The Red Daughter: A Novel by John Burnham Schwartz

Author:John Burnham Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-04-28T23:00:00+00:00

1972

12 March

Arizona

Morning, ma’am. Is Mr. Evans here?

From my front porch, I stare at this young shrub of a reporter. Quite possibly, under normal circumstances, with his blue eyes and cherubic cheeks, cleanly shaved, he is a perfectly decent southwesterner, a baseball dad and low-handicap bowler, as well as an expert carver of Thanksgiving turkeys. But these are not normal times. Which he well knows. Else why brandish notebook and pen on my porch at seven-thirty in the morning?

I tell him that Mr. Evans has gone into town. I start to close the door of my new little house—everything in it, including this door with its heavy brass knob, still feeling foreign to the touch—but he’s quicker than he looks and manages to get his foot in the way.

Is Mr. Evans residing here, ma’am? Are you two separated? Are you going to file for divorce?

Like all good hunters, he has been careful to catch his prey unawares. I stand before him in house clothes and callused bare feet, an owl’s nest of hair. Such an awkward human picture that internally he’s berating himself for not bringing a camera, I can see it in his eyes.

Absolutely not.

Then why are you living out here? Why aren’t you at Taliesin?

The Fellowship believes in communal living, I attempt to educate him, not in children or families. So my husband and myself, we agree it’s better for our son to have separation from the Fellowship. We bought this house together.

That’s not what the Fellowship’s saying. They’ve sent out a statement.

Statement? What statement? Who says this? I know nothing of any statement. Show it to me.

I don’t have it on me, but it’s definitely authentic. Official Fellowship stationery.

I know that stationery, I think, with the Architect’s famous crest and lettering. The Widow loves nothing more than to disseminate her philosophies and revisionist histories to the public on its bleached surface.

I see. So what does it say, this statement?

It says you’ve abandoned your husband, Sid Evans, and he’s seeking a divorce.

The woman’s a liar.

Mrs. Wright? He seems genuinely shocked, as if I have just damned his queen to hell. Then he gathers himself, cheeks flushed by the prospect of imminent promotion at The Arizona Republic, and neatly flips open his notebook to jot down my remarkable words.

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