The Umbrella Lady

by V. C. Andrews

  But it belonged here.

  It was coming home.

  Why? What made this its home?

  I would get on that train someday, but not until I had that answer.

  Surely I would. Secrets can’t keep secret. They don’t exist unless someone else knows them.

  I rose and went inside, half-expecting Mazy had come down. It wasn’t long until dinner. Maybe helping to prepare it would take my mind off the decision I had to make. We would watch television and both go to bed unsure. What should we have? Should I put up some pasta?

  I started upstairs and paused, realizing it was dark. Mazy hadn’t turned on a light. Was she still asleep? I continued up slowly, quietly, and paused in her doorway. She was exactly as before, lying in bed, faceup. All this must have exhausted her as much as it did me, I thought. I’d just make dinner and come up when it was ready.

  Getting everything prepared, doing our salad the way she liked, and working on a marinara sauce just the way she had taught me, kept me from thinking about what had happened. She would be proud of how well I had blended the tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped parsley, minced garlic, and oregano, with just enough salt and pepper. Every once in a while, I anticipated her standing there in the doorway, happily surprised.

  I set the table and got the water ready for the pasta. I couldn’t put it in until she came down, of course. Meanwhile, I stirred the sauce, let it simmer, and then prepared the garlic bread just the way she enjoyed it.

  Suddenly, I stopped. I was so determined to have everything ready that I didn’t realize something. Mr. Pebbles had not come down or come out of my room the way he always had when Mazy and I began dinner. She thought he liked to watch us work and smell the scent of good food.

  I turned down the water and went to the doorway to listen. It was still dark upstairs. She would want me to wake her, I thought, and started up. When I was more than halfway, I paused, because an old dream image flashed across my mind. It was Daddy walking up the stairs, his hands cupped together, the small flame emerging from his palms. I felt a chill and hurried up the remainder of the stairway, this time practically bursting into Mazy’s room.

  Nothing was different.

  “Mazy?” I said. She never slept this long in the daytime. I started toward her bed and then stopped. “Mazy?”

  Her eyes were wide open. How could she sleep with her eyes wide open?

  I inched forward and reached for her arm. It was cold, stiff. My heart was skipping beats.

  “Mazy, wake up!” I cried, and I shook her. Her lips were slightly apart.

  Before touching her again or saying anything, I turned on the lamp at her bedside. Her cheeks looked swollen, and her eyes were like the marbles I remembered circling Mama’s flowerpot. I reached out to take her hand. The fingers were stiff and cold. It was only then that I saw Mr. Pebbles lying at her feet. He raised his head to look at her and then me and lowered his head again.

  The cold that was in her hand and her arm seemed to travel quickly through my body as well. Then my heart felt like it was sizzling. Absolute fear overcame any feeling of sadness, but I was crying. I was finally crying the way that little girl should have been crying on the train-station bench years ago. It was almost the same fear, only this time there was no hope. Mazy would not be coming around the corner swinging her black umbrella.

  More to drive home reality than anything else, I turned on the bedroom ceiling light. Mr. Pebbles took that as some sort of signal and leaped off the bed. He stood there looking up at me, and then he walked out the doorway. I drew close to the bed again. I was actually afraid to touch her face. I didn’t want to feel death. For me, it was something that had gone up in smoke. Thankfully, I didn’t have to or couldn’t look at Mama. I wasn’t able to look at Lucy or even the first and second Mr. Pebbles.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked Mazy. Mr. Pebbles knew what to do. He went down to the kitchen. Of course, that was what he would do. “Everything is ready for dinner,” I said. “I’ll just put in the pasta. I’ll stir and wait between two and three minutes, just as you showed me.”

  It seemed so odd, maybe so wrong, to turn away, leave the lights on, and go down to finish the dinner, but I did. And as I had expected, Mr. Pebbles was there waiting and watching.

