The Cassandra

by Sharma Shields

  After that, some of our neighbors muttered, “The barbarity of the savages,” but Father argued with them about it.

  “Blame Claire,” he would say. “She’s the one who made this, all for rodeo money. And she’s not Indian.”

  But I knew he secretly looked forward to watching the races, and he was proud of the toughness of the men here, even though he would never willingly ride a horse down Suicide Hill, or even canter on a horse bareback, being constructed of what he once described to me as “sensitive bird bones.”

  No one who saw me would accuse me of having bird bones, but I was sure my whole self was cluttered with them, my brain and my heart each their own nest of delicate ivory rattles that jostled and clicked together when I moved too quickly. As a young girl, I ached over paper cuts and whined when I lifted anything too cumbersome. A casual insult—eager beaver, fathead, fuddy-duddy—pained me like a toothache for days. My mother was made of tough bear meat: solid-fleshed, big-backed, firm as she was certain. Her shoulder-length hair was so dark brown it was nearly black, and she wore it styled closely to her face, without any of the rolls or curls that were popular at the time. Despite her complaining, I always had the impression that little bothered her—insults, mistakes, the stupidity of other people—she took nothing personally. Life, I assumed, would be easier to navigate with an unforgiving nature.

  It doesn’t matter now, I told myself, returning to this ordinary street in Omak on this hot summer day. I’m going away from all of this. I’m snaking out of my old skin to become a bigger, better self.

  I reached our front lawn. The neighbor boy had mown it yesterday. It looked neat and comfortable and I thought about sprawling out on the green, uniform blades and enjoying my afternoon here in peace, but there was Mother, sitting very still on the porch, wrapped in a thick blanket.

  “Oh, Mother,” I said. “Are you unwell?”

  She coughed and drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I have the sweats.”

  “Mother, darling, it’s ninety degrees and you’re wrapped in a quilt.”

  Mother scowled. “Mrs. Brown just phoned. She said you bought a whore’s lipstick. She said I ought to know. The whole town heard about it on the party line.”

  “It was a gift for a friend. I already gave it to her on my way here. It’s her birthday.”

  “You have no friends,” Mother said.

  This was true: My classmates in school had been impatient with me if not exactly unkind. And now that I was older and more confident, maybe even worthy of a friend or two, I was alone with Mother.

  “Allison,” I told her, recalling a girl from high school with lustrous hair. “Allison Granger, who lives a block south from here, and who I saw at the church picnic. She has three men asking for her hand—three!—and she says it’s all because of her dark red tubes of lipstick.”

  The uneven plate of Mother’s face splintered into a sneer. “You have the devil’s imagination, Mildred. Allison Granger lives in Airway Heights now. I saw her mother just the other day. She told me that Allison’s married a lieutenant colonel. Imagine how proud her mother must be.”

  I listened to this quietly, without comment.

  “Forget it.” Mother shifted in the old blanket, grimacing. “I’m unwell. I have the sweats. Help me inside, Mildred, before I faint.”

  “You need a glass of cold water. Let’s get you out of that quilt.”

  “I’ve never been so sick. I’m dizzy.”

  “Here, Mother, take my arm.”

  “Mildred, you’re the most ungrateful daughter who has ever lived.”

  “That’s it, Mother, take my arm. Come inside now.”

  “What are you crying for? You’re upsetting me.”

  I wasn’t crying, not really, I was simply emoting, and that emotion ran like water down my cheeks. Next week I would leave, without saying good-bye to Mother, which I felt horrible about, but it was no use divulging my departure; she controlled me like a marionette. She would lift a finger and yank the string attached to my chest and I would pivot. I would stay, hatefully.

