Cathy followed up by describing how she had often taken Ryder ice-skating when he was a little boy. He listened with a small smile on his lips. Was he envisioning it again, slowly folding away the darkness?
It occurred to me that maybe he would return to himself chronologically, recalling his youth and then inching along until where he was before the near drowning. It was the first time I seriously considered that I might be nothing more than a few moments along the way, an interlude violently interrupted during a spring storm.
Perhaps my father was right about my getting out of the house and doing things with my school friends. My mother’s earlier concern wasn’t foolish. I was on the verge of losing any sort of relationship or contact with most of them. I knew I wasn’t very pleasant when any of them asked me questions about Ryder. I left no doubt in their minds that he was a subject I considered out-of-bounds.
Everyone remembered him quite vividly, of course. Some of the girls in my class had never stopped drooling over him. Their curiosity about his illness, however, was sick to me. “Can he feed himself? Can he go to the bathroom himself? Does he slobber when he eats like some mental patient?” I knew they craved the grisliest details. When I mentioned this once to my mother with Mr. Stark present, he piped up first to say, “That’s why people slow down to look at traffic accidents.”
“It’s ghoulish,” I said.
“No. It’s just human nature,” my mother said, “especially when it concerns someone who had been so prominent in the school community.”
Nevertheless, I felt I would be betraying Ryder if I ever told any of them any details about his condition. I had nearly gotten into a bad fight with Denise Potter during our lunch hour two days before the Christmas break, when she’d described seeing him walking with Dr. Seymour on the property.
“My mother and I were riding by Wyndemere,” she’d begun.
She had this annoying habit of bouncing her head from side to side when she was revealing something she thought was special information that no one but she had. It was as if she was keeping rhythm to music only she heard. Her mother let her put light blond streaks in her dark brown hair, which she had cut and styled into something she called a beach wave. Despite her “forever diet,” she had a pudgy face with sinking hazel eyes and a lower lip that looked twice the size of the upper. Consequently, to me she appeared to be constantly pouting.
“And I looked over to my right and saw Ryder walking with this man.”
“The man is his doctor,” I said.
“I thought his father was his doctor,” she replied smugly.
“His father is a cardiac specialist. Ryder’s doctor’s name is Dr. Seymour. He is the head of the clinic that treats patients like Ryder.”
“Oh. Well, he looked normal!”
I practically pounced on her when I sat forward. “He is normal,” I said.
She cringed, looked at everyone else at the table, as if she felt stupid for being so frightened. “If he’s normal, why isn’t he in college?” she fired back, nevertheless timidly. Her words seemed to rise from her like tiny bubbles in a fishbowl.
“He’s still recuperating. Do you know what that means? Recuperating? Like you’re still recuperating from birth.”
“Huh?”
The three other girls at our table smiled gleefully. No one really liked Denise, but she was good at clinging and inserting herself into everything we did together. For me, that list had diminished to almost nothing.
“How is he really doing, Fern?” Ivy Mason asked softly after I had calmed and began to eat again.
I liked her the most of all my school acquaintances, because she, like me, had spent most of her life fatherless and, perhaps because of her mother’s struggles caring for her, always seemed more mature than the others, even more mature than I was at times. She was certainly a better student than most, hovering at the top of our class.
There were a number of other students who came from one-parent families, mostly because of divorces, like Ivy did. Because my mother had me out of wedlock, I often felt very different from them as well. Up to the past year, my father’s identity had been a mystery. I sensed how other girls’ mothers looked at me with suspicion. Somehow, because of what my mother had done, they believed I surely would be a bad influence on their daughters. Even though Dr. Davenport was one of the most highly respected doctors in the community, his living with someone people thought of as his mistress now influenced how they thought of me. As it was, even before my father was revealed, I was often left out of parties, something that seemed more painful for my mother than for me. I knew she blamed herself.
As time went by, however, boys paid more attention to me, and little inroads were made in my social life. The barriers began to crumble more and more every year, maybe partly due to how my mother was becoming more accepted as well. After all, she worked for one of the most respected men in our community, and there wasn’t anything else negative anyone could say about her. She was hardworking, always nicely dressed, and well spoken.
What didn’t hurt either was that I, like Ivy, was one of the top students in our class. When I did join the drama club and performed well in some school plays in junior high, I inched a little closer to full acceptance. It was clear now that I wasn’t a bad influence on anyone, despite the way Bea had viewed me and surely had discussed me with her friends. But they were all what my mother said the English called “toffee-nosed.” The expression didn’t come from the sugary brown sweet but from toff, which was the slang term the lower classes gave to stylishly dressed upper-class people who were considered snobby.
However, as time went by and I was accepted more and more, Bea became increasingly irritated and even more critical of everything I did. This was before the Revelations, when she would go beyond irritation to explosion. I remembered that once my father had come to one of the plays I was in during seventh grade. Bea didn’t come with him, and he didn’t sit with my mother. She sat with Cathy Stark. He had brought along a young intern, who probably came because he didn’t want to displease my father. He surely would have preferred being with friends on a rare night off, but that was how revered my father was. An invitation from him, regardless of what it was for, was like gold. I had no idea how much he was respected in the medical world until I learned about his articles in medical magazines and feature stories written about him.