  “Maybe she’ll wake up,” I told him. “Maybe the aroma of the sauce will drive death away, Mr. Pebbles.”

  He sat so patiently. Was he wise or totally empty of any thought and feeling, sort of how Mazy was right now?

  I continued, and when it was ready, I put it all in the bowl, brought it to the table, and then brought the bread and the jug of cold water. I sat and looked across the table. It was easy to imagine Mazy there; she was always there.

  “I hope you like it,” I said, starting on my salad. “It’s doing what you always like, still cooking in the dish.”

  I served myself some.

  Eating and pretending kept fear down at my feet.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, as if I had just heard her say it. “Do it right, and you don’t need to hope. It tastes good to me.”

  It did taste good.

  “I think this is the best I ever made,” I said. I looked down at Mr. Pebbles. “Okay, you get a taste,” I said, and put some in his dish. He went right at it and then, smacking his lips, looked up at me. “It’s good, I know.”

  I continued eating.

  And then suddenly, as if reality came rushing in from all directions, I stopped and vomited just about everything I had eaten. I sat there, catching my breath, and then rose and walked back to the stairway, battling back the pain in my stomach. It was as if I had been rehearsing this for as long as I had been here. I walked up the stairs, went into Mazy’s room, avoided looking at her, and went right to the drawer in the nightstand on the left side of her bed. I sifted through it until I saw the ring of three keys I had seen in her hands many times and plucked them out quickly. Still, without looking at her, I went to the closet and found the key that would unlock the top drawer.

  There was a dark cherry wood box in it. A second key on the ring unlocked it. I carried it out without glancing at Mazy and went directly to the classroom, turned on the lights, and sat at my desk.

  I unfolded the first paper on top.

  It was a letter. My eyes went right to the bottom, where it was signed Derick. I took a deep breath and began to read.

  Dear Mazy,

  Over the years I occasionally joked that there would be a time when I would ask a favor of you. That time might come soon.

  From the first time when you contacted me, I was quite obliging. I kept our correspondence secret as you had requested. My and Lindsey’s parents never knew a thing about this.

  I vividly remember the day Lindsey learned she had been adopted. Our parents had waited until she was twelve. I think it was more my mother’s idea than my father’s to do it then. She was more involved with her, of course, and thought when she was approaching adolescence it would be wise to reveal it all.

  Lindsey had many questions about you, but my parents, my mother especially, wanted you to be more of a shadow. Maybe she was afraid of losing Lindsey’s love. Whatever her reasons, my father went along with them, and Lindsey only knew that you had to give her up for adoption. The story was that even you didn’t know who her father was. I never told her anything I knew from the papers I had discovered and read.

  It was quite shocking and traumatic for her. That was when she and I grew even closer, probably. It seemed to free us of so many restrictions and inhibitions, and as I told you in a previous letter, we did make love when she was seventeen. To be honest, I didn’t think we’d go on like that. When I graduated and went into the army, we certainly drifted farther apart. I thought she’d find a boyfriend in college, too.

  As you know, when I was discharged and started working, Lindsey was in her last year. When our parents were killed shortly before she graduated, we lived together for a while, and then finally, when she became pregnant, married
and moved on.

  If you look back at some of my correspondence, you will see my concerns over her stability and our relationship, so this shouldn’t come as a total shock. I have found someone else who keeps me sane through all this, and when the time is right, if I think it’s something that could last, I will let Lindsey know my intentions. Maybe then it would be good for her to have this sort of contact with you, at least.

  For now, let’s just wait to see. Saffron seems quite enough for her at the moment.

  I’ll call soon with something of an update.

  Hope you are well,

  Derick

  I folded the letter and sat trying to digest what I had just read.

  Mazy really was my grandmother. My father and mother were once brother and sister, although not related by blood. Everything I had been told about my grandparents wasn’t true. When I thought about it now, I realized how many ways and times Mazy had tried to tell me who she really was. The lie that I had thought was just another tool was the truth.

