8
Dinner

I fell asleep again in my chair. I had wheeled myself to the window in the sitting room and sat gazing at the pool, the tennis courts, and the beautiful grounds. I opened the window slightly and could hear the drone of the lawn mowers. Because the house was so high up on the hill, I could see the ocean just behind the tops of the trees. At this time of the day, it looked like blue ice but gradually reddened with the sinking sun.

When I was eight, my father brought home a doll he had found on a job site. It was in a basement next to a washing machine he was repairing, and he just put it into his tool kit. Although it was old, faded, and dusty, I cherished it, because it was one of the only times I could remember that he thought of me while he was working and brought me something. Mama bawled him out for giving me something so dirty-looking and seized it to put into our washing machine. I never saw another doll like it.

The doll was a sailor girl. Daddy didn’t know what it really was, but Mama did. She admitted it was something of a collector’s item, because it was a doll depicting a member of the WAVES. She said she had a great-aunt on her father’s side who had been a member of the Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service, which was a U.S. Navy organization during World War II.

Once it was washed, the blue uniform had faded even more, but I thought it was the most beautiful doll in the world, and when I understood more about the WAVES, I began to fantasize about myself on boats and ships. Even during the struggle, when Mama and I were on the beach selling her calligraphy and my lanyards, I would look out at the sailboats and the bigger ships, and I would recall my fantasies.

Sailing off toward the horizon always seemed to be an escape from sadness and hardship. Nothing was as promising as the distant horizon. I envisioned myself standing at the bow and looking ahead toward a new life full of brightness and happiness. Mama was always on the boat with me, standing beside me or right behind me, with just as big a smile on her face, just as much hope in her eyes. We would never look back at the dark clouds.

I thought about my doll now as I looked out at the Pacific Ocean. I had played with it so much and kept it with me so much that the uniform thinned and the doll began to come apart. Mama tried sewing it a few times, but the threads would break. When I was older, I put it aside. Somewhere along the way, with our packing quickly, dragging our belongings along, it got lost. I told myself the doll had gone back to sea, back to that boat, to seek a better place than the places I could take her.

Now, I imagined her out there, sailing toward the horizon. I could vaguely make out a boat and watched it until I could see it no longer. At least she’s safe, I thought. I smiled to myself and relived some of my childhood moments talking to my doll.

Mrs. March’s return to help me decide what to wear for dinner broke the spell and ripped me out of the happier moments in my past and pulled me back to cold reality. It was as though I had lost my doll again.

“Let’s look for something comfortable for you,” she began, and headed back to that enormous closet. I wheeled myself to the doorway and watched her rake through the garments, pausing at some, shaking her head at others. What was she looking for? How could this be so important? I almost came right out and asked, but she plucked a blouse and a skirt off the rack as if she had found something she had tried and failed to locate many times. I saw the look of delight spread over her face.

“Yes,” she said, talking more to herself than to me, “this was it.”

When she turned and held it up to show me, I nearly fell out of my wheelchair. It was a sailor girl’s outfit. I felt a hot flow move up from my chest and into my neck and face. The words crackled when I spoke. “Why that?”

“Alena was so excited when Donald bought our boat that I went right out and bought this outfit for her. When she tried it on, she didn’t want to take it off. Donald and Kiera were away that evening, so it was just Alena and me for dinner. Even though we were alone, it was a very special night. I remember how talkative she was, how happy, and this was shortly after she had been diagnosed. Just like you, she refused to be depressed.”

Just like me? What had I done to lead her to believe I wasn’t depressed and unhappy? Did she think that just because I was overwhelmed with the house and the gifts, all of my sadness was dead and buried? Could she possibly believe that I had already forgotten what had happened to my mother?

I think she saw the look on my face and understood. Her smile flew off, and she grew serious as she approached me with the outfit.

“Oh, I know how unhappy and terrible you must feel,” she began. “I don’t want you to think for one moment that I don’t know or don’t care. I want you to remember and love your mother forever. I promised I would have whatever you wanted written on her tombstone, remember? As soon as you think of it, you tell me, and we’ll have it done, and then you and I will go there to see it. But in the meantime, you’ve got to survive and grow and be healthy again. Don’t blame me for trying to help you do that. I know you must hate me always talking about my Alena, but …”

“No, I don’t hate you for that,” I said quickly. I glanced at the framed photograph of her. “She was a very pretty girl, and I’m sure she was very nice.”

“Thank you, dear. If you don’t want to wear this,” she added, holding up the skirt and blouse, “you don’t have to. You can pick out something else.”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. I almost told her about my doll but somehow felt that there were things so private that they still belonged only with Mama and me. Despite what Jackie called her charity, Mrs. March had not earned that trust. She was not my mother; she was not even a friend yet. She was simply someone who felt sorry for me and felt guilty because of what her daughter had done. It was I who was being the charitable one. I was letting her live with the guilt. That’s what Jackie had told me, and it made sense to me now more than ever.

