Whitefern Read online

  Not socially mature enough, Sylvia had been kept at home during her school years rather than being sent to a place where we’d thought she would suffer at the hands of other students and also some teachers, who would be impatient with and intolerant of her. Instead, Papa and I had decided she should be tutored at home, as I had been for my first years. Maybe because of what had happened to me, Papa had wanted her to be kept close, protected.

  Sometimes, when I would watch her with Papa and see the delight in his eyes, I would admit to myself that Arden was right. I was jealous of how much more Papa loved her than he loved me, even when he thought of me as the first Audrina. If I ever dared mention such a thought, he surely would deny it, of course, but anyone would have to be blind not to see the way his face lit up when Sylvia entered the room after I had.

  “You must always look after your sister,” he had told me often. “Promise you’ll never put her into one of those homes for mentally deficient children.”

  I’d promised. Of course I’d promised.

  But the day would come when I would question the wisdom of that, when I would blame myself for what happened.

  If anyone should have known it would, it should have been I, the best and only sweet Audrina.

  Darkness before the Light

  Papa would rest beside our mother, both just a few feet from the false grave that bore my name. Because Sylvia was taking Papa’s death worse than any of us, I spent most of my time with her during the days that immediately followed, and Arden handled the arrangements for the funeral. In the course of doing that, he suffered a big shock. He met with Papa’s attorney, Mr. Johnson, and learned that Papa had recently changed his will; he had left everything to the two of us and to Sylvia, as expected, but he had given me fifty-one percent ownership of the brokerage.

  Arden returned home in a rage after the meeting. I hadn’t attended because I thought, as he did, that it was not going to be anything significant.

  “Why did he do this?” he ranted, marching up and down in front of Sylvia and me and waving his arms as violently as if he wanted to throw off his hands. He clutched a copy of the paperwork in his right hand. “Why? Why? I’ll tell you why. He knew how much I knew about his earlier dealings, the graft and corruption.” He paused as he thought more about it. “Sure, that’s it. Of course. He did this to punish me for confronting him with his dishonesty years ago. How stupid to use you for his revenge.”

  “It wasn’t revenge,” I said, shocked but feeling like someone had to stick up for poor Papa. “He was worried about the way you were spending money and not concentrating on the work. All those nights you were out drinking while he went to bed early so he could greet the opening stock market.”

  “That’s . . . an exaggeration. I was at work doing what had to be done when it had to be done. You’re getting me off the point. You don’t really know anything about our business.”

  “Papa always told me I was very smart. I knew enough to help you start, remember?”

  “That was the basics that anyone would know. How can you vote on major decisions? You could count on your fingers how many times you’ve been there these past few years. You don’t even know my secretary’s name.”

  “Yes, I do. Mrs. Crown, Nora Crown.”

  He paused and glared at me. “Now, you listen and listen hard, Audrina. I want you to go to Mr. Johnson’s office after the funeral and sign over everything to me. I’ll call him and have the proper paperwork drawn up and ready for your signature so we can reverse this . . . this stupidity.”

  He waited for my response. I was holding Sylvia’s hand, and we were both looking at him, surprised. Even poor Sylvia could sense it, his contempt. This was not the time to rage about anything, especially Papa. We were in mourning. It was disrespectful to Papa’s memory. Maybe I didn’t know as much as Arden did about the business that Papa had built and brought him into, but I had Papa’s grit and determination. I could learn anything.

  “I’ll think about it, Arden,” I said softly. “When the time is proper.”

  “Think about it? Think about what?”

  “Lower your voice. You’re frightening Sylvia,” I told him.

  He barely gave her a glance. “Lower my voice? You’ve barely ever looked at the stock market these past years. You’ve probably forgotten the difference between a put and a call, selling short and buying on margin. The man was obviously not in his right mind when he had our attorney do this. If it wasn’t out of some revenge, then it was because he was sick. That’s it. He was sick. His brain wasn’t getting enough blood, which was why he wasn’t capable of thinking straight. Dr. Prescott will testify to that, and Mr. Johnson will agree.”

  “There was nothing wrong with Papa’s mind. And you know that he spent a lot of time with me explaining the stock market when I was younger. It’s not something you forget quickly. He thought it was a good way to teach math.”

  “Oh, boy, teaching a child math through the market. Like that makes you a broker.”

  “I didn’t say it made me a broker. But he did take me to the brokerage and even announced that I would be his partner someday when he had his own company.”

  “He just wished he had a son to inherit everything. Every man wants that. I became his son. He said that to me after he married my mother. Or at least, I thought I had become his son. What father would do this to his son?” he asked, waving the papers in our faces.

  “Stop it. Stop saying those things. I don’t like talking about going against his orders while his body is waiting for burial.”

  “Against his orders? Don’t make me laugh. You think you could choose stocks for our clients the way you thought you could pick winners when you were a child? Tying your birthstone ring to a string and dangling it over a list of stocks in the paper until it pointed to the right one?”

