Our Father

by Marilyn French

  The crowd of reporters and cameramen—and one camera-woman—shuffled uneasily. Waiting. Wanted something.

  “Do you have someone advising you?” yelled Bill Dwyer from the Globe. Yeah.

  “I beg your pardon?” Voice swooped up. First time her cool cracked.

  “I mean, a lawyer or somebody?” A man, he meant. Who’s taking care of you all, who’s telling you what to do. Hah, bet that gets her. But it was true, they looked naked there in front of that house if you could call it a house, mansion, castle. Old family, goes all the way back to fuckin Plymouth Rock or something. Old old money. They couldn’t possibly manage all that, three women by themselves. Relicts.

  “We are of course in contact with our father’s lawyers and physicians,” she said, “who will provide whatever advice we may need.” Not that we do need any, fella. “If that is all, gentlemen …”—she noticed Ann Canning from the Newton Times—“and ladies, we will leave you. I trust Mrs. Browning has provided you all with some coffee to warm you on this chilly damp day. Good day and thank you for coming.” She turned, the others followed her into the house, walked like ladies, no hip swaying, no small talk, heads high on proud necks. She’s good, boy, professional, Washington-trained. Knew how to say nothing and make you write it down. Still, there’s something real in this family: they all looked really sad.

  3

  RONNIE WATCHED FROM AN upstairs window, concealed by a lace curtain. Mary’s room. She had no business there, no business outside either, what would those reporters do if they knew she was inside the house, bastard kid, not white, they’d surround her with microphones, she could TELL ALL. Get headlines in the National Enquirer, maybe even the Globe. She couldn’t hear them but Elizabeth was probably doing the talking, smooth and in control, flawless performance surely. They were finished now, had turned, were walking like royalty back into the house. Ronnie dropped the curtain edge and darted from the room, softly closing the door behind her, house with closed doors, not like Rosa’s, no doors ever shut there except when Rosa and Enriqué fucked.

  Illegitimate, it was illegitimate for her to be in Mary’s room, in anybody’s room but her own, in the front sitting room, the drawing room, the dining room, the sun room, the library, Momma shooing her out, whispering, “Inside, Ronalda,” even when he wasn’t there. But in later years she’d plump herself down in the window seat and read and tell Momma to leave her alone. And Momma would sigh and wipe her hands on her apron as if they were wet. But only when he wasn’t there. And the truth was, she was never comfortable, she just did it to do it. She couldn’t relax there, only in her own room or Momma’s, or the kitchen when it was Momma’s kitchen.

  House she’d grown up in, hidden in the kitchen, her room and Momma’s, servants’ quarters. She’d loved it best outdoors, in the woods or trailing around behind the groundskeepers or the gardener. At eight she’d plastered her room with pictures of movie stars, astronauts, basketball players, the Beatles, Jacques Cousteau. She’d pasted autumn leaves on the wall where her dresser stood, behind the mirror, along the moldings, wall covered with redyellowgoldorange. It might be a prison cell but it was hers, she’d do what she liked. Momma wondered at her but left her alone as long as she didn’t forget the cardinal rule: the house was their property even if they were almost never in it. When any of them was there, no noise, no running, no laughing, no playing in the front and only very quiet playing in the back. Any sign that a child was buried in the back rooms of the castle endangered their survival, Momma said, or implied. Probably right too, he would have thrown them out without a thought. He had probably loved Noradia but he didn’t recognize that. He could have tossed his own heart on the trash heap and never noticed. What kind of man was that?

  After I left, he was here all the time, retired, she with him, silent, standing beside him, sí Cabot, but she only called him that when they were alone. Waiting to serve, bowing her head ecstatic in her submission. Anticipated his needs, watching his face to see if he liked the soup, the roast. Her god. First came as a chambermaid, watched the cook for years and learned to cook Anglo. Her intelligence his gain, her brain his property. She saved him money: once the girls were gone, he fired the cook and just kept her and some dayworkers. She tried to expand her repertoire when I got old enough to read, had me read the recipes to her out of the cookbooks he’d bought her. By the time I left, she had them by heart. Illiterate people have wonderful memories.

