The house was less than modest, small and shabby in fact and in a rough neighborhood, but Rose of Sharon had created a real rose garden in the tiny yard, a garden in which to thrive in her own unique and mysterious way. Her father, a Baptist preacher, had succumbed to the despair that he inherited from generations of suicides and petty criminals with big dreams. He looked back on this heritage of failure and, considering his own life, decided God didn’t care for him and life was hopeless. Rose of Sharon, so named by her father during his years of religious zealotry, found him hanging one afternoon and arranged for the burial and her own independent life with a noticeable lack of emotion, thus earning for herself a reputation for being mentally deficient and deranged. She didn’t care because this reputation ensured her privacy and independence; things she had longed for during all the years of her father’s supervision.
Her father had owned the little house passed to him by his mother and so Rose or Sharon, as she sometimes called herself one name and sometimes the other, did not have to worry about a place to live. She did have to think, however, about where to get money for food and clothes and coal in the winter. But first she wanted to dance, and the first thing she did when she realized she could do anything she wanted was to go where the soldiers went to dance.
Sharon, which was the name she used when out dancing, had always yearned to dance, and there had been the young men who came calling and invited her to dances, but her father forbade it, believing it to be sinful in itself and certainly a precursor to fornication, as he so often admonished her. And Rose, as she called herself at home, did as she was told.
So now Sharon danced every night, flirting with the soldiers on the way to the war in Europe. She loved it when they fell in love with her and bought her pretty dresses and took her out to dinner in restaurants. She believed she was entitled finally to this life of glamour. She cut and curled her hair and painted her face and began to collect beaux, who sometimes fought over her, which she very much enjoyed.
Even when she was home alone, doing mundane things like stripping the peas from the pods that grew in the backyard garden, or washing her stockings, she would be self-conscious and move with a certain provocative grace, as if one of her young men were spying on her. It was one of her fantasies. Climbing the ladder in the kitchen to reach for canned goods stored on the highest shelf, she imagined herself lifted down in strong arms and kissed tenderly on the lips. Being so romantic, her first actual sexual experience was disappointing, but it had taken place in the dark, and she was glad he couldn’t see her face as she mouthed words of everlasting love, for he was quite ecstatic and proposed marriage on the spot. Sharon wasn’t sure she wanted to give up all the others and her chances for something better, but she was afraid she might become pregnant and then would want to make sure he did marry her, so she said her mother had always told her to think about such a serious step and not rush into something so sanctified and permanent as marriage in the first flush of passionate love. Sharon’s mother had run away with another man when her father began preaching, and she only vaguely remembered her, but Sharon read a lot of books and knew how to talk well. Then she asked if he would buy her an engagement ring and they could plan their wedding more carefully.
By the time the young man, no older than Sharon in fact, was to be sent overseas, Sharon knew she was not pregnant, and she sent him off to war with kisses and sweet words and no intention whatsoever to wait for him as she promised. She had by then, also learned how to prevent such accidents as pregnancy or disease and was more careful with subsequent lovers. To some she introduced herself as Rose, sensing their need for a quiet, homebody kind of girl, and to others she introduced herself as Sharon, seeing that they were looking for a girl who knew how to enjoy herself. She never went with more than two men at a time, and it pleased her to think of her lovers meeting somewhere and discussing their respective sweethearts without ever knowing that Rose and Sharon were one and the same. She avoided conflicts by feigning illness or becoming temporarily upset over some imagined transgression, making her beau pay with guilt and remorse and a gift of some kind before she’d welcome him back into her arms. Since all of these young men were in Newport News on their way across the sea, Sharon, or Rose, as the mood might take her, was continually saying good-bye, usually with some relief, either because she didn’t love the fellow, or sensed that he didn’t really love her.
Then, as suddenly as she had begun her life of glamour and romance, Rose of Sharon tired of it, became depressed and decided she wanted someone older, stronger, richer, who would take care of her and not leave her ever. She was almost afraid to find him too soon and well she might have been, for she did find the man of her dreams and he did love her for a while only to finally tell her that he was married and couldn’t possibly marry her and gave her money to abort the child she carried. That was when she became a recluse in her garden and found a job waitressing and avoided men altogether.
And it was shortly thereafter that a dark and brooding man, always alone, almost handsome in an odd sort of way, began to come daily into the diner where she worked. He spoke with a slight accent, Scottish, he told her, along with other things, like being the son of the son of a duke from Edinburgh and wanting to go back to claim the family estate from the thieving Englishmen who had driven his family out and to America. That was Charles’ fantasy, based on putting two and two together when he listened to his father’s cryptic stories of his past. Charles had signed up with the army expecting to make it to Scotland where he would research his family history and perhaps find a life for himself there. He had wandered all over this country and was older than the young soldiers Rose of Sharon was used to, but different as well, from the older married man who had so cruelly deceived her. She approached Charles carefully, waiting on him every day and asking him more and more questions, while avoiding answering the questions he put to her.