I reached for the outfit.

“Can I help you get dressed?” she asked.

I nodded, and she began by helping me take off the blouse I wore. She moaned at the sight of the fading black-and-blue marks and mumbled, “Poor child. What a horror you’ve gone through.” She looked as if she was going to burst into tears, so I made sure to tell her that none of it hurt as much as it had.

After I was dressed in the sailor outfit, she wheeled me in front of the vanity table. I was amazed at how well it fit.

“Let’s do something with your hair,” she said, and began brushing it. “You do have beautiful hair, and thick, too. I bet your mother’s hair was beautiful.”

“Yes. She used to wear it down to her wing bones.”

“I wish I could have long hair, but Donald says it makes me look older, and if there is one thing Donald hates, it’s my looking older.”

“What about him?”

“Men can always look older and call it distinguished, didn’t you know?” she asked, smiling.

She opened a drawer in the vanity table and chose some hair clips. When I saw how she had shaped my hair, I looked at the framed photo of Alena and realized it was very similar.

“There now,” she said, stepping back. “Don’t you look very pretty?”

“I hope someday I’ll be half as pretty as my mother was,” I said.

She kept her smile, but it lost its excitement and warmth. She nodded and turned me away from the vanity table. “I do hope you like Irish stew. Mrs. Caro makes the best.”

“I don’t remember ever having it,” I said as she pushed me to the doorway.

“Well, you eat just what you want. She’s made a special dessert for us, a surprise, too. Here we go,” she said, and turned me down the corridor toward the elevator.

I had seen only a small part of the house when I arrived. When the elevator door opened, she pushed me to the left and around a corner. The hallway seemed endless, but along the way, she pointed out the game room, the formal dining room, the den and library, the entertainment center, and then a hallway that branched off to the right. She said that was where the indoor pool was located.

Right off the kitchen was what she called their informal dining room. No room in this house was small to me, but she called it one of their smaller rooms. It had a beautiful dark hardwood table with twelve cushioned hardwood chairs. The walls were paneled in a lighter wood, and a large window looked toward the rear of the property.

“Is that a lake?” I asked, looking out.

“Donald’s lake, yes. It’s man-made. He says he’s going to stock it with fish. What fun is that, right? It would be like shooting fish in a barrel, but once Donald sees something someone else has, he wants it, too. There are two rowboats. That’s fun, at least.”

She pulled a chair away next to the chair at the end of the table and fit me into that place. Two dinner settings, glasses, and silverware were already there. Almost as soon as Mrs. March took her seat, Mrs. Duval came through the door that led from the kitchen. She carried a bowl of rolls and a jug of water.

“Good evening, Mrs. Duval,” Mrs. March said, sounding very formal all of a sudden.

“Good evening, Mrs. March.”

“Doesn’t our little girl look pretty tonight?”

Mrs. Duval paused after she poured Mrs. March’s glass of water and looked at me as if I had just arrived. I caught the slight tic in her eyes, the little moment of surprise. She glanced at Mrs. March and then forced a smile and said, “Sí, muy bonita.”

Mrs. March looked satisfied. She leaned toward me as Mrs. Duval returned to the kitchen. “That means ‘very pretty’ in Spanish,” she whispered. “Do you know any Spanish?”

“Not really,” I said. “I mean, I know some words.”

“Alena spoke fluent Spanish, because Mrs. Duval had been her nanny since birth. I’m sure you’ll learn quite a bit just being around her. It’s the best way to learn a language, better than in a classroom. That’s what Donald says.”

“I know some Chinese words because of my mother,” I told her.

She didn’t look that excited about it. “That’s nice. Educating yourself as much as possible is important. I bet you are a good reader, too, right?”

Mrs. Duval brought in our salads and set them down without looking at me or speaking.

“I haven’t read that much for a while,” I said

“Of course. I understand. But you’re going to see that Alena had a wonderful library in her sitting room. Unless you’ve already explored those shelves.”

“No, I haven’t yet.”

“Getting Kiera to read anything is like trying to feed her cod-liver oil. She has barely passing grades. Donald’s at his wit’s end with that, and it isn’t because we haven’t paid for tutors. She never liked any, but I’m sure you’re going to like Mrs. Kepler. Doesn’t this salad look good? You like figs in your salad? We all like that. Alena loved it.”

“I never had it before,” I said, but I nodded. It did taste good.

That pleased her, and she became even more talkative, telling me about her own youth, her high school years, and her years at a private college she called “more of a charm school than a real educational institution. But I wasn’t meant to have any sort of career,” she added. “I was born to be who I am.” She laughed. “That’s what Donald says.”

