Girl in the Shadows Read online

  "I doubt that," Mrs. Westinton told her. "I'm not deaf and I don't know what you're saying,"

  Rhona held out her arms, again expecting Echo to come to her for an embrace. Echo looked at Mrs. Westington and then she turned and started up the stairs with her boxes and bags.

  "Echo! Echo, you listen to me."

  "Lardy Dee. Did you forget the child is deaf?" Mrs. Westington asked her. "She doesn't recognize you. probably. She was barely out of infancy when you deserted her.'

  "Look, Mom. I came here because I need you to help us and since you helped me get past my recent troubles. I thought you would have a different attitude, especially when you hear and see how I would like to make things right and to do the right things from now on."

  "Mending fences, are you?"

  "Yes."

  "Turning a new leaf, are you?"

  "Yes, Mom," she said in a tired voice. "With Mr. Skeeter?"

  "Can we sit down and talk like two adults. please?" Rhona pleaded.

  "Two? Are you saying Mr. Skeeter or you ain't adult?"

  "Mom?"

  "I'll make some tea," Mrs. Westington relented. You can use the guest room at the end of the hall upstairs. It's clean. My girl cleans it once a week no matter if anyone uses it or not, so don't mess it up so it looks like that pig pen you're driving out there. Put on some decent clothing, clean yourselves up so you're both fit to be in the same room with decent people, come down to the living room and get you get down to brass tacks."

  "Brass tacks?" Skeeter asked, smiling widely and looking at Rhona.

  "Mom has a colorful way of speaking. We already brought our things to that room, seeing mine was messed up."

  "Messed up? It's twice as neat as your best day in it."

  "Okay, Main. Just come on," she told Skeeter, and headed for the stairs.

  I had been climbing slowly so as to hear their conversation. I sped up behind Echo and continued toward her room with her to help her put away her new things. I could see she was quite stunned with her mother's unexpected appearance.

  "That's my mother." she signed to me as soon as we entered her room and she had put her bags and boxes down on the bed.

  "I know."

  "She looks different," she told me.

  "People change. You haven't seen her in a long time," I said. "Let's put your things away."

  I began to hang up clothes for her and she began to put things in her dresser drawers. She was full of questions, of course. Her hands were moving too quickly for me to follow, so she began to write. "Is my mother staying here now?"

  "I don't know."

  "Who is that man? Is he my father?"

  Again. I wrote. "I don't know. I don't think he's your father. however. I think she met him long after you were born. Echo."

  "I don't like him." she wrote. and I laughed.

  "I don't think your grandmother is particularly fond of him either."

  She thought a moment and then wrote. "Why didn't Tyler say hello to us?"

  "He was in a big rush. As I explained to you, something must have happened at their business," I told her. She thought about my answer and for the moment that seemed to suffice.

  I was going to ask her about her nightmare last night and her coming to my bed, but on second thought. I decided she had been through enough turmoil already today. It could wait for a time when we had a quiet moment together. I told her I was going to put my new things away.

  -When I entered my room. I found Rhona there, rifling through her closet, tossing garments onto the bed. She turned as soon as she realized I was standing there,

  "These are my things," she said. "I'm not taking anything that belongs to you."

  "I know."

  She stared at me a moment and then turned to me completely, her hands on her hips. "Who are you anyway? How come you're living here?" she demanded.

  I began to explain, describing how I arrived at the vineyard after Uncle Palaver's death. I told her who he had been and what we had done together.

  "So that's why there's a motor home and a car back there. My mother just took you in?"

  "Yes." I said.

  "What about the rest of your own family?" I told her about Brenda, about my parents. "This is ridiculous. Now she's turning this place into an orphanage," she said. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion again. "Did you touch any of my things, my clothing?"

  "Your mother wanted me to wear one of the nightgowns, but other than that, I..."

  "I don't know why I even asked. You couldn't possibly fit into anything of mine anyway. but I assure you I don't intend to let you just take over my possessions," she warned. "My advice to you is to find another elderly old lady to take advantage of."

