“Lorelei! What are you doing out here?”
“I fell out of my window,” I said, moaning and rubbing my shoulder.
She hurried down to me and seized me at the back of my neck. “Why would you fall out of a window?”
“You woke me up, and I wanted to see what was going on. Who was that man? Why did he scream? Why was Daddy carrying him into the house? What happened to him?”
“Quiet,” she ordered.
She marched me forward, waited a moment at the front door, and then opened it. She pushed me in, but as we turned toward our bedrooms, I looked up toward the top of the stairway. Daddy was leaning over the young man. He looked as if he was kissing him on the neck and shaking his body the way I might shake a rag doll.
“What’s Daddy doing?” I asked Brianna.
Daddy heard me and started to turn our way.
“I told you to be quiet,” Brianna said. She lifted me at the waist and hurriedly carried me down the hallway and back to my room, where Mrs. Fennel was waiting at the door. The sight of her standing there looking even more furious than Daddy had looked frightened me even more.
“You fool,” she told Brianna. “How could you let this happen?”
“I didn’t let it happen. She leaned too far out of her window and fell.”
She ripped me out of Brianna’s arms roughly. “Go to your room.”
“But what about the car?”
“I’ll do what has to be done,” Mrs. Fennel said. “As always. I’m the one left to look after the messes you and your sisters cause.”
“I didn’t do anything. I…”
“Go,” Mrs. Fennel said. Then she took me into my room and slammed the door shut on Brianna. I was able to glance back at her before it closed. She looked even more terrified than I felt.
I started to cry. Mrs. Fennel ignored that, as usual, and slammed me onto my bed. It was always hard for me to believe that anyone who was as slim as she was had such strength in her arms, but I often caught her lifting heavy things, things I imagined most men would have trouble lifting.
“Stop that crying instantly.”
“I didn’t mean to fall out the window. It just happened. What… who is that man? Why is Daddy carrying him on the stairway? Daddy looked so big and angry.”
She stared down at me for a long moment. There was something about her look, her posture, the way her anger subsided, that told me she wasn’t just going to leave me wondering about it. I quickly caught my breath, flicked the tears off my cheeks, and sat up a bit, folding my hands in my lap.
“You must never tell anyone about that young man or any young man who is brought here,” she began.
I was afraid to ask why not, afraid she would simply turn and walk out, but how could I tell anyone anything anyway? I had no friends.
“I can’t tell anyone. I don’t know anyone,” I said.
Very rarely did I see her smile, especially at something I had done or said, but she smiled that time. “You’re very intelligent for your age, Lorelei,” she continued. “Obviously more intelligent than your older sister, maybe both older sisters.”
That took my breath away. A compliment from Mrs. Fennel? And now, when it seemed I had done something terrible? I wasn’t sure how to react or what to say.
“I expect you will be able to understand a little more at an age younger than your sisters were able to understand, so I’ll tell you more.” She then did something she never had done. She sat on my bed and took my hand into hers. “You’re all very special, because you and your sisters can keep your daddy strong, healthy, and alive. You want to do that very much, don’t you?”
I nodded, still afraid to speak, to utter a sound that might stop her.
“From time to time, your Daddy needs something young men have. For him, it’s only young men, virile young men. What that means exactly is something I’ll explain to you when you are a little bit older, but for now, you must understand that your sisters will bring him what he needs, and someday you will, too. Your daddy will love you even more than he loves you now. That would make you very happy, wouldn’t it?”
I nodded.
“When you go to school, you must never tell anyone about this. You must never talk about us at all, in fact. Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll remind you.”
“I wouldn’t tell,” I said.
“Good. That will be enough for now. Let’s get you back to sleep.”
She rose, and I crawled back under my blanket. She leaned over to tuck me in, which, again, was something she rarely had done.
“Is Daddy angry at me?” I asked. Despite what she had told me, whether Daddy was angry at me now was still the most important thing to know as far as I was concerned.
“No, not you,” she said. “Tomorrow, he will be sleeping most of the day, so don’t disturb him.”
“Why does he have to sleep so much tomorrow?” I asked, and that was when she told me, “Digestion.”
I wondered if the commotion had awakened Ava and if she would be asking me questions tomorrow. I also wondered why Mrs. Fennel and apparently Daddy would be so angry with Brianna. What had she done? It wasn’t her fault that I fell out of the window. It would be a while before I would learn and understand all of it, of course, but I was able to pick up something more when I heard Brianna talking to Mrs. Fennel about it the following day.
They didn’t know I was listening. It was morning, and I was working on the math problems that Brianna had given me to do. Mrs. Fennel came in, and the two of them looked at me and then stepped into the hallway just outside the living room. I moved closer to the door. I knew they were going to talk about something very important. Whenever they looked at me first and then moved farther away from me, I knew some secret was possible to pluck from the tree of secrets that grew at the center of our lives.
“How could you bring someone like that to your father, Brianna? A married man?”
“He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and he came on to me so fast and furious that I thought he was an easy catch. I don’t see why Daddy’s blaming me for not knowing he was married.”
