Page 23 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
She watched her mother’s lips moving and heard the words spoken, but she couldn’t understand them. She couldn’t possibly be suggesting that Fern go to this institutionnow?
“I don’t understand. Teach? Where?”
She couldn’t draw a full breath. Couldn’t think straight.
“Indiana. Just outside Zionsville. It’s a school but also a working farm,” her mother answered, speaking quickly now, with building excitement. “There are fifty orso residents and a full staff, and I think you would fit in so well?—”
“No.”
Her mother went quiet, her next word half-formed on her lips. She stared at Fern, her mouth slowly closing.
“I’m not going to an institution,” Fern whispered, her throat tight. The suggestion hurt. It hurt more than the back of her father’s hand.
“But darling, you could have a life there.” Pinpricks of color dotted her mother’s neck. It was where she blushed first. Never her cheeks, but her neck. It stood out against her pale skin and became a mottled rash.
“My life is here.”
“What life? You stay in your room most days. You barely go out, Fern.”
“I like staying in.”
It was comfortable. It was safe. Fern’s life wasn’t like her mother’s. It wasn’t like her cousin Patrice’s or the odious Jane Farrington’s. It washers. Fern knew what to expect from it. Did her mother honestly think she’d spent her childhood dreaming of marriage and children, and of doing all the things most women were able to do?
Fern’s chest squeezed as the smallestyeselbowed its way into her mind. Yes, she had dreamed of those things. But dreams were all they could ever be.
Her mother crossed her arms tighter and drew back her shoulders. “You would like going out more. You’d like not worrying about being seen by people who don’t understand.”
“You don’t know what I worry about, Mother,” Fernsaid, but it sounded petty. And weak. She did worry about it. Every day.
“I know that you’ll spend your life alone, hiding in this house, if you don’t do something. Maybe you won’t marry or have children, but you could still have a…a purpose.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Fern stepped back and started to close the door. Her mother put her hand out.
“Please, just give Young Acres a try.”
Young Acres. That was the name of this soul-crushing institution. The one her father had wanted to ship her off to when she’d no longer been the adorable toddler that he could hold up and show off with pride.
“I only want what’s best for you,” her mother said, and with the dip in her voice and the press of her penciled brows, Fern believed her. She did want the best for her daughter.
But she also wanted Fern out of her hair. Out from under her roof where she had to think about her daughter every day. Worry about her. And now with these photographs from Rodney, the desire to be rid of her would only increase.
Fern closed the door and backed into her room. It was true that she barely left it, but it had everything she needed: books, paper, clothes, paints, a Victrola, and a wireless radio.
But could Fern find a purpose in her room? That word burned through her mind, and she spent the next several hours trying to figure out what it meant. Purpose. She wouldn’t have a husband or a family. She likelywouldn’t ever have a job either. What was she to do day in and day out?Young Acres. You could be a teacher.Her mother’s voice was an echoing phantom.
Fern didn’t dress until past noon that day and then chose not to go down for dinner anyway. She couldn’t bear to see her father or Buchanan, and she was sick to death of hearing her own thoughts about Young Acres, let alone having to listen to her mother speak of it again. She picked at a tray Mrs. Jennaway sent up, but Fern wasn’t hungry, and anyhow, each bite of food felt as if it was hurtling down her throat into a roiling abyss.
By the time darkness fell, she was seated in her turret window again, eyes on the street. She didn’t want to admit that she was looking forhiscar, but they were her own thoughts—it was pointless to be embarrassed by them. For a while, she pretended to read, then picked up a pillowcase and worked on monogramming her initials onto the white cotton. With every passing pair of headlights, however, she glanced up. A dull ache formed in her temples.
This was absurd. Cal wasn’t going to come, and hadn’t she already decided she wanted nothing to do with him or his gang ever again? They were dangerous. This room was safe.
But Francis had stood in the foyer downstairs. Cal had sat at their dinner table and sipped milk from one of their glasses. They had come into Fern’s home. Was it truly safe? The bruise under her eye made her think twice.
A flash outside stole Fern’s attention from the half-formedAon the pillowcase. The needle poked throughthe cotton and slipped out of her fingers. Was it a streak of lightning? All afternoon, the air had been dense and heavy, and gray skies had spread out like a sheet over the lake before nightfall.
The flash came again. It was from a car parked in the same spot as the night before—by the street curb in front of their neighbor’s home. Fern dropped the pillowcase. Something like a boulder lodged in her throat while at the same time, bees took flight in her stomach. He was watching her from where he sat behind the wheel of his Roadster. Waiting for her to decide.
It was safe up here, high in this turret, away from the real world. But for how long?
