by Nancy Garden
“I’m afraid we do,” Nora told him. “We’ve only got a quarter of a pound left.”
“Let me see.”
“Father!”
“Daughter! Let me see.”
Sighing, Nora went outside to the back stoop against whose far edge the rain was splashing down off the roof and making puddles in front of the adjacent woodshed; she took the butter out of the ice box.
Ralph eyed it suspiciously when she handed it to him. “You didn’t take some out of the package, did you, to fool me?”
“No, Father, of course not.”
“All right. But we don’t need so much meat. You have three things down here. Hamburger. Chicken. Lamb. We don’t need all that. We’re not made of money, you know.”
“Mrs. Brice told me there are sales this week,” Nora said evenly. “I thought we should take advantage of them.”
“A sale is never an excuse to buy what you don’t need. Meat doesn’t keep that long. You know that.”
Nora sat down at the table again. “Father, Mrs. Brice has offered to let me use part of her freezer. That way I can take advantage of sales and freeze meat to use later. It’ll save money in the long run. I could even freeze vegetables from the garden.”
“What’s wrong with canning? Your mother canned for years. Louise Brice is an interfering old bitch.”
Nora swallowed her temper with difficulty. “Freezing’s quicker and the food tastes better,” she said quietly.
“Ha! And Mrs. Brice will want some of what you freeze to pay for the use of the freezer.”
“No, she won’t, Father. She even said she wouldn’t.”
“Nothing’s free in this life, Nora. You’re old enough to know that. She’ll want something.”
“The more food that’s in a freezer, she says, the better it works. It uses less electricity because it stays colder. So we’d be doing her a favor.”
“No. I won’t be beholden to anyone. It’s bad enough she has to take you to the store and to church.”
“If you’d let me drive,” Nora retorted, noticing that Corinne’s eyes and head were swaying from one of them to the other, “she wouldn’t have to.”
“Driving’s not for women,” Ralph said illogically.
“Plenty of women drive. Patty Monahan drives and she’s only eighteen, still just a girl. In fact, I’m probably the only woman my age who doesn’t.”
A moan from Corinne stopped both of them. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Don’t.”
Nora got up and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Mama. We both are. Aren’t we, Father?” She glared at him.
He grunted, then said, “Just because that woman who was here yesterday about the tire—just because she drives doesn’t mean you have to. Look what happened to her anyway.”
Nora laughed, hard. She knew she was on the edge of losing control, but she let the laugh go anyway. “Men have flat tires, too, Father.”
“Men don’t let tires get to that point.”
“I imagine any tire can go flat if you run over something. A nail, glass…”
“Men have the right things in their cars.”
“She had a rented car.”
“What do you care, Nora? She’s nothing to you. Is she?”
“Of course not,” Nora said. “I never saw her before in my life, and I’ll probably never see her again.”
“Did she return the jack?”
Nora stared at him. “No.” To her surprise, she felt a smile spread over her face. “No, as a matter of fact, I told her not to hurry to return it.”
“Hah! Probably three states away from here by now. We’ll kiss that jack goodbye.” He wagged his finger at her. “It doesn’t pay to lend things. You can’t trust people these days. There’s the front door again. Don’t answer it.”
But Nora was already up. “It’ll be Mrs. Brice,” she said, “with the nurse.”
“Look out the window to make sure. It might be that woman again.”
Nora turned, hands on hips. “Oh? Does that mean you don’t want the jack if she brings it back?”
“It means I don’t want strangers here. If it’s her, don’t answer. If she’s brought the jack, she’ll leave it in the yard.”
I may go mad, Nora thought as she went to the door. I may scream soon. I may just walk out of here and never come back.
But I can’t leave Mama.
She did not look out the window, and she opened the door to Louise Brice, a stout church-going woman wearing a sensible black raincoat, and Ms. Sarah Cassidy, Visiting Nurse, in a dark blue dress covered with a yellow poncho, over which tumbled quantities of wavy red hair that spewed out from under a wide-brimmed yellow sou’wester. She carried a small black bag.
