by Lesley Kagen
Gramma Ruth Love is very particular. She’ll get agitated when she shows up for her stay if our home is not glistening clean and we wouldn’t want to wreck her visit. That’s how come I’m saying to Woody in a no-nonsense, but entirely pleasant way, “That’s real good, keep comin’.” We’re cat-footing through the empty kitchen on our way to the dining room and all that silver that needs polishing when the rattle of the broom closet door gets my attention. By the time I remember her witchy trick, by the time I yell, “Watch out, Woody! She’s comin’,” Lou is already bounding out of the closet, bent over and cackling, “Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!”
But this time, the joke’s on her.
Woody is not dashing away, nor is she screaming her head off like she usually would while Lou doubles over in laughter. My sister’s standing stone cold still in the middle of the kitchen floor. She’s gone marble white. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s awful. Even Lou must think so, because she’s quit hopping like a hag and is eyeing Woody with an astonished face. She comes closer and reaches out to stroke my twin the way you do a statue in a museum that looks so lifelike. “Woody?” she says tentatively.
“Are ya—”
“You and Blackie think that’s so damn funny, you—” I leap, land on Lou’s chest, and knock her backwards against the broom closet door. “Look what ya did!” I slide my palms down her cheeks and jerk her head towards Woody. “Ya petrified her!” Lou is kicking at me, trying to duck under my arms, but I get her by the hair. Some strands come off in my hand and I wave them in her face. “I’m takin’ this to Miss Delia. She’ll hex ya. She will. She made Charity Thomas grow that hump on her back and she’ll do the same to you. Ya think Blackie’d come sniffing around something protrudin’ like that? Well, do ya?”
“You don’t scare me! Charity tol’ me she was born with that hump,” Lou yells back.
“She’s lying. Her back was flat until—” From the corner of my eye, I can see that my argument-hating sister has thrown back her head and opened her mouth wide. Papa is right outside. “No . . . no . . . don’t . . .” I gasp, letting go of Lou and lunging for Woody, but her howl has already broken free. I slap my hand over her mouth to make her stop, but under the tick tick of the cuckoo clock that hangs over the pantry and the bouncy tune that’s coming out of the transistor radio, I can hear the front door open and close with a slam. He heard. He’s coming.
“What is going on in here?” Papa asks, materializing in the kitchen doorway. “What’s all the shouting about, Shenandoah?”
He’s not sure which twin I am, so I bare my gaped teeth and say, “Good afternoon, Your Honor. So sorry to disturb you. There’s nothing going on here of any importance. Woody . . . ah . . .” My sister is only staying upright because I’m holding her so. “Jane Woodrow . . . she . . . stubbed her toe is all.” I chuckle. “You know how she can be.” I said that not directly to him, but to Lou. I avert my eyes to her hair that I got hidden in my hand.
“Is that right, Louise?” Papa asks for confirmation. He’s got to look up to her because she’s taller than him by a few inches.
“Oh, thas’ right, sir, thas’ right. Nothin’ goin’ on here but a stubbed toe,” she says with a rise of her lying right eyebrow and an arch of her back. I am digging my fingernails between her shoulder blades to remind her of my hump-hexing promise.
“You look so nice,” I say to Papa. Despite the sternness in his voice, I can feel my need for him bubbling up. “Have you got something to attend to this evening? If not, maybe you and me and Woody could go up to the fort and star—”
“Everything all right, Walt?” someone calls out of the hall that leads off the foyer into his study.
“We’re in the kitchen, Abby,” Papa says, his penetrating gaze still not letting up on us.
Abby?
Abigail Hawkins. I didn’t see her Cadillac parked out front. She probably parked down by the barn. Yes. She’d feel right at home down there.
