Rose Page 5

  "I know you're in financial turmoil. Mrs. Wallace. Once I learned where y'all had gone this time. I had my attorneys make inquiries. You can't keep up the rent even for a house like this," she added. looking about our home as if it was nothing more than a tent.

  "That might be true," Mammy said, her indication rising like mercury in a thermometer, "however. I am not in the habit of having strangers come to my home to make demands on us just because we're in a temporary crisis."

  "Temporary," Charlotte said, smiling and shaking her head. "Why delude yourself. Mrs. Wallace? Unless you find a daddy for Rose here, you'll always be in a monetary crisis. You have no work skills, no significant record of employment, and I don't believe you are the type who wants to do menial labor. You're still an attractive and relatively young woman, as I am. You shouldn't be burdened with the responsibility of providing the basic necessities of life for yourself and your daughter. You have a lot of good living to do, beautiful things to enjoy. Just as I do."

  Mammy started to speak. but stopped and looked at me. I shook my head again.

  Mammy shook hers and started to laugh.

  "Really. Mrs. Curtis. I do feel sorry for you, but why should we even entertain the idea of moving in with you to help you care for a disabled child? I have no experience with that sort of thing, either, and Rose certainly doesn't. I must say. Mrs. Curtis, your searching for us and coming here to make such a request makes no sense to me and..."

  "It will." Charlotte said confidently.

  "Really? Why?"

  "Evan is your husband's child," she replied coolly.

  The words seemed to bounce off me, but Mommy looked as if all the air had gone out of her lungs. She turned as white as rice.

  "What did you say?"

  "I said. Evan is your husband's child, your daughter's half-brother," she added, looking at me.

  Mommy started to shake her head. Charlotte opened her pocketbook and took out two envelopes.

  "This first one contains a letter your husband wrote to my poor sister, making pathetic excuses for himself and his behavior with her and offering to pay for her to have an abortion. That offer came too late, not that Angelica would have agreed to do it. She was a helpless romantic. You'll reconize his handwriting and his signature, I'm sure.

  "This second letter also contains a check, an even more pathetic attempt to buy off his guilt. I suppose. It's for a thousand dollars."

  The bonus, I thought as she handed both envelopes to Mommy. She took them, but she looked like she didn't have the strength to hold them. I watched her take out the letter from the first one and read it. She put it down and looked at the second and at the check.

  "Well?"

  Mommy's eyes looked frozen over.

  "Mommy?" I said. She handed me the letters and the check and I read it all quickly, my heart feeling as if it had stopped altogether and evaporated. My chest felt that empty, that hollow.

  "I don't know what to say. Mrs. Curtis. You can see that this is all a very big surprise to me," Mammy managed.

  "Well, I would hope so. I don't know how any woman could live with a man knowing he had seduced a young, impressionable woman, made her prenant, and then deserted her, especially after she gave birth to an imperfect child, his child, who needs such special care.

  "In the early years, I paid for all the nursing and the rehabilitation and the tutors. Angelica lived for the longest time under the illusion that your husband would eventually come to her assistance and to the aid of his own child. He had her believing they would live happily ever after,

  "It broke her heart to see how he avoided her as much as possible, sometimes never contacting her at all for months and months. The foolish girl actually prevented herself from finding new and substantial relationships with other men, more responsible and decent men, because your husband kept her on the edge of her chair with his 'very soon now' sort of lies.

  "Well, she's gone and there's just the two of us, the poor child and myself, and frankly, I am not ready to live like some nun. Sacrificing all of the finer things in life. As you can see. I am still young enough to enjoy the fruits of my husband's fortune.

  "Now that you are destitute, it makes absolute sense for you to come to my home and help me care for Evan. I have a sizable fortune, a large old plantation house just outside of Atlanta. I have servants, of course, but the boy needs more than a maid and an occasional nurse's visit. He needs family."

  "Family?" Mommy asked, a smile of incredulity on her face.

