Childhood
A story inspired by the play Antigone.
“Well, I never told my husband about that mailman. Oh, it still haunts me to this day, but what can I do? It would kill my poor Stanley to know. And my children! What would they think of their mother?” Mamie droned on and on. Old age had driven her back into the past. She had a kind one, at least, a past that didn’t mind being bothered.
Isabelle Rex sat old and gray to the side. She was always silent these days, like she was waiting for death. The workers in the home often remarked that she never seemed to be listening, yet she was always observant. Not even the most nimble prankster could break her serene exterior. Mamie wondered if within her tides still crashed. Isabelle was a mystery to all but herself.
“Say dear, what about you? Tell me about growing up in Tennessee before the cars took over.” Mamie suddenly stopped her trek back into her younger decades and asked Isabelle.
Mamie had been in the home for a while now. She had figured out the mood of every room and the smile of every flower, but there was something about Isabelle that she just couldn’t piece together. At least, not by herself.
“Me? My story’s long.”
Isabelle said staring out the window onto the freshly mowed lawn. Isabelle liked to look out, as though she could see some kind of hidden gem that eyes other than her’s were blind to.
Mamie smiled, “well good, it’s not like there’s much else to do.”
A small reminiscent smile broke on Isabelle’s now wrinkled face, as she contemplated thoughts that hadn’t been alive for a very long time. “Well, where do I begin?”
Mark Twain dubbed my youth “the gilded age,” where life was nothing but a thin layer of gold. Truthfully, my childhood was quite blessed. I danced with bees and sang with brooks; I read poetry and painted watercolors. Yes, the black smoke of the Pittsburgh mills hadn’t quite made it to my sweet countryside. Woes could not catch me and joy seemed abundant, for what could woe and not please a blessed young girl, who had no fear of hunger or sickness. Those were the days when the sun poured gold onto the gardens of Thebe House, and the moon shone like jade in the rich night sky. My days were like butter then.
[sigh] my family was an odd one. Father was so gray and old and stern. His skin, carved by his years into creeks and canyons, was so rough and hard. They say he was poor once, and that he worked on a rich man’s mill somewhere in some city. Mother was young but not lively, comely but not beautiful. She was always frowning and silent. Sometimes, when I passed by her bedroom door, I would hear her weeping, like her heart would break at any moment. I used to wonder why she married my father, but that was a lesson soon taught to me.
Before I was born, my father had a son, not by my mother, of course. No one spoke of Oscar’s mother. There were no photographs of her. They had been too poor then. Poor Oscar was so thin and pale. He was silent too, but not like my mother. She was silent out of anguish. He simply had nothing to say. My little sister Annabelle used to joke that he was actually a ghost. After all, he never spoke to us even when we spoke to him; he cowered in the corner of every room he was in; and nobody seemed to remember him for anything. When there were great winds blowing outside on our corn fields and father ordered Oscar to go out, darling Annabelle even worried that he’d be blown away and we’d never see him again.
[sigh]. But we always saw him again.
Oh dear, darling Annabelle. She was beautiful, you know. Her mounds of thick brown hair swished back and forth when she ran across the garden. Her fair complexion almost reflected the early spring sun. And her smile. Her charming, dazzling smile. Yes...she was far prettier than I, but I never envied her. She was my pride and joy...my pearl. Annabelle was a child. Her heart was always hot for chilly things.
Father became ill one day. His voice cracked and his breaths weak. We seemed to grow even older in those days. He never left the house after, but his gaze was always far away. He had Annabelle’s eyes. Her warm chestnut eyes.
A while after father’s ailment was announced to the family, Oscar came home from Brazil. Father had sent him there, hoping he would grow into a man, but when he came home all I saw was the same thin boy only tanned. His eyes still darted nervously about the room when you spoke to him, and he always seemed to feel embarrassed for something. Annabelle and I hardly spoke to him. But in those days, I thanked heavens that he was back. Mother finally seemed happy. She left her room after breakfast and walked in the gardens speaking to Oscar. She seemed happy for once, and I was glad.
I remember one day, when I had left my governess secretly and roamed aimlessly in the garden, I heard mother’s voice in the shadow of the great oak on the furthest end of my father’s garden. I ran to her and peaked behind a small rosebush. She was there with Oscar, a magnificent smile on her face. He held her hand and kissed is gently. Her face blushed to the color of the roses that hid me from view. I was still young, but even then I knew havoc would come.
Weeks later, mother sobbed again. It was like walking on shattered glass. Annabelle cried as well, if only because mother cried so horribly. Young children do feel so helpless when when their parents are lost in emotion. At the other end of the hall, father yelled at Oscar. He was short of breath with each syllable he uttered. I could almost hear his ribs crack and crumble under the weight of his anger. His voice was growing more strained, but he persisted. Oscar said nothing, or nothing I could hear. Annabelle and I waited for what seemed like eternity in that hall, listening to the rain and thunder crash and roar, but then all of a sudden there was quiet. The sort of quiet that comes too quickly and too completely. The sort of silence you wish noise could replace. Oscar ran out of father’s bedroom, beads of cold sweat trickling from his forehead to his now ghostly white cheeks.
Father had gone to where he was always gazing.
Oscar fell ill after the funeral, as though father’s malady had latched itself onto him. His gaze also turned to a far away place. Mother wailed through the long nights and sobbed through the cold days.
After father left, summer left also.
Mother’s belly swelled large as the months achingly passed by. She never left her bedroom now, and nor did Oscar leave his. Annabelle was a sensitive child. She was shrouded in the darkness of Thebe House. I held her at nights as her tears rocked her to sleep, and I steered her away from mother’s barred door. Those days were haunted, not by the dead but by the living. I longed for silence that day in the corridor, but then, in that moment, I prayed for sound so loud it could strike me deaf.
One day, the ghostly silence was finally broken. Oscar had left the house for weeks and not returned, and when he did he was drunk. I could smell the intoxicating liquor from his breath a mile away. Mother rushed from her room for the first time in months, but Oscar shook her away. He yelled at her like father did. Oscar was so like father now, his voice was cracked and hollow; his eyes far away; and how breathless he was even when he was still. He blamed her for everything. He called her the witch that killed his father. Her face turned the color of the nightgown that covered her belly. Oscar broke, leaning against the dark mahogany table where we dined each morning. His eyes firmly directed at the head, where father had sat not long ago. Mother reached to him again. I wondered that she hadn’t noticed Oscar was not truly before her anymore. His eyes filled with venomous will, and, before anyone could stop him, he threw the glass wine bottle in his hand onto the table. In but a moment, scarlet liquid ran criss-cross between emerald shards of glittering glass. Mother flinched and flung her self back, grabbing the back of a high-backed chair for support. Oscar wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle. The ends were jagged and sharp like the pointed ends of knives the cook used. Mother shrieked. Oscar ran the sharp knife-like ends straight through his paper-like body. He fell onto to table as red hot blood gushed out of his veins, spreading itself on his dirty linen shirt. His blood mixed with wine on the table. You couldn’t tell where blood ended and wine began. It wouldn’t of mattered anyway.
I hadn’t even realized how long it had been since father’s funeral. I had grown out of my funeral dress and Annabelle had grown into it.
