Swan Place

by Augusta Trobaugh

  When Crystal came home after her first day of work, she was filled with all sorts of exciting things to tell us about. “Why, the mall is huge! It must have thirty or forty stores in it, and everything is all lit up so pretty. And the smells—I can hardly describe them to you! You can smell popcorn and perfume and then a real sweet smell I finally found out was candied apples. And I brought three of them home to you.” She opened the white bag she was carrying and gave us each a candied apple. Little Ellis wouldn’t try to bite his, but just licked it like a sucker. But Molly and I bit right into ours, and when I tasted it, I almost got dizzy, thinking about how wonderful the mall must be and how I wished I could see it for myself. Then I would have something new and exciting to write in my notebook. But of course, I knew better than to ask Crystal to take us there. For us, the mall had to be work, not play.

  But I was sure that the mall was a place where the rich girls in our town could go, and that thought set me to thinking once again about wishing I could be rich and smell of perfumed soap and wear clothes that weren’t too short for me. And have smooth skin and no scabs on my too-big knees and socks that stayed up, like they were supposed to. But I knew not to say those things out loud. We were all doing the best we could, and if Crystal had known what I was thinking, she would have gotten her feelings hurt awful bad. And if Aunt Bett knew—goodness!—she would have given me a long, hard lecture about being grateful for what I had and told me to stop committing the sin of coveting. So I kept my mouth shut, but at the same time, I decided that there were some little things I could do to change the way I was feeling. A strange ache in my stomach that didn’t have a thing to do with anybody except me. And all of a sudden, I knew exactly what Darlene meant about wanting a window that looked out on something besides a dirt road.

  And I could almost hear Darlene’s voice, One of these days you’ll want nothing more in this world than to have some private time, just for yourself.

  The next Monday, I decided I would change some things about the room I shared with Molly and Little Ellis. So Crystal helped me run a clothesline across the room right up against my cot, so I could hang some sheets over it and have me a little space of my very own.

  “Why, Dove?” Molly asked, with tears in her eyes. “Me not see you!”

  “That’s exactly why I’m doing it, Molly!” I said, impatiently. “But I’ll still be there.”

  Molly didn’t like that, but she knew better than to carry on about it. The first night, she snuffled a bit, but I wouldn’t let myself feel guilty. Not one little bit. And by the second night, Molly didn’t fuss at all. So I had me a little space of my very own. When I told Darlene about my own space, she came over to see it and got me to help do the same thing for her, in the room she had to share with two of her sisters. Then we decorated our spaces. Darlene’s looked so pretty with a little lamp and bedside table, and I got Aunt Bett to lend me a little lace doily so I could fix up my own bedside table. I even moved my stack of precious notebooks to a shelf in the closet so I would have room for some of the things out of my treasure drawer and for a jar of sweet-smelling hand lotion Crystal had given me the money to buy. And when it would be time for me to go to bed, how I did love to turn on my little lamp and pull the sheets across and get into my own cot. Almost like sleeping in a beautiful, white tent out in the middle of the woods.

  Crystal never offered to take us to the mall with her, and that was fine with me. It would probably just have showed me a lot of things I didn’t have and probably never would have—and people I would never be like. Still, I made up some good stories about it for my notebooks, about a whole other world apart from our little house and Aunt Bett and a little town with only one drugstore in it.

  But pretty soon, I got my mind off of those things, a little bit at least. Because one morning when Crystal got up and started getting ready to go to work, I heard her in the bathroom—being sick.

  “You okay?” I asked through the door.

  “Must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

  Then she was sick every single morning for over a week, and she just wasn’t herself at all. Didn’t seem to laugh anymore, just picked at her supper, and then went to bed. Maybe she really had a disease or something. I thought about telling Aunt Bett, but something or other stopped me. So finally, I went to see Aunt Mee.

  “You all doing okay?” Aunt Mee asked when she saw me at her door.

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Somebody sick?”

  “Crystal is sick almost every single morning,” I told her.

