The Shadows of Foxworth Read online

  Maybe I was imagining all these eager stars continually appearing, especially as more time passed and there was still no sign of our parents. Even Anne, who did her best to keep us from worrying, now started to look fretful. Her smiles and reassuring hugs drifted further and further back. They were replaced with signs of her aging, the deeper wrinkles near her eyes, the silvery light bringing out the gray in her hair as she became more and more anxious.

  “He must have had engine trouble,” Yvon declared as firmly as he could. He, too, was battling with darker thoughts now. “They’re probably walking back.”

  “They could take hours and hours,” I said. “They’ll be exhausted!”

  He thought a moment and nodded. “I’ll go fetch Capitaine Blondeau, who will organize a search. We’ll take the police wagon,” he said, “so we can pick them up.”

  “I’ll go, too,” I said.

  “No, you stay,” Yvon insisted. “In case they return from some other direction or another way.”

  “But—”

  “Do what your brother says,” Anne advised. “I’ll stay with you.”

  Disappointed, I settled into the chair at the rear of the house facing the road that eventually led up to Eze. Yvon was off instantly. Tears were building in my eyes; I couldn’t keep them from leaking. I flicked them off as quickly as I could, but Anne saw.

  “Now, now, everything will be all right,” she said. “I’ll pour us both a little wine. It will help keep us calm. See? Parents can be as bad as children.”

  I said nothing. I simply sat and stared at the road and the way the darkness crept closer to us like approaching fog. What made it unbearably longer was that time seemingly was standing still. The hands of the clock were frozen. It was truly as if the whole world was holding its breath. Anne, trying constantly to keep me from worrying and maybe herself as well, talked about the times she had stayed away from home too long and angered her parents.

  “And how often have I sat waiting for Jean-Paul, the food getting cold? Artists,” she said, shaking her head. “They can get lost for hours staring at a strangely twisted branch. I’d yell at him, and he would stand there looking dumbfounded. Eventually, I realized he was like a child when it came to time. Forget schedules or promises, especially the promises he made never to do it again.”

  “Papa’s not like that,” I insisted. “He worries more about us than we could ever worry about him. He’d be sure to be back. And don’t forget Mama is with him. She would keep close track of time.”

  Anne was silent. She could see I was too old now, beyond the age when I would cling to hope woven out of fantasy. This was probably what Mama feared when she talked about leaving childhood too fast. You have trouble sugarcoating reality when you get older. A frog could never really be a prince.

  I had no idea how much time had passed, but finally we heard the sound of horses and a wagon followed by other men on horses. I stood to see better. Anne stepped up beside me and took my hand. We walked out as they approached. I could see Yvon in the front of the wagon, bent over. The police and the volunteers caught up and gathered around the wagon when it stopped. No one spoke. We walked toward it slowly. Yvon rose and hopped out to greet us.

  “You found them?” I quickly asked.

  He nodded and looked at Anne. “The roadster went off the road at one of those sharp turns,” he said, speaking like someone hypnotized. “We think something happened with the front tire on the right and Papa lost control.”

  “Where are Papa and Mama?” I cried, after I had panned the wagon seats and the men on horseback.

  “They’re in the wagon,” Yvon said.

  “Are they all right?”

  “They’re in the wagon,” he repeated. He wasn’t looking at either Anne or me. He was looking beyond us.

  I felt as if my chest had become hollow. There was no heartbeat; there was no blood in my veins. In moments, I would crumple like someone whose bones had shattered, and my body would fold and sink to the ground. I didn’t feel my feet touch anything as I walked forward. Anne rushed to join and embrace me.

  None of the policemen could look at me. Capitaine Blondeau started to speak to another policeman. Anyone between us and the wagon moved aside. When we reached it, I looked in and saw the sheets over Papa and Mama. I had started to lift them away when Yvon was suddenly beside me, grabbing my wrist.

  “They were thrown from the roadster onto the rocks below,” he said. “They are battered and broken badly, Marlena. They must be taken to the funeral parlor to be prepared. No one can look at them now, especially you.”