“He’s improving a little every day,” I said to Ivy now, “but it’s a long process of recuperation.”
“How hard it must be for Dr. Davenport,” Ivy said.
She had a soft, warm smile. Her turquoise eyes would brighten with clear sincerity. Unlike almost everyone else around her, including me at times, she moved and spoke with a calmness some would easily mistake for disinterest. She was the smallest in our group, standing a little more than five foot three, with diminutive facial features, and consequently looked years younger than everyone else. Jennifer Sanders, who for reasons I never understood disliked Ivy, once whispered to me that she was “one of those girls doomed to always be cute and never beautiful.” She thought that was a clever nasty thing to say.
Maybe it was true, but I didn’t see it as a terrible criticism.
Denise, who was still smarting from my crushing comeback, immediately piped up with “If he’s improving, he’s not normal right now.”
“Well, if that’s the way you want us all to think of it, I guess you’ll never be normal, then,” I said.
Everyone laughed.
“At least I have a chance,” she said. “You don’t even have a real mother and father. I mean, you have a mother, but she’s not married to your real father. She’s like—”
“Shut up, Denise, before you say something you’ll really regret,” I warned.
I guessed my face was red with rage and scary enough. She looked away quickly. I wasn’t fooling myself, however. I knew what was said behind my back.
When the Revelations became public knowledge, my friendships and social life were
peppered with new minefields. I didn’t dare mention any of the new nasty remarks to my father, or even my mother, for that matter. After all that had occurred and where we were now in the Wyndemere home world, I certainly didn’t want to present myself as a victim again. I knew and believed how sorry my father was for all that had happened. My mother shared that regret. Why make them feel worse? For years, they had avoided revealing what had happened, but now, with our moving back into the main house and Bea’s rage and suit for divorce, and all of it public knowledge, the skin had come off the scars.
In the beginning, the most obvious questions came at me. “Is your mother still Dr. Davenport’s lover? Are they going to get married now? Should we be calling you Fern Davenport and not Fern Corey? A simple no never would satisfy any of them. “I don’t know” kept it all going. Whatever I did or said, I knew there were those who were smiling behind my back gleefully.
Many of the girls in my class were still jealous of my having been chosen prom queen, despite all the trouble that had come from the wild party afterward that night. I was the first ninth-grader in our school to enjoy that honor. Envious, they were pleased by my new discomfort. When my mother and my father wanted to know why I wasn’t doing more with friends and activities in school, I tried to avoid really answering and bringing in all this baggage.
I didn’t want to resurrect all the trouble that occurred that prom night, but another reason for my retreat from doing many social and extracurricular activities in school was the inevitable stain of association I had suffered from having been Paul Gabriel’s prom date. My not having been directly involved with the drugs and Paul’s getting himself into trouble after I had left him that night, thanks to Ryder, didn’t do that much to change anything. I knew that many thought I had gotten away with it because I was associated with Dr. Davenport. The revelation that I was actually his daughter only confirmed their suspicions.
How could I tell my parents all that without causing everyone more pain?
Actually, if it wasn’t for my concerns about Ryder and my devotion to him, I would have asked my mother and, of course, my father to transfer me to another school, probably a private school where my past could have been better hidden. One of the main reasons I avoided going on dates this year was my feeling that the boys who asked me probably thought I’d be easy sex. Some simply blamed it on my being snobbish now that I was a Davenport. As a result, I had yet to be invited to anything this year, and I knew there had been a few house parties and two birthdays when parents had invited their daughters’ friends to dinner at one of the better restaurants.
I told myself that it didn’t bother me. I had more important things to do and to care about, mainly Ryder’s recuperation. Now, with both my father and my mother pressuring me to have a life outside Wyndemere and my realization that I really might not be helping Ryder, I decided to get back into the world.
The question was what would I have to give up to do so, and was it worth it?
The following day, I called Ivy, ostensibly to talk about auditions for the new play scheduled right after the Christmas break. Mr. Madeo, the English teacher in charge of the drama program, had announced that he intended to do Dracula. Lucy Westenra was the lead female role, the one I thought I might audition for. No one knew at the start of the play that Dracula was slowly draining her blood, which was a little like the way I felt right now. My emotions had been subdued so long I felt like my life was dripping away. Ivy wasn’t going to try out for anything until I suggested she try out for Renfield.
“Have you read the novel or the play? I have,” Ivy said. “Renfield is a man.”
“Yes, I read it. He’s weird. He eats insects. I think you could do it with some interesting makeup and make it fun.”
I didn’t want to stress that she had a little boy’s figure.
She thought for a moment. “Maybe I could,” she said.
We laughed about it, and then I asked her what she was doing Saturday night and if she would like to go to a movie.
She was quiet again for a moment, so I quickly added, “Unless you’re busy with your mother and your sister . . .”
