Chasing endless summer, p.7
Chasing Endless Summer, page 7
It took so long for anyone to speak that I thought no one would.
“She was always sensitive to how other people felt and eager to do what she could to ease our unhappiness,” Aunt Holly said.
“Thank you. Anything else?” the reverend asked.
I watched Grandfather. He seemed mesmerized, just staring ahead. Was he thinking about Grandmother Judith?
Why wasn’t Uncle Martin saying anything about his mother, either? Did he have to be sure his father would approve of this, too?
“She was as careful about how she looked and presented herself as the queen of England would be,” Simon said.
Grandfather looked at him. After a beat of silence, he nodded. “That she was,” he said.
Simon smiled. I thought Uncle Martin looked at him in the strangest way. It was as if he was jealous, envious of how what his own son had said pleased his father.
“My mother was a great asset for my father. She was always there when he needed her,” Uncle Martin offered. He instantly looked to Grandfather for a sign of agreement or pleasure, but Grandfather had returned to that stare, that far-off look, as if he could see into his own memory and step out of the present.
It was deathly quiet again.
“Of course, you are free to use anything from the obituary I wrote,” Franklin Butler said.
“I will.” The reverend looked at us. I could see he was eager to end it, but after I’d gotten to know Grandmother Judith more intimately, it all felt like too little.
“She loved music, but nothing pleased her more than the sound of Grandfather’s laughter,” I said.
It was as if a bomb had gone off. Even the reverend looked speechless. Simon turned to me with a look of absolute terror in his eyes.
From where had I gotten that?
I shrugged. “It’s just something I remember from when I was brought here as a little girl for dinner. I remember even telling my mother and her saying, ‘That’s very true, Caroline.’ ”
Simon still looked terrified, but Grandfather suddenly burst into laughter.
“She’s right,” he said. “From out of the mouths of babes. Feel free to include that, Reverend.”
“Of course, Mr. Sutherland.”
I started to breathe again. Simon’s look of terror turned quickly into a smile. Everyone was smiling at me.
Except for Mrs. Lawson. She was glaring at me with those suspicious microscope eyes. I clutched the biography textbook as tightly as I could.
“Let’s all rest for a while before dinner,” Grandfather said. “Thank you, Reverend. We will see you at church,” he said, clearly indicating that he wasn’t invited to our dinner.
“I’d like to help Caroline with her hair and clothes,” Aunt Holly said. “If you’d like me to, Caroline.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“Good,” Grandfather said, slapping his legs and standing. “Mrs. Lawson, you’ll have some time for needed rest, I’m sure. Martin, you and I will meet with Mr. Butler in the sitting room for a drink before dinner. I’m sure Simon will amuse himself. Dinner at seven thirty, then.”
Like always, it wasn’t until he started out that anyone else even rose to leave.
Simon leaned over to whisper, his eyes on Mrs. Lawson, whose face looked like a mask to be worn on Halloween.
“What?” I demanded, impatient and worried.
“You’ll need me more than ever now,” he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’m so proud of you for speaking up, Caroline,” Aunt Holly said when we were in my bedroom. “I was so afraid that your difficult experiences with Dr. Kirkwell and the cold glare of Mrs. Lawson every time she saw you would turn you into a frightened little bird fluttering around this mansion.”
That’s exactly what I am, I wanted to say.
Aunt Holly looked around my bedroom and smiled. “Your mother and I spent quite a few secret sessions up here. She was always doing little things to give it a more feminine feel. But real changes were hard to make. Your grandfather treats every inch of Sutherland as if it was some holy site—everything’s a relic, a historical object. The irony is that he replaced so much of it when his father lost control. But moving a new chair into a room was like stamping it into the floor. He is remarkable when it comes to recalling where things were placed or when something in particular happened in what room or the other in Sutherland.
“Your cousin, my genius son, researched his grandfather’s mind. Has he told you that?”
“No.”
