Whispering, Idaho

by Nancy Canyon

  “What swimming?”

  “I was swimming. You don’t get all the credit.”

  “That’s not why you’re hungry. It’s the baby. I get the onions ring thing now.”

  “You don’t know everything,” Christie said, stepping on Alice’s bare toes.

  “Ouch! That’s because everyone around here keeps secrets,” Alice said, reaching to touch the cross at her neck.

  Miss Green leaned close to Alice, eyeing the cross. “You found it. He knows.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Alice was burning with curiosity.

  “Your father. He drowned in the river. That’s his cross.”

  The apartment house door opened. Alice stood frozen where she stood in the doorway. Christie took her arm. “Come on, Alice, it’s Mom.”

  Alice stepped from the apartment, peered over the railing. Her mother loomed like a shadow at the bottom of the steps, her black suit an oily smudge against the cracking yellowed walls, a tissue-wrapped package crushed against her side. She looked up. “Alice, what are you doing?”

  Stella lurched past Alice, grabbed hold of the railing, leaning out precariously. “You’re a thief, Vi. He was mine. And the girl—why haven’t you told her?”

  “Dammit, Alice,” her mother said, waving her cigarette, the burning tip a glowing trail in the low light. “I told you to stay away from her.”

  A short while later the three Sharp women walked into Trent Café. The establishment smelled like meatloaf, sautéed onions and cigarette smoke. The floor fan clunked, keeping beat with the Sousa marches that came in brassy bursts from across the street in Whispering Park.

  “Sit anywhere,” Angie said, wiping the counter with a damp towel smelling of bleach.

  Alice’s mother pointed with her cigarette. “The corner booth’s private.”

  Alice slipped in after her sister. Her mother pushed the package across the table to her.

  “Is this a bribe?”

  “Don’t be smart. Open it.”

  Alice pulled away the brown tissue. She lifted a crisp white sundress with fine spaghetti straps out of the wrapping. “It’s beautiful. White as snow.”

  “Thought it would make you feel—well, better about yourself.” She smiled. “You know what I mean? You look exhausted. So do you, Christie. What’s the matter with you two?”

  “Christie just about got washed downstream, is all,” Alice said, rewrapping the dress in the tissue and setting it aside.

  “What?” her mother demanded, snubbing out her cigarette.

  Christie smiled. “She’s exaggerating,” she said, drawing her fingers through her still damp hair. “I barely got my feet wet.”

  “You know better than to go near the river.”

  “Something else she should have known better than to do,” Alice said.

  “Don’t start, Alice,” her mother said, lighting up. She blew smoke toward the ceiling as she pulled a brunette curl from the nape of her neck and twirled it around her finger.

  Christie elbowed Alice. “Yeah, Stupid. Don’t start.”

  Alice winced. “You’re not calling me that anymore, remember? Or do I need to tell Mom who the stupid one is?”

  “You mean stupid for wearing black in this heat?”

  Alice’s mother frowned. “Very funny, girls.”

  Christie raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips.

  “Better decide what you want. The waitress will be back for our orders.”

  Alice hid her face behind her menu and hissed, “Tell her or I will.”

  “Belle had her baby,” Christie blurted. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  “That’s wonderful, Dear. Boy or girl?”

  “Girl, and I’m next. We’ll raise them together.”

  Their mother froze. Angie hurried up to the table with three glasses of water and three bundles of cutlery wrapped in paper napkins. “Orders, ladies?” she said, flipping open her order book. “What will it be?”

  “Meatloaf special,” Christie said.

  “House salad,” Alice said.

  “Mrs. Sharp?”

  She continued to stare at Christie, her cigarette burning, ash dropping onto the table.

  “Cobb salad,” Alice said. “She likes the Cobb salad.”

  “Will Mr. Sharp be joining you ladies?”

  “Girls’ night out,” Alice said, quickly, watching her mother’s eyes darken, falling on Christie like locusts on wheat.