  “Sick? How is she sick?”

  “Sick to her stomach. Every morning.”

  “H-m-m-m.” Aunt Mee pondered about it for a few minutes. Then she asked, “Only in the morning? Never at any other time?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How long has Roy-Ellis been gone now?” Aunt Mee asked.

  “Almost a month,” I answered, suddenly able to see Roy-Ellis all dressed up and with his cowboy hat and boots on but wondering what that had to do with Crystal being sick. I watched Aunt Mee and saw her eyebrows move up on her forehead.

  “Your Aunt Bett know about Crystal being sick?”

  “No. I haven’t told her. Do you know what’s wrong with Crystal?”

  “H-m-m-m,” she said again. “I’m not sure, but if it keeps up, you’re going to have to tell your Aunt Bett.”

  “Yes. I think you’re right. Thanks, Aunt Mee. And how is Savannah?” I added. “Do you hear from her?”

  “I expect she’s doing just fine. Told me before she left that you and her was going to write letters to each other.”

  “That’s right. But I don’t know an address for her.”

  “I’ll write it down for you,” Aunt Mee said, and she took a used envelope and painstakingly wrote the address on the back of it. I was happy to have Savannah’s address, and it certainly did make me feel better that somebody besides me knew about this strange sickness of Crystal’s.

  Later, I tried to talk to Crystal about her being so sick, but when I brought up the subject, she turned white as a sheet and went into her room and locked the door. Poor Crystal! She stayed quiet as a ghost for two or three days, but she never missed a single day at work, and after that, she seemed to be trying to get her old self back. But that never really happened. Still, she did stop being sick in the mornings, so maybe . . . just maybe . . . she was getting better.

  Chapter Eleven

  Of course, there was no way for Aunt Bett not to notice that something was wrong with Crystal. I mean, Crystal had become as white as a sheet, and she’d lost weight, so her face was narrow and her eyes in a deep shadow most of the time.

  “You seeing a boyfriend?” Aunt Bett asked her after church.

  “No, Aunt Bett,” she muttered, and her eyes filled up. “I never wanted anybody except for Roy-Ellis,” she added.

  “Well,” Aunt Bett started out, and her voice was soft, because she could see how bad Crystal was hurting. “You’re young, honey—and so pretty. The time will come.”

  “Yes’m,” was all Crystal said.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough having Crystal feeling sick and her missing Roy-Ellis so bad, there came a day that same week when everything changed so hard and so fast that ever afterward, I would remember things as “before” and “after.” And it started with something as simple as our phone ringing and me answering it, just like I always did.

  “Hello?” I said, expecting it to be Aunt Bett asking what we were having for supper, because Crystal was still at work.

  But there was no sound, except, I think, for someone breathing.

  “Hello?” I tried again.

  “Who’s this?” A man’s voice.

  “Dove,” I mewed, hating the weak sound of my voice.

  “Dove?” The man’s voice was softer now.

  “Yessir.”

  “This is your daddy.” For a moment, I pictured Roy-Ellis, whole and healthy,
standing at a pay phone in the clouds, with a whole line of beautiful angels standing behind him, grinning.

  “This is your daddy, Dove,” the voice repeated. “Your real daddy,” he added.

  “Yessir?” I looked at my arms and all the fine, soft hairs on them were standing right on end.

  “I heard about your mama,” he said. “And now your stepdaddy.” The voice went on. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, Dove,” he hesitated and I guess I thought he was going to say good-bye then. But he took a deep breath and added, “I want to come and get you and Molly and bring you out here to California to live with me.” And what flashed in front of my eyes then was Mama’s face—the way it looked after my daddy ran off and flat-out left her all alone.

  “What about that woman you ran off with?” I asked. And I was surprised to hear how gruff-like my voice sounded. Made me think of Aunt Bett.

  “She’s not with me anymore,” he said.

