The Tender Years Read online

  But Francine bravely straightened her shoulders and blinked back the threatening tears. Without even a glance toward her errant sister she replied evenly, “I’m fine. I just … just am … amn’t hungry.”

  Chuckles followed the unusual contraction.

  “I’m not hungry,” corrected Clara softly.

  Francine lifted her head and looked at Clara. There had been no chiding in Clara’s words, and Francine had taken no offense. “I know the right words,” she said simply. “I just … got stuck.”

  “What do you mean—got stuck?” asked Danny with a grin.

  “Well …” said the small girl, “when I said am, then I couldn’t take it back.” She lifted two small hands, palms upward. “It was too late. But I couldn’t say am because I’m not. So I had to say amn’t.”

  The ripple of laughter following the words was full of affection. Their father reached out and laid a hand lovingly on the small girl’s head. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  The hand went from the crown of flaxen curls to the forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever.” He looked across the table at their mother as he spoke the words.

  Francine picked up her fork and began to eat her peas. Virginia knew they were her favorite vegetable. She seemed to wish to prove her point by starting with them.

  “Is Troy coming over this evening?” Belinda’s question was directed at Clara.

  “He can’t.” Clara’s voice held disappointment. “His father has him helping take inventory at the store.”

  “Then why the fancy cookies?” teased their father.

  Virginia peeked up just enough to catch a glimpse of Clara’s face. She was flushing slightly.

  “I thought I might just … just take a few over to the store around nine. By then, he’s always hungry. And his father. They’ll both be hungry.”

  “Don’t we get any?” asked Danny.

  “You’ll get your share. Don’t worry. I’ve already got a plate of them ready to go with our supper pudding.”

  Oh, groaned Virginia inwardly. My turn. They have talked to Danny, Rodney, Francine, and Clara. I’m the only one left. Here it comes.

  But it was to Danny that their father spoke. “You want to take a run out into the country on Saturday and let that hawk try his wings?”

  “What do you think, Mama?” was the boy’s reply.

  “I think it’s the weasel that should go,” responded Clara flatly.

  Their mother disregarded the remark. “I think your father’s right. I think the bird is anxious to fly.”

  Virginia looked up in time to see Danny’s nod. She knew that this was a struggle. He was always eager to get his little creatures back to the wild, but at the same time he was worried that they wouldn’t be able to make it on their own. He nodded his agreement, but his eyes held his uncertainty.

  “If he can’t fly, we’ll bring him back home,” assured Belinda.

  “But what if I can’t catch him again?”

  “Then I guess nothing else would catch him, either.”

  Danny pondered a moment, then nodded again.

  Francine had finished her peas. Virginia saw her turn her attention to the mashed potatoes, take a bite, and work them around in her mouth before trying to swallow. In spite of herself, she felt sorry for her young sister. She hated to try to eat when she had no appetite. She also was quite sure that Francine’s lack of appetite was due to concern that Mama and Papa would be upset when they discovered how late she had been from school. Francine, with her liquid eyes and tender heart, could not bear to see anyone get in trouble.

  It’s not fair, thought Virginia crossly. It’s not fair that she’s so … so prissy and fussy that I have to sit here and feel guilty just looking at her. If she’d just mind her own business….

  But Francine would not “mind her own business.” Her tender heart ached for everyone who ached. Cried for everyone who cried. Felt the pain of everyone who suffered pain. That was just Francine.

  But the thoughts brought no comfort to the heart of Virginia. Anger smoldered. Why was she born into a family of such goody-goodies? Clara with her cookie baking. Rodney with his tutoring. Danny and his pens of healing animals. And then Francine. Francine, who took on the whole world’s woes. It wasn’t fair.

  Virginia cast another nervous glance toward her father. When was he going to turn those probing eyes her way? When would her mother notice that something was indeed wrong? Why did the pair of them continue to play cat and mouse with her? Did they enjoy her torment?

  “Much homework tonight?”

  This question was hers. She knew it without even looking up.

  She nodded. Then she thought better of the unspoken response and shook her head. No. Truthfully she did not have much homework.

  “Mr. Adamson said that you stopped to chat on your way home,” spoke her mother. “He says he always enjoys your little visits.”

  Virginia could not keep her head lowered. Had Mr. Adamson also told her mother the time of day when she had stopped? But she saw no indication that the man had reported to her mother. The face before her was as serene as it had been engaged in conversation with each of her offspring.

  “He also said that—”

  Virginia felt the fear rise up in her throat. Now it’s coming.

  “—you kindly warned him to guard his poor old knees. He thinks you would make a good nurse.”

  Virginia let the air leave her lungs in a slow, relieved flow.

  “I’ve often thought that,” put in her father.

  Virginia was shaking her head. She did not want to be a nurse.

  “Well, we have lots of time to think about that,” continued her mother.

  “Lots of time,” agreed her father.

  They still think I’m a kid, fumed Virginia silently. And they don’t think I can make up my own mind. They think they have to decide for me. Well, I—

  “Danny, let’s check on that weasel,” her father was saying. Virginia knew that it was his way of dismissing the table. He laid aside his napkin, gave a nod to their mother, then turned to Clara. “Nice meal, Dumplin’.”