“Hello, Nora, dear,” Louise Brice said brightly. “Isn’t this rain something?” She wiped her plastic-overshoe-clad feet on the worn sisal doormat, leaving streaks of mud from, Nora realized, what was left of the washed-out front path.
“Come on in out of it,” said Nora, “while I get my coat. Hi, Sarah.”
“How are they today?” Sarah Cassidy shucked off her poncho and sou’wester and held them uncertainly with two fingers while, dog-like, she shook out her hair. “Where…?”
“Oh, anywhere,” said Nora feigning a gaiety she didn’t feel. “What are front halls for if not for rain and mud?” She hung Sarah’s things on the rack beside the hall table.
“There’s plenty of both,” said Louise, opening and flapping her raincoat. That action stretched the jacket of her new-looking light green suit across her ample bosom, threatening the grasp of several buttons. She untied the clear plastic kerchief that covered her limply curled gray hair and shook it vigorously over the doormat before hanging it and her coat next to Sarah’s. “But April showers bring May flowers.”
“Of course,” Sarah whispered to Nora as all three women went through to the kitchen, and Nora handed Sarah a towel for her hair, “it’s already May. Thanks.” Sarah shook out the towel, then rubbed her hair briskly before bundling it into a net that she took out of her pocket. “Any change?”
“Not really,” Nora whispered back; they were still in the doorway. “Father’s argumentative and Mama’s a bit vaguer than usual, but I don’t think there’s anything special wrong. We had a visitor yesterday; maybe that tired them, although Mama didn’t see her.”
“A visitor?” Louise asked with interest as she moved into the room. Smiling at Ralph and Corinne, she raised her voice several decibels and caroled, “Hello, all, how are we today? Was it a nice visitor, the one you had yesterday?”
“Some woman had car trouble,” Ralph grumbled. “I think my blood pressure’s gone up.” He held his arm out to Sarah.
“We’ll just see.” As Sarah whipped out her equipment, she looked toward Corinne, who hadn’t acknowledged her presence; she seemed asleep. “Hello, Mrs. Tillot,” she shouted. “How are you today?” She wrapped the cuff around Ralph’s arm, pumped it, and applied the stethoscope. “I hear you had a visitor yesterday.”
“How can you hear through that thing if everyone’s yelling?” Ralph said, shouting himself. “Let’s have a little quiet.”
Nora had already taken her raincoat off its hook by the back door and picked up the list. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she announced to no one in particular.
“Hadn’t you better wait to see what my pressure is?” Ralph whined. “I think it’s probably high.”
“Your pressure’s fine.” Sarah unfastened the cuff; Louise nodded and glanced significantly at Nora as if she’d suspected as much. “Now your turn, dear,” Sarah said to Corinne.
Corinne blinked. “Do I know you? You look famished, but…”
“Familiar, I think you mean.” Sarah patted Corinne’s shoulder. “Yes, you know me. I’m Sarah, your nurse.”
“Sarah Cassidy,” Louise confirmed, bending closer. “You remember. Moira Cassidy’s girl, Moira had that wonderful bakery on Main Street.”
But Corinne was .frowning. “Sarah.
Sarah, Sarah,” she murmured, then brightened. “What a nice name!” As if with a huge effort, she lifted her good arm and held a limp hand out in Sarah’s general direction. “How do you do? I’m Corinne Parker.”
Nora turned from buttoning her raincoat, startled; Parker was her mother’s maiden name.
“Is this your house, dear?” Corinne asked Sarah.
“Sweetheart,” Ralph said, leaning toward her, “you’re Corinne Tillot now.”
“No, Mrs. Tillot, it’s your house.” Sarah listened through the stethoscope for a moment while Nora, now worried, watched; Louise put a stubby, protective hand on Nora’s arm. Absently, Nora noticed a chip in the dark red polish on Louise’s thumbnail.
“Pressure’s a bit low,” Sarah murmured to Nora and Ralph. “But I think she’ll be okay. Has she been disoriented all day?”
“Not like this.” Nora knelt beside her mother. “Mama?” she said. “Hi. How do you feel?”
Corinne blinked again. “Why, I feel fine, dear. How are you? Hello, Sarah, Louise. What a rainy day, isn’t it?”
