The Daughters of Julian Dane

by Lucile McCluskey

  She didn’t understand it. It certainly couldn’t be fondness. Her presence caused too much trouble, yet, she didn’t dislike her. It was more like she felt sorry for her. Yes, that was it. It was sympathy. But why? She wondered. And then Addie knew as clearly as if she had spoken to her. This other person needed her. And she recalled the terrible need to remember something just before she had drifted off to sleep.

  Was it something she needed her to remember? Was it something she wanted her to know, or do? Whatever the need was, Addie knew without a doubt, that she would be used by this other person until that need was met, and she, Addie Martin, was powerless to do anything about it.

  Chapter Eight

  The hours of the night were long and grievous for Addie, her mind in turmoil. She had tossed and turned until just before dawn, when she finally dozed off. The blind on the east window had not been lowered, and the morning sun awakened her.

  The awareness of the revelations of the night before lay heavy within her. She wanted to pound her pillow in denial, but she knew that nothing she could do would change the terrible facts.

  Her daddy would still not be her daddy, and someone else was really in control of her life. Her stomach growled with hunger, and she remembered that she had not eaten supper the night before. Food was the last of her interests. Still, she knew she had to eat something.

  Quietly, she got up and went to the bathroom across the small hallway, and then, just as quietly, she slipped into the kitchen to drink a glass of milk and eat a banana from the bowl of fruit on the table.

  It was when she leaned over to put the banana peel into the waste can under the kitchen sink that the piece of white paper under the table caught her eye. No, it wasn’t a piece of paper. It was a photograph. She reached under the table to pick it up, and at the sight of it, she gasped. This couldn’t be! She thought. The picture was old and yellowed, but there was no mistaking it. It was the blond headed woman who rode the horse in the shopping center parking lot which she saw as the pasture it once was. She was sitting in the small rocking chair that sat beside the fireplace at the Log House Restaurant. A very familiar looking dark haired man stood beside her, and a young girl, who looked to be about six or seven, stood between them in the circle of the woman’s arm. Her hair was the same shading as the woman, so she must be a blond also.

  Addie turned the picture over looking for writing to identify the people, but there was none. She studied the little girl again. Then, that’s it! She’s the one who rides the pony, Addie thought. And the man! He was the man of the sad, worried expression that she kept seeing, staring down into the dark waters. And no doubt, the same man, who was always helping the blond lady in the pasture. He was looking down at the lady with such love and tenderness, a faint smile on his face. And the lady was obviously very pregnant.

  But where did the picture come from? How did it get on their kitchen floor? The house on South Street! That had to be it! Daddy, or should she call him daddy? He had to have found it in that house. These people had to have lived in that house? Who are they? Yes. That was the question. Who are these people? Suddenly, Addie knew that this was what she had to find out. And as she stood just staring at the photograph, she realized that she felt a strange attraction for these people, a familiarity. It was almost as though they were a part of her life, and she couldn’t take her eyes from the picture as she walked back to her room.

  There was something about the eyes of the little girl. They seemed to stare at Addie as though she could see into her very soul. Suddenly, Addie felt the need to hurriedly get dressed, and she wondered why. It was Saturday. A day to sleep in for a while, but she hadn’t slept at all until morning. She laid the picture on her dresser while she dressed.

  This Saturday was different. It was the first day of her life living with the knowledge that her daddy was not her daddy. What would life be like now? And there was that sick feeling inside her whole being again. How could she cope with this? She wondered as she put on her tennis shoes.

  The Log House Restaurant! She realized that she was dressing to go there as though she had planned to do it. Should she ask her mother to take her? No. She couldn’t do that. Her mother never felt well in the mornings lately.

  She was not allowed to ride her bike that far, but she had to go. The bike was her only means – even though it meant disobeying her parents – her mother and Ben. Ben was not her parent! Ben is not my daddy! She wanted to scream and beat the door as she stood ready to go out it. Again, she wondered how she was going to cope with this knowledge and the little girl?

  It all seemed so overwhelming. She had to leave the house. She had to feel the freedom of the outdoors. She felt as if she could actually run all the way to the Log House. She knew she must hurry while her mother and Ben still slept. She scribbled a note to her mother, tied back her hair, and slid the photograph into her jacket pocket, which also held her billfold. Then she quietly left the house through the back door.

  Della had been only half asleep long before daylight. The creaking that the rafters made when the back door was opened brought her fully awake. She lay for a few moments listening. Nothing. It must have been Addie going out for a breath of fresh air. She was such an out- door person. After having slept for so long, it would be good for her, she thought, wanting desperately to turn over.

  She lay with her back to Ben, who, she was sure, was lying with his back to her on the far side of the double bed. For the first time since the night of her seventeenth birthday, the night they had first slept together as man and wife, Ben had slept on his side of the bed and she on hers, not speaking, not touching.

