Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

Jane laughed at her mother's whimsical logic. "Why were you in New York?"

  "Another funeral. Do you remember Earl Simton? We used to belong to the same club. He keeled over; just like that. Your father is devastated. After all, Earl was five years younger than he is."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Where's Dad now?"

  "He's determined not to waste the trip East; he's lined up meetings right through the weekend."

  "Oh. So he won't be coming to Nantucket, of course," Jane said, trying not to sound as if it mattered.

  A look of sudden sympathy crossed her mother's face. "Oh, sweetheart, you know he would if he could. But he's been so busy; the company's restructuring —"

  "Sure. I understand. Well, anyway — close your eyes," Jane said, wanting to get off the subject. She flung open the relocated but not yet repainted front door and led her mother into the house by the hand. Gwendolyn Drew opened her eyes. A look of surprised delight washed over her face, the look a mother has when her daughter gets all her lines right in her first school play.

  "Jane! It's wonderful!"

  Her mother walked slowly around the room, soaking up its light and airy presence. Jane wanted the look of a Victorian conservatory, and she had succeeded. Bright tulips in vases set off the bird-of-paradise pattern on the ivory wallpaper, lending them their own real fragrance. Old but solid wicker furniture that Jane had tracked down through an Inquirer ad and sprayed deep green looked as if it had been there from the start. Jane had sewn cushion covers in complementary colors, then added a big rag rug and potted palms to tie it all together. The room wasn't finished yet— the long, sparkling clean windows were unadorned—but it was on its way.

  "I didn't mean to buy any furnishings, but once I got the wicker so cheap — well, one thing led to another. I just thought the place might sell better if it looked lived in," Jane said guiltily. And then she thought, Why am I apologizing?

  "I must say, this is nothing like your Connecticut condo," Gwendolyn mused, looking at her daughter curiously.

  "I'm nothing like my Connecticut condo — not anymore. I can't imagine living in that stark box. I'm not a study in trendy off-whites anymore, Mother. I want a little more softness in my life; I want a little more charm."

  "You're being too hard on the condo, I think. It was elegant, sophisticated, and yes, it did suggest a woman on the way up. Does this new look have something to do with your abandoning your career?" her mother asked shrewdly.

  "I haven't abandoned my career," Jane said, irritated. "My career has abandoned me. Anyway, I will be going back into advertising — but it'll be on my own terms. Once I've sold Lilac Cottage, I'll have the money to finance my own agency. I've explained all that."

  "And yet you don't seem in any particular hurry," Gwendolyn couldn't help remarking. She trailed a manicured nail across a pillow of polished sea cotton. "Sewing cushion covers?"

  "Okay, okay, I got a little distracted there," Jane admitted. "But I almost can't help myself. I haven't enjoyed anything this much since my watercolor classes at RISD. Maybe Bing is right; maybe I ought to go into interior design," she said on their way to the kitchen.

  "Bing? The man next door? Will I be meeting this Bing?"

  "Probably," Jane said vaguely. She wasn't ready to get into Bing with her mother, not until she'd sorted out her own mixed feelings about him. "He'll be back on the island Friday or early Saturday."

  "Good. Oh! Darling, what a difference!" her mother said as they entered the sun-drenched kitchen. "It's the same, and yet it's not the same at all. Really. How very nice. The only misstep that I can see," she said, "is keeping that old porcelain sink. You'll never sell the place without a dishwasher and twin basins."

  "Maybe; but I enjoy washing dishes in the same sink that Aunt Sylvia used. It gives me a sense of — don't know — continuity."

  Gwendolyn laughed and said, "Well, you haven't had much of that. Many sinks ago I thought your father and I might actually live our lives in Delaware; that was before you were born. We had a nice old house with an apple tree and lots of land. We were so young then, and life was so simple," she said wistfully. "But, that was then and this is now. So," she said, shaking off the memory, "what did you do to the bathroom?"

  They surveyed the white-on-white bathroom, which was unchanged except for paint and bright towels, and then moved on to the scene of last night's traumas. The room clearly was not at its best. The tired old wallpaper and dark, eccentric furnishings — and the gooey mess on the rug — were a shocking contrast to the pristine airiness of the rest of the downstairs.