“No. I was just thinking. You weren’t invited to Mindy Harker’s holiday party Saturday night, either.”
“Didn’t even know about it. I don’t think I’ve said ten words to her this year.”
“Yes, well, she does have a limited vocabulary,” Ivy said. I laughed. “Sure. I could meet you at the mall earlier, and we could get something to eat. You want to see Someone’s Watching? It’s a little scary, but it has good reviews.”
“Okay,” I said. “What time?”
“Six will work for me. My mother is taking my sister somewhere close by about that time. I’ll meet you in front of Tops.”
“Okay.”
“You know who would be perfect to play Dracula, don’t you? I mean, Dracula has got to be charming to lure the female victims,” she added.
“Charming? The boys in our school? Is there anyone?”
“I was thinking of Dillon Evans,” she said. “He was in Our Town last spring, played George.”
“Yes. He’s kind of shy, though, isn’t he? That part fit him. I mean, Dracula can’t be shy.”
“My mother always says, ‘Beware of the shy ones.’ ”
I laughed. “Maybe she’s right. Anyway, being as he’s your neighbor, you know better than I do.”
“I’ll suggest it to him. I’ll let you know what he says. I know what we’ll do,” she added. “You and I will interview him and decide whether or not to press it.”
Perhaps she had a crush on him, I thought. “You and me? Interview him? Where? How? I have yet to say anything to Dillon Evans.”
“Really?”
“Maybe I’m afraid of his bite,” I said.
Her laughter made me feel good, hopeful, in fact. Perhaps I could escape the shadows of Wyndemere after all.
I told my mother about my plans. She couldn’t have been more joyful if I had won the lottery. She was sitting in the kitchen with Mr. Stark. For years, she had tried to get him to drink brewed tea. He had finally given in only if the tea was accompanied by her homemade scones.
“I’ll be happy to drive you, Fern,” Mr. Stark said. “And pick you up.”
“I could take a taxi back.”
My mother and he looked at each other. Ever since the disaster after the prom, both were very concerned about almost anything I did.
“I mean, you’d have to pick me up, take me home, and then go home. What do you think, Mummy?”
“Well, I suppose you’re right.”
“Now, Emma, you know that’s not a big deal to me,” Mr. Stark said.
“No, but . . . we have to let Fern take more responsibility for herself. I wasn’t that much older than she is when I set out across the pond for America, and the farthest away from home I’d been at the time was Salisbury. I hadn’t even been to London, and here I was headed for New York City all by myself, not knowing a soul there.”
“You were eighteen,” Mr. Stark reminded her.
“Just eighteen.” She looked at me. “Somehow I think Fern’s grown up faster nevertheless. Besides, she’ll soon be driving herself everywhere. Dr. Davenport and I have been discussing that.”
“Really?” I asked. Did that mean he would buy me a car?
“See?” Mr. Stark said to me. “See how fast a woman makes a man obsolete?”
“Oh, go on with you, George Stark, reaching for our pity now. Shameful.”
Mr. Stark laughed. “If there’s a way to win with this woman, it’s a national secret,” he said.
She slapped him playfully on his arm.
He laughed. “Well, I’ll certainly help you with driving instructions when you’re ready,” he told me.
For a long time, I had suspected that he was really my father. It was impossible to believe a man could be as devoted to my mother as he was without being in love with her, and devoted to me as well without being my father. Then I h
ad learned about my mother’s one true love affair here in America. It was with the doctor who had delivered both Ryder and me, Dr. Bliskin, a married man who had triplets. He had left to work somewhere else, but when he returned for a visit earlier this year, I suspected immediately that he might be my father. I learned that he had left because although he loved my mother, he loved his family and didn’t want to hurt them. When I asked her, my mother assured me he was not my father, but she held back on the truth until it became necessary to reveal it.
Now, after I told my mother of my plans with Ivy and seeing her buoyant reaction, I felt like I was rising out of some dark, cold place in which I had entrapped myself. My father’s key words rang so true. I had been committing myself to the same fate Ryder was suffering, and that wasn’t doing him or me any good.
When my mother told my father my plans, I saw his look of not only approval and satisfaction but also some relief. It wasn’t until then that I fully realized the weight of the guilt he had carried on his shoulders all these years. My mother had been clear about what had occurred between them. Dr. Davenport and his first wife, Samantha, had brought my mother to live at Wyndemere and to serve as their in vitro surrogate, but at the time, neither anticipated her being or doing anything more.
In New York, my mother had fallen behind on her rent; it was actually her landlord who had set up the meeting for her with Dr. Davenport and his first wife. They offered my mother seventy-five thousand dollars, which was a fortune for her. The money guaranteed that she could avoid retreating to England. After she gave birth, Dr. Davenport offered her an additional fifty thousand dollars to remain as Ryder’s nanny for the year. She told me that she didn’t believe it would last much longer.
“I was even thinking of returning to New York and taking another toss at becoming a professional singer.”
Echoes in the Walls Page 8