Roxy’s Story (36 page)

When I returned, I was back to my successful Brittany girl self. I thought that was
the end of my regrets and conscience. I had once again locked away my family memories
in a keyless safe, stuffed into the deepest corner of my mind.

And then my mother managed to get a message over the wall of security that Mrs. Brittany
had built around me. A relatively new receptionist at the hotel stopped me one morning
to ask if I knew a Mrs. Wilcox.

“I’m not sure this is for you,” he said. “I’m not even sure I’m supposed to ask, but
from her description of the woman she wanted to contact, I thought immediately of
you.”

“You’re not supposed to ask,” I said. I was going to walk away, maybe even report
him and get him fired, but I hesitated. Something stronger made me hesitate.

He held out a slip of paper and shrugged. “This is the message. Whoever it’s for isn’t
going to be happy. I felt I should try, at least.”

I stared at it, fighting the urge to take it from him, but it was too strong. I practically
ripped it out of his fingers and opened it.

The words pounded through my brain and stole away my breath. I felt a weakness in
my legs and an emptiness inside that I hadn’t felt for years.

My father had died.

His funeral was in two days. The information was there.

I folded the paper.

“It isn’t for me,” I told the receptionist, and handed the paper back to him.

“Oh, that’s good. Sorry to bother you,” he said.

“It wasn’t any bother, but if I were you, I’d throw that out and forget about it.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

I gave him a stern glare and walked away. At least, I thought I did. My legs were
on their own. I got into the elevator and took a deep breath.

The general was dead.

I had expected that when I heard this news later in my life, I would feel nothing
but relief. I didn’t expect the cold, sick feeling of grief that crawled up from my
stomach and surrounded my heart. I tried to ignore it. I ridiculed it, mumbling that
now the beds wouldn’t be made right, the house would go into disarray, and my grandfather’s
iconic picture would come down and be stuffed in a carton at the back of some closet.
But nothing worked. My heart wouldn’t lighten, and my laughter was more like sobbing.

Fortunately, I had no assignments the following day or the day after. I was certain
I would have been a disappointment, and Mrs. Brittany had left no doubt about what
result that would have. I did all I could to forget about my mother’s message, but
it wouldn’t let go. I didn’t go to the church service. I had the limousine take me
there, and then I sat in it and watched the people go in and then come out. I had
the driver follow far behind the funeral procession to the cemetery and park a good
distance away. Then I walked to the very edge of the section and watched the burial
from a distance, behind a tree, my gaze locked on Mama and Emmie, who both looked
so small and lost to me. I thought that attending even from this distance might diminish
the anger I felt toward Papa, but his dying made me even more furious. He was still
hurting the people he was supposed to love, hurting them by dying.

I couldn’t wait to get away, expecting that now I could put it all to bed and forget
again, and I probably would have if it hadn’t been for M. Little did I know
that she had been spying on me and knew where I was and what I was doing, but it was
Mr. Bob who stuck his neck out. I always knew he had a greater fondness for me than
he had for any other Brittany girl. I was his special personal discovery.

I should have expected that Mrs. Brittany would know about my father’s passing. She
said nothing. It was, I assumed, another secret test. Since I had no assignments during
the funeral or right after, I was fine with being tested. I did well with the first
assignment I had afterward, too.

But then Mr. Bob was given a letter M had managed to leave for me at the hotel.

“I thought about just destroying it,” he said. “But I have more faith in you now.
Whatever it says, you’ll handle it, I’m sure. However, let’s leave this just between
us, okay?”

I knew he meant never to mention it to Mrs. Brittany.

“Yes, of course. Thank you,” I told him.

I didn’t open it in front of him. I waited until he had left, and then I poured myself
a glass of white wine and sat at the bar, staring down at the envelope. I couldn’t
help but smile at the way M had written my name. She was still doing what she did
with the R, giving it a little curving tail. I opened it slowly, took a breath, and
then read it.

Dear Roxy,

You and I haven’t seen or spoken to each other for years. You knew Papa knew who and
what
you are now. There’s no point in pretending anything. I don’t care how angry you were
at him and Mama. Papa died, and Mama left you a message with your service and at your
hotel, and I know you are there. She tried to reach out to you, thinking you might
have an ounce of decency left. I think it’s horrible that you wouldn’t even respond.

All I can say is that even with your rich possessions, you’re someone I pity.

Your sister, Emmie

Inside the envelope was the charm bracelet I had once given her. It had a wonderful
variety of charms that included the Eiffel Tower, a fan, a pair of dancing shoes,
and a dream catcher. My mother’s brother, my uncle Alain, had given it to me when
my parents and I were in France visiting. This was before M was born. I had given
it to her just a few weeks before my father ordered me out of the house.

My first reaction was sadness. Tears came to my eyes, but that was quickly followed
by the familiar rage that had enabled me to put my family on a shelf. I resented M
for pulling it off that shelf. I didn’t want to resent her, but it was the safest
reaction I could have. I hated myself for having it, but I needed it.

I left the letter and the charm bracelet on the bar for days and tried not to look
at them again. But that didn’t work. Finally, I put them both at the bottom of a drawer.
I dived into my work, took on every
assignment Mrs. Brittany sent in my direction, and came close to drinking too much
with a French cabinet minister one night but managed to get through it. I knew I was
off my stride, and those damn nights tossing and turning in my sleep as I agonized
over M’s letter and the charm bracelet were tearing me down.

