She immediately began writing a letter of apology to Winchester.
A HALF HOUR LATER—three quick knuckle raps on V’s door long past the time for that sort of thing. She pulled a dressing gown over her nightgown and opened the door a crack. The oldest daughter, with the questionable name of Florida, bumped right in uninvited, barefoot and wearing just the ultimate layer of thin, ivory night-gear, like she had draped herself in a sheet of linen bandaging. Her dark hair fell loose below her shoulders and her face shaped itself like all the Davises’, narrow and predatory. Florida carried two slim books and an almost-full bottle of red wine. Her gray eyes looked straight at V.
She said, I may be wrong, but I think we could be good friends.
—Well, V said. How do you propose finding out?
—Let’s read our favorite poems to each other, Florida said.
—Of course. I’ll choose a few from the books I have with me, and we can read together on the porch after breakfast.
Florida jabbed her books out at V—two stabs—and said, I meant tonight. Now.
Then she paused and looked down at her feet and flexed her long toes.
She said, I apologize. Was that pushy? It’s so lonely sometimes, and then you came sweeping in and I got excited. And Old Joe gets touchy about Natchez and wagging tongues, and he only likes to hear opinions that agree with his. I worried everything had gone wrong from the start. And then I saw the light under your door. But we can talk in the morning.
—Now would be perfect, V said. This minute. I feel so strange, and I don’t know why I’m here.
—We don’t know why you’re here either, Florida said, very brightly. But we have theories. In a few days, I might tell you some of our secrets.
—No, V said. If we’re going to be friends, tell one right now.
Florida thought two beats and then said, This one’s not about you, but it’s the biggest secret here and nobody but Old Joe knows the whole truth of it, and maybe he doesn’t either, really. It’s that not a one of us has a birth certificate. No record of parentage, married or not. Like orphans. Nothing on paper to mark Old Joe’s trail. Not a single footprint. And I’m guessing you probably did hear plenty in Natchez about our complications.
Florida told how they had left town under a cackle of rumor and slur. Oldest daughter a thin crescent of new moon older than the teen wife. Three daughters not from the same mother and no corresponding certificates of marriage or death or, heaven forbid, divorce.
—Doesn’t clarify anything that all of us look alike. Far as I’m concerned, people in Natchez can call us all bastards and leave it at that. Maybe we entered the world in the Delta or some Louisiana swamp where they do things different. Old Joe tells Eliza she is his first wife, but who knows? None of us have even vague memories of mothers. And about all Joe wants out of any of us, including Eliza, is to leave him alone. He’s never cared if we knew whether the earth was flat or not as long as we could at minimum read and write. But he doesn’t stop us when we educate ourselves out of his books. Which are about four-fifths boring law books, so I hope one of your trunks is full of literature. How’s that for a start?
V said, Must have been quite the steamboat trip up from Natchez that first time.
Florida laughed and said, So you’re really saying no wonder Old Joe looks like he’s seventy when he’s really fifty-five.
—Really?
—What he claims.
V said, But he must be your father, yes?
Florida said, The rule here is, no assumptions. We don’t spend time wondering if Old Joe is our natural daddy and how many mothers are involved. And we sure don’t ask. You saw how he gets. But yes, he’s my father. Whoever my mother was, she made him believe I was his. I don’t know facts, and probably there aren’t any to know. Whatever crazy thing people want to believe, that’s what they call it, a fact. I do know that however hard you try, you can’t see inside the tangle of somebody else’s love—or whatever uglier word applies—not deep enough to make sense of it. Whoever my mother was, she either died right after I was born or else ran off. Old Joe didn’t run, and that counts. And if I’m not his daughter by blood, maybe it counts even more.
Florida paused and said, Now, you tell one.
V said, Well, I’ve been in love with my tutor for years. And at your dock today, he kissed me on the lips.
—Ha, Florida said. If we had a tutor, all four of us would be climbing over each other’s backs to kiss him. I mean a real secret.
—All right, V said. But I’ll warn you nothing is as boring as other people’s dreams and finances. I think I’m here because of my father’s money troubles
