Legacy of Silence

by Belva Plain

  “Where are you taking that dog?” Vicky called.

  “To Jane’s room. She’s upset, and she wants him.”

  “That’s nonsense. Joel started it and it ought to be stopped. He sheds all over the rugs. Anyway, what is she doing awake at this hour?”

  “The noise kept her awake,” Eve said quietly, “as it did me.”

  “Nonsense. Healthy people should be able to sleep through a little music.”

  All the turmoil in Eve boiled up and swamped her resolve to control herself until morning.

  “Music? Nobody’s ears,” she said, “could withstand that racket. It shook the house.”

  “I’m awfully sorry that my taste in music doesn’t suit you, Eve. But what can you expect? I haven’t had your high-class opportunities.”

  “A remark like that is disgusting, and you know it.”

  “Don’t you tell me I’m disgusting. Who do you think you are, anyway, walking around here as if you were smelling something bad? From the day Joel died, you’ve been looking like that.”

  “I am smelling something bad. Very bad. The dirty deal you put over with that phony will you had my poor father sign.”

  “Phony will? You’re out of your mind. What did you think, that he was going to leave everything to you? I was his wife, and you’d better believe it.”

  “Oh, I believe it. You’ve made it obvious enough.” Eve’s anger was red now, a red blur in front of her eyes. “But now you’re a widow, and somebody ought to tell you, in case you don’t know, that a proper widow doesn’t give rowdy parties until at least one year has gone by.”

  “Rowdy party! Because a few friends dropped in to cheer me up? What do you want me to do, sit around and cry?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. I don’t give a damn what you do. You can burn the house down for all I care as long as I’m not in it.”

  “Burn the house down!” Vicky laughed. “Fat chance. If I stay here, I’m going to build an addition. It needs more space for entertaining.”

  The two women, Eve halfway up the stairs and Vicky at its foot, were glaring at each other. And suddenly, in the midst of Eve’s rage, there came a striking memory of the little brown house and the yard with the grape arbor, where Vicky had been her part-time baby-sitter, playing in the sandbox with her to earn some pocket money.

  How had they come to this enmity?

  “So this house is not large enough for you, Vicky?”

  “The bigger, the better. Now will you take that dog back where he belongs?”

  “No, Jane wants him.”

  “You’re forgetting that I am the owner here now, and you are a guest.”

  “Not for long. As soon as I can pack and get a seat on the plane, I’m leaving.”

  From the bedroom now came Jane’s cry. “Where are you, Eve?”

  No, there was no way she could ever leave this child behind.

  “You’ve won, Vicky. You’ve played dirty, and you’ve won. Except for one thing. You can’t have Jane. I’m taking her with me, and you’d better not fight me.”

  Vicky laughed again. “Fight you? Good God, that kid is the last thing I’d fight for. She’s a pain in the neck. You’re welcome to her.”

  Suddenly, Eve felt curiosity. “Don’t you care about anybody at all? Anybody but yourself? No pity, no feeling for this little baby?”

  “Of course I have. I’m no monster. But I know you’ll be good to her, and anyway, Joel would probably want you to have her. He never said so, but—I suppose Lore told you we weren’t hitting it off too well, Joel and I. Not that anybody but Lore would have noticed.”

  “Well then, that’s settled,” Eve said.

  She slept the rest of the night on a lounge chair in Jane’s room, while Jane slept peacefully with the dog.

  Emmy Schulman and Lore came the next day. Emmy worried and wept.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to manage. Now you say you have to take two make-up courses for eight weeks. For goodness’ sake, whatever are you going to do with a child? Oh, honey, I just don’t see how you’re going to do it. This whole thing is abominable. If Caroline knew! Her lovely house and all her labor gone up in smoke.”

  Having made up her mind, Eve went briskly about the packing. A carton of toys and a carton holding photographs and some of Caroline’s favorite books were to go by express. She had bought a large new suitcase for all of Jane’s clothes. They were leaving nothing behind. She wondered aloud whether Peter was small enough to fit in a container under the seat, or whether he ought to go in a crate.

