The Wishing Thread

by Van Allen, Lisa

  And if you don’t sell it, then you all must not sell it together—if that makes sense. Bitty and Meggie, you’re good people, good sisters. Aubrey will need seeing to now that I’m gone. She’s a menace in the kitchen—ask her about the time she put the microwave dinner tray in the oven—and if you don’t watch her she’ll eat spicy dragon rolls for three meals a day. She must not be allowed to listen to so many of those gloomy singer-songwriter records; that’s a nervous breakdown waiting to happen. And the coffee! Dear God, the coffee! A woman can only drink so much coffee a day before her face starts looking like a bean!

  I know. I know. I’m being a goof. But when a person dies, a smidge of silliness about it is absolutely necessary. You know—a little nonsense now and then.

  In all seriousness, Bit and Meg, Aubrey will need your support in her new role as the guardian of the Stitchery. If there’s such a thing as worry in the afterlife, she’ll be what I’m worrying about most. She needs you. And if I know anything about anything, you need her, too.

  This is my Last Will: that you girls come together again and be like you used to be, here—in the Stitchery—which is not so bad a place for a family to be.

  And here is my Last Testament: I loved you—all and each—so much. I loved you, Meggie, for your mouthing off and for your ability to fully embrace and become all the many people that one person can be over the course of a life.

  I loved you, Bitty, for the strength of your will and your uncompromising commitment to what you feel is right—even for the fact that you kept your kids away from the Stitchery, because you meant well, though it’s not really the Stitchery that’s dangerous when all’s said and done.

  And I loved you, Aubrey, for your sense of duty and your good, good heart. You were my role model—I know, funny to say that. But you were. Don’t worry too much about the Stitchery. You already know everything you need to know; you’ll do fine. The Great Book in the Hall will answer your questions if there’s something I haven’t told you already. And your core intuition, if you heed it without judgment, will never be wrong.

  I want what’s best for you, darling, whatever that may be. You and your sisters will discover what that is. And if happiness means giving up the Stitchery, then so be it. But I’m betting the farm that it won’t come to that. I hope that you’ll fight for the Stitchery and for Tappan Square as I have fought for it. I caution you to never be complacent about your battles. You are the music makers, you are the dreamers of dreams.

  Be nice to one another. Build one another up. Hold one another’s yarn.

  How much do I love you?

  Your Aunt Mariah

  There is a sign among knitters, among women in a house of knitters: palms facing, fingers flattened, hands apart. This is a position familiar to anyone who has ever sat for hours on end, patient, still, holding a loose hank of yarn suspended between two hands while another person winds it tight. Of course, these days a hank can be turned into a practical little ball with an umbrella swift and ball winder in no time, so that the fibers won’t knot while they’re knit. But the old way—to ask Will you hold this for me?—is a rite of passage. Daughters still sit for mothers, mothers for grandmothers, committed to the fraught place where a mind can be both simultaneously drifting and pinched down, until their arms begin to ache and the circle of yarn begins to feel as heavy as a barrel hoop, until the tail end slips away and the task is done.

  Once, in the days before Aubrey and her sisters were taken out of school, Aubrey had belly-flopped on stage during the third-grade production of Rip Van Winkle—tripped on the inflamed strata of her tulle skirts as she walked up the stairs—and the audience had laughed. The sting of shame was much worse than that of her purpling shin. She scanned the shadows of audience until she saw Mariah, who was looking at her, smiling—and holding her hands apart just so. How much do I love you? Mariah had said that God made all things possible, and that when she made the sign, palms apart, extended as if to say This big, she held the whole world there, just there—in the space between her hands.

  Aubrey could not hold back her tears. Vic handed her a tissue that he’d pulled from the mantel. He leaned over her where she sat on the couch. “You okay?”

  She dabbed at her cheeks. “I’m … surprised,” she said. She didn’t mention that she also felt a little hurt that Mariah had kept secrets from her. She figured that was a given.

