Massonville 1973
Ma was overjoyed to hear that Hank was coming home. On his first night back, she fussed over the supper as if it were one of her famous lunches, and she was careful not to say anything “helpful” about Rosalind.
In a week she'll be back to normal, Des thought. God help poor Hank.
Actually, things did roll along for just about a week. Hank went back to work at the opera house, filling in where he was needed, the way he always had. Ma didn't ask him to run the apprentice program again, and he didn't offer. In fact, Hank didn't seem to have much to say about anything. Des hated how quiet he was. She wished he'd go to Alabama and have it out with Rosalind. Maybe another dose of the little tramp would bring him to his senses. But Hank said he was still waiting for the right moment. Meanwhile, he'd started keeping beer in the fridge. Now he took a couple of bottles into his room with him when he came upstairs after the show. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but he'd never been a regular drinker before.
But it's not my problem.
Ma didn't notice that anything was wrong, which made Des furious.
After the hell Hank had been through, the least Ma could have done was pay attention.
However, there was something else bothering Ma these days. She spent a lot of time sitting at the kitchen table, going over long columns of figures and shaking her head.
Whatever it is, I don't want to know. In fourteen days I'll be on my way to Wellesley
For the first time, Des really believed it was going to happen. There had always been a part of her that thought something would go wrong, but now she finally relaxed. She'd set aside some of her precious money for new clothes, and the prospect of actually going shopping was so thrilling, she had to talk about it with someone.
“I'll wait until I'm in Massachusetts to buy a winter coat,” she babbled happily to her mother one morning after breakfast. “I won't know what to get until I see how cold it is. But I want to pick up a new sweater and a pair of shoes before I leave. ”
“You still have plenty of time, don't you?” Ma asked from the sink, where she was rinsing off the dishes.
“I'm leaving in two weeks. I've told you, Ma.”
“Of course you have, sugar. It's just with everything else on my mind …” She left the dishes in the sink, and moved to the table. “Please sit, Desdemona,” she said. “I need to talk to you about something.”
No! Whatever it is, no! But Des sat down.
Ma looked down at her hands to collect her thoughts. “I ordered the plinth for Aunt Ophelia's statue because I felt it would be a sign of good faith—for the city council.”
You wanted to guilt-trip them into keeping their promise.
“I didn't have the money to pay for the plinth then,” Ma went on. “I told them I'd have it by the end of the summer. But the sets for As You Like It were more expensive than I thought they'd be, and we had to repair the dock …”
Please don't let her say what I think she's going to say. Just this once let me be wrong about her.
“The stonecutter won't take the plinth back because it's already engraved, and I really don't want to return it, because I think that would send the wrong message to the city council.”
Don't ask me for money. Don't.
“ So, sugar, I need your help. I called the bank and I asked Mr. Roverton how much you had in that account of yours—”
“You did what?”
“I had to know if you have enough money.”
“He told you?”
“Of course. He's one of the old-timers who remembers your father, and he's known me forever and he understands about the theater and the way my children and I always pull together in a crisis—”
“Ma, stop!”
“Now, just hear me out, sugar. Please?”
She's my mother. I can't throw this coffee cup at her.
Ma chose to take her silence as agreement. “ I realize you have to pay for your room and board at that school.”
“It's called Wellesley Ma. I'm going to Wellesley College.”
“But do you have to go there? We have a perfectly good school right here in Massonville.”
“It's a community college! I got into a Seven Sisters school—one of the best in the country—and you want me to go to a community college?”
“I'm sure you can get a good education here. And it would be much cheaper—”
“No.”
“Then you could wait and go next year. ”
“No!”
“Sugar, this is no time to be selfish.”
“I'm selfish? Me? What about you?”
“You know I have always put my family first—”
“As long as they're dead. What about Hank and me?”
“You and Henry always knew you were special.”
“We were freaks! I wore clothes from the church thrift shop so you could buy a new curtain for the goddamn theater!”
“There's no need to be abusive—”
“Hank didn't own a car until last year. He was nineteen years old, and he had to bum rides from his friends! He couldn't afford to take a girl to his prom. We didn't have a television, and we never went to the movies.”
“We had more valuable things to do with our money. I won't apologize for that. We are not ordinary people. We have …”
Don't let her say it.
“We have a legacy to uphold.”
“You want to know about our fucking legacy? I'll show you!”
Des ran to her bedroom. She saw Hank come out of his room and follow her. She heard him ask what the hell she thought she was doing, but she couldn't stop. She grabbed the letter out of the old book and raced back to the kitchen. “Here, Ma!” she said. “I found this. It's a letter from Romeo Venable to his sister. You know who she was, Ma. She started the whole damn mess.”
“Des, whatever you're doing, don't—” Hank started to say, but Des barreled over him.
“You know that pretty little story about how old Juliet got the opera house—the one where she bought it from the Honeycutt family after Lavinia Honeycutt had that tragic accident? Well, it wasn't quite like that, Ma.”
Her mother's face was white. She was staring at the letter as though she couldn't look away. From somewhere behind her, Des heard Hank say, “That's enough.” But it wasn't.
“James Honeycutt didn't want to sell the opera house, but Juliet had some dirt on him. He was the one who opened the trapdoor when Lavinia fell through it. He didn't mean to do it, but since he was plastered at the time, it wouldn't have looked real good. So Juliet kept his secret, but she made him sell. That's how we got our legacy, Ma. She blackmailed the poor bastard.”
Ma was shaking her head slowly from side to side. “No,” she said.
“And here's the real punch line. This is the part no one knew except her brother. Lavinia didn't die when she fell. Juliet went down to the basement to find her, and she was still alive.” Des held up the letter. “Want me to read what her brother had to say?”
“Des, stop!” came from Hank.
“Okay. I'll give you the short version. Juliet Venable, the ancestor of us all, smothered that woman with a pillow from the prop table. It was Othello's pillow, which I think is a really lovely touch, don't you, Ma? Her brother was standing at the opening of the trapdoor and he saw her do it.” She held the letter out to her mother. “Why don't you read it? There's a lot more in there about how he's leaving town because he never wants to look at her again—”
“Give it to me, Des,” Hank cut in.
“No. I want her to read it.”
“Give it to me now!”
Des handed it to him. For the next few moments the only sound in the kitchen was Hank ripping up the letter that had been hidden for a hundred years.
Ma was looking down at the table. Everything was quiet. Someone started to cry. For a moment Des couldn't figure out who it was. Then she wiped away her tears and got down on her knees so she could see her mother's face. “That's what you wanted me to give up Wellesley for, Ma,” she wept. “That's what Hank is giving up his life for. That shit.”
Hank made her go to bed. She assumed that he managed to get Ma to go to sleep too. But in the middle of the night, Des heard a noise in the garden. She ran to the darkened living room and looked out the window. Ma was in the garden in her nightgown bending over a fire. She was throwing something onto the flames. Something very familiar. Des turned and started to run to the front door of the apartment, but Hank was there, blocking her way.
“Go back to bed, Des,” he said.
“Ma's down there burning her notebooks!” she said.
“Yes.”
“I've got to stop her.”
“No, you don't. You've done enough.”
The next day Ma told the city council she didn't want the birthday celebration they were planning for her, and she'd changed her mind about the statue. Des went to Wellesley two weeks early and she didn't make any plans to come home for Thanksgiving. Somehow, after she left, Hank managed to pay for the plinth. He had the stagehands drag it to a corner of the garden where it was hidden by the hedge.