The Sisters Montclair

by Cathy Holton

  Stella had seen a photograph of Mrs. Whittington. Dour and horse-faced like her son, they looked so much alike Stella had known instantly who the old woman was. In the photograph she was wearing a pearl choker and a padded suit and her white hair was swept back from her face in a severe style. A terrifying woman. Although, Alice, no doubt had given as good as she got. Stella smiled, thinking of this.

  “We lived in an apartment on the side of the mountain when we were first married,” Alice said. “It was a big old house divided up into four apartments and there were three other young couples, all friends of Bill’s living there. So we had a gay old time.”

  Stella stared at one of the photographs of Bill Whittington on the bookcase, trying to imagine him as a young man intent on having a good time, trying to imagine Alice as a blushing bride. It would help if there were photographs of Alice as a young woman in the room, but there were none. Stella had checked. The few photos of her were of an indulgent grandmother, gazing down at a crowd of blond-haired grandchildren. Most of the silver-framed photographs were of a dapper Bill Whittington posed in front of a train, standing beside an ivy-covered wall, carving a Thanksgiving turkey on a silver tray. In all the photographs, he was dressed in a suit and tie.

  Alice laughed suddenly and said, “My grandfather. Now he was a character! When I was a girl, he took Dob and me with him on a business trip to Chicago.” She was already off on another tangent, which happened frequently; her memories seemed to come in strands that rolled in and out of her consciousness like balls of yarn. Follow this strand and it might lead here; but then another ball rolled into view and took her off on a completely different path. Sometimes she would be talking about one person and Stella would realize that she had already heard the story, and Alice had confused the characters. People melded in her mind, characters formed out of bits and pieces of other characters, stories became intertwined. And then, oddly, there were flashes of clarity, scenes remembered down to the most minute and telling detail.

  “On the way up to Chicago, Grandfather told Dob not to drink any RC Cola, so the first thing Dob did was to buy two RC Cola’s and then drink them in quick succession. He proceeded to throw up in the street and grandfather said, You drank RC Cola didn’t you? And Dob said, Yes, sir, I did. And grandfather said, Boy, you are as stubborn as a mule. You are just like your grandmother.” Alice made a wry face, remembering.

  “Well, that night grandfather took us to see a show. Now children, he said. You must close your eyes when I tell you to and you mustn’t peek. He was going to see that famous lady who danced behind the fans and took her clothes off on stage.”

  Stella was quiet for a moment, considering this. “Gypsy Rose Lee?” she said, blinking. “He was taking you to see Gypsy Rose Lee?”

  “That’s the one,” Alice said. “Well, anyway, the time came when he told us to close our eyes, and of course neither one of us did. We stared through our fingers and saw the whole show. And as we were leaving grandfather said, Now, don’t tell your grandmother. Of course, the first thing Dob does when we get home is to tell grandmother.”

  Stella laughed. She put her head in her hands and wiped her eyes. “Oh my God, I can’t believe your grandfather took you to see a stripper.”

  “She wasn’t a stripper,” Alice said staunchly. “She was a fan dancer.”

  “I can’t believe you saw the real Gypsy Rose Lee in Chicago.”

  “Well, we did.”

  “What did your grandmother say?”

  “She said, Mr. Montclair have you lost your ever-loving mind? They were very formal in those days. Mr. Montclair this, and Mrs. Montclair that.”

  “I’ll bet she made him suffer. I’ll bet she fed him cold suppers for a week.”

  Alice looked at her blankly. “Grandmother had a cook,” she said mildly. “She wouldn’t have known the first thing about fixing supper. She didn’t even like to set foot in the kitchen. I guess I get that from her.”

  “Still she must have found some way to punish him.”

  “Things were different in those days. Wives were obedient to their husband’s wishes.”

