The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls Part 30

When I finally emerged from the train, the last pa.s.senger, my mother was visibly relieved.

"Thea," she said, her voice high. Her eyes roamed over my body, and lingered on the necklace; then her eyes hardened. But she couldn't help this; I saw that she was trying to be kind.

My father raised his head and I saw with surprise that he had aged. He had gone completely gray in my absence. Even his eyebrows were gray. We waited while a porter gathered my luggage, while my father tipped him and my mother wrapped a scarf around her hair for the drive. Pa.s.sengers for the next train milled around, and I was glad. They were someone else. The women wore pinks and purples and greens, a surprise to my eyes after so many days of white. And n.o.body watched them. n.o.body made sure they got to cla.s.ses on time, or turned off their lights at nine, or rose at seven. n.o.body cared.

My mother and father turned to go, and they expected that I would follow. My mother turned first, then my father, and I waited for them to say something.

"It's time to go," my father said. "Come."

My father held out his hand; my mother's eyes were desperate.

"Yes," I said, "let's go home."

But still I stood where I was. I had misspoken. We wouldn't be going home. I looked behind me and saw my train leaving, another giant machine poised to take its place. There would be other trains. I smiled at my father and allowed him to take my hand. I had not wanted to let go of his hand so many months ago, and now I had to make myself touch it. We were all being very brave.

My father opened my door, and waited until I was settled to shut it. We were silent while my father navigated our car onto the road. Orlando looked so busy-I had not seen cars, or roads, or any other tall building besides the Castle for so long. Then my mother turned so that I could see her pretty profile and I knew that I didn't have to try at all to love my mother and father; I hadn't known how easy it would be. They had my heart on a string, and I saw that they always would, until they died. Then I would truly be free, except for Sam. One string, instead of three.

I watched Mother's profile, that old familiar view. It was sharper, now; I had done that. I waited for her to speak.

"Thea," she began, and I could smell her, even from here; I could smell her old familiar smell. I leaned forward in my seat.

"Yes?"

Then she turned and faced me, closed her eyes, and lightly touched her forehead with two fingers, a new gesture. "This headache," she said. "It won't leave me."

I wanted to say something before she spoke. I wanted to tell her about the strangeness of all this, the utter strangeness. So much had happened in this last year, the busiest year of my young life; I felt so old, now. I wanted to tell her, and Father, too, about the strangeness of all those girls at first; then how all those girls had not seemed strange any longer. How now they seemed strange, my own parents, even though I loved them, even though I wanted to please them. I wanted to say: You can't ever imagine a moment, it seems like it will never come, but then it does, and there you are, Thea Atwell from Emathla, Florida, the same girl you thought you were.

"Thea," my mother said. "We've been living in a hotel for the past month, but we'll be leaving next week. We've bought a house. There are so many here, abandoned."

"Sasi?" I asked. I couldn't make complete sentences; all I could manage were words.

"He's sold, Thea. You were going to outgrow him anyway." Her voice was soft. She was again trying to be kind.

"Who has him?"

"A little girl," my father answered. "She loves him. The truth is, Thea"-my mother made a small noise of protest, but my father shushed her, which was shocking; more shocking was that Mother did as directed, and fell silent-"the truth is that we can't quite afford a horse for you right now."

"He was a pony," I said quietly.

"Pardon, Thea?"

"Nothing," I said, "never mind."

I looked at my hands, these hands that Mr. Holmes had held. My mother turned around and leaned her head against the window. "This headache," she said, "is murder."

It wasn't hard, not crying. My mother, after all, was a liar, a liar whom I loved, but still a liar. She had promised me that Georgie would be fine, that she would write if he was not. I had been foolish to believe her, but I had wanted to believe her. I watched the street, and saw a dirty little girl and I wondered if she was poor, if her parents had abandoned their house; or perhaps she was only a little girl dirty from her backyard. Her dress looked nice enough. I would never know.

The hotel we stayed in seemed grand to me, with red plush carpet and an elevator. A bellhop accompanied me and Mother to my room. It was going to be mine alone, I saw as soon as he opened the door, my brother not anywhere in sight. The room smelled moldy, but rooms often did in Florida.

The bellhop was young, and handsome, with thick brown hair and long, lean limbs. Of course, I thought, of course I would get the young and handsome bellhop, not the old, wizened one. I told him where to put my things, and when he was done he waited.

"That will be all," Mother said.

"Mother." I looked at her purse.

"Oh, yes," she said, "I'm sorry, so sorry." She seemed nervous, and I knew why. She was about to be alone with me. And that I had just spoken to a man, and told her what to do in regard to this man, could not have helped. She would rather I hid in the corner until he left, even after he left. Well, I was not going to do that.

