Chapter 9: Tribulations Part 6 - A.J.T. Part 3

Caroline received Allen’s presence with a dignified grace, though she was suspicious of him from the onset; and eyed him like a criminal. Caroline was unaware of his occupation. She might have chained Vedette to the yard if she had known. Nevertheless, she accepted their relationship, unaware of the direction it was headed, but with what she considered reasonable expectations. They were not allowed to meet after dark, and never alone. Allen and my mother hardly considered these stipulations reasonable, as Caroline shadowed their every move, making it very difficult to even discuss anything informal. They both agreed that Caroline was like an infectious rash that would not go away, no matter how hard or how long they scratched.

Their time together was interrupted for weeks at a time, as Allen's moonshining business was booming, and often carried him out of state. But he never failed to return, and their relationship was destined to bloom into something more serious over the next several months.

As much as they tried to follow Caroline's rules, five weeks later after only their fourth meeting, my mother began sneaking out of her window at night and rendezvousing with Allen near the road off the Orchards. Vedette managed to keep her random nightly flings a secret for nearly nine months, with help from her cousin’s staff, who made every attempt at keeping Caroline away from Vedette’s bedroom while she was out. My mother was not promiscuous by nature - but after her mother became so controlling, almost suffocating, knowing full well what it meant to have what freedom Vedette had left taken from her - my mother’s inhibitions were ready to burst like a balloon whenever she was alone with my father. Less than a month later she confessed she "could wait no longer." They drove to the same wheat field where my father stomped an eight foot square in the same manner, and set a neatly placed blanket on the ground like before. My mother lay beside him and…

I will assume my readers can fill in the details that followed better than I can. I tore those pages out of my mother’s journals and burned them, and wish to every god imaginable that my eyes had never seen those pages. My mother was never one for delicacy, and considering that her journals were for her own private purpose, this momentous occasion was extremely descriptive.

Just thinking about it is unsettling, so I choose to skip forward nine months to the moment Caroline uncovered the truth about their moonlight encounters, and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination.

“I forbade you from seeing him alone, or at night, and here you are trotting home like you were just returning from the market.” Caroline eyed my mother maliciously. “What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”

“Let it be, mother, I wouldn’t be sneaking around if you weren’t so damned controlling. I'm a grown woman. Stop treating me like a child. Allen's a nice man, and I'm going to keep seeing him. I'm almost twenty two years old. You can't forbid a twenty two year old woman from doing what she wants."

"I can if that twenty two year old woman is my daughter," said Caroline. "Whether you like it or not, I'm still your mother and you will respect my wishes."

"And who will respect my wishes?" Vedette exclaimed with exhaustion. She had felt like a caged bird her whole life, and as she eyed her mother's quivering chin, considered either her cage was getting smaller or she was getting much too big for it. "You don't know him, mother. He treats me better than I treat myself, even if I don't deserve it. I'm not leaving him, and if you can't accept that, then you're just going to have to keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way."

"How dare you!" Caroline was astonished. Her eyes bulged and her hands balled into fists. It took every ounce of self control she possessed not to strike my mother. "How dare you speak to me that way and all on behalf of that...that hoodlum! You stink of that b*****d, you s**t! Tell me, Vedette Audrey Marcoux, tell me truthfully, do you even love this man?"

Vedette moaned with exasperation. "You are too cruel, Mother. I don't even know how I feel. That part of me is broken. All I feel is hate…hate for how you make me feel right now. You don't understand how hard it is to trust anyone after what I've been through. I can't even trust myself. So, truthfully mother, I don't know if I love him. I don't even know if I trust him. All I know for sure is that I like him, even if only as a friend."

"And tell me, Vedette Marcoux, do friends kiss each other as often as you two do? Do friends sneak off in the middle of the night, right under their mother's very noses - against their wishes, breaking their mother's poor hearts - running off God knows where and doing God knows what? Do they Vedette?"

Vedette sat on the edge of her bed, placed her face in her hands and shook her head. "Perhaps they would mother," she answered hopelessly. "Perhaps they would if their mothers were as suffocating as you are."

