somehow after that and slept in my arms, but she had stopped crying. Her screams had turned to barely audible whimpers. She might have been different from the rest of us when she was born, but my father had handicapped her for life with one blow to the head.
I didn’t want to leave her side after that, not trusting anyone else with her, but when school resumed in September, I had no choice. I was aware by that point that my only paths out of Blacksburg were education or marriage to someone on the outside. Someone who had no idea who the Holland family was.
I walked home from the first day of school the long way, as I had in previous years, enjoying my thirty minutes alone, the only time I ever had away from my siblings or schoolmates. Sometimes students from the technical institute came to that corner of the woods in the afternoons, as there was a pretty pond there, but mostly there were only deer. On that hot day, I didn’t see another living soul.
I walked past the pond into another clearing in the woods but stopped when I heard a noise. I thought it was an animal, but I turned to see that it was a man. My father. He was standing by the pond, swaying drunk. In his arms, he had the baby. In one motion, before I could open my mouth, he took her tiny body and pushed her under the water. Even from afar, I saw a ripple as he held her down. She was moving something, a tiny arm, a leg, as she struggled to survive, even at three months old.
I wanted to run to her, to save her. My father was drunk, I could have knocked him down, but I stood paralyzed. In those few seconds my mind dictated that I should stay still. More than I wanted to save the baby, I wanted to save myself and the rest of my siblings, who had already endured so much from him. That desire overwhelmed my instincts to rescue Eleanor.
When my father stood up, there was no baby in his arms. Before he could see me, I turned and sprinted away. I ran all the way into town, to the police station, without a glance over my shoulder. I told them what I’d just seen, not adding that I could have reached the baby in time if I’d tried. The officers sped in their cars to the pond, and in the oppressive summer air, they fished out the dead child and went to find my father.
I could have saved her, I told myself, looking out at the water after they’d gone. But what kind of life would she have had? She would be happier in death, I was sure. And with her death, I would be happier in life.
My father was sentenced to life in prison. My mother was distraught, not because her baby was dead, it seemed, but because she was left to run the farm alone, left with all her children, whom she didn’t love and had never once tried to protect from her husband.
Years later, when I became a mother, I realized that I probably could have done both. I could have found a way to save the baby and save myself. But at sixteen, I’d been too terrified to try.
I looked at the sky, which was starting to wave in front of me, and thought of Marcelle floating facedown in the water, just as Eleanor had.
It was strange to realize how much Marcelle had known of my life before we met. How much she hated me because of the man I’d married. If she’d only known that she could never hate me as much as I hated myself for Eleanor’s death, maybe things would have ended differently. I looked down at my watch. It was faceup and still ticking perfectly. Victor was right; it was a very good watch.
My stomach started to lurch, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the police to find me.
THIRTY-FIVE
Jessie
November 21, 1933
The chickens on the Holland farm. The only animals among the tobacco. I dreamt that I had to collect one for the slaughter, in the dead of winter. I only needed one at a time, usually. But how did a person decide whose time it was to die? Even a chicken? Just as I always did, in my dream I chose one that was looking away so I didn’t have to see