  Ronnie made it down the back stairs and into her room without anyone seeing her. She plunked down on her bed. Have to do something. Should go someplace, get away from here. No money, no place to go, damned dissertation to finish. Ideal if I could just stay here and work on it. My home. In your dreams, girl.

  The sisters were in the kitchen, she could hear them talking. Never set foot in the kitchen in the old days. Arguing? Discussing: tea or cocoa? They were ordering both and tea cakes, did Mrs. Browning have any tea cakes? Linzer torte and brownies, wonderful, serve them in the sun room please. Mary’s voice, so commanding with servants. Looks like she’s had plenty of tea cake in her time.

  Need to get a job. But with a job, it would be hard to finish the dissertation. Maybe BU would give me a grant. Six months’ work should do it. Should read some of the books I brought with me, barely opened these past months. Sitting with Momma. Wiping her poor forehead, cleaning her poor bottom. Why did I drag out this pile of tomes? Prove something to Him? But He never saw them, wouldn’t be interested if He had, would never ask “What are you doing these days, Ronnie?” Would He have been impressed if He knew? Had I hoped? Should read, she thought, and was overcome with weariness. Her body moved itself toward the door of her room and through it into the hallway leading to the kitchen, and her mouth opened and asked Mrs. Browning if she’d put an extra cup on the tray, and she floated into the sun room where her sisters sat.

  “Hollis will be here at six,” Elizabeth was saying, but stopped when Ronnie entered.

  “Are you going to join us for tea? How nice! Sit here by me, Ronnie,” Alex said, patting the chair—stupid, it was the only empty chair at the table, still, it was nice of her. She at least tried to be cordial. Probably shouldn’t have called her a hypocrite. Maybe she means it. Who knows. Ronnie tried to smile at her, but her mouth couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Mouth just twisted. Alex patted her hand. Ronnie stared at her dumbly probably looked like some goddamn dumb wetback. Elizabeth and Mary watched in stiff silence. Frozen faces. Hate.

  “You know, I didn’t grow up in this house,” Alex said warmly, now rubbing Ronnie’s hand, “and I never got to know you.”

  Jesus Christ, she talks to me as if I was six years old. Fucking patronizing hypocrite.

  “Tell me about yourself and your mother. I did meet your mother I think and I saw you, you were a girl, a teenager. When I visited our father. Eighteen years ago. With my baby,” she faltered.

  No one spoke as Mrs. Browning came in with the tray and poured tea. Alex had cocoa and exclaimed, thanking Mrs. Browning for putting whipped cream on top.

  Yes. I remember her standing in the front sitting room wearing a beige dress I thought was silk, holding the baby out to him, smiling, “We named him Stephen.” He was tamping his pipe, he grinned and muttered something and walked over to his favorite chair to sit down and smoke. She dropped the baby in a chair, and whirled around real fast as if she was going to run out the door and saw me in the hall. Saw me. I took off like a bat, hid in the woods behind the garage. I wasn’t supposed to be seen. I expected his wrath to descend, lightning bolt, ejecting us from paradise. I pictured Momma weeping, wiping her face on her apron. But when no one came, and I calmed down, safe behind the garage, I said out loud: silk. I had seen the word but could only guess what silk looked like. Silly, there’s plenty of silk in this house, but I didn’t know it then. But I thought her dress was silk: I wasn’t sure.

  Pink, she and the baby both pink and smiling. Heir and heiress to paradise, allowed to walk around and sit in all the rooms. Baby�
�s pee even dampened the gold chair in the sitting room, Momma said afterward. But after poor Momma unpacked their bags, hung all their things up, they packed up again and left an hour after they arrived. Problems in paradise?

  “You didn’t stay long,” Ronnie said provocatively.

  “No,” Alex smiled. “We couldn’t. My husband had to get back. He’s a chemist. We just came for the day. We just wanted to introduce our son to Father.”

  Never lie to a servant, idiot. Servants know better. Alex turned her lying face away from Ronnie and sipped her cocoa. But she was indefatigable. “Tell me about your poor mother,” she began again. “Was she sick long?”