  As I sat there thinking about her in the next room, I realized that knowing this didn’t make much difference. In my heart and mind, she was my grandmother. I couldn’t love her more.

  I started to sift through the remaining pages and stopped as soon as I saw the special delivery envelope. Very carefully, I plucked out the letter. It was quite wrinkled, suggesting Mazy had taken it out and read it many times before refolding it and putting it back in the envelope.

  Dear Mazy,

  Tragedy has struck us in a most terrible way. Things had reached the point where Lindsey and I were practically strangers sharing the same house and child. I am guilty of avoiding the truth, becoming that famous ostrich who buries his head in the sand. There was probably more I could have done, but I was simply overwhelmed. I believe the one who has suffered the most from all this is not me, not Lindsey, but Saffron.

  I stopped being her father, really. I let what happened happen. As a result, Saffron is at quite a disadvantage when compared to other children her age. A great deal of remedial work has to be done, and I’m simply not capable of it now. Maybe I never was. It’s quite heart-crushing. Once she really was Daddy’s Little Girl. At least I have the memory.

  To come right to the point of this special delivery letter, Lindsey caused a fire to start last night. I was sleeping in a separate room by now. I heard Saffron’s scream and leaped out of bed. Lindsey, who was on serious anxiety medication, was dead to the world. I rushed out, scooped up some of Saffron’s things, and managed to get us both out of a burning building that was already far gone. There was no way to go back for Lindsey. I’m sorry.

  The truth is, I’m too distraught to continue here. I’ve decided I have to start anew, and I’d like now for you to return that favor.

  Saffron and I will be on the three o’clock train that will stop in Hurley about eight. You will find her on a bench at the station, waiting for me to return so we can take another train. There is no other train, and I will not return.

  You’ve always been so interested in your granddaughter. You will have her now, and I’m sure you will be able to give her the home and education she will need to compete in the future.

  I will, from time to time, be in touch, but for now, and perhaps for some time, it’s better that I remain a man still traveling on a train.

  Thank you,

  Derick

  I folded the letter and put it back in the box.

  I thought I really didn’t have to read it. I knew it. But there was a sentence in it that drove the cold, sharp pain even deeper.

  I did not scream.

  EPILOGUE

  There were more letters, all much shorter. I sifted through them and read the things Mazy had told me. She hadn’t lied about it. My father had kept her dangling on his promises just the way she had first described. The only thing she had hidden from me was his address. It wasn’t on many of the envelopes, but it was on two. Maybe he hadn’t realized it. Maybe he thought it no longer mattered.

  Under it all, there were two neatly stacked piles of money wrapped in rubber bands. One stack was all twenties, and the other was all fifties. There was a thick envelope that contained Mazy’s will. It had been relatively recently rewritten, with me the sole beneficiary. Thanks to how hard Mazy had pushed me on reading and vocabulary, I understood it all. I was sure most of the kids I had met at school would not.

  There was one more envelope I wanted to open. On the outside was written Photos.

  There were at least three dozen of them, capturing my mother from when she wasn’t much older than I was now until she first married my father. In all the pictures, she looked happy. It was a smile I barely remembered, but it was easy to see the resemblances between her and me. The very last picture was of her holding me when I was probably no more than six months or so. I thought her smile in that one was her brightest and happiest.

  For a few moments, I sat back and thought about what it was like for Mazy to see these pictures. There was nothing written that would tell me how or why she gave up my mother for adoption. She had once told me she had been pregnant. I remembered asking her if she had ever had someone inside her.

  “Yes,” she had said. “But it was sad.” I thought she meant her baby had died. I imagined that was the way she liked to think of her in the beginning. It was clear from my father’s letters and the pictures that she wanted to know more and more about the baby she had given away.

  Did my father do a good thing by being in touch with her and telling her about my mother?

  There was no question what he wanted from her in return.

