The Umbrella Lady Read online

  “Bearable? Makes what bearable?”

  I wanted to hear her say it. Your mother’s death and your father’s indifference, leaving you here while he created a new life for himself.

  “You’ll figure it out and understand. For now, take my word for it, and stick to the schedule.”

  Stick to the schedule? I wondered if that was what the students in the classroom were taught as the way to avoid being sad. Maybe they were told the same thing every time they had a disappointment. Was that what the girl wrapped in a blanket on her porch was taught? She looked so lonely. How different was I? The only way I would ever know was when I spoke with other kids my age, especially the girl on the porch. Somehow, I thought, I would. She waved to me, didn’t she? Surely I didn’t imagine it. She wanted to know me.

  But what if whatever the boys in the woods had made up about me, and whatever the neighborhood children believed about Mazy, kept her from coming to Mazy’s house and trying to make friends with me? I was so used to being alone in the backyard or playing with an imaginary friend that I didn’t think about other kids that much until now. I used to create friends out of some of the characters in the stories Mazy had me read. I learned so much about them and their problems that I felt comfortable imagining them with me.

  I especially felt like that when I read The Diary of Anne Frank. There weren’t Nazis at our door searching for me. No one was, actually, but I still felt locked in an attic, just the way she was. Hours of make-believe conversations with her and other book characters helped me pass my free time, not that Mazy permitted me to have that much. For her, it was even more important for me to learn something new every day. It was almost as if we were in a rush, as if she had to get me educated before I did indeed leave.

  In fact, we usually ended the day now with her asking me, “What new thing did you learn today?”

  I had to recite whatever it was and wait for her to nod her satisfaction. “Any questions about any of it?” she’d ask, but I was usually too tired to learn another thing.

  There were only two real questions I thought to ask, anyway, but rarely did: have you heard from Daddy, and when will I attend the public school?

  Time, like sand falling between my fingers, flowed by, carrying along my schoolwork, my house chores, our weekly shopping for food, our nights of television and my listening to her stories about her own youth contending with parents who really didn’t care about her. More often than not, I went to sleep feeling sorrier for her than for myself. I think that was very important to her.

  Whenever I asked her questions about her high school and college life, she had simple, disappointing answers. She said she could count on the fingers of one hand how many parties she had gone to. It always resulted in her being critical of the immature people her age. I waited to hear some hints about a boyfriend, someone, but there apparently wasn’t any back then. She did drop a hint about a college literature teacher she had liked. He was very thoughtful and considerate. According to her, he enjoyed how bright she was. But he had been nearly twelve years older and married with two children.

  “I should have been born stupid,” she said. “I’d be happier now.”

  What did that mean for me? I wondered. She never stopped telling me how bright I was. She claimed I had a photographic memory and a mind that could challenge other kids my age on computers. For now, she didn’t want me using one.

  “You can see how dependent children your age and older have become on their technology. Someday soon, they’ll need a calculator to add one and one.”

  See it? How could I see it? I hadn’t exchanged a single word with someone my age.

  My twelfth birthday was coming up. Of course, the day before was hers. We had celebrated both on the same day last year—my day. Surely, I told myself, I was old enough to go out on my own now and finally make friends. Not once had Mazy suggested it. I had come to doubt she ever would. She kept me from every opportunity to do so. I never went to a single holiday celebration, not even the lighting of the village Christmas tree, which I only knew about from her own mention of it. She never let me take walks alone when I could make friends. She guarded my every moment out of this house.

  But I had an idea.

  After dinner one night, I didn’t turn on the television right away. She was seated and waiting and then looked at me curiously.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m just trying to figure out a way to say this without spoiling it.”

  She sat back, looking surprised but smiling, too.

  “And what could that be? I wonder.”

  “I want you to let me go to the village myself,” I said.

  She lost her smile. “And for what? You want to go from store to store asking after your father? Even after all this time and all the letters and calls proving he wasn’t here?” she snapped, her lips twisting in that ugly way.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t ever expect simply to find him wandering about the village. Of course, you’re right. Why would he return to this village and not come here? He’d want to prepare me for his coming, wouldn’t he? You’d get a letter or a phone call first.”

  She relaxed, her lips softening. “Exactly. So why do you want to go to the village? We don’t need any groceries, and I have them delivered anyway.”

  “This is something else. I saved up the coins you gave me and the dollars for working outside planting.”

  “And?”

  “I want to buy you a birthday present, but if you go with me, you’ll know what it is, and there won’t be a surprise.”

  Her eyes widened. I have her, I thought. She can’t come up with any excuse to stop me. I’d had all the inoculations. I hadn’t been disobedient. She claimed I was soaring in my schoolwork and easily qualified for junior high, if not high school.

  “I tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go with you to the department store, and I’ll wait for you outside. How’s that?”

  My heart sank. I couldn’t even meet the girl on the porch. I had planned to stop by. She was out there so often now.

  “That’s okay,” I said. What else could I say?

  “Well, now, it looks like you deserve a better present than I gave you last time. You’re a very thoughtful, unselfish young girl.”

