Displacement

-Part I-
Carolyn was sipping tea on the Veranda, the white pillars like gleaming ivory in the night. Her red dress was draped around her like a cloak and the flickering lanterns licked it crimson, the dark swallowing it back up hungrily. She was waiting, had been waiting for years, sitting on this veranda in the night, in the morning in the hot southern day, looking out as if into forever. The view outside the house was of well groomed lawn and then fields, fields of wheat that shimmered like golden waves in the thirsty summer breeze. She would watch the waves, lapping rhythmically, they would hypnotize her and she would retreat into the far recesses of her mind. With little else to do except go to the occasional afternoon tea with friends or talk with the financier, she spent hours, days, months just staring and thinking.
It was seven years since that her husband had left, gone to war, a general and a hero. He had left in a blaze of fire, his soldiers whooping for blood. Before he had left he had done something bad, something unforgivable, something he would pay for she promised herself everyday. Before he had left for war, he had killed their daughter.
Fanny was only a girl in her teens had been sitting in the kitchen when the fight began. She was drinking tea, eating her morning toast when her father, still drunk from the night before came teetering down the stairs with the whiskey bottle still in his hand. When Carolyn had admonished him he flew into a rage and started to hit her. It was then that Fanny ran to her mother to stop him and she caught a fatal blow to the head, the bottle shattering, laying a sparkling carpet for her to rest upon, bleeding her last heart strokes upon the cherry wood floors.
The death had been easily enough explained away, Abe being a general. She had died at the hands of a slave who had taken the devil into his heart and come upon her like a fiend. The slave was burned alive as the townsmen clamored for justice and sucked at amber juices, spitting upon the curling flames, creating a fireworks display of vengeance. The black slaves stood, backs against the shed or post and looked on with dark eyes, silent and motionless. The blood hounds barked and howls rolled out, jowls swinging, tails wagging.
Abe left shortly after, Carolyn sick with shock, lay silent in her bed, nursed by the large ebony woman who cooed sadly to her into the late hours of the night and the crickets accompanying her with their lonely serenade. The war had taken her husband away in a wave of excitement and cheers, and Abe had left his silent wife alone in its wake. As the years passed
Elaine, Carolyn’s other daughter would pine for her father, worshipping his portrait that sat over the marble fireplace, constantly recounting “how things used to be.” Owen their son had left to go to college in Atlanta when he turned eighteen.
Tonight Carolyn sat and thought and stared at the inky waves in the dark ocean of the plantation. A smile played at her lips and her hungry eyes searched beyond the sea of wheat, to the road beyond, on which her husband would return upon very soon now. She felt a hand touch the back of her neck and slowly begin to rub. She did not look back but remained as she was, alert and silent.
“Darlin, how are you tonight?” said a smooth mans voice behind her.
“Fine, just having my evening tea, Augustus,” she responded.
“You mustn’t pine so my Sweet, everything will go just fine, don’t you worry about a thing. I hate to see you here all by yourself in the dark. Why don’t you come to bed.”
With a last gentle squeeze he left, she could hear his heavy footfalls as he entered the house and climbed the arch stairway. She sat and stared, having not moved a muscle yet. She thought she could see figures moving in the surging wheat, silvery shadows in the moonlight. She imagined one was Abe, returned towards her, staggering up the lawn. Her lips curved in a velvet smile, her eyes froze the humid summer heat.


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It was that Sunday that he returned home. It was in the later afternoon and the heat beat down upon the bare black backs that beaded with thick sweat, as the slaves picked cotton in the fields on the west side of the big house. Even the bloodhounds who usually roamed the property were slack and lazy in the shade of an elm. Caroline heard the noise before she ever saw a thing, and new this was the day. She slowly wiped her hands upon her apron and then removed it, setting it gently on the hook. She had been pruning her indoor roses and a glimmer of blood slid down her fingertip. She sucked at it thoughtfully and then glided over to the mirror, arranging her hair and smoothing her dress. Her radiant dark eyes were like cool liquid pools, her beautiful cheekbones gave her an aristocratic air. She stared at her reflection for a moment, the silent household loomed around her in the dim light. She stared beyond herself, farther than the reflection and pleased with the results she turned and went to meet her husband.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs of the verandah. She could see her husband riding down the path with what seemed like an entire battalion of old soldiers. With them also was a woman, cowering on a white horse, hands died and dress dusty. She seemed to be murmuring to herself and looked around terrified.
As Abe approached he spotted his wife, smiled, stopped and dismounted. He came to greet her with a warm embrace and she smiled a great smile and ushered him into the house with words of joy and merriment. The soldiers, most old and some so old they were decrepit took the horses to the stables and unloaded. The woman on the white horse was escorted inside by a young soldier.
“Caroline, it is good to see you, you look well and so does the house. Did you miss me much?” said Abe in rough jolly tones.

“Oh Abe!” she purred, “I have missed you ever so much, it being seven years that you have been gone, and only the newspaper to tell me how you fared. My how I missed you, so much. I have been waiting for this moment for years.”

“Excellent,” he said, “Excellent to be home,” and he grabbed a bottle out of the cabinet and poured himself a drink. “I’ve brought somebody home dear, a sort of orphaned young woman, a Yankee, who we found at an enemies house. She will be staying with us for a time and if you could tend to her that would be wonderful.” He gave her a thankful smile and slung back his drink, wiping his beard on his coat sleeve.
“So glad to see you haven’t changed Abe, by beloved.”


That night the house rang with the noise of celebratory drinking as some of the older soldiers stayed at the plantation and many from the town came to toast to the war hero. Cassidy (the name of the captive Caroline found out), was dragged from her guest room in the midst of the celebrations and was forced to sit on Abe’s lap and endure his increasingly boisterous advances. Caroline was obliging as she brought more drink and ordered the servants and kept the men happy. As the night wore on a handsome gentleman appeared at the plantation to offer congratulations to Abe for his military success. By this time, Abe was so drunk that he sloshed bourbon on the guest as he shook his hand and yelled, “Good to meet you Augustus!”
One by one the soldiers dropped off to sleep, Cassidy was taken back to her room by Caroline, who then coaxed her stumbling husband up to the bedroom. She drew a bath for her husband and he gladly soaked as she administered the sponge to his skin. As the fumes evaporated in the hot steam, he began to sober up. The longer he soaked and the more Caroline washed, the more sedated he became. As finally his head began to knock and he grew dizzy, he lifted himself out of the tub and Caroline handed him a towel and a robe. He felt disoriented, his head felt extremely hot and his blood seemed to burn. He was almost blinded by his pounding head, but could have sworn he saw a mans figure step into the bedroom outside the master bath. At the same moment, as he dried to stand straight and squint at the doorway. There were two figures there now, one was Caroline, and the other, the other? The man looked familiar, they had met earlier Abe was sure. At this moment the man handed Caroline something and she came straight at Abe and the last thing he ever heard, and with surprising clarity was Caroline: “I’m so glad your back darling, like I said, I’ve been waiting for years,” Abe fell to the floor, a knife sunk deep in his stomach. Cassidy too lay still forever, poisoned by the tea that Caroline had prescribed her before bed. Augustus held Caroline into the early morning, but it was not she that was suffering, she slept like a kitten with a belly full of cream.