  "Well, other than myself, some cousins on my side, and your husband's relatives, your daughter is the only immediate family he has.

  "Frankly, Mrs. Wallace, I do believe you have some responsibility here."

  "I do?"

  "Your husband bears the guilt. If your husband runs up a monetary debt, you are still responsible for it as well, aren't you? His death doesn't forgive all that. Certainly a child is at least as valuable and as important as some money."

  Mommy's mouth opened and closed. She shook her head.

  "As I see this." Charlotte said, gazing around the living room. "I'm offering you a way out of this disastrous mess your husband has left you."

  "You want me to become a mother to your sister's child?" Mammy finally was able to ask.

  "And your husband's child and your own child's half-brother," Charlotte replied. She pulled herself up. In point of fact, my dear, you have more reason to be a surrogate mother to him than I have."

  Mommy sat back.

  "Why don't we plan on your visiting tomorrow? I'll send my car for you. Perhaps when you see where you would live and what you would enjoy, you'll lose any hesitation."

  She rose and looked at me.

  "Evan would so much enjoy having someone his own age around him. He's had minimal contact with other teenagers, and that's why he's so tied to his computer. You could do a great deal for him, my dear. You could help repair the terrible injury your father visited upon my family and my poor dead sister. Shall we say about ten A.M.?" she asked Mammy.

  Mammy looked incapable of replying.

  "My mother and I will discuss all this. Mrs. Curtis." I said. "It's all quite a shock."

  "Yes, but imagine the shocks I've experienced." she retorted and started out. I rose to follow her to the door. After she opened it, she turned back to me.

  "No one knows about this disgrace and no one needs to know. As far as the inquiring public goes, you and your mother will be hired to help me manage. Should you refuse. I would have to speak with my attorneys to determine what course of action would best benefit poor Evan."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

  "There is paternal responsibility."

  "We have nothing. Mrs. Curtis. You know that already," I said sharply.

  "Yes. I know. I suppose I would have to find some sort of institutionalized setting for Evan. Another burden of suffering piled on his poor soul, and all because your father turned his charms on my poor sister. Remember your Bible, my dear. The sins of the father are visited on the heads of his children."

  She turned and stepped out.

  "Someone will call you tonight to confirm the pickup tomorrow morning," she concluded and walked to her waiting car.

  I watched her vehicle drive off, the sight of it lingering like a vivid new nightmare.

  4 The Mansion

  Mommy was still sitting exactly where we had left her, the same dumbfounded expression on her face. After a moment she turned to me.

  "Do you believe all that?" She looked down at the letters in her hand and the check. "How could he have done this? How could he have kept such a dark secret? Did he treat this with the same nonchalance he treated everything else in our lives? Did he not expect that it would came back at him someday?"

  I lowered myself to a chair and stared at the floor. Like a tickle that turned into a scratch, a horrible gnawing thought made its way to the top of my thoughts. Slowly, I raised my eyes to Mammy.

  "Some people thi
nk Daddy might have deliberately killed himself, Mammy. Do you think this makes it more likely to be true?"

  The idea dawned on her, too, but when it came to her, it was more like a slap in the face.

  She shook her head, but she started to cry. I leaped from my chair to embrace her and the two of us sat there on the settee, rocking each other, tears streaking down both our faces. Finally, she took a deep breath and sat back.

  "What does that woman really want?" she asked me.

  "I don't know. Mommy." She thought a moment.

  "She did look very rich." she said, and gazed with haunted eves at our small, dark, and tired living room. "Maybe we should see what it's really all about.-

  "You mean, go there?"

  "Why not?" Mommy asked. rising. "When you're at the end of your rope and dangling, you look kindly on any hand reaching out to hold you up. Rose. Any hand," she concluded and returned to the kitchen.

  Neither of us had much of an appetite, but we both ate mechanically so the other would. Every once in a while. Mommy would choke back a sob and shake her head while she muttered about Daddy.

