Purebred (9 page)

Aunt Jessie smiled again, a small but not unfriendly smile. “Everyone’s been nice to you except maybe me. I thought I should make a small apology. I know that I haven’t been as friendly as I should have been. After all, you are my niece, and I do want to get to know you better. Also, I want to say that I didn’t mean to belittle your horse or your knowledge of horses. Sometimes I’ve got a real
attitude. I’m sorry, okay?” Aunt Jessie held out her hand to Carole.

“Okay.” Carole shook hands gladly. She still felt a bit strange toward Jessie—it seemed like every time she talked to her, Jessie was angry about something—but she was happy to be on better terms with her. “People can tease me about almost anything, you know—except horses,” she added. “I can be a little sensitive sometimes.”

Aunt Jessie smiled. “I feel the same way about my photography. You and I have something in common.” She offered Carole one of the chocolate chip cookies from her plate.

Christina brought over Emile—a short, good-looking boy with black hair and uneven eyebrows—and introduced him to Carole.

“Yo,” Emile said, nodding at Carole and hooking his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans.

“Yo,” Carole said back, imitating his nod and hooking her own thumbs into her jeans. Aunt Jessie laughed out loud, winked at Carole, and sauntered off toward the rest of the party.

“What is this music?” Christina exclaimed with mock horror. “My dad’s lousy jazz. He’s always sneaking this stuff onto the stereo. Let’s put on something we can dance to.” She switched the music to something with a faster beat, grabbed Emile with one hand and Carole with the other, and hauled them both into the family room, where the
furniture had been moved to clear space for dancing. Carole was all for it. She loved to dance. Before long, most of the party-goers had joined them on the dance floor.

Three songs later, when she stopped to catch her breath, she saw Aunt Jessie standing across the room. Jessie was staring out the uncurtained window at a full moon with bare black branches silhouetted against it. Something about the way she stood with the moonlight falling against her face reminded Carole suddenly of her own mother, whom she still missed very much. Carole couldn’t forget the bad things she suspected about Aunt Jessie’s past, but she was glad that they’d cleared some of the air between them. Carole’s mother had loved her sister Jessie.

Carole walked over to Aunt Jessie. “Hello,” she said softly.

Aunt Jessie turned to her with an excited smile on her face. “Oh, Carole, this is just the kind of night I need to ride Kismet over to Lover’s Point to take my pictures.”

Carole was sure she didn’t mean it, but she was horrified that Aunt Jessie would even talk about doing something so foolish. “You’d have to be crazy to consider taking your horse out on a night like this,” she said. “You’d endanger her life, riding up there!” Aunt Jessie didn’t reply. “You’d have to be crazy,” Carole repeated, shaking her head.

“Well, that’s what you think anyway, isn’t it?” Aunt Jessie replied, anger seeping back into her tone. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No,” Carole answered. “But I think it would be a pretty bad decision to go out.”

“I make my own decisions,” Aunt Jessie snapped. She crossed her arms angrily; her dark eyes were blazing. “I don’t need you to tell me how or when to ride my horse. I don’t need you—or anyone else—to decide what I do.”

Goaded by her aunt’s tone, Carole felt herself growing angry too—more angry than she thought she would be. Every rude word Jessie had said, and everything that Carole suspected, came back to her now, and she spat out, “I don’t think you’ve been making very good decisions with your life so far. This one might be minor compared to some of the other colossal bloopers you’ve made, but it would be dangerous for Kismet as well as for you. It’s stupid and reckless, and I think you should know better.”

Jessie drew herself up tall. “And I think I don’t care what you think!” she shouted. She stormed out of the room.

Carole, watching her go, was struck again by how much Jessie looked like Carole’s mother. But her mother hadn’t acted like Jessie at all.

Louise came up to Carole and glared at her reproachfully. “What did you say to her?” she demanded. “Why did you get her so upset?”

