Wild, Beautiful, and Free(3)

She didn’t say this could happen to me.

“They won’t find us,” Calista said. “We will stay here, and this moss will grow over us, and no one will see us again.”

I draped more of the Spanish moss over her head. Her words made sense because I believed the moss could support and sustain us, though I didn’t know how. Everything about Catalpa Valley felt that way, full of life and growing—the water over our bare feet when Calista and I waded in the creeks; the air when it seemed to soak up all the water until it felt so thick we could grasp a breeze in our hands and squeeze it to our hearts; the ivory-breasted kites who built nests from this moss and lived in the branches over our heads; the low bellow of bullfrogs searching for mates in the swamps. Why wouldn’t we stay here, on Papa’s land, and grow season after hot season along with everything else?

“Girl,” said Dorinda, “you’ll leave this place when it’s time. Even the sugarcane does that.”

But now Calista was doing a different kind of leaving. Ever since Dorinda had started bleaching Calista’s sheets, she had grown distant, and I missed her. When Papa wasn’t home, we often became islands floating solo about the great house. Calista stayed in her room, sorting through her dresses and staring into her mirror, until her mother, who didn’t like to sit alone, called for her. She made Calista play piano while she sipped her sweet wine.

Madame never drank enough to get drunk, but she drank enough to make her bolder, enough to say or do things I don’t think she would have said or done otherwise.

That afternoon I felt bold too. I can only think the wrongness of being forgotten came over me, and I was hungry, annoyed, and tired of being afraid. So I left my room and went to the main staircase.

My luck was bad, for Madame was already on her way up the steps, most likely in search of her daughter. When she saw me, she started like she’d seen a rat scurrying across the floor. She grasped her skirts higher and flew up the last of the stairs to where I stood on the landing.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?”

She always sounded like I was about to steal something or set fire to the house. But burning things was her notion, not mine. Her eyes flew up and down, looking me over, and her blonde curls bounced against her cheeks. I wore a simple fern-colored dress with soft ivory petticoats underneath. Papa always made sure I had nice clothes, but they were not the bright silk dresses Calista wore. Still, I knew every aspect of me looked wrong in Madame’s eyes.

I meant to tell her I was going to the kitchen, but the craziness in her eyes provoked me and made me lie.

“To Papa’s study.”

The shock on her face satisfied me.

“I want a book we have been reading together.” I felt my tongue slow as it touched the roof of my mouth to form the word together.

She reached out for my shoulder, but I stepped away. She shook her empty fist at me.

“There’s nothing in there for you.”

“What is Papa’s is mine. He said so. Because he is my papa.”

“What about Calista? He’s her papa too.”

“But she has you, and she can have your things.”

Her lip curled upward, and half a toothy grin cut into her face. “Then by that reasoning, you should have what belongs to your mama—nothing but dirt.”

The mention of my mama made my chest swell. “Then Calista and I would be the same, because from what I see, you don’t own anything either. Everything is Papa’s.”

Madame’s face glowed pink. “Why, you ugly little . . .”

She slapped me. The familiar stinging warmth flooded my left cheek. I exhaled.

“I’m going to the kitchen,” I said.

“That’s where you’d stay if I had anything to say about it.”

I thought the words And you don’t, but I didn’t speak them aloud. She must have seen them, though, in the way I met her eyes and didn’t turn away, my lips a mute straight line. That was when she grabbed my arm and dragged me across the wood floor.

“And take the back stairs! I won’t put up with this when Jean is away! I’ve had enough!”

I kicked her and tried to scratch at her arms. She lifted me—I was small for my twelve years, so this was easily done—and threw me away from her. My back hit the wall near the staircase. My left foot slid down to the next step, and my arm flailed out to grasp the handrail, but it was too late. I fell sideways onto my right hip, then rolled down the rest of the stairs. My ankle and hip bone were sore, my wrist bleeding where it had scraped against the metal handrail.

A door upstairs opened.

“Mama! Stop it!” Calista rushed down the stairs and took me by the hand. “What if Papa saw you?”

Madame’s eyes widened. Of course, he wouldn’t stand for what she’d done. I didn’t know how he might punish her, but Madame was well aware of the consequences, because she flew toward me and shook a finger in my face. “If you say one word to him . . .”

“She won’t! Will you, Jeannette?” Calista, tall for her sixteen years, placed herself between me and her mother. I put a hand on the small of her back and shook my head.

“No,” I whispered.

Calista stood her ground until Madame turned and climbed the stairs again. Then she moved down the hall to the kitchen and pulled me with her.