The Unwelcomed Child (29 page)

I found it under Grandmother Myra’s Bible, the key to my mother’s bedroom, the forbidden room. I hurried out and went to the doorway eagerly, but when I faced it, I hesitated. Had I overestimated the strength of my defiance? Could I do this? Wasn’t I still afraid? Suddenly, for me, that door was more than a door; it was a barrier that for all my life had separated me from myself. What had my grandmother shut away from herself? What did she fear that I would see, and why?

My fingers trembled as I inserted the key into the lock. For a few moments, that was all I did. Then I turned it, heard it click open, and reached for the door handle after taking a deep breath.

The afternoon sun set on the side of the house. It was low but still very strong, so that it leaked in around the closed curtains enough for everything in the room to be seen. I was anticipating a room completely stripped down, only a mattress on the bed and nothing on the walls or on the dresser. I didn’t expect the light switch to illuminate the room through two bedside lamps with pretty pink shades, each with a cute ceramic girl in a pink and white dress and funny red shoes and a purplish table with an orange-striped cat sitting on it.

The queen-size four-poster bed was in antique white. The canopy had scrolls that matched the scrolls on the headboard and footboard, with flowery tops. The side tables matched. Each had one drawer and two open shelves with what looked like fresh tissues popping out of tissue boxes, stacks of children’s picture books, and, on the right-side table, a wooden jewelry box. The floors of the room were a polished light maple, with an antique white fluffy area rug that was so spotless that it looked brand new.

On the left was a desk that matched the bedroom set. There was a scrolled desk chair with a pink soft cushion. To my surprise, there was a computer on the desk. It was not very old-looking, either. I had seen some pictures of earlier computers. They were large and bulky, but this one was slim.

Because the room was so immaculate, I was hesitant to enter, but I finally took the first step, moving like someone navigating over jagged rocks that jutted out of a raging current. As I became more courageous, I touched things, looked at and fingered the toys, petted the doll with almost human hair on the bed, noting how lifelike it seemed with its soft blue eyes and simulated wet lips. I examined some of the games and then opened the closet door, expecting an empty space, but I saw instead racks full of dresses and skirts and blouses. On the right were two shelves of shoes, many obviously bought to match outfits.

Anyone who looked at this room would swear someone was still living in it. I was stunned and confused. My attention went to the pictures displayed on the dresser and the two side tables. They were framed photographs of my mother when she was nine or ten, with my grandparents. Everyone looked happy, buoyant, and, most of all, loving.

I turned around and around, repeatedly looking at everything. It was as though time had not stopped in this room. It was still the way it had been when my mother was a little girl, yes, but it did give the sense of being a living shrine to hope and happiness. In this room, there were no heavy religious icons and no framed biblical sayings. The room was an island in a house filled with religious warnings, threats of damnation, and reminders of our spiritual weaknesses.

As I stood there, a realization took form in my mind. This room wasn’t simply my mother’s old room. It was Grandmother Myra’s dream, her respite, a cathedral, the place she came not to pray but to hope. She wanted to return to this moment, to begin again, and to prevent the darkness from coming into their lives. It was where she admitted to herself that she was warm and loving once, when she was optimistic and trusting.

Whenever she wasn’t in it, absorbed by all that was there, she saw it as sinful. She probably asked God for forgiveness after every time she visited the room. There was a child, however, whom she loved and cherished in this room, a child she dreamed of having again. In her mind, that was some sort of defiance, too. Maybe she sat in there alone and asked herself a thousand times, “What did I do wrong? Was all this too hedonistic? Did I give my child too much love, instilling the conceit and arrogance and thus the tragic flaw in her? Did I turn her into a creature of comforts and luxury and make her weak and selfish?”

Was this a question most parents asked themselves? “Are we giving our child too much? Are we teaching him or her the wrong things? Are we failing to instill a respect for others and values in our child? It brings so much pleasure to us and to our child to give him or her things and see the joy in his or her face.” How did you know when you’d gone over the top? How did you hold back when so many other parents were bestowing so much on their children? If you didn’t give your child just as much, would your child resent you, perhaps resent everything and turn mean and self-centered?