  "Jane! You haven't touched this room!" her mother said, surprised. She walked around it slowly, pausing at the mess for an explanation.

  "A little chimney flare-up, that's all," Jane mumbled. "I should've used a screen."

  Gwendolyn spied the tarot cards still arranged on the little gaming table exactly as she and Jane had seen them the day of the funeral. She went up to the table and said, "My God. You haven't changed a thing, have you? You've turned this room into a shrine."

  "Really, Mother, you make me sound like Miss Haversham. I just haven't got around to it yet."

  Jane was still convinced that the tarot cards held some kind of clue to Judith's dilemma. With a little more time and a little more study, she might be able to break the code.

  "This isn't right, Jane," her mother said, upset. "This really isn't." To Jane's horror, she scooped up the cards and dropped the deck into her handbag. "Sylvia's dead, and what she was or wasn't isn't your concern."

  "Mother!" Jane cried, appalled. "I'm not eight years old this time! I'm an adult, and what I do or don't do isn't your concern!"

  Gwendolyn Drew looked as if she'd been slapped across the face. Her high, fine cheekbones flushed a bright pink as she lifted her chin in a gesture Jane knew well. Her mother adjusted the designer scarf she wore around her shoulders a fraction of a millimeter, and waited. Whether she was counting to ten or expecting an apology, Jane had no idea. But Gwendolyn Drew had crossed a line, and Jane had to let her know it.

  After a brief eternity, her mother dropped her imperious gaze. Her face, so exquisitely made up, became older and troubled; it became every mother's face. The look in her eyes, so blue, so bright, said, This is how you treat your mother?

  Jane held her ground.

  Finally Gwendolyn reached into her handbag, pulled out the tarot cards, and handed them over to her daughter. "You're right," she said with a sigh. "You're not eight years old anymore, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it." Her smile was stiff and rueful and something else: resigned. She had begun, at last, to let go.

  Jane dropped the deck of tarot cards on the mantel and said, "Let me show you to your room. Then I'll shower, and I'll take you out to lunch."

  "No, I'll take you —"

  "Mother."

  Gwendolyn sighed and said, "All right; why not? I've brought a check from your father for the Volvo. You're rich. For now."

  ****

  When they got back, Billy B. was in the kitchen, having a good laugh with the chimney sweep. Jane didn't need her master's degree to know that she was the butt of their good humor; presumably the most simple-minded islander knew to look up his chimney once in a while.

  Still, Billy took full responsibility for the incident. "I shoulda warned you," he insisted after introductions were made. "After all, you're new to owning a real home. Anyway, I cleaned it all up, no charge. I'll be able to sand most of the scorch marks out when we finally do that room. Well, back to the salt mines." He went outside to work on the new front steps.

  The chimney sweep took off, leaving Jane with her mother and three more days in which to amuse her. They'd already walked around town after lunch, and together they'd admired the historic houses on Main Street, and poked into two or three antique shops along the way.

  "That's pretty much it for things to do," Jane warned her mother as she brewed them a pot of tea. "Daffodil Weekend is over, and the first yachting event isn't until t
he end of May. It gets pretty quiet," she added, hoping her mother would suffer culture withdrawal and head back to the Big Apple. The thought that she might be in the house during a Judith episode struck terror in Jane's heart. "It's really quite boring," Jane repeated.

  "Funny," her mother said. "You don't look bored. You look the opposite, in fact; almost harried. Are you all right?"

  That was another point about mothers; they noticed every little thing.

  "Maybe I've just been inside too much," Jane said quickly. "After tea I'll show you around the house. Aunt Sylvia has stuff growing everywhere. You've missed the crocuses and glory-in-the-snow, but the heath and groundcovers have come into their own."

  Jane guided the talk toward safe things like color schemes and poor old Buster, who had no idea who his owner was anymore, and afterward the two women changed into outdoor clothes and stepped over Billy and his new stairs into a cool spring evening.

  "Feels like we'll have fog tonight," Jane remarked, zipping up her jacket.

