When Women Were Dragons(32)
Like Sonja, her grandparents both had wide-spaced, dark hazel eyes. Like Sonja, they once both had white-blond hair, though as they aged, their hair became so white it seemed to glow, and the pinkness of their scalps shone through.
No one ever spoke of Sonja’s parents, not once in all my times visiting. There was only one photograph of them in the entire house—a two-by-three-inch snapshot in a plain frame at the bottom corner of a wall full of family pictures in the kitchen. Sonja never mentioned it, and neither did her grandparents. But I knew what it was. It showed Sonja holding her parents’ hands on what looked like her first day at kindergarten. She had a wide smile and was missing one tooth. Her father wore carpenter’s overalls and held a bucket of tools. Her mother wore smart heels, a pressed skirt with a matching tailored jacket, and a hat pinned into her chignon. She worked (I learned much later) as a research assistant for a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin, and was apparently indispensable. Sonja had both of her parents’ hands in hers, but I noticed the way two of her fingers had reached past her mother’s hand to the hem of her mother’s jacket, and wound the fabric into her grip. Her father looked lovingly at the top of Sonja’s shiny blond head. Her mother’s gaze tilted skyward, a look of longing on her face.
Sonja and I spent every moment that we could together, though I vastly preferred spending time at the Blomgren house. There, her grandparents gave us paper and canvas and pots of paint and taught me how to pull a brush toward its destination, and how to find a whole world revealed in a line across an open space. At my house, my mother taught us both how to knit and crochet (Sonja was better at it than I was) and how to carefully follow recipes clipped from Ladies’ Home Journal. My mother loved Sonja. Beatrice oscillated in her feelings toward my friend, going from outright jealousy to ardent devotion, without much of anything in between. Sonja told Beatrice stories from Norway, where her grandparents had been born (though neither had any memory of it, as they both emigrated as toddlers), and where her father was from. Indeed, it was in the waters between Iceland and Norway where her father’s small boat was last seen, and where it is presumed to be resting under the waves.
“What was he doing there?” I asked her once, forgetting myself for a moment.
Sonja pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment or two. “Looking for someone,” she said at last. And then silence reigned.
Sonja also taught Beatrice to draw, showing her the components of a face, the trick to making the eye fill in what the pencil suggests. She showed her the techniques for drawing trees and birds and small mammals, and even fairies and trolls. (These, I noticed, my mother had no problem with. Another thing worth noticing: each time Beatrice attempted to draw a dragon, Sonja would crumple up the paper and throw it away. “Not today, busy Bea,” Sonja said. She did this without emotion or scolding or shame. It was simply an indisputable fact of being—like getting wet when it rains.)
As eighth grade began, I spent my school day counting the minutes until the bell would ring and I could see Sonja again. My classwork suffered (though my homework was fine, and I was still miles ahead of my classmates). I wasn’t paying attention. I was distracted. I drew. I wrote notes to Sonja. I sketched out plans for adventures that we would embark upon together someday. My teachers fumed, then fretted, and in the first week of October, my parents were called.
Only my mother came. She was, I remember, looking rather pale. Sister Angelica, my English teacher, and Mr. Alphonse, the principal, sat at the table across from her, while I sat at a chair separately, my arms wrapped tightly over my chest and my face pinned into a scowl.
My mother, bless her, came prepared with documents. She explained how diligent I was in my homework. She showed the papers and projects and assignments that I had completed during the month of September, which all received A’s. She talked about my trips to the library to watch their fairly substantial collection of filmed lectures on physics and mathematics given by great scholars from places like Harvard and Oxford and other faraway universities. She even brought a letter signed by the head librarian confirming that I was currently working through problem sets in mathematics textbooks that were far beyond what was available to me at school, and recommending me for a program that I didn’t entirely understand—and frankly, my mother had not yet agreed to. Still, she thought it important to show my teacher today. I didn’t mention anything, but I did take note of it. She showed them the work I had done outside of class using textbooks that I had gotten through the magic of interlibrary loan.
“If she’s distracted in class,” my mother said gently, “I think we should consider the possibility that she is simply bored in class, and needs to be challenged more. I had a similar problem when I was in school. I was only fourteen when I was allowed to enroll at the university to study calculus—not much older than she is now. By the time I graduated high school I had already completed more than half of the coursework for my mathematics degree. Perhaps we should consider that this is the path she’s on.”
Sister Angelica and Mr. Alphonse listened to my mother with indulgent looks on their faces, the way one might listen to a child who was trying to explain why she still believed in fairies.
“And how useful has your mathematics degree been in your career as a housewife, dear?” Sister Angelica said.
The room became ice-cold. My mother’s eyes were two dark stones set in a marble face. I held my breath. I felt the knot in my pocket unravel, just a bit.