Later, after dinner and cleanup, my grandparents wanted me to sit with them in the living room. I knew this meant something serious was going to be discussed. It usually turned out to be one of my grandmother’s lectures about the immoral behavior young people committed these days. I anticipated that, especially fresh off seeing the girl with the ring in her nose. The way she talked about what she witnessed “out there” when she did go shopping made it seem as if there was a time once, probably when she was my age, when the devil was close to going bankrupt. People were so much better behaved.
“While we drove to and from the supermarket, your grandfather and I talked more about your attending a public school now,” my grandmother began. “I’m going to speak with the administrators first myself, and then, if I’m satisfied, we’ll talk more seriously about it.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll be satisfied,” my grandfather assured me. “She’ll get them to make promises in blood.”
She gave him one of her sharp glares, but he just held his smile. Then she turned back to me. “Your grandfather insists you’ll need some new clothes, so we’ll do some shopping soon to buy you what’s appropriate. After that, we’ll talk about how you should conduct yourself. In the beginning, I don’t want you getting involved in after-school activities. You’ll attend, do your work, and come right home.”
“It’s like getting into a hot bath,” my grandfather said, smiling.
“No, it’s like navigating through a swamp of poisonous snakes,” she corrected. “Anyway, for now, that’s our decision.”
“So you’re sending me to public school?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying, missy. You’re not going to turn stupid on me all of a sudden.”
“No, Grandmother. I was just . . . just wanted to be sure.”
“The first weeks will be a test, of course. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I’ll do the best I can, Grandmother.”
“You’ll do better than that,” she insisted. “Your mother used to wail that she was doing the best she could. I’ll decide if you’re doing the best you can. You can’t decide that for yourself.”
“Your grandmother will see if there is an art class you can take,” Grandfather Prescott said. “How would you like that?”
“Very much. Thank you.”
Grandmother Myra shook her head. “You can go do your work. I want you to be so far above the others when you get there that there’ll be no question you had good preparation at home. You should give your room a good going over, too. It’s been a while,” she said. “Vacuum under the bed.”
“Yes, I will,” I said, and rose. Before I left the room, I turned and said, “I won’t disappoint you. I won’t be my mother.”
Neither replied, but for a moment, I thought they looked as if my words had added years to them instantly. Surprisingly, it made me sad.
Most of my young life, from when I was capable of giving it deep thought, I wondered if I had any affection for my grandparents. From what I had read and seen whenever I did watch television with them, I knew I should feel something more than the fear of disappointing them. The weight of what had happened to my mother and the added burden of caring for a baby, then a little girl, and now a teenager was probably heavy enough for people their age, but the fact that at least half of who I was came from someone brutally evil darkened all these days, months, and years.
Sometimes I hated them for their dreadful expectations. From the moment I took my first breath until now, they, especially my grandmother, were waiting for me to prove that something sinister was inside me. I was told so many times and in so many ways that Satan was just waiting for the right moment that I found myself looking for him, especially when I did gaze at myself in the bathroom mirror. I half-expected he would be standing right behind me, smiling, his long, thin red fingers on my shoulders, burning through my clothes and into my skin.
No matter how they had treated me and how unhappy I was most of the time, I fought hard to find some way to love them. They were all I had as family. I think I worked harder, tried harder, so that I could win their love, just so I could love them in return. Their decision to permit me to attend public school was almost a graduation itself. I had passed some great test in their minds.
The satisfaction and the excitement I felt at this moment seemed suddenly to be in terrible jeopardy. Just when they were showing me how much they trusted me, I was conniving to meet secretly with Mason Spenser, a boy I hardly knew, who wasn’t ashamed about being seen naked. There was no doubt that they would rescind the decision to permit me to attend public school if they found out. Was it worth the risk?
As I left them in the living room, I was thinking it wasn’t and that I would not go to the lake tomorrow. For the rest of the evening, I was in a wrestling match with myself, one part of me still very excited about seeing Mason and learning more about him and his sister and another part of me forbidding it. I worked on my room until I exhausted myself, practically scrubbing every inch of it. Grandmother Myra came to my doorway and watched me for a while and then said I had done enough.
“Go to sleep,” she said. “As I told you, I’m going to visit the school tomorrow to speak with the principal. I want him to understand that you are special.”
What does that mean? I wondered. Would she tell him how I came to be? How would she explain I was special?
“Special?”
“I’d like him to be sure he’ll have your teachers look after you a little more than they do the other students, if they do at all. If everything looks good and proper, we’ll take you shopping the day after. Don’t forget your prayers,” she added, and left.
I had been working so hard that my body was trembling. It didn’t stop until I had prepared for bed and slipped under my blanket. I heard their voices, a low murmuring from the living room, and then I heard them go up to bed. The house fell into its own silence, imperfect because of the way some of it creaked.