  Dumpling had been her father’s pet name for Clara since she had been a little girl. He still used it on occasion. Clara smiled and flushed her pleasure in response.

  They were all leaving the table. Leaving the table, and nothing had been said about her disobedience. For one moment Virginia breathed a sigh of open relief. Then her shoulders slumped. It would have been better to have been found out. At least then she could have taken her punishment and gotten it over with. Now she would be forced to carry it with her into the evening ahead. She hated that. Hated it. And there was Francine, big eyes turned upon her, fear still making her chin quiver.

  Virginia tossed down her napkin in disgust. Nothing was fair. Nothing. And it was her turn to do the supper dishes.

  The remainder of the evening did not go well. Virginia broke a cup while doing the dishes. She spilled cold tea on the kitchen floor when she went to empty the teapot, then got the hem of her dress wet when she knelt down to wipe up the mess.

  Her homework did not go any better. Her pencil lead broke as she worked through her arithmetic problems. When she went to her father’s small office to look for the pencil sharpener, it was not in its accustomed place. She blamed Rodney. He was always taking things off to his own room, as though he were the only one in the house who ever studied.

  She could hear voices in the backyard. Her father and mother were returning with Danny after having released the weasel. Francine had gone with them. Virginia was glad that the child was not following her around, looking soulful and anxious.

  “I hope he doesn’t go near Mr. Powell’s chicken coop again, or he might get another foot in the trap,” Francine was worrying.

  “He should have learned his lesson,” responded Danny.

  “But if he gets hungry and he knows there is food there …”

  Francine let the words hang on the evening air. Virginia fl
ipped back her long hair with one defiant motion. Surely the weasel wasn’t so stupid that he would walk right back into trouble again. Surely he now knew the traps were there.

  But then, as Francine said, if he was hungry, perhaps he would be willing to take the risk. Virginia shrugged. If he was that dumb, maybe he deserved to have his leg dangling, damaged by the cruel teeth of the trap.

  “I hope he can find his family again.” Francine picked up a new worry. “Do you think they might have moved away while he was getting better?”

  “He’ll find them,” their father assured her.

  Virginia glanced out the window to see her father place an arm about Francine’s shoulder. The other sleeve was pinned up, revealing the fact that the limb had been lost. Virginia hated to see her father without his prosthesis. It was such a grim reminder that her father was not perfect. At least not physically perfect. Then it was too easy to entertain the next thought. To realize that he actually might not be perfect in other ways as well.

  There had been a time in her life when she had felt that her father was perfect in every way. Anyone who had a father with two arms simply had one who was different from her own. Not better. Likely not even as good. Just different.

  But she had learned a great deal in the last year. Many of life’s discoveries had come through her new friend Jenny. Jenny had moved to their small town from a big city, and Jenny knew all about life. Jenny’s father was a newspaper man. Had served on the staff of a large city paper until he had decided that he wished to run a paper of his own. Jenny’s father knew all about things. He had “seen it all,” Jenny said. And along with that seeing had come a good deal of mistrust. Life, according to Jenny, could be pretty rough and rugged. And people—people were not really what they seemed to be. Everyone—no exceptions—presented the face they wished the public to see. Underneath they were only looking out for their own good.

  Jenny should know. Her own mother had deserted them, her and her father, to run off to some island with a news reporter. But then, Jenny had shrugged, her father didn’t care much for her mother, anyway. What difference did it make that her mother was no longer with them? She supposed her father might be glad she was gone. She was always complaining, he’d said. Never happy with anything. He actually had treated her rather badly in private.

  When Jenny had shared all of her personal secrets with Virginia, the young girl had at first felt an unknown fear tear at her heart. Her mother would not do that. Would she? But then her father did not treat her mother badly. Did he? But what did she really know? What went on behind closed doors? Did her folks, too, put on a different face for everyone else?

  Virginia had not slept well for the first several nights after Jenny’s frankness. But with Jenny’s assurance that they were now big enough to take care of themselves, she had tried to lay aside her fear. Jenny had even extracted Virginia’s solemn promise that they would always take care of each other. That’s the way it would be. The two of them. Together. Against the world, if need be.

  It really hadn’t put Virginia’s mind at ease as it should have. There seemed to be something flawed in the plan. But to date, Virginia had never been able to sort it all out. And now as she stewed about a broken pencil lead and listened to soft voices coming through the open window, she thought again about how topsy-turvy her world had become. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. Everything.

  Her wayward thoughts were unexpectedly brought up short with the memory of her mother’s words. Mr. Adamson had told her mother about their little chat. Mr. Adamson had not told her mother that she had been dreadfully late getting home from school. That she had visited The Sweet Shop with Jenny and their two friends. Why? Why had Mr. Adamson said only nice things about her? Was he trying to protect her? To bring a good report to offset the badness? Virginia frowned.

