When the Wind Blows (22 page)

When she felt she could trust herself to speak again, she looked deep into Esperanza’s eyes. “Esperanza,” she said weakly.

“Si?”

“Esperanza, do you remember when we were children, and I had—I had nightmares?”

“Si.”

Diana reached out and gripped Esperanza’s hand. “They weren’t nightmares, were they?”

Tears welled in Esperanza’s eyes. “No, Miss Diana,” she said softly.

Diana sat still, willing herself not to cry. Not in front of the children. Whatever happened, she mustn’t
let them see her cry, mustn’t let them see the fear that suddenly held her in its grip.

But even as she forced her panic down, she wondered what else was locked in her memory.

What else had her mother done to her?

What terrors were locked inside her?

She got to her feet and smiled weakly at the children.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I-I guess I’m just too old for the mine.”

The children, in the innocence of their years, smiled at her.

“That’s all right,” Jeff said. “Lots of people are afraid of the dark.”

   Shortly after noon Edna Amber went down to the chicken coop.

She was still filled with resentment. She had watched Diana go off with the two children an hour earlier, and had sat for a while, trying to decide what to do next.

Finally she had cleaned up the broken china, realizing that no matter how inexcusable Diana’s behavior had been, breaking china would solve nothing. And then she had had to deal with the veterinarian, who had insisted that he couldn’t simply dispose of the horse. Instead he would have to do an autopsy on it, to see what had killed it. And she would have to pay for the autopsy, then try to collect the money from the state.

Once he and his assistants had taken Hayburner away, she had decided to fix herself an omelet—another thing Diana should have done for her—but when she opened the refrigerator, she found no eggs. She had gone to the chicken coop to get some.

Now she stared at the pile of oats that sat in one corner of the hen house.

Hadn’t Diana even taught the child what to feed the
chickens? And where to put the food? Left where it was, it would only attract rats.

She picked up one of the food pans, then stiffly stooped down to brush the oats into it.

As she touched the pile of grain the rattrap sprang.

Edna screamed as the heavy wire trap closed on her fingers.

She dropped her cane and struggled with the trap, but the spring was too strong. As the fingers of her right hand began to swell and turn red, she cursed out loud.

“God damn that child! God damn her to hell!”

Then she got to her feet and, with the trap dangling from her damaged hand, began trudging back to the house to call Bill Henry.

She hated the idea of having to call the doctor, but there was nothing else she could do.

Her right hand throbbing with pain, she began clumsily dialing the telephone with her left.

14

Bill Henry pried the trap lose from Edna Amber’s fingers, set it on the the kitchen table, then gently massaged the damaged hand. There were deep grooves where the jaw of the trap had bitten into her flesh, and the ends of her fingers were swollen and turning black. The skin, however, was not broken.

“At least we won’t have to give you a tetanus shot,” he said.

“Are they broken?” Edna asked. She flexed the fingers experimentally, and pain shot up her arm.

“I don’t think so I can take some X rays if you want, but I think they’re just badly bruised. You should be fine in a couple of days. How’d it happen?”

Edna’s face tightened in anger as she remembered.

“That child!” She spat the word out as if it tasted sour.

“She put a rattrap in the hen house and covered it with oats. Can you imagine? Oats!”

Bill frowned. “Why would she do that?”

“Why do children do anything?” Edna asked bitterly. “I don’t understand why Diana insists on keeping her here. She’s no more equipped to be a mother than—” Words failed her, and she glared at Bill. “—than I don’t know what!” she finished.

Bill bathed her injured hand with alcohol, then rubbed some ointment on it.

“What’s that for?” Edna asked, peering at her hand suspiciously.

“Nothing, really. It’s some zinc oxide, and it’s more to make you feel as though I’ve done something than for any good it will do you.”

“A placebo.”

“Exactly.”

Edna got up and went to the sink and proceeded to wash the salve off, then dried her fingers. “I don’t approve of such things, Dr. Henry,” she said. She returned to the table and sat down again. She studied Bill’s face for a moment, then looked away from him.

“I want you to help me.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

The old woman ignored his comment. “You have a—” She paused, as if groping for words, then went on. “—a certain amount of influence with Diana. I want you to convince her to send Christie away.”

Bill shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

Now he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Lots of reasons. Mostly, I don’t see any reason for it. If you want to know the truth, I think Christie’s good for Diana. It’s time Diana had someone in her life other than you.”

“Don’t be impertinent, young man,” Edna snapped.

“I’m not.” Bill’s voice became more intense. “I’m telling you the truth, Miss Edna. You’ve had Diana to yourself for years. But you’re not going to live forever. Have you thought about what’s going to happen to Diana when you die?”

The old woman frowned at him. “What are you talking about? I have no intention of dying, not for a long time yet.”

“But it
will
happen. And what happens to Diana then? What’s her life going to be like? Have you thought about that?”

The old woman stood up and began pacing the floor, unconsciously massaging her injured hand. “Of
course I have. And frankly, I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what I
can
do. Diana can’t take care of herself, you know.”

Bill bristled. “I
don’t
know, Miss Edna, and neither do you. You’ve never let her have a chance to take care of herself. You’ve kept her cooped up here, like your hens.”

“There are reasons for that,” Edna said, her voice cold.

“Well, if there are, I don’t know about them.”

Edna’s mind raced. Perhaps she should tell him the truth. If she told him the truth, perhaps he’d understand and help her. She turned to face him and braced herself with her cane.

“Did you know that Diana once had a baby?”

The question hit Bill like a physical blow. He sank back in his chair, suddenly feeling dizzy. Then he recovered himself.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice under control. What on earth was the old lady up to now?

