Chapter 15
Daisy Peonia Mary Parker
Silver River, South Mississippi, USA
“It looks lovely, Honeybee!” Aunt Lizzie chirped, standing next to me with her hands clasped together.
I looked at the wall in front of me. The silhouette of a distant forest rested on top of a pale blue background. “I went with a winter landscape this year,” I explained, adding a final brushstroke of white to the spot where I cut the silhouette with a cute little bunny.
“You’re getting better and better,” my aunt praised, and I recognized the nostalgic tone in her voice.
That feeling was mutual.
Aunt Lizzie witnessed the years Papa spent painting my little room and was well aware that I was now doing the same to keep his memory alive.
Of course, there were no more glittery butterflies or shell-shaped beds.
It was the room of a grown woman, about to turn thirty, and both the paintings and the furniture reflected that.
However, the simple act of keeping the tradition of repainting the room every year seemed to bring the past and Papa back to life.
I observed Aunt Lizzie. After all that time, she was still in great shape.
Her hair was now a bright tone of orange and she dressed like a hippie from the seventies.
A stylish hippie, of course. But she was still the same as many years ago and she was certainly still breaking hearts. Maybe now more than ever before.
A mischievous smile crossed my face at that realization. “I think I heard a motorcycle early this morning…” I pointed out, immediately seeing her tucking a handful of tousled curls behind the ears. “I could even swear it came from our garden…”
“How strange! I didn’t hear anything…”
My eyes narrowed. “I bet. Especially when you were moaning, ‘Don’t stop, Oliver!’” My aunt gasped and stared at me in horror, her face red as a tomato. I grimaced. “I’ll be scarred for life.”
Her embarrassment quickly turned into indignation, and before I could dodge, blue paint splashed across my face.
“You didn't hear anything!” she squeaked and giggled while covering me in paint. “Not a thing!”
I laughed along, flapping my arms in an attempt to escape her treacherous attack. It was hard to resist teasing her when I knew she hated to admit that she had fallen for my boss's charm.
Aunt Lizzie took great pride in her status as a heartbreaker.
“My aunt is such a cutie!“ I mocked as soon as I managed to get up, and ran for the door, leaving her breathless with the paintbrush still in hand, looking like a soldier ready for combat. “Oh, Oliver! I missed you so much, honey bear!” I teased, quoting parts of the conversations I overheard.
Aunt Lizzie chased me around the house wielding the paintbrush, and needless to say, we ended up with a particularly interesting decoration in our humble home. Half an hour later, we were trying to remove the paint from the floor and coming to terms with the new look of the walls.
Reluctantly, Aunt Lizzie once again had to admit her romantic side. She explained to me that she wanted to prepare a romantic dinner for herself and Oliver that evening and asked if there were any chances I could free up the house for a few hours.
Naturally, I agreed and called Olivia right away.
“Ooooh, we can go to the movies and then grab a bite to eat!” she said excitedly over the phone, as soon as I mentioned it.
“Pizza?”
“Hell yeah!”
And so it was.
Before five o'clock in the afternoon, I left the house and headed to the town movie theater, to meet Olivia.
The building was small and decades old. As I arrived, I spotted her at the entrance.
She was dressed casually, in loose jeans and a tight white T-shirt, wearing brown sneakers, and slinging a small beige bag over her shoulder.
Olivia had always been stylish, and the years didn't change that.
But what I appreciated the most was that she could look like the most elegant and intimidating woman on the planet in her work clothes, and like the new it girl in town on a daily basis.
“I'd love to know the secret to having an ass like that,” I muttered like a drunk perv, pinching her butt.
She jumped, hugging me tight, practically knocking me over with our height difference, and laughed. “It's called weightlifting and genetics,” she reminded, and I rolled my eyes.
I loved running on the treadmill, but that was where my gym girl streak began and ended. Liv, however, often tried to convince me to lift weights with her.
“I prefer to blame my genetics,” I grumbled, dragging her into the building as we laughed and bantered back and forth.