The Hawkins and the Carmody families have at least a hundred years of hunting and drinking under their belts. Our grandmother loves to tell the tale about how everyone in Rockbridge County took it for granted that her precious baby boy and the Hawkins girl would eventually tie the knot. It came as no surprise when they set a date to wed after they finished high school. Abigail worked on the family horse farm and Papa went to college and everything was going according to plan. Until Abigail came down with something the night Papa had planned to attend a sock hop at Washington & Lee. That’s why he was all by his lonesome when he spotted Evelyn Anne MacIntyre across the crowded dance floor. Just one look, that’s all it took. He fell head over heels for Mama. Swept her off her size sevens. Abigail Hawkins’s clodhoppers didn’t have a chance.
Gramma always concludes the story with a long sigh. “As you can imagine, losing Walter like that to another woman, poor Abby took the breakup hard. She never did wed.” Hardly a surprise, I always think to myself. Who’d want to wake up every morning for the rest of their lives next to a woman who bears a resemblance to one of the Clydesdales her family breeds?
“Walter?” Miss Hawkins comes into the kitchen with a bick . . . bick . . . bick of huge white heels with shiny buckles on their toes and a belted blue gingham dress in a size too small. She must’ve come to do more of her Betty Crockering or what Beezy called “Web spinning.” I didn’t notice until just now two of her picture-perfect pies sitting on the kitchen counter.
Bait.
Miss Abigail throws her hands to her chubby cheeks, says so concerned, “Everything all right in here?” When she speaks, her ponytail bobs back and forth. It’s the same rambunctious red as her lowbrow nephew Remmy’s.
Oh.
No.
After he left the Triple S, did that boy drive right over to her farm to tell his auntie that he’d run into us? Is that why she’s here? Has she come bearing bad news along with those pies? My heart starts thrumping in anticipation of her saying, “Well, here are those naughty girls Remmy saw this afternoon at the gas station with that half-breed Sam Moody.”
I bring my eyes up to my father. Concentrate. When he gets like this, our mother taught Woody and me, “It’s important to not only listen to what he’s saying, but to study him the same way you would a map, girls. Pay attention to the way his shoulders draw up into little mountains. Check to see if his brow is rutted or if his cheeks are deep like pot holes. Those are signs that he’s angry.”
And he is mad, but not in the worst kind of way. Not how he’d be if Miss Hawkins just informed him that his girls had disobeyed and taken off from Lilyfield. If that was the case, his face would look like a froze-over pond. But beneath that icy crust would lie a man ready to blow.
Papa puts on a gleaming smile before turning towards Abigail. “Nothing to concern yourself about, Abby,” he tells her. “Just a stubbed toe.”
“Oh, goodness. Those always hurt worse than you think they should. Perhaps I should get some ice,” she says, heading towards the freezer like this is her own house.
“There’s no need for that.” Papa shoots us a be-on-your-best-behavior-or-else look. He hates for us to make a fuss in front of other people. “Girls, where are your manners?”
I am still shaking from my tussle with Lou and worried about Woody, but I do what he expects. I step up and curtsy the best I can in blue jean shorts. “Good afternoon, Miss Hawkins. What a pleasure it is to see you again. Thank you for bringing us those lovely pies.” I point over at the counter. While Gramma Ruth Love wins all firsts at the fair, Miss Abigail always comes in second. “Are they peach? Mmm . . . mmm . . . mmm. Can’t wait to get me a slice.”
I’d rather eat tree bark. I’d rather be dead.
Miss Hawkins says, “Why, aren’t you the sweetest thing. It’s very nice to see you again . . . ah . . .”
“I’m Shenandoah Wilson, ma’am. This is Jane Woodrow,” I say, nodding towards Woody, who’s still looking mighty rocky. “She’s the strong, silent one.”
Still
plastered against the broom closet door where I pinned her, Louise pipes in with, “How do, ma’am. Would ya like me to fetch ya a glass of something cool?”
“We don’t have time for that,” Papa says. “Miss Abigail has a meeting of the Ladies Auxiliary to conduct.”
“Excuse me, Your Honor?” I need to ask him for a favor, even though my twisting tummy is telling me the timing’s not right. Mama always said that was important, too, that you had to pick the right moment. Maybe Abigail Hawkins being here will help. Seems like he’s trying to impress her. “That dog I asked you about earlier? Ivory? I don’t think he’s eaten for days. He’s lying out on the Minnow porch looking very skinny.”