  "I almost do feel sorrier for that poor dead girl than I do for myself. I can see how she could easily be charmed and persuaded by your father. He enjoyed spreading his illusions and dreams. He was the Pied Piper of Fantasyland, leading us all down the road to popped bubbles."

  She thought a moment, and then jumped up from the table and went upstairs. Moments later she returned with that black and white photograph she had found in the closet and put it on the table. We both stared down at the young woman again. Mommy nodding.

  "This must be Angelica. I can see the resemblances to Charlotte, can't you?"

  I had to admit I could.

  "Why did he keep her picture in our house?" she wondered aloud. She shook her head at my blank stare,

  "You don't have to say it. I can see it in your fact. Why should I look for logic in a man who never paid attention to logic?" She took a deep breath and gazed at the picture again. "I'm not going to look for ways to deny it, to pretend it didn't happen. Rose."

  Just then, as if some great power was listening in on our conversation and arranging for everything to happen, the phone rang. Mammy went to it and I listened.

  "Yes," she said. "we will be ready." She nodded as she listened and then she hung up. "The car will be here at ten," she said. "We might as well learn all of it. You'll have to miss a day of school. Rose."

  "Okay, Mammy,"

  It saddened me, but when I looked down at the photograph, it seemed as if the girl in the picture was smiling more.

  When Barry called me later that evening. I was tempted to tell him about it all, but my embarrassment and my fears that it would fan the fires of nasty gossip, especially regarding the cause of Daddy's death, kept me from uttering a word of truth. I told him I would go to the movies with him on Friday, but not to be concerned about my being absent tomorrow. I said I had some important family business that needed to be attended to and left it at that.

  "I'll miss you.'' he said. It added the touch of warmth I desperately needed to keep the chill from my cringing heart.

  The town car was there promptly at ten the next morning. There was only the driver waiting. He was a tall, dark man with military-style posture. He introduced himself simply as Ames and opened the doors for Mommy and me. We got in and moments later, we were headed toward Atlanta.

  "It's really only about thirty minutes from here," he explained. "If you'd like any candy, ma'am, there's some in a dish behind you."

  "No, thank you," Mommy said.

  He was quiet the remainder of the journey until we were approaching the driveway of the Curtis mansion.

  "We're here." he announced.

  Two sprawling great oak trees stood like sentinels at the scrolled cast-iron gate, which was fastened to two columns of stone. It opened before us and we drove on to see a truly magnificent two- story house with four Doric pillars, a full height entry porch, and elaborate cornices. Mommy looked at me with amazement in her eyes.

  "Is this a house or a museum?" she muttered.

  The grounds spread out around the house for what looked like miles. I saw two men trimming bushes and another riding a lawn mower. In the distance a line of trees formed a solid wall of green under the blue horizon. I had seen houses and land like this before, of course, but I had never known anyone who actually lived in such a home.

  The driver brought us to the front steps. We at out slowly, both of us so busy filling our eyes with the sights and the immensity of the estate, neither of us saw the front door open.

  A short, plump woman wearing a white apron and a blue maid's uniform waited. We started up the stairway. Instinctively I moved closer to Mammy.

  "Right this way, please," the maid said, and we entered behind her. "A museum," Mammy whispered again.

  Before us was a curved stairway with a shiny, thick mahogany balustrade; on the walls were large oil paintings of beautiful country settings, lakes, and meadows, all done in vibrant colors, many, it seemed, by the same artist. Vases on marble-topped tables and glass cases filled with expensive-looking figurines, crystals, and the like lined the hallway, the floor of which was Italian marble.

  "Please wait here," the maid said, showing us into a sitting room with elegant gold-trimmed velvet curtains over the windows, a plush white rug, and oversized pieces of furniture including what looked like a brass statue of an Egyptian queen. The room was so large. I thought we could put most of our present house in it. "Mrs. Curtis will be here in a moment. Would you like anything to drink-- a cold lemonade, juice. soda?"

  "Lemonade," Mammy said.