Finally, hoping for some closure, I took the charm bracelet out of the drawer and
called for the limousine. I had the driver park across from M’s school just as the
school day ended and the students emerged. When the first ones appeared, I got out
and stood by the limousine. She appeared and saw me there. I thought she might rush
off in the opposite direction, but she came to me. I had worked on hardening my heart,
but as she approached and I saw how pretty she was and how much she looked like Mama,
I felt myself softening. I did my best to fight it back, but it was like holding back
a cascade of memories too heavy to be stopped. She got into the vehicle, and I had
the driver take us through the park. I was hoping to turn her out of my life forever.

“You walk and hold yourself just like I do. It’s the damn rod Papa had installed in
us when we were born, that perfect military posture. Ironically, for me it’s been
an asset. So what are you, in tenth grade?” I asked, trying to sound as indifferent
and bitter as I could.

“Yes.”

“And I’m sure a good student,” I said, making that sound bad or stupid.

“Not lately, although I’m doing better than I was.”

I was interested in how she had found out where I was. She told me she had overheard
the conversation Papa had with Mama after he saw me with his business associate. I
told her I was at the funeral but too far away for her to notice.

“It would have pleased Mama to know,” she said.

She had the same grit I had at her age, I thought, but I wouldn’t tolerate her making
me feel bad. “Would it? I doubt she would have shown it. He’s gone, but his influence
over her is probably as strong as it ever was.”

“That’s not true,” she fired back at me, her eyes as big and as furious as mine could
get.

“Please. There’s so much you don’t know. I suppose I shouldn’t hold her as responsible
as I do. She was a European woman from a family where the women were always subservient
to their men, and when you were married to a soldier like Papa, you were trained and
obedient.”

“Papa wasn’t a soldier, and he was your father, too.”

“
Excusez-moi?
He didn’t enlist or go to officers’ school, but he was in the army from the day he
was born. I remember our grandfather. You don’t. Emotions like love and compassion
are signs of weakness to the Wilcox men. I never had any doubt that if your father
was in your grandfather’s regiment, he wouldn’t hesitate to send him to the front
lines, and if your father was killed in battle, he’d write a letter to his wife and
himself with the same official signature and stamp. That’s how our father grew up,
and that’s how he wanted us to grow up, or at least me.”

I hated how bitter I sounded, but I thought it was the right medicine to give her.
She was speechless for the moment, so I had the driver take us to her home.

“Are you coming in to see Mama?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why did you come to see me, then?” she snapped, whipping her words the way Papa could.

“I wanted to see what you were like, how you were doing. Now that I have, I think
you’ll survive,” I said.

“But Mama—”

“Mama let me go, M. I can’t forgive her for that.”

“She loved you, loves you. She takes out your picture often, and she cries,” she said.

“He let her keep a picture of me?”

“She kept it secret, but I think he always knew. If he hadn’t died, maybe . . .”

“Maybe I’d get an honorable discharge?”

“You went to the cemetery service, you said.”

“Not to ask him for his forgiveness but to see if I could forgive him. I couldn’t,”
I said, and signaled the driver to open her door.

Then I handed her the charm bracelet.

“You should keep it,” I told her. “It’s better that I don’t have reminders of family.”

“No matter what you do, how far you go, you’ll always have reminders,” she told me.
“It’s like trying to get rid of your shadow.”

I couldn’t get away fast enough.

Because I knew she was right.

I didn’t see M again until some time later, when she came to the Beaux-Arts to tell
me Mama was very sick. She had gotten a bad result on an annual gynecological exam.
In my heart, I knew that M was coming to tell me because she was terrified. My father’s
brother and his wife were not people with whom she could be close, and Mama’s family
was in France, Uncle Alain the closest to her. I liked him the best of all, too. He
lived in Paris with his partner, a well-known chef, but I couldn’t see M getting much
help from him, either. Nevertheless, I resented her coming to me with more bad family
news. I had hoped to shut it out, and I wasn’t very sisterly or compassionate. I hated
myself for it, but I thought I could live with it.

I couldn’t.

Despite the hard surface I put on, I found out about Mama and went to the hospital
to be with M while Mama was undergoing surgery. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what
was going to happen. It had happened to one of Mrs. Brittany’s girls, who, like Mama,
was ambushed by cervical cancer. I didn’t want
my sister to live in a world of fantasy, even though I remembered too well that young
people, especially young girls, needed that world of illusion to help insulate them
against the harsh realities of the adult world that awaited them.

In this case, the harsh reality was that Mama’s cancer was terminal. I tried to give
my sister the truth in little doses, first explaining how extensive and serious Mama’s
operation was. I was deliberately cold and demanding when the two of us met with her
doctor, forcing him to say the truthful things.

Despite my great effort to remain as aloof and hard as I could, when I went with M
to visit Mama afterward, I felt like a little girl again. The tears fell inside me,
maybe, but they gushed as all my good childhood memories with her came rushing back.
I knew the only thing I could do for her was to look after M the best I could, which
wasn’t easy for someone like me.

Mrs. Brittany did not make allowances for family problems. We were never to bring
any baggage along with us as long as we were under her employ, and too often, she
had reminded me that I had come to her with more baggage than she usually tolerated.
Nevertheless, I appealed to her, reminding her about how dear Sheena had been to both
of us. I think solely because of that, she relented, giving me some time to look after
Mama’s and M’s needs as long as I fulfilled the most important assignments, one of
which took me away for nearly a week at just the wrong time. That did little to bond
me with my younger sister,
who at times reminded me more and more of our father, condemning me with her gaze
and her sharp tone when we spoke.