Papa turns to Abigail and says apologetically, “I’m afraid my daughter has a hard time following directions.” To me, he says, “Did you go over to the Minnow place?”
“No, sir.”
The corners of his lips are tucking into the triumphant smile he gets when he thinks he’s caught a witness lying on the stand. “Then please explain how you know that the dog is out on the porch.”
“I can see him from our bedroom window, Your Honor. Do you think I could go get him?” I ask, before he comes up with another question that I might not be able to answer. “We’ll take good care of him.” Grassy breath and all that fur. My sister needs that.
He says to Woody, “Is that true? Do you want that dog?”
She does not bring her eyes up to his, she looks down to the floor and reaches for my hand, squeezes so hard.
I say, “She really does. She is missing Mars so bad.”
Papa thrusts out his chin. Narrows his eyes. I know that look. If he had a gavel, it’d be pounding. His Honor is about to announce a verdict. He says to Woody, “If you ask me for that dog in your own words, Jane Woodrow, I might give my consent.” He wants her to start talking again so she can answer his questions about the night Mama vanished. Threatening to send her away is the worst thing he could do, but this is bad, too. Papa knows that Woody is madly in love with all creatures great and small. She even gave up fishing because she couldn’t stand hooking the worms.
My sister has begun swaying, ever so slightly.
Papa doesn’t like it when she rocks. His temple vein is beginning to bulge blue. He is opening and closing his fists. That’s not good. If Mama was here, she would say, “May I give you a neck rub?” to detour his anger.
I start to say, “May I give you . . . ?” but he doesn’t hear me. He’s too intent on Woody.
Crouching down in front of her fast enough to make her flinch, Papa says sternly, “You know what befalls animals that outlive their usefulness, don’t you?”
“I know, Papa, I know,” I say, waving my hand in the air like an overeager student. I’m trying to distract him from my sister. “When our animals get aged or injured beyond fixing, you tell Mr. Cole to put a bullet in their head and bury them out back of the barn.” Woody has marked every one of their graves with crosses she made out of twigs and twine. “They’re no good to us anymore if they can’t do their jobs.”
“That’s correct, Shenandoah, and your sister would do well to remember that.” Papa gives Woody a too-firm pat on the head.
“She most certainly will, Your Honor,” I say, peppy. “Thank you for that wonderful advice.”
“Come, Abigail,” he says, turning to leave. “You’ll be late for your meeting.”
“Oh, goodness, you’re right,” she says, checking her watch, which is not half as nice as Mama’s. She bends down low enough that I can see the top half of her freckled bosom escaping from her scooped-neck dress. “So nice visiting with you, girls. I look forward to spending a lot more time together real soon.” When she rushes off to my father’s side, she leaves behind a cloud of that sickening gardenia perfume she wears.
Lou calls, “Sir? Will you be home for supper?”
“No,” he says, not bothering to look back.
Usually I’d be thinking after an encounter with Papa, Yes, he’s right to get strict like that with Woody. She’s got to start talking one of these days. Or maybe I’d come up with another explanation for the way he’s acting. Something like, Papa doesn’t mean to be so cruel. His suffering over his wife’s disappearance is what’s making him think crooked.
But that’s not at all what’s going on in my mind.
You see that, Shen? That right there? Shocking thoughts are screaming at me. See how His Honor is trying to break already-fragile Woody, who is so sad about losing her mama that she cannot sleep or speak or eat anything not sweet? See how he’s telling her that harm will come to a helpless animal if she doesn’t do what he wants her to? Well, do you?
Oh, more than anything, I don’t want to. But Papa’s meanness is feeling as familiar to me as the Bible story about Solomon who was willing to slice a baby in two to settle a score.
I shouldn’t be thinking like this. Even my lungs know that. They’re in and outing faster.
