Laughter in the Wind

by SL Harris

  “He probably could, his memory is pretty good still for his age. But I don’t understand how you got involved in all of this. Who is this Olivia, anyway?”

  Rebecca knew this was her opportunity to tell Kate everything but she hesitated. Finally, she decided to take the risk and tell all.

  “Kate, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about some things but it just hasn’t been the right time. I guess I haven’t got an excuse today so here goes.”

  Kate was looking perplexed but stayed silent, waiting.

  “I’ve been going through some changes lately, Kate. I guess you could say I’m figuring out who I really am.”

  “Okay, Bec, I’m starting to get confused here. What the hell is going on?”

  “Well, I’m trying to tell you. Just give me a minute. All the way through high school, I never had a boyfriend—”

  “Yeah, you were always too busy for the guys. I thought you were a little crazy, choosing homework over going out with a good-looking guy, especially that guy Robert who always had the hots for you.”

  “First of all, Kate, Robert did not have the hots for me. He only wanted to sit close to me so he could copy off my algebra tests. I know why I never dated in high school, Kate. It’s because I was never really interested in any of the guys in school.”

  “What, and now you’ve met some cool guy in college, right? What does this have to do with Olivia? Is she his sister or something?” Kate moved forward in the recliner, watching Rebecca attentively.

  “No, Kate. I haven’t met a cool guy in college. I wasn’t interested in guys then and I’m still not.” She waited a few seconds to see if her words would sink in. “Get it, Kate? I’m not interested in guys. I’m interested in women.”

  “What?” Kate practically screeched. She waved her arm wildly, pointing an index finger at her. “You are not some freaking lesbian, little sister! I won’t have it. I know some of them at work and I know you’re not one of them.”

  Rebecca dropped her head, trying to figure out how to explain to her sister. When she looked up again, she was surprised at the contorted expression on Kate’s face, somewhere between anger, disbelief and confusion.

  “Just think about it, Kate. It all makes sense. I just didn’t realize it until now. You know as well as I do that I’m a lot different than you and June. Try to picture me married to some good-old boy with a baby on my hip. It’s not for me, Kate. That’s not who I am.”

  “I can’t picture you with a woman either, kid. Just the thought of seeing you kiss another woman turns my stomach.” Kate gagged for effect. “And what about Mom and Dad? You better never tell them. This is going to kill them.”

  “They already know…and so does June.”

  “What?” she screeched again, this time throwing both hands up in the air. “Why didn’t someone tell me? Why am I always the last to know anything?” She stood up and paced the room, her frustration at being left out evident.

  Rebecca was finding it hard to keep up with her sister’s rapidly changing emotions. “Don’t be mad at them, Kate. They were waiting for me to talk to you first. I asked them to wait. I didn’t mean to upset you but I wanted a chance to try to explain things to you.”

  “Well, you did upset me. And, for the record, I think you’re making a big mistake. You’ll look back on this someday and think, I should have listened to Kate.” She emphasized her words by shaking her finger at Rebecca again. “So, what, is this Olivia your girlfriend or something?”

  Rebecca still felt a slight blush in her cheeks at the thought of having a girlfriend but nodded her confirmation.

  “I never would’ve guessed her to be a freak.”

  Rebecca flinched at her sister’s words but Kate didn’t seem to notice.

  “Well, I hope you don’t get burned too bad, little sister. Just remember, I warned you. Don’t come crying to me when you get your ass kicked for being a dyke. Stupid damn dykes,” she muttered.

  “Kate, can you at least be civil to Olivia and me when you see us?” Rebecca was developing a slow burn at Kate’s comments. She could handle her disagreeing with her choices, but now she was just being rude. She hoped Kate wouldn’t continue her behavior every time she saw her, especially in front of Olivia.

  “Of course. What do you think? I have manners, you know. I’ll put on my little act like everything is okay but you’ll know what I really think.” She flopped down into the recliner again, apparently exhausted from her tirade.