  “I did that, and Papa made money on the stock. You yourself were not so very good at it in the beginning. Did you forget?”

  “Please!” he cried. “I was learning, whereas all you Whitefern women were crazy with your beliefs in magic . . . hoodoo, voodoo . . . paying that psychic to predict whether your mother would have a boy or a girl.”

  “I’m sorry I told you that story.”

  “I bet. Well, hear this, Audrina. There’s no magic in our business. It takes knowledge and experience. You don’t really have either when it comes to the stock market, especially today. It’s too sophisticated. You’d do no better than . . . than her!” he screamed, pointing at Sylvia.

  Sylvia began to cry.

  “Don’t point at her like that. She doesn’t understand!” I shouted back at him. That only upset her more. Anyone arguing in the house put her into a panic.

  “You don’t understand, either,” he snapped back. “You don’t understand how I feel being made a fool of like this. You can feel sorry for . . . for that,” he said, pointing at Sylvia again, “but not for your husband!”

  Sylvia’s sobbing increased, and her body shook.

  “Look what you’ve done!” I cried. “I’ve been keeping her calm. It hasn’t been easy.”

  I put my arm around my sister and began to comfort her again. Since Papa’s death, she would break out into crying jags and then howl with pain whenever there was any mention of Papa’s passing. Every condolence phone call was like an electric shock. She would barely eat and wandered from room to room, expecting to find him. Every night, she called to him in her sleep, and every night, I ended up sleeping in her bed with her, her head on my breast, her tears dampening my nightgown.

  “You know what? This is insane. I can’t believe I’m even discussing it,” Arden said, and he marched angrily out of the living room, his arms stiffly at his sides, his hands clenched in fists.

  We hardly said another word to each other until the funeral. I had my hands full caring for Sylvia anyway. I was terrified of how she would behave at the service,
but fortunately, she was in more of a state of disbelief than one of mourning. She even looked surprised that we were there in the church listening to the sermon and the eulogy. Every once in a while, she would gaze around the church, searching for Papa, especially whenever his name was uttered.

  There were many businessmen in the Tidewater area who knew and liked my father very much. And of course, there were many community leaders who also knew him, so we anticipated a big attendance.

  “Where is everyone? How can they not pay Papa the respect he deserves?” I asked Arden when I saw that no one else was coming and the service was about to begin.

  He turned his amber-colored eyes on me. They were sparkling, but not with tears, the way I was sure mine were. His looked more excited than sad.

  “Many of his friends and older clients have died. Besides, people always think, ‘The king is dead. Long live the king.’ ”

  “What does that mean, Arden? You’re the new king, so they don’t care about Papa anymore?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “After all, he can’t do anything more for them, but I can.” He patted himself on his chest.

  Then he smiled, and for the first time, I realized that Arden wasn’t as upset about Papa’s death as I thought he should be. He was the head of the household now, and he thought he didn’t need anyone else’s permission to do whatever he wanted.

  Then Arden surprised me by getting up to say a few words, honoring Papa for building such a successful business and promising everyone that he would do his best to uphold, protect, and further develop what Papa had begun. The speech ended up being more of an assurance to our customers that he would keep the business successful than it was an homage to Papa.

  When he was finished, he walked back to his seat beside me, his eyes searching my face for admiration and obedience, but instead, I turned away.

  “You could put aside your grief for a moment and compliment me,” he whispered, “especially in front of these people. I am your husband, the head of the household, dedicated to protecting you and Sylvia. I deserve respect, more respect, now.”

  “Today is Papa’s day,” I said. That was all I said, but it was enough.

  He turned away and didn’t even hold my hand at the grave site. I had my arm around Sylvia, who finally began to realize what was happening.

  “Audrina, we can’t leave Papa down there,” she said when we were about to leave the cemetery.

  The funeral workers would fill the grave after we all left. It was far too painful for me, and for Sylvia, to watch that. Arden had thrown the first shovelful of dirt onto Papa’s lowered coffin. Although it was meant to be symbolic, it seemed to me he did it eagerly, even joyfully.

  I could feel Sylvia’s body tighten. She whispered, “Nooooo,” but I tightened my arm around her and kept her from charging forward to stop him or anyone else from covering the coffin.

  I practically had to drag her away and at one point looked to Arden for help, but he was too busy shaking hands with those who had come to the burial. He was behaving as if he was conducting just another business meeting. I even heard him mention some investment to Jonathan Logan, one of Papa’s oldest clients, claiming that before he died, Papa had told him to tell Jonathan about it.

  More people came to our house than to the church or the cemetery. I overheard that Arden had Mrs. Crown contact clients to give them the details of the funeral, but also to make sure they knew that if the church service conflicted with something they’d rather do, they were more than welcome to come to the house instead. He was treating it more like a party. I knew that people needed to avoid excessive grief and needed hope more than depression, but the way Arden was organizing things, I was almost expecting a band and dancing girls to show up.

  Arden’s boisterous conversations and continuous laughter stung. The whole thing confused Sylvia, who sometimes looked as if she might attack someone for smiling. I thought it best to get her up to her room, telling her to change and then lie down.

