Whitefern Read online

  “Why?”

  “It’s time people saw you two together and understood that I’ve hired her to give you special attention.”

  “But no pregnant woman takes a nurse along to buy groceries, Arden.”

  “You do, because you’ve had some problems, Audrina,” he snapped back. “Where’s that brilliant mind of yours? We’re claiming now that you can’t drive. Don’t forget that. She or I have to drive you anywhere, as far as people in this town are to know. Remember, in a few weeks, you will never set foot out of this house,” he warned. “I have to develop a believable story for our employees and clients. Otherwise, everything we’re doing will be for nothing, and you’ll feel like a fool.”

  “I feel like a fool now.”

  “Don’t start, Audrina, not now when we’re so close to the end.”

  I sighed, resistance smothered, self-pride practically drowned. “I’ll go with her, but we can’t leave Sylvia alone, especially now.”

  “I’ll babysit,” he said.

  “You will?”

  “Yes. We both have to make sacrifices. I’m just as much a part of this, Audrina. I’ve told you time and time again that I’m risking my reputation, too. I could look like an idiot if the truth leaked out. And what do you think the impact would be on our business, the faith our clients have on us? Remember, Audrina, a brokerage firm’s lifeblood is trust and faith.”

  “Everything always seems to snake its way back to business with you, Arden. You remember people’s birthdays and anniversaries just so they’ll continue to invest with you. You take them out to dinners and lunches to, as Papa would say, lick their boots. You even took a client out on our anniversary last year!”

  “Your father? You bring up your father? He did everything I’m doing. He’s the one who taught me how to do it, why it was important to the company. He set the example for me.”

  “Do you have to be like him in every way? You weren’t always like this, Arden. Or were you?”

  He smiled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re acting just the way Mrs. Matthews told me most of her pregnant patients behave, emotionally. They’re very moody. Anything can set them off like firecrackers.”

  “I’m not really pregnant, Arden! I’m not being moody!”

  He held his smile.

  It was exasperating me more. I was having the shortness of breath Mrs. Matthews had predicted a pregnant Sylvia might experience.

  “I know you’re not really pregnant, Audrina,” he said softly, “but maybe it’s like a cold or something. It’s catching. Sylvia’s different, so you’re different.”

  “Of course she’s different. Her life has been upended,” I said, my voice straining. “She’s confused about her body. She can’t do what she’s been used to doing. She’s not sleeping in her own room. Yes, she’s different. She was raped! And that man is getting away with it.”

  He lost his smile. “All right, Audrina. Don’t shout. You’re getting yourself unnecessarily overwrought. What do you want?”

  I fumed inside, but I couldn’t explain it simply. I was sure Mrs. Matthews was outside his office listening. Was I going to bring up my childhood, what it was like to be so constrained, trapped, after I had been raped?

  “I don’t know,” I said finally. “Maybe just to get this over with.”

  “Exactly. It isn’t much longer now, and the outcome will please you. We’ll have protected Sylvia, and there’ll be a baby in our house, a child to raise, someone to inherit all we have. Whitefern won’t go to strangers,” he said calmly. Then he walked over to me, hugged me, and kissed me on my forehead and cheek. “Mrs. Matthews says it’s all going well now. You’re doing your part. As soon as we’re able to, as soon as Sylvia gives birth and the baby can travel, we’ll all take a holiday, okay?”

  I nodded, gazing down at the floor, my heart still thumping with the frustration I felt.

  “I need to finish something here, and then I’ll come out and sit with you and Sylvia.”

  “And Mrs. Matthews,” I reminded him, the bitterness undisguised.

  He nodded. “Yes, and Mrs. Matthews.”

  “Promise me something, Arden. Will you promise me something?”

  “I’ll try. What is it?”

  “When this is all over, you’ll tell me what secret you have of hers, what you hold over her. Will you?”

  I saw the reluctance in his eyes, but he saw the need in mine. “Okay,” he said at last. “You’re right. By then, it might not matter to her. She’ll be gone from our lives.”

