by Lesley Kagen
Papa scoffed, “Nonsense. I’m giving you the pills for your own good. Isn’t that right, Shenandoah?”
I didn’t pause, didn’t even consider not agreeing with him. I said, “That’s right, sir.”
Remembering that argument, I pocket the pill bottle and rush out of his bathroom. “I’m doing this for your own good” is the exact same thing Papa shouts over Woody’s and my root cellar crying.
I come to a stop in front of our bedroom door, set my face against the shiny wood, and call to my sister, “This cleaning shouldn’t take me much longer. Soon as I’m done, I’ll come back and sing you something from South Pacific, all right?”
I want so badly to picture my once-lively twin jumping up and down on the bed the way she used to, clapping her hands and squealing, “South Pacific? That’s Mama’s and my favorite album!” But try as I might, all I can see in my mind is Woody the way I left her. Lying still on the quilt, barely moving. The goodness knocked right out of her.
Chapter Nine
You know how I’m beginning to feel?
Like a piece of saltwater taffy getting pulled this way and that. Stretched to my absolute limit.
If my mother was here, I could whine to her—“Tell me what to do next. I’m so mixed up.”
But she’s not here. Even if she was, my asking for help wouldn’t do me a bit of good. I can hear in my head her certain reply. “Shenny, I can’t tell you how to solve problems. You need to find your own answers. It’s important that you grow up to be a strong woman,” she’d say like she was imparting some kind of sacred knowledge. “An independent thinker doesn’t rely on others.”
I’d shout back at her, “And to thine own self be true, right? You sound like one of your record albums. A broken one.” I’d be spitting mad. “Ya know what I think? ‘The lady doth protest too much!’” because really, she was being such a hypocrite. Papa always tells her and the rest of us what to do. After one of our spats, I’d storm off, spend the rest of the day fuming up in the fort about what a bad mother she was and how pathetic people from the North are. And Shakespeare—he was an idiot, too. I’d thumb my nose at the pecan fudge she’d bring out, sneer at the heart she’d scratched on top. I’d wait for my father’s car to wind up the drive after a day at the courthouse, scramble down the fort steps and leap into his arms, so relieved to get whatever problem I was having out of my head into his much wiser one.
But counting on Papa to provide me with a solution to my confusion is no longer possible. His socks don’t even match.
What to do? What to do? A quote Mama made me learn by heart, one that she thought might help me when I was troubled about this thing or that comes swooping into my mind:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
That’s right. I can’t just sit around and get shot in the heart by outrageous fortune. I need to dive in head-first.
I’ll start off by getting another scarf of Mama’s to soothe Woody.
I also have to fulfill my promise to our good friend Sam Moody. He’s been asking me if I found a note since the night Mama vanished. I thought he was wondering if Papa had received a ransom note. Sam has a lot of big city police experience. If he had been in charge of finding her instead of imbecilic Sheriff Nash, I bet former Detective Moody would’ve been asking everybody the day after Mama disappeared: Did you notice anybody at the carnival lurking around with a blindfold and a gunny sack? Did you see anybody suspicious drag Miz Carmody off into the bushes?
Her being absconded with seemed so right that I gathered up my courage and went straight to Papa, asked him, “Sir? Did you by any chance happen to receive a ransom note?”
I took his swooning as a no.
Sam got a little teary when I reported that back to him. He told me, “I wasn’t talking about a ransom note, Shenny. Keep looking.”
There’s only one place where I might find all three things. The scarf for Woody, Sam’s note, and something that would mean the world to all of us. A hint to Mama’s present location. There might be something in her diary.
Only here’s what Mr. Shakespeare called “the rub.” I have been forbidden to enter their bedroom under any circumstances.
So which of my thine selves am I supposed to be true to exactly? Shen, the good sister? Shen, the loyal friend? Or Shen, the obedient daughter?
If my mother was here, what would she tell me to do? She wouldn’t. She would probably quote Shakespeare again. Yes.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
Well, that seems clear enough.