  No, I had a plan: The morning before my departure I would post a letter to my sister, Martha. She would receive it the following day and learn that I was gone. It would be too late for her to stop me. She would come and check on Mother, begrudgingly, I knew, but I’d been caretaker long enough. It was time to live my own life. They didn’t think I was capable of it. They thought I was better off locked away with Mother, away from any true experiences of my own. For a long time—riddled with guilt after I’d harmed her—I trusted them, and I served Mother dutifully. I cooked and cleaned and cared for her, answering her every need even when her requests became ridiculous.

  I had done enough.

  I would continue to serve her now, but in a different way. I would send money from every paycheck to them, more money than they’d ever seen in their entire lives. And when I met my husband and had my children, we would return to visit, and then I would apologize to Mrs. Brown for never saying good-bye, and she would apologize to me for being such a grumpy tattletale, and everyone would be very pleased with me and all would be well. Mother would be beside herself with the beauty of our children—her grandchildren!—and she would thank me for growing into such a responsible and independent young lady. And my sister would say, jealously, Why is your husband not old and bald, like my husband, and why are your children so kind and generous, unlike my children? and I would shrug and embrace her and tell her no matter, that I loved her and her old bald husband and her wretched children, and she would say, Oh, Mildred, I love you, too, and I admire you so.

  “I need to go to the toilet,” Mother said, loudly.

  I had just settled her on the couch with her blanket and her pillows and a glass of cold water.

  “Right now?” I asked her.

  “No, next week, Einstein.”

  “Okay, Mother. Come on. Take my arm again.”

  “Are you still crying? Your moods today! You’re making me nervous. What’s going on in that ferret brain of yours?”

  Good-bye, Mother!

  I waited outside the door for her to wipe herself, for her to flush, so that I could help her back to the couch and make her a healthy lunch. I brought my hands to my mouth and tried to shove my happiness back down my throat. The tears were gone. Now I was brimming with laughter.

  Good-bye and good-bye and good-bye!

  “Mildred,” Mother said sharply. “Are you giggling? Get in here and help me clean up. Jumping Jehoshaphat, I’ve gone and made an absolute mess.”

  I forced myself to remain solemn. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. I went in to help poor Mother.

  * * *

  A few mornings later I pinned my handkerchief around my head and put on, again, my good blue blouse and wool skirt. I went downstairs to check on Mother one last time.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

  She lay on the davenport, a wet washcloth over her eyes. Her graying hair hung in tangles around her big face, and I reminded myself to give it a good combing before I left.

  “I’m at death’s door,” she said. “But otherwise I’m fine.”

  “Is it a headache?”

  “No, it’s a splinter in my foot.” She tore the washcloth off from her forehead and glared at me with moist eyes. “Yes, it’s a headache, Mildred. If you were a good girl, you’d fetch me an aspirin.”

  I fetched her one. I was wearing my black driving gloves and worried what she’d say when she saw them, but she accepted the aspirin without comment.

  “Let me get you a glass of water,” I said.

  “I’ve already swallowed it.”

  “I’ll get you one. For later, if you need it.”

  “Mildred, you know I hate it when you do unnecessary things for me.”

  “For later, Mother.” I shouldn’t have said what I said next. It was some sort of mischief rising in me. “I might be gone a long time.”

  “Don’t say that
,” she said, and she looked at me with a mixture of panic and derision. “Don’t tell me you’re going to spend all day at the movies again, watching the same film half a dozen times? You’ll bring on another one of my heart attacks. I hate how you envy those silly starlets.”

  “No, I’m not doing that, Mother. I promise.”

  I didn’t point out that she’d never had a heart attack.

  I went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water for her and returned to set it on the coffee table. Good-bye, old table! This was where I had once cut out paper dolls with my younger sister. At that age Martha had gushed over my precision. She had asked me to help her and I was glad to do it. Good-bye, kind memories!

  I placed the water close enough to Mother so that she could reach it easily without having to sit up.

  Well, there, I thought. Maybe I should give her a little food, too?

  I went to the pantry and found some saltines and spread a handful across a plate and brought that to her. She watched all of this silently, sulking.

