She decides that she’ll look for bluebirds on the way back. If she sees one before she gets to the cabin, Father’s letter will make her mother happy and if she doesn’t, it won’t.
To the delight of the dogs and her own relief, June joins her on the path beside the graveyard. He hands her a stalk of cane sorghum and she puts it in her mouth, tastes the sweetness of its syrup on her tongue. In his company, the dead children are silent. Even the sky brightens and quiets.
“I hate farming,” June tells her. His face is red from the morning’s work. “I won’t be a farmer.” Rosalie is the only one he can say this to. Running the farm is Father’s plan for June since he shows no particular brilliance for anything.
The cherry tree at the front door is just budding. Father has had it grafted so the blooms will vary from one side of the tree to the other, and this year, the graft having taken and aged, they hope to have some red cherries along with the usual black.
Rosalie remembers how often she used to climb that tree. It was a balcony from which Juliet’s speeches could be shouted down to Romeo. But there was a time when she was seated on a branch, her skirts rucked up, eating all the ripe cherries she could reach. Birds above her were doing the same, and making a joyful noise until suddenly they weren’t. It took Rosalie a moment to notice how quiet the tree had become. She looked up and a large snake was twisting down the trunk in her direction, its tongue protruding as if it could already taste her. Rosalie nearly fell in her haste to get down.
“It was probably perfectly harmless,” Mother said, but Rosalie knows better. Even in the old familiar places, in places you know and love, in your very home, peril is hidden like a serpent in the leaves.
There’s a bird in the tree now, a jay, who turns sideways to pin her with a glassy eye. This is not the kind of bluebird she meant, but it is blue, so it’s an unclear omen in the end.
iv
The letters to Father are stuffed into the chaos of papers on his desk, amidst the wigs, the hats, the bills, the journals, account books, and press clippings. Books by Dante, Shelley, Torquato Tasso. Shakespeare lies open, facedown on the clutter.
The letter from Father, Mother reads to herself and then reads again aloud to Rosalie and June. She sits in one of the hard ladder-back chairs, her belly resting on her knees. Even at midday, the windows are too small for the room to be bright. Mother holds the letter right up to her face.
About Charleston, he writes: “There is a greater suavity of manners than can be found in the Northern States—and were it not for the unnecessary and wicked treatment of the colored people the Carolinians would have few blemishes.”
He is likewise impressed with the quality of the fruits and vegetables. The weather, he says, is wonderful, not too hot for an audience, not too cold for a night on the town. He boasts of the large turnout for his first Othello. He says he got fine reviews.
And then he includes this quote from a letter to the editor: “We consider him not only as the ornament and glory, but the victim of his profession.” Mother’s eyes flick to Rosalie. June is oblivious, but Rosalie understands her instantly. It’s an odd quote and Mother is wondering what he means by including it.
He sends them all his love and an admonition to be sure the babies don’t go outside without proper shoes. This is so important for their health! he says. “You see how your father is always thinking of you,” Mother says, though it sounds as if he is thinking of Edwin and Asia, not June and Rosalie. He sends no money.
The babies are supposed to be napping, but Rosalie can still hear Asia talking to herself up in the loft. She’s getting louder and Mother is worried she’ll wake Edwin, so Rosalie goes upstairs to lie down with her. Asia does everything wholeheartedly. When she sleeps, she sweats with the effort of it. Soon there is a damp spot on Rosalie’s sleeve where Asia’s head has been. It smells like sour milk.
By the time Asia is settled, June has already finished his dinner and gone. Mother is still at the table, her forehead on one bent arm, her food untouched. Rosalie can see the sharp line of white scalp where Mother’s hair is parted. Rosalie’s breath turns to thorns in her throat. “Mother?” Rosalie asks.
Mother raises her face. It’s flushed and wet.
She hands Rosalie the second letter from Charleston, this one from Thomas Flynn. Flynn is Father’s manager as well as his closest friend. He’d accompanied Father to Charleston at Mother’s request, to keep an eye on things. His letter is an apology for having failed to do so. His handwriting is cramped and uneven. Rosalie has a hard time with it, but she does make it out at last.
As the boat took them down to Charleston, Mr. Flynn has written, Rosalie’s father became increasingly obsessed with Elder Conway, an actor acquaintance who’d drowned himself several years back in these same Atlantic waters. Father asked to be alerted when they reached the exact spot, though of course no one knew the exact spot, but the captain eventually said they were now somewhere in the vicinity.
Father had waited for Mr. Flynn to be distracted, then gone out, swung himself over the upper railing, and dropped noisily onto the promenade deck. This didn’t go unnoticed. A crowd gathered on the deck above, calling for him to climb back. He looked up at all their faces. “I have a message for Conway,” he shouted and then he jumped.
He was half a mile behind the ship, floating in the frigid waters, by the time the captain could get the safety boat to him. Mr. Flynn said that Rosalie’s father had scolded him for nearly upsetting the boat while pulling him aboard. “My goodness, Tom, you’ll drown us all if you’re not more careful,” Rosalie’s father had said.
“I hope my letter reaches you before you hear about this elsewhere,” Mr. Flynn has written. “By the time we arrived in Charleston, there was already considerable press.”
Mother watches as Rosalie reads to the end. “We have no secrets between us,” Mother has begun to tell her, which certainly isn’t true on Rosalie’s side, and Rosalie wishes weren’t true on her mother’s either. There are things she’s glad to know and things she’d rather not. Mother never says, “We have no secrets,” to June, which sometimes makes Rosalie think she loves Rosalie best and sometimes makes her think just the opposite.
Father’s attempt to kill himself is one of those things Rosalie would rather not know about, the second suicide attempt of which she’s aware—a hanging first, a drowning now—and June is not. What would happen to them all if Father were gone?