I don’t know where His Honor is right this minute, but I’m fairly certain he’s not in here. I’d hear him snoring or yelling out in his sleep if he was. I rap my knuckles against the sturdy oak door. Once. Twice. “Sir?” Cracking it open an inch, I barely say, “Your Honor?”
I haven’t been in here in the longest time.
Except for a shard of sunshine cutting through the wine velvet curtains, I can’t see real good, but well enough to tell that their four-poster bed is empty. Socks and shirts are spread across the wood floor and there’s a smell of crusty food and, just for a second, Chanel No. 5.
Oh, Mama.
You know how you come across something? Like a ticket stub from a movie you really liked or a four-leaf clover that you pressed between wax paper so you would be able to feel lucky any old time you wanted to? But to your surprise, when you dig them up, instead of making you have a happy memory, those parcels from the past get you filled to the brim with so much wanting for something that you might never have again. That’s how I’m feeling, just like that.
Our mother placed the family pictures on the wall across from their bed so she could look at them before she fell asleep and have sweet dreams. This past New Year’s Day, I caught my father stuffing them all into a cardboard box like he’d made a resolution to do away with them, like his family was a bad habit. Right here next to the window is where Woody and my favorite portrait used to be. The one we’ve got in the fort now. I asked him, “Do you mind? Could we just keep that one?” Papa handed it to me and said, “Salt in the wound,” and went right back to his packing. I thought it would work like a splint on Woody’s and my broken heart, but Papa was right. Whenever I look at the picture of us in the lily field, it burns so bad right below my wishbone.
I run my finger over the frames’ smudged outlines. Shots of Woody and me looking like baby bookends in Mama’s arms once hung here. There was another of us attending the first day of school in matching white blouses and navy skirts. I especially loved the shot of my sister and me wading in the creek with Boppa Joe and Gran Jean. Mama’s mother and father passed away in a boating accident a few years back on the chilly waters of Lake Michigan up in Wisconsin. That’s why she steers clear of boats unless it’s too risky to get where she is going any other way.
Woody and I weren’t allowed and Papa was involved in a trial, so our mother had to travel to her old home and to make the funeral arrangements all by herself. When she returned, my sister and I noticed that she was different. Of course, she was thinner from grief, but what she’d lost in weight, she appeared to have gained in spirit. Mama became so recklessly outspoken after her parents’ deaths. Grampa Gus always says, “Money talks,” and my mother had inherited a bundle in her parents’ will, so maybe that had something to do with her newfound mouthiness, I don’t know.
There never were any pictures hanging on the bedroom wall of Grampa, his arm thrown around the youngest of his sons, the both of them beaming with pride. It’s the job of a camera to capture truth for one second in time, and the truth is—Grampa is not proud of Papa. He got rheumatic fever when he was a child and that’s why he’s stunted and not rough and tough like his father and his brother. Grampa calls him “the runt.” He makes fun of his job
at every opportunity. Gus Carmody thinks being a judge comes in handy in certain situations, but that it’s not a very manly way to make a living. “What kind of man wears a robe to work?” he razzes.
There were pictures from Mama and Papa’s wedding day on the wall. Our mother in Gramma’s high-necked gossamer dress holding a white ribboned bouquet. Our father looking natty in a long-tailed tuxedo and top hat. They looked like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. In the old days, when something with a beat came on the radio, Mama and Papa would jut their hips and move smoothly into one another. Or sometimes watching a movie together late at night, they nuzzled close on the sofa, the light of the television bouncing off their sweetheart faces. And on Saturdays, they’d go into town for a date to have dinner and when they’d come home, I’d hear their bubbly laughter out on the porch.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Tried to pinpoint when their happy-ever-after story came to The End. I don’t think it was just one thing that made everything start to go bad. It was a thing here and a thing there, and over time, the same explosiveness that’s inside Grampa Gus sprang free from some place deep within Papa to spew all over Mama. Once it was loose, he couldn’t seem to cap it off. I held Mama responsible for him changing. She was the one causing the problems. I begged her to stop being so defiant, shook a finger in her face, and told her, “All you got to do to make things right again is remember your wedding vows. You got to love His Honor and, most importantly, obey him.”