“Yes, well, Grandfather Sutherland is his favorite subject. He’s obsessed with him,” she said, grimacing like someone with a toothache. “Don’t get him started. He recently gave your uncle Martin and me a lesson about hyperthymesia. It took me weeks to learn how to pronounce it.”
“What does it mean? Is it a disease?”
“No. Some people apparently are able to vividly remember an abnormally large number of their life experiences—dates, times, colors, everything.”
She smiled.
“I think Martin and maybe me, too, are a bit terrified of Simon. He is brilliant. He even knows how to explain things like hyperthymesia so anyone might understand. Perhaps he’ll become a great teacher. When Martin challenged the idea, Simon said, ‘We all write our memories in pencil. They fade. But Grandfather writes them in indelible ink.’
“It’s what makes our Mrs. Lawson so important. She anticipates what would happen if some servant moves a picture or doesn’t put something back in a cabinet the way it was. I’m not excusing her, but she has to be that way, or she’ll be criticized. Of course, she takes it too far.”
She looked at the clothes in my closet, moving through them quickly.
“This is the new wardrobe she bought you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like these things?” she asked, looking at the clothes and grimacing.
I hesitated. Finding courage in Sutherland was like chasing butterflies with your bare hands.
She smiled and tilted her head. “What?”
“Mrs. Lawson said if I complained, she’d tell Grandfather I wasn’t to be trusted, and I’d be in trouble again.”
Of course, I didn’t really understand why I wasn’t to be trusted the first time. What had I done that would even suggest it? Lived with Mommy and Nattie? What else could I do? Not that I wanted to do something else. Daddy had left with his new family. In the end, wasn’t I simply guilty of loving my mother? Why wouldn’t that be seen as a good thing?
I imagined that love wasn’t exactly the same as cherished Sutherland loyalty, but it was just as strong, if not stronger. Would Grandfather ever believe that? Had he once and been disappointed so badly that he would never cherish it again? Was that what Simon had been trying to tell me? Was he right? No one ever really loved anyone in this house?
“She threatened you with that? Oh, that woman…”
She looked at the clothes again.
“None of this is proper for Grandmother Judith’s funeral and funeral reception,” Aunt Holly concluded, and shut the closet door. She looked at her watch. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going shopping. We have a good hour before the store closes.”
Astonished but very pleased, I hurried after her. She practically raced us down the hall and down the stairway. Simon heard us and came out of the study. We were almost to the front door.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Aunt Holly paused. “We have to go shopping for Caroline.”
“Now?”
“More than ever,” she said. I followed her out, and we walked quickly through the atrium, over the slate walkway, and past the fountains. Aunt Holly opened the grand, oval-shaped copper-and-mahogany entrance doors and waved to Emerson, who was cleaning the windows of Grandfather’s limousine. He quickly put everything away and drove up, stopped, and got out to open the rear doors for us.
“Where to, Mrs. Sutherland?” he asked.
“To Littlefield’s. They specialize in upscale teenage girls’ clothes,” she replied.
Emerson smiled at me. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Wasn’t there a song you used to sing for my mother-in-law, Emerson? You’re better than the radio,” Aunt Holly said when we started away.
“Yes, ma’am, ‘Lovely Joan,’ ” he said, and began to sing.
Aunt Holly reached for my hand and smiled. “When he sings, it’s like she’s here with us,” she whispered, and for the first time since I had heard of her passing, I felt I could cry for her and Mommy.
Our shopping spree was truly a whirlwind. Like Mommy, Aunt Holly envisioned what we should find before we found it, and once we did and I tried it on, we went right to the matching shoes. After what seemed hardly more than a half hour, if that, we were packed up and back in Grandfather’s limousine to return to Sutherland.
Simon looked like he had been listening for our return the whole time. He came out of the sitting room as soon as we entered the lobby.
“That was fast,” he said, his curiosity almost exploding in his eyes when he saw my bags. “New clothes?”
“You have a nice suit here to wear to dinner, Simon,” Aunt Holly told him. “Be sure you do.”
