Laughter in the Wind

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Laughter in the Wind Page 17

by SL Harris


  He tried to place his hand over Olivia’s hand on the bed beside her but she withdrew it as soon as he touched her. He nodded slightly as if he had expected this. “Young lady, I’m your great-grandfather and I’m sorry you didn’t have one you could respect or care about.”

  Panicked when he touched her, Olivia’s panic was quickly replaced by a look of disgust, then a deep nausea. She leapt to her feet, rushed into the small bathroom and slammed the door.

  Rebecca could hear her heaves. She opened the door and stepped into the small room. Olivia was standing upright wiping her mouth with a tissue, and when Rebecca started to give her a hug she gently but firmly pushed Rebecca’s arm away.

  “I’ll be okay.” She spoke without tears. “I’ve got to go back out there, Rebecca. I’ve got to finish this now, because I may never be able to make myself come back again.”

  She pushed past her and stepped back into the room with Rebecca right behind her. Olivia returned to sit on the edge of the bed with a little more distance between her and the crumpled man in the chair. Rebecca sat on the edge of her chair, ready to intervene if she saw Olivia getting too upset.

  Ralph seemed relieved when she returned. “I know you’ll never forgive me,” he said. “I’ve never forgiven myself, either. Thank you for letting me tell someone before I’m gone. I’ve wanted to confess this so many times over the years, but I’ve always kept it buried under my shame. Now maybe I can die in peace.”

  Olivia reached out cautiously and placed one hand on his forearm where it rested on the wheelchair armrest. She chose her words carefully. “I need to think about everything you’ve told me. I can’t promise, but I believe I will be able to forgive you. At least I’m going to try. That’s something I need to do for my own peace of mind, not for you, Mr. Dunlop. Thank you for telling me the truth. You’re right, it needed to be told. It’s a secret that has caused generations of pain and maybe now that it’s coming out, some of that pain can be healed.”

  He nodded and then dismissed them with a gesture. “Please send in a nurse when you leave. I think I need to lie down and rest for a while.” He turned to stare at the bed, only he knowing what he was seeing.

  As they stepped into the hall, Rebecca gripped Olivia’s hand firmly in her own to share her strength with her shaken friend. She could feel the slight tremble that coursed through Olivia’s body as they walked and Olivia followed her lead blindly as they walked to the nurses’ station and reported Mr. Dunlop’s request for a nurse then headed out to the car. Rebecca didn’t release Olivia’s hand until she had helped her into the passenger seat of the car.

  Rebecca asked for her keys and Olivia numbly handed them to her, accepting without argument that Rebecca would drive. She remained quiet on the ride back to the courthouse and Rebecca did not try to interrupt her thoughts. Rebecca sat quietly for several minutes after pulling to a stop beside her Buick and turning off the ignition.

  The coldness of the day was beginning to seep into the vehicle before Olivia finally said, “I don’t know what to do. It makes me sick to think of how he hurt her. But, in a way, he didn’t just end Mary’s life, he ended his own. I know he’s still here, and one hundred years old, but his life has been wasted. Gran’s life was, too, from what Mom says. Three lives ruined by one man in a fit of rage and violence. And the ripples from that one act have affected every generation since then.”

  Olivia paused to reflect on what she had said. “I need to go back to St. Louis. I need to talk to my mother. You understand, don’t you, Bec?” she said, as tears welled in her eyes again. “Thank you for being here with me and for me, but I really need to talk to my mother, in person.”

  “Of course, I understand,” Rebecca said, brushing away a tear from Olivia’s cheek. “Would you object if I went along to drive? I can see how upset you are and I don’t think it’s safe for you to drive two hours on the interstate right now.”

  “You’re probably right,” Olivia admitted. “I can bring you back in a day or two. Do you think your mother will mind?”

  “I know she won’t. She’d probably be pretty upset with me if I didn’t insist on making sure you got back in one piece. But I’ll call and let her know.”