All the washing, polishing, and dusting of this house couldn’t wipe away the shouting, the cries, and the moans with the tears that fell within it, I thought. The walls were surely marked with all of it. To me, since it had been my world for so long, it was truly a living thing. It held all the secrets, but maybe those secrets were getting to be too stressful for it. Sometimes I felt the house spoke to me. I was embraced by it the moment I was born. What it wanted was for me to be able to throw open the windows and let the fresh air wash away its scars and wounds. I was its hope.
Despite the conflict raging inside me, when I awoke, dressed, and went out to breakfast, I saw how beautiful a day it was going to be. Grandfather Prescott talked about going to buy me paint and brushes again. He was taking Grandmother Myra to meet the school principal, and then they would stop at a department store that carried everything I needed. She didn’t object.
“Why don’t you make yourself a sandwich and have a picnic, too?” he suggested. “We’ll be gone until the afternoon.”
I looked at Grandmother Myra quickly, expecting some sort of objection, but she said nothing until they were preparing to leave.
“Don’t be out there later than four,” she said. “We’re having the Marxes over tonight, and I’m doing a roasted chicken, and I want to have homemade potato salad.”
“Okay, Grandmother,” I said.
Ironically, they were the ones pushing me out now. How could I go into the woods and not be drawn to the lake? I had told Mason I wouldn’t be there until two, but since Grandfather Prescott had suggested I take a picnic lunch, I could be there much earlier. How would I let Mason know?
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and took an apple and some milk. Then I gathered my pencils and pad and left just before they did. Grandmother Myra warned me once again to be back no later than four.
“Not that I know what you could do out there all that time,” she added.
“Artists lose track of time,” Grandfather Prescott reminded her. He gave me his watch again an
d leaned over to whisper, “I’m looking into getting you your own watch. Maybe today.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Grandmother Myra asked. Nothing got past her. She seemed to have ears and eyes working for her everywhere in this house. From what I was able to understand about my mother, I was positive she couldn’t wait to get out every day and escape the scrutiny.
“For us to know and you to ponder,” he told her.
She grunted. “I remember enough of that between you and your daughter,” she said.
Whenever she referred to my mother when talking to him, she never failed to call her my grandfather’s daughter, as if she had nothing to do with her. A few times, I actually wondered if that could be possible, but then thought that she was certainly not anyone who would care for a child who had no blood relationship to her. She couldn’t possibly forgive my grandfather for something like that anyway. It was stupid even to think about it.
He just winked at me, and they left.
I listened to the silence for a few moments, as if I expected the house to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I heard nothing, of course. This was one question I had to answer for myself: risk being permitted to get into the world, mixing with girls and boys my own age, become unchained and able to explore everything, or stay away from the lake and Mason and Claudine?
I still wasn’t sure what I would do when I stepped out of the house. My first thought was go to the clearing, draw, and have lunch, but when I came to that point in the forest where I could make a turn and head for the lake, I paused. My interest in Mason and Claudine was too strong to ignore now that I was out there. To my surprise, when I reached the place on the shore from which I had first seen them, I saw that they were both in the rowboat, but both looked asleep, the boat gently rocking. Were they asleep or getting a suntan? I waited and watched.
Suddenly, Mason opened his eyes and turned his head in my direction, as if I had called out to him. Maybe I had. Maybe I didn’t realize it. He sat up quickly and nudged Claudine. They looked at me. I wasn’t going to hide myself this time. Mason seized the oars and turned the boat in my direction. Claudine sat back, her arms folded over her breasts, looking like a queen being rowed about. At least they were both dressed, I thought.
“Spying on us again?” Claudine asked as they drew closer.
“No. I . . . Mason told me to come here. I just came earlier because I brought a picnic lunch.”
“A picnic lunch?” She laughed. “Now, why didn’t we think of having a picnic, Mason?”
“Not a bad idea.”
He maneuvered the boat as close to the shore as he could.
“Get in,” he said.
I hesitated.
“We won’t bite you,” Claudine said. “At least, I know I won’t. Mason might have another idea.”
“Stop it. You’ll scare her. I told you . . .”
What did he tell her?
“Oh, just get in,” she said. “I’m getting hungry, too. I’ll make us some sandwiches, and we’ll row out to the island.”
“Island? What island?”
“It’s not really an island,” Mason said. “It’s just a large clump of land with wild grass and some trees. It’s just around the turn in the lake there. C’mon,” he urged.
I stood and looked back at the woods. They could never understand how hard my grandparents’ house pulled on me. It was like leaving some sort of safe haven and venturing out into a world full of dangers, despite the hard childhood I had been living in it all these years.
“I’ve got to be home by three,” I said, figuring that if I said that, I would be sure to be home by four.
“Then get a move on,” Claudine said. “Allons!”
I started to step onto the rocks.
“Maybe you should take off your shoes and socks,” Mason suggested.
I looked up quickly, as if the suggestion was shocking.
“That’s right. You’ll begin your strip-down slowly,” Claudine teased.
“Will you stop it?” he told her.
She laughed. “Okay, okay. He’s right. Take off your shoes. The water is not really that cold.”
