Roxanna Slade Part 28

So when she told me "Mother, I'll do it when the right time comes," it s.h.i.+ed me badly.

I said a true but cruel thing. "I'm glad to hear you know who your mother is."

Dinah was too kind to answer that any way. But Miss Olivia took it right up, nothing wrong with her ears. She gave the last of her scary smiles--smiles like the one G.o.d saves for great battles when the crows all gather from miles around and wait in trees for the stinking meat of the wrong and the right--and she said straight at me "Roxanna, you forget who delivered this child?" She nodded toward Dinah.

It was the second time in thirty-three years of knowing me that my mother-in-law had said my full first name. But I also realized she was confused. She was mixing up Dinah's birth with August's. She and Coy had helped me give birth to Augustus, but Miss Olivia had been nowhere near Dinah's birth. Still, regretting my meanness just now, I went along with her mistake. I said "You helped me have her, Miss Olivia.

I've always thanked you."

Miss Olivia said "Helped you? If I hadn't taken this girl when I did and breathed life into her, you'd have strangled her dead. She was blue when I took her from your tight fork." While the old lady waited for that chill poison to spread through the room and on through the walls, she turned back to Mally. "Ain't that so, Coy? You were there right with me."

Mally said "Yes ma'm" and when I caught her eye, she wouldn't smile.

At the sight of Mally's grave honest eyes, the one kindness anywhere in sight, I well knew --even before the dam of all this pressure broke --that I'd done the worst thing done in this house in the hard decades since my first visit here.

When I left I could scarcely meet Dinah's eyes. They were no more than righteous but they burned.

SEVEN.

I had just come in alone from the pitch-dark porch when the telephone rang. The clock had nearly made it to midnight. Who did I know that would call me so late? Ever since I'd left Miss Olivia's in late afternoon, I'd felt both awful and stubborn in my wrong. h.e.l.l-bent

I'd pushed a serious question that could have waited for a break in the weather--and all just to show who ran Dinah's life or thought she did. I'd made my aged mother-in-law, who was helping me and mine, mad and confused.

Yet in the eight hours since I'd left her, I hadn't been able to make a simple phone call and beg her pardon and say that we'd talk when the hot spell broke. Wasn't I a woman nearly fifty-three years old, and wasn't Dinah Slade my daughter? Apparently not. So as I picked up the ringing phone at midnight, I thought Dear Lord, don't let it be them. I was already thinking that Dinah Slade had slipped off from me now and gone her own way. I also knew I'd earned just that--desertion by a child I'd left on her own in a sad part of childhood long years ago.

It was Dinah's voice. At first she seemed pleasant, so pleasant I knew something had to be wrong. And what was she doing up this late?

But I kept calm and let her tell me how the land lay.

Dinah scarcely mentioned mine and Leela's visit but went on to describe, as she mostly did when biding her time, every detail of the supper they'd eaten with special emphasis on the dessert which was b.u.t.termilk pie (much better than it sounds).

I accepted her lead for as long as she let me, just saying "How nice" and "That sounds good" till finally she broke.

Not tears exactly. She was like her father in having few tears. But her throat tightened up, her voice got thinner, and at last she lowered to a whisper and said "Mother, tell me one thing absolutely true please--"

I swore I would.

Even then it was hard for Dinah to bring it out in words. But she finally said "Tell me my father is Palmer Slade, not Larkin his brother."

Before I could even wonder how that question arose I told her "It was Palmer, darling. But he's left us, you know."

Dinah said "I'm not crazy. I know he's gone but he was truly my father, wasn't he?"

I couldn't imagine where this was headed. But I told Dinah "Yes, I'd be the one to know. Go look at the dates on Lark's tombstone. I can guarantee your father answered to Palmer

Slade every time I called him. Why on Earth though is that a problem this late in the night?"

It took her awhile to say "You saw Grandmother getting mixed up today. It's gone on getting worse all evening. And when I helped Mally get her to bed an hour ago, she'd got so bad that she told me I was Larkin's child and not to forget it--that you'd lied to me from the day I was born."

Somehow I'd managed almost to recite the words with Dinah as she hauled them out. I'd somehow known Miss Olivia would get to that in time if she truly wanted Dinah and her baby. So I spent a careful minute on the phone then and there, explaining the facts of the matter--that single bright day up by the river ending in death. I even told her for the first and last time about Palmer coming to my bed that night two weeks after Larkin's death. I'd never told another soul, and I was scared it might throw Dinah badly to hear her mother's secrets. But when I was done, I could tell she believed me.

Dinah said as much and then in the voice of the full-grown woman she'd seemed toward the end of the afternoon, she asked me not to mention the baby's future again around her grandmother.

I said "But darling, those plans must be made. Or this child will come here, and you'll cling to it, and where will that leave us?"

