Daughters of Eve (25 page)

"Where did it come from?" Ann asked.

"Where do you think? From our check! Not only that, but they're getting new practice balls!" Ruth paused, and when there was no immediate response, said, "Don't you get what I'm saying? He's taken the money from the raffle and ignored the stipulation. There's not going to be any girls' soccer team—or any girls' anything! The boys are getting every penny, just as they always have."

"He can't do that, can he?"

"He can't, but he has. No wonder he wouldn't talk to Paula yesterday. I'm going in to tell Irene about it now. We want to call a special meeting to discuss what we can do. We can't let him get away with this, Ann!"

"I guess not," Ann said.

"You guess not? What's the matter with you?" Ruth said angrily. "Don't you care what's happened?"

"I care," Ann said. "I've just got something else on my mind right now."

"You'll be at the meeting?"

"No, I can't. I've got to be myself awhile and think."

"I don't get it," Ruth said. "Don't tell me you're going to be like Tammy and pull out on us."

"I'm not like Tammy," Ann told her. "I wish I were. Tammy has feelings she can trust."

She turned and started off down the hall, leaving Ruth staring after her.

CHAPTER 18

The first snow of the winter had arrived early and melted off quickly. Within twenty-four hours it had turned to slush and run off down the gutters, leaving children resentful and frustrated and adults relieved.

When it snowed again, things were different. Telephone lines buzzed as the children of Modesta called each other to spread the joyful tidings: "It's sticking! It's going to last!" Mr. Johnson arrived at his former home with shovel in hand to clear the front walk and driveway; Chris went outdoors to help her father, and Mrs. Johnson served them hot chocolate and homemade cookies. Eric Grange and his friends hauled out of their garages the sleds that had been stored there since early springtime and sanded the rusted runners.

It was a wild, white world.

At a special meeting, the Daughters of Eve voted to send a letter to Mr. Shelby requesting that, if their contribution to the school athletic fund was not to be used as designated, it be returned to the club. Since the secretary, Ann Whitten, was not at the meeting, Bambi Ellis volunteered to write the letter.

She delivered it by hand to his box in the office.

Suddenly, with the second snowfall, Modesta came alive with the anticipation of Christmas. Colored lights appeared as if by magic in blinking strings down Main Street, and stores throbbed with the strains of "Silent Night" and "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." Salvation Army Santas materialized on street corners, tinkling their silver bells, and Mrs. Underwood hung a massive wreath of holly on her front door, explaining for the eighteenth season in a row, "This wreath means a lot to us! We named our daughter after it."

The Senior Honor Society was sponsoring the Christmas formal, which was to be held on Friday, December 15, the last day of school before the holidays.

"It's such a shame Peter is sick," Mrs. Ellis remarked sympathetically to her daughter. "It's hard for a girl when she doesn't have an escort to all the Christmas parties."

"Don't worry about me," Bambi told her. I'm going to the dance with Craig Dieckhoner."

Tom Brummell invited Ruth Grange.

Gordon Pellet invited Fran Schneider.

On Friday, December 8, the Daughters of Eve had a potluck supper and early gift exchange so that Paula could be included. The Brummells were to spend Christmas week with grandparents in Lyons. The get-together was held at Irene Stark's apartment

When Jane Rheardon returned home at 10:20, she found Mrs. Geiger, the woman who lived next door, waiting in the living room.

"Don't take your coat off, Janie," her neighbor told her. "You're going to be going right out again. Your mother's had an accident. She's at the hospital."

Jane froze, her hands poised over the second button of her jacket.

"What happened?"

"She was carrying dinner in from the kitchen and slipped on a spill," Mrs. Geiger said. "She fell and hurt her hip."

"Where's my father?" Jane asked.

"He's already over there. They let him ride with your mother in the ambulance. He wanted to get hold of you, but he didn't know where you were. He asked me to wait and bring you over to the hospital when you got home."

"He did know where I was," Jane said. "He could have called me."

"People forget things when they're upset. Your poor daddy is about out of his mind, he's so worried over your mom."

"I just bet," Jane said shortly.

Mrs. Geiger drove her to the hospital and went in with her. Mrs. Rheardon was in surgery when they got there. Jane's father was in the waiting room, leafing through a magazine.

"It's a fractured hip," he told them. "They're operating now to remove some lone chips that got wedged down into the joint." He addressed himself to Jane. "She fell in the kitchen. There was grease spilled on the linoleum."

She did not look at him.

"You know how careless your mother can be about things like that," Bart Rheardon continued. "She never cleans things up when she ought to. It's a wonder something like this hasn't happened before now."

They sat in the waiting room, Jane in silence, her father and Mrs. Geiger making stilted conversation, until a white-clad doctor came in to inform them that Ellen Rheardon was out of surgery and was being transferred to the recovery room.

Jane got up from her chair and went out into the hall. When her mother was wheeled past her, she stepped in close and stood, gazing down at the slack face.

The eyes were closed, the lashes a sooty fringe against the pale cheeks. The mouth hung open. The left side of the jaw was puffy and purple.

"Mother?" Jane said tentatively.

"She won't be out from under for a while yet, honey," one of the nurses said. "You'd best go on home and get some sleep and come back in the morning."

There was a pay phone in the hall. Jane went to it, put in some coins, and dialed.

"It's me, Jane," she said when a woman's voice answered. "Irene, could I please come back to your place? My dad's almost killed my mom, and I need a place to spend the night."

