Nora and Liz

by Nancy Garden

  ***

  At the police station, Roy found out nothing except the fact that Liz was not being held.

  “Is she a suspect?” he asked.

  The dispatcher shrugged. “I can’t say.”

  “Why the hell not, man?”

  “Because no one’s told me,” the dispatcher snapped. “And if they had, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Call the chief if you like. All I can tell you is that she’s not here and wasn’t ever brought in.”

  Thoughtfully, Roy left the post office and made a quick call from the phone booth on the corner. Georgia Foley wasn’t in, but he was able to leave a message with her secretary. Then, whistling to Zeke, he climbed into his car, driving straight to Liz’s cabin and then to the Tillots’, where he lingered about halfway down their dirt road, out of sight of the house. After a while he got out of the car and walked slowly through the woods and across the back fields.

  ***

  Quite a while later, Liz, pale and with dark circles under her eyes, opened the Tillots’ front door in answer to Roy’s knock.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “you don’t look much like a murderess.”

  Liz stared at him, blankly, he thought.

  “May I come in?”

  “Uh—no, Roy, sorry. I don’t think so. Mrs. Tillot…”

  “Yes, I know.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad to see you’re not in jail. I’ve heard lots of rumors. Of course they’re ridiculous.”

  “Yes,” Liz said expressionlessly. “They are. Would you please let go of me?”

  “I just thought you might need a little support.”

  “No. Thank you. I’m all right. Roy, please!”

  He moved his hand away, letting her go. “I just wanted to offer my condolences,” he said blandly. “To you, especially. And to ask if there’s anything I can do. Or that Georgia can; I’m sure she’d want to help. You know, if things get too unpleasant.”

  “Georgia?” Liz asked. “Georgia Foley? But what…”

  Roy shrugged. “Just an idea,” he said. “If things get nasty.” He paused. “For instance, if you decide to leave after all, to sell, or if Nora does. I mean, it seems to me a lot has changed, for both of you.”

  For a moment she stood motionless, staring at him. Then very quietly she said, “Go away, Roy. Please just go away.”

  Roy nodded and without saying anything more, he turned abruptly and left.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Who was that?” Nora asked when Liz went into the kitchen. Nora was standing in the doorway, still wearing the clothes in which she’d slept, as was Liz. It was 3 P.M.; they’d just gotten up.

  “Roy Stark.” Liz reached for the coffee pot and pumped water for it.

  “What on earth did he want?”

  “I’m not sure. Partly to find out if I was in jail, I guess.”

  “In jail!” Nora sank down into a kitchen chair. “But how…?”

  “He said he’s heard rumors. So I guess people are talking. Do you want some coffee? Or tea?”

  “Please.” Nora stood up stiffly. “Coffee, I think. I’ve got to see to Father. I’ve got to get their baths ready and…” She stopped, her head on one side, her eyes swimming with tears again. “No, his bath. Only one. Only one now.”

  Liz put down the coffee pot and held Nora till she broke away and went to the sink, filling the bathwater kettle and putting it on the stove, which, Liz saw, was nearly cold. Trying not to think about what Roy had said, she moved Nora gently aside and blew on the coals, putting on kindling and then, when it caught, a fresh log. “Right?” she asked. “Am I doing this right?”

  Nora nodded, then groaned as Ralph yelled, “NORA!” from his room.

  “Coming, Father,” Nora answered. “I was just getting your bath water started. Would you like some coffee?” she asked when she got to the door of his room. How had he gotten to bed, she wondered, last night? He was still in his clothes, but she had no memory of putting him to bed. Maybe Liz had, or the doctor.

  “I’m dizzy,” he complained, rubbing his head. “My stomach hurts. I’m dizzy. You’d better call the doctor.”

  “He’ll be coming anyway, soon, I think.”

  Ralph struggled to sit up. “How’s your mother?” he asked.

  Nora felt her eyes fill again; she wiped them with the back of her hand. “Father,” she said, kneeling by his bed and taking his hands. “Don’t you remember? Mama—Mama passed away.”