Charles was so shy that it was Rose who finally asked him to go out dancing one evening, but Charles couldn’t dance, and she ended up taking him home. To her astonishment, Charles, a good ten years older than she, was a virgin, and he explained, with some embarrassment that she found endearing, that he had been waiting for the right woman. So Rose of Sharon, who had been so devastated by her last experience with an older man, began to feel powerful again. She would learn later that his need was more powerful still.
Then the day came when Rose of Sharon dressed very carefully, examined her lovely face in the mirror time and time again and waited for Charles with a traumatizing mix of excitement and anxiety, for she was, once again, pregnant. She had expected to entice him into marriage with her beauty and sweet, well-rehearsed words, but in fact, when he finally arrived with the news he was being sent to France, she just threw up. Charles held her head, gently stroking back her hair while she vomited into the flower garden, bathed her face and said sweet words to her. When she was finally able to choke out the words that she was pregnant, he kissed her and told her that they would get married quickly before he left and then have a real wedding when he returned. She was so relieved that it never occurred to her to remember that he hadn’t really asked her. Where she had once been jealous of her freedom to choose, now she felt too helpless to assert it.
Finding the ring, the JP and a special dress for the sad little ceremony kept her busy, and the whole thing happened so quickly that neither she nor Charles felt the full impact. In fact, the marriage changed his life forever, but changed hers hardly at all. Rose of Sharon had a destiny that she moved toward in spurts and starts, but it didn’t matter much who would be the facilitator of that destiny. But for Charles, Rose of Sharon was his destiny; it would be she who bestowed his greatest joy and she who would be the death of him.
She saw Charles off as she had seen off so many young men and, as was her pattern, she went dancing. Leaving the wedding ring in a carved wood box on her dresser and hiding her thickening condition inside a corset, Rose of Sharon cut and curled her hair
and painted her face and collected beaux as she once had, secure in the knowledge that when she needed him, Charles would be back to take care of her and their little daughter. She knew she was going to have a girl child, because she dreamed of her almost every night, and she had already chosen the name: Mary Queen of Scots.
Although she danced and teased, Rose of Sharon had become quite chaste, which caused some of her dance partners to get quite angry. She took this anger as a tribute to her desirability and her power and was most exhilarated when she danced on the edge of danger. An older woman, an unabashed prostitute, whom Sharon had seen around, warned her once that she would come to no good end, but Sharon only laughed at her. She was always Sharon now when she went out, being Rose to Charles, who expressed a particular fondness for that name, and called her the most beautiful rose in the garden, a quaint compliment that touched her with its innocence, herself being, by now, so sophisticated.
Then came a time she could no longer hide her condition, and she disappeared from the night spots and stayed in her garden through the winter and the spring, dancing by herself to music on the radio. One spurned suitor who had followed her for some time found her and found out that she was married and in a rage threatened to come back when her husband returned from the war and tell the poor man what his wife had been up to while he risked his life for his country and cursed her to an eternity in hell for what she had done to two upstanding soldiers.
Much as it pained her to think of leaving her garden, she wrote to Charles suggesting that when he was done with war (not when the war was over, but when he was done with it, like it was his choice) that they settle in Scotland, and she told him then of her intention to name their child Mary Queen of Scots, and what did he think of that? It was months before she received and answer and lucky, she thought, to receive it at all. Charles was happy with the name, asked how she knew it would be a girl and what she would name a son, suggesting Jamie might be a good name for a boy. He didn’t discuss the idea of settling in Scotland, but told her he looked forward to going back to his old home place in West Virginia after the war, a thought that quite appalled Rose, but she knew that they would have to go somewhere to avoid the risk of being confronted with old suitors, or neighbors with gossip.
Charles didn’t make it home in time for the birth of their child, or her first birthday, or her second birthday. A neighbor lady, who Rose thought disliked her, surprised Rose by assisting her at the birth, which came on sudden and a little early. Rose, a healthy girl, if a bit too slender, was up and about sooner than she expected and ready to dance again. Ida, the neighbor lady, old enough to be the child’s grandmother or even great grandmother, found herself very attached to the exquisite little Mary Queen of Scots (odd name, thought Ida), which was lucky for both of them, as Sharon imposed shamelessly on Ida’s kindness and left the baby with her many nights, while she resumed her life of glamour, music and flirtation.