  Rebecca strived to remain civil. “Kate, I’m really sorry you feel this way. I guess I should have expected someone to take it badly. Thanks for the info about Dunlop. I gotta go now and meet Olivia. Guess I’ll see you at Christmas.”

  Rebecca stood abruptly and turned her back on her sister, struggling to keep a lid on her anger, trying to keep it together long enough to get out the door.

  “Yeah, see you at Christmas.” Kate didn’t even get up as Rebecca walked out.

  Rebecca let her anger boil over as she walked and she slammed her fist down on the roof of the car. She backed out of the driveway spinning gravel under her tires.

  It would be another quarter hour before Olivia was due to arrive so she drove to the courthouse where they were to meet then took a brisk walk around the grounds of the historic old building to cool down. By the time she saw Olivia’s little import car at the stop sign a block away, she was able to turn her thoughts back to Ralph Dunlop and Olivia.

  As soon as Olivia pulled her Kia to a stop, Rebecca tapped the window of her passenger door. Rebecca quickly climbed inside, the newspaper in hand.

  “You’re never going to believe who Mom found in the paper!”

  She showed Olivia the article and watched her scan it quickly, seeing her eyes stop when she reached Ralph’s name. “Oh…my…Is this our Ralph?” She crumpled the paper as she waved it around in her excitement.

  Rebecca smiled and nodded. “And he lives right here in Rockford.”

  A buckled seat belt impeded her movements but she awkwardly embraced Rebecca with the paper still in one hand.

  As soon as Rebecca could free herself from Olivia’s excited hug, she rescued her mother’s newspaper then buckled her seatbelt. “Let’s go!”

  Olivia looked momentarily puzzled. “Let’s go to the nursing home,” Rebecca said. “I want to talk to Ralph Dunlop, don’t you?”

  “Show me the way!” Olivia said as she backed out of the parking spot.

  A few minutes later Rebecca and Olivia entered the nursing home and quickly found the hallway with room 207 where Kate had said Ralph Dunlop would be. “Do you think we should check with the nurses before we go to see him?” Olivia asked in a concerned voice.

  “I guess that might not be a bad idea,” Rebecca agreed. “He might not feel good today or something.”

  They stopped at the nurses’ desk and spoke with the 200- hall charge nurse. Rebecca broke one of her own rules and made up a white lie, telling the nurse that Olivia was a cousin of Ralph’s and hadn’t seen him in years, but had seen his name in the paper and came by to visit. The nurse assured them that Ralph liked to visit with people and pointed them down the hall toward his room. Rebecca headed down the hall with Olivia, trying to think of what she’d said to the nurse as a necessary lie.

  They knocked loudly on the closed door of room 207 and waited. A deep, gravelly voice beckoned them. “Come in.”

  In the dim light of the room they saw a bent, frail, gray-haired man sitting in a wheelchair by a hospital bed. The light from his TV, alive with an episode of Bonanza, brightened the room but the drapes were closed and the fluorescent lights over the beds were off.

  The hospital bed closest to the door was turned sideways against the left wall of the room and that half of the room appeared unoccupied, with no personal effects on the bedside table or end table. Ralph apparently resided on the far side of the room. A few old pictures of a younger man decorated the walls, one with a team of horses, one with a rusty old Farmall tractor, and one wi
th a Ford truck.

  Olivia spoke first. “Mr. Dunlop, my name is Olivia Harmon and this is my friend, Rebecca Wilcox. We recognized your name in the newspaper article about the centenarians and wondered if we might ask you a few questions?”

  He didn’t seem surprised at her explanation and had probably answered many questions before about his one hundred years of life and his experiences. “Please turn the light on over that other bed so I can see you better,” he requested.

  Rebecca stepped across the room and pulled the small chain leading to the light, illuminating the man’s craggy face. Several notches were hollowed out on his nose, cheekbones and ears, from skin cancers being removed, she assumed.

  “I’m a little hard of hearing so I’m afraid you’ll have to speak up.” He spoke louder than necessary. “Now what did you say your names were?”

