“Because of me?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that makes no sense.”
Fannie drummed her fingers on the porch railing. “After those assaults on her, right in the house. I don’t know what you thought you were doing.”
“It seems to me that she was having her say, too.”
“Her poor father accused of murder, and what do you do? You attack her.”
“I didn’t…”
“Edna, I heard you. More than once. I even heard you say, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ Because she was laughing with her friends in the library that afternoon-at Frana’s expense. You came at her like-like I don’t know what. Edna, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You practically called her stupid…”
“Well, she is stupid.”
“I know that, but to say it…”
“She seems to think I’m to blame for Jake Smuddie’s leaving her.”
“Edna, I heard you.” A deep sigh. “We all did.”
“Fannie, I’m not to blame here.”
A flash of anger as she spun around. “And who is? She says you intimidate her with your questions and all-out assault. Here she is, the help. Helping me cut dress patterns or…or…we were going to have Wiener schnitzel tonight, but we’re not now. She’s here as a worker, not a suspect.”
My father broke into our spat, his voice weary. “Must we entertain the neighborhood?”
Exasperated, I cried out, “Fan, why must you take her side?”
She adjusted the bow on her blouse. “Edna, you always believe you’re right.”
“This time I am.”
“For God’s sake, Ed.”
“Fannie, it’s not my fault…”
My father, into the squabble. “Could we stop this now?” He half-rose from his seat.
But Fannie was not done. “You don’t know what it takes to run this household. You’re off-you go out there”-she pointed to the street-“and I have to do everything. Do you realize how long it took me to train Kathe?”
“Fan, she’s not a circus animal.”
Fannie snarled, “Flippancy-that’s what you give me.”
“You talk like she’s a dumb ox who is…”
My father stomped his foot on the floor, and we stopped. He stumbled past Fannie and disappeared into the back of the house.
Fannie spoke through clenched teeth. “See what you do, Edna. You drive him to anger.”
I brushed past her into the house, headed to the stairs to my room. “And you drive him to sadness.” I looked back at Fannie. “And that’s the bigger crime here.”
The war among the Ferbers escalated through supper. Which was, of course, not Wiener schnitzel but a dreary liver and onion dish Fannie half-heartedly threw together. Sometimes the aftermath of our battles was a dark curtain that covered the house for days. The walls bled with recrimination and anger and weeping. One time last year it had gone on, irrationally, for weeks-this was just after I took the job at the Crescent. No one was happy with that move…even me. One night, distraught over the screaming match of the two volatile sisters, my mother carried her diary from her bedroom and in a clipped, deadened voice said, “Let me read you everything I’ve written in my day book for the past three days. Tuesday: ‘Stomachache all day, shipping delayed at store. At night Ed and Fan at war.’ Wednesday: ‘Jacob to doctor at noon. Edna and Fan crying. Fan smashes vase.’ Thursday: ‘Bad headache. Pain in side. Jacob groaning in his sleep. Edna and Fan tore at each other’s hearts. Fire and pain.’” She’d paused. “What shall I write tonight?”
It had done no good: Fan was jealous of me, and I was of her; and each of us watched for a signal to rush to battle.
When my father attempted a few words about Houdini’s surprise visit, my mother snapped, “And didn’t you ask him to supper, Jacob? Did you leave your manners behind?” Fannie and I muttered at each other. My mother, alarmed by the loss of Kathe Schmidt, blamed me. “Perhaps if you apologize to her, Edna.”
“For what?”
“Ed, you were always a bit cruel to her.”
“I talk to her.”
My mother’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Sometimes you don’t hear the acid in your tongue.”
“You talk like I’m a witch.” I placed a piece of dark rye bread I’d just buttered onto a dish and announced, “Kathe wouldn’t accept an apology from me because I don’t believe she can recognize decency if she toppled onto it.”
Fannie grumbled, “See, Mother, she…”
“Ed.” My mother cleared her throat. “Today I learned a disturbing bit of news.” She glanced at Fannie, who nodded. “Some townspeople mentioned that you actually paid a visit to Jake Smuddie’s home to see him. His father told people.”
“I’m a reporter.”
“A young lady does not make such a visit, unannounced, unescorted. Or, I suppose, even invited. Ed, think of your reputation in this town. People talk. Yes, you have a job to do, but this murder seems to have pushed you beyond the line of respectable behavior and conduct and…”
“He wasn’t home.”
“And had he been?”
“I knew he wasn’t home.”
“Then why did you go there?”
“I’m a reporter.”
Fannie was frustrated. “If you use that sentence one more time…”
My mother pushed some dishes around, bit her lip. “You were also seen talking with him at the gazebo in the park, the two of you, at twilight, talking, alone.”
I waited. “Yes?”
Fannie raised her voice. “She doesn’t understand, Mother.”
“Oh, I understand. Of course I do. You’re assuming my conduct is…improper.”
“Well, it is,” Fannie insisted.
“And yours isn’t?” I shot back.
Fannie mock laughed. “Mine? How is that possible?”
“I’m talking about your baseless accusations-that’s the real questionable conduct here.”
“Your name keeps coming up,” my mother said. “I don’t know what to say to folks anymore. I’m out of excuses.” Again the deadpan voice, weary, broken.
“You don’t realize, Edna, how people are gossiping about you,” Fannie added.
My mother sighed. “You’re my daughter and…”
A fist crashed down on the table. Dishes shook. A plate slid to the floor, smashed. Water sloshed out of a glass onto the crisp white linen cloth. My father half-rose from his chair. “Have you all lost your minds?” He sat down, folded his arms, and looked as though he were in prayer.
Silence in the room, but not peace: the Ferber women glowered like tempestuous Macbeth witches on an Appleton heath.
My mother turned on him, her eyes cold. “Jacob, I’m trying to guard the reputation of our daughter. People are talking. What they’re saying is not nice. So, yes, maybe I have lost my mind. Someone in this family has to. You sit all day and…” She stopped, breathed in. “I slave all day in that hell hole of a store, making a penny here, a nickel there, pleading the change from dull farmers’ wives who look at me as though I’m gypping them of their first born. And I come home to this…and now this…” She raised a hand, palm up. “The doctor’s visits, the medicines, the…the silences, the dead air of this place.”
My father spoke in a reedy voice. “I understand.”
“Do you? Do you really? What do you understand? A silence so loud I can’t hear myself think.”
“I don’t bother anyone.”
“And yet you bother everyone. This is a house without walls. Tissue paper. The sound of the bank at our backs, hands out. The empty change purse.”
“I worked…”
She shook her head, bitterness lacing her words. “You worked at failing a family. And it wasn’t the blindness”- holding onto the word as if it held an awful power-“it’s the death of something inside.”
“Julia, not now. Don’t accuse…”