Lesley Kagen: Tomorrow River

Even though the fencing out back is missing boards and all three stories of the house need more than a touch-up of white paint, as I look down upon it this morning, no matter what anybody says, I think our home is still tiara-wearing gorgeous. It’s a little alarming, though. How fast something tarnishes if you don’t keep it polished. Mama’s been gone less than a year.

Our fort is well stocked. We got feather pillows, a ruined chiffon scarf, and sleeping blankets. My stargazing binoculars hang from a nail and there’s almost always a tin of pecan fudge that I make for my sister, who mostly eats sweets these days. Always close at hand are our matching flashlights that we got on our last birthday. The Carmody twins will be twelve on the one that’s coming up on August 15th. Off in a corner, there’s a little altar that Woody set up. It’s just a rusty coffee can with a plastic statue of Saint Jude resting on top and a couple of cut-off candles below, but she adores it. My sister still believes in all that holy baloney. Not me. I don’t bother kneeling down to the patron saint of lost causes anymore. It hurts too bad in more ways than one.

We also got a saved-from-the-trash record player, but it’s gathering dust. We don’t have any electricity up here. I tried running extension cords from the house but came up short, so Mama’s soundtrack albums don’t get played. Woody likes staring at the shiny covers, though, especially South Pacific, which I’d say is her all-time favorite.

There’s also some of our missing mother’s precious books held in a neat row by a shank bone that I got for our dog, Mars, who like his planetary namesake had one hell of a chip on his shoulder. He is also missing. I picked the bone up from the butcher to fool my critter-loving sister into thinking that dog might turn back up.

And, of course, we’ve got art adorning the walls. My constellation map is tacked to the fort’s broad boards and hanging right next to it there’s a mostly black-and-white family portrait that was taken in more carefree days. We’re in the wild lily field that our place is named after. We were having a picnic. Mama used to pack up a basket with pimento cheese sandwiches and yellow Jell-O and we’d race out to the field laughing and shouting at one another the way all families do, “Last one there’s a rotten egg.” After our tummies got full, the four of us would go for a dip in the creek, which I remember being a lot warmer than it is now. Papa would flirtatiously splash Mama and she’d giggle and splash him back and he’d take turns giving Woody and me piggyback rides until we all got soaked to the bone and that was the best of times.

When I wasn’t paying attention the way I should’ve been, my sister took her crayons to the picnic picture. Drew wavy yellow lines through our mother’s hair, dotted green on her eyes, and colored her cheeks real rosy. Mama looks like a flower blooming in a patch of weeds in that snapshot now. Woody can stare at it for hours, but I’ve got to chew Rolaids if I look at it too long, so I just don’t.

Like a jarring alarm clock, the screen door of the house squeaks open below.

“I saw ya duck down, don’t think I didn’t, Shenny. Get down outta that tree right this minute.”

That’s our housekeeper, Louise “Lou” Jackson, going off like that on the back porch.

She just got done dragging herself over from the creekside cottage she shares with Mr. Cole Jackson, who is Lilyfield’s caretaker and, through no fault of his own, also her uncle. Every morning about this time Woody and I can count on this kind of rude awakening.

“You two hear me?” she roosters.

I don’t want to call back, but she won’t let up until I do. Lou has become one of those unrelenting-in-their-personality types of people. “Not only can we hear ya, so can the rest of Rockbridge County,” I shout. “Includin’ those born without ears.”

“Get down here ’fore I change my mind about feedin’ your sassy mouth,” she yells, letting go of the screen door with a slam.

I lie back down next to my sister on the fort floor. Press my tummy into the scoop of her back. When she’s curled up like this, it’s about the only time she seems like her old self, so half of me doesn’t want to shake her by the shoulder that matches mine down to the freckles. The other half of me knows that we’ve got to get a move on. We’ve got important work to do.

“I told Lou yesterday to make bacon and flapjacks. You’ll like that, won’t you?” I ask her, even though I’m fairly certain she won’t answer me. I mean, she could sass me back one of these mornings, “Stop bein’ so silly, Shen. You know I adore bacon and flapjacks.” That’s what she would’ve said before Mama disappeared. But these days, no matter how much I yell or beg or promise to rub almond cream on her hands for two weeks straight, my sister will not say one word. Woody’s gone mute on me.

“You know what today is?” I nuzzle my face into her hair that smells more like a penny than Prell . “It’s the tomorrow I was tellin’ you about last night.” Nudging her onto her back, I lick my pinky finger and smooth down her pale eyebrows. “This morning we’re going to jump right in. Start looking for her in earnest.” My eyes wander down to Woody’s bare legs. One of the Band-Aids I put on her knees after Papa let us out of the root cellar this morning is hanging by a thread.

Last night was particularly awful.

We fell asleep in our room and shouldn’t have. Because I got woke up to our father weaving over my sister’s side of the bed, growling, “I order you to talk to me.”

I wasn’t sure how long he’d been at it, but it’d been long enough that he’d ripped to shreds the chiffon scarf that Woody sleeps with. My twin was beside herself, grasping for it. It’s the only thing left of Mama’s that smells like her.

I reached for her and said, “Hushacat… hushacat…” without even thinking, and that’s when Papa blew up.

“Cease and desist!” he said, lunging for me and dragging me by my ankle off the edge of the bed. “Don’t you tell her to hush.”

“But I wasn’t telling her-” Hushacat is one of our twin words. It means “Everything’ll be all right no matter how bad it seems at the present time.” But Woody… she must not have heard me because she leaped on Papa’s back and he flicked her off and she landed on the wood floor next to me.

“Stand!” he shouted down at us.

Trying to pull her up with me, I warned, “Woody… please… you gotta do what…” But then Papa slapped me on the back real hard because he was so far gone. Mumbling and cursing and smelling so bad from the vomit on his judge’s robe, he chased us out of our bedroom, down the front staircase, and through the back door, straight to the side of the house.

I kept swearing to him the whole time, “I didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t telling her not to talk. I was just trying to comfort her.”

The night grass was cool on our bare feet, the moon half full when he jerked up the latch. I could hear the Calhouns’ hounds barking from across the creek. “March,” he commanded, flinging open the root cellar doors.

Woody ran right over to her corner, and knelt down on the sandy floor like she’s supposed to, but I only went down the first crumbling step, still hoping I could persuade him. “Sir… I-”

He said through clenched teeth, “If your sister doesn’t speak soon, Shenandoah, mark my words, I’ll… I’ll send her off the way your grandfather wants me to.”

“Your Honor? Please?” I said, reaching out to him.

I thought he was going to give in because he took my hands in his, but then he bent my fingers back and pushed me down the rest of the steps. “This… it’s for your own good,” he said, and then the cellar doors banged shut and the padlock snapped closed and it was so dark.