  “He’ll probably be more comfortable in a good-sized crate,” Lore suggested. “The vet can give him a tranquilizer beforehand.”

  “You’re not taking the dog!” cried Emmy. “Lore, I don’t think she knows what she’s getting herself into.”

  “You worry about Eve more than I do,” Lore said, lightly scolding. “Eve’s a practical person. She’s like her mother. Besides, she has a rich boyfriend. He’ll be a big help.”

  “Not because he’s rich,” Eve said. “I suppose his family is, but he doesn’t take anything from them. He works hard and lives a very plain life.”

  Tom, after the first telephoned appeal, had arranged everything. Eve was to move off campus into the top floor of a private house owned by a pleasant old couple. Since the arrangement was only to last over the summer, they would be willing to take care of Jane, and the dog, too, while Eve was in class. On weekends, Eve and Jane would go to Tom’s beach house.

  “Does he know these people?” asked Emmy.

  “Friends of his know them well. Tom checked, and everything is okay.”

  “What about after the eight or nine weeks?”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” Eve replied.

  Emmy admonished her gently. “A little before then, I hope.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “She’s well meaning,” Lore remarked when Emmy had left, “but sometimes she really can be a wet blanket.”

  Eve wanted only to get out of the house. It was just a container, after all. It had contained Caroline and Joel, but they were gone, and with them the soul of the house had fled, leaving behind some dead possessions that would acquire new meanings as through the years they might pass, by gift or auction sale, from one owner to another.

  This, she thought, cramming Jane’s stuffed Kanga and Roo into the carton, is no time for sentimentality, no time for weeping.

  But along with this stifled grief was a great stir of excitement. It mounted as the departure neared. Positive visions floated before her eyes: Tom, waiting at the airport with that spectacular smile spread from his twinkle to his teeth; friends, and their amazement to find her returning with a child; the shack, and the beach, and the ocean winds at night.

  Jane was thrilled about it all. She had found a spot with no trees to obscure the view, where, for long minutes, she stood watching the sky and keeping count of passing planes. On learning that Lore was not coming with them, she was temporarily stricken, but with Lore’s promise to visit, she was comforted. The atmosphere was clearing.

  And Vicky, now that affairs were settled, was even trying to make some civilized amends. “It’s foolish to fly tourist class with Jane and all your carry-ons. Why be cramped and miserable? Let me treat you to some first-class tickets, my parting gift.”

  “We won’t be miserable,” Eve told her, “but thank you for the offer.”

  So that was that. One could only wonder what was in Vicky’s mind, whether she had any conscience at all, or whether she truly thought that she had merely protected her rights as a wife.

  Lore shrugged. “You’ll break your head if you wonder too long about human motives. Your own family’s history should teach you that. The Hartzingers, and your mother—well, no need to draw pictures for you.”

  No need. Think, rather, of the blue Pacific.

  “I wonder whether I’ll ever see Ivy again,” she said.

  “What? You’re abandoning
me?”

  But Lore knew better. And Eve, torn between a need to get away and pain at the sight of Lore’s last-minute grief, hugged her close, saying, “You’ll come for long, long visits. You’ll fall in love with the climate, and you won’t want to leave.”

  Early on the last day, the rented station wagon arrived to take them on their long ride to the airport. Eve, Jane, their heaps of luggage, and their dog were loaded in, while Lore, containing her tears, waved from the doorstep. The car took the road to the highway, and Ivy fell behind them.

  The sun was just appearing at the bottom of the sky. Then, as they rode along, it made a stupendous leap; upward it soared, streaked the dark dome with its flame, and scattered its diamond spangles through the still-dark trees.

  “Look, Jane!” Eve cried, and pointed. “Look! You’ve never seen it before. It’s the sunrise.”

  FOURTEEN

  The room had been carved out of an open attic. There were windows on both sides with the breeze coming through them, and when you looked out, a garden below. Twin beds with fresh white coverlets stood against one wall. There were shelves convenient for Eve’s few textbooks, and in one corner, a large, red-roofed dollhouse.

