All for a Sister (9 page)

“I’ll pay for the cleaning.”

Reluctantly Abby knelt in the soft grass.

“Oh, Mama.” Celeste took two small steps and wrapped her
arms around Abby’s neck, gently turning their bodies so that she could face the camera head-on. She looked straight into the lens, then up at the sky, pretending to thank God for giving her such a wonderful mother, not letting go until Graciela called her in for lunch.

THE WRITTEN CONFESSION OF MARGUERITE DUFRANE, PAGES 13–24

IT DOES NOT ESCAPE
my attention that whatever respect you may have for me will be exhaled forever away before you reach the end of this writing, if indeed I have the courage to write all of the truth as I have been instructed. There are some secrets that are best taken to our graves. For example, did you know that your father had a dwarfed sixth toe on his left foot? Of course you didn’t, as his vanity and propriety never allowed him to be barefoot in any kind of company—not even that of his loving family. I myself only got a glimpse of the thing on sporadic occasions and learned early in our marriage never to comment on it, lest I raise his ire and prompt him to comment on my own flaws. It may seem a silly thing now, but I believe his quest for education and influence came from the constant reminder of his imperfection. The night your brother announced that he was going to sign up to fight in the War, I told your father it was too bad that polydactyly (for such the condition is named) was not an inheritable trait, as it might have made Calvin unsuitable for service.

“How do you know that term?” he asked, as if I had no right to speak it. “Whom have you shared this with?”

I told him nobody, that I’d merely come across it in a medical book when I first took the children to our city library.

Nothing, though, would assuage his anger, and as I recall, he didn’t speak to me for nearly a week.

But listen to me, waxing on about something of so little consequence. Stalling, I suppose. Or distracting myself, as I have always done since Mary died. I barely left the baby’s room for weeks, only for the funeral, and of that I have very little recollection. I slept on the floor; I didn’t eat. Your father has since said he feared he would lose us both.

The first clear memory I have after putting my Mary to bed is the sight of your father’s face, close to mine, waking me from a midafternoon stupor to tell me her death had been ruled a homicide, and the girl was locked up in jail. I don’t know what I’d been waiting for—some obscene fear that she might return with that envious hunger I’d seen and take the rest of my family away, perhaps.

I got up, took a bath, dressed in something fresh and clean. I went down to the kitchen and ate anything I could find. For weeks neighbors had been bringing meals—roasted chicken and hams and cakes and breads. I’d refused plates of food and bowls of soups, and now every uneaten morsel gnawed at me. I remembered what it felt like to have my belly full with my child, and I thought maybe I would be able to fill myself up again and bring her back. I pulled platters from the icebox and rummaged through the pantry, tearing at food with my bare hands, barely swallowing one bite before stuffing my mouth with another.

Mrs. Gibbons found me and offered to heat something proper, but I sent her away. To the market, I’d said, to get something fresh. Fruit, perhaps, or some sweet berries to mix with cream to take away some of the staleness of the leftover cakes.

I ate everything, tasted nothing. Not even the sound of the front door’s bell deterred me. After all, I’d been hearing it for
weeks. Well-wishers and officials and I don’t know who all had dropped by, and I’d ignored them. It rang and I ate, caring no more about what or who might be on the other side than I did about the stains of congealed grease on the cuffs of my clean dress. Whoever it was would go away, and certainly had, I reasoned, when the ringing finally stopped. But then a small voice came to me as I shaved a slice of cheese.

“Mother?”

It was, of course, Calvin, looking properly dapper in his school clothes, wearing the black velvet band around his sleeve as his testimony of mourning for his sister. He seemed such a big boy, but no more a part of me than any other child. I hadn’t touched him since the night I kissed his head, having dismissed him from that awful party. Vaguely I remembered hearing his voice on the other side of the nursery door, your father telling him that Mother wasn’t feeling well yet and that she would be better soon.
Soon
has little meaning to a child’s mind, and he eventually stopped coming to the door. I couldn’t remember the last time the boy had even crossed my mind. His very name eluded me in that moment, and I simply stared until all the letters tumbled into place and I could say
Calvin
with some confidence.

“There’s a lady at the door.”

A lady?

“Mrs. Lundgren.”

The food in my stomach worked itself into a panic, and I clutched to keep it still. Fearful it would spew out if I opened my mouth, I held my jaw clenched and told him to send her away.

“She asked for Father, and I told her he wasn’t home. And then she asked for you, and I said you were sick, so then she just told me she would wait for Father.”

She
told
him? As if she had any right to tell anybody anything.

“Are you feeling better?” My little man stood, his eyes taking in the mess of soiled dishes and platters scattered throughout the kitchen. It’s then that I noticed the circles under his eyes, his pale skin, and a mixture of fear and sadness that should have been far beyond his years.

I told him to go upstairs and play, handing him the slice of cheese, which he took with dubious thanks. I assured him I would speak with Mrs. Lundgren once I’d had enough time to put on the kettle for tea and that he shouldn’t give the visit another thought. This pleased him, and he bounded up the kitchen stairs, whistling a popular tune of the day. It was the first bit of life I’d seen since putting my Mary to bed that night, and I watched and listened, hating him for every bit of it. I suppose that, too, is a confession I hadn’t foreseen making in this document, but there it is. Once his existence came back to my realm of consciousness, I resented his very being. Every breath he took was one Mary would be forever denied. Never again could I smile at my baby girl, so I refused to smile at him. My daughter was cold, and I adopted the same frigidity. It seemed grotesquely reasonable at the time, and his father experienced no such interruption to his affection, so I left them to each other’s good graces.