  "I am not taking advantage of anyone."

  "Right. I've been on the road myself, you know. I know what's what. I'm sure it wasn't hard for you to pull the wool over the eyes of an old lady and a deaf girl, and Trevor Washington's head isn't exactly filled with lightbulbs."

  She scooped up a pile of her clothing and started out of the room. She paused at the doorway and turned to me, her face flushed with fury. "Now that I'm back. I can assure you that you're not going to stay here." she said. "I intend to take back custody of my daughter and get what's rightfully mine. If you know what's good for you, you'll just get out now before there is any more unpleasantness."

  She walked out of the room. My heart was pounding and tears had come to my eyes. I put away the clothes Mrs. Westington had bought for me and then I sat by the window, looking toward the motor home and thinking. I did have some money, Uncle Palaver's cash still in the motor home. I could leave. Brenda was probably right. I should just return to a regular high school and graduate. The equivalency exam wasn't going to work out anyway with Tyler behaving as he was. Mrs. Westington would say "the writing's on the wall.' He'll be giving notice any day now and be gone. I should be gone along with him.

  And then I thought how deserted and alone both Echo and Mrs. Westington were going to feel. Would Rhona and that man remain here? I had no right to interfere, of course. but I didn't have to be a fortuneteller to see what Echo's future would be like if Rhona did take custody of her again and Mrs. Westington was unable to prevent it. Who knows where Rhona would put Echo? How lost and alone she would be. No. I thought. Mrs. Westington needs an ally now more than ever and Echo needs a friend. Trevor Washington, as devoted to her and Echo as he was, wasn't enough. It seemed to me I had to stay. It would be totally ungrateful for me to just up and leave right now when they needed me the most.

  I heard Rhona in the hallway talking to Echo. She was probably returning to the bedroom for more of her things, and she had stopped at Echo's room.

  "I really can't get over how you've grown," I heard her say. "And fortunately for you, you look more like me than your father, whoever he was." She followed that with a thin laugh.

  I stepped up to the doorway and saw her enter Echo's room. The door to the west bedroom was open and Skeeter came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. I saw he had the tattoo of what looked like a dragon wrapped around a mermaid across his chest. He paused and looked out, catching me looking at him. Then he turned and unwrapped the towel from his waist, exposing his rear end, which looked like it had tattoos on each side of his buttocks as well. I stepped back into my bedroom quickly.

  Rhona came in behind me and walked directly to the closet again. She picked out some other garments, sifted through the boxes of shoes, and then went to the dresser drawers. She didn't look at me at all.

  "I can fit into all of this. I haven't gained a pound since I left here," she muttered. "I don't know how some women get so plump and lose all their appeal to men. Being fat makes you asexual, you know," she added, finally turning to me. "Skeeter came up with that in one of his poems. 'Your sex sank into your fat like a foot in quicksand.' Men don't like fat women, of course, and even women who like women wouldn't look at them. So where are you? In lard limbo, that's where. How old are you anyway?"
she asked. "Were you always overweight?"

  "I don't think it's necessary for you to know any more about me."

  "You're right about that, since you'll be going now that I've returned."

  "I'll go when Mrs. Westington tells me to go."

  She will, don't worry." She saw my new black skirt and plucked it off the hanger. Then she held it up in front of herself. "I could get in this with you. I think." She laughed and tossed it at me. "Pack," she said.

  Tears came to my eyes, but I drove them back. Brenda would make mush out of her. I thought, and stepped forward.

  "I said I'd leave when Mrs. Westington asks me to leave."

  "My mother is an old lady. She waited too long to have me and now she's too old for all this."

  "She didn't wait long enough," I fired back at her. "She should have waited for menopause."

  "Oh, you're a wise guy. too." She piled some undergarments together and smiled. "Did you see how Echo looked at me? It won't be long. She'll want me with her, want to be with me. It's only natural. Skeeter happens to know how to use deaf people's signing language. too. He was a street performer, a mime. He's very educated even though he hasn't been to college. Hers smarter than most college graduates anyway. He'll have Mother eating out of his hand soon. You'll see. He's a charmer."

