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Seeming to remember my presence, he paused and asked, “How did this happen?” His eyes narrowed as I pulled Sylvia into my embrace. I wanted to defend her from that hard way he was staring at those prisms clutched in her hand. Holding her head against my breasts, I faced him. “I was coming downstairs when I saw her … she was face down on the floor, like she’d fallen.”
Again he was staring at my aunt’s dead face. “She very seldom used the front stairs. You turned her over?” How empty his eyes, how flat his tone. Was he hurting like I was hurting?
“Yes, I turned her over.”
“You heard us last night, didn’t you?” he asked accusingly. Before I could answer, he was picking up the purse I hadn’t noticed and rummaging through it. “No check,” he said as if surprised. “We did quarrel last night, Audrina, but later on we made it up. I asked her to marry me. She seemed very happy when she went back to her room …”
He eased my aunt back onto the floor and stood up. “She wouldn’t leave me … I know she wouldn’t do that, not after I asked her, and she wanted that, I know she wanted that…” Then he was taking the steps three at a time standing there.
I grabbed hold of Sylvia and forced her to run with me to the back stairs, hoping we’d reach my aunt’s room first and I’d be there to see what he did with the check when he found it.
Even if his way was the longest way, he was in her room before I could drag Sylvia there. Her suitcases lay open on her bed. Frantically, he was tearing through her things, opening and closing every handbag she owned. “I can’t find it! Audrina, I have to find that check! Did you see it?”
I told him then that I’d pinned it to the corkboard so she’d see it first thing in the morning.
He groaned and wiped his hand over his lips. “Audrina, run and see if it’s still there.”
With Sylvia beside me, stumbling along as I tried to hurry, I reached the kitchen and found the corkboard empty. I reported that to Papa. He sighed heavily, glanced again at the still form of my aunt in her crisp dark suit, then dialed the police.
“Now,” he instructed before I went upstairs to dress, “you just tell them exactly how you found her—but don’t tell them she was leaving. I’ll put away all her clothes. I can’t believe she was leaving anyway. She had such idiotic things in her suitcases, clothes that wouldn’t even fit her now. Audrina, I think it would be a good idea if you took off your aunt’s traveling suit and put on one of her house-dresses.”
I didn’t want to, though I understood his reasoning, and with his help we managed to take off her jacket, blouse and skirt. Soon she was wearing a plaid cotton dress. I was trembling long before we were finished. Hurriedly I did up her hair while Papa held her in position. My fingers shook so her knot had never looked so messy. No sooner was I dressed myself than the police were jabbing at the doorbell.
Huddled with Sylvia at my side on the purple velvet chaise, I watched and listened as my father gave the two policemen an explanation of my aunt’s fall down the stairs. He appeared calm, only a little distraught, with worry and sadness making him seem genuinely grief-stricken. The policemen seemed to consider him charming, very likable, and I was thinking unmercifully what an actor he was. He would never have married her. What a lie to tell me that—as if he considered me so gullible I’d believe anything.
“Miss Adare,” said the older of the policemen, his face kind and grandfatherly, “you were the one who found her? She was on her back?”
“No, sir, she was face down. I didn’t want to think she was dead, so I had to turn her over to check.” I bowed my head and began to cry again.
His voice was sympathetic when he asked, “Was your aunt subject to dizzy spells?” On and on the questions came until Papa fell into a chair and bowed his head into his hands. Somehow I forgot to mention I’d heard the back door softly close. But perhaps I’d only imagined I’d heard that.
“Where were you when your sister-in-law fell?” asked the older policeman, looking directly at Papa.
“I was asleep,” said Papa, lifting his head and meeting the eyes of the policeman squarely.
Even as my aunt’s body was lifted and put on a stretcher, covered over and taken to the police morgue, the questions went on and on. I was numb and feeling dazed, and I was forgetful of Sylvia, who hadn’t eaten breakfast. That was the first thing I did after the police left. Papa sat down to eat what I prepared, too, not saying a word to me, only chewing and swallowing automatically.
Yet, later on, when I was alone in my room and Sylvia was napping in hers, I kept thinking of my aunt and the argument she’d had with Papa. She had wanted to go to Vera, and now she was dead. The more I thought about that the more alarmed I became about my own situation. How many times had my aunt told me to escape when I had the opportunity? Hundreds of times. Now, while Papa was off somewhere making funeral arrangements, was my chance.
Where did you go when Fate kept breaking your heart over and over again? A little voice inside me kept whispering that Papa thought baby girls were born every day just to serve his needs when they grew older. And when he was old and ugly, he was thinking money would buy them—and when even money couldn’t, he’d still have me left to take care of him and keep him from those institutions he seemed to hate. Even as I thought that, behind that was another whispering menace … that awful thing my aunt had said to him about how he was capable of doing anything and everything to get his way. I dashed about madly, throwing my clothes into suitcases. I ran for Sylvia’s room and gathered up what she’d need, too. We were leaving. Leaving before something awful happened to us, too. Now, while Papa was away and couldn’t stop us.
As I pulled Sylvia along with me, we had to pass the front salon, and in the door I paused as I said goodbye to my mother’s grand piano. It seemed I could see her sitting there playing her favorite Rachmaninoff melodies, one of which had been given lyrics in a popular ballad: “Full moon, and empty arms …”
Steel arms, that’s the kind my father had. Killing arms of love.
As I stood there I think I forgot every hateful, mean thing my aunt had ever said or done to me and Sylvia. I shoved into the darkest corners of my brain all she’d said to tell me I was too sensitive and unable to cope with reality, and remembered only the good things, the thoughtful deeds. I forgave her everything.
Pulling Sylvia with me, I picked up the two heavy suitcases and began our journey through the woods to reach the cottage on the far side. Billie looked sober when I told her my plans. Arden was delighted. “Of course. What a wonderful idea. But why can’t your aunt look out for Sylvia? It’s not going to be much of a honeymoon if we have to drag her along with us.”
With my head low and my voice, too, I told them what had happened and that it was escape now or never. I had told everything in such a way that Papa had seemed blameless. Why had I spared him?
Billie cuddled me in her strong arms. “We have to think some things are for the best when there is nothing we can do about it anyway. You’ve told me your aunt has acted all winter like she wasn’t happy, or she was ill. Maybe she did have a dizzy spell. Now, there’s no reason why you can’t leave Sylvia here with me, if you truly feel you have to escape like this. I just want you to be sure you love my son enough, Audrina. Don’t marry Arden today and regret it tomorrow.”
“I will love Arden forever!” I cried fervently, fully believing this was the truth. Arden smiled at me lovingly. “I can echo that,” he said softly. “All my lif
e will be devoted to making you happy.”
Nervously I glanced from Sylvia, who started to scream when Billie tried to touch her, to Billie, then Arden. I couldn’t leave my sister with Billie, whom she seemed to fear and dislike. I’d promised Papa a long time ago that I’d take care of Sylvia; she was my responsibility, and I couldn’t leave her.