  Rebecca quickly called her mother and explained the situation briefly, promising to tell her more, later. She arranged for her mother and her father to come into Rockford later that evening and drive the Buick home for her.

  Then she carefully steered Olivia’s car through the narrow streets of Rockford and out to the interstate highway, headed for St. Louis.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Olivia called her mother and they agreed to meet at Grandmama’s house. Her mother had assured her that Grandmama would be napping for an hour or two around the time they were due to arrive, which should leave them plenty of time to talk. Olivia knew Eliza could hear in her voice how upset she was, but Olivia wouldn’t share the reason over the phone. The fact that Rebecca was driving her back to St. Louis was another indication of her upset and its seriousness.

  Eliza met them at the front door of Grandmama’s large house and quickly brought them inside, took their coats and led them to the living room. She gestured for Rebecca to sit in a large high-backed chair and she sat on the sofa, patting the cushion beside her for Olivia. “What’s happened to upset you so much?” she demanded.

  Olivia haltingly repeated the story they had heard only hours before. Her voice became very low at times as she reported with obvious difficulty the act of violence. If Rebecca hadn’t already known the story, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to hear her five feet away. Rebecca brought her a box of tissues. Finally, Olivia looked up from her lap where her eyes had remained fastened throughout the telling. She saw the tears on her mother’s cheeks where they rolled downward, unchecked.

  Olivia hugged her mother tightly and they cried softly together. Rebecca watched from the chair, trying not to cry with them but failing. From her position in the high-backed chair she could not see the doorway from the living room where the hallway led to the rest of the house, but she could sense another presence had entered the room. Before she could say anything, she heard the strong voice of a woman saying, “What is this? What is Olivia doing here and why are you both crying?”

  Rebecca wasn’t sure whether to run for the door or hide under the chair. She was sure the voice belonged to Grandmama, and she was equally sure she, the female country bumpkin from a hick town who didn’t know right from wrong, would not be welcome in her house. She opted to sink back into the chair, hoping to remain unnoticed for as long as possible.

  This tactic worked only momentarily as Grandmama stepped forward and came around the front of the couch. Her ramrod- straight back and stern features only heightened Rebecca’s fear she would soon be ousted. When she saw Rebecca, her steely eyes narrowed. “Who is this?” she demanded, her hands fisted on her hips.

  Olivia jumped to her feet to stand between them as if to protect Rebecca. “Grandmama, this is Rebecca, my friend from Springtown. She was kind enough to drive me home when I was too upset to drive myself.”

  “This is that Springtown woman? I thought I made it clear to you what I thought about you carrying on with her!”

  Rebecca could tell she was just getting wound up and she rose to leave before the situation worsened.

  “Rebecca, sit down,” Olivia ordered in a voice even more stern than her Grandmama’s. “And Grandmama, stop it. You had your chance to say how you feel, now it’s my turn.”

  Rebecca sat and Olivia’s grandmother stepped backward, obviously surprised by the tone her granddaughter had taken with her. Olivia continued in the same commanding tone, “I will not allow this hatred, this refusal to try to understand, I will not allow it to ruin any more lives.”

  She continued before anyone could interrupt. “Grandmama, I know you had it rough growing up because of the way people whispered about Gran. She was raising a fatherless child after engaging in a scandalous relationship with anoth
er woman. And Gran was withdrawn and distant and didn’t support you as well as she should have when you were in pain. But, what you don’t know is why. Do you know how MJ ended up pregnant? Because of hatred, hatred for the love Gran and she had for each other. She was raped, Grandmama. Ralph Dunlop, the Farthings’ farmhand, raped her after he caught her and Gran kissing in the barn. That was why MJ was pregnant. When MJ died giving birth to you, Gran felt eternally guilty for not being there to stop him. MJ sent her into the house and she went, leaving her out in the barn with Ralph. Ralph hated their love so much, he reacted with violence and hatred. He ruined his life, MJ’s life and Gran’s life.” She said the final sentence with a flat voice, all of the emotion drained from her.