  "Yeah, I could see it the moment I set eyes on his filthy hair and clothing. Won me right over." I said dryly. Brenda would have loved that one.

  "Skeeter is like a chameleon. He can adjust to whatever he has to in order to succeed."

  "Yeah, he looks very successful."

  "He happens to be. You can't judge a book by its cover."

  "What cover? I'd say he's down to his last pages, chewed and stained."

  She glared at me a moment and then she laughed, shook her head. gathered her thing, and left the bedroom. I stood there, trembling, but keeping it under control and undetected. Then I went to see how Echo was, she was sitting on her bed, staring down at the photograph of her mother she had shown me. She looked up at me when I stepped near her. Her eyes were glazed over with tears. She smiled. however,

  "My mother has come home," she signed. My heart sank.

  Rhona was right to be confident. I had forgotten how desperately we all need our mothers, no matter how terrible they seem to be to us. It wasn't that difficult to imagine a young Echo searching the house for her mother after she had left, waiting at the doorway for her to return, looking for her at the sight of any approaching car, waiting for her in the night. Neither I nor her grandmother could ever imagine the dreams she had, the silent prayers of hope she had recited to herself and maybe still did.

  And I had no idea what sort of promises Rhona had just made to her. I didn't know what to say. I smiled weakly and she took back the picture and this time, instead of putting it under her clothing in a drawer, she put it on the dresser top in front of and against another picture of herself. She was obviously no longer afraid of her grandmother knowing she had the picture and getting angry about it.

  For now. however, she wanted to talk about Tyler again, about the mall and the kids she had seen. Since she now knew I could drive, she wanted to know if I would take her in the car to see Tyler's store. He had promised to do that one day but had not. I didn't have any trouble imagining why. She thought it would be a wonderful surprise if we just walked into the store.

  I couldn't say I wouldn't want to do that. but I hesitated to make any promises. Too often in my life promises turned out to be as far away as rainbows, beautiful for a moment and then gone. They might not be forgotten, but they were gone.

  "We'll see," I told her. She was still trusting enough to take that as a promise, nevertheless.

  I looked up when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Both Rhona and Skeeter stopped at Echo's doorway. Skeeter had his hair brushed and tied back in a ponytail and was now cleanly shaven. He was wearing a relatively clean looking dark blue shirt and a pair of slacks that were wrinkled, but were nicer than his jeans, of course. He wore slightly scuffed black shoes and socks and some sort of turquoise wristband.

  Rhona had put on one of her old "new" dresses, a light pink one-piece tied at the waist. She had washed off the tattoo on her cheek and had her hair brushed back neatly and pinned, clearly showing a pair of gold teardrop earrings. I noticed she was wearing one of the newer pair of flats that matched her dress.

  "What are you doing in her room?" Rhona asked in a demanding tone of voice.

  "We're practicing communication skills." I said.

  "Is that all you're practicing?" Skeeter asked. "What's that mean?"

  He laughed. "C'mon, Rhona. We have more important things to do right now,"

  Rhona started away and then stopped. "Wait a minute," she told him, and walked into the room right to the dresser. She looked at the picture of herself, picked it up, and smiled at Echo, who was staring up at her like an idolizing rock fan at her favorite performer.

  "What's that?" Skeeter asked, coming in. too.

  "It's me when I was just eighteen." She showed it to him. "I don't look much different. do I?"

  "Not that I can tell,' he said, which was just what she wanted to hear.

  She knelt down and looked at Echo. "I'm glad you kept this, sweetheart." she told her, and then she embraced her and kissed her cheek.

  Slowly. Echo brought her hand to her cheek as if she wanted to be sure she had really just felt a kiss from her mother. Rhona laughed, put the picture back on the dresser, turned to me with a sly, confident smile on her face, and then walked out of the room with Skeeter.

  When I looked back at Echo. I saw she was crying and I knew it was possible to break a child's heart many, many times. She had too much hope to be cynical and distrusting or rather, she had too great a need to believe and be loved.