Hearing myself this many years later, I sound like a heartless witch of a mother. I'm all but ready to believe I was, in short stretches anyhow. But once more, 1953 was a whole world ago; and all I could think of was ways to save the remains of Dinah's childhood when I'd already torn the biggest part from her in my long torment. Still I pulled back in hopes she could get some sleep between midnight and dawn. I told her I'd get Simon to drive me up as soon as the heat broke. Then she and I could take our own walk down to the river and think our way through whatever we faced.

And that seemed to ease her. I could tell she was still concerned for her grandmother's health--and with reason. Miss Olivia's mind had been rock-steady until today. The worst thing about her cruel stretches years before was, you always knew she was sane as George Was.h.i.+ngton. You couldn't just tell yourself you faced a lunatic. So now there was

little I could say to guide a fourteen-year-old pregnant girl in tending the speaking ruins of a creature as powerful as Olivia Larkin Slade, but I told my daughter I loved her, and I knew I did. G.o.d knew she'd earned it.

Through the remains of that stifling night, I dreamed short s.n.a.t.c.hes of one plain story. I was in a big house with the young fine Larkin. We were holding hands and watching each other with the curious longing we'd felt that one day; but we went no further toward sharing our bodies--which is to say that, so far the dream was entirely realistic. Then it began to invent its own history, for in the same big house above us there lived a baby that could just barely walk. It somehow lived entirely alone, no parents or nurse. And it was hunting us down, red-eyed, like a starved grown wolf. We knew it and knew it was bound to find us.

Two mornings later a little after six, the phone rang out of season again. The heat had broken toward three in the morning with a cool hard rain. I'd sunk into deep sleep then, the first time in more than two weeks. So the phone startled me in the grip of one more sc.r.a.p of that dream. My shocked mind told me it was Dinah in trouble or somebody telling me she was bad off or was bound to the hospital right away.

It was Mally's voice. She said "Miss Anna," then went straight to her point. "Dinah asked me to call you and say Miss Olivia took sick in the night. She fell out of bed about five this morning. We both heard her and come running fast. She already had herself upright again, but she can't make a sound, and her left hand can't seem to do much moving."

Anybody would have known she'd had a stroke. I said the one word "Apoplexy," which was what old people called strokes in those days.

Mally said "Dinah said that much already. I told her she don't know Miss Olivia's mind. Ever since you were out here two days ago, I been thinking she was planning something strong and here she's done it."

I couldn't follow this. "What's her plan then, Mally?"

"I don't think she's sick, Miss Anna. She just quit talking."

"What good would that do her?"

"n.o.body can't argue, not with her no more. She shut her mind and her mouth down, both."

I'd watched Mally there with Miss Olivia for years. They'd built as close a web between them as the finest net any fisherman owned, and I'd never heard Mally say one hard word to her tough old boss. In fact Miss Olivia had said to me, not a month ago, that Mally was the only woman left--black or white--who'd never showed her a trace of meanness. But Mally's tone this morning was making me wonder if she'd turned against the old woman and was now seeking favor and shelter with me? So I tested her once. "Mally, Miss Olivia's been shut down forever against me and mine. She tried to kill me when I was a girl."

Mally had clearly been informed on that old history. "She told me, Miss Anna, she drove you too hard. Your nerves couldn't take it." A long pause followed, so long I thought we'd disconnected. Then Mally said "She been good to me as anybody's mother I ever heard of."

That was strange to hear for more than one reason. I let it ride. "Where is Dinah right now?"

Mally said "By her grandmother's side. She asked me to call you."

"Dinah's bearing up, you think?"

"Dinah strong as you."

I actually laughed. "G.o.d help her then." But I asked if I ought to come up there today. I'd kept Palmer's Chevrolet, and by then I'd persuaded Simon to get a telephone. I could have called him, and he could have driven me up there within the hour.

But Mally said "Hold off a day or so."

I asked if they'd even thought of trying to get her to a doctor. Simon could drive up and take her to Henderson or anywhere else. But I knew the answer.

Mally said "You know she's not leaving here. Hasn't left this place since Mr. Palmer died. I buy every grocery come through this door."

"But she's not in pain?"

"Miss Anna, you know Miss Olivia won't answer that. Won't even nod her head. Pain and her are old-time companions."

I granted I knew that and hung up, again feeling I'd brought this further weight on my daughter, not to mention what suffering this old veteran was enduring to be silent and halted, if just in one

arm. I felt very strongly the ebbing out of the last life from that generation that had made me from dust and then shaped the child into who I was now. No sense of grudge or blame but a sadness like none I'd felt since the last day Palmer Slade spoke my whole name.

I waited three days with no further word from anybody at the old Slade place. On the second day I tried to phone Dinah, but Mally answered and once more said that Dinah couldn't answer right then--she was with her grandmother. That was why, late on the third day, I got Simon to drive me up there unannounced. For all I knew my only daughter was working herself unmercifully hard and would need some relief. When we got there at six o'clock, I told Simon to wait in the yard till I at least checked on the indoor weather.