  I returned to Mazy’s room and her closet, barely looking at her. At the back of the closet were some luggage bags. I took the smallest one and went out and down to my room. Poor Mr. Pebbles followed me and watched as I chose clothes and shoes and neatly packed them all in the bag. I went to the bathroom and gathered the toiletries I wanted. I moved quietly, slowly, carefully, but like one in a hypnotic spell. Occasionally, I paused to fight back tears.

  When I thought I had everything I wanted and needed, I went into the kitchen to search through some notes Mazy had jotted for her own memory and found the telephone number I wanted. I stuck it in my jacket pocket. I had put on the new jacket Mazy had bought me for school. I stood there thinking about the dishes and the mess on the table.

  Can’t leave it like this, I thought, and quickly went about cleaning up, putting dishes in the dishwasher, and bundling the garbage. I took it out to the garbage can the way I always did and then returned to inspect the kitchen once more. Mr. Pebbles, who had heard the commotion, had returned and was lying by my seat at the table.

  “Someone will look after you,” I said, and started up the stairs.

  As I went up, I imagined that I had overreacted, imagined it all. When I looked in Mazy’s room now, I thought, she would be sitting up, grinding the sleep out of her eyes with her small, age-spotted hands, and then she would look at me with an expression of complete surprise.

  “What on earth? Where do you think you’re going?” she would ask. “You have homework to do, and besides, I don’t recall our eating dinner.”

  She’d gaze to her right and look at me angrily.

  “Why is the drawer in my closet unlocked and open? What have you done?”

  “Exactly what you would have done,” I would say.

  She would laugh. She’d know I was right.

  I imagined it all before I entered her bedroom. She wasn’t sitting up, of course. I sat with my back to her. Then, although I knew how it would feel, I reached for her hand and held it.

  “Sometimes I hated you,” I said. I wasn’t looking at her. “I’d go to sleep dreaming of running away, especially during the early days. I often fantasized about returning to the train station and finding Daddy there, of course. I knew how much that irritated you when I said it.

  “I don’t think I ever left the house, with you or without you, without expecting to see my father appear. He
’d be walking up the street, wearing the same coat he wore when he left me, even in midsummer.

  “ ‘Sorry,’ he’d say. I wouldn’t care about the reason or reasons. I’d just take his hand and walk off with him.

  “Funny how after a while, that dream made me feel guilty. After all, you were the one left behind, sometimes just standing there in the front of the house shaking your head. I didn’t even say good-bye.

  “And the truth is, you didn’t even say good-bye.”

  I turned to look at her.

  “I wonder how often you looked at me and saw something of yourself. You did a good job of keeping that secret. I think the reason you took me places and eventually enrolled me in school was so you could claim to be who you really were, my grandmother.

  “I wish we could have talked about all this now. I wish you had told me everything and I could ask you about your pain and suffering. Maybe you would have soon.”

  I saw that Mr. Pebbles had come up and was standing in the bedroom doorway.

  “Everyone thinks the real sadness is dying, but the real sadness is carried by those you leave. Poor Mr. Pebbles,” I said.

  I let go of her hand.

  “You know what you never said to me and I never said to you, Mazy? I love you. Is there enough of you left to hear me say it?

  “He shouldn’t have left me at the station, but if he hadn’t, I never would have known you. Do all bad things have something good in them? Maybe I’ll find out for the both of us.”

  I didn’t want to look at her glassy eyes. I kept my back to her all the way out the door. Mr. Pebbles stayed behind, as if he knew he should. I hurried down the stairs, grabbed my bag the way Daddy had grabbed his case on the way out of our burning house. This house was burning in a way, too.

  It was as dark as it had become the first night Mazy had led me to her home. The same lights were dim, the same shadows thickening. I hurried along, glancing at Lucy’s house. Stuart was probably enjoying a phone call at my expense. Maybe a real Tree Girl would come along and touch him with a branch.