“If he was married, he must have had a wedding ring.”
“I guess he took it off when he went whoring. The creep. Now I’m glad he was the one I brought here last night.”
“Sometimes, when they take off their rings, they still have that white band on their skin,” Mrs. Fennel said. “You should know that.”
“The Underground doesn’t have what you would call a well-lit bar.”
“You don’t need a well-lit bar to see what you have to see,” Mrs. Fennel retorted.
Brianna was quiet for a moment. “So what if I saw it? That didn’t necessarily mean he was married. He could have been recently divorced,” she said. “Daddy will realize that, too, right?” She sounded so afraid.
“That doesn’t matter. You should have found that out first. You know as well as I do, better even, that it makes everything more complicated when you take a married man.”
“I know that,” Brianna said.
“Apparently, you didn’t last night,” Mrs. Fennel said.
Brianna was quiet again.
“Anyway, you shouldn’t have had him pull up so close and argue where you could be heard and wake Lorelei.”
I knew now that they would be talking about me, so I listened even harder.
“I didn’t think she would be awake and hear enough to get out of bed. Who could imagine she would fall out of a window?”
“Why did you bring her into the house so quickly?” Mrs. Fennel asked. “She saw your father with him on the stairway.”
Brianna sighed deeply. “I was just… so flustered,” she said. “She fell out of a window!”
“Stop whining about it. You’ll wake your father.”
Brianna lowered her voice. “Talk about stupid. How could she be so stupid, even at four?”
“How could she be so stupid? Why didn’t you wait longer, give your father the time he needed, befor
e you brought her back into the house?”
“I was flustered. I never saw Daddy in such a rage,” Brianna said. I’d never heard her sound so frightened. “I didn’t think clearly. My brain was a blur. All I could think about was getting her back into her room.”
“Did Lorelei ask you anything this morning?”
“Nothing,” Brianna said. “I think she was still too afraid to ask me about anything.”
“You can thank me for that. I spoke to her last night and calmed her down.”
“What did she say she actually saw?” Brianna asked.
I drew closer. What did I actually see? Would Brianna explain it now?
“Enough,” Mrs. Fennel said. “Too much, for now I guess you won’t be your father’s best daughter after all.”
Brianna was silent. I heard Mrs. Fennel walk off, and I moved back to where I had been, but Brianna was in the room too quickly. She seized me at the shoulder and spun me around.
“Were you listening to my conversation with Mrs. Fennel, Lorelei? Were you eavesdropping, spying on us?”
I just looked at her.
“You’d better not say anything more about this to Daddy, or we’ll both hate you, Lorelei, both me and Mrs. Fennel. Forever.”
I didn’t have to say anything to Daddy. He could keep hundreds of secrets from us, but it was very hard for any of us to keep one from him. Brianna knew that better than I did, especially back then. As Mrs. Fennel had said, Daddy was furious at her about the man she had chosen to bring home to him. A day later, I overheard him telling her that she had been very careless. He didn’t yell, but he warned her that she couldn’t make another mistake like that. I was surprised to hear her crying. I had never seen either her or Ava cry.
For nearly a month afterward, Brianna was more than just sorry and sad about Daddy’s being angry with her. She moved about as if she was constantly terrified. I saw the way she avoided Daddy and Mrs. Fennel whenever she could. She was like a whipped puppy. She spent more time alone in her room. Still blaming me for everything, she would give me stabs of fury when she was teaching me, but they were instants, and she was very careful not to get me crying. She was just as frightened of failing to do for me what she was supposed to do as she was of anything else. I was tempted to complain about her nasty looks, but I sensed that would make her more furious with me. Anyway, I had learned early on that sisters like us didn’t tell on each other. Loyalty.
I tried not to look at or speak to Daddy any differently, but Daddy could easily read my thoughts and tune in to my feelings. One day not long afterward, he decided to take me aside and tell me more. Whenever Daddy isolated one of us for some special time with him, the rest of us were jealous. I was sure that was true for Ava and Brianna, even though Brianna had less reason now. Daddy was doing this only because of the mistake she had made.
He held my hand, and we walked out to the gazebo behind our house. It was a much colder afternoon than the previous one. I wore my winter coat, but Daddy wore only his turtleneck black knit shirt. Neither the cooler air nor the sharper breezes bothered him. He was comfortable and relaxed.
“Let’s just sit here a while and talk,” he said when we stepped into the gazebo. He buttoned the top button on my coat. “Warm enough?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good.” He smiled at me and looked out at the woods. “Most of the leaves are already gone. Earlier this year,” he muttered, and shook his head as if someone had made a great mistake.
“The trees died again?”
“No, not died. They’re just hibernating like bears.”
“Did you see ever see a bear here, Daddy?”
He smiled. “A few times.”
“You weren’t frightened, though, right?”
“No, it was the bear who turned and fled.” He took my hand and held it between his as he leaned forward, his eyes seeming to grow larger as he gazed into my face. “Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about what happened the other night.”
“It wasn’t Brianna’s fault that I leaned out of the window too far,” I said quickly.