  I said nothing. I turned on the television and realized as I was watching that she was looking at me instead. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. When I turned to her, she smiled and rose.

  “I’m going up to bed. You turn it off and get yourself to bed on time. Lots to do tomorrow, as always,” she said, and started out, pausing to look back at Mr. Pebbles, who didn’t rise to follow her. “I trust you because Mr. Pebbles trusts you. He has the instincts.”

  She left. When Mr. Pebbles looked up at me, I could swear he was smiling, as if we had both somehow tricked her.

  “I’m not trustworthy,” I muttered, “so stop smiling.”

  Two days later, she came up to the classroom after I had been there only an hour and said, “We’re taking a break so you can go to the department store. Get yourself ready.” Then, as she turned to leave, she paused at the door, said, “Oh,” and reached into a pocket of her housecoat to bring out a crisp ten-dollar bill. “I owe you this, and I didn’t want you to be embarrassed if you chose something that was a little more expensive than what you could afford.”

  I took it and thanked her. I was disappointed in the time for our shopping. I was hoping that somehow our going or returning would coincide with the end of the school day, and that some of the kids on our road would see me, especially the girl on the porch.

  But what choice did I have?

  Once we left the house, it seemed to me that she wanted us to walk faster. The air was crisp, but it was sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. Some of the neighbors were out and around their houses. The girl on the porch was there again, wrapped in a blanket, looking small and frightened, I thought. Mazy tugged me harder when I turned back to look at her. Although I had seen her ou
t there this time of day before and assumed she had a cold or something, I wondered why she was still there.

  Thinking about her and the possibility of seeing her again on our way home, I rushed around the department store. I really had no idea what to buy Mazy for her birthday. Finally, a saleslady with what Daddy used to call a “postcard smile,” because it was pasted on, stepped up to me and asked if she could help me.

  “I’m looking to buy a birthday present,” I said. I hesitated but realized there was no other way to explain it. “For my grandmother.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” she said. She had light-brown hair, close to my mother’s color, and similar blue eyes. She wasn’t as pretty. I wouldn’t ever want to think a woman was as pretty as or prettier than my mother.

  “I have this much,” I said, and opened my hand to show my money. “And this,” I added, digging into my coat pocket to produce the coins.

  “I see.” She thought a moment. “There’s a sale on purses. You want to look at them?”

  Mazy’s purse was sort of raggedy-looking, faded, too, but what I really wanted now was to get this done fast.

  “Yes, please.”

  She showed them to me.

  “If you want something practical, this would work,” she said. “It has an adjustable shoulder strap and plenty of inside pockets.”

  I looked at the price tag.

  “I don’t have enough money for this,” I said.

  She looked back and then smiled. “I’m adding it to our sale items today. And I’d say you have just enough. Like it wrapped?”

  I nodded, and she took me to the counter. I paid her, she wrapped it, and then, when she handed it to me, she smiled and said, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “I’m in Mrs. Dutton’s class,” I said.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Mrs. Dutton let you out to shop for your grandmother’s birthday?”

  “Of course,” I said. I could see that she didn’t realize I was being homeschooled or who Mrs. Dutton was. “Thank you.”

  She followed slowly behind me. I turned and waved to her and left. She was standing in the doorway watching as I walked up to Mazy, who took my hand quickly and started forward, tapping her umbrella ahead of us as if she was testing the sidewalk like someone blind.

  When we returned, the girl was still on the porch. Mazy quickened her step so we passed by quickly. When we arrived home, she told me to go back to my schoolwork. I put her present on the desk and then realized I had no birthday card. So I made one up before doing anything else. On the outside, I drew a cake with one candle. When I signed my name under Happy Birthday, I stared at it as if it was the name of a stranger.

  Every day, I thought, I am drifting farther and farther away from who I am.

  Or who I was.

  After lunch, Mazy usually let me out for some fresh air. Sometimes she took a nap. Today she seemed more tired than usual, and I thought she fell asleep on the sofa even before I had left.

  Maybe that was what gave me the courage.

  Almost as soon as I stepped away from the back door, I turned and ran through the woods on the side of the house, coming out on the street just a little before the home of the girl on the porch. I had never been alone on this street or alone in this village since the night Mazy had found me at the train station. I had just been on this very sidewalk, but without Mazy holding my hand, it suddenly felt so forbidden. It was as if I had entered the world through a secret door. I had walked into a dream with everything hazy and then gradually becoming clearer and clearer. It frightened me at first.

  Nevertheless, I turned and walked toward the girl on the porch. When I reached it, I paused and looked at her. She appeared to be asleep. In a way, I was happy about that. I wanted a very close look at her, and when people are awake and can look back, you can’t truly study their faces. Her hair seemed like it hadn’t been brushed for a while. Strands were curled and going in different directions. Her face had a yellowish white complexion. With a sharp nose, thin and faded orange lips, and an almost square chin, she appeared to be chiseled out of candle wax. I felt like walking up to her with my box of crayons and coloring in her lips. She was seated in a reclining chair, the blanket down to her ankles. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, so I could see the pink jacket sleeves. It wasn’t so terribly cold, but she was wearing dark-blue woolen gloves.

