“What time is it? Did you need me to do something?” I asked her.
“No. I just wanted to see what you were doing. I see you’re taking advantage of this opportunity.”
“I’m tired.”
“You can sleep all day for all I care, Lorelei. I have to leave earlier to get Marla to school, thank you. We’re leaving.”
“I’m sorry, Ava.”
“Right.”
“Actually, I’m too nervous to sleep and too nervous to get up,” I said.
“Don’t overdo it,” she told me, smirking. “Daddy can see right through a false face, and you know how he hates dishonesty among us. I’ll be back after I pick up Marla at the end of her school day.”
“Okay.”
“Daddy and Mrs. Fennel will be home about then,” she said. She hesitated a moment and then walked out to take Marla to school and go to her own classes.
I rose slowly and stood before my clothes in the closet, trying to decide what to put on. Every little decision, whether it was what to wear, how to fix my hair, where to sit, what to read, literally anything I had to decide, was agonizing. I knew it all radiated from the one big decision I had to make that day: to call Buddy or not. I had no doubt that if I didn’t call him, he would surely eventually call me. I could leave my phone off, but later, if I forgot and turned it on while Ava or Daddy and Mrs. Fennel were home, it would signal a message they might hear, and they would want to know who was calling me.
The truth was that despite everything Ava had said, I wanted to call Buddy. I wanted to see him again. Maybe this was genuine love, or maybe it was simply a portal through which I could enter another world, the world I saw other girls my age enjoying. Ava and Daddy and even Mrs. Fennel held out the promise of a life in which I would enjoy everything anyone else enjoyed but ten times as much and forever. This was what my mysterious destiny would provide if I only lived up to my responsibilities as Daddy’s daughter. For us girls, this was the heaven that awaited. Neither Brianna nor Ava seemed to have any difficulty believing in it. Even my younger sister, Marla, was more devout than I was when it came to the promise of our futures. Why wasn’t I as trusting and as satisfied with the promise?
I wandered about the house like a confused particle of matter that had broken off and was floating through space with no clear direction or purpose. For a while, I tried to amuse myself by tinkering on the piano, but the long, deep silence before and after intensified my anxiety. For a few minutes, I toyed with my phone, teasing myself with turning it on and then quickly turning it off. The tension inside me made it seem stifling in the house, so I went out and around to the back, where I could sit on the patio and capture the warmth and promise of the strengthening late-morning sunshine.
We had nearly an acre of land, with the back being undeveloped woods. The excited twitter of baby birds caught my attention. It was coming from a leafy oak tree off to my right. I rose and walked to it to study the branches until I spotted the nest. Moments later, the mother swooped in with some worms in its beak. The baby birds grew even more excited. While I watched and listened, I recalled that afternoon when Daddy took me out to explain what Brianna had done when she had brought that young man to the house. Once again, I felt the strong love I had felt for Daddy that day. I remembered how safe he had made me feel when he held me. There was nothing in this world that could harm me as long as he was there to protect me. But what, I wondered now, was the price that I and my sisters ultimately paid for that security? What did we really sacrifice?
What had my mother sacrificed, and Brianna’s mother and Marla’s mother? According to what I had been told, Ava’s mother had lost her life, but what had caused the others to give up their babies? What had they risked for love and devotion? Did they feel so strongly and so passionately about their lovers that they were blind to the costs? They didn’t seem like teenagers who had sexual accidents. Maybe one of them was committing adultery. Maybe they all were. Maybe they were devout Catholics who had to have their babies but gave them away. Whatever the reasons, they suffered because of their passion.
Perhaps that was the difference between me and my sisters, I suddenly thought. They didn’t know the answers, either, but I did know how powerful our passions could be. And I knew only because of what I felt when I was with Buddy. From what I understood, my older sisters had never had this experience, and Marla would surely not have it, either.
But I had had it, and I still had it, I thought. Why should I just throw it away without fully experiencing it? We were all special in our own way. Maybe this was what
made me special. Determined now, I reached into my pocket and took out the cell phone to turn it on. The mother bird flew above me and off to the left to continue hunting for the food its babies needed. I watched it disappear, heard the babies crying for more, and then called Buddy. He really must have been keeping his phone close to his heart, because he picked up on the first ring.
“Lorelei?”
“Yes,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m sitting in the rear of my uncle’s house dreaming of you. I slept here last night,” he confessed, “on the sofa where you sat. It helped me to feel close to you again.”
“What about your classes? Didn’t you attend any today?”
“Nothing else seems to matter to me.”
“Now you’re making me feel bad,” I said. “You’re going to ruin your college grades.”
“Don’t feel bad. I can make up any time I’ve lost. In fact, if you come to me today, I promise I’ll work harder and be at the top of my class.”
I laughed. It took only seconds of hearing his voice to wash away my tension. There was something honest and sincere about him, and that not only relaxed me but gave me a sense of optimism. For me, Buddy proved that all boys weren’t what Ava portrayed them to be, prey or opponents. My conversations with Buddy didn’t have to be coy, and I didn’t have to be constantly on the defensive. There were lines I couldn’t cross, but Ava would never consider a simple walk on the beach with a boy as something desirable. She was, like Brianna, always the hunter. There would never be a we in Ava’s or Brianna’s vocabulary, but did that mean there could never be one for me either?
“Will you come?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. The sun was warmer now, the breeze softer, the sky a deeper blue. Darkness and fury awaited me later in the day. For a while, at least, I could have something pleasant and wonderful. Perhaps, I rationalized, it would help me to be stronger for what was to come.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m on my way.”
“Prayers answered,” he said. “I’ll wait out front.”