  Poor Mr. Adamson. She knew that other kids made fun of him. Held their noses while they ran by his place. Told unkind jokes when out of earshot. Even made up false stories about dead cats and rotting garbage.

  Granted, he was a little dirty. Her mother had tried for many months after the death of his wife to get him to allow her to care for his laundry. He always assured her that he didn’t have anything that needed washing—yet. But when he did, he’d wash it himself. Of course he never did. But her mother had at last given up. She couldn’t intrude in his life, Virginia heard her mother tell Clara.

  Somehow, the thoughts of the elderly man made Virginia more uncomfortable. Everything was making her uncomfortable. The broken cup, one of her mother’s favorite set. The soggy hemline. The weasel that, though now healed, might not have sense enough to stay away from the traps. Her father’s empty shirt sleeve, Francine’s dewy-eyed face, Jenny’s gloomy perspective on all of humanity, the broken pencil. Everything … everything made her feel more miserable. She wished she could just crawl in her bed and forget everything. Everything. If only …

  The world wasn’t fair. She was sure that Jenny was right about that. It wasn’t fair—and for some unexplained reason, it wasn’t even fun anymore. She wasn’t sure what had happened over the last months to take all of the joy out of life, but she knew that something had gone and spoiled things.

  She tossed the broken pencil across the room in the direction of her wastepaper basket. If she couldn’t sharpen it, it was useless to her. She began to rummage around in the desk drawer in search of another.

  And all the time that she muttered and fumed, she had no idea that the discontent was not because of her outer world but was coming out of her own inner conflict.

  CHAPTER 3

  Mama?” Virginia stood in the doorway and watched as her mother looked up from the book in her hands.

  “Virginia. I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I … I couldn’t get to sleep.”

  Her mother laid aside the book and patted the divan beside her. “Something wrong?”

  For one moment the young girl held back. She knew from her mother’s tone and small gesture that she was being invited to open her heart. At the same time, she also knew that Jenny would scoff at the idea. Mothers were not to be trusted.

  But her years of being raised in a loving home soon helped her overcome her hesitation. She crossed the short distance to the divan and perched herself on the edge of the seat.

  “Where’s Papa?” she asked for something to say.

  Her mother reached out a hand and smoothed back the hair tangled from Virginia’s tossing and turning. “He’s in his study. He has some work to do before tomorrow’s trial.”

  “Whose trial?”

  Virginia had always been familiar with her father’s occupation. He often went to court to represent one case or another. And to her mother’s pride, he was usually successful. Virginia had always felt that her lawyer father was some knight on a white charger, always there to defend the right.

  “A land dispute. Two different parties claim ownership.”

  “So how does Papa know which one really owns it?”

  “He’s gone back to the records. He has the legal title.”

  “So he’ll win?”

  Her mother smiled and reached for the girl’s hand.

  “I’m sure he will win. The law is on his side.”

  Virginia licked dry lips. She had been stalling for time. Her father’s court case was not what was keeping her awake.

  “What’s really troubling you?”

  The question was so straightforward that Virginia could not avoid it. Her mother knew that something else was on her mind. Her mother always knew.

  “I … I … I talked to Mr. Adamson.”

  “Yes, he told me.” The words were accompanied by a smile. “I’m pleased that you stop and chat with him when you go by. He really is very lonely.”

  “I … I was late from school.”

  The admission, in clipped words, hung in the air between them. Her mother waited.

  “I was late from school even before … before I talked with Mr. Adams
on.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Virginia’s head began to reel. Apparently her mother did not understand.

  “I was real late.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you told me to come directly home.”

  Again her mother nodded. Her hand on the girl’s hand tightened. “And I was very disappointed when you disobeyed,” she said quietly.

  “You knew?”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “How?”

  “I walked by The Sweet Shop while you and your friends were having your sodas.”

  “But how—why—?” She couldn’t even finish the question?

  “Why didn’t I demand an explanation?”

  Virginia nodded.

  “Your father and I walked home together. We talked about it. We are very concerned about—about your recent attitude. We wanted some time to pray—to think—to decide what action to take. We have tried punishment. Placing restrictions. Taking away privileges. More chores. It just seems to make you angry. We aren’t sure what to do next. I was planning to talk with Grandma tomorrow. To ask her advice.”

  Virginia’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed. Not that. Not share her disobedience with Grandma. What would Grandma think? Virginia could imagine how shocked her grandmother would be to learn that she was openly defiant of family rules. Grandma loved her. Trusted her. What if her mother’s disclosure destroyed all that?

  “Please … please don’t,” she heard her quavering voice pleading. “I won’t do it again. I promise. I’ll come right home.”

  “Virginia.” Her mother’s hand left her daughter’s in a tight ball on the damask divan and lifted to brush curls back from the troubled face. “We love you. We want to see you grow up without … without painful scars from mistakes of youth. I know that … that it is important to spend time with friends. To stretch your independence. To grow. But Papa and I—we worry. Worry that you might be trying to grow up too fast. That you might have chosen—well, not bad friends, but confused friends. That they might … encourage you to … to make some choices that you will later regret. Do you understand?”