  Angie collected the menus. “Ain’t that nice. Mother and daughters’ night out.”

  “Drink your water, Mom,” Alice said.

  Her mother raised her glass to her mouth, her eyes still fixed on Christie.

  “Mom, say something. You’re scaring me,” Alice said.

  She blinked her eyes. “You don’t mean?”

  “I want a baby, too,” Christie said. “That’s all.”

  Alice’s mother’s face turned red. Choking silently, she dropped her Viceroy into the ashtray. She slipped out of the booth, hurrying for the ladies’ room at the back of the café.

  Scowling, Alice turned to Christie.

  “What?” Christie whined, snubbing out her mother’s smoking cigarette.

  “Look what you’ve done to her.”

  Christie tore open a package of saltines. “You don’t know everything. She’s had enough shock for one day.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” she said, washing the crackers down with ice water.

  “Tell me what?” her mother asked, coming back into the booth.

  Alice looked at her sister. “Tell her thanks for dinner, right?”

  “Yeah, thanks Mom. This is fun.”

  Violet pulled the last cigarette from the crumpled pack and lit up. “Well, you’re welcome. Now, do me a favor, Alice. Stay away from that neighbor of yours. And Christie, stay away from the river. Now, I mean it. Both you girls are nothing but trouble.”

  That night, Alice went to bed early and fell immediately asleep. She dreamed that a river of red blood washed through her apartment, sweeping her away into a lake of the viscous fluid. She floated peacefully for some time on the rue until she split into two and began watching herself from the shore, an infant bobbing on the tepid red liquid. The scene changed; she turned into life-giving blood flowing into a lake, spilling into a river, tumbling on to the sea. She washed along, accompanied by fish, until she was dumped onto shore where she pulled herself up to standing—a grown woman, whole and free.

  CHAPTER 13

  The next morning, Alice tucked her drawing book beneath her arm, walking along the dusty River Road to Whispering Community Church. The sky was clear blue, the sun pounding. Crows cawed in the willow tops while cicadas buzzed. The river sang in the distance.

  Alice realized her feelings for Stephen were growing too strong to ignore. She drew the back of her hand over her sweating upper lip. The hugs and the pecks on the hair were sweet. The near kiss Miss Green had interrupted still gave her goose pimples. She could feel that he was interested in being more than a friend to her. At the same time she wanted to pull him closer, she wanted to push him away.

  She waded through the heat mirages of the church parking lot to the garden gate. As she lifted the latch, the heavy wooden door swung open. She caught the smells of spice, fruit, and damp earth. Chirping birds flitted about. The combination of reds, yellows, oranges, pinks and purples almost sent her into a faint. Walking into Stephen’s garden was more breathtaking than any Easter service she’d ever attended.

  She closed the gate, going deeper into the color. On her right, a sprinkler spun rhythmically. On her left, a birdbath roiled with brown sparrows, each tiny bird flinging water off wings as vigorously as Zeke shaking after the rain storm. She followed a stone path to a waterfall spilling into a pool of flashing goldfish. Behind the pool, tall cannas lilies unfurled layers of red petals, accented with burgundy and green striped leaves. Alice thought of a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

&
nbsp; Behind the waterfall, Easter lilies bloomed like tumbling whitewater along the entire length of fence. The sweet scent made Alice feel lightheaded. Sitting down on the wooden bench, she wrapped her fingers around her cross.

  God had to exist; how else could there be so much beauty in the world? She struggled hard with her next thought: How could He let the bad thing happen?

  “Alice. Great, you made it!”

  She looked over her shoulder to see Stephen, stooped by the back entrance, turning off the water. The sprinkler sputtered to a stop.

  “Washers work great,” he said, crossing the garden. “No more leaks.”

  “This is amazing. I’ve never seen a garden so beautiful. You’ve got a green thumb, Stephen Smith.”

  He sat down next to Alice. “Mrs. Glimmer is the one with the green thumb. All I do is weed and water.” Stephen glanced at his watch. “House calls soon. First, a surprise.” He took her hand and led her to the church side-door.

