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our decision, and leaned back again.
Together Hattie and I stayed out in the marsh until the sun was
positioned in the sky where we believed it should be at the time
school let out. Unfortunately, I came back with a terrible
sunburn.
    “What happened to your face!” Mammy gasped as
we entered the mansion. She tossed the soapy scrub brush into the
pail she had been using to wash the dining room floor. Hamilton was
high on a ladder in the grand foyer, replacing the broken glass
chimney to one of the lamps of the chandelier.
    My mind scrambled for an explanation as she
hurried over to me to inspect my face.
    “We had an extra long recess, Mammy. We were
playing and I forgot to put on my bonnet,” I lied. Hattie stood
beside me, her eyes wide and frightened.
    Hamilton moseyed down from the ladder and
disappeared, while Mammy quickly grew distraught.
    “Ain’t never seen such a bad burn,” she said
in distress. “Don’t even know how to treat it!”
    “I’m fine, Mammy, really. It doesn’t even
hurt.” Again I lied. Already my face had begun to tighten up and
felt as if I were standing too close to a blazing fire.
    Hamilton came back with some plant in hand
and snapped off the tip. Then gently as he could with his enormous
hands, he placed the gel that appeared from inside the plant
against the fair English skin of my face.
    “What you doing?” Mammy barked and slapped
his hands away from my face.
    Since Hamilton didn’t talk, he attempted to
communicate with his eyes and facial gestures.
    Hamilton smiled and snapped another piece,
then rubbed the gel onto Mammy’s hand. Instinctively, she went to
pull away but he held his grip firm on her.
    She quizzically stared down at the skin of
her small hand, which was coated with the gel.
    “I think he is showing you what will help the
burn, Momma,” Hattie said.
    Hamilton nodded and smiled widely, then
handed Mammy the rest of the plant and headed back to the
ladder.
    “Man should learn to mind his business,” she
mumbled under her breath as she ushered Hattie and me upstairs.
When we reached my room, Mammy insisted I get into bed.
    “Hattie, you get washed up and get downstairs
and help Cordelia with supper.”
    Hattie smiled nervously at me and did as her
Momma said without question, while I adamantly protested. “But my
piano lesson is this afternoon!”
    Mammy drew the covers and guided me into
bed.
    “I be sending Mr. Layne home the minute he
gets here,” she said. “You rest and I be back shortly with your
supper.”
    “But, Mammy!”
    She swung around and gave me the look - the
look that warned me not to argue, that she had heard enough.
    I folded my arms over my chest and sulked,
and when she came to console me, I refused to look her way or let
her touch me.
    “Child, if your daddy saw you like this he’d
be beside himself,” she said softly.
    “Well, Daddy isn’t here!” I barked.
    Mammy winced at my anger, and her eyes grew
solemn. I instantly regretted my attack, but it was too late. Mammy
quietly stole out and sent Helen up with my supper that rainy
night; she tended to the blisters that covered my face while Mammy
stayed away.
    She had never stayed away before.
     
    ~ ~ ~

 
~ Four ~
     
    During my recovery that week, Hattie slipped
into my room through the back stairway of the mansion after
pretending to go off to school. Though it was legitimate for me to
miss school, it still felt sneaky to have Hattie join me undetected
for the day. At lunch time, she slid under the bed and muffled her
giggles until Cordelia left again. Then we burst out in laughter
and carried on with our fun. The only trouble that haunted me was
knowing that Mammy cried herself to sleep every night.
    “That’s why she hasn’t been coming to see us
and tuck us into bed,” Hattie explained, just before she departed
for the day. “She cries so hard for your Daddy.”
    That night as the cold rain pounded against
the windows of the giant mansion, I crept out of my room