Saturday, December 9, was a gray day, and cold. The snow, which had softened slightly the day before, had refrozen during the night, and the roads were slick and icy. Few people who didn't have to ventured out.

Mrs. Schneider spent the morning happily snipping and stitching as she made Fran her first formal.

"I told you she had a boyfriend," she told her husband with satisfaction.

At the Johnson home, Mrs. Johnson sat at the dining room table, addressing Christmas cards. Kelly came and stood behind her, reading over her shoulder.

"Are you writing notes in all of them?"

"I thought I should. It's one way to let out-of-town people know about your father and me."

"What about our tree?" asked Chris, who was sprawled on the sofa with a book "Is Dad going to take us out to the woods to cut it?"

"What do you mean, 'it'?" Kelly said. "You mean, 'them,' don't you? He's got his own place to decorate."

"Okay—'them,'" Chris said mildly. "Is he, Mom?"

"I don't know," her mother said. "I was thinking about getting an artificial tree this year. There wouldn't be those needles all over the rug, and after Christmas we could just collapse it and store it in the attic."

"Sounds sensible," Kelly said. "An artificial tree for an artificial family."

"Kelly, dear—" Mrs. Johnson lowered her pen and turned to look at her older daughter. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to find the right words.

"What is it?"

"I think—after Christmas—" Mrs. Johnson said slowly, "it might be good for us to get some professional counseling. All of us, you and Chris and me. We're not adjusting the way we should be."

"You don't mean 'we,'" Kelly said. "You mean, I'm not adjusting. You and Chris are doing fine. You're having a good time playing the martyr, and Chris is bootlicking everybody, trying to get a piece of both pies at once. If you think I'm going to go to some psychiatrist so I can get like the two of you, you're way off base, Mom. I don't want to be 'adjusted.'"

"I just can't bear to see you so bitter," her mother said. "Other children seem to survive a divorce in the family and still keep on loving their parents and feeling good about their lives."

"Other 'children' may not realize how cruddy the world is," Kelly said.

Late in the evening, more snow began to fall. Ann Whitten's mother went out to the woodpile at the side of the house and brought in some logs and built a fire in the fireplace in the den. Mr. Whitten sat in front of it with his stocking feet propped up on a hassock, letting the flames warm his toes.

After a while Ann, who had been resting in her bedroom, came into the den, drawn by the scene of the burning wood. She dropped a light kiss on her father's scratchy cheek and settled herself on the floor beside his chair.

"Feeling better now, baby?" he asked her fondly.

"Yes, a little, thanks. I must have eaten something weird at the potluck last night."

"The stomach flu's going around, I hear."

"I guess it is."

"David called twice already this morning," Ann's mother said. "I told him you weren't feeling so good and were lying down awhile. He said for you to phone back when you could."

"I don't feel up to it now," Ann said. "I'll call him later."

"Is there something gone wrong between the two of you?" Mrs. Whitten asked her. "You haven't been spending much time together lately. I thought winter was when farm people always had plenty of time free."

"Lovers' spat?" Ann's father suggested playfully.

"No, nothing like that."

Ann leaned her head against her father's side, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders. The flames in the fireplace leaped and fell, and the orange light danced. Mrs. Whitten was knitting, and the click of the needles seemed to keep time with the crackle of the logs.

"This is going to be a sweater for your cousin Debbie's baby, if I ever get it finished," she said. "I'd forgotten how long it takes to make something with these little needles."

"When's Deb due?"

"Some time in January."

"Is she happy about it, do you think?"

"Your Aunt Bonnie writes she's been in maternity clothes since her second month. You know how Debbie was when she was little, always fussing over a cradle full of dolls. That girl's never had a dream in her head except to be a mother."

They were quiet a moment.

Then Ann said, "You lost a baby, didn't you, when I was around three? Do you think about it much?"

"I used to," her mother said. "Not anymore though. It's been so long now."

"Was it a girl or a boy?"

"I wouldn't let them tell me. I thought if I knew I'd start seeing its face in my mind, looking in carriages and strollers at other people's babies, thinking That's the way it would have looked if it had lived.' It was easier not knowing. That way it didn't seem so much like a real person."

"Why did it die?"

"Who knows?" Mrs. Whitten said. "Doctors weren't as up on such things back then. I always figured God just didn't mean for it to get born. His plan was to take it back with Him, and that's how it was." The knitting needles stopped clicking. "Is anybody ready for some lunch yet?"

"I'm not hungry, thanks," Ann said.

"Is there any of last night's stew sitting around out there?" Mr. Whitten asked.

"There sure is. Would you like me to heat you up a dish?"

"You don't have to ask me twice to get a 'yes' to that one."

The couple smiled at each other, and Mrs. Whitten set the knitting carefully down on the arm of her chair and got to her feet. A moment later they could hear the clank of pans in the kitchen.

Mr. Whitten tightened his arm around his daughter's shoulders.

"Annie," he said softly, "this is your own life you're leading. Nobody else can live it for you. You've got to decide things the way you think they'll be best."

Ann looked up at him in disbelief. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what you think I mean."

"How did you—know?"

"I'm your daddy. I've been around you a long time. I'm not likely to sit here blind when my daughter gets sick every morning and goes around looking like the world's coming to an end."

"Mother—?"

"She doesn't want to know. That's all right. Your mother has enough to worry about with me sick without taking on an extra other thing right now. She'll stand by you, though. If something goes wrong, she'll always be here to help you. The thing is, she can't face it now to talk about."

"What do you think I should do?" Ann asked him.

"I can't tell you, Annie, and nobody else can either."