  “I know that!” he shouted angrily. “But she didn’t ‘pass away’! She was murdered, poisoned by that woman. I want to see her. To see my wife.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, talking very fast, his eyes wild. “We’ll keep her here,” he said. “We’ll keep my sweetheart here where we can care for her. We’ll go on just as always. You’ll bathe her and dress her and we’ll take her into the kitchen for her meals and outside to sit near the garden. And we won’t tell anyone until that woman is tried and convicted and punished, and we’ll show them my sweetheart in court and they’ll all see how well we take care of her, so they won’t make us put her in the ground, and…”

  “Father, stop!” Nora shouted, shaking him. “Stop!”

  Liz appeared in the doorway. “Nora? Are you all right?”

  “You!” Ralph shouted, rising to his feet, swaying tipsily. “You!” He grabbed his walker and, shoving it angrily ahead of him, staggered into the kitchen, groping for the phone. “911!” he yelled into the receiver. Nora could hear the dial tone, but Ralph paid it no heed. “The police, damn you! Operator! Get me the police! There’s a murderer here, a murderer! The police, damn it, the…”

  At that moment, Dr. Cantor walked into the kitchen and took the receiver from Ralph’s hand. “The door was unlocked,” he said over his shoulder to Nora. “I heard shouting so I came right in. Ralph,” he said sternly, as Nora sank down into a chair, with Liz standing beside her, “Ralph, calm down. You’ve already called the police. You don’t need to call them again.”

  “Are they coming?” Ralph asked in a thin voice, like a little boy’s, Liz thought, watching again in fascinated horror. “Are they coming? They killed my sweetheart,” he moaned, still in the childish voice. “Those two.” He pointed to Nora and Liz. “Those two, they killed her, and the police have to come and take them away.”

  “Shh, Ralph,” said Dr. Cantor, leading him back to his room. “That will do. Let the police decide. Water, please,” he said over his shoulder to Nora as they shuffled past. “I’m going to give him another sedative.”

  Liz put her hand out, stopping Nora. “I’ll get it.”

  Nora sat still when Liz had left with the water. She watched the pattern the early afternoon sun made on the floor. Thomas, who had fled into Nora’s room when the shouting started, emerged and jumped into Nora’s lap; Nora, trying to absorb the silence, sat stroking him. I will not go mad, she said to herself. I will not. There will be an end to this, a solution. But nothing will be the same as it was, ever. Everything will be new. And eventually, life will continue in a new way, and I have to be ready to meet it, somehow. “I will be,” she said aloud, reaching for a pad and pencil she kept on the shelf above the table for when a poem struck her, “a new person, whole but forged from fragments,” she wrote, “pieces of bone and skin and sinew, painfully ripped away and mixed anew, pasted carefully onto my old frame…”

  “He’s quieting down,” Liz said, coming back in.

  Hastily, Nora tore off the page on which she’d been writing and stuffed it into her pocket.

  “Dr. Cantor said it’s the shock,” Liz went on. “He doesn’t think he’s cracked completely. But he’s arranged for a psychiatrist to come and see him this afternoon. Dr. Cantor actually came right out and said that. I don’t think he dared say the word to me before. It’s as if it’s hard for him to admit your father’s mentally ill. Funny, elegant, sad-looking man. Nora? Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want that coffee now? I think the wat
er’s ready.”

  “No. Yes. All right. I don’t care. I don’t know what I want.”

  “For it all to be over, I imagine.” Liz bustled around, filling the coffee pot, finding the cups. “I’ll make some for Dr. Cantor, too, shall I?”

  “Yes. That would be nice.” Nora tipped Thomas off her lap and got stiffly to her feet. “I’ll just feed him,” she said, opening a cupboard. “I don’t think I fed him last night.”

  “No,” said Liz, tending the pot. “I don’t think you did. He hid under the back stoop, I think, during all the—commotion.” She bent, running her hand along the cat’s sleek body. “Poor kitty.”

  The telephone rang.

  Nora stared at it while it went on ringing.

  “Shall I answer it?” Liz asked.