  I took a few steps toward the entrance gate to her house, but before I could reach it, the front door opened, and a tall woman, almost as tall as my father, came out so forcefully the screen door nearly flew off its hinges. She was wearing what I knew to be a nurse’s uniform. Her graying copper-brown hair was severely tied behind her head, tugging on her forehead and stretching her eyes.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, grimacing in anticipation of just about anything I might say.

  Actually, I was too stunned to speak. The eyes of the girl under the pink blanket fluttered and then opened. She looked at me with what I thought was friendly curiosity.

  “I just wanted to say hello,” I said quickly.

  “What is it?” I heard a second woman call from behind the nurse.

  “Nothing! Under control!” the nurse shouted back. “You don’t belong here,” she told me. “Go home.”

  “She can say hello,” the girl said, and struggled to get into a straighter sitting position.

  I started forward.

  “Stay your distance,” the nurse ordered, putting her hand up like a traffic cop. “Say your hello from there.”

  “Let her come closer,” the girl said.

  The nurse turned to her. “You are vulnerable right now to any infections. We don’t need to risk your health.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  The nurse stared at me.

  “I have leukemia,” the girl said.

  “And the treatment she is on makes her vulnerable to infections. So go home,” the nurse insisted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I had only a vague idea of what leukemia was, but I knew it had something to do with cancer. I wanted to ask if she would be all right, but then thought, what if she said no?

  “Go home,” the nurse repeated, and took another step toward me.

  A pretty light-brown-haired woman in a white cotton sweater and jeans came up behind her. I knew she had to be older, but she was more like a teenage girl.

  “Who is that?”

  The nurse smirked and turned to her. “The witch’s granddaughter,” she said. “The one who came out of a tree.”

  I stood looking at them for a moment, stunned that a grown-up would say such a thing.

  The way both women were looking at me was terrifying, mainly because they looked frightened—of me!

  I turned and quickly ran back to Mazy’s house but realized that if I went in through the front door, she’d know I had gone down the street, so I ran around back and stood at the rear door, catching my breath.

  Did everyone on this street believe that Mazy was a witch? Was that why few people who lived here would say hello or smile when they saw us?

  When I reached for the doorknob, I saw that my hand was trembling. If Mazy saw me, she’d know something was wrong. She might never let me out again.

  I took deep breaths until I was satisfied I looked okay.

  Nevertheless, I tiptoed back in, happy to see Mazy was still sleeping on the sofa. As quietly as I could, I went upstairs and to the classroom. When I went to the window, I saw that the girl wasn’t on the porch anymore. Was everyone that afraid of me? Despite what those women had said, the sick girl did not look afraid. If anything, she looked disappointed that they were chasing me off.

  But what about everyone else on this street? Were they going to be afraid of me and keep me from talking to their children?

  I remembered Mazy once telling me that people are most afraid of what they don’t know. It had been so long since Daddy had seen me. Somewhere nestled in the darkest places of my heart, I had a painful fear that he didn�
�t know me anymore.

  Maybe Daddy had left me and still didn’t come to get me because he was afraid of me, too.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mazy surprised me with far more than I had expected for my twelfth birthday. It wasn’t just that she had gone out and bought me new clothes; she had bought me a whole new wardrobe. It was like Christmas when Daddy and Mama were happier and our house glittered with lights dancing on our tree, on our windows, and in our eyes. Mazy brought all the bags and packages to my room just as I awoke, just the way Mama and Daddy used to before the darkness had seeped into our lives. The Christmas presents would rain down around me back then. Ribbons seemed to float in the air.

  There was so much that Mazy had to go out and come back in with the boxes and bags three times. I thought it was never going to end. Some of the blouses and dresses looked very costly. I didn’t think she was rich. She didn’t have very expensive things in the house. Maybe because she didn’t spend money on much, she had saved a lot and had decided because of how well I was doing that she wanted to make this birthday special. Poking at the back of my mind was the fear that she knew I would never leave and I would need lots more than a simple birthday gift. I would need things for the future, a future I still fought believing would happen here.

  “Girls become young ladies faster these days than they did when I was your age,” she said, sounding bitter about it. “I can’t keep buying you little-girl clothes. I’ve watched your body changing,” she added. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you had your first period this coming year.”

  When she went into some detail about it, I didn’t blush out of embarrassment. I blushed out of fear. After all, it had been a chapter in one of the science textbooks she had given me and tested me on. But instinctively, I knew that becoming a young woman in a world without anyone my age to share everything with would cause me to feel even more lost and alone. There was never to be any joy in how I was maturing. Mazy was very strict about what I read, but she couldn’t censor my imagination.

  I had so many questions about myself, questions I didn’t think I could or even wanted to ask her. Every time the word sex came up, she found a way to stamp on it as you would some ugly insect. Suddenly, she was referring to a world where sex rose like a bubble of air to the surface of my inner thoughts. But in the way she presented it, females were always at a disadvantage, because it was in the nature of males to pounce. Nothing had changed since the days of the caveman.