He closed the door behind him, and I turned to Mother and looked her in the eye; I waited for her to speak.

"Well," she said, "camp worked wonders for you, Thea. You look well."

"It was not a camp, Mother." She stiffened. But I wasn't going to get into all that. "No, it's all right. I'm glad I was there for so long."

She watched me for a long time, the electric fan the only noise in the room. She wore a dress I had seen a hundred times before. She was still beautiful; the bellhop had paid more attention to her than to me. I felt my nerve weaken. She was my mother, I was her child, and this was a fact, and this was unchangeable. I waited for her to scold me, to express her displeasure, to tell me she knew all about how bad I had been, for a second time.

"Well," she said finally, and took my hand, "what are we going to do with you now, Thea?"

I began to speak, but she hushed me.

"No, please. We'll talk about all that later. I'm tired."

"Sam?"

"Sam is in the room next door. I suggest you let him come to you. But you will do what you wish, I'm sure."

I nodded. I would. She was correct.

- I had meant to stay in the infirmary my final night. But I couldn't. I rose after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning, which had followed Mary Abbott's visit. I wanted to fall asleep, to take advantage of the brief respite slumber provided. But sleep would not come and I began to feel panicked, hot; my scalp burned on top of my brain. That's what it felt like, anyway, that my brain was thinking too many agitating thoughts, that it was on fire. I hoped I would not regret leaving. I hoped Sam would be glad to see me. I hoped Sissy's life would turn out exactly as she wished it to.

The Square was deserted. There was a full moon, which was so, so pretty. There wasn't a single light on at Masters. Augusta House was quiet, all my friends fast asleep. Boone would not come anymore, now that Sissy had almost been caught. It didn't seem that Boone's ident.i.ty had been revealed, a bit of luck. I'd made Sissy promise to write him a letter, to be more careful.

I thought of Kate the Bell Witch as I walked to the barn, the woods deep and black on either side of me. It would be so easy, to disappear.

Most of the horses didn't bother to swing their heads over their stall doors. It was late, not near feeding time. But Naari did. She recognized my footsteps. And she would forget them, and not ever know what she had forgotten.

I held her muzzle to my face, breathed in her softly pungent smell and let her breathe in mine. Who knows what I smelled like. Like a girl. Like Thea.

I heard the sound of metal on metal behind me, and jumped; I thought I'd been caught. But what else could they do to me? I had nothing to lose, nothing left to give them.

It was Leona, emerging from King's stall, closing the gate behind her. She wore her nightgown, which fell only to her knees while mine hit midcalf. Though I had changed into my day clothes before I'd come down here. I noticed her feet were bare. It was the height of foolishness, to walk in bare feet around a horse. Her hair was wild. Or nearly wild, as wild as Leona's hair ever got. King put his giant head over the gate and looked at me. Leona reached behind herself and patted his muzzle, absentmindedly. I'd thought her capable of such treachery. But really my first instinct about her had been right: she only cared about horses.

"Thea Atwell," she said. "You beat me. n.o.body has ever beaten me before."

"Sorry," I said, and in that moment I was: I should have been kinder, I should have let her win.

"Don't be. I would have done the same thing, in your shoes. In your boots." She smiled, and I did, too.

"I'm sorry about King," I said, and gestured behind her, at his big, handsome face. Leona turned and buried her face in his neck, and King relaxed into her embrace, like a child. In the ring he was fierce, but on the ground he was gentle. I thought she was crying, I knew I would be crying, but when she looked at me again her face was dry as a bone.

"There will be other horses," she said, "but not like this one. And not for a long time."

I nodded. I believed her. If anyone could find her way back onto a horse it would be Leona.

"You'll have to leave her, too," she said. There was no malice in her voice.

"Yes." I looked at Naari's small, dainty face. "But she was never mine in the first place."

- Sam did not come to my door. I lay in my bed for hours and hours. I fell asleep; when I woke, the window was lit by streetlights, though I could tell by the way the darkness. .h.i.t the windows that it was nearly dusk. My mouth was dry. There was no Docey here to pour me water, no other girl to tell me what time it was.

I poured myself a gla.s.s of water from the sink and drank it, quickly, then poured another and drank that, too. My eye caught a slip of white; a note, placed under the door. My heart caught; Sam. But no, Mother, telling me they didn't want to wake me for dinner. They. Had Sam been with them? I saw how sad it all was; my family living in different rooms in a hotel. I heard something outside, in the hall, but I wasn't familiar enough with this place to know what it was that I heard.

I opened the door slowly, and there he was, my brother. The back of him, but I knew, the same way I would recognize my hand if someone brought it to me.

