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“Pa … pa,” she wailed, “don’t make me eat paper and glue!”
Snorting in disgust, he carried her out of the room. A few seconds later I heard her screaming as he applied his belt to her bare skin. I didn’t truly know if he used his belt when she was naked, but ten to one she’d tell me he did. Vera could scream if a fly lit on her arm, so how could I know unless I got up and found out for myself? I never did because for some reason I was afraid what she said might be true.
Minutes passed while my heart raced. Eventually Vera’s screams ebbed away, but still Papa didn’t come.
Somewhere downstairs a clock chimed ten times, but that meant little. Every bone in my body ached, every muscle was tensed. I knew I’d have to sit in the rocking chair again tonight.
Finally, when I felt I could bear the suspense no longer, knowing I’d never fall asleep until I did what he’d force me to do, I heard a door close and soon heavy footfalls sounded in the corridor. Papa’s tread was even, heavy, squeaking the old sagging floorboards.
Softly, he eased open my bedroom door and stepped inside. Quietly, he closed the door behind him. He loomed up in the night like some huge monster, casting a long shadow in the dimness of my moonlit room.
“Sooo,” he drawled in his most beguiling southern voice, cultivated over the years from his clipped Yankee delivery, “now you’ve taken to looking at obscene photographs that will dirty your mind. That shames me, Audrina, really shames me.”
“Not me, Papa,” I said. “Vera brought them in here—but don’t hit her again, please. You could break her other arm and leg, or maybe her neck. You shouldn’t whip her when she’s hurt.”
“I don’t whip her,” he said harshly. “I just scolded her, and she started screaming that I didn’t love her. God, how can anyone love someone who makes so much trouble? Even if Vera brought in those nasty pictures and gave them to you, you didn’t have to look, did you?”
Didn’t I?
“I thought better of you than that. Don’t let Vera destroy the best that’s in you.”
“Why are boys dangerous for me and not for Vera, Papa?”
“Some girls are born to be what Vera is. Boys can sniff them out from miles away. That’s why I don’t bother about her. It wouldn’t do any good. It’s you I care about because it’s you I love. I used to be a boy, and I know how boys think. I’m sorry to say most boys cannot be trusted. That’s why you have to stay out of the woods, and close to home, and out of school, too. It’s dangerous for a beautiful, sensitive girl like you. It’s the kind of woman you’ll grow up to be that will be the salvation of mankind. That’s why I struggle to save you and protect you from contamination.”
“But, but … Papa—”
“Don’t protest, just accept the fact that parents worry. Adults are far wiser about the world, especially wise about their own flesh and blood. We know you are ultrasensitive. We want to spare you those unnecessary pains. We love you. We want to see you grow up healthy and happy, that’s all.”
He came to sit on the edge of my bed as I lay on my back, frozen and trying not to breathe. Tightly I squeezed my eyelids together. My lids parted a bit to peek and see if he believed I’d fallen asleep, so deeply asleep I might even be dead, and maybe in death I’d gain the nobility of the First and Best Audrina and would never have to sit in her chair again. But he leaned closer. I seized hold of the sheet and pulled it up high under my chin. Papa’s ironlike hands closed down on my shoulders. His strong fingers digging into my tender skin made my eyes pop wide open and clash with his. Our gazes locked, and in a silent duel of wills we fought until my mind went vague, out of focus, and he was the winner again.
“Now, now,” he soothed, beginning to stroke my hair, “it’s not so bad, is it? You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. I know sooner or later you will catch the gift, if you are patient and keep trying. You can help me, Audrina.”
“But—but,” I stammered, wanting to make him stop. But he went on and on, inundating me with his needs, which had to be my needs too.
I was afraid. Still, my love for him made me an easy subject, willing to be cajoled, flattered and won over to feeling I had to be wanted just for my “gifts” when I had them.
“And all you have to do is dream, Audrina, just dream.”
Dream, dream. That was the one thing I didn’t want to do. Was he going to keep it up until I was an old lady, or would I be able to seize hold of the First Audrina’s gift and satisfy Papa? Pray God the First and Best Audrina’s gift would help me end up differently than she did. Why didn’t he ever worry about that?
“Dream, Audrina, my love, my sweet. Shakespeare wrote about it: ‘to sleep, perchance to dream.’ To dream and know the truth. Come back and give me your dreams, Audrina, and make all your father’s hopes for the future come true.”
I stared at him sitting there on my bed. His dark eyes were no longer glittering and frightening, only pleading and full of love—how could I keep on resisting? He was my father. Fathers were supposed to know right from wrong. And I did owe him a great deal. “Yes, Papa,” I whispered. “Just one more time. Won’t just one more time be enough?”
“Perhaps it will be,” he said, his smile lighting up his face.
Appearing happy, Papa led me by my hand down the hall, to the very end room. Once there, he released me and took out a large key to unlock her door. I felt a cold draft that made me shiver. It was the first Audrina’s grave breathing on me.
I looked around as I always did, as if I’d never been here before. I couldn’t say how many times I’d been here. This room seemed to be the one thing that filled all the holes in my memory, looming larger than any other experience. Yet each time I came it was a shock to hear the wind chimes in the cupola begin to softly tinkle, tinkle. Even in the dark, crystal-prism colors flashed behind my eyes. Perhaps I had seized hold of a memory—the memory of this all too familiar room. Perhaps I was beginning to benefit just from being here.
If it hadn’t once been her room, I’d have wanted it for my own. It was huge, with a big tester bed under the fancy canopy. There were two giant dark armoires filled with all the pretty clothes that had once been hers, clothes they didn’t want me to wear. Little shoes were lined up in neat rows, from one-year sizes to those a nine-year-old girl would wear. Some were scuffed and old, some were shiny and new. The dresses that hung above grew longer with each succeeding year.
Toy shelves lined the walls, full of everything any little girl could ever want. There were dolls from every foreign country dressed in native costumes. There were toy tea sets and dinner sets, picture books and storybooks, beach balls and bouncing balls, jumping ropes with fanc
y handles, jacks, boxes of games, puzzles and paint sets … oh, there was nothing they hadn’t bought for the First, the Best and the Most Perfect Audrina—far more than they’d bought for me. On those dark and brooding shelves where the toys sat eternally grieving and waiting to be loved again were dozens of soft, plushy, pastel animals, all with dark button eyes that glinted and gleamed and seemed to follow my movements. Even baby rattles with small teeth marks were there, and worn-looking bronzed baby shoes in which she’d taken her first steps. They hadn’t saved mine and had them bronzed, nor had they saved Vera’s.
Beneath the wide windows covered by fussy white Priscilla curtains was a dollhouse. A child’s toy table with four chairs was set and ready for a party that was never given. Fancy rugs were scattered about to make stepping stones across the room, compartmentalizing it into rooms within a room, or mazes within a maze.