  "Yes," I added.

  "Very good," the maid said and left us.

  Mommy strolled around the immense room looking at the artifacts, the paintings, and the antique furnishing.

  "A woman who owns all this could hire a family for the boy," Mommy declared. "Why would she need us?"

  "Because hired help is not family," we heard from behind us and turned to see Charlotte Alden Curtis enter.

  She looked as elegant and stylish as the day before, albeit a little younger in a cream-colored pantsuit. Gold earrings dangled from her lobes. She wore a gold necklace and watch that looked bejeweled enough for the queen of Saudi Arabia.

  "I'm very happy you decided to come. It was a wise decision for yourself and your daughter," she told Mommy.

  "We came to see what this was all about. Mrs. Curtis. It doesn't mean we've agreed to anything."

  "Let's agree on one thing immediately: that you'll stop calling me Mrs. Curtis and I'll stop calling you Mrs. Wallace. My name is Charlotte and I'm not much older than you are. Monica-- a month, matter of fact. Please." she said, indicating the sofa. She sat across from us.

  The maid brought in the lemonades, asked her if she wanted anything. which she didn't, and then quickly left.

  "This one. Nancy Sue, has been with me for three years, a record of sorts for a household servant these days. Things." she said with a great sigh, "are not what they were. You have to work harder to find the quality of help my parents and my husband's parents once enjoyed. The grand style is still out there, but it takes more work to attain it."

  Grand style? We were simply hoping to survive and she was talking about the quality of servants.

  "Let me begin by telling you that I have already spoken with the headmistress of the school I would have Rose attend here. She assures me she would make Rose's transition easy, accommodating her needs and helping her to adjust rapidly,"

  That's right, I thought. I -would have to leave school, and right at the end of only the first quarter of my senior year! I turned sharply to Mammy.

  "That would be a major problem," she said.

  "Oh, no, no, believe me, it won't. If need be, the school would provide a special tutor just to help her adjust. We'll arrange for it no matter what it should cost. I'm sure it won't be any sort of obstacle."

  "The work isn't every
thing. She's made friends, become..."

  "Friends?" Charlotte pulled herself up and turned to me. "You can certainly keep any friends, any real friends you've made, but imagine being able to invite them here as compared to where you are now," she said with naked arrogance.

  "I don't have many friends," I admitted. I thought about the nasty rumors being spread about Daddy and what I had to face when I returned. "Not many at all,"

  She smiled.

  "You will here, my dear. I'm sure. You are an exceptionally attractive young lady. Boys will flock to you as bears to honey, but I bet you know that already."

  I started to protest how that wasn't really my biggest concern, but she rose to end the topic.

  "Let me show you the house." she suggested. "I am rather proud of it. It's an authentic Greek revival."

  She started out and we followed down the hallway to a large dining room with a table that seated twenty. There was a second, more informal sitting room, an office that looked unused, and of course, the large kitchen.

  When we stepped into the hall again. I heard Charlotte say. "Good," under her breath and I turned to look to my right.

  Evan had wheeled himself out of his room. Mommy and I gazed at him. He had Daddy's shade of hair, and it was down around his shoulders. The bangs were too long, so that he had to part the strands to prevent them obstructing his vision. He wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that said Evan Dot Com, something he took off his computer, and a pair of leather slippers with no socks.

  "I'm happy you've decided to come out to meet everyone, Evan." Charlotte said. "This is your sister. Rose, and her mother. Monica."

  He stared at us a moment, and then he turned the chair sharply and wheeled himself back into his room without a word.

  Charlotte groaned.

  "Oh, dear. You can see what it's like. He can be so difficult, withdrawn. I try so hard to teach him common courtesies, but he has gotten so he is far more comfortable in the society of computers and machines than he is in the company of people. The poor boy avoids all human contact. That's what I am hoping you will correct, dear." she said to me. "He hasn't a single friend. Oh, he has all those names he talks to over the computer, but that's hardly being in any sort of society."