AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The sky. Didn’t you notice the dark clouds? A storm is brewing, and I don’t like being up here when storms come. Let’s go downstairs before I tell you the rest.”
“Tell it now, Papa. This is where she always came to play. I always knew those paper dolls were her dolls.”
He cleared his throat, as I needed to clear mine. It was constricting, making me breathe too fast, making me feel panic was soon to make me scream. It was like being in the rocking chair again when I was seven, and I was scared, so scared.
Papa sighed heavily, releasing me long enough to put his large hands to his face, but only briefly, as if afraid to let go of me for too long. “I loved that girl, God how I loved her. She gave so much to those she loved, gave so much trust to me. She was really the only female who ever trusted me fully and I promised myself I’d never disappoint her. And it wasn’t only that she was an exceptionally beautiful child; she also had the ability to charm everyone with her warmth, her friendliness, her sweetness. She had something else, too, some indefinable quality that made her seem lit up from the inside with happiness, with a contagious exuberance for living that so few of us have. To be with her made you feel more vitally alive than you felt with anyone else. A trip to the beach, the zoo, the museum, a park, and she’d light up your life and make you feel a child again, too, seeing everything through her eyes. Because she saw wondrous things, you saw them as well. It was a rare gift worth more than anything money can buy. The least little present and she was delighted. She loved the weather, the good and the bad. Such rare qualities she had, so very rare.” He choked then, lowered his eyes briefly and met mine, then quickly looked away.
“Even your mother was happy when Audrina was near, and God knows Lucky had reasons enough to be unhappy; Ellsbeth did, too. I loved both of them. And I tried for both of them to be everything they needed. I don’t think I ever succeeded in making either happy enough.” His voice faded small then as his eyes swam with unshed tears. “But she should have obeyed our instructions. Time and time again we told Audrina not to take the shortcut … she should have known better.”
“Don’t stop now,” I said nervously.
“After your mother washed away all the evidence of the rape, we thought we could keep Audrina home and the secret would stay in this house. But secrets have a fast way of leaking out no matter what you do to keep them hidden. I wanted to find those boys and smash their stupid heads together. As I said before, she wouldn’t tell us who they were, nor would she return to school, where she might see them again. She didn’t want to go to any school. She refused to eat, to leave her bed, nor would she look in a mirror. She got up one night and broke every mirror in this house. She’d scream when she saw me, not as her father anymore but as another man who might harm her. She hated anything male. She threw stones and drove her poor cat away. I never allowed her to have a cat again, fearful of what she might do if it was male.”
Numb, I stared at him incredulously. “Oh, Papa, I’m so confused. Are you trying to tell me that Vera is truly the First Audrina, the one I’ve envied all my life? Papa, you don’t even like Vera!”
The strange light in his eyes frightened me. “I couldn’t let her die,” he went on, his eyes riveted to mine, pinning me to him like butterflies were pinned to a board. “If she died, part of me would have died, too, and she’d take that gift of hers into her grave and never
again would I have known one second of happiness. I saved her. Saved her in the only way I knew how.”
Like water sinking into concrete, something was trying to filter into my brain, some knowledge that hovered on the brink of being born. “How did you save her?”
“My sweet Audrina … haven’t you guessed yet? Haven’t I explained and explained and given you all the clues you need? Vera is not my First Audrina … you are. “
“No!” I screamed, “I can’t be! She’s dead, buried in the family cemetery! We went there every Sunday.”
“She’s not dead, because you are alive. There was no First Audrina, because you are my first and only Audrina—and if God strikes me dead for telling a lie, then let him strike me dead, I’m telling you the truth!”
Those voices I heard in my head, those voices that said, Papa, why did they do it? Why?
It’s only a dream, love, only a dream. Papa will never let anything bad happen to his Audrina, his sweet Audrina. But your older dead sister had the gift, that wonderful gift that I want for you now that she doesn’t need it any longer. Papa can use the gift to help you, to help Momma and Aunt Ellsbeth.
God wanted the First and Best Audrina dead, didn’t he? He let her die because she disobeyed and used the shortcut. She was punished because she liked feeling pretty in expensive new dresses, wasn’t she? That First Audrina thought it was fun for the boys to run after her and she could prove to them she could run faster than Aunt Ellsbeth. Faster than any other girl in school. She thought they’d never, never catch her, and God was supposed to be looking out for her, wasn’t he? She prayed to him and he didn’t hear. He just sat up there in his heaven and pretended everything was just fine in the woods, when He knew, He knew. He was glad another proud Whitefern girl was being assaulted because God is a man, too! God didn’t care, Papa!—and that’s the truth of it—isn’t it?
God is not that cruel, Audrina. God is merciful when you give him a chance. But one has to do what’s best for oneself when He has so many to take care of.
Then what good is He, Papa, what good?
I screamed and tore myself from his grasp. Then I raced headlong down the stairs at breakneck speed, not caring if I fell to my death.
The First Audrina
Out into the stormy, threatening afternoon I ran to escape Whitefern. I ran to escape Papa, Arden, Sylvia, Vera, and, most of all, I ran to escape the ghost of that First Audrina, who was now trying to tell me I didn’t exist at all.
The rape had happened to her, not me! I sped like a crazy woman, afraid all her memories were chasing after me, wanting to jump into my brain and fill all the empty Swiss cheese holes with her terror.
I ran, trying to run fast enough and far enough to escape what I was, to escape everything that had tormented me most of my life. Lies, lies, running to where they couldn’t exist, and at the same time not knowing where I was going to find such a place.
Behind me I heard Arden call my name—but that was her name, too! Nothing was my very own.
“Audrina, wait! Please stop running!”
I couldn’t stop. It was as if I were a spring-wound toy, twisted for years and years until now finally I had to let go or break.
“Come back!” Arden called. “Look at the sky!” He sounded desperate. “Audrina, come back! You’re not well! Stop acting crazy!”
Crazy, was he telling me I was crazy?
“Darling,” he gasped as he continued to chase me, sounding almost as panicked as I felt, “nothing can be as bad as you think.”