  Bitty stood and snapped her arm toward Vic, palm up. When she spoke, it merely sounded like she was asking a question. “Can I see that?”

  “Sure.”

  She stood reading in silence, her brow furrowed. Meggie moved to peer over Bitty’s shoulder. In black from head to toe, she might have been her sister’s shadow.

  “I don’t get it,” Nessa said. “What’s it mean?”

  Carson sighed with the gravitas of a fifty-year-old man. “It means they have to all sell the house to somebody else, or they all have to keep it and live in it together.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Nessa said. “Aunt Aubrey can stay here even if Mom and Aunt Meggie don’t want to sell. Right? Right, Mom?”

  “She could,” Vic said. “But that’s not what Mariah wanted.”

  “So—what? She expects us to all stay here? Like she can micromanage our lives even from beyond the grave?” Meggie said.

  Bitty shook Mariah’s letter in the air. “I can’t believe this. This is ridiculous.”

  Aubrey pulled herself together—tamping down all her hurt, her wondering if she perhaps didn’t deserve the Stitchery, if she’d done something to offend her aunt, if she just wasn’t worthy. From the time she was a teenager, she’d been told that the Stitchery had chosen her and that she would one day own it. Mariah’s muddling of the laws of the outside world with the laws inside the Stitchery seemed sacrilegious. Aubrey felt as if she’d had the floor pulled out from under her—as opposed to just the rug.

  But she got herself together.

  “Nessa’s right,” she said to her sisters. “Really, this doesn’t change anything. After the funeral you guys can head back to your respective homes, and I’ll stay on. Just like always. Then, when I die, the three of us can will it to the next”—she glanced at Vic, she didn’t know how much Mariah had told him—“person. Easy as that.”

  For a moment, the room was quiet.

  “Maybe it’s not easy as that,” Meggie said.

  Bitty put the letter down on the coffee table.

  Aubrey saw her sisters exchange looks, and her heart in her chest beat so loudly that she thought Vic might have heard. She steeled herself. “Are you guys saying you might actually want to sell the Stitchery?”

  Her sisters didn’t answer.

  Aubrey got to her feet. “That’s not what Mariah wanted.”

  “Mariah wanted you to be happy,” Meggie said softly. “She told us to take care of you. She said so herself.”

  “And that’s what we want, too,” Bitty said.

  Vic cleared his throat. “Excuse me. But—I’m thinking maybe I should go.”

  “Don’t go,” Aubrey said, and much to her embarrassment, her hand shot out to him. She drew back. “I mean, you don’t have to stay. But you can if you want.”

  His gaze firmed. “As long as you need me, I’ll stay.”

  Meggie pulled her attention away. “Aubrey, we’re not attacking you. We don’t mean it to sound like we’re ganging up. But you can’t stay here. It was marginally okay that you lived here while Mariah was around. But now it’s totally un-okay.”

  “Says who?”

  “It’s not healthy,” Meggie said. “Your being alone all the time. The Stitchery’s holding you back.”

  “And besides,” Bitty said, “isn’t the place supposed to be bulldozed anyway?”

  “Our whole neighborhood is,” Vic said. “To make room for the shopping mall.”

  Bitty’s tone softened. “I’m sorry for that. I really am. But the point for Aubrey is that even if she does cling to the Stitchery, she might lose it any
way.”

  “No!” Aubrey said. “Mariah hasn’t been gone a week, and already you guys want to sell off everything she owns.” She pushed her hair from her face and tried to tamp her anger. “Is this … is this a money thing? I mean—if it is, we’ll talk about it. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I am not desperate for money,” Bitty said stiffly.

  “I am,” Meggie said, snorting a little. “And the junk in the tower alone could pay my bills for years.”

  “You shouldn’t call it junk,” Aubrey said.

