The Amazon Triangle (NaNoWriMo 2016 Project)

Chapter 5 (Dillard v. Alden)

 Edith emerged from the ballroom just in time to see her mother barging out one of the French doors leading to a wraparound balcony on this level. She felt the stirring of the ship, as rain lashed the windows and whitecaps billowed around them.

Edith reached the door and pushed it open against the wind. The stiff, frigid gusts caught her hair and tossed it across her face till she pulled it back and secured it with a hairband from her wrist. She could see her mom hunched over the railing, fumbling with something in her hands. Edith came closer.

"Mom?"

Janet whipped up guiltily, the unlit cigarette hanging between her lips while five more slipped out of the box in her shaking hands. She bent to pick them up, but Edith was faster.

"Mom! What are you doing?" She chided, grabbing the small tubes rolling on the deck. She took the packet from Janet's hand and even the cigarette from her mouth. "You quit, remember? You promised!"

Janet tried to grab one back. "I just—I bough them from the store because I... Just one! Okay? I just need—" she stammered.

Edith stepped back. "No," she said firmly, like a parent correcting her child.

Tears streamed down Jan's face. "You don't understand!" She choked. "You just have no idea what I'm going through—what I've been through for him!"

Francis Dillard; the photo was real, after all. Edith watched her mom with a mix of pity and disappointment on her face. "Okay fine," she said, "I don't understand, but, Mom," she tossed the cigarettes into the trash, "I'm an adult, too; you can tell me things!"

Janet watched the trash can with all the forlorn grace of an abandoned puppy. "I promised myself I wouldn't have anything more to do with him," she said as the tears ran down her face. "I never wanted to see him again as long as I lived."

"Mr. Dillard?" Edith asked.

Jan nodded.

"What did he do to you? Did he..." Edith stopped herself from being too blunt, out of sensitivity to her mother's feelings, "force himself—"

"Frank?" Her mother cut in, her voice ringing with disgust. "No, he was too good for that!" She snapped sarcastically. "He never touched my body other than grabbing a hand or an elbow." She sighed. "No, he was... He did it in other ways."

Goose flesh rippled over Edith's skin, and it wasn't just from the storm that pelted them. She pulled her sweater closer and folded her arms over her chest. Gesturing to the door with her head, she asked, "Wanna talk about it?"

Jan nodded, and the two women re-entered the boat's interior. They took seats tucked away in the corner, and Jan began her account.

"I had just graduated from high school," she explained, "and my parents were really pushing me to go to college." She caught the knowing smirk on her daughter's face and reared up defensively. "We didn't have a lot of money, and I would have just as easily chosen not to, but since I was the oldest, they wanted to make sure at least one of their children was fully educated, no matter what the cost."

Edith nodded, watching her mom with a serious expression; tight money was no laughing matter, as well she knew. "What did they do?"

"They had some money set aside, and I started working and saving everywhere I could right out of high school, and eventually I was able to afford a couple years at the local community college in Schenectady."

Edith pursed her lips. "Okay, but then how did you get to Oxford University?" she asked.

Janet smiled. "Scholarships. My dad found a college that would do regular student exchanges with Oxford, and he researched till he found enough scholarships to cover my trip to England, and a year of study. I took Liberal Arts because that seemed to be the most basic degree, with plenty of different fields of study."