Not long after, Sharon returned home in the dark of night, hiding bruises on her face and arms, where the infuriated suitor of her past had beaten her when he found her dancing with one of his buddies. He had called her all kinds of cruel names and the memory of those names stung her more than the bruises. In the morning she covered her face with make-up that barely disguised the black and blue marks and wore a long-sleeved dress when she went to retrieve Mary from Ida’s house. Ida could see plainly what had happened and tried to offer comfort to Rose, one woman to another, but Rose was proud and took Mary home without so much as a thank you and that was the last time for a long time that Ida had the child to herself overnight. It was sad for Mary, who missed the good woman and the nurturance she had enjoyed. But soon she would be walking and would find her own way to her granny’s garden, where she spoke her first words and spent many happy hours, while her mother slept the days away in a quiet despair. Rose could not understand why Sharon kept getting her into trouble, but she was resigned to staying home, being careful and waiting for Charles. She began to pour her periodic waves of energy into long letters, which she would add to day by day, until after a few weeks, she would mail the veritable package to Charles, who would receive it months later. Charles took courage from being so much loved and in fact was a distinguished soldier who won more than one medal for bravery. He began to feel invincible and took chances and miraculously never pushed his luck to the limit, for he arrived home at the end of the war without a scratch.
Rose, meantime, had settled into the image of a tragic heroine, a princess trapped in a tower and the tower was her own depression, which alternated with euphoria, but lasted longer and longer as she languished in the garden, letting the weeds take over, ignoring the bounty of the sweet pea vines and the berry bushes. Not wanting them to go to waste, Ida came over and she and Mary, now well past two, shelled them into a large cooking pot (but eating most of them raw as they worked). Rose allowed Ida to take over without a word of protest or gratitude, just watching them, the old woman and the child, with a certain remote curiosity, as if they were strangers. “It happens sometimes,” Ida explained to her old husband and concentrated on loving the bright and beautiful little girl, Mary Queen of Scots: odd name, everyone said.
Often Rose would cry like an abandoned child, and she didn’t understand the source of her tears. When Charles came home she broke into tears then too, and he thought they were tears of joy, and Rose didn’t know what they were but sobbed for hours in his arms, while he soothed her, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head. They didn’t go get Mary at Ida’s house until the morning, Charles euphoric from the night, Rose still sleepy and lethargic. She watched him in that detached way she had, while he looked at his daughter for the first time and kneeled down to embrace her and explain to her who he was. He had thought Rose would have prepared the child, but of course she had not, and it was Ida and her husband who cajoled Mary into giving a proper greeting to her father, and explained to him how little children were. He thanked them for helping his wife care for his daughter while he was away, and it was clear to everyone that now he would take over and be the head of the family and that he planned to move away. It was a sad day for Mary, Ida and even Ida’s husband when the little family sold Rose of Sharon’s tiny house and set out by wagon for West Virginia. Ida embraced the little girl and promised to see her soon, but knew better than to ask them to write or keep in touch. “Odd folks,” she thought out loud when she could no longer see them on the road. “Odd folks,” her husband agreed. They both left unspoken their fears for the child.
Charles had saved most of his pay (sending some back to Rose) to buy another cabin on another piece of land that lay near his old home. He carried Mary on his shoulders, and Rose followed him as he showed them the creeks, the hills, the great oaks, the tight hollers and many paths worn by the predictable journeys of deer looking for food. Some thought the dense forest spooky, but Rose and Charles and Mary, each in their own way and separately, all loved it, and found refuge in it. Sometimes Charles went back to the graves of his parents but he never took Rose or told her anything about them. The first time he felt angry at Rose, angry enough to want to strike her, he remembered the frightening fury of his father and the pain he had felt when his mother was hurt and he did not, then or ever, lay a hand on his beloved wife. He ran into the forest for hours and did not come home until well after dark, and Rose was frightened to be left alone in the vast and isolated woods and didn’t know if or when her husband would return. She had cried herself to sleep before he came home and he lay down beside her quietly, not wanting to wake her, preferring to watch her and ponder her mystery.
They soon acquired a cow for milk and chickens and some goats and geese, who simply settled on a widening of the creek they called a pond. Mary spent most of her time with these animals, getting so little attention from either of her parents. If she wandered off just beyond their view, they would both panic and run about calling her name, and she’d let them do that for a while before
showing herself and letting them hug and cuddle her and cry with relief. In this manner, Mary assured herself that her mother and father did indeed love her. On holiday occasions other folks in the county came to visit and to welcome Charles home after all those years he was away, but Rose did not like the plain and hardworking people. She did enjoy the dances, though, and danced with all the men, old and ugly as some of them were, and all the men enjoyed dancing with such a graceful and vivacious young woman. In this manner, Rose isolated herself among the women who were her neighbors. Charles didn’t see it and Charles couldn’t see it, being so proud that his wife was the prettiest, the liveliest wherever they went.