“I’m sorry she left—I didn’t mean to upset her,” Carole said stiffly. “But I don’t understand what the big deal was. She’s always getting upset. She’s always running off. She
was saying what a great night it was to go to Lover’s Point, and she was talking about taking Kismet out there tonight. I told her I thought that would be a really stupid thing to do.”

Louise looked horrified. Carole was pleased to see that her cousin at least seemed to agree with her point of view. “You mean she’s going to the lake without me?” Louise said. “But she promised I could come. She said that she wouldn’t go without me.”

“I’m sure even Aunt Jessie isn’t crazy enough to go tonight,” Carole said. In her mind she heard Aunt Jessie say, “Don’t you think I’m crazy?” Did she think her aunt was crazy? One thing was for sure. Aunt Jessie got upset so easily. But was she really crazy? Had Jackson Foley been crazy?

Carole stared at Louise. “Maybe you can talk some sense into Jessie. She went into the kitchen.”

Louise ran out of the room. Carole shook her head as she watched her go. She was sick of both of them. Let them go off and sulk together!

Carole went off in search of sanity—hopefully in the person of Christina. But Christina was on the dance floor with Emile, smiling and happy, and Carole didn’t want to bother her. She didn’t feel like dancing just now. Instead she found Grand Alice, who was sitting in an easy chair tapping her feet to the music.

“You look flushed, child,” Grand Alice said, catching
Carole’s hand. “People keep rushing about. Sit down. Tell me, what’s going on? Why are people upset at a party?”

Carole was beginning to feel pretty upset herself. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “Jessie said she was going to ride out to Lover’s Point and I told her she shouldn’t. I told her she might have screwed things up in her life before, but she shouldn’t do it again—she shouldn’t endanger Kismet like that. Jessie ran off and now Louise is mad and went off to be with Jessie. I don’t know what’s wrong with either of them.”

Grand Alice looked very grave. “Oh, dear,” she said slowly. “Oh, dear, you shouldn’t have said that.” She looked very unhappy.

“Said what?” Carole asked. She had a sudden feeling that she’d done something very wrong.

“Said that to Jessie. The very wrong thing to say,” Grand Alice said. “You didn’t know. How could you? But oh, dear, you shouldn’t have.”

“What is it?” she asked. “What did I say?”

“Let’s go find a quiet place to talk,” Grand Alice said grimly. She got up from her chair. “You’ll need to hear the whole story now.”

She led Carole into a small side room and closed the door. She sat down, and Carole sat down to listen.

“F
IFTEEN YEARS AGO
,” Grand Alice began, “when Jessie was barely out of high school, she met a man named Lawrence Freeman. He was an artist. He liked her photographs. She liked his paintings. He was tall and funny and as much in love with her as she was in love with him. I never saw anyone love someone so much as Jessie loved Lawrence Freeman.

“They got married and moved to New York City. He painted and taught art at Hunter College, and Jessie took photographs full-time. They did well—they had a few art exhibitions and started selling some of their work, and they really enjoyed living in the city. They were as happy as they could be—even more so when, after two years, Jessie had a baby girl. They named their daughter Joy.”

“That was the man and child in the photograph,” Carole said.

Grand Alice nodded. “That’s right.”

If they were so happy, Carole thought, then why would Jessie leave? Why would she come back to Minnesota? She wanted to ask Grand Alice, but she made herself sit still and listen.

Grand Alice continued, “One fall weekend, they decided to take a short vacation. They rented a car and drove to the Berkshire hills in western Massachusetts to look at the fall foliage. The hills in New England are beautiful that time of year. They were driving down Route Nine, near Holyoke, when something went wrong. To this day we’re not sure exactly what happened. Maybe something was spilled on the highway. Maybe something was wrong with the car. Anyhow, it skidded without warning, flipped over the guard rail, and tumbled down the embankment. Jessie was hardly hurt at all.”

Carole shut her eyes. She was suddenly afraid that she knew what Grand Alice was going to say next.

“Lawrence and Joy were killed.”