  They were both quiet, staring into the fire, each lost in her own thoughts. After awhile Alice stirred and said, “Mother couldn’t cook either. I remember when I was a girl she took cooking classes down in Riverview with a group of other women. Thursday night was the cook’s night off, so one Thursday night mother comes in and says, Children, you’re in for a special treat. I’m going to cook dinner for you tonight. She was so excited that even my father kept quiet, although we were all nervous sitting at the dining room table and listening to my mother bang around in the kitchen. So finally she calls to me and I go in to help her. Get that big can of pears down for me, she says, pointing to the top shelf of the pantry. I get it down and open it for her and she points to five plates that she’s got lined up on the counter with lettuce leaves lying on them. Take a half of a pear and put it on the lettuce with the scooped side up, she tells me. So I do what she says and when I’m finished she takes a jar of mayonnaise out of the icebox and puts a spoonful on each of the pears. Then she sprinkles them with nutmeg and holds them up and says, There! Supper!

  I helped her carry the plates out and set them on the table and no one said anything, we just ate those pears and went to bed hungry that night.”

  Stella grinned. “Well, that was the right thing to do, I guess.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “You’ve had a very interesting life, Alice.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  “There’s not many people alive today who can say they once saw Gypsy Rose Lee perform.”

  Alice looked at her. “Who?” she said.

  The girl was talking again but Alice had no idea what she was saying. Her face was turned toward the fire so Alice couldn’t read her lips. Her black hair, obviously dyed, had begun to grow out and the roots were showing a pale blonde so that, from a distance, she looked like she had a bald patch on top. With her head tilted toward the fire, her scalp looked pale and fragile, like the crown of an egg.

  She worried about the girl, worried that she was too thin, that she seemed bowed down by some secret tragedy. Alice knew all about secret tragedies, how they could crush you over the years. What was it the girl had said? She was an orphan. Hard enough to get through this life as it was; Alice could not imagine doing it without family. She could not have borne what she had to bear without Adeline. As contentious and prickly as Adeline had been as a girl, there had been two of them and they had closed ranks and presented a united front when it came time to face what they’d had to face. Mother and father and grandmother and grandfather, too.

  She was getting close to something here. Some memory she’d long ago put away. Alice could feel it slithering around in her bowels.

  The girl looked up at her, still talking, and smiled, and Alice smiled back. The cat had been at work again along her arms; Alice could see fresh wounds along the tender skin above the girl’s wrists. Why didn’t she get rid of the contentious animal? Why keep something that was so intent on causing pain?

  With any luck the girl would make a family of her own. A clan, a bulwark against the tragedies of life. That was what she had done; putting the past behind her, accepting what had to be accepted and immersing herself in all the mundane details of family life until everything else got crowded out. Finding a purpose where before there had been only chaos and pain.

  Alice said abruptly, “Don’t settle for a life you don’t want.”

  The girl stopped talking. She gazed at her in confusion. “What?” she said.

  Alice looked down, embarrassed that she’d spoken aloud. But then she thought better of it and she raised her chin and said fiercely, “Women don’t have to settle these days.”

  The girl turned her face to the fire, thinking about this. “Did you settle?” she said.

  Alice stared at the flames and said nothing. It was easier sometimes just to pretend she hadn�
��t heard.

  Outside the French doors the sky was darkening ominously. Huge trees swayed in the wind.

  “There’s another storm coming in,” the girl said.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Storms don’t frighten you?”

  “No. You get to be ninety-four and death loses its sting.”

  That wasn’t true, exactly. You never got over your fear of death; you just became more accepting of its inevitability. Religion helped some. As a child, Alice had felt herself protected from death and all its tragedy. She had thought of God as a grandfatherly figure, cheerful and benign, but as she grew older she had imagined him stern and judgmental, prone to pick favorites. After Sam’s death she saw him as cold and distant, more enthralled with creating the world than with actually governing it. Lately she was coming around again to the idea of a kindly, St. Nicklaus-type figure, a benevolent God who looked down on the world and all its follies with humor and patient sadness.