  She balled her hands into fists at her sides. Part of the particular torture of living in the Stitchery was knowing that life would never really be comfortable on the income of a part-time librarian and part-time knitter. The Stitchery did not do a big business. It never had. Many times, Aubrey had seen Mariah knit difficult projects that required days of concentration to pull off big, important spells—in exchange for nothing more than a pack of beat-up trading cards. It was the equivalent of swapping the wondrous magic beans for a dried-up old cow, as opposed to the other way around. Although family rumor held that the early Van Rippers had been well off, the recent Van Rippers were forced to water down their hand soap and orange juice, had more bread crumbs than beef in their meat loaf, and had to turn off the water mid-shower to lather up or shave.

  And yet the tower—old miser that it was—could make Ali Baba’s cave look like a roadside flea market. Who knew how much money all those treasures might sell for? On the wall inside the tower, some ancestor had written a verse: FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE ALSO. When Aubrey was sleepless over her high property taxes and the Stitchery’s leaking roof, the treasure tormented her. She was a miner on a mountain of silver—without a shovel or pick to her name.

  “Listen, we don’t have to decide about this right now,” Bitty said. “Let’s not fight. Okay? Let’s just table the whole conversation until after the funeral.”

  “Plus, there’s the Madness,” Meggie blurted. “Could we talk about that for a second? Aubrey, you know what will happen if you stay here. Your brain will turn into oatmeal inside your skull! And what are we supposed to do? Just sit back and let that happen?”

  “It will be better to talk about this later,” Bitty said, her voice tight with false patience.

  “I don’t see how waiting is going to help,” Meggie said.

  Bitty glared at her.

  “Seriously. We all know she can’t stay here alone.”

  “I will stay,” Aubrey said. “I have to stay.”

  “Majority rules,” Meggie said. “We’ll take a vote. It’s legal that way.”

  “No it’s not. You need my signature—”

  “Not if we outnumber you.”

  “That’s enough!” Bitty said. Loud. The children were sitting on the couch with their feet together and their eyes down as if they were trying to make their small bodies even smaller. Vic, too, was unnaturally still.

  Aubrey felt some of the heat go out of her. “You’re right. Let’s not fight. That’s the last thing Mariah would have wanted.”

  The room was quiet. Aubrey went to the window.

  Although the property around the Stitchery had changed over the decades, the building itself hadn’t been updated in years. Since the late 1700s, the Van Rippers had been in the Stitchery. The scuffs and dents in the baseboards, the slight crookedness of the back door, the long arcing scrapes along the hallway floors—all marks of the people who came before.

  True, Aubrey was tempted from time to time to throw it all away. To pawn the treasures in the tower and start over somewhere, anywhere, else. How could she not be tempted? The work was draining, the hours long and lonely, the rewards dubious. But if she did not continue the traditions of her family, there would be no traditions at all. And what would Tarrytown do without the Stitchery? Long before she’d been born, her job had begun.

  She looked at Vic, whose face was grave with worry. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll walk you to the front gate.”

  Outside, they traipsed across the Stitchery’s yard, over its blue slate walk that was slowly being swallowed by moss and crabgrass. The unseasonably warm sun glazed Vic’s hair in gold. The day had brightened slightly, smelling of charcoal and burning leaves. In the distance the river was cobalt blue.

  “I’m sorry you saw all of that,” Aubrey told him. “My sisters and I … it’s complicated.”

  “Family’s complicated. Don’t apologize.”

  “Are you walking home?” she asked. He lived a few blocks away in a small two-family that he owned and also rented to his sister. She knew this, but she’d never been to his house.

  “Yes. Could you use a walk?”

  He held out his arm and she took it. He made it so easy.

  They went down the old, blocky street, the sounds of seagulls and car tires, the smells of fresh air and fabric softener. To other people in Tarrytown, those old families who lived high on the ridge and high on the income spectrum, Tappan Square was one strong gust of wind away from being rubble. But Aubrey knew that just because a block was a bit rough around the edges, that didn’t mean it was bad.