“You’re under Brianna’s wing right now. It’s always the fault of the person in charge.”
“Even accidents?”
“Even accidents. Everything is preventable if enough thought and preparation are committed. Don’t worry. She’s learned an important lesson. You did her a favor.”
“I did? What favor?”
“Never mind all that for now. Let’s get back to what you saw, Lorelei, okay?”
I nodded.
“Remember when I brought you out here with me in the spring and we watched a robin plucking worms and bringing them up to her nest?”
“You boosted me up, and I saw the baby birds.”
“Right. The mother was bringing them what they needed to live and grow.”
“I remember.”
“Well,” he said, keeping his hands tightly around mine. Mine were a little cold, but his were so warm that mine quickly felt better. “I’m not a baby, but I need what I need to live and grow brought to me periodically, too. Periodically,” he continued before I could ask, “means once every month in this case.” He smiled.
“Mrs. Fennel told me. Virile young men,” I said, and he laughed.
“She said that? Yes. I need what’s in their veins, only what’s in their veins. It has to do with hormones, too, but don’t concern yourself now with what it all is exactly. Just know that it has to happen once a month. You’ll learn that’s like a woman having her period once a month.”
I shook my head. Brianna had shown me what periods were when I wrote my first sentence.
Daddy laughed again. “I see I’m confusing you. Usually, my girls are much older by the time they make this discovery, learn all this, Lorelei. Maybe I should have had Mrs. Fennel continue explaining things to you.”
He saw the disappointment on my face. This was the nicest, most private talk we had ever had, and I didn’t want it to end. I certainly didn’t want to learn it from Mrs. Fennel.
“But I think it’s better we have this little talk after all,” he quickly added, and I nodded, happy again. “You know I will do everything I can for you, don’t you? You know how much I love you.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good. You and your sisters love me, too, and you know your sisters would do anything they could to help me.”
I nodded.
“You will, too, won’t you, when your time comes to do it?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“That’s what it means to have a family, why your family has to be the first and most important thing to you. We’re a family. We’re not like other families, I know, but that doesn’t mean they are better than we are. You will have more. You will be happier than any other girl you know, Lorelei. I will make sure of that. I’m so happy we have you as part of our family,” he added.
My eyes filled with tears of happiness. He kissed my cheek and lifted me to hold me in his lap. The afternoon was folding into night. Shadows began to grow around us, but I wasn’t afraid. Right then and there, I thought I would never be afraid. Daddy was too strong. Even the shadows seemed to stop before they could get too close to us.
We sat there without speaking until I saw the first star. My head was against his chest. I could hear his heart beating strongly. I tried to make my heart beat exactly in sync with his. I wanted to breathe when he breathed, eat and sleep when he did. If I could have his love forever, I would never be unhappy, I thought. I would bring him what he needed to live forever, too. I would never want to see him sad or weak.
And nothing was more terrifying to me than the thought of him dying. Who would watch over me? I’d probably be returned to some orphanage.
No, I vowed. I would be his best daughter. I would do anything he needed or wanted.
I thought that then, and I thought it still today.
The real question was, would I think so tomorrow?
4
Inferno
<
br /> “Ordinarily, I would never go to one of these places,” Ava began as she drove us away from the house Friday night. I was so excited and happy that I could barely breathe, much less talk. I could see she wanted me just to shut up and listen anyway.
First, I was up and out later than I had ever been. We didn’t get started until nearly ten. Second, she made surprising changes to my hair and my makeup. From eight to ten, she oversaw my dressing and preparations. At the start, I thought my curly hair bothered her as much as it did me, but she showed me how to get it more fluffy, so that it had what she called “the bedroom look.” After that, she taught me how to do my eyes and, for the first time, let me wear some glitter. I thought we’d never get off the choice of lipsticks. She had brought in a good part of her own makeup kit. She didn’t want me wearing anything she was wearing, however.
“We want to stress differences between us,” she said, “not similarities.”
“Why?”
“It’s most important that none of the men we meet knows we live in the same house and are sisters.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll learn all this very quickly,” she began, “but when a young man chooses whom he will come on to, he thinks about the girl who’s with her.”
“Why?” I really felt like a little girl driving her parents crazy with the why questions, but I couldn’t help it.
“She could be something to overcome, an obstacle. He’s wondering, will these two separate tonight? Can I go off with one? Will she be willing to leave her girlfriend behind? Most girls feel guilty about that sort of thing. They make it almost mandatory that the guy find someone for their girlfriend first, and most times, that proves to be very difficult, if not impossible. While many men come alone to these places, almost no girls do. When one does, and when she’s attractive, she’s like a stronger magnet.”
“That’s why you always go out alone?”
She grimaced and shook her head. “Think about what you ask and say, Lorelei. How can I, can you, really ever have a girlfriend going out with us, much less have a girlfriend, a girl pal?”
I nodded.
I knew in my heart that we couldn’t, but I asked the question more out of hope that there was some way to have a trusted companion. So many girls in my school had best friends, and just watching them together made me jealous.