I slipped off my shoes but hesitated to take off my socks.
Claudine shook her head. “Haven’t you ever gone barefoot?”
Actually, no, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I took off my socks and held them and my shoes tightly as I went over the rocks. There was no way to keep completely dry, so it was good that I had done it. They wouldn’t understand, but just the feel of the water on my naked feet excited me. Mason helped me into the rowboat. It rocked so hard I thought it would turn over, and I screamed.
“Relax. We’re all right. Just sit down,” Mason said, laughing.
I did. Claudine immediately slipped next to me, crowding me like someone who wanted to cuddle.
“Don’t you wear toenail polish?”
“No.”
“Your toes need it,” she said.
“They do not,” Mason said. “Don’t listen to her. She wishes she had your feet.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.
“What do you have for lunch?” she asked.
“Peanut butter and jelly, milk, and an apple,” I told her.
“Peanut butter? I haven’t had peanut butter since I was six or seven.”
“I like peanut butter,” Mason said.
“So why don’t you ever eat it?”
“Never think of it. Doesn’t Dad like peanut butter? I bet we have some. It’s healthy.”
“Oh, good. Let’s be healthy,” she said.
He dipped the oars in and pulled hard, turning the boat around in one fluid move. Then he rowed rapidly, as if he wanted to be sure to get me away from the shore before I could change my mind.
I looked back to where I had stepped forward barefoot and suddenly felt like an astronaut stepping out into space, free from anything that had once had a hold on me. I was, however, still tethered to the ship that had brought me here, held firmly in check by an invisible umbilical cord that kept me from being fully born.
Would that happen now?
6
“C’mon,” Mason said after Claudine had stepped out and tied the rowboat to the dock. He kept a hold on it to steady it. Claudine held out her hand for mine. I hesitated.
“You’re not going to wait out here while I make our picnic lunch, are you?” she asked.
I glanced at Mason. He nodded, and I stood up carefully and reached for her hand.
“You can leave your stuff in the boat,” Mason said, taking it all gently from me.
I stepped up the short part of the ladder and stood on the dock, looking across the water at where we had started. Standing on the dock made me recall my seeing them both naked. The memory made me feel naked. I embraced myself and waited for Mason to step up, too.
“My parents won’t be back until late tomorrow,” Mason said as we started toward their house.
“Not that they would care about us bringing you here,” Claudine added.
“No, no. They’re always after us to make some friends up here. We’ve tried.”
“Tried,” she emphasized as we all walked toward the summerhouse. “We went to a mall and hung out, but neither of us saw anyone we would want to know, even for a few summer months.”
“Even for a few summer hours,” he added, and they laughed.
“You’re the first interesting person we’ve met,” Claudine said, and surprised me by reaching back for my hand. “You must trust us and tell us all about yourself, especially how you’ve grown up under lock and key.”
“I didn’t say that she was brought up under lock and key, exactly,” Mason told her.
“He made it sound clearly like that.”
I looked from one to the other. “I suppose he’s right,” I said, surprising both of them as much as I surprised myself. After all, it was the first time I had trusted anyone other than my grandparents with anything, especially the truth.<
br />
Claudine opened the rear screen door and stepped back for me to enter first. Their summerhouse was larger than our home. It was a three-bedroom house with a large eat-in kitchen and a living room about half again as large as ours, with very modern acorn-brown leather furniture, glass tables, and a fireplace with fieldstone up to the ceiling. Mason explained that they had a basement, too, with sliding patio doors that opened to another approach on the lake.
My attention was attracted to all the paintings on the walls. They were lake scenes and scenes of mountains and valleys, some with people and some with wild animals. I wondered if I could ever paint a picture that looked as good as those. I couldn’t help looking for any religious icons or pictures. There was none in the rooms I was in.
“Ham and cheese or peanut butter?” Claudine asked him.
He glanced at me and said, “Peanut butter.”
“Great. We’ll all return to the sixth grade,” she said.
“C’mon. I’ll show you the basement,” Mason told me. “We have a pool table down there.”
“What?”
“Pool table.” He took my hand and brought me to the door for the stairway. I had heard of pool tables and seen some on television but had never seen one firsthand. We descended.
The walls of the basement were paneled in a light oak, and there was wall-to-wall matching brown carpeting, a bar with stools, and another fireplace, with almost as much furniture as I had seen in the living room. Again, there were beautiful scenic paintings but no religious icons or pictures.
“You ever play pool?”
I shook my head. I knew you had to knock a ball into a hole, but that was it. How foolish I felt. Was this the way it was going to be for me when I attended public school, feeling dumb about things everyone else took for granted? After they knew me for a while, surely they would be asking when I had landed on planet earth. Yet Mason didn’t seem startled. In fact, he seemed happy to have to explain things.
“We of the upper class,” he began, imitating a stuffy Englishman, “refer to it as billiards. We have a six-pocket table here and prefer to play eight ball.”
The Unwelcomed Child Page 8
