No, I�ll not weep

No, I’ll not weep

 

“Honey, won’t you stay home tonight. You’ve been spending so much time with Madeline. Sarah and I hardly see you anymore.” Irene stepped toward Rose and extended her hand. Irene was only sixty-three years old, but it was the hand of a much older woman. Years of hard work had left their mark. Her hands were rough and veined. The only jewelry she wore was the simple gold band that her beloved Caleb had given her almost forty years earlier – a lifetime ago. Her gnarled fingers touched her daughter’s shoulder.

 

Rose stepped back quickly as though she had been burned and turned away to examine her reflection in the mirror. “Mama, I told you. I need to spend time with people my own age. It’s boring here with you and Aunt Sarah.” She reapplied her lipstick and blotted it on an envelope leaving a blood red stain. Why couldn’t her mother understand her need to be young while she still had time?  She looked at the reflection of her mother’s face in the mirror. Too soon that would be her face. Those rough hands would be her hands. There was no future for her here on Pungo Creek. She would marry a man like her father and spend her life having his babies and cleaning his house.

 

“You don’t need all that makeup, Rose. You are so lovely. All that lipstick and rouge just makes you look cheap.” Irene immediately regretted her words. Her daughter’s face hardened. Rose turned back to the mirror and vigorously added more rouge to cheeks that were already crimson. Then she liberally doused Evening in Paris perfume on breasts that threatened to escape from her low-cut bodice.

 

When she was satisfied with the effect the stalked silently past her mother and hurried out the back door before her aunt could add her own comments about her appearance.  Living with the two old women was smothering her. Sometimes she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She envied her sister. At least Pearl had gotten away. Wherever she was, dead or alive, at least she wasn’t trapped here in this house.  Her sister had escaped from Pungo Creek.

 

Rose hurried down the back porch steps and into the yard like a demon was at her heels. Madeline and Howard were waiting for her in Howard’s pickup truck. Madeline slid closer to Howard so Rose could join them.

 

“What’s the matter, Rosie? You look like you could use a drink, Sugar.” Madeline laughed and handed a bottle to Rose. “Drink up. We have a surprise waiting for you back at the house.”

 

Rose brought the bottle to her lips. The whiskey burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes but she swallowed hard and then forced herself to take another drink. That one went down easier. Immediately she felt herself relax, the memory of the clash with her mother already receding. Maybe she was just like her father like everybody said. She remembered him. She remembered his wildness.  She knew it was that recklessness that had killed him. Her brother had told her that story often enough. Sometimes she thought Benjamin had been glad when her daddy had crashed into that breakwater. She took pleasure in the fact that her Mama had chosen to name her Rose because of the rose tattooed on her Daddy’s arm. She was her Daddy’s girl.

 

“Girl, you are thirsty tonight.” Howard reached over Madeline to retrieve his bottle.

 

“We’re going to have a good time tonight” said Madeline patting Rose’s knee. “That dress looks better on you than it ever looked on me. You’ve got the figure for it.”

 

“Ain’t nothing wrong with your figure that I can see – and I’ve seen it all.” Howard snickered and let go of the steering wheel long enough to grasp both of Madeline’s breasts.

 

Howard parked the truck next to the dilapidated house. Two hunting dogs roused themselves from the porch and ambled over to the truck to greet them.

 

“I hope this ain’t my surprise,” said Rose as one of the dogs nuzzled her between the legs.

 

“No missy. That would be me I expect.”

 

“Rose, meet my friend, Joe.”

 

“Pleased to meet you, Joe,” said Rose. The whisky made her act bolder than she was. She treated Joe to what she hoped was a seductive smile and extended her hand. As much as she wanted to adopt the coy and flirtatious attitude that was second nature to Madeline, deep inside Rose knew that what she wasn’t like her friend. 

 

“You and Joe get acquainted. Madeline and I have some unfinished business inside.” Howard lifted the laughing Madeline over his shoulder like a sack of flour and labored under her weight as he carried her into the house.

 

“Well – I guess it’s just you and me, Rose.” Joe still held her hand. “You’re just as pretty as Madeline said you were. He tightened his grip, pulling her toward him.  She resisted at first, and then she let him cover her mouth with his while his hands explored her body. It was happening too fast. She pulled away from him.