He turned and in the bright light of the hallway I saw that he had indeed become more handsome than I was pretty, as I'd predicted. He was a man, now, his shoulders broad, a head taller than I was, at least. It was so amazing, this life: it took a person I knew completely and utterly and made him into a stranger.

"Sam."

"Thea." His voice was deep. I'd never hear it again as I'd left it, soft and pretty. He had a voice that a.s.serted itself, now, that directed other people, that made itself heard in a crowded room. A man's voice.

I put my hand to my throat. "What time is it?"

"Late," he said.

"You couldn't sleep?"

He said nothing, would not meet my eye.

"Come in," I said, and opened my door, "please."

He hesitated. "Please," I said again, "don't make me beg." And then he came inside without a word, and sat down on the bed; I sat down next to him. The bed was unmade, and I was embarra.s.sed, suddenly, that a boy was in my room and the bed was unmade, which was vulgar. But then I remembered that Sam was not a boy but my brother.

We sat in silence for a long time. It was familiar, though; I preferred it to our conversation, which had been stiff, awkward. Sitting down, he did not seem so tall; he was my brother again.

"So much has changed-" I began, but Sam interrupted me.

"For you," he said. "For you more than me. I didn't leave."

"I came back," I said. "For you."

He looked at me then, and he was astonished, utterly. When I left him his face was bruised and beaten; now it was perfect. He laughed.

"For me?" he asked. "For me?"

"For you," I said, but my voice wavered.

"Let's not pretend that any of this was for me. Can we not pretend, Thea?" His voice had turned plaintive.

I shook my head. "I thought you wanted me to come back. I've said sorry so very many times." I touched my necklace, and Sam's eyes went to it, and I saw he was hungry for me, as I was for him; he wanted to see all the ways change had wrought itself in his twin, as I did.

"You left."

And I understood he was referring to both times: I had left him for Georgie, and then a second time, for Yonahlossee.

He smiled at me sadly, and I wanted so badly to touch him. Just his hand, his shoulder.

"Oh, Sam." I knew I would remember this moment for as long as I lived. I could live to be a hundred and this moment would never leave me. "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm so sorry," and I meant I was sorry for all of it; for all of us, forever apart now. A sob caught in my throat, and that was all it took: Sam turned and hugged me, fiercely, and I knew then how impossible our lives had gotten. And Georgie, whom we had not spoken of, had not been mentioned by name. There was no need. He was between us, as real in his absence as he had been in his presence.

After a while Sam released me, then stood, and walked to the window. Because he was not facing me I felt bold.

"Where are they?"

He continued to stare out into the night. "They moved to Missouri."

"And the Gainesville house?"

"The bank owns it. Uncle George let them take it. They wanted to leave." He tapped his fingers on the gla.s.s. "I haven't seen them since. . . ." He trailed off. "Only Father talks to Uncle George. That's all. Father sends them a check every month. 'It is our Christian duty,'" he intoned, using the voice he always used when he imitated Father: deep, slow. But now he sounded just like Father.

"They said that?" It was unlike my parents, to be so frank.

"They had to say something, Thea. We had to sell the house. And besides, I think they want me to know that our life is not exactly the same, now. They want to prepare me."

He turned his head to look at me, to read my face, and then he turned back to the window. "There's enough money, don't worry."

"I wasn't worried."

"Just not as much as there used to be. And no one knows how long this will go on."

He meant the Depression, of which he had known nothing when I left. My brother knew so many things now. He was no longer a child.

"Do you remember what happened, Sam?"

He stared out the window; night in the city was so bright, so different from my Yonahlossee nights. He stared outside so long I thought he must not know what I meant, but then he spoke.

"Yes," he said, "like I remember a dream. Mother and Father blame the rock." I watched his back. He placed a palm on the window. "Do you remember how Mother used to say that our lives were blessed, that we had our own private patch of paradise?"

I nodded, and met his eyes in my reflection on the window.

"Well, she doesn't say that anymore." He gave a short laugh. "I thought G.o.d was watching us." He was quiet for a moment, and it was all I could do not to interrupt. I had never heard this before. I didn't quite believe it. "I know it's silly. But I thought that G.o.d knew we were special." He smiled. "I didn't mean to hurt him, Thea. It would be better if he were dead."

"Hush," I said. "Who can say that?"

"I can say that!" he said, almost shouted. "I can!" He shook his head. "I can," he said more quietly, "because I have been here and I have seen all of it. All of it, Thea."

"All of it," I repeated, surprised by the sound of my own voice. "You should leave, Sam. It's not your mess."

"Whose is it, then?"

"No one's. Just a series of events. A series of events," I repeated.