“Of course,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I don’t need to be told that.”
He stood there watching us head to the stairway. Mrs. Lawson came around a corner and paused, her eyes wide when she saw us with the shopping bags. She was about to ask or say something when Aunt Holly put her hand up.
“Don’t ask, Mrs. Lawson,” she said. “This is just a start. I’ll be looking after Caroline’s personal needs from now on.”
“Well, Mr. Sutherland—”
“Will be very pleased,” Aunt Holly said, smiling gleefully. I hurried up the stairway with her, both of us pausing when Simon started to laugh.
While I was preparing to take my shower, Aunt Holly almost picked up the textbook that had Grandmother Judith’s diary in it. As subtly as I could, I slipped it into a dresser drawer. She said she was going to get herself freshened up and left for the bedroom she and Uncle Martin used whenever they stayed over for an event. She returned to help me brush out my hair, and while she did, she talked about my mother and her memories of her even before she had married Daddy. She didn’t ask me any questions about Nattie, nor did she offer any information. I was afraid to say anything that might tell her how Simon had spied on her conversations with Uncle Martin and revealed what he had heard to me. When I had dressed, we left for dinner together. Simon was waiting at the bottom of the stairway, looking at me with great suspicion, even fear, in his eyes. Aunt Holly had been with me quite a long time. I was sure he was wondering if I had blurted out anything else that might incriminate him.
“You look very nice, Simon,” Aunt Holly told him. “I’m glad you brushed your hair so neatly.” She turned to me. “It’s the one thing he neglects.”
Simon blushed, but leaning more toward anger than embarrassment. I knew he hated being envisioned as a young boy and spoken to as if he was. Aunt Holly’s tone was probably the same as it had been when he was five. Despite how brilliant Simon was, I knew that a mother couldn’t see her child as so much older. You were always her baby to your mother. Mommy had spoken to me often in that “baby” tone, but, unlike Simon, I had embraced the love. And also unlike Simon, I wasn’t in a rush to grow up.
“I look very nice?” he said, lifting his eyebrows. “I think ‘proper’ is the better description, Mother. I’ve always thought ‘nice’ was one of those noncommittal words, meaningless really.”
Now it was Aunt Holly who blanched. “Where’s your father?” she practically snapped back at him.
“He, Grandfather, and Mr. Butler are still in Grandfather’s office.”
“Well, we’re headed to the dining room,” she said. “You can come with us or wait for them.”
“I’m coming,” Simon said, and walked beside me.
“Did she ask you about what you said in the Sutherland Room?” he whispered when Aunt Holly paused to tell Clara Jean some-thing.
“No. She was just happy that I had spoken up.”
“Don’t get overconfident. My mother doesn’t pick up on stuff as quickly as Grandfather does. I’m sure he’s thinking about you.”
Before I could reply, Aunt Holly rejoined us. We took our seats at the dining room table, Simon surprising me by pulling out Aunt Holly’s chair for her. He then walked around the table to sit on the other side.
“Thank you, Simon,” she said, and then leaned toward me to whisper, “His father often forgets, or Simon beats him to it. Maybe he likes to make him look forgetful, even incompetent, especially in front of my father-in-law.”
I didn’t think he heard her, but Simon sat with that smug look sitting on his face like a hen sitting on her eggs.
Moments later, Grandfather, Uncle Martin, and Franklin Butler entered, all three wearing similarly grim expressions. No one spoke as they took their seats. When Mrs. Lawson appeared in the doorway and Clara Jean followed with a tray carrying our salads, Grandfather put his hand up.
“Give us a few minutes, Mrs. Lawson,” Grandfather said.
She nodded at Clara Jean, who backed up as if she had approached a wall of fire and disappeared. Mrs. Lawson remained. Grandfather looked at her but did not ask her to leave. I imagined that, by now, for him she was part of the scenery.
“Now, then,” Grandfather began, “as I mentioned earlier, Mrs. Sutherland did not have a formal will as such, but she did jot down a few things she wanted to be sure were passed on according to her wishes.
