If only he hadn’t let her go so far from home. If only he had gone with her to New York. None of it would have happened. She never would have got pregnant. Not that I regret Lily, Lily is my consolation, but my first girl…. She’d be with me now. Oh my darlin’. The breath assaults James’s lungs and he comes out of the black and white picture back into the room of living colour.
And looks around. My good daughter. My bad daughter. And my dear daughter’s daughter — in blackface. That isn’t even worth getting riled about, although riled is what Frances tries to get me with something like that.
“What’s this doing here?” he asks Mercedes, softly. There are no pictures of Kathleen anywhere. Not a spinning wheel in the kingdom, so to speak, and then you prick your finger.
Mercedes answers, “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Frances stares at James. “I did it.”
Mercedes swivels on the piano stool. She wants to say to Frances, no, it will go much harder with you, you don’t have to atone for the ruin of my silly possessions by taking the blame for this. But Frances deliberately digs her own grave. “Kathleen was my sister and I’d like to see her now and then.”
James is getting whiter. The blue part of his eyes is heating up.
Frances stokes him. “Why can’t we, anyhow? Was there something wrong with her? Was she a lunatic or something?” Casual insolent tone.
Mercedes can’t find her voice. It’s autumn in her mouth and all her tongue can do is rustle. Lily doesn’t like it when Daddy looks at Frances like that. It’s not Daddy any more. Not her daddy.
“Was she a slut?” Frances, in a helpful tone of voice. Ahhh, that’s just right. Look at him, all lit up like an Easter candle.
James says quietly to Frances, “Come with me.”
Frances shrugs and gets up, nonchalant, grinning at Mercedes. Mercedes covers her face with her hands. James says to Mercedes, “Take your sister out for a while.”
“Come on, Lily.”
Lily’s forehead has the bump in it but she obeys.
Frances saunters across the room towards James, who finally snaps at the sight of her slouching towards him, grabs the back of her neck and flings her through the doorway. Mercedes hustles Lily out the front door.
“Where are we going, Mercedes?”
“Out.”
“I broke your beautiful thing.”
“I don’t care, Lily, just walk please” — down the porch steps.
“Frances glued it but I broke it and I tore up your book too, I didn’t mean to.”
“They’re just things, Lily, they don’t matter.”
Lily is having a hard time keeping up but she has no choice, Mercedes has her by the wrist.
“I’m sorry, Mercedes.”
No answer.
“Mercedes —”
“That’s enough, Lily.”
They walk-drag through town until they come to the cliff above the shore. Mercedes stands staring out at the grey sea. Lily sits with her legs dangling over the edge.
“How come I never saw that picture?”
“You know perfectly well, because Daddy doesn’t like to dwell on Kathleen. It grieves him.”
“Did you hide it?”
“Yes. In the book you destroyed. That’s how it came to be out in the open.”
“That’s the book Frances likes to read. That’s how come I accidentally wrecked it. Because Frances accidentally made me.”
“Well, then. She has you to thank for whatever Daddy gives her.”
“How come you put the picture on the piano, Mercedes?”
Mercedes freezes. How come indeed? Surely not on purpose. Mercedes turns her head slowly and looks at Lily. She sees her falling over the cliff to the rocks below. The only thing that would not break would be her withered leg in its steel brace.
Without looking at Mercedes, Lily rises and wanders back towards the Shore Road. She turns to see if Mercedes is coming, but Mercedes is kneeling at the precipice, facing the ocean.
“Mercedes,” she calls. “Don’t fall, Mercedes.”
Mercedes makes the sign of the cross and gets up. God will forgive her. She has made Him a promise.
On Water Street, the outside walls of the shed thump now and then like a bass drum with a foot-pedal at work inside it keeping the beat. In the shed the performance has begun. The upbeat grabs her neck till she’s on point, the downbeat thrusts her back against the wall, two eighth-notes of head on wood, knuckles clatter incidentally. In the half-note rest he lights up her pale face with the blue wicks of his eyes, and the lyrics kick in con spirito, “What right have you, you have no right, no right to even speak her name, who’s the slut, tell me who’s the slut!” The next two bars are like the first, then we’re into the second movement, swing your partner from the wall into the workbench, which catches her in the small of the back, grace-note into stumble because she bounces, being young. Staccato across the face, then she expands her percussive range and becomes a silent tambourine. Frances gets through this part by pretending to herself that she’s actually Raggedy-Lily-of-the-Valley, which makes her laugh and provokes his second verse, “I don’t want to hear you speak her name,” accidental note to the nose resolves into big major chord, “Do — You — Under — Stand — Me?” We’ve gone all stately; it’s whole notes from here on in. She flies against another wall and he follows her trajectory, taking his time now because we’re working up to the finale. One more clash of timbers and tissues and it’s finally opera, “I’ll cut the tongue right out of your head.” She sticks her tongue out at him and tastes blood. Cue finale to the gut. Frances folds over till she’s on the floor. Modern dancer.
The first thing Mercedes did was bring Frances Spanish Influenza and the rest of her dear children, arranging them lovingly on her bed. Even though Frances didn’t register their arrival, Mercedes knew their presence would comfort her. Then she got a basin and a cloth and cleaned Frances’s face.
The swelling makes Frances look even younger than sixteen, especially with all her dolls around her. She speaks finally, her words a little thick. “Where’s Trixie?”
“It’s okay, Trixie’s fine.”
Frances hurts all over, which makes her feel restful. It’s a lovely feeling that she hardly ever gets.
Mercedes squeezes out the cloth, “You shouldn’t make him angry like that.”
“He deserves it.”
“You’re the one who gets hurt.”
Frances swallows carefully. “I’m sorry about your things.”
“It’s all right, Frances. You didn’t have to take the blame for the photograph.”
“Yes I did.”
“Why?”
“It’s the way it is, Mercedes. You can’t change the way it is.”
“I don’t agree, that doesn’t make any sense, he shouldn’t beat you for something I did.”
“Well, he wouldn’t beat you.”
“Well good, then, no one need have got beaten.”
“Yes, someone did need to. Besides, it lets me get back at him.”