 

“Wait! I can’t breathe.” She pulled away. She had never been with a man except for a brief and embarrassing encounter with Lanny Russ at the Sunday school picnic. Lanny was just a boy. Joe was a man – with a man’s desires. What had she gotten herself into?  She wanted to go home. She wanted to stay. She wanted to be home in bed with her Mama tucking her in. She wanted to be lying under Joe with his whiskey breath making her hot and drunk. She didn’t know what she wanted or who she was anymore.

 

“Let’s go inside,” he mumbled. Without waiting for her response he steered her up the steps and into the house. The room was dark. Guttural sounds came from the bedroom. “Sounds like Madeline and Howard are having themselves a good time. What say you and me do the same?”

 

“No. I can’t. I need to go home. Please take me home, Joe.”

 

“You don’t really want to go home, sugar. You just need a little convincing.” He pushed a glass into her hand. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.” 

 

Rose brought the bottle to her lips but didn’t drink. Joe tilted it up impatiently causing the whiskey to flow into her mouth and down the front of her dress.

 

“Swallow, sugar.” He moved the bottle away and replaced it with his mouth. He pushed her down. His body pinned her to the sofa.  She struggled to free herself from his grasp. In the next room Madeline was demanding that Howard f**k her harder. Joe laughed. “Hear that, sugar? Your friend likes it. You’re will too. Just relax. Let me make you feel good.”

 

She stopped struggling.

* * *

 

“Sister, come to bed. You can’t sit up all night waiting for Rose. She’s a grown woman.”

 

“She’s not a woman, Sarah. She’s only 18 – too young to be associating with the likes of that Madeline. I curse the day that Benjamin ever brought that harlot into my house.” As she spoke her breath came in rapid bursts and her hands gripped the arms of her rocking chair.

 

“Irene, please. Try to relax. You know Dr. Wright warned you about getting excited. I’m going to get your medicine. You should take one of your pills and come on to bed. In the morning we can both talk to Rose – talk some sense into her.”

 

“Sarah, I have already lost one daughter and I’m afraid I’m losing another one. Why is the Lord testing me?”

 

Sarah handed Irene her medicine. “Take this, Sister. You haven’t lost Rose and I have faith that one day Pearl is going to walk back through that door and she will explain everything. The years teach much that the days can’t know. But, right now, you need to take your medicine and come on to bed.”

 

“You go on to bed. I’m just going to read a bit. Reading always calms me down. I’ll be along shortly. You’re right. We’ll talk to her tomorrow. Just hand me my book.”

 

Sarah handed Irene her worn collection of the plays of William Shakespeare.

 

When Rose opened the back door she saw her mother sitting by the fire reading.  She had hoped her Mama would be in bed. She wanted to sneak in and clean herself. She wanted to wash away the memory of what Joe had done. Tomorrow she would tell her Mama how sorry she was. She would tell her she was right about Madeline. But she didn’t want her Mama to see her like she looked tonight. She crept quietly toward the bathroom but she stopped.

Something wasn’t right. The room was too quiet.

 

She walked closer to the fire.   At first she thought Irene was just sleeping but when she touched her hand it was ice cold.  “Mama? Mama! Oh, Mama. I’m so sorry…”

 

Her sobs brought her aunt to the living room. Sarah bent down and kissed her sister’s cheek and took the book from her hands. Tears flowed down the old woman’s cheeks.

 

“Fitting she should die with this book on her lap.  She was reading King Lear. One of her favorites.”   She read from the open book.

 

No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

 

She closed the book. “We must weep for her. She was a good woman, Rose. You should be proud to be her daughter.”

 

“I should have been with her.”

 

“Yes. That would have been a comfort to her for sure but, honey, we all die alone. Your mama died as she lived – quietly without being a burden to anyone.” Sarah stroked Irene’s hair. “It will be morning soon. Go wash your face and change into something decent then go over to Benjamin’s and let him know his mother has died.”

 

Rose grimaced at the face she saw in the bathroom mirror. Tears melded with the garish makeup to produce a clownish effect. She gripped the sides of the basin and brought her face close to the mirror. “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” Then she dropped to the floor sobbing. When she could cry no more she washed her face, changed her clothes and returned to the living room where were Aunt had not moved from her mother’s side.

 

“I’m going for Benjamin now, Aunt Sarah.”

 

“That’s good, honey. Look, Rose. The sun is coming up.”

Reviews

[Yaooooooo]

Very well written..
Keep up the good wrok and feel free to send me a request...
Thanks for sharing,
One!