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Everything was stacked on one side of the dining room table at breakfast, just as it always had been on every birthday I could remember. I had woken early, of course, because of the dream. Birthday mornings were usually like Christmas mornings to me, although this morning I was still a little upset by the nightmare, and now I tried hard to forget its scariness.
Daddy had the surprise gift wrapped in light pink paper with birthday candles painte
d in dark blue that spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY all over it. Just knowing he had bought it for me all by himself made it the most important gift there. I tried not to rip the paper as I unwrapped it. I loved saving things like that, mementos of all my special occasions: the candles from my tenth birthday cake, the one that was so big it took both Clarence the butler and Svenson the cook to carry it into the dining room; the candy angel on the top of the four-foot Christmas tree Momma bought to have placed in my playroom when I was only five; tickets from the circus Daddy took me to when it came to Boston last year; a play program from the Punch and Judy puppet show at the museum Momma and I went to when I was seven, and dozens of odds and ends like buttons and pins and even old shoe laces. So Daddy already knew that memories were precious to me.
I took the book out slowly and ran the tips of my fingers over the cover, over my name. I just loved the feel of the butter-soft, rose-colored leather cover with the gilded edging, and I especially loved seeing my name in print written like the title of a book: LEIGH'S BOOK.
I looked up with excitement. Daddy, already dressed in his dark gray three-piece suit and tie, stood back smiling, standing there the way he usually stood with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his heels like an old sea captain. Usually, Momma made him stop, claiming it made her nervous. Because Daddy was the owner of a big luxury ocean liner company and was on one ship or another so often, he said he spent more time on the water than on the land and he was used to rocking.
"What is that?" Momma asked when I opened the cover to blank page after blank page.
"I call it a logbook," Daddy said and winked at me. "Captain's log: Keep track of the major events. Memories are more precious than jewels," Daddy said.
"It's just a diary," Momma said shaking her head. "Logbook. She's a little girl, not a sailor."
Daddy winked at me again. Momma had bought me so many very expensive things, I knew I should pay more attention to them, but I clutched the book called LEIGH'S BOOK to my heart and got up quickly to kiss Daddy thank you. He knelt down and I kissed him on his rosy cheek just above his gray beard, and his shimmering rust-brown eyes brightened. Momma claimed Daddy was on one or another of his ships or at the ocean so much, his skin tasted salty, but I never tasted it whenever I kissed him.
"Thank you, Daddy," I whispered. "I'll write about you all the time."
There were so many things to write down, so many private and precious thoughts, 1 couldn't wait to do it.
But Momma was anxious for me to unwrap the other talk while we both got ready to go out to a fancy Boston restaurant for my birthday dinner, I asked her to tell me the story again.
"Don't you ever get tired of hearing about that?" she asked, throwing me a quick look.
"Oh no, Momma. I think it's a wonderful story, a dream story. No one could ever write one as beautiful," I said, which made her very happy.
"All right," she said, sitting down at my vanity table. She began to brush her beautiful hair, till it shone like spun gold. "I lived like poor Cinderella did before her prince arrived," she began as always. "But it wasn't always like that. I was the apple of my father's eye. He was a foreman in charge of everything at a nearby oil field, a very important man. Although he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty when he had to, he was a very elegant man. I hope some day you'll find a man like my father."
"Isn't Daddy like him then? He doesn't mind working on his ships, getting down in the engine room with his men?"
"Yes," she said dryly, "he doesn't care. But I want someone different for you, someone who is a real executive, who orders men about and lives in a mansion and . . ."
"But don't we live in a mansion, Momma?" I protested. Ours was the biggest, most luxurious town house on the street, a classic Georgian Colonial with oversize entryways and fourteen-foot ceilings. All my friends loved my house and were especially impressed with the dining room because it had a domed ceiling and was encircled by Ionic columns. Momma had had it redone two years ago when she saw one just like it in one of her art magazines.
"Yes, yes, but I want you to live on an estate with acres and acres of land, and horses, and pools, and dozens and dozens of servants and its own private beach. And . ." Her eyes grew soft and dreamy and faraway as she conjured up this wonderful mansion and grounds, "it will even have an English maze."
She shook her head as though to clear it of its daydreams and with long, graceful strokes began to brush her cascading hair again. She said you had to brush at least one hundred times a night to keep it soft and healthy, and a woman's hair was her crown. She usually wore it up or pulled back from her face to show her sculptured profile.
"Anyway, my sisters, the ironing board twins, were terribly jealous of the love my father had for me. Often, he would bring something beautiful home for me and nothing but practical things like sewing kits or crochet hooks for them. They didn't want pretty ribbons or new earrings or combs anyway. They hated me for being pretty, don't you see? They still do."
"But then your father died and your older brother went into the army," I said, impatient to get to the romantic parts of the story.
"Yes, and how things changed. Then I really became poor Cinderella, you see. They made me do all the chores around the house and hid my beautiful things whenever they could. If I didn't do what they wanted, they broke my combs or buried my jewelry. They threw out all my cosmetics," she declared hatefully.
"But what about your mother? What did Grandma Jana do?" I knew the answer, but I had to hear it.
"Nothing. She approved. She thought my father had been spoiling me anyway. She's just like them, no matter how she acts now. And don't think that because she gave you that cameo pin for your birthday," she added eying the cameo on my vanity table, "she has changed in any way."
"It is beautiful and Daddy says it's very, very valuable." "Yes. I asked her for it years ago, but she refused me," she said bitterly.
"Do you want it, Momma?"
"No. It's yours," she said after a moment. "She gave it to you. Be careful with it, that's all. Anyway, where was I?" "They were burying your jewelry."
"Burying my . . oh, yes, yes. And they tore my best dresses, my most expensive dresses, too. Once, Beatrice, in a fit of temper, sneaked into my room and hacked one of my dresses with a kitchen knife."
"How cruel!" I exclaimed.
