“I did it for your own good.” Marynell’s compressed lips were turning white.
Robbie’s head came up. The sappy smile was gone, replaced by a worried frown. “Hey, you two,” she chided in her musical voice. “What’s this all about?”
“Your sister’s husband,” Marynell hissed, “has just been killed in a tragic accident.” She emphasized each word as if Markie had somehow forgotten why they were all assembled here. “And she does not need any of your foolish drama.”
“This isn’t about me, mother. It’s about you, stealing my diary. And not just any diary. This diary.” Markie jabbed a finger at it.
“What in the world is going on here?” Robbie looked puzzled…and deeply disturbed.
“I was trying to protect you.” Marynell ignored Robbie’s question. “You were a very foolish teenage girl who had no idea what you were writing in those pages. You still have no idea.”
“Well, you certainly shouldn’t have had any idea what I was writing in those pages!” Markie was practically shouting now.
“Hey, now, Miss Marker.” Robbie’s use of Markie’s old childhood nickname did not mollify her. After years of heartache she was determined to have it out with the old biddy, right here. Right now.
“Nothing is sacred with you, is it, Mother?”
“Sis.” Robbie touched Markie’s sleeve. “Stop it. It’s just an old diary. Here.” She held out the volume.
Robbie, the peacemaker, Markie thought. Robbie, Marynell’s whipped little pet.
Marynell’s eyes flitted to the diary, then to the pained expression on her bereaved middle daughter’s face. Glaring back into Markie’s eyes, she said, “You can take the thing and publish it in the Dallas Morning News for all I care. Whatever happens now, it’s not on my head.” She turned on her heel and stomped from the room.
“What on earth was that all about?” Robbie said after they heard the stairway door slam.
“That diary.” Markie was unable to keep the creeping sorrow and resignation out of her voice, out of her heart. She sighed. “Or rather, what’s in it. Read. You’ll see.”
“I’m not sure I want to now. Here.” Robbie flapped the volume at Markie. “Take it.”
Markie pushed the diary back. “No. I’m sick of secrets. Go on. Read it. I want you to. Honest.” Even though she meant what she said, she couldn’t help crossing her arms protectively around her middle.
To hide her pain, she turned to look out the dormer window. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her sister hesitating, then unsteadily lowering herself to perch on the edge of the bed.
Just beyond the bare yard Markie could see the windmill, like a huge leaden sunflower, fanning above the leafy tops of twin live oaks. The holding tank to the side was the same dull silver color, the color of all things utilitarian on the farm. In the foreground a rickety post-and-barbed-wire fence demarcated her father’s garden, already bursting with spring foliage. An overalls-and-Stetson bedecked scarecrow, twice the size of a real man, stood over the rows with a toy gun lashed to one stuffed glove and a lurid smile painted on his pale muslin face. Markie smiled. One year her father had actually won first prize in the scarecrow festival over at Cedarville.
Beyond lay the acres and acres of gently rolling land that marked the southern reaches of the Texas Hill Country. Will I ever get away from this beautiful, godforsaken place? Markie was beginning to doubt whether she should stay on here to help her widowed sister. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass, as if her very countenance, her very identity, arose from this land, would always be imprinted here.
Markie’s love-hate relationship with the Hill Country had plagued her even after she’d made a disciplined effort to focus on a new life, a good life. Even her years as a mover and shaker among the power suits in the glass-walled urban canyons of Dallas had not eradicated the strange spell of the Texas Hill Country. Rocky gorges. Remote waterfalls. Wild rivers. Dusty rodeos. Savory barbecues. Old-time German Christmases. The memories, good and bad, always vivid, came back to her too easily as she looked out over the landscape where she had grown up. The Texas Hill Country was not the kind of place one could just leave.
Sometimes it felt as if she was two people. The hearty little girl who grew up running around this rustic landscape regulated by the seasonal rhythms of farming, and the sleek, sophisticated young woman who thrived in a bustling cosmopolitan culture, rushing headlong into the future. Two distinct parts, cleaved by the one event certain to change girl to woman—the birth of a child.
For some moments Robbie had been flipping pages, reading with the diary held close to her face as had been her girlhood habit. Markie noted the exact moment when she stopped. The clock ticked three times before Robbie lowered the open book to her lap, her finger touching one spot on the page, like a devotee lining a particular passage of the Bible in church.
Markie bit her lip as, with head bent, still as a penitent, her sister stared at the open page.
Robbie lifted sad eyes up to look at her sister and asked, “Am I reading this right?”
Markie didn’t answer. She turned back to the view. So peaceful. So beautiful. As if nothing had ever gone wrong in this place. But everything had.
“Markie?” Robbie’s troubled voice insisted from behind. “You…you had a baby?”
Markie stood stock still, closing her eyes, imagining again the scene of Danny’s death. What a horrible way to see one’s husband die. And what a horrible time to find out that your little sister is not even remotely who you thought she was. “Yes,” she said without looking back at Robbie. “When I was seventeen.”
“I… I don’t believe it.” Robbie flared a palm over her swollen bosom, where a perennial gold cross winked on a short chain. A gift from Danny, no doubt. Her sister, always the good girl to the core, would never understand what Markie had gone through, no matter how many diaries explained the pain.
Markie turned upon her sister with that uncompromising steady gaze that had vaulted her to her success in the political arena. “Well, you’ve got to believe it. Because it’s true.”
CHAPTER TWO
The maternity home is not such a bad place. It’s kind of pretty from the street, actually. Quaint. A brick three-story with a big porch and tall white columns. Somebody said it’s an old converted sorority house. Isn’t that weird? It’s a sisterhood of losers now. Girls like me who listened to some guy’s sweet talk until he broke her heart.
The home—and I use that word in the worst sense, sort of like the warehouses where they stick old people—is tucked away at the end of a long, shady street a few blocks from the University of Texas campus. There’s nothing that indicates what’s really going on inside—just a little brass plaque beside the door that reads Edith Phillips Center. For Wayward Girls, I added in my head as I walked through the door.
Frankie insisted on lugging my bags upstairs, acting like she wasn’t in a hurry, but I could tell she was. I could tell she wanted to beat the rush-hour traffic around the capitol. And, of course, the almighty Dr. Kyle mustn’t miss his dinner.
A girl who actually looked more pregnant than me showed us to a tiny office where I met my caseworker, May, who is kind of cool. May looks as if she’s stuck back in the sixties, wearing a loud afghan and a shiny Afro. Really. She even made Frankie laugh. Then we met some of the other girls,