  I was shaking my head, but I had no voice. Somewhere inside me, a loud NO! was echoing.

  “But I must see them!”

  “You don’t want to remember them like this,” he whispered. “Don’t look. Please.”

  “Remember?” The word refused to be understood. “Mama wants to know about our dinner,” I managed, forcing a smile. “I did everything that I promised her.”

  I didn’t realize Yvon had put his arm around my shoulders until he tightened it and drew me hard against him. Capitaine Blondeau and all his men were staring at me. It was then that I finally managed to scream. My shrill cries rolled down the hill toward the village. I could hear people shouting to each other and rushing up toward us. Yvon was trying to turn me back toward the house. I fought against it, breaking loose for a moment, my small fists pummeling his shoulders and chest as I tried to get past him and back to the wagon. Anne moved forward to help him. I crumpled in her arms, and then Yvon lifted me into his and carried me back into the house.

  All I could hear at that moment was the sound of the horses and the wagon continuing on to the funeral parlor and the waves of indistinct words and sobs washing over the house as more and more people gathered. Yvon put me on my bed, and Anne sat beside me, holding my hand. I closed my eyes, and I screamed and screamed until I had no voice. Exhausted, I fell into a well of darkness.

  My mother’s friends came quickest of all. No one really knew what else to do but cook and bring food. I heard all the sobbing and an occasional cry of disbelief or anger. Anne had given me something Dr. Veil had prescribed. I drifted in and out of sleep, the voices sometimes so mixed they sounded like gibberish. At one point, I told myself that this was all a nightmare, and the next time I woke, it would all be gone. But it wasn’t, and eventually I found the strength to get up and go out to the living room, where our neighbors and friends had gathered. It was almost morning now. Sunlight was slowly pushing shadows back to where they slept daily.

  Yvon was seated on our smaller settee. He looked up at me sharply when I stepped out, anticipating my screaming and crying more, but I just stared, feeling too drained of any energy to do anything more than breathe. Was I breathing?

  He patted the space beside him, and I moved quickly to it.

  When I sat, he put his arm around me, and I lowered my head to his shoulder. One of the policemen who had gone looking with Yvon had been talking, describing his theory of the accident. Someone offered the ironic truth that this might be the first automobile fatality in France. The words drifted off, with no one caring to talk any more about it. Even adults liked to pretend that what had happened hadn’t, but they couldn’t do that and look at each other.

  At one point, maybe to break the heavy silence, I asked Yvon if he believed that the policeman’s description of the accident was true. I had no idea why that mattered now, but I felt a need to blame someone, something.

  “Most likely,” he said. “Papa and I often talked about the sharp turns. He was careful. He had become a very good driver. It had to be something going wrong with the car.”

  I closed my eyes.

  What else could I do? Yvon was trying to make sense of it all, but even though I wanted to as well, nothing really mattered to me. How could it? Should I hate the car? Did the devil bring it? Were my parents being punished for something?

  Was this Eve’s fault?

  I expected to hear that
from Monsieur Appert when he appeared, but he couldn’t look at either of us and didn’t stay long.

  For days afterward, there were always people at the house. Jean-Paul was brought to see us first thing in the morning and stayed all day. He tried to look brave for Yvon and me, but he was too overwhelmed and often broke down crying. We ended up caring more for him than ourselves, fearful that he would just expire like some candle flickering at its last moments, and we’d have another death with which to contend. His eyes were swimming with pain and brought tears constantly to mine. Both of us made him eat and drink. Anne was the best help when it came to him. Once I overheard her telling him he must be strong for us. “They have no one else,” she said.

  He looked at her. I was half-listening, but I heard him say, “That’s not so.”