This is her dresser.
Down here in the bottom drawer is where she keeps her scarves. I’ve got to replace the one Papa ripped up last night. My sister needs that chiffon. She balls it up in her fist and holds it up to her nose and sucks her thumb. It makes her night go faster, having that little bit of Mama in hand.
Long as I’m here, I also want to look again for my mother’s white blouse with the red yarn trim and . . . Lord, what’s wrong with me? I’m not going to find anything of hers in here. Papa donated all her clothes to the secondhand shop because he couldn’t bear having them around to remind him of what he’s lost. I saw Mama’s short-cut emerald jacket at Mass last week and was halfway out of the pew before I realized that it was Beebee Mathison wearing it like it belonged to her. That’s all right. After I bring Mama home, we’ll go buy her some new things in the fancy stores of Richmond or Washington, D.C. Oh, Papa would love that! He insists on picking out all her clothes. Wouldn’t think of letting his wife shop for herself.
Right under this Oriental carpet of blue and gold swirls is where Woody and I helped Mama hollow out a secret spot she called “my stronghold.” We worked all afternoon prying up the boards when Papa was at the courthouse. It seemed so important to her to have a private place. She told me when we were all through, “We must keep this a secret. Your father would be disappointed, you understand, Shen?”
I sort of did. I always pretended that I could make out Centaurus when I couldn’t so I wouldn’t let Papa down.
I’ve had a hundred excuses for not looking for Mama’s diary before now. It’s just that . . . fine, I’ve been too chicken-hearted to read the pouring-out of her innermost feelings. Too scared to see her lacy handwriting spell out something that I would be better off not knowing. Something that would take away all my hope.
I get down on my knees and fold back the carpet. Lift up that notched board with shaking fingers. I’m trying hard to scold my scared into behaving, but it won’t stop back-talking me.
Do not go looking for trouble, Shen, it’s saying. You already have more than your fair share.
I desperately want to answer, Of course, you’re right. What was I thinking? Then I could run downstairs and make Woody and me some pimento cheese sandwiches and head out to the fort. I could practice my card tricks.
There you go, the voice inside my head is saying. Now you’ve got on your thinking cap.
“Hush!” I say out loud because I can’t listen to it the way I have in the past. I know from vast experience that fear talks a lot louder than courage. I need to listen to that other voice inside me, that faint one that’s struggling to be heard. You were born under the constellation Leo. You need to be brave hearted. A lion.
When I think about how my mama was the last one to touch this place, I go so weak that I almost stop, but I don’t. The light may be dim, but I can see right off that the stronghold is empty. Sam’s note is not here. And neither is Mama’s diary, which really hurts. I feel like I opened a gift that I’ve been waiting a year to receive and there’s nothing inside the box. Where is it? Could Papa have found it? The thought of him . . . no, I’m being silly. He’d have no reason to go looking for something that he didn’t even know existed. If he had found the diary by accident he would know that his wife had been visiting with Sam and how Woody and I helped them and . . . no, Papa doesn’t have it. There would have been punishments. My mother must’ve moved it. Hid it somewhere else and didn’t tell me. I bet she told Woody, who is such a Mama’s girl.
I get up off my knees, toe the rug straight. I’m feeling miserable. I bet Sam will, too, when I tell him that I looked in the last best place for his note and found nothing, not even dust. And poor Woody. How will she ever fall asleep without Mama’s scarf?
“What do you think you’re doing?” another voice accuses.
I almost shout out, “I’m just tryin’ to find my mother before my family falls apart worse than it already has. Can’t you just leave me be?”
But I’m not imagining the voice this time. I can smell horse sweat and Maker’s Mark.
I look up to see Papa scowling at me in the mirror above Mama’s dresser. He couldn’t get much realer.