  Six months. I already told you. Diagnosed and damned last May. Ronnie’s voice emerged gravelly: “I don’t know how long she was sick. Maybe for a long time but without telling anybody. Sometime this spring she went to see Dr. Biddle. He said she had to have an exploratory operation. She called me to tell me. I met her at Mass. General for the biopsy. When they opened her up … they found it was all over her body. Everywhere. It was too late for chemo. He didn’t go into Boston, to the hospital with her. He sent her in the limo.”

  The sisters gazed at her, expressionless.

  Why am I telling them all this? Why am I letting them see? But she went on, in spite of herself. “The doctors called him here and he called her and then he spoke to me …”

  “He asked to speak to you?” Mary interrupted.

  “Yes. She knew she was going to die. She wanted to come back here, she wanted to die here.” Ronnie’s voice cracked. She sipped her tea. She wondered if she should take up smoking. “May I bum a cigarette?” she asked Elizabeth, who slid her pack across the table. Ronnie lighted one, inhaled. It burned her throat. Cauterization. She resumed. “He told me he wouldn’t let her come back unless I came and took care of her. So I did.”

  “That was very kind of you,” Alex said, laying her hand over Ronnie’s.

  Ronnie stiffened. “I wasn’t being kind. I loved her.”

  Alex flushed.

  “I guess in your family, you don’t know anything about love!”

  “I love my mother,” Alex said. “I’m just stupid. I mean, I don’t express myself well. I express myself stupidly.”

  “Patronizing is what you are.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle you. I meant you were a good daughter. I meant, your act testified to love.”

  Ronnie shrugged. “Forget it. I’m sorry too. Sorry I barged into your tea party.” Her eyes skimmed the two silent sisters, she got up and left the room, closing the glass door quietly.

  Elizabeth studied the papers spread out on the desk. Hard to know what to think, things were scattered as if he didn’t want anyone to be able to make sense of them. He didn’t trust anyone. All she had been able to find were accounts on an interest in a resort in Nevada, a condo complex in the Bahamas, two apartment houses in Boston, stock in IBM and six other blue chips, he seemed to have plenty but nothing really recent here, must be in the safe. No will. In the safe too, probably. If only I knew how to open it. He must have kept a record of the combination, he was old, he wouldn’t have trusted his memory. She pulled out the desk drawers again, searching for a card, anything with combination numbers jotted on it. She riffled through the papers in an unlocked metal strongbox. Nothing. She sighed, lighted a cigarette.

  He might have cut us all out. It’s possible. He might have had a change of heart. Summoned every summer, Christmas, to a family get-together, but not last year. Why was that? He was old and alone, with only that woman. But he wouldn’t have left much to her if anything. What a bastard he is: he didn’t even go to the hospital with her. Proper of course. Wouldn’t do to be associated with her, a servant after all. Still.

  He might have left everything to Harvard. Maybe he hated us for being girls.

  Smoke drifted into her eyes, burning them to tears. Why would he hate us? We were his children. It was just the way he treated us. He would have treated a son hatefully too, would have made his life a misery, belittling, resentful, competitive. Still, he would have left a son everything, made him executor, left us small bequests. The way his mind worked. Works. As it is, no saying what he did.

  She swung around in his huge desk chair to face the window behind her. Liked a window behind his desk, light behind him, blind the appellant, halo him.

  Graybrown November trees grass, gray light fading.

  Day’s end, year’s end, end of an era. When I go it will be the end of an era, he said at his last birthday, his face rigid as a robot’s, staring glaring at us, his hand cradling the bowl of a brandy snifter. Who could tell what he felt or why? If he dies this year, 1984, symbolic. End of an era. End of his branch of the family too, he didn’t say but thought. His brothers had sons with sons, Uptons still walked upon the earth but not of his getting except me but girls don’t count. No, he meant the new men were not men of distinction, character. All punies now. Different breed, he said. End of an era. End of the Republic. Slimy moneygrubbers appealing to the mob in a world of television and computers, Jews and Arabs and Japs and Chinks and godknowswho taking over the world. Not English gentlemen no matter how many generations removed from the seat of empire. Lords of the earth recognizable by their good shoes and tweeds. Japs can buy those too. Come on, ever see a Jap in tweeds? Hah. England a third world country now, yellow people taking over the world.