  The words were lost on me for the moment, and I didn’t recall them until after Yvon and I had gone to the Clervoy Funeral Parlor. Monsieur Clervoy was someone we kids made fun of rather than ignored, probably because an undertaker could not be ignored. He was a looming presence, a reminder that life was fragile, but he was frightening to confront, because Madame Sorel, a widow who was said to be close to a hundred, told us that he slept with Death. He was tall and lean and always seemed draped in shadows, slinking through the alleyways even though it would take him longer to get where he was going.

  “They are bons amis. Clervoy must be nice to him to get his business. He looks at me with hungry eyes,” she would say, with her eyes scary wide, and then cackle. “But he will die before I do,” she promised. “Death is afraid of me. I’ll outlive you all.”

  Usually, we couldn’t wait to get away from her. For some reason, she enjoyed frightening us. Maybe she was getting some vengeance on age; she was so jealous of our youth.

  Yvon’s only comment when we viewed our parents was that Monsieur Clervoy had made them beautiful again. “There are all kinds of artists,” he said.

  What he had done was make it so they looked simply asleep.

  I dreamed they would wake and it would all be some terrible misunderstanding. But I did not tell Yvon this. I wanted to be as adult as he was and not make a moment more difficult for him. He had his grief, too, and didn’t need me wailing at his side, pounding my fists against myself and demanding that this not be true. I would stand quietly with him, tall and regal, and keep my tears and screams under control. I was determined to be the little lady Mama had wanted me to be.

  My greatest fear now was what would become of us. That was when Jean-Paul’s words to Anne resurfaced in my memory. During our period of mourning, Anne stayed with us, and when he could, Jean-Paul joined her. Whether it was out of pity or not, Monsieur Passard advanced us money he expected to make on Papa’s remaining paintings. We didn’t need much, because everyone in the village was sending food over daily. I actually didn’t want Regine and my other girlfriends visiting, because they were so depressing that I usually retreated to my room to cry. Everyone was bringing flowers until we had to put some outside.

  Yvon wasn’t that hospitable to his friends, either. It was as if we were both trying to keep grief on the other side of our door. The only people we tolerated at dinner were Anne and Jean-Paul, but he was looking more and more fragile to both of us, falling asleep even at the dinner table. Half the time, we kept a brave face, more to protect him than ourselves, because if he cried, we could see his bones rattle.

  My birthday came and went while we waited to do the funeral. I refused to celebrate it or accept a single gift. Everyone understood. Both Mama and Papa had always made a big thing over my birthday. Yvon used to say that to them it was a national holiday. Sometimes he sounded jealous. I didn’t even want to think about it. Nevertheless, Anne slipped me a very pretty pearl bracelet.

  “For when you can be happy,” she said. I started to protest, but she put up her hand. “You will be happy again, Marlena. You don’t want to hear it, but it’s true.”

  I put the bracelet away.

  Papa and Mama’s funeral brought people from out of the village as well. A newspaper from Nice had sent over a reporter to write about a talented artist who was taken too soon from his work, as if his being taken too soon from his children was less important.

  When Jean-Paul and Anne came to be with us two days after the funeral, I sensed that something very important was about to be announced. Yvon did, too, although he tried to hide it from me. And it was then that I again remembered the strange thing Jean-Paul had said to Anne before the funeral. I had not told Yvon.

  “Both Anne and I would have been honored to take you into our home,” Jean-Paul began, after Anne had served the coffee and sat at the table. She nodded, smiling, and reached for my hand.

  What did he mean by “would have been”?

  “That’s fine with us,” I said quickly.

  To my surprise, Yvon did not instantly agree. He simply stared at Jean-Paul and kept from looking at me, even though I was looking at him expectantly and wondering why he wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

  Jean-Paul nodded. “Years ago, when your parents first arrived to begin their lives here, your father gave me some papers to keep for him.”

  “To keep from my mother,” Yvon instantly added. I was quite surprised. How would he know that?

  “Oui,” Jean-Paul said. “To keep from your mother as well. You knew this how?”

  Yvon didn’t answer. He rose instead and left the room. When he returned, he was clutching what looked like a small pile of letters. He sat and put them on the table.