  “This was our daughter’s room,” Mrs. Dodge explained. “We rent it out to students now. It’s taken from mid-September on, but that fits right in with your schedule, doesn’t it? I hope you’ll like it.”

  “It’s lovely. I’m delighted,” Eve assured her.

  “It’s a long time since we’ve had a little girl in the house. But Jane and I will get along fine while you’re working. Our son lives on the next block, and his boys are Jane’s age. They’re nice, Jane, twins, and you’ll have fun with them. I understand you and Jane are sisters? Your friend, Mr. Tappan, told us and was quite concerned that everything should be in perfect order for you.”

  “Yes, he’s a good friend.”

  The woman was curious. Obviously, she would like to hear more. Nevertheless, you could tell that she was kindly. And after the events of the last week, her welcome was a warm bath.

  “Oh, my, I just remembered what time it is. We’re three hours behind you. You must be starved.”

  Jane promptly announced, “I want a hamburger.”

  “Tom’s taking us to dinner. Wash your hands,” Eve said. “We’ll unpack and bathe later. She’s a good child,” she explained while Jane was in the bathroom. “She’s had a bad time since our father died, but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with her. Or with the dog, either,” she added, remembering Peter, whom Tom was now taking for a much-needed walk.

  “Mr. Tappan bought a basket for him. I forgot to bring it upstairs for you.”

  Tom had thought of everything: flowers, candy, and a basket for Peter. From the first moment when they had trooped off the plane, he had wrapped them with love.

  In the evening, after a quick supper and Jane’s quick removal to bed, they sat together at the back of the Dodges’ garden.

  “Let me look at you,” he said. “I’ve hardly had a quiet chance between the airport and the hamburger joint.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “I’ve got a pocket flashlight. Look up.” And when she obeyed, he pronounced that she was as beautiful as he remembered. “But you do look a bit worn. It must have been a hellish time.”

  “It was awful. I’ll miss Dad terribly. Three thousand miles apart, but I always knew he was there for me. The rest of the nastiness that went on after he died, all the stuff I’ve told you about, is nothing, really. Not in the sum total of life.”

  “Not all that money?”

  Eve shook her head. “It would have cost years, and disrupted you and me. People never retrieve the years they throw away.”

  Tom took her two hands and leaned forward on the bench to kiss her. When the long kiss ended, he whispered, “I don’t want to waste minutes, let alone years. I wish there were two rooms with one bed up there instead of one room with two beds.”

  “Don’t be silly. The Dodges wouldn’t allow you to stay all night, or even to go upstairs in the first place.”

  “So what are we going to do? Go to my place every night?”

  “Impossible. She’ll only take care of Jane while I’m in school. There’s no nighttime child care in the arrangement.”

  Tom groaned. “My fault. What a dunce! I should have thought of that.”

  “We’ll have to wait for weekends.”

  “The week will be very, very long.”

  “But the end will be worth waiting for.”

  And of course, it was. As a host, Tom had outdone himself; he had bought a sandbox with pails and shovels, beach balls and water wings so that Jane might swim in the shallow cove around the bend. On their first day they ate a picnic lunch on the sand. The dog went swimming with Jane, and Tom took their picture to send to Lore.

  “I feel like a father,” Tom said, and laughed, “sending a picture of my child to my third cousins.”

  “I miss Lore,” Jane said.

  “But you’re having a good time here,” Eve protested.

  “But I love Lore. I love Tom, too.”

  “You do? Why?” Tom asked.

  “Because you bought me the sandbox and the candy.”

  “Little devil,” he said. “You’re cute, do you know it?”

  They lay in the shade of the beach grapes, watching the child and the dog. There was no other life in their cove except for the eternal gulls, swerving over the water. Eve was suffused with a sense of freedom, an odd, new, happy sense that she had never before experienced in just that way.

