spent with Eugenia, and how many things we did together and I did for her, I knew I could never feel the way she felt or appreciate how hard it was for her to be on the inside looking out most of the time. Emily's God did frighten me; she did make me tremble when she threatened me with His anger and vengeance. How unreasonable He was, I thought, and how capable He must be of great and painful acts if He permitted someone as precious and kind as Eugenia to suffer so while Emily strutted about arrogantly.
Emily lived in her private world, too. Unlike Eugenia, Emily wasn't a helpless, unwilling prisoner; Emily chose to lock herself away, not with real walls of plaster and paint and wood but with walls of anger and hate. She cemented every opening closed with some Biblical quote or story. I used to think that even the minister was afraid of her, afraid that she would discover some deep, dark and secret sin he had committed once and tell God.
And then, of course, there was I, the only one perhaps who truly lived at The Meadows, who ran over its fields and threw rocks in its streams, who went out to smell the flowers and inhale the sweet scent of the tobacco crops, who passed time with the laborers and knew everyone who worked on the plantation by their first names. I didn't lock myself willingly in a section of the great house and ignore the rest.
Yes, despite the dark cloud of pain that the truth of my birth held over me and despite having a sister like Emily, for the most part, I enjoyed my adolescence at The Meadows.
The Meadows will never lose its charm, I thought back then. Storms would come and storms would go, but there would always be a warm spring to follow. Of course, I was still very young then. I couldn't even begin to imagine how dark it could get, how cold it could be, how alone I would become almost as soon as my adolescence ended.
When I was twelve, I began to experience changes in my body that led Mamma to say I would be a beautiful young woman, a flower of the South. It was nice to be thought of as pretty, to have people, especially Mamma's lady friends, express their admiration over the softness of my hair, the richness of my complexion and the beauty of my eyes. Suddenly, almost overnight it seemed to me, my clothes began to fit tighter in places and it wasn't because I was putting on too much weight. If anything, my childlike chubbiness in my face had melted away and the straight, boyish lines of my body began to turn and to curve more dramatically. I was always small-framed with a lean torso, although nowhere near as gangly as Emily who shot up so quickly it looked like she had been stretched overnight.
Emily's height brought her a look of maturity, but it was maturity that showed itself only in her face. The rest of her feminine development had either been forgotten or ignored. None of her lines were soft and delicate like mine were, and by age twelve, I was pretty sure I had twice the bosom. I didn't know because I had never seen Emily undressed, not even in her slip.
One night while I was taking a bath, Mamma came by and noticed my womanly development had begun.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed with a smile, "you're bosom is blossoming much earlier than mine did. We're going to have to buy you some new undergarments, Lillian."
I felt myself blush all over, especially when Mamma rattled on and on about how my figure would literally devastate the young men who gazed upon me. They would all look at me with that intensity "that makes you think they want to memorize every detail of your face and figure." Mamma loved to apply the words and lessons in her romance novels to our everyday lives, each and every time an opportunity presented itself.
Less than a year later, I had my first period. No one told me what to expect. Emily and I were returning from school one late spring day. It was already as warm as summer, so Emily and I wore nothing more than our dresses. Fortunately, we had just parted company with
Emily lived in her private world, too. Unlike Eugenia, Emily wasn't a helpless, unwilling prisoner; Emily chose to lock herself away, not with real walls of plaster and paint and wood but with walls of anger and hate. She cemented every opening closed with some Biblical quote or story. I used to think that even the minister was afraid of her, afraid that she would discover some deep, dark and secret sin he had committed once and tell God.
And then, of course, there was I, the only one perhaps who truly lived at The Meadows, who ran over its fields and threw rocks in its streams, who went out to smell the flowers and inhale the sweet scent of the tobacco crops, who passed time with the laborers and knew everyone who worked on the plantation by their first names. I didn't lock myself willingly in a section of the great house and ignore the rest.
Yes, despite the dark cloud of pain that the truth of my birth held over me and despite having a sister like Emily, for the most part, I enjoyed my adolescence at The Meadows.
The Meadows will never lose its charm, I thought back then. Storms would come and storms would go, but there would always be a warm spring to follow. Of course, I was still very young then. I couldn't even begin to imagine how dark it could get, how cold it could be, how alone I would become almost as soon as my adolescence ended.
When I was twelve, I began to experience changes in my body that led Mamma to say I would be a beautiful young woman, a flower of the South. It was nice to be thought of as pretty, to have people, especially Mamma's lady friends, express their admiration over the softness of my hair, the richness of my complexion and the beauty of my eyes. Suddenly, almost overnight it seemed to me, my clothes began to fit tighter in places and it wasn't because I was putting on too much weight. If anything, my childlike chubbiness in my face had melted away and the straight, boyish lines of my body began to turn and to curve more dramatically. I was always small-framed with a lean torso, although nowhere near as gangly as Emily who shot up so quickly it looked like she had been stretched overnight.
Emily's height brought her a look of maturity, but it was maturity that showed itself only in her face. The rest of her feminine development had either been forgotten or ignored. None of her lines were soft and delicate like mine were, and by age twelve, I was pretty sure I had twice the bosom. I didn't know because I had never seen Emily undressed, not even in her slip.
One night while I was taking a bath, Mamma came by and noticed my womanly development had begun.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed with a smile, "you're bosom is blossoming much earlier than mine did. We're going to have to buy you some new undergarments, Lillian."
I felt myself blush all over, especially when Mamma rattled on and on about how my figure would literally devastate the young men who gazed upon me. They would all look at me with that intensity "that makes you think they want to memorize every detail of your face and figure." Mamma loved to apply the words and lessons in her romance novels to our everyday lives, each and every time an opportunity presented itself.
Less than a year later, I had my first period. No one told me what to expect. Emily and I were returning from school one late spring day. It was already as warm as summer, so Emily and I wore nothing more than our dresses. Fortunately, we had just parted company with
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