South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [121]
“What?” Madeline leaned toward Gladys, wishing the story was a fish she could yank Up out of her on a line.
Gladys traced patterns on the oilcloth with one finger. Then she said, “The driving back and forth got to be too much, come winter. He needed a place for her to stay, to board.”
Madeline stared at Gladys. “And?”
“I still had the hotel open in those days and I—Joe—well. Jackie stayed with me during the week, went home on the weekends. Sometimes.” Gladys made a face. “That girl went her own way, there just was not a thing you could do when she got her mind set. Anyway. Joe paid a little, and I gave Jackie her meals as well as a place to sleep. That’s when Joe and I first got acquainted, though that’s all it was then, just being acquainted.”
Madeline was speechless. She took a gulp of coffee, wanting the jolt of it, the hot scald down her throat.
Gladys looked defensive. “You needn’t look at me like that. Boarding wasn’t all that Uncommon. Two other students did it too, they lived too far out in the woods to go back and forth every day.”
Madeline nodded, and resisted shouting, That is not the point and you know it.
Gladys hurried on. “Joe was just determined that Jackie would graduate. But of course she didn’t. Back in those days a pregnant girl didn’t go to school the way they do now. So that was that. I’ve often wondered if that wasn’t why she did it. To get the best of Joe. And to get out of going to school. She was no scholar, I have to say. She was bright, don’t get me wrong. Smart as a whip, just no good at schooling. It didn’t make any sense. I don’t know if she was just stubborn or if she really could not read, the way it seemed.”
“Couldn’t read.”
Gladys shrugged. “That’s how it seemed. Or could barely read. I always tried to make sure the boarders were doing their schoolwork. And for such a bright girl it just didn’t make any sense.”
“Didn’t they do any testing?”
“Testing?”
“For a learning disability.”
“There was nothing wrong with Jackie, not like that. She was wild, that was all. And no one would want to get stuck with a label like that anyway. Why, the kids would have called her a retard, the way they did Walter. They probably did anyway, just because he was her Uncle.”
“Probably,” Madeline said, feeling faint. She was dizzy, and she put her head down on the table.
“Madeline?”
Madeline didn’t lift her head. Jackie Stone came walking toward her, a tiny figure from out of a far distance. Maybe she’d been dyslexic. Madeline knew a little about that. Dwayne’s daughter Candice was dyslexic, and the struggles they went through had been awful. Smart as a whip, like Gladys just said, but virtually Unable to read. It had taken batteries of tests to figure it out, and now a very sophisticated teaching system to help her. Before she got diagnosed she’d been on a constant roller coaster of emotion: furious, demanding, rebellious, Unpredictable. The whole family had been at the mercy of the problem. It was a nightmare Until they figured it out.
Maybe it had been like that for Joe and Jackie. Something was wrong, they didn’t know what. It would have seemed to Joe like good old-fashioned badness on Jackie’s part. And Jackie—maybe she never knew why she did the things she did, felt the way she felt. It was all speculation now, no one would ever know. It was a sad little tragedy. How to come to terms with that?
“I tried to keep an eye her,” Gladys was saying, her voice querulous. “But you can’t watch people all the time, you can’t control a girl who’s just intent on trouble.”
“You blame yourself,” Madeline said, lifting her head.
“She was staying with me! She was my responsibility. I ran a tight ship with my boarders, I paid attention.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“And still somehow she managed—”
“Who was the father? My father?” Maybe after all someone did know. But Gladys was shaking her head.
“Jackie just would not say a thing about it and I think—I’m afraid—” She faltered to a stop.
“Say it, Gladys.”
Gladys did, after a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone passing