  “No. Well. Yes, I guess so. It might be for Dr. Cantor.” But it wasn’t. It was, Liz explained to Nora reluctantly after she’d hung up, a newspaper reporter.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The psychiatrist, a Dr. Herschwell, who was unexpectedly, to Liz anyway, round and florid, spent more than an hour closeted with Ralph in his room, while Nora and Liz cleaned all of the house that they could clean quietly, both for something to do and in expectation of funeral guests. When Dr. Herschwell emerged, he took Nora’s hand gravely, saying, “I think your father is seriously ill, Miss Tillot. I leave you with these tablets”—he handed her a sample packet—“which will calm him somewhat until we can do a more careful evaluation. Give him one twice a day, morning and evening, starting this evening. I shall make a full report to Dr. Cantor and, after your poor mother’s service, I’ll arrange for a thorough evaluation. We’ll see then what is to be done. I’m deeply sorry for your loss.” Then he added, twisting his spherical body awkwardly toward Liz, “And for the accusation made against you. I think you have nothing to fear on that score.”

  Early that evening, while Nora and Ralph were both napping, Liz drove back to the cabin to shower and get a change of clothes. She managed to keep her mind blank while she drove, but standing under the shower in Mom’s Hippo, letting the warm water sluice over her sticky body (for the weather was still hot), a sense of unreality again suffused her. It’s as if I’m acting in a play, she thought, tipping her face up to the showerhead, letting water pound onto her skin, or in a soap opera. That’s more like it, a soap opera; it’s melodrama, not drama; it can’t be happening this way.

  But of course it is.

  Eventually she switched off the water and dried herself, reveling in the scratchiness of the towel, the tingling sensation it left on her damp, now-pink skin.

  Pink except for the purple bruise Ralph had left on her arm.

  I could leave, she thought again. I could still leave. Wouldn’t that be the sensible thing to do? I could still go back to New York, close up the cabin, tell Jeff and Susan not to come. I could get out of this nightmare.

  And, she thought, reluctantly remembering Roy’s words, I could try to sell the cabin after all. If people really are talking, if they think I’m a murderer…

  But Nora’s face kept swimming before her eyes, making Liz’s throat catch with the pain in her deep blue eyes, the pain, the courage, and, lately, the mute appeal.

  No, she admitted silently, realizing she’d known it anyway. I can’t. I can’t possibly leave her.

  She shrugged into a clean white shirt and clean khaki shorts, then packed her overnight bag with a dressy shirt and pants for the funeral, which she assumed would be soon, plus jeans, a sweater, a few changes of underwear, and a couple of t-shirts. After she threw the bag into the car she went down to the dock and sat there as the sun slowly dipped behind the opposite shore.

  I should bring her here, she thought. She could heal here. She can’t even begin to heal in that house with that awful man.

  Maybe Dr. Herschwell will say he’s crazy enough to be put away.

  Would Nora leave then?

  Would Nora sell the farm? She thought of Roy again. And then would she…

  Liz shook herself. Stop it, kiddo. Stop it! She’s too vulnerable, too needy, right now.

  As the sunset darkened into twilight, Liz walked back to the car, stopping at the garden, admiring, briefly, Nora’s unfinished handiwork. There were no weeds to speak of, and neat clumps of newly planted perennials, most of them divisions from Nora’s own garden, dotted the cleanly mulched surface. “They’ll grow,” Nora had said when Liz complained that they seemed too far apart and that her mother’s garden had been so full of flowers there’d been little room for weeds. “They’ll fill in. It takes about three years for a perennial garden to establish itself. This may take less time, though, since there are some things already here.”

  Three years. Or less. Where would Nora be in three years? Where would she want to be?

  Where do I want to be in three years, Liz mused, climbing into the car. They used to ask us that in college, to help us decide what we wanted to do.

  Three years.

  I’d like to be…

  But I don’t know. Not any more. One year ago I’d have said I wanted to be right there in New York, teaching at Holden Academy, maybe moving up to department head, becoming an expert, maybe publishing something impressive, thinking about working toward a PhD—for she had considered that, dreamed of a university position, long ago.

  One year ago I’d have imagined Megan by my side, she thought so unexpectedly that she pulled the car onto the road’s grassy shoulder and sat there, staring blindly into the woods.

