The Truth According to Us (50 page)

“See how handy it is, me almost dying of the flu?” he was saying. “You wouldn't have fit before.”

She burrowed, shivering, against him, breathing deeply of him
.

“What're you doing in there?” he asked, his arms coming around the woolen lump that was her
.

“I'm smelling you,” she replied, muffled
.

There was a pause. “Is it bad?” he asked
.

“No. No, it's nice.” She dug her chin into his chest
.

“Hey.” His arms tightened. “Stop that. Aren't your feet cold?”

“No. Yes. But I don't care. I like it in here.” She stepped onto his shoes
.

“Ow.”

“I'm going to stay in here forever.” Twin-tight against him, she listened to
his heart, his stomach, his bones. Boldly, she untucked his shirt and slipped her freezing hands up along his skin
.

“Jesus.” He stiffened and then slowly relaxed as her hands warmed. She stroked his back, her fingers roving his ribs, smoothing his shoulders, traveling the rippled ribbon of his spine. “Mmm,” he sighed. “I think your daddy would shoot me if he knew what you were doing right now.”

“I'm not doing anything wrong,” she whispered. She didn't tell that what she was doing was pretending she was him
.

Jottie marveled at this lost treasure, this wonder now restored to her. Hers again. Hers forever, never to be taken from her. Faster and faster, she pulled him to her, all of him hers again.

It was a while before she noticed she was hearing something, and even when she did, she thought it was a cat. She returned to Vause. But there it was again. Must be a big cat. Then she changed her mind. A possum? Two? Fighting? Dying? Maybe it was a dog. She had once heard a dog without a voice box try to bark, and this sounded the same, only louder. A dying dog? How long did it take a dog to die? This went on and on. Could it be a horse? Maybe someone had shot a horse and it had run away to her yard to die. That'll be a diversion, she thought. A dead horse in the front yard.

On and on it went. The girls slept like they'd been enchanted. Finally Jottie couldn't stand it any longer. Quietly, she rose from the bed and opened her door, then quickly pulled it to when she realized that the noise was louder in the hall. Emmett stood motionless beside his door.

“Is it a horse?” she whispered.

Minerva appeared, a white shape. “What in God's name is that?” she whispered.

Henry peered around her. “Everyone all right?” he murmured.

“It's Layla,” said Emmett quietly.

They all turned to look at Layla's door, tight shut and dark. Henry ran his hand over his face.

“That poor child,” breathed Minerva. She looked at Jottie.

Jottie watched the dark door for a moment. Then she shook her
head. “I can't. Not tonight.” She glanced back at her own room, where Willa lay.

Minerva nodded and withdrew, Henry beside her.

Jottie looked at Emmett. “Tomorrow, I'll start again. I'll take care of her, I promise.”

He nodded, and she opened her door and slipped inside. She knew he was still standing in the hall.

August 15, 1938

Dear Mother,

I can't come to your party for Lance. The deadline for my book is less than two weeks away, and I need to work every moment between now and then.

Kiss them both for me.

Love,

Layla

August 17

Layla,

Your mother's on the warpath, but I'm proud of you. Keep at it. There will be other parties.

Father

P.S. Check enclosed.

In 1898, Charles Canson Huddleston, plant manager of Columbia Woolens of Dunellen, New Jersey, sought a location for a new hosiery mill. Traveling west by train, he considered the relative merits of Hagerstown, Moorefield, and Cumberland before settling on Macedonia, which, as he wrote to the president of the company, impressed him by its “modesty, sobriety, and freedom from the taint of the union.” Huddleston's enthusiasm for Macedonia was soon

Layla looked up.

“Tested,” said Jottie.

“Tested
,
”
wrote Layla, and looked up again.

“Oh, honey, give it here.” Jottie took the pen from Layla's hand and began to write. For a time, the only sound was pen on paper.

Layla looked out the window.

Frowning, Jottie read what she'd written. “What's another word for garter?”

“I don't know,” said Layla. She glanced at her father's letter. “The only time in his life he's ever been proud of me, and it's a lie.”

“It's not a lie,” said Jottie. “You're working.”

