Laelia

by Ruth-Miriam Garnett

  “Thanks, Rebecca. I hope Lucy comes down soon, so she can share a plate with us. But there’s a lot, so she can take something home if she wishes. I heard her say Jake has been restless since yesterday. Oh, Lord, I guess we don’t need to hear that right now.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure she can handle it,” Rebecca said, refocusing the discussion. “If not, she would let us know. Now, let’s see. To be on the safe side, I’ll take the car for a road check tomorrow. Claudia, you make an appointment for Dr. Meyers to come by right before we leave and make sure Timothy’s had enough sedation, maybe a little more than usual. This is one time we don’t want him getting belligerent. Gracelyn, did you speak with Raphaela about Herbert?”

  “He’ll be here at seven in the morning.”

  “Good.”

  Rebecca, pleased that her past instructions had been carried out, and confident that her current ones would be also, anticipated a journey to Chicago without tension. She understood that Claudia, unlike Gracelyn with Bernard, had little or no emotional investment in the dissolute Timothy. Claudia had constructed a life with Timothy on the periphery. In her eyes, he had done the same. Early in their marriage, she shut down emotionally, confused and alienated by his behavior. She sensed that even when sober, he had very little regard for her, and that the demons chasing him had taken him over long before they became husband and wife. Though not bold like Rebecca or Gracelyn, she possessed, like the rest of the Cates clan, an orderly psychology that allowed her to relentlessly weigh the pros and cons of her marriage in much the same way she made her clothing choices. Over the years, she catalogued Timothy’s infidelities for Rebecca, but decided against confronting him with her unhappiness. Her remoteness signaled that she would respect his distance if he respected hers. Since he never quite knew what Claudia was thinking, it made him unwilling to risk being violent toward her. His impending confinement would keep him from alcohol. Whether there might be the slightest piece of his soul to salvage she would leave to God.

  The week flew by. Gracelyn was relieved of her cooking duties so she could attend to last-minute details for her play. Rebecca had Wayne set up the barbecue pit in the side yard early Monday morning, so Claudia could get started roasting a small turkey and a cut of beef. For the next few days, the Cates women’s customary formal meals would be given over to sandwiches, fresh fruit, and crudités, which they could grab as they ran in and out. Claudia carefully planned everything out so they would have ample food and no cooking time, and could concentrate on the upcoming weekend’s events.

  Claudia watched with interest as Wayne replaced a screw in the rotisserie cover and blushed, realizing she was taken with the muscles rippling his arms.

  “This should do it, ma’am. I’ll get your fire started, and if you have any trouble keeping it going, wave at me out front and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Claudia blushed even more, realizing he was appraising her as well. They had never really been alone, since Wayne reported to Rebecca, but she noticed him and the easy rapport he had with her sister whenever he was in the house. Rebecca spoke highly of the caliber of his work and his honesty, and Claudia was always happy to get a glimpse of him because he smiled warmly at her.

  “Oh, thanks, Wayne, I appreciate that. I expect I will have a struggle if a breeze kicks up. You’ll be out front for a while?”

  “Really most of the day, working on the border hedges. Rebecca likes them thick and low, but I talked her into letting me trim the outer ones a bit higher and keep more of the blooms so they’ll kind of slope. I think it will be a nice effect.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  Claudia paused for a few seconds, thinking silently.

  “Wayne, I’ll be making some iced tea with fresh mint after I get this meat started. Please stop in for a glass later on. It’s supposed to get pretty hot.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  “Good. If you like, pick up a sandwich too. We’re eating off trays this week.”

  “Too busy for regular meals?”

  “Yes. You know, Gracelyn has her play, and we’ve got to make arrangements for Timothy. He goes in next week.”

  “In where?”

  “We’re taking him to a home. Briney Memorial. It’s outside Chicago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he ill?”

  “Well, yes. You know, he drinks, and with his shaking and wandering around, it’s too much for me.”

  Wayne looked at Claudia’s lowered eyes, thinking primarily how thick her eyelashes were, but he replied with what he knew was appropriate.

  “You’re doing the right thing. I hope everything goes well.”

  Now it was Wayne’s turn to think silently. He finally spoke.

  “Rebecca asked me to take you shopping Friday night. That still on?”

  “Oh, good. Yes. I need your help. There’ll be a lot of groceries. We’re having all the churchwomen over for Sunday tea.”

  “You all eat that much?”

  Claudia smiled at Wayne’s sarcasm.

  “Not really. We’re going to have little tea sandwiches that take a lot of different ingredients, some home-baked cookies, and some punch. You’ve never been to an afternoon church social?”

  “I must have with my mother when I was small. But you said this was for ladies.”

  “Well, really it is, but I’ll save you a plate.”

  Wayne laughed. Claudia started to go back in the house, turned, and waved.