  I’d have assumed she’d be there, that I’d want her there.

  Pictures of Megan flashed before her eyes: Megan, in her yellow polo shirt and green jeans, laughing while they were hiking in New Hampshire a year ago—was it only a year ago?—when they’d come upon two squirrels arguing over a pile of acorns.

  Megan, lying naked on cool white sheets, her body golden in sunlight, reaching up to Liz, pulling her down to her.

  Megan, crying over the death of a dog in a movie, gripping Liz’s arm when the truck struck it, shaking her head inconsolably when Liz whispered, “It’s only a story; they didn’t kill a real dog, honey.”

  But Janey was consoling Megan now, was caressing her golden body, loving her delicious laugh.

  Liz thought then of Ralph, of his gentleness with Corinne, of the apparent depth or at least the violence of his grief, and she was momentarily filled with compassion for him, and unexpected respect despite his tragic—the word came unbidden to her—his tragic madness.

  And she thought of Nora as she’d first seen her, and Nora learning to swim and to drive, and Nora teaching her how to garden, and Nora patting Thomas, and stoking the stove and bathing and feeding and tending her parents, and listening to Liz talk about her own parents, understanding Liz’s long pent-up pain, accepting it—and Nora early that morning, lying in Liz’s arms, her face relaxed for a time while she slept.

  After the shaking had stopped and she’d slept for a while, Liz had awakened and leaned over, watching Nora’s eyes move under their lids, listening to her breathe, and her throat caught now, remembering a wave of tenderness stronger than anything she’d felt for Megan.

  Megan had been sentimental but not truly vulnerable or open to Liz, and Liz had not let herself show Megan her own vulnerability. They had been brittle together, laughing and making love and playing.

  When Liz’s mother died, Megan had done all the right things, helped Liz with the announcements and the arrangements, cleared out the hospital room, held Liz and soothed her, said “It’s all right to cry” (but Liz had not cried), sat next to her in the family pew at the funeral, accompanied her to the graveyard, greeted the relatives.

  Remotely.

  She’d also rummaged in her pocketbook while the minister prayed, and she’d whistled and giggled while clearing out the hospital room, changed the radio station to the news while holding Liz and urging her to cry.

  Withheld herself from me, Liz realized, as I withheld myself from her.

&nb
sp; Skimming the surface; skimming the surface of love.

  But it’s so much easier that way! So very much easier. So very much safer.

  Making love with Megan…

  It was good, good enough, anyway; they knew each other’s bodies well, knew what worked and what didn’t.

  “But there was no connection,” Liz whispered out loud. “No connection. The deepest part of me and the deepest part of you; we never met. Never, Megan. Never.”

  “And that,” she realized with an unexpected and tremendous sense of relief, “is why I left you.”

  And that also—God help me; it’s so much harder!—because we do meet, is why I love Nora.

  ***

  The Hastingses’ car was in front of the farmhouse when Liz drove up, and Charles and Marie were in the kitchen with Nora and Ralph. Nora, Liz saw, had put on a fresh dress and brushed her hair; Ralph, too, was in fresh clothes and looked sleepy rather than belligerent, even when he turned around and obviously saw her. The pills, Liz thought, thank you, Dr. Herschwell!

  “We were just making a list,” Nora said, smiling bravely when Liz walked in, “of people to notify. And working out funeral plans.”

  Liz nodded. “I’ll just…” she began awkwardly, but she wasn’t sure where she could go in order to leave them alone.

  Nora interrupted quickly. “No, please stay. It’s all right.” She patted the chair next to her and introduced Liz.

  “How do you do?” Liz said formally, sitting down, ignoring Ralph, who was beginning to glower after all.

  Charles Hastings nodded and said, “Good to meet you.”

  “Nora was telling us about her cousins,” said Marie, “and we called information and actually found a number for one of them.”

  “For Andrew,” Nora explained to Liz. “The one I told you about.”

  Ralph grunted. “Little limb of Satan, that boy,” he growled.

  “Yes, but Father, he’s grown up now. They all are.”

  “We don’t have room to have them all here. Too much noise and fuss anyway. Too expensive, too. All that food.”