  “Good.”

  I turned and started out. When I reached the mirror in the hallway, the full-length one in the mahogany frame, I glanced at myself and paused. I did look pregnant, but I felt idiotic. I was a walking, talking lie. What would I say when people in the supermarket stopped to ask how I was and if I had any idea if my baby would be a boy or a girl?

  “It will be neither,” I whispered. “It will be a hunk of wool.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. I was still laughing when I entered the Roman Revival salon and saw Mrs. Matthews sitting with Sylvia and helping her do her jigsaw puzzle. They both looked up, surprised, which only caused me to laugh harder. Sylvia didn’t need to know why I was laughing. She began to laugh, too. Mrs. Matthews looked from her to me, astonished. I was laughing so hard now that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

  “I think,” Mrs. Matthews said, “that you should go to your room and gather your wits.”

  “Gather my wits. Yes,” I said, and hurried away.

  I went to bed early that night. I was as exhausted as a real pregnant woman might be. It was getting very weird, I thought. There were times when I imagined a baby moving inside me, just the way it was moving inside Sylvia, surprising, frightening, and exciting her almost at the same time. As a matter of fact, it felt like it was kicking right now.

  I fell asleep dreaming that the roles were reversed. It was Sylvia who was mimicking me. I was the one who was really pregnant. And Sylvia, who was truly still a child, wanted to be like me. She always wanted to be like me.

  “Let her pretend,” Arden told me in my dream. “What harm could it do?”

  Sylvia was even lying in the bed beside me in the delivery room, screaming with pain.

  And when I gave birth to a beautiful baby, Sylvia gave birth to the baby she had drawn with eyes on fire.

  The image shocked me awake. I sat up, my heart pounding. I could hear the house creaking more down here. Upstairs, I didn’t hear how the wind threaded through every crack. My dream raised my worry about Sylvia, so I got up and went to her room. The door was always left open.

  When I didn’t see her in her bed, I began to panic, but then I saw her in the rocking chair in the corner. She was asleep. I wondered if I should wake her and get her into her bed. I recalled how often I had fallen asleep in that chair, under Papa’s orders to dream and capture the imaginary first Audrina’s gifts. What was Sylvia dreaming about?

  Let her dream, I thought, and returned to my bed. It took me almost until morning to fall asleep again. I was afraid of returning to the nightmare that had woken me.

  That morning, Arden delayed going to work so he would be home while Mrs. Matthews and I went shopping. I was almost too tired to go along, but I forced myself to do it. Ironically, if I ever complained about being tired or having a pain, both Mrs. Matthews and Arden acted as though it was expected. After all, I was supposed to be pregnant. They were both sure to do this whenever Sylvia was present.

  “Try a heating pad,” Mrs. Matthews might tell me. “I don’t like giving medication to pregnant women.”

  I glanced at Sylvia and saw how that pleased her, because Mrs. Matthews surely had told her something similar. It wasn’t only my movements and activities that were restricted. I even had my thoughts confined. When did I pretend t
o cross the line into and out of reality? How could I be defiant? I was gagged and handcuffed, trapped and imprisoned, even more than I had been as a young girl who was forbidden to tempt the evil spirits that had ravished my supposed namesake. As a result, I kept my complaints to myself and even began doing jigsaw puzzles.

  Now, eager to get out of the house, I hurriedly dressed and joined Mrs. Matthews at the front door. She held her hand on the knob and looked at me as if she was deciding then and there whether to let me out.

  “There are things to remember now, Audrina. You’re out in public. Do not walk quickly. You’re in your seventh month. No fast moves in the supermarket. For our purposes, it would be best if you looked somewhat uncomfortable. Occasionally, put your hand on your lower back. Arden and I have discussed all this,” she added. “If there are many people at the market, we might decide to cut the shopping short because you’re having problems. Any questions?”

  I stood stunned and speechless. Then I turned around and saw that Arden had heard it all.

