Free Destiny's Daughter by Ruth Ryan Langan Page B

clammy flesh.
    Annalisa’s dress was black voile, with a high ruffled neckline and long tapered sleeves. A double layer of black netting fell from the top of her head to below her shoulders, completely veiling her face. She stood at the open grave and wept, grateful that no one could see her trembling lips and reddened eyes.
    The minister spoke about life and death, about the immortal soul and ashes and dust. When he was through, Annalisa found no comfort in his words. He hadn’t known her mother; just as she had not and never would. And although Sara Montgomery’s grave was surrounded by the women who shared her home, few of the townspeople or the important businessmen who had called and left their cards had attended the funeral. The strangers who peered at their small, somber procession seemed more curious than sympathetic.
    In the dreary morning pall, Annalisa watched as the workmen lowered the simple pine box. Lifting a rose to her lips, Annalisa kissed it before she tossed it into the open grave. While the men shoveled, she allowed the tears to flow.
    Oh, Mama. Who were you? And who was my father? Am I like you? Like him? I had so many questions. You’ve died a stranger to me. I’m a stranger to myself.
    She cried for the mother she never knew. She cried for the child who had been so lonely and afraid. And she cried for the fragile flicker of a dream she had kept locked away in her heart; the dream of a future here in this old house with the woman who had sent her away so long ago. That dream had been smothered before it even had a chance to grow. Now there was nothing here for her. She would go back to the convent, where Sister Marie Therese and the others were waiting. Back to the simple cell, the hard bunk, the sound of bells, the life of routine. It was all as she had planned, was it not? She would allow herself no time to think.
    The firm hands of Hattie Lee and Dr. Lynch propelled her away from the grave and to the carriage that took them back home. After a light lunch, Annalisa was ensconced in the sitting room to receive the condolences of still more businessmen who stopped by. Leaving the dark veil firmly in place to hide her tear-stained face, she quietly accepted their condolences and offered her hand to be pressed, or occasionally kissed. When at last she was led to her mother’s room to rest, she could remember none of the names and few of the faces. Too drained even to undress, she fell across the bed and slept until morning.
     
    *  *  *
     
    "Wake up, child," Hattie Lee’s musical voice called. A hand shook her. "Your mama’s solicitor will be here in an hour. He intends to read her will in the parlor."
    Annalisa sat up, disheveled, disoriented. Slowly she gazed around her mother’s room, noting the fresh gardenias in a crystal vase on the desk top, giving off their perfumed fragrance. In front of a marble fireplace was a horsehair sofa and two gilt chairs upholstered in lush red velvet. On a low round table between them was a book of poetry, and surprisingly, the works of Walt Whitman, a poet and popular political writer whom Annalisa herself admired, despite his Union leanings. As always, it had been Yvette who had smuggled the forbidden books to their room. And the words had touched a cord and opened up new thoughts to the repressed young women. Had her mother been interested in politics, she wondered, or simply in the beauty of his words?
    Everywhere she looked she saw evidence of the woman she had longed to know; her perfume, her clothes, even her jewelry positioned neatly in a silver box on the dresser top.
    "I must write to Sister Marie Therese and inform her when I will be returning," she mumbled, struggling to clear away the last clouds of sleep.
    "That can wait, child. Right now you’d best bathe and dress. I’ll have Thelma send you a tray."
    While Hattie Lee spoke she directed a maid to fill the tub which stood in a little dressing alcove. Beside it were a chest, holding a basin