  “Why not?” I couldn’t help myself from asking, and I truly enjoyed the way he hesitated. “Did she run off with somebody else?” I asked, and finally, he said, “Yes.”

  “Then she just did to you what you did to my mama,” I pronounced and took the receiver away from my ear.

  “Dove?” The voice was far away and tin-sounding. “Listen, Dove, I had an old friend of mine keep an eye out for you children, to see if you were being taken care of all right, after your mama died.”

  I put the receiver back to my ear.

  “He said he found you all playing all the way over to the school yard and without a single adult around to watch after you.”

  The man in the truck! The one who asked if we had a grown-up with us!

  “And he says that your stepmama’s just a child herself, and he doesn’t think she’s taking very good care of you children. Now that your stepdaddy’s gone, as well, I want my two girls to come live with me.”

  “Maybe you’ll change your mind and leave us, like you left Mama,” I said. “And what about Little Ellis?” I asked, hating myself right away for asking my real daddy anything.

  “He’s not mine,” my real daddy said. And when I didn’t say anything else, he repeated the words: “He’s not mine.” And I hung up the phone. I didn’t slam it down, but I just let the receiver drop back into the cradle. It rang again right away, but I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The phone rang for a very long time before it finally stopped. Molly and Little Ellis were both staring at me. And I knew right then and there that Crystal and us were a family, and we’d got to stay together.

  “Eat your supper,” I said, and both Molly and Little Ellis went back to spooning SpaghettiOs into their mouths. When Crystal came home, I waited until she got her clothes changed and sat down at the table. Crystal still looked pretty bad, and she seemed to be awful tired. But I knew what it was like to lose somebody you love, and so I knew how bad she was hurting.

  “There was a phone call today,” I said, trying to make my voice light.

  “And?” She mouthed the word around a tiny bite of tuna salad.

  “It was my real daddy,” I said, and Crystal stared at me.

  “What?” she finally managed to croak. “What did he want?”

  “He said he wants me and Molly to come out to California and live with him,” I said.

  “What?” Her eyes widened.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I hung up on him. I think he tried to call back, but I didn’t answer the phone.”

  Just then, the phone rang again. Crystal and I locked eyes, and neither one of us made a move. It rang for a long, long time, before it finally stopped. Crystal and I sat at the table, not saying anything, because I guess we just didn’t know what to say.

  Then we suddenly heard footsteps on the front porch, and someone threw open the living room door. “What on earth is going on?” Aunt Bett was hollering as she came toward the kitchen. “Are you all okay? Is anything wrong? Why don’t you answer the phone?”

  When she got to the kitchen doorway, Crystal and I were still just sitting there, staring at her. “What on earth? You’re both just as white as a sheet! And why don’t you answer the phone?” Crystal let out her breath.

  “You better sit down, Bett. We’ve got trouble.”

  Aunt Bett sat down, folded her hands on the table, and studied Crystal closely.

  “Dove, would you please go and watch Molly and Little Ellis? And maybe start getting them ready for bed?”

  Why, I was surprised as could be! I knew Crystal was going to tell Aunt Bett about my real daddy calling on the telephone and wanting me and Molly to go live with him. For Heaven’s sake! I’m the one that told Crystal herself.

  “Please, Dove,” Crystal said, because I guess she could see my surprise. And the way Crystal was looking at me, I figured I would do exactly as she asked. But I still didn’t understand why. So I started through the kitchen doorway, and Crystal said, “Would you mind shutting the door, please?”

  Well, maybe then I did understand a little better. Crystal wouldn’t want Little Ellis or Molly overhearing about Molly and me and our real daddy. So I closed the door behind me and started down the hallway. But for some strange reason, I stopped. Then I tiptoed back and put my ear against the door.

  I knew I was wrong listening in on what Crystal and Aunt Bett were saying, but on the other hand, I thought it was wrong of them to shut me out of whatever they were talking about. I had every right to be included, and I meant to be—only they wouldn’t know it. So I pressed my ear against the door.