  The phone rang. Mother reapplied the washcloth to her face, waving at the noise dismissively.

  I went to the phone and brought the receiver to my ear.

  “Mildred,” my sister said. “I’m livid. You stay right there. Walter’s getting the car. We’re coming straight over.”

  “Oh, hello, Martha,” I said. I inwardly cursed the postal service’s promptness. I hadn’t expected them to deliver the mail so early. “So good to hear your voice. How are the children?”

  From the couch Mother groaned.

  “Don’t act like the Innocent Nancy here, Mildred,” Martha said. “I’ve read your horrible letter. You can’t, you simply can’t upset Mother like this. She’s an old woman and she’s alone in the world. And to expect me to uproot my life in this way, when I have children, Mildred, when I have a husband! It’s just extraordinary! It’s like I always say, if only you had children, if only you had a husband, you would understand, you would know implicitly what I mean.”

  Mother rose up on one elbow, turning her head toward me with the washcloth still smashed over her face. “Tell your sister I can hear her squawking from across the room. It hurts my sensitive ears. Tell her she sounds like a drunk banshee.”

  “Marthie,” I said, interrupting my sister gently, “Mother says you sound like a drunk banshee.”

  “Hand the phone to Mother. Have you told her yet? No, of course not. It’s just like you, to run away from things like a coward. You’re the most cowardly person I know, Mildred. Put Mother on the phone. She’ll scream some sense into you. And Walter and I will get in the car right now, with the kids, we’ll be there in twenty minutes flat—”

  “Mother,” I said, “Martha wants to speak with you.”

  “No. Absolutely not. You deal with her, Mildred. As if I don’t have enough on my hands. Tell her I have a terrible headache.”

  “She won’t come to the phone, Martha. She has a terrible headache. I’m sorry. And now I really must be going.” I glanced at Mother, who was relaxed again, lying flat on the couch and nibbling on a saltine. “I’m going to the movies. I’m going to the movies for a very long time. Good-bye, darling.”

  “You won’t go through with it. You’ve never gone through with anything in your whole entire life.”

  I hung up, trembling with relief.

  I kissed Mother. “Good-bye.” I tried not to sound too meaningful.

  She refused to remove the washcloth, but she accepted the kiss graciously enough.

  “You’ll rot your ferret’s brain with those movies, Mildred.”

  Her voice was not unkind. It was not such a bad way to leave her.

  And then I went out the front door, leaving it unlocked for Martha and Walter, even though they had their own key, and I went down the cement stairs and retrieved my little suitcase, which I’d hidden earlier that morning beneath the forsythia. My father had died pruning this bush—felled on the instant by a massive stroke—but it remained my favorite plant here, so brilliant in spring and so brilliant now, again, in the early fall. Beneath the bright leaves, the limbs looked like Father’s thin arms, reaching skyward, surrendering. When I was very little, he’d called me whip-smart, but Mother had demurred. She can see the future, this girl, he’d said. He was right. I could. But Mother had told him that there was no place in the world for knowledgeable women; he should be wary of encouraging such nonsense. Foresight won’t do a woman any good, she’d said. It will only double her pain. The forsythia shook in the breeze, as if to deny this memory. I backed away from it with a respectful nod of my head.

  The luggage handle felt good in my palm, hard and solid like a well-executed plan. I’d packed very lightly, with only a few clothes, an old pair of winter boots, my papers, my red tube of lipstick, and my pocketbook. Within was my bus voucher. I hurried across the street, toward the station. Only a few minutes remained. I couldn’t be late.

  Martha was wrong: I’d never been so committed to anything in my entire life.

  PERFECT WOMEN

  “I’m Bethesda Green,” the woman said as the bus’s brakes released. She offered me her hand. “You can call me Beth.”

  “Mildred Groves,” I said, touching her fingers. “I’m a typist.”

  “Nurse,” Beth said, pointing to herself. She leaned her lovely head against the green vinyl of the seat back and smiled kindly at me. “You remind me of my little sister, my Annie. I can tell we’re going to be good friends.”