“Holly, she has left all her jewelry to you. It has been properly organized and packed and will be given to you tonight before you leave. With the exception of two rings,” he continued, turning toward me with his eyes so focused and intense that it was difficult to tell if there was any pleasure or anger behind them, “the ring her parents gave her on her sixteenth birthday and her engagement ring. I will hold on to both rings. Her birthday ring will be given to Caroline on her sixteenth birthday. The engagement ring will be saved for Simon when he decides on the woman he wants to be his wife. All of Mrs. Sutherland’s other things will be Mrs. Lawson’s responsibility to transfer to the proper charities.
“Mrs. Lawson will close down Mrs. Sutherland’s suite. However, she will see to it that it is kept immaculate, the furnishings dusted and polished. Its disposition will depend on whatever the next master of Sutherland decides.”
He did not look at Uncle Martin when he said that. He seemed to be looking at a vision no one else could see. I glanced at Simon. He was actually smiling like a younger prince anticipating leapfrogging to the throne. His father looked more glum than he had when they had entered. Had Grandfather said something similar in his office?
“Finally,” Grandfather said, “pending anything that might change the direction of this outcome, I decided to use this occasion to announce that Caroline will be visiting with her father and his new family in Hawaii this summer. Dr. Kirkwell has assured me that her schooling will be completed before the end of the month, so at the moment, I can see no delays. You will have to assure us of that yourself, of course,” he told me.
“I’m sure she will,” Aunt Holly said.
Grandfather turned to her. “And I’m glad you’ve taken her a bit under your wing, Holly,” he said, but he said it with the clear implication that she had done so without his approval, “looking after some of her personal things.”
Aunt Holly’s face reddened a bit, but she didn’t look away. Mrs. Lawson appeared quite satisfied when I glanced at her.
“And so,” Grandfather concluded, “after Mrs. Sutherland’s funeral, I believe our Sutherland ship of state will sail along as it has always been intended. Mrs. Lawson, you can ask Clara Jean to begin our dinner service.”
The dinner continued just the way it had as those I had attended while Grandmother Judith was convalescing upstairs in her suite. In fact, it was a bit eerie. It was as if she hadn’t passed away at all. Like she was still just sick. As usual, Grandfather and Franklin Butler talked about the economy—with Uncle Martin seconding almost any conclusions they reached—and some business changes they were planning. I saw that Aunt Holly was still uncomfortable and ate with her eyes only on her food. Occasionally, she paused to smile at me. Simon maintained his look of self-confidence, occasionally nodding his approval as if he was the head of the table. He was so annoying that I stopped looking at him.
After dinner, I went up to my room to do my history reading. Grandfather’s announcement of what Simon had revealed excited me. Maybe my father regretted the things he had done, especially in relation to me. Surely he had been thinking of me, and, just like me, he recalled happier times. Anger was truly like boiling water. When the fire beneath it was turned off, it would stop bubbling and cool down and look like it had never boiled at all. I hoped when Daddy set eyes on me again, his face would be dressed only in a smile, and the heat in his eyes would be only a rekindled love.
Simon left Sutherland that night. I didn’t see him again until Grandmother Judith’s funeral. I came to the church with Grandfather Sutherland and Mrs. Lawson. Aunt Holly had arrived that morning with a black dress for me from Littlefield’s. She had bought another pair of shoes as well. I didn’t realize she had it all on order before we had left the store.
“I’ll see you at the church,” she told me, and hurried out.
Mrs. Lawson came in to see what Aunt Holly had bought. It was as if she had eyes everywhere in Sutherland. A fly couldn’t land on a window without her knowing.
“A total waste of money,” Mrs. Lawson said. “What I bought you was sufficient.”
I didn’t say anything. I dressed and went down to join Grandfather, who had just stepped out of his office. I held my breath, fearful that Mrs. Lawson had said something nasty to him about my new clothes. He didn’t exactly smile, but his nod was reassuring.