Ralph smiled and Louise said, “My goodness, yes. Nice weather for ducks.”
Nora laughed with relief and hugged her mother. “I’m just going out with Mrs. Brice to do the shopping. Okay?”
“Of course, dear. Have a nice time. Buy yourself a treat. You deserve one, doesn’t she, Louise?”
“She certainly does.”
“Your mother might have had a tiny TIA,” Sarah said sotto voce to Nora, following her and Louise into the front hall. “But I think she’s come out of it fine. I’ll keep a close eye on her, don’t worry, and I’ll call Dr. Cantor from my car phone after I’ve observed her a bit longer. It’s possible he’ll want to see her or prescribe something, but I think her regular medication should still be okay. She’s been having it regularly, yes?”
“Yes,” Nora said. “But I wish Father would let us take her to the hospital when she has these spells,” she added wistfully.
“So do I,” Sarah said. “But”—she patted Nora’s arm—“we know he won’t, and that’s that. Besides, I really do think she’ll be fine.”
“When you girls have finished your tea party,” Ralph bellowed from the kitchen, “maybe one of you would deign to get me my pills. My heart’s been racing; I didn’t sleep a wink last night.”
Sarah grinned at Nora. “He’s in top form,” she said. “Off with you. Don’t drown!”
Chapter Six
Rain pelted against the windows and wind made catspaws on the lake, but still Liz lay in bed, though it was well into morning. She’d bought some groceries the night before after turning on the water in the cabin, and then cooked herself a quick supper of bacon, eggs, and toast. She’d stripped the newspapers off her parents’ bed, made it, swept the floor, and, trying not to think, crawled under the covers. But she’d gotten up several times, sleepless, to make cocoa, to read, to look for suddenly remembered books, games, puzzles. She wasn’t sure but what she’d finally slept a little; certainly she’d heard the rain start. And now it was coming down harder than when last she’d noticed.
I’ve got to do something, she thought, getting out of bed stiffly and stretching. I’ve got to decide.
She struggled into jeans and a turtleneck, then went downstairs into the gray morning, thinking, all my childhood is here, all my roots, my beginnings. She ran her fingers over the surface of the table in front of the sofa, over the sofa’s corduroy cover, over its worn wooden arms, remembering lying there for most of one summer after she’d had her appendix out, lying there reading, watching television, watching the sunlight on the lake and longing to be outside.
But it had been good then, too, she remembered, with Jeff running in every few hours to tell her what he’d been doing and what he’d discovered in the woods, bringing her rocks, flowers, worms, once a blinking toad they’d named Hortense and decided was a witch—a good witch—in disguise. Mom and Dad had read to her, played games with her; Mom tried to teach her to knit. Liz almost laughed, remembering her crooked edges and Mom’s kind laughter when she said, “Well, Lizzie, maybe you haven’t found your true calling.” That was when Dad had given her an X-acto knife and a hunk of balsa wood; then, when she felt stronger, a gouge and a flat piece of pine. Mom had laughed again, sweeping up shavings and crumbs of wood, and saying, “Well, Lizzie, I guess maybe now you have found your calling!”
And then she’d gotten much better and had been allowed to go outside; no swimming or rowing yet, but she could walk in the woods and sit outside when the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, and later she was allowed to fish from the dock as long as Jeff agreed to land anything she caught.
Liz walked through the cabin room by room, memories crowding her; she saved her room for last. Once there, she rolled the mouse droppings up in the newspaper and lay down on her bare mattress, remembering lying there with Megan when they’d first been lovers. They’d come to Piney Haven alone early one spring and it had rained as it was raining now. Liz closed her eyes, hearing the drops’ insistent pounding on the cabin roof, remembering Megan’s softness, Megan’s hands on her body, hers on Megan’s. And yet there’d always been a barrier; she’d felt something closing up in her when Megan touched her, though it was pleasurable and comforting, and though it aroused her to touch Megan. “You have to give yourself in love,” Jeff had said once, “you have to be there, Lizzie"—and she, who had always been considered generous and compassionate, knew he was right about her; he was the only person who could see through her, who seemed to know her secret better than she did. He’d recognized it before she had, anyway.