“No one else does, either.” Edna’s eyes glittered as she spoke. “It happened thirty years ago. You were away at school, I believe. The father was a man named Travers.”

“I don’t remember anybody by that name.”

“You wouldn’t. He wasn’t here long—I hired him for the ranch, but as soon as I found out what he’d done, I fired him. I don’t think he was here more than six months. I doubt if many people remember him.” She paused, then delivered the second blow. “Even Diana doesn’t remember him.”

All Bill could do was stare at her, and when he finally found his voice, it had a hollow sound to it. “I beg your pardon?”

Edna sat down at the kitchen table again, and as she went on with the story she stared at her hands, rubbing them occasionally, though Bill wasn’t sure if
it was because of the pain, her own nervousness, or both.

“Diana doesn’t remember Travers. She doesn’t remember the baby, either. She doesn’t remember any of it.”

Bill’s hands fell to the tabletop, and he shook his head as he tried to sort out his thoughts. “You’ve lost me.” he said. “What do von mean she doesn’t remember? You don’t have a baby and not remember.”

“The baby was born dead,” Edna said. She sat down again, facing him. “When I told Diana about it, she became hysterical.” Her voice softened, and Bill thought there was a look of something akin to satisfaction in her face as she continued. “She screamed for hours, but eventually she went to sleep. When she woke up, she’d blotted it all out of her memory. All of it, Dr. Henry. She had no memory of being pregnant, no memory of Phillip Travers, no memory of the birth—nothing! Nine months of her life, gone!” She paused, then: “I think she must have thought it was her fault that the baby died, and blotting it out of her memory was the only way she could handle her guilt.” She grinned humorlessly. “Of course, back then we didn’t know about such things, did we?”

Bill stared at the old woman. Was it possible? Could any of it have really happened? For a few moments he was silent.

“Where was the baby born?” he asked at last.

Edna smiled coldly at him. “Right here. I wanted Diana to go to a hospital, but she refused. She wouldn’t even go away to one of those homes they had back then. So she stayed here. I delivered the baby myself.”

“And where is the baby?”

“I buried it,” Edna said, and the words seemed to Bill to be almost a challenge.

“You buried it?” He stared at the old woman, aghast. “You delivered a baby, and you
buried
it?”

For the first time Edna Amber’s voice rose in anger, displaying her emotions. “It was dead, Dr. Henry.
It was born dead!
What would you have had me do?”

“What anybody else would have done,” Bill told her, his voice quivering with his own barely controlled rage. “Call a doctor when she went into labor. You could have killed her, Miss Edna. And how do you know the baby was born dead? Did it ever occur to you that you might have killed it yourself? Assuming, of course, that any of this is true.”

Edna rose to her feet and stood over Bill, her eyes blazing with fury. “How dare you, William? I told you all this for only one reason: I want you to understand that Diana is not the person she seems to be. I’ve protected her as much as I can, and I’m still trying to protect her. But her mind isn’t quite right, William. She has spells! Can’t you understand that a woman like Diana has no business trying to raise a child?”

Now Bill, too, was on his feet.

“I understand a lot, Miss Edna. I understand that ever since Diana was a child, you’ve held on to her. You’ll do anything to keep her to yourself. I don’t know why—I’m not sure most of us can ever understand the motives of someone like you. Selfishness, I suppose—pure selfishness.” He knew he was going too far, but he was helpless to contain the bottled-up rage of thirty years. “You don’t care what you do to Diana, do you? Not as long as you keep her here, with you. But I won’t be a part of it, Miss Edna. I won’t help you destroy what might be Diana’s last chance to have a normal life.”

Bill Henry picked up his bag and with Edna Amber still glaring at him, walked out of the house.

   The afternoon was bright and clear, and as Diana led Christie and Jeff along the trails that crisscrossed the ranch, she breathed deeply of the spring air. The new wheat was coming up, and for a few weeks, until
the summer heat set in, the valley would be gloriously green, broken here and there with the upthrusting red rocks that dotted the area. Though her mind was still occupied with the memory that had come to her in the mine, Diana was determined not to betray her emotions to the children.

She paused in a small stand of aspens and cottonwoods and sat down on a boulder.

“Getting tired?” she asked as Jeff and Christie flopped onto the ground at her feet.

“I like it out here,” Christie replied. She sat up and looked around the grove. “Could we come out here and camp sometime, Aunt Diana?”

Diana glanced around, trying to see the grove through a child’s eyes. There was a natural spring, bubbling under the spreading branches of the cottonwoods, and a large rock that even to Diana’s eyes resembled a table. She smiled.

“I don’t see why not. We could bring some canvas and string it up for shelter.”

“I have a sleeping bag,” Jeff said eagerly, the idea of an adventure immediately appealing to him. “And I bet we could borrow Mom’s and Dad’s, too.”

As she considered it Diana began to like the idea. She decided that Joyce Crowley was right—she
should
get more involved with all the kids. Her mother, of course, would object, but for once Diana didn’t care.

Then she thought of the wind and her strange memory lapses. She glanced up at the mountains and wondered if her mother were right. Did the wind have some sort of strange effect on her? Did it make her behave irrationally? But today the mountains stood out against the blue of the sky, every detail etched in the clear sunlight. The day was still; perhaps, for this year, the winds were over. She dismissed her worries.

“Maybe next month,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we talk about it at the picnic?”

“On the Fourth of July?” Jeff asked. “But you never go, Miss Diana.”

“I never had a reason to go,” Diana replied. “Not till this year. It’ll be a first for Christie and me both.”