Yes, it was in this room where Grandmother Myra could whip herself, could cry, could pray for forgiveness, and could remember when she was a different person, someone who saw more to love and take pleasure in than who she was now, fearful of every laugh, distrusting of every warm feeling, and condemning of every small promise.

I thought I was going to discover more hate in the room. I even imagined I would see things deliberately broken, dolls smashed, maybe even a mattress slashed in rage. I certainly anticipated religious icons and framed sayings covering the walls. I wanted the room to reinforce all the anger I had toward my grandmother. I wanted everything confirmed, but instead, I felt tears come into my eyes.

I stood there feeling sorry for her, imagining the pain she had endured, the nights she had spent crying, and the great disappointment she felt in herself and in my mother. This was where she bore her cross and carried herself to her own Golgotha to be crucified and someday, somehow, resurrected, if only in a dream.

Slowly, I left the room, the way you would leave a sacred place, silent, respectful, and in awe of God’s power. I closed the door softly and locked it again. After I put the key back under Grandmother Myra’s Bible, I descended and went to the kitchen to work on dinner preparations.

A little more than an hour later, after I had set the table and breaded some chicken cutlets, Grandfather Prescott came home. He looked peaked, tired, and much older. I quickly looked to see if Grandmother Myra was with him, perhaps just behind him, but he was alone.

“She’s had a stroke,” he said. “She’s lost the power of speech and movement on her right side.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was crying, maybe for him more than for her, or maybe for myself.

“We’ll see how she is tomorrow.”

“Can I go with you to the hospital, Grandpa?”

He nodded.

“I have dinner prepared, Grand . . . Grandpa,” I said.

He smiled. “I told her you would,” he said. “I’ll just go wash up.”

I returned to the kitchen.

When we sat down to eat, he described what had happened. “I saw she was awake, but she wasn’t moving, and then she started making this horrible noise. She was trying to speak. From the way she was trying to move, I could tell that she was suffering some paralysis. I called the paramedics immediately, and after they loaded her into the ambulance, I followed in my car.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Grandpa.”

“Yes. I looked out the back window twice before rushing out, but there just wasn’t time for me to go looking for you, so I wrote the note.”

He ate some more and then paused.

“Maybe I should go back tonight.”

“You can’t exhaust yourself now, Grandpa. You’ll know more in the morning.”

He nodded. “This will be the first night I’m not with your grandmother in more than forty years,” he said.

After dinner, he went to the living room to watch television, but when I looked at him, he seemed dazed. I couldn’t help but be surprised. So many times, I had looked at both of them and wondered if there had ever been any real affection between them. Did they love each other or just become dependent on each other? Was it easy to look at other couples and know the difference? Did they know the difference? Did you really fall in love with someone or just become very comfortable with him or her? Maybe if love itself wasn’t such a mystery, there wouldn’t be so many mistakes.

I sat on the sofa where Grandmother Myra usually sat and watched some television with Grandfather Prescott. For a while, I didn’t think he even noticed I was there. Then, suddenly, he turned to me and said, “If you don’t like this, change the channel.”

Suddenly, even though I was being given new privileges and powers, I decided I really wasn’t interested.

“I think I’d rather go work on my picture, Grandpa. It’s coming along.”

He nodded. “Bring it out here,” he said. “There isn’t enough good light in that room.”

“Okay.”

I brought everything out to the living room, something Grandmother Myra would certainly forbid, and began working on some details in the picture. He watched me for a while and then began dozing off. When he opened his eyes again, I stopped painting.

“Maybe we should just go to sleep. I know you want to get started early in the morning, Grandpa.”

“Yes, yes. Very wise,” he said, and rose. He came over to the easel and looked at my picture. “This is remarkable,” he said. “To think you’ve done this without any formal training.”

“I’ve been reading the book you gave me.”