  Alice followed him carefully, down a dark stairwell. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the basement room crammed full of boxes. Each was marked: marriages, births, deaths, baptisms or christenings, and the year.

  Stephen dropped a large black book open on the table. Dust puffed around the room. Alice covered her nose against the mustiness, watching as Stephen ran his finger down the line of scrawled signatures to a familiar penmanship: Violet Scott. Immediately following her mother’s handwriting was a tight, unfamiliar script: Carl Dotson. Alice gasped.

  “Married, September, 1950,” Stephen read. “When were you born?”

  “1951.”

  Stephen flipped to the back of the book. “Now look here.”

  Alice followed Stephen’s finger to the next entry: Violet Dotson and Jim Sharp, July, 1953. “Stella was right. He’s not my dad.”

  “Carl’s your dad. Mathew’s your ancestor.”

  Alice’s legs bent like willow whips. Clapping her hands over her buzzing ears, she collapsed onto the bottom step. At last the noise stopped. She looked up at Stephen, studying the record, illuminated beneath the bare bulb.

  “I’ve loved him despite his grabbing hands. Now I’m not worried about sending him to jail. He’s not even my dad,” she mumbled. Alice grasped her sketchbook, jumping to her feet. “See you later.” She fled up the dark stairs.

  “Alice, the lilies?”

  She yelled back, “I have to find my real father.”

  “He may have locked me out of the house, but I still have a key to the hardware store.” Her hands fluttered like sparrow wings as she turned the knob and stepped inside. She stood still for a minute, listening to the snazzy slap of a snare drum across the street. Somehow, the sound reminded Alice of her mother whisking the store clean. Right now, her mother was most likely hurrying around the kitchen, whipping up a picnic for the celebration.

  Alice crossed the store, slipping quietly between immaculate shelves of dry goods and grass seed. Even with all her mother’s efforts, the store continued to smell of fertilizer and grinding oil. Stepping into the small back office, she flipped on the light.

  “Quiet,” Alice whispered, feeling her heart pounding. She wasn’t sure which distracted her more, her heart or her shaking fingers.

  She squatted before the safe and turned the dial, listening for each click over the thrumming in her ears. There, in the back of the heavy cabinet, she spied the same envelope the photo had fallen from a few days earlier. She quickly flipped through the pictures until she found a duplicate of the man standing between her mother and Jim.

  The bell above the door jangled, this time falling to the floor. Alice peeked around the corner to see her mother reaching up to re-hang it. She knew it was only a matter of minutes before she’d be discovered. She jammed the envelope back into the safe and pushed the door closed. She called out in a voice as thin as a fading contrail, “Mom?”

  Her mother wheeled about. “Good God, Alice! You scared the living daylights out of me. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for my paint box,” Alice said, mashing her drawing book so tightly against her chest she could feel the metal cross imprinting her tender flesh.

  “Since when do you leave paints at the hardware store?” her mother asked, coming toward the counter. Tossing down her keys, she eyed Alice over her smoking cigarette.

  Alice shrugged, relieving the pressure of the cross against her skin as the photo slipped from between the pages.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” Alice said, retrieving the snapshot.

  “Let’s see.”

  Alice’s heartbeat sped up until it matched the beat of the snare drum still clacking. She was about to slip the picture between the pages and bolt for the door, but suddenly she handed it to her mother.

  “Our new motto should be, No more secrets,” she said. “Is that my father?”

  The thin stream of smoke from her mother’s nostrils made her look coarse and dragon-like. She took a long drag off the cigarette before speaking.

  “He was such a handsome man. You’ve got his dark eyes and red hair. I tried to tell you at the river, but you ran off. A boating accident, Alice. Wiley Fox capsized at Carl’s Crossing. Your father drowned in the river. You were barely three.”

  Alice instantly recalled the yellowed newspaper headline she’d seen in the shack. “What happened?” she asked, watching her mother’s face go hazy, like the air between them.

