Gail Godwin - Flora

But after a ragged breath she went on. “The day after the lake, when I was resting with my feet up, Rosemary spoke to me. Only she sounded different. She sounded…”

A second ragged breath. “She sounded like a much older girl . ‘Mama,’ she said, ‘I want you to listen carefully. Are you listening?’

“I said ‘I always listen to you, you know that, deary.’ And then she said—in this voice of a much older girl—‘What I keep having to remember, over and over again, Mama, is that you are older now. You could have hurt yourself bad down there at the lake and there would be nobody to take care of you. I have to be more careful what I say. Maybe it would be better if I stopped saying anything.’

“‘Oh, don’t do that,’ I begged. ‘I look forward to it so much. Please don’t do that, deary. It would break my heart.’”

I waited until Mrs. Jones had picked up her polishing cloth and started in on the furniture, applying her respectful weekly swipe to Nonie’s purse on the dresser. She was her steady self again, the one about whom Nonie had said, “I admire that woman. Despite all her adversities, Beryl Jones manages to stay in control of her days.” But Beryl Jones seemed to have forgotten I was in the room.

“What did Rosemary say?” I finally burst out.

Mrs. Jones folded over the dust cloth to a clean place and began on a lampshade. The monolithic slabs of her cheeks lay perfectly still now. “I haven’t heard a peep from her since.” She gave an odd dry laugh. “But I’ve been talking a blue streak to her . I sat for the better part of two days with my feet elevated and I talked and talked. I said, ‘You know what, deary? I’m not the only one getting older. You’re growing up, too. I can tell it from your voice. You’re getting to be a responsible young woman who wants to take care of me and I love you for it.’ And, you know, I’ve felt her close by. And something else: the more I sat there and talked a blue streak, the more I could feel my ankle healing.”

TUESDAY EVENING WASthe mystery program Flora and I liked. The recent ones hadn’t been as good as the one about the little girl who turned into a mannequin, but we felt from the start that this one had potential. “I’m getting goose bumps already,” announced Flora, curled up at the other end of the sofa from me. From the cabinet radio’s big speakers came the sound of the ocean going in and out against mournful, eerie background music. A twelve-year-old boy, Julian, whose parents have died, has become the ward of his aunt who lives on an island. You could tell at once from the aunt’s voice that she isn’t going to be much comfort. She is an old maid wedded to her solitary schedule. She paints pottery with island scenes and sells it to the tourists, and her pet words are livelihood and self-sufficient . When she speaks of Julian’s parents it sounds as though they have gone and died on purpose so she would be stuck with him. But a boy his age is lucky to get to live beside the ocean, she keeps reminding him, and he will have to be self-sufficient and find ways to amuse himself during the day while she earns their livelihood.

Julian takes long walks against the mournful, eerie background music, missing his parents, until one day he comes upon a ruined beach cottage with DANGER and DO NOT TRESPASS signs all around it. An old fisherman tells him there was a bad fire years ago and then the property kept changing owners who never got around to rebuilding it and now it’s going to be torn down because it’s become a hazard for children who want to play in it.

Of course, as soon as the fisherman leaves, Julian picks his way through the ruins and discovers to his delight and surprise that there is an old couple living quite happily in one small undestroyed room. They are just as delighted and surprised by him. Their names are Ethan and Peg, and they can’t get enough of him. They want to know everything about his life and all about his parents, even the sad parts, and they tell him his aunt can’t help but come to cherish him, he is such a fine boy. They once had a fine boy his age who died in the fire when this cottage belonged to them. The boy’s name was Luke. Soon the cottage will be torn down and they will have to leave, they tell Julian, but it has been a privilege to stay on for as long as they have in this place where Luke was last alive.

Julian visits them every day. He is so eager to go out in the morning that his aunt grows curious and asks what he has been up to. She praises him for being so self-sufficient. He doesn’t mention the ruined cottage because she might forbid him to go there, but he says he is really getting to love the ocean and he hopes he’s not upsetting her schedule too much. And she says no, she’s getting used to having him around and then confesses in a softer, new voice, “In fact, Julian, I would miss you if you weren’t here.”

At this point Flora buried her face in her hands and wailed.

Then the day comes when he heads for the cottage and you can tell by the urgency of the music that this time it is going to be different. The cottage has been demolished at daybreak. The old fisherman is on the scene and Julian asks him, “Did they get the old couple out safely?” “What old couple?” the old fisherman asks. Julian tells him about Ethan and Peg, whose son, Luke, was killed in the cottage fire. “Son, are you joshing me?” asks the old man. He tells Julian that all three of those people were burned to death in that fire back in the 1890s, the son and the father and mother. Everybody on the island knew the story and Julian must have picked it up from some old-timer who got the facts slightly wrong.

“But I saw them,” says Julian. “I saw Ethan and Peg. We talked.”

“Sorry, son, that won’t wash with me. I grew up on this island and I remember how they looked when they found them. Try it on some newcomer.”

Then Julian describes the couple, and finally the old fisherman says, “Lord, if that don’t sound exactly like I remember them. Even down to his sideburns—they called them muttonchops in those days—and her way of asking people all about their business. But look here, son, there are some things beyond rational explaining. You say they were kind to you and got you through a bad time. Well, if I were you I would be grateful for that, but I would keep it to myself.”

THE THEME MUSICswelled, and now the announcer was reminding us that this program had been brought to us by a wine “made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.”

“Want to turn it off?” Flora asked. “Or would you like to listen to something else?”

“No, no, turn it off. And don’t turn any lights on.”

“Okay.” Flora wafted through the gloaming, and the orange fan-shaped panel on the big console went dark. Already the days were getting shorter. You could tell the difference between now and when we had listened to the program about the girl who becomes a mannequin. Then, as though she was intent on obeying my unspoken wishes as well, Flora returned to her end of the sofa and reassumed her knee-hugging position.

“Were you scared?” she asked.

“No. Were you ?”

“Not scared, no.” Her face merged into the surrounding blue dusk, but you could still make out the dark outline of her hair. She was close enough so I could smell her shampoo mingled with the perspiration at the nape of her neck. “I just thought it was perfect. How about you?”

“I did, too.”

As darkness filled the room, we floated companionably in our separate thoughts. I was still enveloped by the kind voices of Ethan and Peg, and even the softening aunt, and vibrating with the strange possibilities aroused in me by the program.