  “Dove says her daddy called on the phone today.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right,” Crystal said. “And he told her he wants to take her and Molly to California to live with him.”

  Not a sound came out of Aunt Bett. At first. Then I heard her breathe out, “Oh, Lord have mercy!”

  “Bett, Roy-Ellis never adopted Molly. Not legally. So I’m scared. And I didn’t adopt them either.”

  “I know he didn’t,” Aunt Bett moaned. “Didn’t adopt Dove either, and I worried a little bit about that. But I never thought they’d both . . . pass away . . . before the children got grown.”

  “Bett, listen to me, please,” Crystal said. “Roy-Ellis didn’t have to adopt Dove.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t have to adopt Dove . . . because she was his own child.”

  I jerked my ear away from the door, and I almost fell down right there in the hallway.

  What? Me? Roy-Ellis was my real daddy? How could that be?

  My ears were buzzing and my heart almost knocked itself right out of my chest. But I had to know it all, so I took a couple of deep breaths to calm me down a little and put my ear back to the door. Aunt Bett’s voice was rising. “I just don’t understand what you’re saying! Yes, my baby sister dated Roy-Ellis for a while, but then she turned around and married . . . him. And she never said a word to me about anything other than being so happy to have found someone so reliable.”

  “It’s true,” Crystal said, simply.

  “Dove is Roy-Ellis’s child?” Aunt Bett asked again.

  “Dove is Roy-Ellis’s child,” Crystal said.

  Aunt Bett was quiet for a moment and then she said, “You mean to tell me my baby sister got herself in trouble with Roy-Ellis and then turned around and married another man?”

  “Please!” Crystal pleaded. “The children may hear us!”

  Aunt Bett let out a big, sad sigh.

  Crystal went on: “Roy-Ellis didn’t know Dove was his.”

  “But why not?”

  “He just didn’t. No one ever told him. But when I went through his papers—I was hoping to find a life insurance policy or something like that—I found a letter Dove’s mama wrote to him when she was in the hospital, just before she died. But it was still sealed, so he never opened it. Maybe he was going to wait unti
l later. Or maybe he just couldn’t bear to read it. But if he’d read it, he would have known about Dove being his very own child.”

  “And you opened that letter my sister wrote to Roy-Ellis?” Now Aunt Bett’s tone had turned very serious.

  “I was looking for insurance papers,” Crystal explained. “But I never found any. Just the letter about Dove.”

  “And what did you do with it?” Aunt Bett demanded.

  “I’ve got it hidden in my drawer,” Crystal said.

  “Well, I want to see it. I want to see that it’s my own sister’s handwriting,” Aunt Bett demanded. Then she added, “I can just hardly believe any of this! My own sister and she kept this from me?”

  “In the letter,” Crystal offered, “she said the reason she didn’t tell him before was that she didn’t want him to think he had to marry her. Wanted him to marry her just because he wanted to. And I guess that didn’t happen until after her first husband ran off.”

  “Hummmph!” Aunt Bett snarled.

  “But, Bett, do you realize what this means?” Crystal pressed. “The real father isn’t Dove’s real father at all. And when he finds that out, he won’t take Dove. Only Molly. She’s the only one is his own child.”

  “But . . .” Aunt Bett stumbled along. “Oh, it’s too terrible to think about! We can’t let him take Molly away!”

  “I know,” Crystal said. Another long silence.

  Little Ellis my honest-to-goodness brother and Molly only my half-sister? Roy-Ellis my very own daddy and I didn’t know it! And he didn’t know it! And too late now to do anything about it. Me helping him wash his truck, me fixing his supper, me bringing him a cold beer, us helping Little Ellis color some Easter eggs. And us not knowing?

  But once I started getting over that big surprise, I thought about Roy-Ellis and what a good man . . . mostly . . . he had been. And I truly liked the idea of him being my daddy. Because that made me be the daughter of a really mostly-good man instead of a man that ran off with a blond-headed lady and left my mama all alone and broken-hearted.