  Her mother laughed and accused her of sniffing the air like a farmer, and Jane flushed. They walked out toward the property's boundary and inevitably they found themselves at the small, forgotten burying ground. Jane tried to steer her mother away, but Gwendolyn would not be budged.

  "I love these old gravesites," she said, bending over to read the weathered stones in the slanting light. "Have you taken any rubbings? It'd be nice to bring a memento of the place with you when you leave the island."

  "Somehow I haven't felt the need," Jane said without irony.

  "And look at this one with the broken stone—how neatly tended it is," Gwendolyn said, stooping down for a closer look.

  "'Judith' something, born 1802. I suppose she's someone's relative. Still, it's surprising that anyone still cares, after nearly two centuries."

  "Just because she's dead doesn't mean she's gone," Jane said laconically. "Why shouldn't someone care?"

  As she phrased the question, Jane realized that she did care, and deeply, about this tormented woman. Despite the fear, despite the agony, she felt a deep connection with Judith, just as she felt a connection with her Aunt Sylvia. We're all women, and we all want to love and be loved and not one of us has been able to get it right. On one level it was as simple as that.

  Her mother, crouching at the gravestone, gave Jane another thoughtful, troubled look. At the same time, Jane heard the sound of Mac's pickup in the lane behind her. She turned, her heart bounding at her ribcage, in time to see him slam on his brakes. They exchanged a look as intense, as burning, as unresolved as silent speech could be, and then Mac spotted Gwendolyn Drew and immediately threw the pickup into gear. He roared off just as Jane's mother came up alongside her.

  "Him," Gwendolyn said, her voice low with apprehension. "Has he been bothering you?"

  Jane laughed weakly. She'd done everything to get Mac McKenzie's attention except maybe the dance of the seven veils. "No, Mother, he hasn't been bothering me. I don't think I'm his type."

  "I'm glad to hear it. The last thing you need is someone like that — well, you know."

  "No, Mother. I don't know." Her mother's well-intentioned snobbery suddenly had become insufferable. They walked in strained silence in the direction of Phillip's house and came to the little wooden footbridge over the narrow gully, now swollen from recent rains, that ran through his property. Gwendolyn balked at using the footbridge; she would not follow her daughter over it. "Come on! It's old but it's solid," said Jane, surprised by her mother's timidity. "And the water's not exactly deep," she added with good-natured irony. "Maybe six inches."

  "It's not drowning I'm afraid of; it's my ankle going through one of the boards and breaking. Anyway, it's getting damp and cold; can we go back?"

  "Sure," said Jane, not all that surprised. Her mother was an indoor plant, not a wildflower. August on Nantucket would be rough enough for her. "We can build a fire in my nice clean fireplace," Jane promised.

  When they got back, there was a note on the table from Billy, who'd left for the day.

  Mac came by for the tape in your camcorder.

  He said you wanted him to see it. And if you want

  to bring some kind of noodle thing, that's okay

  with him.

  "What tape?" her mother asked, glancing at the note over Jane's shoulder. "And what noodle thing? I thought you said he wasn't interested in you."

  "The tape is just some old ... tape," Jane answered inadequately. "And the noodle dish must be for Uncle Easy's potluck birthday on Saturday. Half the island will be there; it's not exactly an intimate dinner for two. And even if it were," she added acidly, "I thought you and I had reached an agreement."

  "Yes. I suppose we have," her mother agreed through compressed lips.

  ****

  That evening, despite the damp and penetrating fog, Jane and her mother sat without a fire and read in the wicker chairs in the newly decorated front room. Her mother seemed to have an aversion for the fireplace room, as if the spirit of Sylvia Merchant was too much in it. Still, the arrangement had an advantage: the only phone was in the fireplace room, and Jane could use it privately there. With heart hammering, she dialed Mac's number. For the last hour she'd been staring at the same damn novel she couldn't finish the night before, turning the pages for her mother's benefit while she relived every second of her time with Mac McKenzie. This man had held her, calmed her, caressed her; had kept her literally from falling apart. Step by step he'd led her out of one hell — and step by step, he'd led her straight into another.

