“That’s what I told Mae, but she says no. She trusts me. The only thing she’s got when her man isn’t around to play house is this child. About the only thing Mae knows is how to look pretty and how to grow flowers.”
“I thought you said you liked her.”
“I like her well enough, but anytime His Majesty decides to call, guess who gets stuck with her by-blow. It gets tiresome dragging a child around with you, especially one that doesn’t even belong to you.”
Merrick chuckled. “Well, why don’t we just toss her off the point? Maybe her mama and papa would see it as a favor. Might even give you a bonus.”
Sarah’s heart pounded.
“That’s not funny, Merrick.” Cleo’s sigh was heavy, annoyed. “I’d better wake her and put her to bed. She’s had a long day.” She nudged Sarah, who looked up in relief. Cleo took her hand. “Come on. We’re going up to bed now. Say goodnight to Mister Merrick.”
He grinned. “I’ll see you safely upstairs, ladies.”
When Cleo opened the door of her old room, Merrick held it ajar and came inside. Sarah looked at Cleo in alarm.
“What’re you doing?” Cleo whispered fiercely. “You can’t come in here with me. She’ll tell her mother, and I’ll lose my position.”
“I’ll take care of that.” Merrick bent and pinched Sarah’s chin. “You say anything to anybody about me being in this room with Cleo, and I’ll cut your little pink tongue out. Understand?” Sarah believed him, and nodded her head. He smiled slightly and let her go. She darted to the corner and crouched there, trembling and feeling sick. “See?” Merrick crowed gleefully. “Nothing to worry about. She won’t say a word about us to anyone.”
Cleo stared at him, her eyes wide. She looked upset, and Sarah hoped she would tell him to leave. “That was terrible cruel,” she said, looking at Sarah. “He didn’t mean it, lovey. He was only fooling. Don’t believe a word he says.”
“You believe it, girl. I wasn’t fooling at all.” He caught Cleo to him. “Cruel? Cruel would be putting me out when you know I just want to be with you.”
She pushed him away. He reached for her again, and she dodged him— but even Sarah could tell the effort was half-hearted. How could Cleo let this man near her?
“I know you, Cleo.” Merrick’s smile was half-mast, his eyes gleaming. “Why did you come all the way back to the Four Winds? Just to look at the sea again?”
“It’s in my blood as much as yours.”
Merrick caught hold of her and kissed her. Cleo struggled, trying to pull away, but he held her tightly. When she relaxed against him, he drew back enough to say, “More than that’s in your blood.”
“Merrick, don’t. She’s watching—”
“So what?”
He kissed her again, and she fought him this time. Sarah sat frozen in fear. Maybe he would just kill them both.
“No!” Cleo said angrily. “Get out of here. I can’t do this. I’m supposed to be taking care of her.”
He laughed. “I didn’t know duty was so important to you.” He let her go, but Sarah didn’t think Cleo looked glad at all. She looked like she was going to cry. Merrick smiled and turned his back to Sarah. “Come on, mite.”
“What’re you doing, Merrick?” Cleo demanded when Sarah scrambled to escape him.
“Putting her out. It won’t hurt her to sit in the hallway awhile. And don’t say no. I know you too well. Besides, she’ll be right outside the door. No one’s going to bother her.” He dragged a blanket and pillow from the bed and motioned to Sarah. “Don’t make me come get you.”
Sarah didn’t dare disobey.
She followed Merrick into the hallway, watching as he dumped the blanket and pillow in the darkened corridor. Something large scurried down the hall and hid in the darkness. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You sit right there and don’t move. If you don’t stay put, I’ll find you and take you down to the sea and feed you to the crabs. Understand?”
Sarah’s mouth was dry, and she couldn’t make any words come out. So she just nodded.
Cleo came to the doorway. “Merrick, I can’t leave her out there. I saw a rat.”
“She’s too small for the rats to bother with. She’ll be fine.” He patted Sarah’s cheek. “Won’t you? You stay out here until Cleo fetches you. Don’t you move from this spot until she does.”
“Y-yes, sir,” she stammered, her voice catching in her throat.