Not forever, of course. When you came into our lives, darling Celeste, you brought life with you. But in that dark time, those months stretched out between Mary’s death and your birth, poor Calvin had little more than a shell for a mother. And yet, remembering the blackness in my heart, I wouldn’t dare to wish to return and make things right. I couldn’t change a thing, you see, because if I did, I might not have you.

I did not, of course, put on a kettle of water to make tea to share with Mrs. Lundgren. Instead I poured a glass of cold buttermilk, drank it down, and waited for the rest of my food to
settle while I used a soiled towel to attempt to clean my face and hands. Mrs. Gibbons had a small room behind the kitchen, and I popped in there long enough to inspect my dress and hair in the oval mirror above her washstand. The gauntness of my face was somewhat surprising, as I’d always had such rounded features; and my hair, for all its neatness, was dull, like that of an old woman. All I really cared about, though, was that there were no traces of crumbs on my bodice, nor any particles trapped between my teeth, and a close inspection granted that assurance.

The sound of a mighty battle being waged with wooden soldiers drifted from Calvin’s room upstairs, and I prepared myself for a battle of my own as I walked to the entryway to see just what Mrs. Lundgren could have to say to us. Upon seeing an empty hall, I felt a surge of relief, thinking the woman had come to the end of her patience and left, but then I saw a shabby coat and fashionless hat hanging on the brass tree, and I knew Calvin must have invited her to wait in the parlor. Certainly, knowing her place in our home, she wouldn’t have invited herself to such a privilege. I hated him even more.

Shoulders straight, I walked into the parlor to find her sitting—
sitting
—with her hands in her lap, staring at the floor. I allowed myself the luxury of staring at her, this woman whose child had killed my child. Were I of a lesser species or lower class, I might have lunged at her. A life for a life, as God once instructed his people. But then she looked up at me, her gaze like iron, and we took turns stating facts.

“They may put my daughter in prison.”

Your daughter killed my child.

“She’s little more than a child herself.”

I had no response to that, so I simply asked her what she meant by coming here.

“I’d hoped to speak with Mr. DuFrane.”

I told her he wasn’t at home, having no other information to add. Whether he was at his lab, or at the club, or swinging from a skyscraper, I had no idea. I couldn’t be sure he’d been here this morning, or the night before, but I had no reason to indulge that level of detail, and I had no answer to her query as to when he would return. I did, however, tell her that I thought it highly improper for her to come to call on Mr. DuFrane when all matters of the household should clearly be handled by me.

“I’d heard you weren’t feeling well.”

When I asked her who’d said such a thing, she said, “Everyone,” with an unsettling shift to her eyes.

I pointed out that I was obviously well enough to meet with her now and insisted upon a response to the order of her business.

She looked up at me—and I say
up
because in all this time I’d refused to sit with her and she apparently lacked the training to know that, again, given our social differences and the fact that she was a sometime employee of our home, she should be the one to stand in my presence. Her gaze, however, seemed to bring us to an equal plane, and without a trace of humility, she said, “I’ve come to ask you to help me bring her home.”

My knees threatened to buckle, and I clutched the back of the sofa to retain my place of superiority.

“My daughter. My Dana. You have to help me bring her home.”

But she killed my child.

“She didn’t. She couldn’t have. And as a mother, you have to realize that. They wouldn’t let me testify at the hearing, since I wasn’t a witness to . . . whatever happened.” She at least had the good sense to look embarrassed. “My hands are tied, you see. But you, or Arthur—I mean, Mr. DuFrane—he was there.”

The sound of her voice saying my husband’s name brought
my too-full stomach to roiling again, and I held my fingers to my lips in an effort to stem the sickness within before asking if that, then, was the reason she particularly wanted to visit with him instead of me.

“Yes,” she said, looking a little sick herself. She picked at a pill on her wool skirt, her roughened hands snagging on the fabric. “I have heard his account. I was allowed to read his testimony, after. Nothing he says implicates Dana as having done anything . . . wrong.”

I repeated again the only truth that mattered to me. My child is dead. And then I asked her to leave.

“Please,” she begged. Her eyes filled with tears and she held her hands as if addressing me in prayer. “I need my daughter.”

More than I need mine?

She hesitated long enough that I knew she was considering her answer, which tipped my emptiness to fury, strengthening me in a way peace never could. I didn’t ask her to leave again; I ordered her to do so, stepping back to make a wide berth and stretching my arm in a grand gesture toward the door.

She stood. “I wish there was something I could do to bring your Mary back. I have prayed every night to wake up and find this all to be a dream, but there is nothing I can do. I cannot bring your little girl back to you. But please listen to me—hear me as a mother. You could bring
mine
back to
me
. One word to the judge, and there wouldn’t even be a trial. Certainly you don’t believe that my Dana—”

I covered my ears, insisting that she stop. Surely she didn’t expect me to extol Dana’s virtues, not when I’d seen her to be a selfish, covetous girl. I told her about that evening, how Dana had touched everything in my baby’s room, complaining how unfair it was that some had more than others.

“You are certainly misremembering. She is a good girl; you know that. You have known her since she was—”

A baby, I completed. And she’s obviously grown up with a bitter spirit that has fooled us all.

Something changed in her expression as I spoke, a hardening I hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t explain. First her lips stretched thin, as if reinforcing themselves to hold back what she wanted to say, and her eyes—a distinctive grayish, mossy color—narrowed, one more so than the other.

“I can see that you are too steeped in mourning. I will wait and talk with Mr. DuFrane. I don’t think any of us will want this to end with any more unhappiness than it needs to.”