  Things used to be so simple between them. Mac hated everything Jane stood for, and Jane couldn't stand Mac's obstinate ways. He was here for the long haul; she was strictly hit-and-run. He said noodles; she said pasta. But now he seemed not to despise her anymore, and she seemed not to want to take the money and run anymore. It was all incredibly muddled.

  And, he was willing to take a look at the videotape, which astonished her.

  He answered his phone and she said stiffly, "Is this a bad time?"

  His laugh was tense. "I've had better."

  The remark meant nothing, of course, and yet Jane felt her cheeks begin to flame. It was never what he said; it was always how he said it.

  "I wanted to let you know that I have an unexpected house guest," she said, "so I won't be able to come on Saturday after all. You probably noticed that my mother is here."

  "It'd be hard to miss the daggers that went whizzing through my truck window this afternoon."

  "You're wrong about her," Jane lied, "just as you're wrong about me."

  "Is that so? Hell, then bring 'er along," he taunted. "The more the merrier."

  "Oh, well, I wouldn't want to ... although it's kind of you to ... all right. I will. Mother would be delighted. Thanks soo much for asking," Jane said, furious with his ability to throw ice water on whatever warmth of feelings she had for him. "I'll bring lasagna."

  "Fine. You never asked about the tape."

  "I nearly forgot," she said breezily. "What did you think?"

  "It's nothing. I know what you think is on the tape; I even know where you think it is. But it's nothing."

  "It's her. You know it and I know it. Last night you had me convinced I was wrong. But in the clear light of day, thinking of what I know and when I knew it — it's her, Mac."

  They said good-bye with more sadness than anything else. Jane was about to force-feed Mac's invitation to her mother when the phone rang. It was Bing, in the city. He didn't start out with his usual charming banter; his voice was nearly as tense as Mac's had been.

  "I've been trying to reach Cissy," Bing said without preamble. "Any sign of her?"

  "I saw her car tucked behind Phillip's house when I was out walking earlier; she must be holed up over there. What's wrong?"

  "It's Dave again. He was over here a little while ago, telling me he'd sworn off alcohol and insisting that I intercede for him. Eventually I tried to nudge him to the door; it turned into a shovin
g match. Maybe I should've brought charges, but I didn't. Now I'm wondering from something Dave said whether he might be on his way to Nantucket."

  "You want me to walk over and warn her?"

  "We're not supposed to know she's there, remember? I'd rather you kept an eye out for Dave. Big guy, tacky dresser, black hair—you can't miss him. If he shows up, let me know."

  "Bing — what did he say that makes you think he's on his way?"

  Bing hesitated. "He said, 'She may be getting it from someone else, but the bitch is still my wife.'"

  Jane winced and said, "I'll watch for him."

  She hung up and rejoined her mother, who looked up from her book and said, "Was it something serious?"

  Jane forced a carefree laugh. "On Nantucket? Never. That was Mac again; we were comparing lasagna recipes, that's all. Which brings me to an interesting proposal ...."

  Chapter 19

  Uncle Easy's party was nothing like the ones Jane had ever thrown. Jane's parties were like her parents' parties: she invited people who shared similar backgrounds, tastes, and career levels, then sat back as they all had a predictably pleasant time.

  Uncle Easy's party, on the other hand, was closer to social anarchy. The variety of cars parked all around Mac's grounds was amazing — everything from a Mercedes to a battered VW bug. The old house itself seemed energized. Maybe it was the hand-lettered bedsheets proclaiming, "Easy's Eighty!" and "Eighty's Easy!" Or the exuberant balloons (mixed colors, no theme) and tulips (mixed colors, no theme) that marked the way to the back door. Whatever the reason, the McKenzie homestead looked alive and kicking and ready for just about anything.

  Jane's mother, dressed with casual elegance in pale blue, stepped out of the car and, ignoring the balloons and flowers by the back door, began walking around to the front.

  "That's the company door, Mother," Jane said, tugging her back with her free arm.

  "Aren't we company?" her mother asked with a bland expression.

  "Maybe; but I'd rather be family." The words were out before Jane knew it. But it was true. She was so deathly tired of being treated like a temporary resident; all she wanted was to be part of things.