  I talked her into going out for a walk with me and we started down the stairs. I paused when we reached the bottom because I could clearly hear the conversation among Rhona. Skeeter. and Mrs. Westington in the living room. I gestured for us to be silent and we stood there, me listening. Echo appeared to understand I was eavesdropping. She lowered herself slowly to the last step on the stairway and waited patiently.

  "We just need this chance. Ma," I heard Rhona say. "The money we need is not a big deal to you, but to us it will mean a whole new start, and that's what you would like for me, isn't it? A new start?"

  "If it was a real start that had any chance of making sense. I'd be for it. yes."

  "This is a real start. Mrs. Westington," Skeeter said. "I've been working construction on and off for twenty or so years now. I know the business."

  "You know it from a laborer's point of view, not an entrepreneur's point of view, and as my husband would say, that's a horse of a different color,"

  "He wouldn't say that. Ma." Rhona told her. "He'd be willing to stake us."

  "As a home developer? Please, spare me," Mrs Westington said.

  "We've been studying how to do this for some time now. You buy an old property no one really wants, so you get it for a song." Skeeter said. "Sometimes, you can find a foreclosure. too. Then you go in there and you rip it up and rebuild it with the best materials and modern appliances and you can literally double or even triple your investment. You'll end up making money on this deal, not losing it. Mrs. Westington. And at the same time, you'll be helping Rhona get a foundation upon which to build a new life for her and her daughter."

  "Her daughter? You leave that girl here for nearly ten years with nary a phone call, a letter, and then you return with this fantasy and expect all that has washed under the bridge to be forgotten?"

  "I know I was a bad mother. but--"

  "Bad mother? First you have to be any sort of a mother to be good or bad. You abandoned ship, girl, and you never cared to know if the ship sank or not."

  "I was too young to have a child," Rhona whined, "I wasn't mature enough or responsible enough, but that's all changed now. Ma."

  "The only change I see is you put on som
e weight."

  "I did not! I just compared myself to the picture Echo has of me when I was eighteen and even Skeeter says he can't see any difference."

  "What picture?"

  "The one she has on her dresser. She hasn't forgotten me. She still loves and needs me."

  Mrs. Westington was quiet. Echo's secret was a little betrayal in her eyes. I was sure, but she had to understand and not be upset about it.

  "I'll think about it," she relented.

  "Thanks. Ma. That's all we hoped you would do."

  "I doubt that. If you're going to stay here a while, you check your lies at the door. girl."

  "I'm sorry, Ma. I'll behave. I promise. Skeeter and I will start looking for a good potential property right away, won't we. Skeeter,"

  "Tomorrow morning, first thing." he said.

  "I said I'd think about it. I didn't say I would do it," Mrs. We reminded them.

  "Some of the money you have belongs to me anyway. Ma. Daddy wouldn't have just left me out of it all. I'm sure."

  "Oh, are you? Well. I have some terrible news for you. Rhona. You never took any interest in this place, in the winery and in our business, but the truth of it was I was the one in charge of all that. Your father was a good talker, loved to be out there in the fields with Trevor, but when it came to finances, he was lazy and indifferent. He even came to me for his daily spending money. I was the one who set up the will and the estate with my lawyers and my accountant and he signed everything I told him to sign, so don't think for a moment you can come here threatening me with legal actions of any kind. You'll be sorrily disappointed."

  "I'm not threatening you. Ma. I'm grateful for what you just did for us. I mean me, and what happened to me woke me up. That's why I decided it was time for me to take on my responsibilities and why I returned."

  "We'll see," Mrs. Westington said.

  "I see that there is still some wine being made here."'

  "That's not me; it's Trevor's doing and I don't approve of the waste of time. It's a hobby for him, more than anything else." she admitted. "We don't make any real money on it, so don't get your hopes up about it."

  "oh, we're not looking to do anything with the winery. I just thought it would be interesting for Skeeter to see. right. Skeeter?"