“Still remarkable,” he said, and then he did something he rarely did. He leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. “See you in the morning,” he said, and started for the stairway.

I watched him go up and then I started to put my things away. I heard a distinct tap on the living-room window. At first, I thought perhaps the wind had started up and blown some dust, but when I heard it again, I focused and saw Mason silhouetted in the starlight. I glanced quickly at the stairway. Grandfather Prescott was upstairs and in his room. I gestured toward the back of the house and went out the back door. Dressed in a white T-shirt and white shorts, he was at the foot of the short stairway.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“My mother and Claudine said they saw an ambulance in your driveway when they came home this afternoon. I wanted to come over earlier, but I was afraid of getting you into trouble. When I saw you were only with your grandfather, I concluded something had happened to your grandmother. I waited for him to go upstairs.”

“How long were you there?”

He looked at his watch. “Close to an hour. What’s happening?”

“My grandmother had a stroke.”

“Oh. Too bad, I think.”

“It is too bad, Mason. I once told you I didn’t hate them.”

“Right. Sorry. Well, what do they think will happen?”

“We don’t know yet. We’ll go over in the morning.”

“Who’s worse, your grandmother or your grandfather?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I should drop by and only he knows, would that be bad?”

“I don’t know. There’s too much going on right now. Let’s wait,” I said.

“Well, I just wanted you to know I’m here for you. So is Claudine. Whatever we can do to help you, we’ll do. Just ask.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have to go right back in, or can we talk some more?”

“I should go in,” I said.

He stood in the dark looking up at me. I could feel his disappointment. Maybe I was feeling my own, but there was something more, some other vibration in the air between us.

“You don’t go upstairs to sleep, do you?” he asked.

“What?”

“I’ve . . . I’ve been at the window more than I admitted,” he confessed. “I saw your grandparents go up to bed, and then you went somewhere downstairs, but I don’t see any windows other than in the kitchen, the living room, and the dining room. There’s a window in a bathroom.”

“You shouldn’t have been such a spy, Mason. It’s not nice.”

“I know, but I really like you, Elle. I just wanted to know more about you, about what was happening. I’m sorry.”

“I sleep in a room downstairs, yes,” I said.

“Without any windows?”

“It has an air vent.”

“But this house surely has another bedroom upstairs.”

“I can’t talk about it right now. It’s just too much!” I cried. “You shouldn’t have spied on me. Go home. I’ll see you when I can,” I said, snapping at him, and turned around quickly to go into the house.

After I closed the door behind myself, I stood there fighting to catch my breath. Contradictory feelings were twisting and knotting around each other inside me. Was I upset at Mason for taking such liberties and observing us like that, or was I upset at his discovering how I had been living? Was I embarrassed or angry? Did I want to drive him away or welcome his sympathy and comfort? I wanted to hurt him, but almost immediately, I regretted even having the feeling.

He hadn’t come to be a Peeping Tom. He had seen me naked. Surely he wasn’t like that. He was concerned about me. I shouldn’t have treated him that way. My regret brought tears to my eyes. I spun around and opened the back door again, hoping he was still there, perhaps standing stunned but hoping I would be upset with myself.

“Mason?” I called, and waited for him to appear. He didn’t. There was only the darkness, the starlight silhouetting the trees, and the far-off sound of a car horn. All the birds were asleep. Even the owls were silent. I felt as if I had driven away all of nature.

After a few more moments, I backed up and closed the door again. It wasn’t going to be easy falling asleep tonight, I thought. I returned to the living room, gathered up my painting, the easel, and the supplies, and brought it all back to my room, my dreadful room. I hated the very sight of it.

“It’s all your fault,” I told the baby Jesus, and then I felt stupid for doing that.

Exhausted, I prepared for bed and crawled into my corner of the darkness. Even so, I lay there with my eyes open for a long time. I had never felt secure about my future. If anything, I felt like someone or something just drifting without any purpose or direction. I did well with my homeschooling but always wondered what it was for. Even my interest in art seemed futile. Who would see anything I did?