The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton Disclafani

Author:Anton Disclafani
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781594486401
Publisher: Riverhead
Published: 2013-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

{13}

Dear Thea,

Did you like the coat? How was Christmas at school? Your father says we need to go away somewhere for a while but where? Here is where I want to be. I’m not lonely. Your father is working more than ever, even if everything else is changed there are always the sick and dying. And there seem to be more of them here now, the sick and dying.

I wish I could see you, Thea. I wish things were not how they are. You should have been my child longer. All three of you should have been children longer. I’ll stop with that. Does it surprise you to read a letter like this, your mother so maudlin?

I cut back all the roses, mulched all the beds, hacked away everything dead. I worked for days, perhaps did too much. Sam helped. Your brother is still your brother. There is more to say, surely, but I can’t think of it. I know you wrote to him. I know he has not written back. He is still reeling, Thea; I hope I am right in telling you this. I mean not to hurt your feelings, only to explain his.

Georgie is fine. Sam said you asked.

Bundle up in those mountains. Don’t ride too long or hard. Remember your health.

Love,

Mother

I sat in the Hall with Sissy, in our usual spot, on a threadbare red velvet sofa, and read Mother’s letter. I was exhausted. I’d been sleeping poorly since my nighttime visit to Masters, three days ago.

We weren’t supposed to have roses in Emathla, in that humid, hot climate, but Mother loved them. She worried over them, and when they bloomed in the spring they were beautiful; you would not have known they did not belong.

My feelings were hurt. She had known they would be; I felt stung, crumpled. It was one thing to think of my family separately, going about their lives; another entirely to think that an alliance had been formed against me.

Katherine Hayes started playing something cheerful on the piano. Decca’s accident had hushed Yonahlossee—girls had cried into each other’s shoulders, and sported grave expressions, and looked sadly at Masters—but only for a day. Jettie stood at an easel, painting a watercolor of the view of the mountains from the window. I could see from here that Martha Ladue, who sat next to her, was idly flipping the pages of a magazine, and that Jettie’s painting was very bad. Martha Ladue seemed to be interested in only two things: speaking French and being beautiful.

The day after I had gone to Masters, Mr. Holmes had told everyone during morning prayer that Decca had broken her collarbone, that she was recovering nicely. He seemed exhausted as he spoke to us. His eyes were tired. Since then he had appeared at most, but not all, meals. In his absence, Miss Metcalfe, the French teacher, presided. This was the first time I’d paid any attention to Miss Metcalfe. She fell into the boring category that most teachers and girls here did: plain but not ugly, nice but uninteresting.

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