  “We have so many tornadoes in Alabama.” Stella put her head back against the chair, drawing her feet up under her. “I used to dread them as a child. I used to have this recurring nightmare where I was crouching in a ditch in a field and far off in the distance, I could see a tornado coming. It was a big black shape coming steadily toward me. I was filled with this intense fear, and yet paralyzed too, knowing there was no place I could run, no place I could hide to be safe.”

  “You never know when tragedy will turn to good fortune,” Alice said unexpectedly. Sometimes what came out of her mouth surprised her.

  The girl stared at Alice, a slight smile on her lips. “No, I suppose not.”

  “After all, infirmity brought you into my life.”

  The girl’s face crumpled suddenly like a box left out in the rain, and she dropped her eyes and turned toward the fire. Despite her reaction, Alice could see that she was pleased.

  Elaine arrived a short time later and the feeling of warm companionship in the room instantly evaporated.

  “There are trees down everywhere,” Elaine said, sliding out of her rain coat. “And even reports of a few fatalities.” Her eyes were bright, her face flushed. Elaine was thirty-seven years old and she lived with her Evangelical Christian parents in a trailer on the back side of Signal Mountain. A tornado with fatalities was the most excitement she could hope for.

  “There have been storms in the past and there’ll be storms in the future,” Alice said flatly. Her whole attitude had changed the minute Elaine walked into the room.

  “Not like this one,” Elaine said.

  “Just like this one,” Alice said stoutly.

  Elaine shook her head. She paused, as if checking a mental list of recent catastrophes. “I don’t remember one with fatalities.”

  “Oh? How about the storm of 1974? How about the flood of 1973?”

  “We’re talking about tornadoes, not floods.”

  “We were talking about storms.”

  “Well, I better get going,” Stella said, rising. If this went on much longer, she’d wind up refereeing a catfight. And she had a pretty good idea who would win. She turned to face Elaine. “You say there are trees down. Can I get down the front of the mountain?”

  “Yes, they’ve got the main roads open. But the side streets are covered in debris. You’ll need to take a left out of the driveway, take a right, and then follow it down past the water tower to Bragg. Then take a right on Bragg to Scenic Highway.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “The expressways are clear. I don’t know about the rest of town.”

  “All right.” Stella turned to Alice. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Alice gave her a wry look. “Are you leaving me?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, all right then.” Alice’s blanket slid down, revealing her dress and sweater.

  “We should go ahead and get you ready for bed,” Elaine said. “And then I’ll see what I can fix for dinner.”

  Alice jutted her lower lip and dipped her head like a child readying herself for a tantrum. Stella said quickly, “Alice was just saying that she thought she’d sleep in her clothes tonight so she can stay warm.”

  Elaine said doubtfully, “Well, we’ll have to see about that.”

  “There’s nothing to see about,” Alice said stubbornly. “I’ll decide what I’m going to wear.”

  “Those clothes are dirty.”

  “They’re not dirty! I’ve only worn them twice.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll wear what I want.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Alice said. “I’ve been dressing myself for ninety years. I’ve been dressing myself since before you were even born. If I want to wear my clothes to bed, then I’ll wear my clothes to bed!”

  They were still arguing when Stella left.

  Coming down into the valley, Stella could see that half of Chattanooga was dark. She took the expressway as far as she could and then got off at Manufacturers Road, following Cherokee into the neighborhood in North Chattanooga where she lived. Trees were down everywhere; lying in yards, across automobiles or houses, their roots upended. Twisted sheet metal and debris clogged the glistening streets. It had begun to rain again, drumming against the roof of the car. Stella drove slowly, curiously elated by the devastation she saw around her. She turned left on Unadilla and saw that the lights in the houses on the left side of the street were off, but those on the right side were on.

  Josh was watching a movie when she got home.

  “The cable’s off,” he said morosely.

  She walked past him and then stopped and turned around, dropping her backpack at her feet. “Do you realize that half the city’s without power? My God, Josh, there was a tornado. People were killed.” She didn’t ask him why he hadn’t bothered to call and check on her. To see if she was all right. They were beyond that.

