Message from Nam (3 page)

Beatrice Andrews stood solemnly beside her daughter and the woman who had raised her, and then sat down to watch Lyndon Johnson take the oath of office on Air Force One, but she did not invite Queenie to join her. The cameras showed Judge Sarah Hughes administering the oath to Lyndon Johnson, as Jacqueline Kennedy stood beside him, and everyone watching suddenly realized that she was wearing the same pink suit, the suit she had worn when he was killed, the suit that was still covered with his blood. And her face showed the ravages of grief, as Lyndon Johnson became President, and Paxton sank slowly into a chair beside her mother. The tears were pouring down her cheeks, and she stared at the screen in disbelief, unable to absorb what had happened.

“How could anyone do such a thing?” She sobbed as Queenie shook her head, and still crying herself, went back to the kitchen.

“I don’t know, Paxton. They’re talking about a conspiracy. But I don’t think anyone knows yet why it happened. I feel sorry for Mrs. Kennedy and the children. What a terrible thing for them.”

It made Paxton think again about her father. Although he hadn’t been assassinated, he had died unexpectedly, and his absence still hurt her. Maybe it always would. And surely the President’s children would always feel his absence too. Why did it have to happen?

“These are times of terrible turmoil,” her mother went on, “all the racial disturbances … the changes he tried to make … perhaps this is the price he paid for it in the end.…” Beatrice Andrews looked prim as she turned off the TV, and Paxton stared at her, wondering if she would ever understand her.

“You think this is because of civil rights? You think that’s why it happened?” Paxton sounded suddenly angry. Why did she think that way? Why did she want to keep everything back in the Dark Ages? Why did they have to live in the South? Why had she been born in Savannah?

“I’m not saying that’s why it happened, Paxton. I’m saying it’s possible. You can’t turn an entire country around, and change traditions that people have felt comfortable with for hundreds of years and not pay a price for it. Perhaps this was the price to be paid. A terrible one, to be sure.”

Paxton stared at her in disbelief. But the argument between them was not a new one. “Mother, how can you say people are ‘comfortable with’ segregation? How can you say that? Do you think the slaves were ‘comfortable’ too?”

“Some of them were. Some of them had much better lives than they do now, when they belonged to responsible people.”

“Oh, my God.” But she believed it. And Paxton knew it. “Look what happens to the blacks today. They can’t read, they can’t write, they work like dogs, they’re abused, separated, segregated, they don’t have any of the privileges that you and I do, Mama.” It was rare that she called her mother that, only when she was desperate or very involved, or upset as she was now, but Beatrice Andrews seemed not to notice.

“Maybe they wouldn’t be able to handle those privileges, Paxton. I don’t know. I’m just saying you can’t change the world overnight and not have some terrible repercussions. And that is just what has happened.”

Paxton didn’t say another word. She went to her room and lay on her bed and cried until dinnertime, when her brother arrived, and she emerged pale-faced and swollen-eyed for their regular Friday night dinner. He came for dinner every Tuesday and Friday night, unless his work interfered or he had an important social engagement, which seemed to be very seldom. And like his mother, he was at opposite poles from his much younger sister. But he only smiled when she expressed her views, or pooh-poohed what she said and told her she’d feel differently when she was older. It was why she seldom expressed her views to either of them, and she lived in relative silence and kept a respectful distance. She had nothing to say to them, and trying to have philosophical or political discussions with them only drove her crazy. She saved her views for her friends at school, or her more liberal teachers, or the essays she wrote, and when she thought Queenie would understand it, she talked to her, and the old woman had a wisdom that belied her very sketchy education. But she was wise in the ways of the world, and often a good person for Paxton to talk to. Paxton had even talked to her about the colleges she had applied to, and what she thought of them. And Paxton was adamant when she explained to her that she didn’t want to stay in the South, and Queenie understood that. It made her sad to think of Paxxie going away, but she knew it would do her good. She was too much like her father not to.

“I think it’s a Cuban conspiracy,” George stated over dinner that night. “I think they’re going to find there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, once they start digging below the surface.” Paxton looked at him and wondered if there was any truth in that. He was an intelligent man, even if he wasn’t an exciting person. Most of the time he was totally involved in his medicine, and nothing really interested him except that. He had extremely insular views, and the only time he ever got really excited was over some new research development in the fields which interested him, particularly adult onset diabetes, none of which seemed overly fascinating to Paxton. He was thirty-one years old, and he had almost gotten engaged the year before, but it had fallen through, and for some reason she had a feeling her mother was relieved, although the girl was from a family her mother knew, but Beatrice had said more than once that she thought George was too young to get married. He had to establish himself first before he got bogged down with a wife and children.

And Paxton never liked the girls he went out with anyway. They were always nice-looking, but silly and superficial. There was no substance to them, and you couldn’t have a serious conversation with them. The last one he’d brought home to a dinner party their mother gave had been twenty-two years old and she had giggled all evening. She had explained that she hadn’t gone to college because she had such terrible grades, but she loved doing work for the Junior League and she was going to be in their fashion show that week and she could hardly wait, and by the end of the evening, Paxton was ready to strangle her. She was so stupid and so irritating, she couldn’t imagine how her brother could bear her, except that she seemed very coy and clingy when they left, and she was still giggling when they got into his car to go out for a nightcap. And Paxton had long since become resigned to the fact that she would probably hate the girl that George eventually married. She would be sweet, simple, undemanding, unthinking, unchallenging, and extremely southern. Paxton was southern, too, but in Paxton’s case it referred to geography, not an excuse or an affliction. There still seemed to be so many girls who wanted to play “southern belle,” and use it as an excuse for being uninformed, or just plain stupid. Paxton hated girls like that, but it was more than obvious that her brother didn’t.