Grand Alice paused as if to compose herself. Carole didn’t know what to say. Poor Aunt Jessie! She felt terrible, both for her aunt and about herself. Here she’d thought that Jessie had abandoned her family, and instead they’d been tragically killed. Carole knew that she
shouldn’t make assumptions about other people. From now on, she promised herself, she would remember not to.

She reached out and held Grand Alice’s hand. Grand Alice gave her a sad smile.

“Unfortunately, Jessie had been driving,” Grand Alice went on. “No one blamed her for what happened—there were witnesses who saw the accident, and said that the car went completely out of control—but Jessie blamed herself. She still can’t forgive herself. Now it seems like the only time she’s ever happy is when she’s taking photographs. It’s the only time that she can completely forget about her family.” Grand Alice shook her head. “We never talk about Lawrence and Joy, or New York, because it’s easier for Jessie not to remember them.”

Carole frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense,” she argued. “I don’t understand that kind of attitude. My mom died—”

“I know, dear. I loved your momma. I don’t forget her.”

“But that’s exactly what I mean,” Carole insisted. “I would never want to forget her. In fact, my dad and I talk about her all the time. We talk about the things we used to do together, and we talk about what Mom would think or say if she were still alive. If she knew I had a horse, for instance. I need to talk about her. I never want to forget a single thing about her.”

Grand Alice laid her hand against Carole’s cheek, and Carole leaned against it for a moment. “You must understand
that everyone grieves differently,” she said gently. “Do you remember your mother’s funeral—how some people were crying, and some were not?”

“Yes.” Carole did remember.

“And you and your father, you weren’t always sad the same amount at the same times, were you?” Carole shook her head. “People all mourn differently, Carole. They all deal with pain in different ways. Personally, I like your way better than Jessie’s. I’ve lost a lot of loved ones in my life, and if I tried to forget them all I wouldn’t have much memory left. But your case is different from Jessie’s—you don’t blame yourself for your mother’s death. You don’t feel guilty. And even if the circumstances were the same—well, people are different, that’s all. You need to respect Jessie’s right to forget just as she needs to respect your right to remember.”

Carole thought that she understood. “I’ll try,” she said. “I guess I still don’t really understand Jessie, but maybe I don’t have to. I guess I shouldn’t have said what I did, either. I think I’d better apologize.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Grand Alice said with a nod of her head. “You’re a compassionate person, Carole. Be kind to Jessie. Her life has not been easy.”

“Miss Alice?” Colonel Hanson knocked, then opened the door. “I came to see if you would favor me with a dance.” He looked from Carole to Grand Alice and back again. “Or am I interrupting?”

“Carole and I just came in here for a quiet chat,” Grand Alice said. “I think we’re finished now.”

“We were talking about Aunt Jessie,” Carole said. “Grand Alice told me about Lawrence and Joy.”

Colonel Hanson nodded slowly. “So now you know,” he said. “Lawrence was a good man, Carole, and you would have liked him as an uncle. You and Joy might have been good friends.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t like not telling you about them, Carole, but Jessie keeps that part of her life so private.… I thought you ought to hear it from this side of the family.”

Carole nodded. After what Grand Alice had told her, she understood why her father had kept the secret.

“She knows now,” Grand Alice said. “She’s old enough to understand. And I’d be pleased to dance with you, grandson, only none of that fast stuff, do you hear me? When you get to my age, you move slow.” She lifted her chin regally and held her hand up to Colonel Hanson with the grace of a queen. He laughed and helped her to her feet.

“A fox trot is all,” he promised, leading her to the dance floor.

Carole leaned against the door frame and watched them. Christina’s father’s “lousy jazz” was back on the stereo, and her father and Grand Alice moved gently to its slow, soft beat.

She thought again about the story Grand Alice had told
her. She’d been so caught up in the idea of family history and bloodlines that she’d been overly ready—even eager—to believe that Jessie had behaved like Jackson Foley. That hadn’t been the case at all Jessie’s anger and grief were nothing like Jackson’s abandonment and betrayal Clearly, Jessie was not much like Jackson. Maybe bloodlines weren’t as important in humans as they were in horses.