Chapter Ten
“Is that you, Jane Woodrow?” Papa asks, striding through the doorway in his boots and breeches. For such a small man he takes such large steps.
I spin and most especially grin so he can see Woody’s and my only identifiable difference—my gaped teeth. He’s always had a hard time telling us apart. “Golly! You startled me, Your Honor,” I say, tempering it with a chuckle lest he accuse me again of impertinence. “How was your ride this mornin’ . . . I mean morning?” He is very particular about how we speak. No calling ourselves Woody and Shenny in front of him neither. Pet names are not allowed. “Was Pegasus—”
“What are you doing, Shenandoah?”
“I . . . I . . .” Can’t help myself. I don’t care how messy he looks or how mad he is. I would love for him to take me into his arms, press his stubbly cheek against mine, rub his high-bridged nose with my snubbed one. I want to take a comb to his hair, no matter how many teeth got broke. I venture closer and try to untie my tongue. “Did . . . did you notice those shooting stars last night and that Jupiter has been real close and . . . and don’t forget the men are going up to the moon next month and you promised last summer that we’d—”
“You’ve been warned about coming in here,” he says, striking his riding crop against his leg.
“I know, sir, and under any other circumstances I wouldn’t.” I wish I could tell him what I was really up to. How I was looking for the diary in the stronghold, hoping to find a clue to where his lovely wife has gone, but he’ll get sadder if he knows that Mama kept something hidden from him. You have never seen someone so enraptured like my papa was with my mama. When she left a room, his breath would go with her. He’ll thank me once she’s back in his arms. “I’m really, really sorry, but . . . Wood . . . Jane Woodrow, she’s having the hardest time sleeping. I thought that if I could find . . . she needs to—” I bet he doesn’t even remember shredding Mama’s scarf last night before he took us down to the root cellar.
“Was that you and your sister I saw at the creek?” he asks, coming closer and closer.
“No, Your Honor, no, it wasn’t.”
“How odd,” Papa says, acting comically confused. “I could’ve sworn I saw the two of you lying beneath the weeping willow tree when I came out of the barn.” His hands are clasping me right below the Speranza watch
that Sam Moody gave Mama. How could I have been so careless? I got so worried about being late that I forgot to put it back under my pillow when Woody and I got home.
“Are you referring to the big willow tree?” I ask. “The one with the cracked stump? Is that the one you mean?” I pretend to consider that. “No, uh-uh, sir. That wasn’t us. But speaking of the creek, you remember Mr. Clive Minnow, don’t you? Our neighbor? Virgil from the grocery found him lying dead in the water and so now his old dog, Ivory, is all alone and . . . do you think I could go get him? You know how Woody loves dogs and—” I’ve gone and trapped myself. I can tell by how crafty Papa is smiling that he’s figured that out, too. Before he was a judge, he was a prosecuting attorney known for persecuting witnesses. I’ve seen lawyers for the defense go whiter when they found out the one they’d be going up against was the great Walter T. Carmody.
He says smoothly, “Perhaps you’d care to explain to me how you heard about Mr. Minnow’s unfortunate passing?”
“I—”
“Your shorts are damp. Did you and your sister take the stepping stones into town when I expressly forbade it? Is that how you heard about Mr. Minnow’s death?”
“No, sir. Woody and I did not go—”
He lets me loose and drags his dirt-packed fingernail along the bottom of my cut-offs. I swing my hands behind me, slip off Mama’s watch, and push it deep it into the back pocket of my shorts. “If you weren’t down by the creek then why are—” There’s a ruckus in the hallway. Papa cocks his head and calls, “Jane Woodrow?”
My stomach shrinks up the way it usually does when he calls out her name. Please, Lord, do not let it be Woody come looking for me.
There’s more clattering. A few clanks. “Yoodihoo. It’s me, Your Honor,” Lou calls from the hall. My knees buckle in relief, knowing it’s not my twin. “Lunchtime. I got all your favorite—”