  He let his eyes rest on her a beat and then went back to the movie. “What’s for dinner?” he said.

  She gave him a long, studied look. She slung her backpack up on one shoulder and then turned and walked toward the stairs.

  “What’s for dinner?” he called after her.

  “Whatever you want to make,” she said.

  She let the water run and then lit a few scented candles and set them around the edge of the tub. Far off in the distance she could hear the whirring of chain saws and above that, the whistling of the rising wind. It was insanity, of course, to lie in a bathtub while a storm raged around her, but Stella was feeling reckless. Besides, she had read somewhere that a bathtub was one of the safest places to hide during a tornado.

  She pulled Boswell out of her backpack and slid into the tub, letting the hot water rise around her shoulders. After a minute she laid the book down on the edge of the tub and dried her hands on a towel. Then she opened the book and carefully pulled out the letter. She felt guilty, holding it. She stared again at the spidery handwriting, the faded brown paper, delicate and crackled with age. Mrs. William Whittington. Stella felt ashamed. She felt as if, by reading the letter, she would be betraying a great trust. And yet she was curious, too. She stared at the postmark. March 19, 1951. Almost fifty-eight years ago. She opened the flap and with trembling fingers, pulled out the letter.

  The handwriting was small and cramped, written at a slant and difficult to follow. Stella quickly scanned to the bottom of the second page to see who had written it. Mother.

  March 19, 1951

  My Dearest Al –

  Well, I drove up Lookout today to check on the Whittington family. Found everyone fine. Leta had mopped the kitchen floor and was ironing. Sawyer and Sam had just walked home from school. Rod joined us a short time later, getting off the bus. Sawyer had drawn a picture of you and Bill in New York and it was so sweet. I offered to take them to the drugstore for a soda and they said “fine.” Rod stayed home listening to some melodrama on the radio. We had sodas and then I bought some fudge to bring home for l
ater. Sam bought a book that he put his name in to send to the Baptist Boy’s Home.

  I don’t know if you heard but Agnes Kemp had a heart attack. It was at the dinner table on Sunday. Dr. Kemp gave her a hypodermic and then took her on to the hospital and they say she’ll survive but she’ll have a long recovery. She won’t be sailing to Europe. They’ve had to postpone their trip.

  The papers are full of the terrible train accident up in New York. Sawyer says he’s glad you and Bill flew to New York and didn’t take the train. Life can be tragic sometimes. I guess we all know that.

  I’m glad you went with Bill on his business trip to New York. Sometimes I think you push yourself too hard, Al. I hope you won’t mind me saying this but I worry about you. You mustn’t blame yourself. I feel sometimes that she’s close. I had a dream last night that I could hear her walking in the hallway outside my door, her little feet pattering, and it made me so happy. It was a happy dream in spite of everything that’s happened.

  My love to you both.

  Mother

  Nine

  Spring, 1935

  After that night on the river, Alice didn’t see Brendan Burke again for two months.

  She had already put off two dates with Bill Whittington but she couldn’t put off a third. She’d allowed him to bring her home that night from the dive on the river so she owed him at least one date. He took her to dinner and a movie, The Gay Divorcee. As far as Alice was concerned, that was it. She spent two weeks visiting a friend in Birmingham and when she returned to Ash Hill, she was angry to discover that her mother had accepted a date for her with Bill Whittington to go dancing at the Country Club.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Alice said.

  “He called when you were away. I thought you’d be fine with it,” her mother said, avoiding her eyes. “You’d already accepted one date with him.”

  There was nothing she could do but go. The thought of coming up with an excuse and calling him back was worse than just going. She was quiet on the way to the dance, politely answering his questions about Birmingham, but not giving him much more encouragement than that. It was best that she let him know tonight that she had no intention of accepting anymore dates with him. Most girls would have jumped at the chance to date a wealthy bachelor from a good family, but Alice saw no reason to string him along. The life he offered was a life she could never possibly accept, and it was best that she make that clear to him so that he could go back to dating girls like Isabelle Aubrey.