  He nodded and smiled. “Don’t mess things up now, Audrina,” he warned. “Listen closely, and do exactly what Mrs. Matthews tells you to do.”

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I nodded, and she opened the door.

  “Watch yourself on the steps,” Arden called from behind us. I glanced back at him. He had a wide, impish smile on his face. If I could only enjoy this as much as he apparently was, I thought. I closed the door and followed Mrs. Matthews to her car, a blue station wagon that looked like she had driven it for a decade.

  It was the sort of summer day Sylvia would love, I thought as I looked at the burst of color, the soft green, olive, and emerald leaves. Wildflowers were everywhere, and the squirrels were as lively as ever, doing amazing gymnastic feats on the tree branches. I remembered how much pleasure Sylvia got from sitting and watching them for hours, one or two coming very close to her until she’d raise her hand or start moving in their direction. When she was an infant, she would crawl around on the grass, and if she found a dandelion, she would immediately put it in her mouth.

  Soon, I thought, she would be able to be outside and enjoy nature again.

  “Your sister is doing very well,” Mrs. Matthews said as we drove along the road to Whitefern village. “I am not anticipating any difficulties with the delivery.”

  “I don’t want her to be in too much pain.”

  She looked at me and raised her thin eyebrows. “Some pain is good,” she said. “It’s the body’s way of giving us instruction. Like what to avoid.”

  She sounded too much like Aunt Ellsbeth. “What do you mean?”

  “The pain of a burn, the sting of a bee. Pain protects us, too.”

  “Well, it wasn’t her fault she was burned and stung.”

  “No, but I doubt she’ll be as easy to abuse after this,” she said.

  I turned away and stared at the side of the road, where trees ran into trees. Houses didn’t appear for miles, our nearest neighbor living twelve miles from Whitefern. I never thought much about them or any of the families farther along the way. Once, according to my mother and Aunt Ellsbeth, the Whiteferns had been the most notable family in the Tidewater section of Virginia, giving the country senators and even vice presidents. But over time, we had fallen out of favor, not just with the villagers but also with everyone in the surrounding suburbs. We were no longer as honored or, in Aunt Ellsbeth’s words, “even respected.”

  Whitefern village, where the supermarket was located, was fifteen miles from our house. It was also where I had gone to school. I had not kept in contact with any of my schoolmates. None had ever paid a visit to my home. But I did have fond memories of my teachers.

  Heads turned our way when we got out of Mrs. Matthews’s car and started for the supermarket.

  “Walk slower,” she ordered under her breath. “Don’t make it seem so easy.”

  I thought back to what my mother had been like when she was pregnant with Sylvia and tried to emulate her stride, putting my hand on my lower back from time to time after we got a cart and began to go down the aisles. If I chose something I liked, Mrs. Matthews would give me a sideways glance and sometimes shake her head no. I felt like a little girl with no power to choose anything.

  Rounding the turn toward the meat counter, we saw Mrs. Haider, the retired principal of Whitefern High School. Mrs. Matthews didn’t think anything of it. In fact, she looked like she didn’t even want to say hello to her, but I stopped immediately.

  “Oh, Audrina, how are you?” Mrs. Haider asked, acting as if I’d startled her. Mrs. Matthews paused and looked back at me, her eyes full of warnings. “I heard you were pregnant.”

  “I’m getting along, but it’s been a little difficult.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do you know Mrs. Matthews?” I asked, feeling awkward now, with her just standing there and Mrs. Haider wondering why.

  “Yes, I believe so. You had a son who attended Whitefern. Philip, I believe.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Matthews said.

  “And how is he doing?”

  “Staying out of trouble,” she replied. It wasn’t an answer, and Mrs. Haider didn’t smile or react in any way. “He’s working for my brother at his paper mill in Richmond,” Mrs. Matthews added.

  “Not married?”

  “No,” she said briskly. “Audrina, we don’t want to keep you on your feet longer than necessary . . .”

  “Mrs. Matthews is a maternity nurse,” I explained.