  All the people of Tappan Square were pariahs in one way or another: They were artists and students and vagabonds who lived to push the envelope. They were people who had emotional or mental disabilities—or some harmless quirk that made them “not quite the same.” They were immigrants who came from many countries, some scrimping by and living under the radar, others with empire-sized dreams. They were all on the fringes, caught in an eddy that churned far from the mainstream.

  Horseman Woods Commons—Steve Halpern and his buddies said—would be a “great improvement” over Tappan Square. Whereas Tappan Square was a patchwork of mismatched houses from hand-me-down decades, Horseman Woods Commons would be an über-sleek, brick-and-glass complex that offered the occasional neoclassical column or fanlight window as a nod to the past. The lower levels of The Commons would offer upscale salons, boutiques, a café, and even a few novelties for the tourists, including the Headless Horseman Museum of Oddities and Legends. The three upper stories of the plaza would be luxury housing for the fifty-five-and-up crowd. Retired people—everyone said—would be a great addition to Tarrytown. They were as low-maintenance in condos as hamsters in cages. They brought in a lot of disposable income and little aggravation (the current Tappan Square residents offered the exact reverse).

  Aubrey had been active in the effort to stop Horseman Woods Commons—writing letters and managing campaigns from the shadows. But she’d never been visible or outspoken. It wasn’t her nature to call attention to herself. It was Mariah who would have leapt in front of the bulldozers and cried, Over my dead body! Mariah had been the one with the semaphore and bullhorn, and Aubrey was the one who held them for her when she needed to free up her hands.

  “What are you thinking about?” Vic asked.

  “This place.” She kicked a soda can that had been smashed against the sidewalk. “What it means.”

  “Your sisters can’t make you leave if you don’t want to. You can stay.”

  “But for how long? Until Steve Halpern decides I have to go? That we all do? If we don’t sell our property to them they’ll take it anyway.”

  “But we’re fighting it. We’re going to win.”

  Vic walked slowly, as if they were having a gentle amble along the river rather than a stroll in the paved heat of Tappan Square. His arm was bent at a gentlemanly angle, and it held the weight of her hand. It occurred to her: Why had she ever been so tongue-tied around him? When her sisters had practically attacked her just now, Vic had stood by her. In light of Mariah’s death and the change to her will, the idea of being nervous around Vic seemed almost petty—proof that worry was relative, that the fears of last week were the fears of a different woman at a different time.

  “You know,” she said, laughing a little, “I think I have a better shot at convincing the town to let me keep the Stitchery than convincing my sisters.�
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  He was quiet for the space of a few steps. “I’m sure they mean well.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” Aubrey said.

  “So why not tell me?” His pace slowed until he was stopped on a street corner. She didn’t know what direction to head in, so she stopped, too. They stood: together, but not quite facing. “I am a good listener, you know.”

  “All right.” She focused on his chin and spoke. “I don’t really have a choice but to stay in the Stitchery. Our family has these … um … traditions. And it’s up to me to keep them going.”

  He was quiet, waiting.

  “Mariah didn’t tell you anything?”

  He faced her. He squinted hard in the sunlight, his face crinkling, his upper lip drawn. “I know about the yarns.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m not saying I know everything. But—yeah. The spells, all of that. Mariah told me.” He glanced down at her.

  “And, what do you think of it? Did it freak you out?”

  She felt his muscle tighten under her hand. “I guess I have to tell you a story,” he said, but he did not begin it right away. They walked a few more paces, and she looked up at him with the sense that something was caught in the balance—though what it was she couldn’t say. “When I was fifteen, my father was working illegally, you know, under the table, at a construction site. The crane operator apparently had too much whiskey in his coffee one morning, and the jib smacked into a neighboring building.” He paused, and Aubrey held his arm a little tighter. “They said my father didn’t even know what hit him. Stone and glass from the building fell four stories. Nobody but my father was hurt.”

  “Hurt? As in … he recovered, right?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, Vic,” Aubrey said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. I still miss him every day. But I’m not telling you this story to make you feel bad for me. I’m telling you because it has to do with the Stitchery.”

  “How?”