“See?” He straightened and turned Cleo around, pushing her back into the room. He closed the door firmly behind them.
Sarah heard Merrick talking and Cleo giggling. Then she heard other sounds as well and she was afraid. She wanted to run away from the sounds they made, but remembered what Merrick had said he would do to her if she moved. Terrified, she covered her head with the dirty blanket and pressed her hands over her ears.
The silence that followed grew heavy. Sarah peeked down the darkened corridor. She felt eyes watching her. What if the rat came back? Her heart was like a drum, her whole body wracked with its beat. She heard soft scratching and drew her legs in tight against her body, staring into the darkness, terrified of what lurked there.
The door clicked open, and she jumped. Merrick came out. She pressed herself back, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. He didn’t. He had forgotten she existed. He didn’t even glance at her as he went down the hall and stairs. Cleo would fetch her now. Cleo would bring her out of this dark corridor.
Minutes passed, then an hour, and another.
Cleo didn’t come out for her. Curling in the blanket and pressing against the wall, Sarah waited—as she had waited for Mama that day when Alex had come.
Cleo’s head ached when she awakened with the sunlight on her face. She had drunk too much ale last night and her tongue felt swollen. She stretched out her hand, but Merrick was gone. It was like him. She wasn’t going to worry about it now. After last night, how could he deny he loved her? She needed coffee. Rising, she washed her face and put on her clothes. Opening the door, she saw the child huddled in the cold hall, her blue eyes darkly shadowed.
“Oh!” Cleo said faintly. She had forgotten all about her charge. Fear and guilt attacked her. What if Mae found out she’d left her daughter in a cold dark corridor for an entire night? She picked Sarah up and carried her into the room. Her little hands were like ice, and she was so white.
“Don’t tell your mama,” she said tearfully. “It’ll be your fault if she lets me go.” She grew angry to be put in such a precarious situation, her position dependent on the silence of a child. “Why didn’t you come to bed last night the way you were supposed to? Merrick told you to come back inside when he left.”
“No, he didn’t. He said not to move until you fetched me,” Sarah whispered wretchedly, beginning to cry at Cleo’s anger.
“Don’t lie! I heard him! He didn’t say that at all!”
Sarah cried harder, looking confused and frightened. “I’m sorry, Cleo. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The little girl’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed. “Please don’t tell Merrick. Don’t let him toss me off the point or feed me to the crabs like he said he would.”
“Hush! Stop crying,” Cleo said, calming down. “Crying doesn’t do any good. Has it ever done your mama any good?” Filled with remorse, she pulled Sarah into her arms and held her. “We won’t tell anyone. We’ll keep it between the two of us.”
Merrick didn’t come back to the Four Winds, and Cleo got drunk that night. She put Sarah to bed early and went back down to the bar, hoping he would come in later. He didn’t. She stayed a little longer, laughing with other men and pretending she didn’t care. Then she took a bottle of rum upstairs. Sarah was sitting up in bed, wide awake, her eyes huge.
Cleo wanted to talk. She wanted to vent her spleen on Merrick. She hated him for breaking her heart again. She had let him do it to her so many times before. When would she learn to say no to him? Why had she come back? She should’ve known what would happen, what always happened
.
“I’m going to tell you God’s truth, little girl. You listen good.” She took a long drink and swallowed down the tears and misery and let the bitterness and anger rise and flow. “All men want to do is use you. When you give them your heart, they tear it to shreds.” She drank more, and her voice slurred. “None of ’em care. Take your fine papa. Does he care about your mother? No.”
Sarah dug frantically beneath the covers and plugged her ears. So the little princess didn’t want to hear the awful truth? Well, that was just too bad. Furious, Cleo dragged the blankets off her. When Sarah scrambled away, she grabbed her by the legs and dragged her back. “Sit up and listen to me!” She pulled the child up and shook her. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away. “Look at me!” Cleo raged, not satisfied until she obeyed.
Sarah stared at her with wide frightened eyes. She trembled violently. Cleo eased her grip. “Your mama told me to take good care of you,” she said. “Well, I am going to take care of you. I’m going to tell you God’s truth. You listen and you learn.” She let go and Sarah sat very still.