  “Yes, I know, but I thought you were retired,” Mrs. Haider said to her. She was not a woman who was easily intimidated, probably hardened by her many years as a school administrator.

  “I am, but I’ve come out of retirement to assist Mrs. Lowe. Her husband persuaded me,” Mrs. Matthews said. “She’s having a difficult pregnancy. In fact, I’d rather she didn’t come out of the house to do shopping, but I gave in this once.” She smiled with icy lips.

  Mrs. Haider nodded. “I’m sorry you’re having difficulties, Audrina. I do hope it all works out well for you. How is Sylvia?” she asked, still ignoring Mrs. Matthews, who was exhibiting her impatience by pushing and pulling on the cart.

  “She’s well, thank you.”

  “I’m sorry Mr. Price took sick and couldn’t continue with her art lessons,” she said.

  “Took sick?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? I would have thought you would.”

  Mrs. Matthews raised her eyebrows, her face reflecting annoyance now.

  This was the hardest part for me, pretending that I cared and not revealing the terrible things Mr. Price had done. I practically choked on the words. “I knew it was getting harder for him. He seemed very tired, but I thought in time . . .”

  “Yes, well, I’m surprised you don’t know. He had a stroke. It’s left him paralyzed on his right side, and for an artist who draws with his right hand, that’s devastating. Perhaps you can give the Prices a call. They’d appreciate it.”

  “She has to be concerned about herself right now,” Mrs. Matthews said sharply. “Perhaps after the baby is born.”

  “Yes, when are you due?”

  “A little more than six weeks,” Mrs. Matthews answered for me.

  “Do you know if it will be a boy or a girl?”

  I shook my head. I really was having trouble breathing now.

  Mrs. Haider laughed. Why was she laughing? “Well,” she said, glancing at Mrs. Matthews, “my grandmother used to swear that if a pregnant woman’s face turns red while you’re speaking to her, she is definitely having a girl. I can’t wait to see if she was right. Good luck.” She continued on her way.

  I looked at Mrs. Matthews.

  She was smiling, and not coldly. “You really do look sick to your stomach, Audrina. I think we do have to cut the shopping short.” Gleefully, she hurried along.


  Ancient Voices,

  Forbidden Dreams

  “Do exactly what I tell you,” Mrs. Matthews said when we reached the front of the store after having done all our shopping twenty minutes later. “Now, lean on the cart as if to catch your breath.”

  As soon as I did, she hollered, “Can I get some help here?”

  She was loud enough for nearly everyone in the ­supermarket to hear. Customers stopped and turned our way. The busy cashiers paused, and the store manager came running.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking like he might burst into tears or throw up his breakfast. He was a short, stocky man, with thinning dark brown hair and round eyes that seemed sunken in his pudgy face like dark cherries in soft vanilla ice cream.

  “Mrs. Lowe isn’t feeling well. She has a very delicate pregnancy. Open a register for us.” When he hesitated, she added, raising her voice, “Do you want a terrible scene played out on the floor here?”

  He leaped to open the register himself and signaled for a packer, who rushed over.

  The manager’s assistant came over, too. He was taller and younger, with the slim physique of a tennis player. “Can I help?” he asked Mrs. Matthews.

  She thought a moment, glanced at me, and then told him to take me out to her car very carefully while she finished with the groceries.

  “Walk slowly,” she added when he offered his hand.

  His name tag read “Marv Russel, Assistant Manager.” He had a boyish face and cerulean-blue eyes, and his light brown hair was cut in a short, military style. He looked more frightened than I was supposed to be, but when I took his hand, he let go and decided instead to put his arm around my shoulders. We started out. “Where’s your car?” he asked, seeming afraid to look at me.

  “It’s that blue station wagon,” I said, nodding at it.

  “When are you giving birth? I hope not any minute. I once saw a woman go into labor in a movie theater. I think I came close to fainting. My girlfriend thought it was quite funny.” I could hear the trembling in his voice.