Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

made my steps ponderous, I headed toward the house. When I looked up, I saw that a long, heavy cloud had slipped over the sun and dropped a veil of gray over the great building, making all the windows look dark and empty, all except one window, the window of Emily's room. In it she stood gazing down at me, her long white face casting a look of displeasure. Perhaps she had seen me hugging Henry, I thought. She was sure to distort my expression of love and make it seem dirty and sinful. I glared up at her defiantly. She smiled her cold, wry smile, lifted her hands which held her Bible and turned away to be swallowed up in the darkness of her room.
     
    Life went on at The Meadows, at times smooth and at times bumpy. Mamma had her good days and her bad, and I would have to remember that what I told her one day she could easily forget the next. In her Swiss-cheese memory, events of her youth were often confused with events of the present. She appeared more comfortable with the older memories and clung to them tenaciously, choosing to selectively remember her good times as a little girl growing up on her own family plantation more than anything else.
    She began to read again, but often reread the same pages and the same book. The most painful thing for me was to hear her talk about Eugenia or refer to my little sister as if she were still alive in her room. She was always going to "bring Eugenia this" or "tell Eugenia that." I didn't have the heart to remind her that Eugenia had passed away, but Emily never hesitated. She, like Papa, had little tolerance for Mamma's lapses of memory and daydreaming. I tried to get her to have more compassion, but she disagreed.
    "If we feed the stupidity," she said, choosing Papa's word, "it will only continue."
    "It's not stupidity. The memory is just too painful for Mamma to bear," I explained. "In time . . ."
    "In time she will get worse," Emily declared with her superior, prophetic tone. "Unless we bring her to her senses. Pampering her won't help."
    I choked back my words and left her. As Henry might say, I thought, it would be easier to convince a fly he was a bee and have him make honey than change Emily's way of thinking. The only one who understood my sorrow and expressed any sympathy was Niles. He would listen to my tales of woe with sympathetic eyes and nod, his heart breaking for me and for Mamma.
    Niles had grown tall and lean. When he was only thirteen, he began shaving. His beard was coming in thick and dark. Now that he was older, he had his regular chores on his family's farm. Just like us, the Thompsons were having a hard time meeting their financial obligations, and just like us, they, too, had to let go of some of their servants. Niles filled in and was soon doing a grown man's work. He was proud of it and it did change him, harden him, make him more mature.
    But we didn't stop going to our magic pond or believing in the fantasy. From time to time, we would sneak off together and take a walk that brought us to the pond. At first it was painful to return to the place where we had brought Eugenia and where wishes had been made, but it felt good to have something that was secretly ours. We kissed and petted and revealed more and more of our treasured thoughts, thoughts ordinarily kept under lock and key in the safe of our hearts.
    Niles was the first to say he dreamt of our marriage, and once he admitted to such a wish, I confessed to having the same dream. Eventually, he would inherit his father's farm and we would live on it and raise our family. I would always be close to Mamma and after we had gotten started, I would immediately contact Henry and bring him back. At least he would be near The Meadows.
    Niles and I would sit in the soft afternoon sunlight near the edge of the pond and weave our plans with such confidence no one eavesdropping could do anything but believe it was all inevitable. We had great faith in the power of love. Because of it we would always be happy. It would be like a fortress built around us, protecting us from the rain and the cold and the tragedies that befell others. We would be the dream couple my real mother and father were supposed to have been.
    After Louella and Henry left The Meadows, and during the hard economic times we were all facing, there was little to look forward to, little to get excited over, except my rendezvous with Niles and my schooling. But toward the end of May, there was a great deal of excitement building around the