Glaring at the little girl, Cleo dropped into the chair by the window and took another swig of rum. She pointed, trying to steady her hand. “Your fine papa doesn’t care about anyone, least of all you. And all he cares about your mother is what she’s willing to give him. And she gives him everything. He shows up when he pleases, uses her, then rides off to his fine house in town with his aristocratic wife and well-bred children. And your mother? She lives for the next time she’ll see him.”
She watched Sarah inch back until she was pressed tightly against the peeling wall. As though that would protect her. Nothing protected a woman from the cold hard facts. Cleo gave a sad laugh and shook her head.
“She’s such a sweet stupid fool. She waits for him and falls on her face to kiss his feet when he comes back. You know why he went away for so long? Because of you. He can’t stand the sight of his own spawn. Your mama cries and begs, and what good’s it ever done her? Sooner or later, he’s going to get tired of her and toss her into the trash. And you with her. That’s the one thing you can count on.”
Sarah was crying now, and she reached up to wipe tears from her cheeks.
“Nobody cares about anybody in this world,” Cleo said, feeling sadder and more morose by the second. “We all just use each other in one way or another. To feel good. To feel bad. To feel nothing at all. The lucky ones are real good at it. Like Merrick. Like your rich papa. The rest of us just take what we can get.”
Cleo was having trouble thinking straight. She wanted to keep talking, but her eyelids were so heavy she couldn’t keep them open. She sank lower into her chair and rested her chin on her chest.
All she needed was to rest for a minute. That was all. Then everything would be better…
Sarah watched as Cleo kept mumbling, sagging deeper into the chair, until she went to sleep. She slept loudly, spittle dripping from the corner of her sagging mouth.
Sarah sat in the rumpled bed, shivering and wondering if Cleo was right. But deep inside of her, something told her she was. If her father cared, would he have wanted her dead? If Mama cared, would she have sent her away?
God’s truth. What was God’s truth?
They left the next morning. Sarah never once glimpsed the sea.
When they arrived home, Mama pretended everything was fine, but Sarah knew something was terribly wrong. There were boxes out, and Mama was packing her things.
“We’re going to visit your grandmother and grandfather,” Mama said brightly, but her eyes looked dull and dead. “They’ve never seen you.” She told Cleo she was sorry to dismiss her, and Cleo said that was fine. She had decided to marry Bob, the butcher, after all. Mama said she hoped Cleo would be very happy, and Cleo went away.
Sarah awakened in the middle of the night. Mama wasn’t in the bed, but Sarah could hear her. She followed the sound of her mother’s stricken voice and went into the parlor. The window was open, and she went to look out. What was Mama doing outside in the middle of the night?
Moonlight flowed over the flower garden and Sarah saw her mother kneeling in her thin white nightgown. She was ripping all the flowers out. Handful after handful, she yanked the plants up and flung them in all directions, weeping and talking to herself as she did. She picked up a knife and came to her feet. She went down again on her knees beside her beloved rose bushes. One after another, she cut the roots. Every last one of them.
Then she bent forward and sobbed, rocking herself back and forth, back and forth, the knife still in her hand.
Sarah sank down onto the floor inside and hid in the darkness of the parlor, her hands covering her head.
They rode in a coach all the next day and slept that night in an inn. Mama said little, and Sarah held her doll pressed tightly against her chest. There was one bed in the room, and Sarah slept contentedly in her mother’s arms. When she awakened in the morning, Mama was sitting at the window and running the rosary beads through her fingers as she prayed. Sarah listened, not understanding, as her mother repeated the same phrases over and over.
“Forgive me, Jesus. I did it to myself. Mea culpa, mea culpa…”
They rode another day in another coach and came to a town. Mama was tense and pale. She brushed Sarah off and straightened her hat. She took Sarah’s hand, and they walked a long, long time until they reached a tree-lined street.
Mama came to a white fence and stopped at the gate. “Lord, please, please, let them forgive me,” she whispered. “Oh, please, God.”