  You never saw that I am like you, Father.

  After sipping it, Hollis Whitehead set down his drink. “So your best bet is to petition for a conservatorship,” he concluded. “He was stubborn, your father, I tried to get him to give me a power of attorney for just such an eventuality. You know, we old men have to think ahead, expect things like this, I did it myself five years ago, gave my son a power of attorney conditional on my being put out of action, of course Cab didn’t have a … a, anyone in practice with him the way my son is with me, but I warned him years ago, when he retired. …” Deciding to stop before he stepped even deeper in the elephant shit, he sat back and sipped his Manhattan.

  “How long will it take?” Elizabeth asked.

  “A month. Six weeks. If there’s no problem.”

  “What do you mean, what kind of problem?” Mary leaned her full bosom toward him, tilting her head up so it seemed he was above her even sitting down. Had to do it, Elizabeth thought, had to seduce every man she met. Even a dried-up old coot like Hollis Whitehead. One of the reasons I hate her. The way she always tilts her head just a little when she speaks to a man, exposing her neck. Just like a wolf losing a fight exposes his vulnerable spot, statement of defeat. Don’t attack me, I submit. Then he feels safe, relaxes, expands, takes her over. And she begins to take control over him through his weakness—which he is completely unaware of. Mary a master at that. Age-old game, way of the world. I was better off out of it.

  He leaned toward her smiling warmly. “Well, for instance, Mary, my dear, a family conflict. If one of you were to oppose the petitioner, for instance.”

  Mary sat back, biting her lower lip. She must be thinking. I wonder if her lips move when she reads. She looks at him like a six-year-old, in utter credulity, Elizabeth thought.

  “What happens in the meantime? What about the bills that need paying right away?” Elizabeth threw in.

  “I don’t imagine there’s much that can’t wait a month or six weeks,” he said dismissively.

  “Mrs. Browning and the gardener/chauffeur are paid by the month,” she said, “but the dayworkers are paid by the week.”

  “Ah, well, can you cover them yourself for the time being? You can repay yourself later.”

  Mary looked aghast.

  “Did he make a will?” Elizabeth prodded.

  “Yes. It’s in my office safe.” He shut his lips.

  “I see.” She thought. “Will you draw up a petition for us?”

  “Sure, if you know which one of you is making the application.”

  Elizabeth looked at Mary and Ale
x, then back at the lawyer. “I will make it.”

  “That all right with you two?”

  They nodded. “Okay. Well, if that’s all, I’ll be getting along.” He pulled his body slowly from the chair as if it hurt. “Good to see you all again. Really sorry about the occasion, though. Cab and I have been friends since the war: we were both in Washington together. I was just starting out then, a young lawyer. He was my mentor, he taught me the D.C. ropes. I’ve known Cab for almost fifty years,” he concluded solemnly.

  The three sisters ushered him to the door. “I’ll drop in on him tomorrow,” the lawyer said, patting Alex, kissing Mary’s cheek, shaking Elizabeth’s hand.

  They returned to the sitting room, where the drapes were drawn and where, tonight, in honor of Hollis, a fire was burning in the hearth. Mary sat on the sofa opposite it, fanning herself. Alex refreshed their drinks at the sideboard bar, then sat beside Mary. Elizabeth sat in an armchair near the hearth.

  Nothing warms her blood, Mary thought. She can sit by the fire but she’s still frigid. Iceberg. Always like that. Please play with me Lizzie, oh Lizzie, can we play ball dolls pretend will you teach me to swim please Lizzie.

  “So you’re taking over,” Mary accused her.

  “I am the only one of us who is qualified to handle financial matters, after all.” She sipped her Perrier (Perrier!) and lighted a cigarette. Mary glared.

  “You don’t seem to understand my work,” Elizabeth exploded. “I travel around the world for the government, working out economic agreements and policies that will benefit this country. I went to Egypt last week and was met at the airport by two three-star generals in a limousine! I meet with the highest-ranking economic officials of every country I visit, often with the head of state! Whereas you, I daresay, cannot even balance a checkbook.” She looked meaningfully at Mary. “Do you really want to pay Father’s bills? I’ll be paying the servants out of my own pocket.”