  She tried to describe it, although it was not easy. “It’s many things, being with you, being here in all this peace. There’s a freshness in the air here, as if the future will be all different and unencumbered. Do you understand what I mean? And there’s something else. In Ivy, everybody I ever knew had heard the family story.” She hesitated. “You see how I still hesitate? And people who didn’t know the story soon learned about it from those who did know it. It was always a monkey on my back. Perhaps here I can throw it off for good. Do you think I can?”

  “Darling Eve,” Tom said, “I don’t know.”

  That night after Jane had been put to sleep, they closed their door. They had been starving for each other. It was as if years instead of weeks had passed. When they were satisfied, they lay still, slept, awoke, and turned to each other again. Tom’s arms were around Eve when the door banged against the wall.

  “What’s that noise outside?” Jane cried. “I want my daddy. Somebody took my daddy away, and I need him.”

  Eve got out of bed and opened her arms. “Come here, honey. The noise is only a little thunder. Don’t be sad now. Daddy wouldn’t want you to be sad or scared.”

  “I don’t care. I want Daddy.”

  “Good Lord,” Tom groaned, as Peter, in a running jump, landed on his stomach. “Midnight visitors.”

  “I’ll stay in the other room with her for a while. Come, Jane, back to bed. I’ll cover you up and we’ll talk a little. Then we’ll all go to sleep.”

  “I want to sleep in here with Peter.”

  “You can’t. This is Tom’s bed.”

  “But you were in it.”

  “Oh, dear,” Eve sighed.

  “ ‘Oh, dear’ is right. Jane,” Tom said, “go back to bed. You’re too old to behave like this.”

  “No. I don’t want to. I’m not too old.”

  “Good Lord,” he groaned again. “A little pampered, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. ‘Troubled’ is a better description right now.”

  “Okay, okay, you handle it.”

  “Come, Jane. Peter, come, too.”

  On top of the covers, Eve lay alongside Jane with Peter on the other side.

  “Daddy is thinking of you,” she whispered. “He knows you’re with me and Peter. Lore’s thinking of you, too. We’ll call Lore up tomorrow, and you’ll tell her about Mrs. Dodge, and the twins, and the beach, and everyth
ing. Listen to the waves. Isn’t that a pretty sound? Like whispers, like music. The thunder’s gone away. Listen …”

  Tom was awake when, shivering in the night breeze, Eve returned. She saw that he was cross.

  “Remind me tomorrow to get a latch for our door. It would have been awful if she had come in a few minutes earlier than she did.”

  Lying back on the pillow, Eve began to feel a vague anxiety. Then she scolded herself: I do tend to be a worrier. Lore always reminds me that, after every exam, I’m sure I did poorly; when I get a bad spot on a dress, I’m sure that the dress is ruined. Still … it was a lovely day, no doubt about it. But we spent it taking care of Jane. Of course, being so close to the water, we had to be vigilant. But back in town, we’d be careful, too, about other things. There was no end to child care.

  “SHE’S a nice little girl,” Mrs. Dodge reported, “feisty and sweet.”

  Feisty. That had been Dad’s very word for Jane.

  “When the boys get rough with her, she holds her own. A lot of girls don’t, but she wades right in and protects herself. She never starts a fight, though. My daughter-in-law says the same when they play over at her house. The only time Jane got upset about anything was when my son came home and the boys all ran to him calling for Daddy. So they brought her back here, and I had to quiet her down.”

  “Jane’s had a hard time,” Eve said, remembering Vicky’s harsh voice. “I’m very grateful to you, Mrs. Dodge. I stay away all day with an easy mind because of you.”

  “How’s the work going?”

  “Fine. It’s just make-up work, really, to fulfill the requirements so I can get my diploma.”

  “And after that, the real world. What kind of a job are you looking for?”

  The real world. Where was it to be? The jungles of Guatemala? With Jane? Jane, with Joel’s curly hair and a timid core beneath the bold smile; surely there is much of our mother in her, too, much that is yet to unfold, still hidden now like the tight bud in the sheath. But what am I to do with her?

  She had not answered the other woman’s natural question, and she said quickly, “I’m not quite sure yet. It’s a big decision.”