The Dilemma

THE DILEMMA by Barbara J. Olexer writing as Lorena Macklin Bambi sat in her chaise longue in the dusk and scowled across the lawn at the fireflies flitting among the evergreens. It was a lovely sight with the dark firs, pointed against the deep rose of the last glow of the sunset, and the tiny points of the insect lights glittering like fairy sparks. Behind her the house loomed, its windows black and blank, its white pillars indistinct. She was thinking vaguely of many things, her satisfaction in the comfortable possession of her ancestral home, her dissatisfaction with her silly mother and absentee father, the joys of being an only child, the loneliness of approaching old age. Her father had built the house, which was situated on a Maryland river in Baltimore County. It would have been fine on the Eastern Shore but not where it stood on a mere three acres of lawn and woods. But her mother had seen “Gone with the Wind” as a girl and had never got over wanting to be Scarlet O’Hara. And her idiotic father had given his ersatz southern belle anything she wanted. Had filled the house with antebellum antiques and allowed his wife to keep half-a-dozen Black servants. Fortunately, the servants had all had more common sense than

either parent and none of them had ever allowed themselves to be called “Mammy” or “Pork.” In every other way Bambi’s father had been an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to grow his sizable inheritance into an enormous fortune. She had never exactly understood what he did but whatever it was he did it in Baltimore and The District and New York and Atlanta and San Francisco and other major centers of business and finance. Thus he was away from home a lot. While his wife had stayed at home and played lady of the manor to an audience consisting of her two daughters and six servants. Occasionally, she was able to snare a few other silly women for tea or a couple of distant cousins for houseguests. But her act was too shallow and obvious to hold anyone’s attention for long. Her mother had favored full skirts and low-cut bodices of dotted swiss or organdy. The fifties had seen her in her element with lots of petticoats to hold the skirts out and even long hoop skirts for evening. Bambi could dimly remember seeing her mother slowly descend the long curving staircase, so graceful and at ease in such an evening gown. It was white with tiny dots of red and a red sash that rippled down the front almost to the floor. She had stood at the foot of the stairs with her father, who watched adoringly. Misty had been there, too. Fear shook Bambi as she remembered Misty. Her sister had been two years older and took after her mother. Neither was exactly beautiful but they had a glamour that was better than beauty. Silly and shallow as they had both been, they had the power to fascinate her father. Bambi had not had that power. It had made her very angry as a little girl and it still made her angry. She was not sorry for what she had done! Never! Misty had it coming. She turned her gaze from the fireflies to the river. It was almost completely dark but the stars were coming out. The river ran quietly and calmly. It wasn’t deep but it was pretty wide. It was perfect for canoeing and swimming. Not that her family had ever availed themselves of it for those purposes. They had used it as a prop, much as they had the rose garden. It made a handsome background and spoke of gracious living. But Bambi hadn’t been content to live graciously, spending her mornings cutting a few flowers and arranging them in vases; spending 2

her afternoons dressing for tea on the lawn and then dressing anew for dinner; spending her evenings posing for her father’s admiration. She had demanded riding lessons, swimming lessons, skiing lessons. She had demanded first a bike, then a car. She spent as much time as possible away from her impossible family. When she was twelve she had demanded to be allowed to go to boarding school. Looking back, she thought both her parents had been relieved and had sent her gladly. Well, fine, she had certainly been glad to go. Glad to get out of that stultifying house and glad to get away from her parents who were both half-insane, if not more. After the first couple of years she had contrived to spend most of her vacations at the homes of friends or touring abroad. Escape, that was what she had wanted. And she had had it, too. She had escaped to the real world, had made friends, had learned to dance and ski and swim and ride. She had scorned fashion and immersed herself in intellectual studies. Literature, languages, comparative religion, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, the paranormal, archaeology, all was grist to her mental mill. Then her father died. Not suddenly, but by inches, failing gradually as the cancer ate away at him. She learned then that blood is indeed thicker than water. Unwillingly, she had gone home, had sat beside his bed, had gnashed her teeth at her mother’s wailing and whining. Unwillingly, she had promised when her father had insisted – promised to take care of her mother when he was gone. She knew as well as he did that her mother needed taking care of. Only she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t exactly hate her mother, not then, but she didn’t like her. She didn’t want to spend time with her, to listen to her stupid vaporings and insipid memories. What did she have to remember, anyway? Clothes. Only clothes. “Remember that evening gown I used to wear for your father?” her mother would say, lying back in the chaise longue. “The lavender organdy with the purple grosgrain belt. It had a sweetheart bodice and I always wore the amethysts and pearls with it.” “Two necklaces at once is vulgar,” Bambi would say, reclining on the grass.