  Grandmama slumped to sit on the sofa on the other side of her daughter. Olivia moved over to kneel in front of her. She grabbed both of her hands in her own and looked up into her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s time to quit hating, before we ruin any more lives? Your childhood was made unbearable at times and now hatred has damaged my relationship with you. Can’t you let go of the hatred, Grandmama…for me?”

  Grandmama had such a stricken look on her face it was clear that a physical blow could not have impacted her more than her granddaughter’s words. Although she opened her mouth to speak, she was unable to respond.

  “I love you, Grandmama. Why can’t you love me?” Olivia sobbed and put her head down in Grandmama’s lap.

  Grandmama gently stroked Olivia’s hair from her tear-streaked face. “Oh, Olivia,” she soothed her granddaughter. “I love you, I do. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  She urged Olivia up onto the couch between her and Eliza and hugged her fiercely to her. Eliza reached around to hug them both from the other side of Olivia. The three generations of women sat together sharing their sorrow and their tears.

  Finally, Grandmama released her granddaughter and dried her eyes. “Now let me be sure I understand what you just told me, Olivia. Tell me what you know and how you know it.”

  Olivia explained to Grandmama how she and Rebecca had been investigating the picture from Gran’s photo album. For her mother’s sake she carefully omitted the part about the urn buried at the cemetery. She told her of the events of the preceding weeks, finishing with the meeting that morning with Ralph Dunlop and his confession to them. Grandmama looked anguished when she repeated what he had told her about his attack on Mary.

  “Your Gran mentioned a few things that finally make sense, now that I know the whole story.” She frowned as she returned in her mind to some very painful times in her childhood. “I always thought Gran resented me because I lived and MJ, my birth mother, died. She cried herself to sleep nearly every night. I could hear her through the walls. One night I stopped outside her closed door and I heard her saying over and over again, ‘I never should have left her. Why didn’t I stay?’ I thought at the time maybe they had argued and been separated for some time, possibly when MJ got pregnant. I figured Gran had stepped back in when MJ was due to give birth to a child out of wedlock, with little means of support. Instead, she must have felt guilty all of those years for leaving Mary that day in the barn.”

  “Gran felt bad that she wasn’t there for you when you needed her,” Eliza explained. “She told me she hadn’t been a good mother, and that she regretted not trying harder. She made me promise to be a better mother than she had been.”

  “Thank you for that, Eliza. I’m glad the two of you were close in the years before she passed. This is a lot to take in, dear. I always thought when I was growing up that things would be better if only I had a father. Now I find out I do have a father, but I don’t believe I will ever be able to forgive him. You are right, you know. He destroyed Mother’s life…Jane, that is. I wonder if I was a reminder to her all those years of what happened to Mary, what might have been different if she’d never left her alone.”

  Eliza spoke firmly in response. “Mother, you cannot think that. Gran spoke to me of her love for you every day. She felt as much guilt about not being there for you as she did about not being there for MJ. But, who’s to say what Ralph might have done if she had stayed. He was out of his head. He could have killed her, or both of them for that matter. We can’t go back and second guess. What we can do, though, is make sure we don’t make the same mistakes. Olivia is a lesbian. It’s not been easy for her. For her life to be happy, she needs our support, not our hatred.”

  Olivia had let her gaze drop to her lap as her mother spoke. Grandmama reached a trembling hand out and placed a finger beneath Olivia’s chin, urging her gently to lift her head. When she could meet her gaze with her own, she held her in place while she said, “Olivia, I am sorry. Your mother is right. I had no right to denounce your friend or your lifestyle. I hope you can forgive a mean old woman.”

  Olivia blinked hard and sniffled, then replied. “I forgive you, Grandmama, and I’m sorry I’m not the granddaughter you had hoped for.”

  “Nonsense,” was the immediate response. “You are everything I want in a granddaughter.”

  Rebecca was beginning to feel a little awkward, as if she were intruding upon a private family moment. Olivia must have sensed her growing unease because she stood and walked to her, pulled her to her feet and hugged her, resting her head on Rebecca’s shoulder and including her in the emotional atmosphere of the living room.