  “What is this?” I asked immediately.

  Yvon looked at Jean-Paul. “When did you find these?” Jean-Paul asked.

  “Years ago, in a box at the back of my father’s closet, but I didn’t understand them at first. As I grew older, whenever I could without my parents knowing, I reread them.”

  Jean-Paul looked at the pile. “From his older sister in Richmond?” he asked Yvon.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know Hunter is not your father’s real name and therefore not yours.”

  “Oui,” Yvon said.

  “What? What is our real name?” I asked.

  Yvon turned to me slowly. “Dawson,” he said, “and Papa didn’t just have a sister. He had sisters.”

  “Sisters?”

  “There are two.”

  He looked to Jean-Paul, who nodded. “Effie and Pauline,” he said. “Effie is the older. She was younger than your father.”

  “But why did he change his name?”

  Jean-Paul looked at Yvon. From his expression, it was clear to me that he had not learned the answer in the letters.

  “Your father wanted a fresh start,” Jean-Paul said. “But… this terrible thing has changed everything. Your aunts are on their way.”

  “On their way where?” I asked.

  “Here,” Jean-Paul said.

  “Why didn’t Papa ever mention them to us?”

  Jean-Paul looked at Yvon. He turned to me slowly. “They—Effie, at least, was angry at him for not doing what their father wanted and working with him in their business. All the responsibilities for that fell on her after their father died, as well as caring for her younger sister. In the letters, she never stops reminding him.”

  “Your father wanted to be an artist, not a businessman,” Jean-Paul said. “That’s part of the reason he wanted a fresh start. He wanted to make it clear to his family back home that he did not want to be a part of the family business.” Jean-Paul looked again at Yvon, who just stared, not agreeing or disagreeing.

  “What was the business?” I asked.

  “It still is,” Jean-Paul said. “It’s a real estate company. They own commercial properties and rent out offices and warehouses in Richmond. They’re very wealthy people. Neither Effie nor Pauline ever married and had children. Your father calling himself someone else here doesn’t matter. Legally, he was still a Dawson, and so are you. You two are in line to inherit it all. Someday you’ll be quite rich in America.”

>   “But we don’t live in America,” I said. “We live here. Yvon and I will do just fine. Won’t we, Yvon?”

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  Then Anne smiled. “Both of you are quite capable for young people, but you have family who want to care for you.”

  “Family? People we’ve never known who have a different name. No, you are our only family,” I insisted. The tears that came now were hot, burning. Rage was quickly replacing sorrow. Not once had I screamed out at God for the injustice of my parents’ deaths. I didn’t pout or snap angrily at anyone. I had yet to be any sort of a burden.

  But this was too much. I pushed the pile of letters farther away from me.

  “I don’t care what these letters say. Papa didn’t want us to know any family; otherwise, he wouldn’t have changed his name.”

  “That’s not true. Your father left us with instructions should anything ever happen to him and your mother before you were adults,” Jean-Paul said. “It was my responsibility as your godfather. He and I talked about his family from time to time, especially after he had received one of those letters. He believed his sister Effie blamed him for her not having a husband and a family.”

  “How could that be his fault?” I asked. “He wasn’t there.”

  “She says in the letters that he left her with all the business and family responsibilities, and she basically had no personal life,” Yvon said.

  “That’s right,” Jean-Paul said.

  “I don’t believe it. That’s just an excuse. Maybe she was too ugly.”

  “Maybe,” Jean-Paul said, shrugging. “You’ll find that most people often look to blame someone else for their own failings and mistakes.”

  “What about his younger sister? Why doesn’t she have a family? Does she blame Papa, too?”

  Jean-Paul looked at Yvon to see if he was going to answer first, but he looked as confused about that as I was.

  “You’ll make up your own minds about it, I’m sure,” Jean-Paul said cryptically.

  “I don’t want to make up my mind about any of it. I don’t want anything to do with her or her sister. I won’t change my name and go to America. I won’t!” I said, and stamped my foot.