Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons Page A

home first, after all. I grew up here, lived here even longer than you all have been here. I don’t need to be paid for coming home.”
    “Will you miss your apartment?”
    “Not for a minute. Who could miss that? I’ve missed this place a lot, though.”
    She left to get Emily’s supper, and Emily went into the underwater bathroom and stared at her face in the greenish mirror. She looked just the same. How could that be?
    Presently she lay in deep, hot water, Elvis beside the tub on the bathmat, and let herself think a little about the last three days. She thought that it would be all right to begin to do so now, with her aunt in the house. What she thought was that she could never again see her father and her aunt as she had seen them before. From now on, whenever she looked at her father, she would see, as if in pentimento, the wounded young man who had watched his wife walk away. And when she looked at her collected, efficient aunt, she would see the girl child playing in the sunlight all over the plantation, perhaps in the very places she and Elvis went. She would see her watching the dolphins slide at Sweetwater Creek, reading in the deep shade of a live oak off on a hummock, dangling her feet in the glittering water of the river from the dock, the tide creaming in.
    She would see her leaving this house and moving into an apartment when her sister brought her new husband home to the house that had become hers alone.
    Emily felt a new emotion that she knew she must now work into the fabric of her knowing. It was pity. It seemed impossible to do. She hated it. She would not do it. Change…
    She scrubbed herself nearly raw and put on clean clothes, and went down the stairs to have the first of many suppers with her aunt.
     
    And after all, it had worked well. Before long her aunt Jenny was as natural a part of life at Sweetwater as her father, the boys, the dogs, and the river. By the time a month or so had passed Emily found it hard to remember when she had not been there.
    On the first night she ate supper with the whole family, her father had welcomed her back solemnly and formally, and said he hoped she was over the flu bug—Emily shot a grateful glance at her aunt—and that the new arrangement was just what the doctor ordered. Cleta would get some well-earned rest, Jenny was gracious enough to say that she would enjoy being here, and she, Emily, would learn how to be a real young lady. He seemed very pleased, almost hearty, and ate two helpings of the pasta puttanesca Jenny had made.
    “Very tasty,” he said, rising.
    “Good macaroni, Aunt Jenny,” the twins said, and melted away toward the TV room.
    Walter stood there, and then drew a piece of folded paper from his pocket.
    “I’ve made a list of things Emily ought to learn to do,” he said. “Of course she can’t do them all at once; she can take them one at a time. I believe you know how to do most of them, Jenny, but I’m sure you can find someone to teach her the things you don’t know. I’ve arranged them in order of priority. You can look them over after supper, and we can talk about them tomorrow night.”
    And he, too, faded away toward the TV room, drawn there by flickering light and male pheromones like a moth.
    Emily and her aunt looked at each other, and then took the list upstairs to Emily’s bedroom to peruse it. Her aunt read it first and then handed it to Emily, the corners of her mouth twitching. She said nothing, though. Emily read through it:
Learn to dress like a young lady. Skirts for school and special occasions. No makeup or high heels yet, and no more short shorts. I will set a suitable budget for her clothes, and I won’t need to okay them. I trust your taste, Jenny.
Learn to do some simple company cooking. Soufflés, little sandwiches, crab cakes, chafing dishes, shrimp and rice, desserts. Your benné seed biscuits would be good, Jenny.
Learn to carry on intelligent conversation with guests. No more hiding upstairs with