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Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache. I sighed and turned away. “I just wanted to know what everybody else knows.”
“That, my dear little sister, is totally impossible for someone with no brain.”
I whirled about and shouted, “I’m not your sister! I’d rather be dead than be your sister!”
Long after she disappeared down the dirt road, I stood on the porch, thinking maybe I was crazy.
Again, at three, Aunt Mercy Marie came to sit on our piano. As always, my aunt and my mother took turns talking for her. The bourbon was poured into the steaming hot tea, and I was given my cup of cola with two cubes of ice. Momma told me to pretend it was hot tea. I sat uncomfortably in my very best white dress. Because Papa wasn’t there, I was soon forgotten as those two women lit into each other, letting loose all the frustrations they had held in check all week.
“Ellsbeth,” shrieked Momma after some insult about the house she loved, “the trouble with you is you’re so damned jealous our father loved me better. You sit there and say ugly things about this house because you wish to God it belonged to you. Just as you cry your heart out each night, sleeping alone in your bed, or lying there restless and awake, jealous again because I always got what you wanted—when you could have had what I have if you’d kept your damned big mouth shut!”
“And you certainly know when to open your big mouth, Lucietta!” barked my aunt. “All your life wandering through this mausoleum and gushing about its beauty. Of course our father left this house to you and not to me. You made me want to vomit you were so sweet. You set out to rob me of everything I wanted. Even when my boyfriends came to call on me, you were there smiling and flirting. You even flirted with our father, flattering him so much you made me seem cold and indifferent. But I did all the work around here, and I still do! You prepare the meals and you think that’s enough. Well, it’s not enough! I do everything else. I’m sick and tired of being everybody’s slave! And as if that’s not enough, you’re teaching your daughter your tricks!”
Highly indignant, my mother’s beautiful face flamed red. “Just keep it up, Ellsbeth, and you won’t have a roof over your head! I know what galls you, don’t think I don’t. You wish to God you had everything I do!”
“You’re a fool. And you married a fool. Damian Adare only wanted what wealth he thought you’d inherit. But you never told him until it was too late for him to back out that our dear father hadn’t paid his taxes or had one lick of repair work done on this house. You claim to love gaslight, but the truth of it is you know electric lights would show Damian just how shabby this house really is. The kitchen and this room dominate our lives. The kitchen is so bright when he steps in here he can hardly see—none of us can. In your place, I would have been honest, and if you call honesty a fault, then by God, you are flawless!”
“Ellsbeth,” screamed a high voice from the piano, “stop being nasty to your beloved sister.”
“Go cook yourself,” yelled Aunt Ellsbeth.
“Mercy Marie,” said my mother in her most arrogant, haughty voice, “I think you’d better leave now. Since my sister cannot be kind to a guest, or kind to my daughter, or kind to this house, or kind to anyone, not even to her own flesh and blood, I think there’s no reason to go on having these teatimes. I say goodbye with reluctance, for I loved you and hate to think of you as dead. I can’t bear to see people I love die. This has been my pitiful attempt to keep you alive.” She didn’t look at my aunt as she said, “Ellsbeth, kindly leave this room before you say something to make me hate you more.” Momma appeared on the verge of tears as her voice broke. Had she forgotten this was only a pretend game? Was I just a pretend game for her, too, so she could keep the beloved first Audrina alive?
Wednesday morning came, and I was happy I’d written myself a note to remind me that Tuesday was yesterday. Now I had a grip on reality. It was Wednesday. I’d write that down tonight. At last I’d figured out a way to keep track of the days.
As I was passing by my parents’ room on the way to the kitchen, my mother called me inside. She was brushing her long hair with an antique silver hairbrush. Papa was leaning close to the dresser mirror, making a knot in his tie. Ever so carefully he made the turns, the twists, the pull-throughs. “You tell her, Lucky,” said Papa in a soft voice. He looked happy enough to burst. Momma turned to smile at me, too.
Eagerly I ran to be embraced and held against the soft swell of her breasts. “Sweetheart, you’re always complaining about having no one to play with but Vera. But someone new is coming to take away your loneliness. Come November or early December, you are going to have what you’ve wanted for so long …”
School! They were going to send me to school! At last! At long last!
“Darling, haven’t you told us many times you’d love a brother or sister? Well, you are going to have one or the other.”
I didn’t know what to say. Visions of happy school days vanished. W
ill-o’-the-wisp dreams never came true for me, never. Then, as I stood trembling in the circle of her arms and Papa came to softly stroke my hair, I felt a surge of unexpected happiness. A baby. A little brother or sister would surely set me free from all their demanding attention. Then maybe they’d want me out of the house and in school, learning how to do many things I didn’t know about now. There was hope. There had to be hope.
Momma gave Papa a long, distressed look, full of unspoken meaning. “Damian, surely this time we’ll have a boy, won’t we?”
Why did she put it like that? Didn’t she like girls?
“Keep calm, Lucky. The odds are with us. This time we’ll have a boy.” Papa smiled at me lovingly, as if he could read my thoughts in my wide eyes. “We already have one beautiful and special daughter, so God does owe us a son.”
Yes, God did owe him a son after taking the First and Best Audrina and replacing her with only me.
On my knees that night beside my bed, I put my palms together under my chin, closed my eyes and prayed: “Lord above, even if my parents do want a boy, I really won’t mind if you send them a girl. Just don’t let her have violet eyes and chameleon hair like mine. Don’t make her special. It’s so awfully lonesome being special. I wish you’d made me only ordinary and given me a better memory. If the First and Best Audrina is up there with you, don’t use her to model from, or Vera, either. Make this baby wonderful, but not so special it can’t even go to school.” I started to close out and say amen, but I added a postscript. “And Lord God, hurry up and let those neighbors move in. I need a friend, even if that boy does like Vera.”
I kept a daily journal now to aid my faulty memory. That Thursday my aunt and my cousin were told the news I’d known for a full day. It made me feel special for my parents to confide something so important to me first. “Yes, Ellie, Lucky is pregnant again. Isn’t that wonderful news? Of course, since we already have the daughter we asked for, now we’re going to demand a son.”
My aunt threw my mother a startled look. “Oh, my God,” she responded dully. “Some people never learn.”
Vera’s pasty pallor sickened more. Panic seemed to fade her dark eyes as well. Then she caught me staring at her and she quickly straightened before she stood. “I’m leaving to visit a friend. I won’t be home until dark.”
She stood there waiting for someone to object, as surely everyone would if I were to say the same words, but no one said anything, almost as if they didn’t care whether or not Vera ever came back. Looking surly, Vera limped from the kitchen. I jumped up to follow her out to the front porch. “Who are you going to visit?”
“None of your damned business!”
“We don’t have any close neighbors, and it’s a long walk to visit the McKennas.”