  “You don’t realize how tired you are,” I said.

  She looked afraid to close her eyes, but eventually she did, and she fell asleep quickly.

  When I went back downstairs, I was confronted again with loud laughter and conversation that had grown more raucous. More people had arrived. Arden had arranged for a bartender and two maids to serve hors d’oeuvres. I was determined to be polite, not festive. Many of the men greeted me with quick condolences but, thinking they had to, moved instantly to assure me that my husband was capable of carrying on.

  “After all, he was trained by an expert,” Rolf Nestor, one of Papa’s high-net-worth clients, told me. “You can be very proud of him.”

  Others said similar things to me, and when Arden, standing off to the side, overheard them, I could see his pleased, arrogant glare. Eventually, too physically and emotionally drained to remain, I excused myself.

  “Of course, darling Audrina,” Arden said, loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “You’ve done more than enough for any father to be proud of you. He died knowing you would be well cared for, and you will be,” he vowed.

  I saw the way the women were looking at him admiringly, and the men were nodding. It was not too different from the way they would look at Papa when he was younger and more energetic. Ironically, Arden was becoming more like Papa, the man he supposedly despised now.

  I said nothing. My heart was heavy. When I went upstairs, I checked on Sylvia first. She was dead asleep. Out of habit, and maybe because I wanted to convince myself that this was not all a terrible nightmare, I opened the door to my father’s bedroom and stood there full of wishful thinking. I imagined him propped up with two of his oversize pillows, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, reading some economic charts or some company’s profit-and-loss statement. In his final years, although he was working less, he’d kept up the research and preparation to make sure that Arden made no significant blunders in his absence, the way he had in the beginning. In fact, now that I thought about it more, I could understand why he had wanted to keep Arden from galloping off with the company and thought that perhaps having the majority of the company’s shares in my favor would make Arden more cautious. Papa always chose to be more conservative with other people’s money. He hated to be blamed for losses.

  Of course, the room was dark, the bed was empty, and the cold reality rushed back at me. I did all I could to keep from fainting and made my way quickly to our bedroom, changed into my nightgown, and slipped under the covers. Despite my fatigue, I thought I was going to lie there for hours and hours sobbing and staring into the darkness.

  Memories flowed freely around me. I could hear my mother playing the piano. I could see Papa’s look of admiration and love and also jealousy at the way other men looked at her, even when she was pregnant with Sylvia. I saw him reach for me so I would rush to him and sit on his lap when I was very little. We would both listen to Momma play. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aunt Ellsbeth standing in the doorway, holding Vera’s hand. Both looked envious but for different reasons. Vera was always jealous of the love Papa showered on me, and Ellsbeth was simply jealous of her beautiful sister, who seemed to possess everything any woman would dream of having. She was always angry that Whitefern had been left mainly to my mother and not to her.

  They tried not to say unpleasant things directly to each other. I recalled how they pretended to be Aunt Mercy Marie and used their imitations of her at their special Tuesday “teatimes” to let loose all the venom toward each other that they usually held back. Aunt Mercy Marie’s picture was on the piano. She looked like a queen, wealthy, with diamonds hanging from her ears. Aunt Ellsbeth would hold the picture up in front of her and change her voice to say nasty things, and Momma would do the same. I was still unsure about what had eventually happened to my great-aunt after she had gone to Africa. The family thought it was possible she had been captured by
heathens and eaten by cannibals.

  It was all those conflicting memories that finally drove me to the edge of exhaustion and pushed me into sleep, a sleep so deep that I didn’t hear Arden come up much later. What woke me was the stench of alcohol. He was being clumsy, too, and quite inconsiderate, banging into chairs, mumbling loudly, slamming a glass down on a shelf in the bathroom, and then practically falling into the bed so that my body bounced as if I were on a trampoline.

  “Are you awake?” he asked. “Huh?”

  I tried to pretend I was not, but he nudged me. “What?”

  “You heard them.”

  “Heard who?”

  “Our clients. You see how important it is that the business be completely under my control now,” he said, sounding sober. “We can’t give anyone the impression that we’re not as solid as ever. If they so much as suspected someone without real knowledge of today’s market was involved in their business, they’d leave us in droves. We have to talk about this, and you must do what I tell you.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said.

  “Ah, tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . Your father wasn’t in his right mind, I tell you. Well? Well?”

  I wouldn’t answer him.

  Finally, he turned onto his side, his back to me. I was trying to fall asleep again, but then he muttered, “Your sister was crying hysterically in your father’s room.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “What did you say?” I sat up. Still, he didn’t respond. In a moment, he was snoring.

  I got up and found my robe and slippers. Then I went to Papa’s bedroom. The door was open again, but when I looked in, I didn’t see Sylvia. I turned on a light and even looked into Papa’s bathroom, but she wasn’t there. Arden must have imagined it in his drunken stupor, I concluded, and I turned off the lights. Instead of returning to bed, I went to Sylvia’s room.