“Shenny?” Lou asks, shrinking away from me. “What’s got into ya?” She’s probably thinking that I’ve been taken over by a devil spirit and I’m scared, too. How I’m feeling is a sin against the commandment that obliges us to love our father, respect and support him in his time of need. I’m sorry, Lord. Forgive me, I can’t help it. I know you want us to turn our other cheek, but every time we do, it just gives Papa another place to slap. Or make us kneel in the root cellar. Interrogate us for hour upon hour about what we saw the night Mama disappeared. I know how much pain he’s in, but shouldn’t a loving father care about his daughters no matter how bad he himself is grieving? Couldn’t he be more understanding about Woody instead of threatening to send her away? He should’ve fetched Ivory off the Minnow porch. Tied a pink bow around his neck. Given that dog to my sister like a get-well-soon present. That’s what he would’ve done back in the days we laid together on the fort floor, searching the skies every night after supper, Mama’s singing drifting out of the kitchen window below. Back when he held his little Gemini so close, telling them, “I love you as much as the stars.”
It’s no use. I can’t go on pretending anymore. Can’t deny any longer that there’s been a crack in our universe. First our sun . . . and now our moon has come tumbling from the heavens.
Woody has wet herself.
Chapter Fifteen
Optical illusions.
I came across my first at Doc Keller’s office just last week when I was waiting for Woody to be examined. I picked up a Jack and Jill magazine off the pile in the waiting room and started paging through it to pass the time. In the puzzle section, I came across a picture of a fancy goblet sitting under a headline that said—AMAZING. What’s so amazing about that? I thought. But as I was turning the page, that picture caught my eye again and something truly AMAZING had happened. The goblet picture had somehow transformed into something completely different. Just like that, I was staring down at two identical girls—twins—going nose to nose. Feeling tricked, I tried desperately to get that goblet to reappear again. I opened my eyes as wide as I could. Blurred them. Squinted. Did it all over again ten times. Finally gave up.
That’s the closest I can get to describing to you how I’m feeling about our father. No matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to bring him back.
Woody, Lou, and I are still huddled together in the kitchen, like soldiers trying to regroup after a surprise attack. The sound of Miss Abigail’s laughter and the crunch of my father’s car tires drifts through the kitchen window. I’m pretending not to notice the puddle of pee at my sister’s feet.
“Shenny?” Lou says, tiptoeing her fingers up my arm. “Listen. ’Bout jumpin’ out at y’all like that . . . I . . . I was only funnin’ around. Blackie told me . . . I didn’t mean—”
“Shut your stupid bayou mouth, Lou. And if you don’t wipe that pityin’ look off your face, I’ll wipe it off for ya,” I’m barely able to say. “Woody?” With what feels like the last ounce of strength I got in me, I reach out to my twin. We use each other like
crutches as we limp through the foyer and up the front staircase.
Leftover love is what I’ve been using as an anchor to keep me from drifting off, I see that now. I’m pressing my burning cheek against the cool blue wall that Mama tried to paint so tranquil. I’m getting swept away by sorrow and there’s not a thing I can do about it. I have been lying to myself this whole time. Not only when it comes to my papa. It’s so true that you don’t know what you’ve got until you don’t have it anymore. If I could only take Mama into my arms and apologize to her for almost always taking Papa’s side in their arguments. For defending him. I’m feeling now how she must have felt. Helpless.
Nobody could be that accident-prone.
My sister is poised on the edge of our bed. The white washrag I got out of the bathroom so she could clean herself up is hanging off her fingertips like she’s surrendering.
I kneel down in front of her and say, “Just so you know, wettin’ yourself, that’s no big deal. Happens to me all the time. I did it twice on Sunday.” Her sneakers are soaked with pee, so I slip them off. “Oh, Woody . . . I’m so sorry. It won’t always be like this. I’ll find Mama, just you wait and see,” I say the same way I have been, even though I don’t believe it anymore. I’m not even sure that I ever did, but I can’t let my fragile sister know that. “C’mon now, we got to cheer up. I could sing that song from the Camelot album you and Mama like so much.” I wipe the crying snot off with my arm and lower my voice as far as it will go. “‘If ever I would leave you, it . . . it wouldn’t be in summer. Seein’ you in summer I never would go. Your hair streaked with sunshine, your . . .’”