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“Oh, no, dear. That combination was very smart. Your father always said that no one had such a flair for jewels as I.” But Bambi seldom answered her mother’s second observations for the simple reason that she would usually be up and away by then. For a walk in the woods or a bike ride or a swim. Her mother would sigh and long for the old days when she was appreciated. Then she would tinkle the bell on the table at her side and a middle-aged Black woman would come out and listen while she described her favorite frocks and gowns. If she ever noticed the compassion in the woman’s eyes, she pretended not to. One night Bambi slipped over the edge. No, she was pushed over the edge. Her mother had been maddening all day. Bambi felt that one more gown, one more necklace, one more snippet of lace, even, and she would explode. Finally, it was time for bed. Her mother minced along on her high heels to the foot of the stairs and gathered her foamy white tiers of lace flounces, edged with pink satin, in her beringed hands and started up the stairs. Bambi followed somewhat grimly, anxious for the day to be over. She really did not see how she could stand any more of her mother’s babbling. “Your dear father loved this gown,” she sighed. “I used to have a pink ribbon I wore around my neck and I’d hang that diamond and emerald starburst from it so it nestled just at the top of my cleavage.” They were at the top of the stairs. Her mother giggled like a pre-teen. “Your father was very naughty about that starburst.” Bambi pushed her. She watched dispassionately as her mother fell, tumbling in her lace flounces, her high heels coming off, her attempted scream coming out more as a breathless cry. Not that it mattered. The servants had all gone for the night, there was no one to hear even if she had screamed. Bambi went down the stairs and bent over her mother’s body. Incredibly, she wasn’t dead. She was lying in a picturesque sprawl with her head on the floor and her feet a few steps up. She looked up at Bambi with a tiny flicker of some emotion that Bambi couldn’t identify. “Like Misti?” she asked, barely with enough breath so Bambi could make out the words.

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Bambi didn’t answer. She looked around and picked up a heavy silver candlestick. It was long and smooth and just right. She removed the green candle and stood looking down at her mother, deciding on the right place for her purpose. Her mother made a pathetic movement to protect herself, covering her face and temples with her arms. Bambi grabbed one arm and held it while she clubbed her with the silver candlestick. When she was sure her mother was dead, Bambi cleaned the candlestick, put the candle back in it and replaced it tidily. She called 911 and explained that her mother had fallen downstairs. She called the family doctor and explained again that her mother had fallen downstairs. Now she was free. Free to go back to her own life. Free to return to her studies, her friends, her own interests. Only she wasn’t. She wasn’t free at all. Her mother’s ghost kept her at home. At least, not exactly her ghost, but the memory of her looking up and asking, “Like Misti?” What had her mother meant by that? Had her mother known about Misti? She couldn’t have. But if she had, had her father also known about Misti? No, he couldn’t have. He would never have condoned it. Condoned? Did her mother condone it? Of course not. Then, if she had known about it, why hadn’t she spoken? Why hadn’t he spoken? Bambi had no remorse over murdering her mother. Her mother had been just asking to be murdered for years. The only thing she was sorry for was that she had stood her mother’s maunderings for two years before pushing her down the stairs. She didn’t really have any remorse over murdering her sister, either. Misti, too, had asked for it. A sillier, more exasperating sister had never lived. But it hadn’t really done Bambi any good. After they gave up all hope of ever finding Misti, her parents had become all in all to one another. Bambi was still unable to hold her father’s attention for more than a couple of minutes at a time. That was when she asked to go to boarding school. But if her parents had known or guessed that she had murdered Misti, that would explain why her father hadn’t cared for her company. Wouldn’t it? Or would it? He hadn’t had much time for her before so it wasn’t really to be expected that he would after. She had thought, at the time, that with Misti out of the way, her father would turn to her for companionship. He couldn’t really enjoy his wife’s inane chatter. Surely 5