“No. You're working.”

Jottie put her hand on Layla's. “You already wrote most of it. I'm just filling in here and there.”

Layla nodded. “Still. I'm lying. I'm pretending to be a writer.”

“Oh, honey. I bet every writer thinks he's pretending, even Ernest Q. Hemingway.”

“Ben and Father were right. I'm an idiot.”

Jottie put down her pen. “You're not an idiot. It wasn't your fault. Felix was after you from the minute he saw you, and if there's ever been a woman who could resist that, I haven't met her. You have plenty of company, if it makes you feel any better.”

There was a silence. Then Layla burst out, “Was he
trying
to make a fool of me?”

“No. No, honey. He just has no—no pity, I guess it is. He never has. I tried to warn you, but, well.” Jottie folded her mouth tight. “I wish I could have stopped him.”

“He didn't care about me, not for a second,” said Layla bitterly. “He doesn't care about anyone.”

Jottie sighed. “He does, though. He cares about the girls. He cared about Vause. He even cared about me. Just not as much as he cared about himself.”

“Oh, Jottie, I'm sorry!” Layla squeezed Jottie's hand. “I don't mean to be so self-centered. It's only—I feel like I don't know anything about anyone.”

Jottie nodded. “Felix has a real talent for making people feel that way.”

Layla put her head in her hands. “I should be locked up for my own safety.”

“That'd be a shame,” said Jottie. “A real waste.” She looked at the paper in front of her. “You think it's all right if I mention Daddy?”

Layla sighed. “He was the president of the company. You have to mention him.”

“It feels like showing off, but I guess you're right.” Jottie rubbed her nose and bent over the paper once more. “Twenty-eight years, he was there,” she murmured. Layla stared out the window.

When Emmett came in, half an hour later, Jottie looked up with an absorbed frown. “Do you remember when they started making women's hose?”

“What?” His eyes darted to Layla and back again.

“American Everlasting. When did they start making women's hosiery?”

“1917.”

“You're making that up.”

He smiled.

“1917,” she repeated, writing it down.

“Where're the girls?” he asked. “I brought a book for Willa.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Don't expect her to thank you.”

“I don't. I just brought it.”

“She'll talk when she's ready.”

“I know,” Emmett said mildly. “All right if I take Bird to Statler's?”

Jottie nodded.

“Should I ask Willa if she wants to come?”

“You can try. Don't get upset if she doesn't answer.”

“I won't, I told you.”

Layla's eyes followed him as he left the room in search of his nieces. “What about
him
?” she asked suspiciously.

Jottie looked up. “Who?”

“Emmett. Is he like Felix?”

Jottie smiled. “No.”

They thought I stopped talking because of Father. Even Jottie thought that. But it wasn't true. I stopped talking because I was exhausted. Every day, I got a little bit farther behind everyone else, until I felt like I could just barely see them in the distance, their backs turned toward me, small figures I thought I'd known before. It was clear that I'd never catch up to them. I was too tired.

Jottie thought that what Father had done had struck me dumb: how Father had stolen money from the mill and set it on fire and then lied about it, lied even to Jottie, and broken her heart. And that was terrible, his stealing and lying. I knew that. I knew it. But inside my secret self, where I would never talk about it, even if I could, I understood why he'd lied. I understood what it felt like when he saw the flames and realized that Vause Hamilton was going to die because of him, how he must have put his hand over his mouth to keep from crying out and how he didn't know what to do, so he ran. I could understand how his heart had hammered, how sick he had felt, like he was dying himself, because in one moment he had lost everything. And he had lied, I knew, because he couldn't bear for Jottie to hate him, he couldn't bear to lose the one last thing he had. I knew because I had done it, too. I
had lost everything, and I had ruined Father's life. I knew that if I had had just a minute more, I would have lied, I would have thought of a way, some way, to make Jottie know how much Vause Hamilton loved her without telling Father's secret. But instead I'd broken it all, and Father hated me, and every time I remembered his face when I told about the envelopes, I had to curl up into a ball, tighter and tighter, to make myself so small I'd disappear.