  Olivia repeated their names, this time a few decibels louder. He nodded that he had heard and she continued. “I saw your name in an old photo album of my great-grandmother’s.”

  He looked surprised at this and asked, “Just who was your great-grandmother?”

  Olivia said, “Jane Smith, or, actually, I guess it was MJ Farthing.”

  Neither was prepared for his reaction.

  The old man dropped his head into his hands and began to sob loudly. Rebecca and Olivia looked around the room nervously, unsure how to respond or proceed. Finally, Olivia walked over and sat down on the bed beside his chair. She placed an arm over his bent shoulders and began to shush him quietly as one would do with an upset child. Rebecca took a seat in the only chair in the room, next to the TV, and intently watched the scene unfold.

  After several minutes of sobbing, he lifted his head and his voice croaked out as he told Olivia, “I don’t deserve your kindness, you don’t understand.” Then he dropped his head down again, but this time the sobs were quieter and more controlled.

  Five long minutes elapsed before he lifted his head again. Rebecca arose and handed him some tissues from a nearby bedside table and he wiped his eyes then blew his nose. He looked sadly at both girls then shook his head.

  “I can’t believe she kept a picture of me after everything that happened. I thought I would be the last person she would want to remember. Is MJ still living?” he asked with a flicker of hope in his old eyes.

  “No.” Rebecca was the first to speak. “Jane died several years ago.” She paused a moment to allow him to absorb this information before continuing. “We thought you would have known that Mary, MJ, died in February of nineteen thirty-three.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” he admitted, his shoulders drooping a little further with the news. “When I left, I was so ashamed of myself that I never looked back. I didn’t want to be reminded of the person I really was.”

  Rebecca was becoming very curious about Ralph’s story, but she reminded herself that she had questions that still needed to be answered about the identity of Grandmama’s father before she allowed herself to become distracted by other questions.

  “But why did you girls say you were here today?” Ralph asked.

  Olivia responded this time. “Gran, um, Jane didn’t talk a lot about that time period. After Mary died, she just kind of went into a shell. She even had a hard time opening up to her daughter…well, actually, Mary’s daughter, but Gran raised her as her own. We thought maybe you could give us some information that could answer some questions we have.”

  “You know, I was a few years younger than Mary, but I knew her for several years even before she moved to the city,” he began. Then he jerked in the chair as if he’d been slapped, causing both Rebecca and Olivia to sit up straighter and look at him with concern. “Wait, I thought you said Mary died in February, nineteen thirty-three. Did you say she had a daughter?”

  “Yes,” Olivia confirmed. “That was one of the things we wanted to ask about—”

  Ralph interrupted her before she could continue. “When? When did she have this daughter?”

  Rebecca was becoming more concerned about the man’s actions, afraid his frail frame couldn’t withstand his increasing excitement.

  Olivia answered with the date of her Grandmama’s birth, “February third, nineteen thirty-three.”

  Ralph grew quiet for a moment, nodded, then suddenly asked harshly, “And when did you say Mary died?”

  “The same day. She died during childbirth.”

  Olivia’s words were quiet, but there was no doubt the old man heard her. Rebecca thought her worst fears had been confirmed about his physical condition when a loud groan escaped from deep within him. His head dropped to his hands again and he rocked back and forth, alternating between loud sobs and moans. She looked at Olivia then at the door, asking with her eyes if she should get help. Olivia shook her head then reached out to hold the wrinkled, shaking figure in the wheelchair, an arm over his shoulders and the other hand resting on his upper arm closest to her.

  He allowed her to comfort him for a while then shrugged her off angrily as his mood suddenly switched. “I don’t deserve your kindness,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you get it?” He looked at the two girls as if they were daft, expecting them to understand what was tormenting him.

  “I killed Mary. I killed my beloved Mary!” He dropped his head and began rocking again.

  Rebecca and Olivia exchanged confused glances. Rebecca ventured, “Your beloved Mary? But Mr. Dunlop, she died in childbirth.”