Sarah looked at the house before her. It was not much bigger than the cottage, but it had a nice porch and pots of flowers on the window sills. Lace curtains hung in all the windows. She liked it very much.
When they reached the door, Mama took a deep breath and knocked. A woman came to answer. She was small and gray and wore a flowered gingham dress covered by a white apron. She stared and stared at Mama and her blue eyes filled with tears. “Oh,” she said. “Oh. Oh…”
“I’ve come home, Mother,” Mama said. “Please. Let me come home.”
“It’s not that easy. You know it’s not that easy.”
“I’ve nowhere else to go.”
The lady looked at Sarah. “I don’t have to ask if this is your child,” she said with a sad smile. “She’s very beautiful.”
“Please, Mama.”
The lady opened the door and let them in. She showed them into a small room with lots of books. “Wait here and I’ll speak with your father,” she said and went away. Mama paced, wringing her hands. She paused once and closed her eyes, her lips moving. The lady came back, her face white and lined, her cheeks wet. “No,” she said. One word. That was all. No.
Mama took a step toward the door, and the lady stopped her. “He’ll only say things that will hurt you more.”
“Hurt? How could I be hurt more, Mama?”
“Mae, please, don’t…”
“I’ll beg. I’ll get down on my knees. I’ll tell him he was right. He was right.”
“It won’t do any good. He said as far as he’s concerned his daughter is dead.”
Mae swept past her. “I’m not dead!” The lady gestured for Sarah to stay in the room. She hastened after Mama, closing the door as she left. Sarah waited, hearing distant voices.
Mama came back after a while. Her face was white, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “Come on, darling,” she said in a dull tone. “We’re leaving.”
“Mae,” the lady said. “Oh, Mae…” She pressed something into her hand. “It’s all I have.”
Mama didn’t say anything. A man’s voice came from another room, an angry, demanding voice. “I have to go,” the lady said. Mama nodded and turned away.
When they reached the end of the tree-lined street, Mae opened her hand and looked at the money her mother had placed in it. She gave a soft broken laugh. After a moment, she took Sarah’s hand and walked on, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Mama sold
her ruby ring and pearls. She and Sarah lived in an inn until the money gave out. Mama sold her music box, and for a while they lived quite comfortably in an inexpensive boardinghouse. Finally, she asked Sarah to give back the crystal swan, and with the money they got for it, they lived a long time in a rundown hotel before Mama found and settled them for good in a shack near the docks of New York.
Sarah finally saw the sea. There was garbage floating in it. But still she liked it very much.
Sometimes she would go down and sit on the wharf. She liked the salt smell and the ships coming in loaded with cargo. She liked the sounds of the water lapping at the pillars beneath her and the seagulls overhead.
There were rough men at the docks and sailors who came from around the world. Some came to visit, and Mama would ask Sarah to wait outside until they left. They never stayed very long. Sometimes they pinched her cheek and said they would come back when she got a little bigger. Some said she was prettier than Mama, but Sarah knew that wasn’t true.
She didn’t like them. Mama laughed when they came and acted as though she were happy to see them. But when they went away, she cried and drank whiskey until she fell asleep in the rumpled bed by the window.
At seven years old, Sarah wondered if Cleo hadn’t been partly right about God’s truth.
Then Uncle Rab came to live with them, and things got better. Not as many men came to visit, though they still did when Uncle Rab didn’t have any coins to jingle in his pockets. He was big and dull, and Mama treated him with affection. They slept together in the bed by the window, and Sarah had the cot on the floor.
“He’s not too bright,” Mama said to her, “but he has a kind heart and he tries to provide for us. Times are hard, darling, and sometimes he can’t. He needs Mama’s help.”
Sometimes he just wanted to sit outside the door and get drunk and sing songs about women.
When it rained, he would go to the inn down the road to be with his friends. Mama would drink and sleep. To pass the time, Sarah found tin cans and washed them until they shone like silver. She set them beneath the roof leaks. Then she would sit in the quiet shack with the rain beating down and listen to the music the drops made plinking into the tins.