Simon knew me well enough to say "Miss Anna, don't go in yonder now and scare that old lady."

If he hadn't been my main adult friend left alive, apart from my kin, I'd have taken offense. As it was it came as a useful warning, though I did say "A circular saw going ninety miles an hour pressed right on her face couldn't scare Olivia Slade." But I tapped the door gently and just as I opened it, there was Mally, lean and troubled. Right off I said "I've been badly worried. Where is Dinah, please?"

Mally didn't look mad but she didn't speak either. She gazed up behind her and pointed upstairs.

So I climbed quietly, paused to listen at the top and--when all I heard was unbroken silence--I stepped on toward Miss Olivia's own room. Five feet from the door, I could see the old lady plainly, fully dressed in her usual chair as straight as a rail.

She seemed to be facing her bed in the corner, and her eyes were open. But if she heard me, she didn't turn or nod.

So I said Miss Olivia's name clearly-- still no response. Then I said "Dinah Slade?" and silence still reigned. So I went on, stopping again just short of the door. It had been long years since I entered that room. And still Miss Olivia gave no sign of knowing I was

anywhere near. What she was watching was Dinah on the bed lying flat on her back and apparently dozing in a white cotton nightgown that had once been mine.

Dinah's arms were straight at her sides, and the longer I watched the more I could see she was utterly motionless--no trace of her breathing. Then I went cold as hailstones. What in G.o.d's name has gone on here? Is this child sick or, as it looks, even worse? Her belly was still full. The baby was still there. I knew I must step up and try to wake her, but the fear made me detour. I went and stood in Miss Olivia's sight directly before her, and I whispered "Is Dinah sick?"

She met my eyes with no flinch or falter. And meeting Olivia Slade's naked gaze was a challenge to every atom of your being. I managed to pa.s.s it for maybe ten seconds. Then I looked back again and pointed to Dinah. "What's happened to her?" By then the fact that Dinah hadn't roused to my normal voice had me rus.h.i.+ng the limits of sanity. I'd actually let myself consider that this old woman with Mally's help maybe had somehow drugged my child and killed her outright.

Miss Olivia didn't make a sound, though she did take her right hand and lift her other arm and hand which looked genuinely lifeless.

My next thought was All right. She's truly had a stroke, and that began to clear my head. In another minute I went to Dinah, sat lightly beside her on the edge of the mattress and held her wrist.

It was cooler than the room but not cold and dead. When I squeezed it gently three times, her face turned toward me. And after a slow rush of blood to her face, her eyes half opened.

For the longest moment they didn't recognize me. But at last Dinah said "I was scared it was you."

That was sad news, to say the least. I'd long since known how badly I'd ignored her when I was in torment, but I couldn't recall a single instant when I tried to scare her or bring her down to where I was huddled. So I changed the subject and whispered in her ear "How's your grandmother doing?"

Dinah beckoned me toward her own pale lips. "I'm praying she's not too long for this

world."

That came as a shock too. No one surely in all Miss Olivia's years had loved her more unquestioningly than Dinah Slade. I'd have guessed the girl would have crawled through acres of broken gla.s.s to keep the old lady breathing moments longer. What I said was "Is she in any pain?"

Dinah said "Terrible. Look at her eyes."

I nodded. "I just did. Has any doctor seen her?"

"You know she wouldn't hear of that." I said "You think I caused this, don't you?"

Dinah turned to the blank wall beyond the bed and stared at that. Then still faced away she said "I do, yes."

I said "Me too. Please say you forgive me."

Dinah looked around then, no trace of a smile. And she said "Any pardon is not my business." She pointed past me to her grandmother's upright body. It seemed like both a corpse and a bonfire.

At that I put my sick head down on the edge of Dinah's pillow and lay there for what felt like a week, planning (first) whether I could beg that pardon and (then) in what words--how far back to go in my old records with this one woman. When I thought I had it right, I sat up and slowly turned my head backward.

Miss Olivia might have been hammering granite with both her eyes as she braced for a second round with my presence.

At last I said "Beg pardon, Miss Olivia. I was mean as a snake--and have been for years--where you're concerned. Please go on now and turn me loose so I can tend to my child here once you've gone to G.o.d." No sooner had I said it than I heard my mistake. n.o.body living could tell Miss Olivia she was at the point of death. She meant to live as long as a younger drop of her blood was left in the world in any descendants needing her care.

And as I expected she gave me nothing whatsoever, not so much as a blink of her eyes. She had heard my awful plans three days ago. She made whatever response this was--this

sight of her ruined in her special chair. But however wrecked, she was fully in charge here and had been forever. Who in G.o.d's own name was I?

I even stood up and straightened my clothes, brushed back my hair and went on waiting.