But at home Rose was morose and the forest suited her mood perfectly, hiding her, enfolding her in a permanent twilight. Only occasionally did she seek the sun, aware of its warmth on her arms like the sensual stroke of a lover, some imagined lover, that watched her from the woods and would show himself one day. She knew that Charles was a good man and loved her and she loved him too in her own peculiar way, but Rose yearned for adventure and even tragedy, tragedy being a kind of adventure. To Rose of Sharon, life was not sacred, but an experiment and more and more often and for longer periods, a burden, and she searched for someone to commit her suicide, grandly, with poignancy and drama. She yearned for the man who would die for love as she herself wanted to do, for love was like the butterflies, so briefly glorious. It seemed a sacrilege to let it simply wither and dry out and linger like that forever, for to Rose it was beauty and drama that were sacred.
Imagining scenes of passion and tenderness, Rose of Sharon stood one evening in the garden where she had been picking the first tomatoes for the evening meal and felt the breeze blow her skirt around her legs and watched the leaves of the trees flutter like her skirt and show their silver undersides in anticipation of the coming storm, and she felt the rain-laden wind on her cheek, and she cried and cried, knowing she wanted to be pure poetry, wanted to fly and drift with the clouds and yet, there she stood with a basket of tomatoes on her arm and a child and husband inside the too-warm house waiting for their meal. Innocent and loving they were, and Rose of Sharon felt sorry for them and for herself and for all who lived chained to the earth and tantalized by its visions of beauty just beyond their reach, in the sky, in the wind, in the water, in the caves and in the very heart of multi-colored rocks that erupted from the very heart of the earth itself. If she could have said these things to Charles, they would have found their common bond and mutual sympathy. But Rose of Sharon rarely spoke to Charles except to ask or answer questions about purely practical matters, and her lovemaking had become remote and distant and puzzling to him.
As Mary got older and sturdier, Charles spent more and more time with her, taking her with him when he wandered through the woods and teaching her the names and uses of plants and trees. They got the wood in together in the fall, enough to last the winter. And they dug the sassafras roots that laced through the earth, not deep, but long, so they had to work for hours to get it all, and then they peeled off bits of the red bark and tasted it right there with the taste of the earth still on it. Then they brought it to Rose, who washed it and scraped it and made them a drink sweetened with honey. They gathered the wild mint together and the winterberries and the blackberries that grew in a thorny tangle wherever the trees allowed the sun to penetrate, and the blueberries that grew on top of the little mountain beyond their home, so steep that when they climbed it, they had to reach for the roots of trees to pull themselves up until they reached the flat, rocky top, where huge birds nested and screamed at them when they came too close.
Mary became accustomed to the silences of her parents, for neither had the energy to talk about the mundane, and both protected their wild fancies from the scrutiny of more practical people. As a child, curious about everything, she frustrated both of them with her continual questions and interruptions, and so each had taken to preoccupied silence in her presence. Sometimes they talked to each other in the night in whispers, in the frenzy of passion or the tenderness of satiation, usually when the storms came and the wind blew the house so Mary worried it might blow apart and send them all flying, and lightening cut the sky like a sudden dagger. Storms always awakened her mother’s energy, her love, her passion, but Mary was more afraid of those sudden outbursts than she was hurt by the more usual inattentiveness. She already knew that her mother lived in another world, and Mary made her own world, her own life. It was Charles she loved, who taught her to read and add numbers and took her with him everywhere, to the livestock auction, to the bank in the nearest town, to the dry goods store. Mary went with him when he bought the lovely lavender satin and lace for Rose to sew into a wedding gown, for they had never yet had their real wedding like he promised.
They had their wedding party outside on an early autumn day beneath the bright blue sky, cloudless, and the warm sun made Rose feel faint in her satin. A minister from the town came out to preside over the ceremony, and everyone was solicitous of Rose for Charles’s sake. Charles had brought her a peacock and a peahen as wedding gifts, and they screeched and screamed on the porch. The brilliant male was molting and left feathers like jewels in the mud around the barnyard, and Mary ran around collecting them with delight. When he was naked, the peacock became quiet at last. “Embarrassed,” Mary thought, and her mother agreed with her, smiling on her and blessing the occasion.
IX
Stillbird Page 24
