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With his arm about my shoulders he explained again that he only wanted to give me confidence in myself. “There’s magic to be had in that chair, Audrina. I do love you for what you are, I just want to give you a little extra something that she no longer needs. If you can use what she used to have, why not? Then your Swiss cheese memory would fill to overflowing, and I’d rejoice for you.”
I didn’t believe there was a gift to be gained from that chair. It was all another lie that gave me as much terror as it seemed to give him hope. His voice took on a pleading tone. “I need someone to believe in me wholeheartedly, Audrina. I need from you the trust that she gave me. That’s the only gift I want you to recover. Her gift for having faith in me, in yourself. Your mother loves me, I know that. But she doesn’t believe in me. Now that my First Audrina is gone, I’m depending on you to give me what once made me feel clean and wonderful. Need me as she needed me. Trust me as she trusted me. For when you expect only the best, that’s what you will get.”
That wasn’t true! I yanked away from his embrace. “No, Papa. If she expected only the best, and was so trusting of you, why did she go into the woods against your orders? Was she expecting the best the day she was found dead under the golden raintree?”
“Who told you that?” he asked sharply.
“I don’t know!” I cried, unsettled to hear my own words. I didn’t even know what a golden raintree was. His face bowed down into my hair as his hand gripped my shoulder so hard it hurt. When he finally found something he could say, he sounded miles and miles away, like the warm place those geese were going to. “In some ways you’re right. Perhaps your mother and I should have given her more explicit warnings. As it was, we were embarrassed and didn’t tell our First Audrina enough. But none of it was her fault.”
“None of what, Papa?”
“Dinnertime,” sang out Momma, as if she’d been listening and knew exactly when to interrupt our conversation. My aunt was already at the round table in the family dining room, glowering as Papa carried Vera into the room. Vera glowered back. The only time my aunt seemed to like her daughter was when she was out of sight. When Papa was around she could be so cruel to Vera even I winced. She wasn’t as cruel to me. Mostly she treated me with indifference, unless I somehow managed to irritate her, which was often.
Papa hugged Vera before he went to sit at the head of the table. “Feeling better, honey?”
“Yes, Papa,” she said with a bright smile. “I feel fine now.”
The minute she said that, Papa beamed a broad smile my way. He gave me a conspiratorial wink that I’m sure Vera saw. She dropped her eyes and stared down at her plate, refusing to pick up her fork and eat. “I’m not hungry,” she said when my mother tried to coax her.
“Eat now,” ordered Aunt Ellsbeth, “or you won’t eat anything until breakfast. Damian, you should have known better than to give the children candy before dinner.”
“Ellie, you give me a pain in a certain part of my anatomy I won’t mention in front of my daughter. Vera will not die of malnutrition. Tomorrow she’ll stuff herself as she stuffed herself before her fall.”
He reached to squeeze Vera’s pale long fingers. “Go on, darling, eat. Show your mother you can hold twice as much as she can.”
Vera began to cry.
How awful of Papa to be so cruel! After dinner, just like Momma did, I ran upstairs, threw myself on my bed and really bawled. I wanted a simple life with firm ground beneath my feet. All I had was quicksand. I wanted parents who were honest, consistent from day to day, not so changeable I couldn’t depend on their love to last for longer than a few minutes.
An hour later, the corridor resounded with Papa’s heavy tread. He didn’t bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard the latch banged into the plastered wall and made another nick. There was a key in the lock which I never dared to use, fearful he would kick my door down if I did. Papa strode to my room wearing a new suit he’d changed into since dinnertime, telling me he and Momma were going out. He’d showered and shaved again, and his hair fell in soft waves perfectly molded to his skull. He sat on my bed, caught my hand in his, allowing me to see his square, large nails that were buffed so much they shone.
Minutes passed as he just sat there holding my hand, which felt lost in the hugeness of his. The night birds in the trees outside my bedroom window twittered sleepily. The little clock on my night table said twelve o’clock, but it wasn’t the real time. I knew he and Momma wouldn’t go out at midnight. I heard a boat whistle in the distance, a ship putting out to sea.
“Well,” he said at long last, “what have I done this time to wound your fragile ego?”
“You don’t have to be nice to Vera one minute and nasty to her the next. And I didn’t push Vera down the steps.” My voice sounded faltering, and this was certainly not the kind of confident speech that would make anyone believe me.
“I know you didn’t push her,” he said somewhat impatiently. “You didn’t have to tell me you didn’t. Audrina, never confess to a crime until you are accused.” In the gloomy dimness his dark ebony eyes glittered. He frightened me.
“Your mother and I are going to spend the evening with friends in the city. You don’t have to rock in the chair tonight. Just be a good girl and fall into dreamless sleep.”
Did he think I could control my dreams? “How old am I, Papa? The rocking chair has never told me that.”
He’d left my bed to head for the door, and in the open doorway he paused to glance back at me. The hall gaslamps shimmered on his thick, dark hair. “You are seven, soon to be eight.”
“How soon to be eight?”
“Soon enough.” He came back and sat down. “How old do you want to be?” he asked.
“Only as old as I’m supposed to be.”
“You’d make a good lawyer, Audrina. You never give me a straight answer.”
Neither did he. I was catching his habits. “Papa, tell me again why I can’t remember exactly what I did last year, and the year before.”
He sighed heavily, as he always did when I asked too many questions. “My sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell you? You are a special kind of girl, with talents so extraordinary that you don’t realize the passing of time. You walk alone in your own space.”
I already knew that. “I don’t like my own space, Papa. It’s lonely where I walk. I want to go to school like Vera does. I want to ride on that yellow school bus. I want friends to play with … and I can’t remember ever having a birthday party.”