  Rebecca could feel the strength returning to Olivia as she stood holding her. The events of the day had shaken her, but the love of her grandmother had helped her to steady herself and rebuild. She was relieved to see a tentative smile on Olivia’s face when she released her.

  Grandmama and Eliza had composed themselves as well. Grandmama addressed Rebecca next. “Young lady, maybe I have been hasty in my assessment of you. I apologize for not giving you a chance. You obviously mean a lot to my granddaughter, therefore I will do my best to give you a chance to prove yourself.”

  Rebecca wasn’t totally at ease after this apology and felt she would have to be on her best behavior around Grandmama. She wondered what proving herself would involve.

  “Now,” Grandmama continued, with a sudden change of tone, “I think we’ve had enough tears for today.” She stood up quickly, wiping her eyes one last time to emphasize her point. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen and see if we can find some ice cream.”

  Eliza started to protest, but Grandmama stopped her with a look. Rebecca understood immediately where Olivia had learned that determined look.

  “The doctors be damned!” Grandmama exclaimed. “I will eat ice cream with my granddaughter if I take a mind to do so!” She turned and strode from the room.

  Eliza and Olivia looked at each other, shrugged in unison, then turned to follow. Rebecca brought up the rear, laughing softly to herself.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rebecca and Olivia stayed for dinner that evening and left shortly afterward. Fatigue from the emotional day was becoming evident in Grandmama’s eyes and the others were tired as well. While Olivia drove them toward her apartment, Rebecca called her mother.

  “Hey, Mom,” she responded when Beth answered the phone. “Thought I’d better call and catch you up on all that’s happened.”

  “I’m glad you called. Your father and I have been worried. We just got back from Rockford with your car.”

  Rebecca was immediately remorseful for causing the concern that was so obvious in her mother’s voice. “Thanks for getting the Buick. I’m staying at Olivia’s apartment tonight and Olivia will drive me home tomorrow or Monday after her final.”

  “We’re just glad you made it there in one piece. Next time shoot us a text to let us know you made it,” Beth chided gently.

  “Sorry. I’ll try to remember. I guess you’re probably wondering what happened today. I promise we’ll give you all the details when we’re there. For tonight, can I just give you the short version?”

  “Sure.”

  “We found Ralph Dunlop and he told us he had raped Mary Farthing. He i
s Olivia’s great-grandfather.” Rebecca didn’t miss Olivia’s quick glance in her direction. The pain and sorrow the old man had caused leapt into her eyes anew at the mention of his name.

  Beth gasped at the news. “Oh no! How devastating for Olivia!”

  “Yeah. That’s why I needed to drive her back to the city. She confronted her grandmother with what she had learned and pretty much insisted that Grandmama stop the cycle of hate he started. I think Olivia got through to her. We just left her house and she gave me a good-bye hug.” Rebecca had been shocked when Grandmama had approached her and very stiffly placed her hands on her shoulders and leaned toward her. They had nearly touched cheeks together, but Grandmama had carefully retained a thin but definite boundary around herself.

  “Good. That sounds promising. Tell Olivia I’m so happy she’s made up with her grandmother.” Beth sounded sincerely pleased with the news.

  Rebecca repeated the words to Olivia.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Olivia yelled toward the phone.

  Beth cleared her throat then spoke softly to her daughter. “Rebecca, I’m not trying to pry and I know you’re old enough to make your own decisions, but are you okay with staying the night at Olivia’s? We can come get you if you’re not.”

  Rebecca drew down her eyebrows in confusion, struggling to understand. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, you know, you two haven’t known each other long and now you’re staying the night together…alone…You know I always hoped my daughters would marry before…”

  Rebecca understood in a flash and her face burned as she realized what her mother was saying. She realized just as quickly that she absolutely did not want to have this conversation with her mother, especially with Olivia sitting less than a foot away from her. She had the sudden urge to drop the phone and roll down the window for a blast of cold winter air. Instead she swallowed audibly and managed to force out a response.

 

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