“It scared me, Meggie,” Liz whispered. “It scares me still.”
She sat up, rubbing her eyes; she hadn’t realized she’d nearly wept.
The rain had slowed to a steady patter, and the room was cold. She should build a fire, make coffee, eat something, start cleaning.
She glanced at her watch; it was nearly ten. No wonder my stomach’s grumbling, she thought, and made herself pancakes from a mix, and coffee. She’d forgotten syrup, but there was a half-full box of cinnamon, and she’d bought sugar, so, thinking again of Jeff, she slathered the pancakes with butter and when it had melted, sprinkled on cinnamon-sugar. Biting into the crunchiness, she thought, I could call Jeff. In a couple of hours, I could call Jeff.
Energetic now, Liz finished her coffee, rinsed her dishes, and scrubbed and polished the kitchen till noon, when, suddenly finding the heavy kettle in which her mother had made jam from the blueberries she and Jeff and their father had picked, her eyes filled with tears and she stood, paralyzed, sobbing, by the sink.
Jeff, she thought again, when the paroxysm had passed. It would be nine o’clock in California; she’d have to call him at work and go through his secretary. But that was all right; he’d never minded that.
He answered himself.
“Secretary goofing off?” Liz said, closing her eyes in unexpected relief at hearing his voice. She could almost pretend he was with her, that their parents were in the next room or outside, or shopping and due home any minute.
“Hey, Lizzie,” Jeff said jovially. “Yeah, she’s not in yet. There’s a lot of traffic, some tie-up on the freeway, as usual. What’s up? Have you been to the cabin?”
“I’m there now.” Her voice caught in her throat.
“Oh, wow! You okay?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Well, not quite. It’s weird, Jeffie. It’s like—I don’t know. It’s like it’s the shell of me, of us; you know? And Mom and Dad are all around me, Mom especially.”
There was a pause. Then: “Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. And you can’t sell it, babe, right?”
“Right. At least not yet,” she said relieved again and understanding that was what had gnawed at her last night, keeping her from sleeping, and had enervated her this morning till she’d started cleaning. “I guess I feel I’d be violating it somehow, if I let other people have it. The real estate agent was here when I arrived, snooping. It wa
s awful seeing her looking the place over like a cat waiting to pounce.” Liz felt herself shiver. “It’s like we’d be selling Mom and Dad, Jeff. And us as kids. Me and Megan, too, a little, our beginning, anyway.”
“So no sale at all, huh?”
“Not now. If it’s okay with you. Maybe in a year or so. Unless you really need the money.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure you and Susan don’t need it? With Gus and all?”
“No, we’re fine.”
“Then if it’s okay with you, I’d like to call off the real estate creep and clean the place up and—and maybe spend the summer here alone,” she added, surprising herself, realizing she could actually do that, there would be nothing to stop her. She could sublet her apartment, buy a car with the money she’d been saving for she was never sure what, and spend a quiet summer figuring things out, recovering from leaving Megan and trying to understand the flaw that had made her run from her; she could try to put herself back together again.
She heard Jeff’s voice, muffled, saying something away from the phone.
“Hey, babe,” he said into it a moment later. “I’ve got to go. My secretary’s here now and I’ve got some stupid meeting. Go ahead and do what you want, though. It’s okay.”
“You’re really, truly sure? About the money?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. And you know what? I’m kind of glad the old place’ll still be in the family. Maybe we’ll come for a visit, me and Sue and the kid, this summer. How about that? Maybe Gus could get to like the old place, too, who knows? It’s so great for kids.” His voice softened. “I remember, too.”
“That’d be fine,” Liz said, smiling. “That’d be fine. Only maybe toward the end of the summer? Give me a little time?”
“Sure, sis. End of summer. Hey, we’ll talk later, okay?”
“Okay. ’Bye, Jeffie. And thanks. You’re a prince.”
“Yeah, right. Tell that to my clients! Love you!”
“Love you, too,” Liz whispered after he’d hung up.
I wonder if you’re the only person I’ll ever really love, she mused as she replaced the receiver.