Paxton couldn’t sleep all that night, and she was obsessed by the TV. She kept coming back to it, and finally at about three in the morning, she just sat there. She saw the casket carried into the White House at 4:34
A.M.
, with Mrs. Kennedy walking beside it. And for the next three days, Paxton felt as though she never left her television set at all. On Saturday, she watched members of the family and senior members of the government come to see the man they’d loved. And on Sunday she watched the coffin taken to the Capitol by horse-drawn caisson. She watched Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline kneel beside the casket, and the little girl slipped her hand under the flag that draped it, their faces filled with grief. And then Paxton saw Lee Oswald shot by Jack Ruby as they transferred him to a different jail, as she watched in amazement, at first thinking it was a mistake, or some confusion. It seemed impossible that yet another person had been killed in this endless horror.

On Monday, she watched the funeral, and cried uncontrollably as she listened to the mournful sound of the endless drumbeat. And when she saw the riderless horse again, for some reason, she was reminded of her father. The grief seemed interminable, the pain one that would last forever, the sorrow bottomless, and even her mother looked shaken by Monday night, and she and Paxton barely spoke as they ate their dinner. Queenie was still wiping her eyes afterward when Paxton went out to the kitchen to talk to her, and she sat in a chair, mindlessly watching her clean up, and then helped her dry the dishes. Her mother had gone upstairs to call a friend. As always, they seemed to have nothing to say to each other, to offer each other encouragement or solace. They were too far apart, and always had been.

“I don’t know why … but I keep feeling the same way I did when Daddy died … as though I’m expecting something different to happen. Like he’s going to come home any minute and tell me it’s not true, it’s all a big joke … or Walter Cronkite is going to come on the news and say it was all a test, the President is really spending the weekend in Palm Beach with Jackie and the children, and they’re really sorry they upset us … but it doesn’t happen like that. It just keeps on … and it’s real … it’s a weird feeling.”

Queenie nodded her old gray head so full of wisdom. She knew, as she always did, just what Paxton was feeling. “I know, child. It’s like that when someone dies. You sit and wait for someone to tell you it didn’t happen. I felt like that when I lost my babies. It takes a long time for that to go away.” It was hard to think of Thanksgiving now. Hard to be thankful for a confused, angry world that stole people away before they were meant to leave it. It was hard to think of the holidays, and if Paxton felt that way now, she could imagine how the Kennedys felt. It must have been the worst possible nightmare for Jacqueline Kennedy and her children. She had done a beautiful job with the funeral, orchestrated everything to perfection, right down to the mass cards printed on White House stationery. She had handwritten herself the words “Dear God, please take care of your servant John Fitzgerald Kennedy” and had excerpts from his inaugural address printed as well. It was the end of an era … the end of a moment in time … of a time that had almost come … ephemeral, fleeting, gone. The torch had indeed been passed to a new generation who held it fast now, but were no longer sure where to take it.

And as Queenie turned off the lights in the kitchen that night, and kissed Paxton good night, they stood there for a moment in the dark, the old and the new, the white and the black, the sadness of everyone’s loss enveloping them, and then Queenie went downstairs to her room, and Paxton went upstairs to hers, to think of what had been lost, and what lay ahead now. She felt as though she owed something to him, so he wouldn’t have died in vain. Just as she owed something to her father … and to herself. She had to be someone for them … do something important with her life … something that mattered. But what? That was the question.

She lay in bed and thought about both of them, about what they had stood for, and what they had believed, the one man she had loved so much and known so well, the other she could only guess at. And suddenly, all she wanted was to start her life … to get on with it … and get going … all she could think of now was her dream of going to Harvard, just as they had. She lay in bed and closed her eyes, and silently promised both of them to make something of herself, to be someone they would be proud of. It was her gift to them, the legacy they had left her, and a promise she knew she would keep. All she had to do now was wait for the spring … and pray that she would be accepted at Radcliffe.

C
HAPTER
2

T
he last envelopes arrived in the second week of April. Sweet Briar had sent its acceptance in March. And Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith all sent their acceptances in the first few days of April. None of which interested Paxton. She placed the letters neatly on her desk, and continued to wait for the one that really mattered. Radcliffe. And in her mind, the two California schools were backups. She was praying she would get in to her first choice, and in truth, the prospect of not getting in didn’t seem very likely. Her father had gone to Harvard after all, and she had strong grades. Not perfect grades, but very good ones. The only thing that worried her was that she was not great in sports, and had never developed a lot of outside interests. She loved to write poetry and short stories, enjoyed the photography classes she took, had taken ballet as a child, and joined the drama club freshman year, but then dropped out because she thought it interfered with her studies. And she had heard more than once that Harvard wanted people who were good at everything, and had strong extracurricular interests. But still she was pretty sure she’d be accepted.

Her mother had been smug and pleased when the early acceptance to Sweet Briar came, and as far as she was concerned, Paxton had heard from the only school that mattered. It pleased her to be able to say that Paxxie had been accepted at the other Ivy League schools, but like Paxton, she was unenthused about them. And as far as Beatrice Andrews was concerned, the schools in California might as well have been on another planet. She urged Paxton to make the most “sensible” move, and accept Sweet Briar before even waiting to hear from any of the others.