This was the final straw. Caroline was infuriated at such an insult. She slapped Vedette, carelessly and without remorse, and turned to leave. "I forbid you to ever see him again, Vedette. If you do, knowing it is my - your mother's wish not to - then you're not my daughter. I will not be a w***e’s mother! Goodnight!" Caroline slammed and locked the door, and left Vedette to cry the evening hours away. All she wanted was to run straight into Allen's arms and beg him to take her somewhere far away.

Vedette had had enough, enough of California, enough of her mother Caroline, enough of doing what everyone else expected of her. She tried to open her window, but it wouldn’t budge...nailed shut while she was out. She was trapped, with no way out except to submit to her mother’s every whim. “Never,” Vedette whispered. “Never, never, never,” the whisper increased in volume with each utterance until she was shouting at the top of her lungs, “Never, never, never!”

She snatched her copy of "Walden" from the shelf and retrieved a mantle clock from the top of the bookcase. With all the strength she could muster, Vedette tossed the clock through the window, spraying shards of glass in every direction. Caroline came running and unlocked the bedroom door, but Vedette was already halfway across the yard before she reached the window, shouting after her. “Don’t ever come back! You’re not my daughter!”

But she didn’t mean it, and as soon as the words left her lips, she collapsed on the floor among the broken glass, and wailed with grief. The entire farm was awake by that time and Dalila, along with Caroline’s cousin Antony and his wife came to find her in that position, lamenting for her lost daughter, legs bleeding from splinters of glass that bit into her skin. They all helped her to the bed and Antony's wife ran to gather warm towels and tweezers.

“Antony, please go after her," Caroline pleaded with him. "Don’t let her run away to that man. I didn’t mean all those mean things I said. Tell her I didn’t mean them, Antony. Just bring her back, bring her back to me. I don’t know how I can go on if I lose her.”

Antony could do little else but fulfill Caroline’s wishes. He quickly through some reins on his horse and ran out to find Vedette nearing the Orchard road. “Wait, Vedette, please!” he shouted after her, galloping through the trees and ducking to avoid the branches. He finally caught up with her just beyond the edge of the orchard. “Your mother is sorry, Vedette. She didn’t mean the things she said. She just worries about you.”

“She has a spiteful way of showing it,” Vedette responded.

“I agree, she should have handled things better, but she was just trying to protect you. She was trying to prevent you from having to relive the same pain again.”

“I can protect myself, and if I choose to give myself to anyone, it’s my choice.”

Antony grimaced and shook his head. “Your mother feels she’s partly to blame for what happened, Vedette. Can’t you understand that?

“I do understand,” said Vedette. “And she is partly to blame. She saw the look in the old man's eyes every time he was near me, and she did nothing.”

“She would have if she could. She tried her best to keep you away from him. That was your father's fault, but she saw the same look in Allen’s eyes and wanted to stop him from doing the same. She could’t undo the past, but she at least tried to stop it from happening again.”

“Don’t you think I noticed more than anyone, the look in Allen’s eyes. I noticed it the moment we met, but he’s not my Great Uncle.” Vedette spit at the mention of the man. “He may have had the same hunger, but at least he had the self restraint to control himself. He has helped me a great deal, Antony, helped me understand what it means to trust someone; though I didn’t realize it until now. I think I do love him,” she uttered these last words very quietly and reflectively. “I think I do love him,” she whispered. “I can’t feel it, but how am I supposed to know what it's supposed to feel like. I know it must be true. It must be.” Vedette walked over to her cousin’s horse and touched his leg fondly as she spoke to him, “Help me, Antony. Help me, please. I can’t bear it here anymore. I have to go and find my own way. I have to live my own life.”

Antony sighed and shook his head. He understood what he had to do, even if Caroline made the rest of his life unbearable because of it. “Go,” he said. “Go, I wish you luck. Just please, know what you’re doing. Don’t do anything foolish.”

“I won’t,” Vedette smiled. “Thank you, Antony, thank you. Tell mother I’ll be okay, and I will write to her as soon as I am settled and enough time has passed for both of us to forgive each other.”

And then Allen pulled up in another Model T, different than the last, and vanished with my mother. It would be the last time Antony or Caroline would ever see or hear from her again. She did not write as she promised. She couldn’t face the shame she felt after Allen left her, knowing that her mother had been right all along.