancing herself from the pain had its drawbacks. Her attention started to wander, and other concerns began imposing themselves upon her consciousness. She wasn't accustomed to wearing high heels, and her feet ached. Her lower back was beginning to spasm. She needed a break, desperately wanted to get away for a while. Where was Daddy?

  She let her gaze wander around the room and finally found him, surrounded three-deep by men in dark business suits, each one jockeying for the honor of standing beside the mayor in his hour of grief. It looked more like a cocktail party or an election fund-raiser than a wake. The women, like elegantly clad Stepford Wives, all seemed to be wearing the same Perfect Little Black Dress and sporting identical strands of pearls at their necklines. Some of the guests were clamoring for Duncan McAlister's attention. Some were huddled together in little clusters, gossiping. Others seemed to be posing for photo ops as a few reporters from the local paper milled about snapping pictures.

  Diedre pressed a hand to her temple and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she found herself staring into the eager, watery eyes of Oliver Ferrell.

  He gripped her fingers in a moist, earnest handshake. "Miss McAlister," he said breathlessly, "I am just so, so sorry. Such a loss, such a loss, a terrible, terrible loss. Your dear, dear mother was such a lovely, lovely woman, such a fabulous, fabulous asset to your father's career."

  Diedre fought to suppress the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth. She didn't know Ferrell well, but she had heard Mama and Daddy talk about him often enough. He had been on the City Council for years—the loyal swing vote who made sure that every program Duncan McAlister proposed would be approved without question. Her father had often regaled them with stories about Ferrell, imitating the man's annoying habit of repeating every adverb and adjective at least twice, sometimes three or four times. By the time Daddy was done with one of his Ollie Ferrell impersonations, Diedre and her mother would be doubled over the dinner table, laughing so hard they had to wipe away tears.

  Now the memory came flooding back, and Diedre felt herself trying to muffle a snicker. But it was too late. It overtook her before she could stop it—the kind of uncontrollable hysteria that makes you disrupt a church service or blow milk out your nose. She jerked her hand from Ollie's grasp, thrust her face into her handkerchief, and stood there with her shoulders shaking, unable to restrain the convulsions of laugher.

  Fortunately, Ollie took her reaction for a fresh outpouring of grief. He patted her awkwardly on the arm and tried to console her. "Oh my, oh my, oh my," he murmured. "There, there, Miss McAlister. We will all miss your wonderful, wonderful mother so very, very much. Her pass
ing, her untimely passing, her terrible untimely passing leaves such a void, such a vast, vast void, in our little community."

  He paused, apparently waiting for some response, but Diedre was laughing so hard that no sound came out, just a series of high-pitched, breathless little squeals.

  "We all share your pain, your deep, deep pain," Ollie tried.

  "Th-thank you," Diedre managed, her face still buried in the handkerchief. "Excuse me," a deep voice interrupted. "I think Miss McAlister needs to be alone for a few minutes."

  A firm hand steered Diedre away from the crowd and into the library across the hall. When the door shut behind them, Diedre looked up to see Jackson Underwood grinning down at her.

  "Uncle Jack!" she exploded in relief. "Thanks for . . . rescuing me." She put a hand to her chest, fighting for air.

  He folded his arms. "Ollie Ferrell's quite a piece of work, isn't he?"

  "I couldn't help myself, Uncle Jack. He was just there, spouting out all those adjectives, and I—" She dissolved into laughter again and sank into a leather armchair.

  "Why don't we just sit in here for a few minutes until you regain your sense of decorum?"

  Diedre sighed. "I think that's an excellent idea. Could I get something to drink, do you suppose?"

  "There's punch and coffee in the dining room. Which do you want?"

  "Something cold, please. I'd rather have a Diet Pepsi if you can find one, but otherwise punch will be fine."

  "I'll be right back."