The movie theatre was charming.
From the outside, you could see how old the building was from its dark brick facade and the chips and cracks in the granite framing its doors and windows. However, the interior had been remodeled and had a modern look, from the shiny floor to the glass partitions everywhere.
We approached the box office and looked through the glass at a woman with long dark braids and round cheeks. It was Theresa, one of my regular customers at the diner, and someone who had been working at that movie theater since before I was born.
While Olivia bought two tickets for a horror movie, I frowned, noticing that Theresa was unusually quiet.
“Is everything okay, doll?”
She shrugged, her brow furrowing. “Same as usual,” she muttered, without giving us a single glance. “People think they can mistreat us just because of the color of our skin.”
I looked at Olivia with concern, not quite sure how to respond to that.
“Who offended you, Theresa?” Liv asked, and I could tell from her serious expression that she had gone into her District Attorney mode. “Racial discrimination is a crime, and I won’t hesitate to put any idiot behind bars.”
Theresa laughed, shaking her head, before looking at Olivia and giving her a wink.
“Are you going to arrest Senator Jones for calling me a ‘fucking nigger’?” Olivia and I stiffened at the sound of that, swallowing hard. Theresa shook her head. “That's what I thought.”
“I'd love to, Theresa,” Olivia defended herself. “But...”
"But nobody messes with politicians. Not even our District Attorney.“
I shifted uncomfortably, noticing the remorse on Olivia's face. “I'm sorry, Theresa…” I decided to say, even though I knew my words were worthless.
Theresa sighed and waved her hand in the air. “Forget it, I'm used to it and I believe in the good Lord! Hah! His justice never fails!“ She hummed, saying a few prayers. “Go on, go enjoy your movie!”
We entered the cinema room in a silence that we both understood very well.
I lived under the senator's resentful yoke, serving my sentence for Lester's death.
And Olivia, despite having studied law for so many years, was frequently forced to put up with her.
From political pressure to personal attacks for being my friend, there was a silent war between them that made me feel extremely guilty.
Nevertheless, nothing justified Madeleine Jones' constant abuse.
Her behavior didn't come from a place of pain or frustration, grief or unhappiness. Nothing like that. And I, more than any other person in Silver River, knew it. Her behavior was old, like a piece of mold spreading over the years and deteriorating everything it touched.
As we sat in the movie theater seats, my brain rewound to the conversations I shared with Lester so many years ago.
The funny story about his surname, how the lady at the registry office registered his father with his grandfather's nickname, ‘Fury’, instead of Mitchels, the real family name.
His childhood memories between Boston and Blue Forge after his parents' divorce.
And especially his venting, mostly related to his mother.
Lester confided to me how easy it was for the senator to cross boundaries and how that almost destroyed his father.
Madeleine Jones never permitted weaknesses or anything that contradicted her high moral standards, and Lester's father, Conrad Fury, had always been too tormented by the horrors of war to fit into her perfect mold.
She pushed her husband to participate in her social and political life, ignored his mental state after troubled operations, and often used cruel language to belittle him.
Conrad Fury only managed to regain his manhood, not after the divorce, but by fleeing far away from her, to Wyoming.
Lester and I had that in common, in a way.
My Papa had also been in the military and suffered something similar.
He lived in constant terror for what he had done and witnessed during his missions, and while he was married to my Ma, that only got worse.
Even so, she never did half of what Madeleine Jones did to her husband.
I could only imagine how much the senator's erratic behavior must have hurt Lester's father.
But truth be told, I had gotten a taste of that cruelty in recent years.
I would always blame myself for what happened to Lester, even though, I knew perfectly well that what Madeleine Jones was doing to me was wrong. The constant harassment, the attacks on people I cared about, it almost bordered on obsession.
Then there was her behavior towards other people. Except for politicians and other prominent figures, Senator Jones treated everyone in Silver River like vermin, feeling entitled to belittle and mistreat those she considered beneath her.