  “Oh, please,” I said. “That would be wonderful.”

  It was the best sort of omen, to meet a friend so quickly. A few moments earlier, I’d tripped over the stairs while hurrying onto the bus. A loud masculine laughter had lifted all around me, and as I straightened I met the jeering, angular faces of several dozen men. One of them had leaned toward me, offering his hand.

  “You all right, Miss? Quite a spill there. Guessing you’re not much of a dancer.”

  I’d leaned away from him instinctively, alarmed by the strong onion smell of his breath.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “I need to sit down.”

  I’d looked around desperately for a softer face, and midway down the aisle I saw one, pretty and kind, gazing back at me peacefully. I was relieved when the woman scooted over and patted the bench beside her, as though she’d been waiting for me all along. A couple of other women had chosen the seat directly in front of us. The four of us formed an unsteady raft in this sea of men.

  “You have lovely hair,” I told Beth now.

  She reached up and touched the auburn ends of it and smiled. “You’re a sweet soul, Milly,” she said. “Just like my Annie was. One of those rare open types.”

  “Where is Annie now?” I asked.

  Bethesda brought a hand to her throat and adjusted the prim collar of her dress. “She died when she was twelve.” Her face grew very cold, and I could almost see Annie bobbing at her side like a deflating balloon.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said.

  Beth broke out of her trance. She looped an arm through my own so that our elbows formed a knobby pretzel.

  “You really do remind me of her. The eyes, I think. Sad and wide. Anyway, we’ll room together, you and me. I’ll see to it. And we’ll go out together when we aren’t working. To dinner, the pubs, the hairdresser, everything. We’ll have a fantastic time. You’ll be the peas and I’ll be the carrots.”

  “How wonderful,” I breathed. “I could really use a friend.”

  “Couldn’t we all?” she said, and laughed.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t had friends before, but they had been rare and brief experiences. There was one-legged Melanie Bright in grade school, whose shirts were always rumpled and who caught frogs with me in the lake until I accidentally crushed one of hers with a rock and she punched me in the nose. She thought I’d done it on purpose, and she never believed me otherwise. And there was Junie Anderson in my math class, who walked home with me to play paper dolls sometimes, at least until I fo
retold her mother’s death. She’ll die in a car wreck. I was certain it would happen on a rainy Wednesday evening, although I wasn’t sure what month. I wouldn’t let the subject go, pressing it on her urgently even when she told me to shut my mouth. I was trying to warn her. Incensed, she took up a pair of scissors, cut off the heads of all of my paper dolls, even the ones drawn in her mother’s steady hand, and refused to speak to me or even look at me in math class anymore. When her mother died a year later, killed on a rainy night in a horrible wreck involving three vehicles, I was sure we might be friends again, but her hatred only deepened. Her mother had died on a Thursday. I’d been wrong about it, after all.

  I was friendly with a couple of girls in high school, but they all seemed to be so much more savvy than I was, and also somehow stupider. I had dreams about all of them. Sometimes it was a daydream, where I would envision their future even as I spoke to them about the day’s Latin lesson, and then I would black out, coming to on the floor, babbling incoherently about their oncoming illness or stillborn baby, with everyone hollering to give me space because I’d gone ahead and had one of my nasty fits again. The most terrifying episodes happened when I slept. I usually woke up from these nightmares wading in Okanogan Creek, having wandered a half mile from home, the bones of my shins chilled to icicles. In my waking visions those girls became women. They married too young, grew tired of their husbands, rotted with strange diseases, beat their children, or reposed in bed all day crying and wondering what was wrong with them. Only one of them seemed to have a happy life, a loving husband, and adoring sons, but I foresaw her lonely and painful death, in a nursing home where the aides were too rough and hateful, with no family nearby to check on her. I warned everyone about what lay in wait for them, but my insistence frightened them.