  “Yes! I understand that perfectly!” he nearly shouted as he looked up at her, anger sparking from his eyes. “But she would have never died if I hadn’t gotten her pregnant.”

  “Wow,” Rebecca said under her breath and leaned back suddenly in her chair. She looked over at Olivia and her concern switched from the old man to the beautiful young woman sitting beside him. Olivia was as white as a sheet and suddenly looked as frail as the man who had just revealed himself to be her great-grandfather.

  Ralph had dropped his head again and took several minutes to compose himself. Olivia stayed silent and gradually a hint of color began to return to her face. Rebecca had momentarily been afraid both of them would faint to the floor. This had definitely been a turn in the story neither had anticipated.

  Ralph began talking again without looking up. “I loved Mary for years,” he said. “I waited for her to come back from St. Louis, to come back to me. Sure I was a few years younger than her, but I was ready to marry and have a family. I thought after all those years in the city she’d be ready to move home and start a family, too. But when she came back she wasn’t the Mary who had left. She was MJ. And MJ was never alone.” His voice had changed to a mocking tone. “She always had that nosy friend Jane with her. I never had a chance to talk to her and tell her how I felt.”

  He paused to blow his nose again then continued in an excited, accusatory tone. “I caught them, you know. I caught them in the barn.” His voice started out soft but gradually rose in volume. “Jane and Mary were in one of the stalls when I walked in to get some tack for the team. They were kissing and I saw it. It just wasn’t natural, you see, and I couldn’t believe Mary…my Mary, would do such a perverted thing. That witch Jane must have brainwashed her, put evil thoughts in her head.”

  He looked at both girls as if expecting them to agree with him, but received only shocked looks in return. He continued in a quieter tone. “When they realized I’d seen them, Mary sent Jane to the house. She didn’t want to go, but Mary told her it would be okay.”

  He looked at each of them again, desperate for understanding, but both girls were still struggling to control their distaste for him and his hateful words. He dropped his head again and continued to plead his case. “I was so angry with her. You have to understand. She took all my dreams and just threw them all away. And for what…a woman? A perverted witch? I told her how I wanted to marry her. She told me it wasn’t possible, she loved Jane. I tried to make her understand. I told her it was sick, what she and Jane had, that Jane had bewitched her somehow. And she slapped me
. I was so angry.”

  He looked up at Olivia. “I would have never hurt her, you know. But something inside me must have snapped. It was like it wasn’t even me anymore, like I was watching from a distance. I grabbed her and shoved her down into the floor of the stall, and, and…”

  Tears began to run down his wrinkled face but he didn’t bother to brush them away. He turned to stare at the wall above the television as if no longer aware of his two visitors but trapped in his own nightmare from decades before. “I had my way with her. She tried to stop me, begged me to stop, said if I really loved her I would stop. But I didn’t. She should have been with me, not that woman. She was mine.”

  Rebecca looked at Olivia and tears were streaming down her face as well. She was surprised when she felt wetness on her own cheeks. She felt disgust for this man who was sharing his confession and shame with them. She felt pain for MJ and Jane.

  “I left that day. I ran from the barn, leaving Mary crying in that stall. I grabbed my gear and left like the devil was after me. And maybe he was. I’ve never loved anyone else all these years. My heart belonged to Mary and only Mary, and she broke it. Worse than that, she made me hurt her. I couldn’t bear the thought of ever hurting someone else the way I hurt Mary.”

  His tears stopped at the same time as his words. His face took on an oddly calm expression, as if he had purged his soul of evil and was at peace, finally. The small room was silent for a few minutes and both girls were able to get their emotions under control as they sat quietly, absorbing the effects of his words.

  “Well, girls,” he said, as he appeared to snap back to the present and become aware of their presence again. “You probably didn’t expect a confession from a horrible old man, but that’s what you got. I raped Mary Farthing the first week of May, nine months before your grandmother was born.”

  He spoke harshly and the words sounded surreal to Olivia. She had understood everything he had told her, but the fact she was sitting beside her own great-grandfather and he was admitting to being a rapist was all too much for her.