  She had known when Ben drifted off to sleep from his breathing. He was tired. She was glad when he slept, but she had lain awake for hours after their terrible argument. Oh, how she wished she could erase the previous night from their lives – the ugly things they had said to each other. They had never talked like that to one another before. It just seemed like one thing had led to another, and she knew it was because Ben did not understand what was going on with Addie and felt helpless to do anything about it. If he would just admit to that, so they could talk about finding the right kind of help for her.

  Addie might not have gone out, she thought. She must get up and go see about her. She raised up almost to a sitting position before a wave of nausea swept over her so intense she thought she was going to faint. Breathlessly, she fell back onto the bed.

  Ben flung back the covers and got up without saying a word to her. He grabbed his robe from the foot of the bed and headed for the bathroom. She was still lying there when he returned later to dress in silence.

  She wanted to say something before he left, but she kept waiting for him to say something first. It was he, who owed her an apology. But he left the room without a word, leaving the bedroom door open. She heard his footsteps pause in the kitchen for a few moments. Then it sounded as though he had started back toward their bedroom, but her hopes were quickly dashed when she heard the kitchen door open and close.

  He must have looked in on Addie. No doubt she had gone out, and there was no hope that he would come back, and they would talk like two sensible, reasoning adults. Addie needed them to work together to help her.

  Surely, she would feel better soon. Addie would come back in a little while, and she would explain to her their need to talk to Brother Morris. She must call him as soon as she could get up. She heard the rumble of thunder off in the distance as she drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  The sun was shinning as Addie slipped quietly out the back door. She took no notice of the dark cloud that hung over the southwest horizon. Just as quietly, she removed her bike through the side door of the garage Ben had built the year before he had fallen off their roof and injured his back.

  All she could think of was the picture in her jacket pocket. She took it out and looked at it again before straddling her new, ten-speed bike. Again, she wondered why the man looked so familiar?
It was almost as if she knew him. And the little girl – her eyes seemed to compel her to look at them.

  A shudder came over her, yet she wasn’t cold. She put the picture back into her pocket, tightened the tie that held her red hair in its place, and headed off in the direction of the main road that would take her out to the Riverbend Shopping Center. Then to the road that went up the hill to where the Log House Restaurant stood overlooking the center, the complex of surrounding businesses, and the river.

  She reasoned that the people in the photograph had to have lived there when the picture was taken. Otherwise, how would the restaurant have the rocking chair that the blond lady was sitting in beside the fireplace? And the doll and doll buggy, these things must have been left in the house when these people moved from it. But who are they? She had to know. But would she find out at the restaurant? Was that why she had to go there? Did she dare ask anyone at the restaurant? She didn’t know. She just knew that something inside her compelled her to go.

  As she rode along, she tried to recall what little she knew about the log house that was now the restaurant. It was common knowledge that it had been built by Miss Willy’s ancestors, the Gates family, one of the first families of Riverbend. It had been a residence until a big white, colonial mansion was built where the shopping center now stood. But the mansion had burned down when Miss Willy’s grandfather, Eli Gates lived there.

  It was said that he had suffered a stroke, and everybody thought he had caused the fire by something he had done to get help, or by what he had been doing when he had the stroke. Then he had moved back into the log house until his daughter, Victoria, came home and married Hiram Stone, and Stonegate was built.

  That was as much as the townspeople seemed to know, except that it had been made into a restaurant after the shopping center was completed. She had heard her mother say the shopping center had just been built when they returned to Riverbend when she was fifteen months old.

  She rode swiftly but cautiously, as was her nature, figuring it would take her almost forty-five minutes to get there. She was concerned about the note she had left simply saying that she was going out on her bike but would be home by noon. Her mother would not like that, but it couldn’t be helped. Della always wanted to know exactly where she was going and when she would be back.

  It was good to be out of the house. She didn’t want to see her mother or daddy right now. Maybe she shouldn’t think of Ben as her daddy anymore – just Ben. That would be awfully hard to do. It filled the back of her mind – her daddy was not her daddy. It wouldn’t go away. Would it ever? There seemed to be so many problems, she thought as she rode along. Her head actually hurt with the turmoil of her emotions.

  Her thoughts went back to the flashes of memory when she had seen the man and woman in the pasture that was now the shopping center parking lot. The man was helping the woman down from the horse in one scene, and was bent over attending to her stirrup in another. And the pony – the pony? Had there actually been a pony either time? Or was it just a feeling that a pony was present? She didn’t understand feeling that something was there if she had not seen it. And now that she thought about it, she was sure she had not seen a pony. She didn’t know what it looked like as she did the two horses.

  The little girl in the picture would be the one who rode the pony, but she had not seen her in the flashes of memory. And she had not known about the little girl then. Her thoughts were getting so jumbled up. Why hadn’t she seen her?

  This troubled Addie as she rode along being very careful of the early morning traffic. She had the distinct feeling that she was missing something – something that she should know, needed to know. But what? It seemed to be on the tip of her memory. Then suddenly, it hit her!

  She went for the shoulder of the road, braking the bike so fast it spun around in the gravel, almost throwing her to the ground. After regaining her balance and straightening her bike, she stood there for a moment in awe of her realization. “That’s it!” she exclaimed aloud.

