"What's going on in here?" Daddy demands from the doorway in his pretend gruff voice.
"Just woman talk, Beau."
"At three in the morning?" he asks amazed. "It's a woman's prerogative."
"To drive a man crazy, you mean. That's a woman's prerogative," he mutters and goes back to bed.
We laugh. In some ways we are more like two sisters than mother- gild daughter. Mommy looks so young, hardly thirty-six, even though everyone says caring for twin twelve-year-old boys has to be an age maker.
"Dream of good things, honey. Dream about tomorrow. Your wonderful party. Dream about going to college and doing all the things you've wanted to do."
"I will, Mommy. Mommy," I say and quickly grab her hand as she stands.
"What is it, Pearl dear?"
"Will you tell me more? Maybe if I know more, the nightmare will stop."
She nods reluctantly.
"I know you think it's painful for me to hear and you don't want to do anything to hurt me, but I have to know everything, don't I, Mommy?"
"Yes," she admits. "You do." She sighs so deeply, I'm afraid her heart will crack.
"I'm old enough to understand, Mommy. Really I am," I reassure her.
"I know you are, honey. We'll talk. I promise." She pats my hand.
I watch her go off, her shoulders slumping a little now. I hate to make her sad, even for a moment, but I am drawn to the dark past almost as strongly as a moth is drawn to a candle flame.
I hope--no, I pray--that, unlike the moth, I will not be consumed and destroyed as a result.
1
The Future Beckons
.
I woke to the sound of shouting just outside my
window. The extra workers Daddy had hired to spruce up our house and gardens for my graduation party had arrived and were being assigned their jobs. It had rained the night before and the damp, sweet scent of green bamboo, gardenias, and blooming camellias floated all around me. After I ground the sleep from my eyes, I sat up and saw that the sun was nudging aside whatever clouds remained and dropping golden rays over the pool and the tennis courts. It was as if someone had lifted a blanket off precious jewels. Our gardens were dazzling, our blue and mauve Spanish tiles glittering. Could there be a more beautiful beginning to one of the most important days of my life? In seconds all the webs of confusion, shadows of darkness, and childhood fears were washed away.
I was seventeen and about to graduate from high school. And I was the class valedictorian, too! I sighed deeply and then let my eyes move over my room. Long ago Mommy had returned it to the way it had been when she had first arrived in New Orleans. I slept in her actual dark pine queen-sized canopy bed, the canopy made of fine ivory-colored silk with a fringe border. My pillows were so enormous and fluffy I felt as if I sank a foot whenever I lowered my head to them. The bedspread, pillowcases, and top sheet were made from the softest and whitest muslin. Above my headboard was a painting of a beautiful young woman in a garden feeding a parrot. There was a cute black-and-white puppy tugging at the hem of her full skirt.
On either side of my bed was a nightstand with a bell-shaped lamp, and in addition to a matching dresser and armoire, my room had a vanity table with an enormous oval mirror in an ivory frame decorated with hand-painted red and yellow roses. Mommy and I had often sat side by side and gazed at ourselves in the mirror while we did our hair and makeup and had our girl-to-girl talks, as she liked to call them. Now, she said, they would be woman to woman; but soon they would be few and far between, for I was about to go to college. I had been so anxious to grow up and so excited about reaching this day, but now that it was finally here, I couldn't help feeling somewhat melancholy too.
Good-bye to my Huckleberry Finn days, I thought. Good-bye to sleeping late on weekend mornings; good-bye to not worrying about tomorrow. Good-bye to wasting time and cramming for tests at the last moment. Good-bye to sitting outside in the garden for hours, dreaming away the afternoons. With a sweep of its hand, the clock would thrust me and my fellow graduates forward into the real world, the world of work and serious study in college where the only one looking over your shoulder was your own conscience.
As my eyes retreated from the mirror, I looked at my door and discovered it was partly open. A further investigation revealed my brother Jean on his hands and knees peering in at me and my brother Pierre on Jean's back peering in as well. The two duplicate faces with their cerulean blue eyes under their gol
den bangs gaped with curiosity and anticipation. What they expected I would do the moment I woke up on my graduation day I did not know, but I knew they were waiting for me to say or do something that they could tease me about later.
"Jean! Pierre! What are you doing?" I cried. The two stumbled sideways. Laughing and squealing, they scurried back to their room, the room that had once been our great-uncle Jean's room, my mother's father's brother. I heard them slam their door shut and all was quiet for a moment.
Most of the time the twins were like two puppies sniffing and poking where they didn't belong. Usually it got them into some sort of trouble, and Daddy, despite his apparent reluctance to do so, had to discipline them. He was very fond of his twin sons, very proud or them, and full of expectations for them, too.
Between the two of them, they did seem to mirror Daddy. Jean had his athletic ability, his love of sports and hunting and fishing. Pierre had his inquisitiveness, his sensitivity and love of the arts, but neither looked down on the other. Rather, my twin brothers were like halves of one brother, a hybrid called Pierre-Jean. What one couldn't do, the other did for him, and what one didn't think, the other thought for him. They were already the Two Musketeers and didn't need a third.
What was amazing to everyone, even the most skeptical, was the way they both came down with the same childhood diseases at just about the same time. If one got a cold, the other was sure to have it minutes later, and I swear, whenever Jean bumped his head or his knee, Pierre grimaced with just as much pain, and vice versa.