he would find her a more interesting conversationalist, even at twelve years old. But he hadn’t. It was very confusing. Sitting in the dark, watching the fireflies and the river, Bambi remembered planning just how she would do it. Get rid of Misti. She’d been reading Zane Grey, Spirit of the Border or one of the other Ohio novels, and had learned how to dispose of a body. She thought it was Wetzel – she’d had a crush on Lew Wetzel, silent all-knowing woodsman that he was – who had killed a Shawnee and rolled his body into an overhang on the creek bank. Then he’d stomped the overhang down, neatly covering the body. And that’s what she had done with Misti’s body. There had been a little overhang just up from the mouth of a little creek that flowed into the river, just the perfect size and rather to her surprise, it had worked just like Zane Grey said it would. She had rolled Misti’s body into the overhang, tucked all her frills and flounces in, and climbed up on top of the overhang. She had jumped up and down until it caved in but the grass and wild plants hadn’t been much damaged and unless Lew Wetzel himself went looking, no one would know where Misti had gotten to. She’d been kind of afraid that the spring flooding would wash Misti out but after several years went by and Misti stayed put, she had quit worrying about it. The hardest part of that murder had been getting Misti out to the creek. She had finally managed it by sending her a bogus note from Kip Stevens. Misti had a crush on Kip and the note asked her to meet him under the sycamore (white tree) at the mouth of the creek. It’s a good thing he put that in parentheses after sycamore, otherwise she wouldn’t have known what he was talking about. But it was romantic enough to get Misti away from the house and lawn in her best tea gown – mint green voile with a little lace-trimmed matching parasol. She was mad when she saw Bambi; she thought her presence would keep Kip away. Which, of course, it did, Kip never having any idea he was supposed to be there. Well, Bambi hit her with an aluminum baseball bat, having brought it with her because she had no faith in either rocks or branches. The bat was most efficient. She hit her twice and waited a little while to see if 6

she needed to hit her again because she didn’t want to bury her alive – Misti might dig her way out. When Bambi couldn’t find a pulse and a fluff of milkweed down didn’t move under her nose, she thought she was well and truly dead. She hit her again anyway, just to be doubly sure, and rolled her into her tomb. She burned the note that Kip hadn’t sent and crumbled the ashes in the creek. The bat she threw out into the river after wiping her fingerprints off. Then she went home and tried to look concerned when everyone started wondering where Misti was. All that was years and years ago and it had sat lightly on Bambi’s conscience until her mother had asked, “Like Misti?” She still wasn’t sorry about Misti or her mother, either, for that matter, but she had begun to be afraid. Afraid that her father had known about Misti. That had got her thinking about the paranormal she had studied. She wasn’t too worried about God. God should really have better things to do than concern himself about her paltry little domestic problems. There were Iraq and the former Soviet states and the African dictators and South American drug lords and just thousands and thousands of bigger sinners than she was. She was worried about her father. If her father hadn’t already known about Misti, he surely did now that he was on the other side of the veil. And he had doubtless seen her murder her mother. While it was incredible to her that anyone of normal intelligence could have enjoyed her mother’s company, she knew that in her father’s case it was true. He had loved her and reveled in her personality. Bambi wished she had thought of that before she pushed her mother down the stairs and hit her with the silver candlestick. If she had remembered that her father could see her from whatever plane he now occupied, presumably the astral plane, she would not have murdered her mother. But she hadn’t thought of it until after. She had been brooding on it for three years now, sitting out here on the lawn in the summer and in by the fire in the winter. It was driving her crazy. Bambi thought that was a figure of speech; it hadn’t yet occurred to her that it might be literally true. Even if he hadn’t seen her kill her mother, her father would know by now. And that meant that when she died, she would be confronted by her family. By her father. He would demand of her an accounting of how 7

she had kept her promise to take care of her mother in his absence. Having studied the subject, she knew that lies were impossible on the astral plane. Maybe they could be told but they couldn’t be believed. Everyone on the astral plane automatically knew the truth. He would reproach her, not only for her mother’s murder, but for her sister’s. He would now know about that, too. He would know where his first-born lay buried by the creek. Ah, but that wouldn’t matter any more, would it? Misti would also be on the astral plane. So he would have his precious daughter and his precious wife and none of this would matter any more. Would it? After the first year of asking herself these futile questions, Bambi considered suicide. Better dead than to spend the rest of her life going around the squirrel cage that her mind had become. Okay; not okay. It mattered; it didn’t matter. Her father had forgiven her already; he would never forgive her. He would have moved on to the Pleiades or Sirius or somewhere by now; he would be waiting for her on the astral plane. Oh, God, make it stop. But God would not make it stop. That was her punishment for breaking the commandment not to kill. It was knowing that worse punishment awaited her that kept her from committing suicide. Once she crossed from the earth plane to the astral plane, she would not be able to avoid her father’s countenance. He knew that she had murdered the two people he loved best in all the world and he would reproach her for it. He would never love her again. Even the lukewarm affection that he had once given her would be out of her reach. Well, then, why not hang herself and get it over with? Because there was eternity to think of. Once she stood before her father and felt his reproach, it would last for all eternity. She could not bear it. She would have to bear it. She expected she would have about thirty years in which to steel herself to bear it.

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