  “You’re persistent, just like he was,” she said slowly.

  Alice felt an impulse to tear at her mother’s clothing. “Just tell me,” she snapped.

  “Alice, please don’t be mad at me,” her mother begged, stepping forward and tucking a curl behind Alice’s ear.

  Alice pulled away.

  “Let the past go, Dear. Jim raised you. I know it hasn’t been all good, but he was a Godsend, believe me. We wouldn’t have made it without him.”

  “Stella said I did her a favor, locking Jim up. What’d she mean by that? Did he hurt my father? Did he cause the accident?”

  “Goddamn that woman! She’s never been able to see things as they really are. Accidents happen. The sheriff got there right away. Believe me, Jim could not have prevented it. She’s crazy, that Stella. Carl left her because of her mixed up brains. To this day, she thinks I stole him out from under her nose. Crazy loon.”

  Tossing down her cigarette butt, she snubbed it out with her jeweled sandal. “Really, it’s my fault. I should never have sent Carl and Jim out fishing that day. Some things you can never forgive yourself for!”

  “They were friends?”

  “Best friends,” her mother said, choking back a sob.

  “Mom,” Alice said, touching her arm. “You said yourself, it was an accident.”

  “I know, I know. If only we could redo certain days of our lives and make them turn out differently.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I suppose you do. That’s Carl’s cross you’re wearing,” her words mixed with tears. “Can you believe it? The nerve of that woman. When I got there, Stella was bending over him weeping like she was his wife instead of me. Then she yanked the cross right off his neck. Sheriff Wise tried to grab it away from her but she’s a sneaky one, that Stella. She pretended to walk over to me to return it, but instead she ran to the river and tossed it in. The day you came home with it on, I nearly fainted dead to the world.”

  “That’s why you hate the river so much.”

  Her mother sighed deeply. “I lost one person to the river. I can’t lose another.” She stepped past Alice and opened the safe. “You were probably looking for more photos of your father, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Alice said, feeling an ache like hot anger bucking inside her belly.

  “He loved you so much, Alice. You’ll never know how much.” She pulled another envelope from the rear of the strong box. “Here’s one you’ll like. Just the two of you.”

  Alice studied the picture of the red-haired man with her
cross hanging around his neck. He held her securely, his hands around her waist, lifting her toward the blue sky. She reached for the gold jewelry with pudgy hands.

  “What does the “J” on the back of the cross stand for?”

  “His middle name, Jefferson. After the president.”

  “Really?”

  Her mother nodded. “You’re the only living relative left from the Dotson side.”

  “I thought maybe it stood for Jim. He was so pissed when he saw it he nearly yanked it off my neck.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Alice. And call him Dad. He’s still your father, you know. He adopted you.”

  “He’s a rapist,” Alice hissed.

  “Your anger will ruin your life,” her mother warned, tapping another cigarette against the back of the pack. “He’s buried in the cemetery up on the hill.”

  “I think I’ll walk up there.” Alice started toward the door.

  “Christie and I are taking a picnic to the celebration tonight. When you’re finished, why don’t you join us?"

  “I already told you. I’m going with Stephen.”

  Her mother lit the smoke, exhaling rings toward the ceiling. “You know how . . .”

  “I know. I know, you don’t approve. But it’s my life,” Alice said, slipping the precious picture between the back pages of her book. “I’ll make my own choices. By the way, have you talked to Christie today?”

  “She slipped out first thing this morning. Right after she told me I’m going to be a grandmother. Her father will be furious! He’ll want her to get married,” she said. “She’s only fourteen. Too young. And too idealistic, that girl.”

  “Rod’s a creep.”

  “She could use a friend right now.”

  “One who’s not PG, you mean?”

  “I’m talking about you.”

  “So am I. I was raped, remember?”

  Her mother gasped.

  “What’d you think would happen?” Alice asked, hearing her own voice sharpen to a knifepoint.

  “I didn’t think. I’m sorry. You’re right to be mad.”