  Quickly, she took the photograph from her pocket. It was the little girl! She rode the pony! That’s why she knew the pony was there, she was riding it, and she was seeing the scene through the eyes of the little girl’s mind! The little girl was the one whose memory, whose mind was inside her. It was no wonder that the little girl’s eyes seemed to look straight into her very being, but then, that meant the little girl was dead. Of course, she had to be.

  And for some reason Addie didn’t understand, she felt like screaming, or crying, she didn’t know which, or why. Then looking at the magnetic eyes of the little girl in the picture, she cried silently, why are you inside me, why? Who are you? Are you always going to be inside me? Won’t you ever go away and leave me alone – leave me to be just me? What do you want from me?

  Addie’s mind was so filled with questions that she was unmindful of her surroundings, unmindful of the dark cloud that had long since blocked out the sun. She paid no attention to the rumbling of thunder, or the noise and whistle of the freight train slowly moving across the street no more than three hundred feet ahead of her.

  A sudden gust of debris-laden wind almost tore the picture from her hand, and caused her to shield her face and eyes with her arm. When it had passed, she looked up at the threatening sky and was suddenly aware of how dark it had become. A storm was about to break and she had to find shelter. But where? She wished she was safely back at home. She needed to tell somebody – her mother, of her discovery. She tried to think of what was between her and the shopping center for shelter, knowing that she was closer to it that she was to her home.

  She was about to ride on toward the slowly moving train that had both lanes of traffic backed up for more than a block, when she heard someone calling her name above the roar of the wind, the noise of the train, and so many idling vehicles. She turned to see Donnie Whitefield running toward her, calling to her – and the Johnson’s Furniture Store truck several vehicles back in the traffic.

  “Addie! Come on!” he yelled, motioning with his arm for her to follow him. Not knowing what else to do, or where to go, she quickly turned her bike around and rode rapidly back to Donnie and the truck. The wind had become so strong she had trouble keeping herself upright.

  Donnie was holding the truck door open for her as she approached. “Get in! Hurry! I’ll put your bike in the back!” he yelled above the noise, as huge drops of rain began to fall.

  Addie paused, feeling she should help, but he was helping her into the cab of the truck, then hurriedly slammed the door. She wiped the big splotches of water from her face, breathing a sigh of relief and gratitude. Moments later Donnie yanked open the driver’s door and jumped in just as the heavens opened, and the rain came down in sheets, and the wind so strong it rocked the truck.

  “Wow! That was close!” he yelled as he wiped his face with his jacket sleeve.

  “Thanks!” Addie yelled. “I didn’t know where I was going to find shelter”

  “It’s okay,” Donnie said. “Man! It’s really coming down!”

  The end of the train must have passed. They could not see that far ahead, but the traffic was slowly moving. Donnie put the truck in gear and moved cautiously until he was across the railroad tracks. The windshield wipers were going full speed, but it was like driving through a solid body of water. Once across the tracks, he turned the truck into the high overhang of an old, empty service station to the right, and turned off the motor. The strong wind still pelted the truck with rain. “We’ll have to wait it out,” he said. “I can’t afford even a fender bender. Aunt Mel would use it as an excuse to throw me out.”

  Addie looked at him in surprise. At least it was quieter now, and they could talk, she thought. When he didn’t say anything more, she said, “But, Mr. Johnson trusts you to drive his truck, and accidents do happen.”

  He just shrugged his shoulders slightly, and asked, “How are you feeling today?”

  “I’m okay, I guess.”

  His look became
stern. “Addie, what are you doing out at this time of day? Do your folks know where you are?”

  Funny, she thought, looking into his deep blue eyes, they didn’t seem like two people who had met just a couple of days ago. She wondered if he felt the same way? His look was so personal, so normal. She felt so comfortable with him. And she never dreamed that she would ever be alone with him like this. He was waiting for her to answer.

  “Not exactly. I left a note, but I didn’t say where I was going.”

  “I thought as much,” he said.

  “I don’t usually go off without telling them where I’m going, but...” She paused. “There’s someplace I have to go, and I wasn’t sure they’d let me.” Her chin started quivering. She bit her lip to hold back tears that were suddenly very close to the surface. No! I must not come unglued again. What would he think of me? His friendly interest in her, for some reason she didn’t understand, had brought all of her problems together and to the surface, almost overwhelming her.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re just about ready to cry. In fact, I’d say you’ve already been doing some from the looks of those pretty green eyes.”

  Addie smiled weakly at him, as she felt that strange tingly sensation in her arms again. Nobody but Ben and her mother had ever told her that her eyes were pretty. They were too green. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered except that Ben was not her daddy. She nodded. “Most of the night,” she said barely above a whisper.

  “Care to tell me what’s wrong?” She didn’t answer, but just sat there looking down at her hands in her lap. He said, “Does it have anything to do with yesterday – at that house?”

  “That and other things.”

  “Well, it looks like we’ll be here awhile, so as your dad said to me last night, I’m a good listener – if talking about it will help.”