Everything was what Donald said, I thought. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was really like and what he would think of me.

“Is he coming home tomorrow?” I asked.

“No. He’ll be away the rest of the week, but that’s all right. We’ll have plenty of company, with your tutor coming tomorrow, your doctor checkup, lots to do. No worries,” she said. I was waiting for her to add, “as Donald would say,” but she didn’t.

The Irish stew was delicious. I had eaten so much for lunch that I couldn’t eat as much of it as I would have liked, especially with Mrs. March continually warning me to leave room for our special dessert. After the dishes were cleared off the table, I sat in anticipation. Moments later, Mrs. Duval returned, carrying a tray with something on fire. Mrs. Caro was right behind her, smiling. It remained in a flame until Mrs. Duval lowered it to the table.

“It looks beautiful,” Mrs. March said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Banana flambé,” she said.

Mrs. Duval served us each a dish, and Mrs. Caro added scoops of vanilla ice cream. I couldn’t remember anything so delicious.

“Wait until Kiera finds out we had this. She’ll be sorry she wasn’t here,” Mrs. March said, and then clapped her mouth shut and lowered her eyes.

“It’s wonderful,” I said. It brightened her face.

“I’m so glad you enjoyed your first dinner here, dear. I hope there will be many, many more, and all happy and delicious.”

After dinner, she gave me a more detailed tour of the rooms we had passed on our way to dinner. There was so much to see. I simply couldn’t take it all in, and I was very tired by then. This did seem to be one of those days that Mama called longer than twenty-four hours. Mrs. March realized I was getting very tired and brought me quickly to the elevator. In fact, she fell into a kind of frenzy as she rushed to get me up and into bed.

“I know I shouldn’t get you this tired,” she said as we went up in the elevator. “I just forget. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m fine,” I told her, but she had the look on her face that people have when they realize they’ve done something terrible.

She hurried me down the corridor to my bedroom. “I’ll help you get ready for bed,” she said. “I know you’re exhausted.”

“It’s all right,” I insisted, but she was at me, getting me out of the sailor outfit. Then, after I had on the nightgown she had laid out earlier, she pushed me to the bathroom.

“There’s a brand-new electric toothbrush here for you, and different kinds of toothpaste. Alena hated the peppermint-flavored ones. She said they burned her tongue. This one is sort of plain. She liked it the best,” she told me. “You should have had a sponge bath. I’ll send Mrs. Duval in first thing to help you have one in the morning.”

“I can bathe myself,” I said sharply.

“It’s no disgrace to have help when you need it.”

“I don’t need it,” I insisted.

“Okay. She’ll be available if you do. Remember, if you need anything, you simply pick up the phone, okay?”

“Yes.”

She stood watching me brush my teeth for a few moments. “Let me help you get into bed, at least,” she said when I finished.

I didn’t say no. I thought I might need her to do that. Despite someone’s having come in to turn down the sheets while we were at dinner, the bed was a little high, and I was afraid of putting any pressure on my right leg. Mrs. March put her arms around me and guided me into the bed. Then she fixed the blanket and the pillow.

“Would you mind very much if I gave you a kiss good night?” she asked.

“I’d rather you not,” I said, even more sharply than I intended.

Her face seemed to melt into a look of deep sadness. She forced a smile and wished me a good night’s sleep.

How mean, I thought I heard my mother say.

“Mrs. March,” I called. She turned abruptly at the door. “I’m sorry. You can kiss me good night.”

She smiled and returned to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re a brave little girl,” she said. “Braver than I would be at your age. You must have grown very strong during your desperate time.”

This is still my desperate time, I thought, but said nothing.

She turned and walked out slowly, shutting off the light and closing the door softly. There were so many lights on outside that the glow kept the room from being totally dark. I was glad of that, not that I was afraid of darkness. Mama and I had slept in too many dark and dingy places over the past year for me to have that sort of fear. Most of the time, the darkness had been more like a friend, keeping us from being seen by people who might prey upon us and take what little we had. Darkness became our cocoon.

But it wasn’t like that now. There were probably not many safer places in the world to be than in this house, surrounded by its walls, lit brightly and protected by security cameras. Darkness made little difference. No, what frightened me the most was the utter loneliness I sensed, not only in Mrs. March’s face and voice but also in the faces of her employees. When they looked at her, they, who had far less and were her servants, seemed to be pitying her.

I had come there to escape from loneliness, to escape from becoming no one in some orphanage or foster home. I wanted to hold on to my name and cherish my memories of Mama, but Alena March still haunted this house, this room. The thing was, she didn’t haunt it because she wanted to haunt it.

She haunted it because her mother would not let her go.

Maybe she would never let me go, either.

Maybe I should be more afraid of that than of anything else.