  “Remember to come in for tea.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  By late morning, Claudia had removed the beef roast from the pit onto a marble cutting board and brought it inside. Standing at the kitchen counter, she began to carve succulent rare meat. Concentrating on making thin, even slices with the noisy electrical knife, she didn’t notice Wayne entering through the back door. Feeling a light touch on her arm, she turned to see him standing beside her. Without words, he gently took the knife from her. A trace of a smile stretched Claudia’s lips as she stepped aside and watched him take over the job she knew full well she could have done alone. Outdoors, she had noticed his muscled arms. Now, she found herself appraising his entire physique. The years had been kind. Only the lines in his face and more salt than pepper hair hinted at his age. He was medium tall, his body proportioned and lean. Claudia’s nose twitched as she noticed his smell, comforting and masculine. She didn’t remember ever before noticing a man’s smell. She also noted his hands, large and strong. A workman’s hands, she thought to herself, but she also knew these were hands that could fashion incredibly shaped topiaries, as well as till the earth.

  Several minutes later, Claudia still felt his touch on her arm. Catching herself staring, she crossed the room to remove Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and horseradish sauce from the refrigerator. When Wayne had completely carved the roast, she took several slices of meat, which she arranged on a serving platter with her usual efficiency. Next, she scooped dollops of each condiment into jelly jars, and placed them in the center of the platter. Reaching into the bread box she brought out an assortment of whole wheat, sesame, and rye slices and placed them in baskets on the table next to the meat tray.

  “Oh, I forgot, Wayne, we have pickles also.”

  “Is this what the ladies are going to eat?”

  Not realizing he was teasing her, Claudia began earnestly to quote her menu of colored cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off the bread, pâté and caviar on toast points, homemade mayonnaise, salmon prosciutto, and an assortment of olives, capers, and prepared artichokes.

  “I keep thinking we’re going to need a round or two of brie to go along with the fruit. But I really think a tapenade would be too much since we’re serving olives anyway. Do you think our guests would miss it?”

  “I don’t think your church ladies are going to feel like anything’s missing. Remember to save my plate.”

  “Oh, I will.” Claudia, pleased by his compliment, and feeling very comfort
able with him, began making sandwiches. “You go on and dress these however you want.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Watching her move with birdlike quickness around the kitchen, Wayne came to the conclusion that Claudia was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  X

  THE CATES SISTERS’ excitement over their multiple activities reached a fever pitch by the weekend. They resumed having meals together at Friday breakfast. Rebecca expected Leighton to be coming by later in the evening while Claudia was out grocery shopping with Wayne and Gracelyn was at the final rehearsal for the church play. Not ready to share with her sisters her liaison with the doctor, Rebecca took pains that their conversation proceed normally. Always a week ahead in her planning, she briefed them on the next week’s trip to Chicago.

  “I know we’re all excited, but let’s try to focus. I’m taking the Mercedes in Monday for a road check, so, Claudia, I’ll need you to run me by the post office. I have some boxed seedlings to pick up before one o’clock. Lucy is coming back over Monday afternoon. That way, we can all rest up from the weekend. We can’t go up to Chicago dragging our feet. Lucy’s going to stay here with Jake, which is a real blessing. I told her I would be back by Wednesday noon. If you two want to spend extra time and take the train back, it’s fine with me. I don’t mind coming back alone, since there’ll only be Jake here.”

  “Lord, I can’t believe it. We’re almost all unburdened.” Gracelyn shook her head, amazed at the rapidity of the changes in her life.

  “Well, yes. But it’s about time we drove up to see Bernard. That will be our next free weekend.”

  “Yes, Rebecca. I don’t mind that. After the play, I’ll have so much time. I’ll have so much time to write. I almost feel guilty.”

  “Well, don’t. You take as much time as you need. You’ve worked hard on that play, and I can’t wait to see it. When it’s over, you hole yourself up and I’ll tell whoever calls or comes by that you’re unavailable. I know how you writers are.”

  “Rebecca, you are so right,” Claudia put in. “I read where Toni Morrison’s concentration is so deep, she doesn’t leave her home for days at a time. And you know how Emily Dickinson was a real stay-at-home. I believe Lillian Hellman had to move way out somewhere on the beach. You hear these stories all the time. We won’t have anybody disturbing our Gracelyn.”

  “Uhm hum. Genius has to be nurtured. So, Gracelyn, you can crank out poems and things for twenty-four hours a day, if you decide to.”

  Gracelyn, moved by her sisters’ understanding of her passion, took the hand of each, tears salting her eyes.

  “That’s all I want to do right now. I’m so hungry.” She lifted her head. “What about you, Rebecca? When’s your time coming?”

  “My time’s already come,” Rebecca said, not intending to sound mysterious. “I’ll do right by Jake and have my life too. You don’t know how God has blessed me. Just to have my sisters with me and for us to have peace.”

  “Do you think a man can bring you peace?” Claudia asked.

  “No, dear. But what we all know, I guess, is that a man can disrupt it. But not every man. Not the one the Lord sends you.”

  “How do you know it’s the Lord that’s sending the man, Rebecca?” Claudia continued in her questions.

  “I’m not sure, dear. I guess we just have to give it time enough until we know.”

  Rebecca smiled at Claudia, understanding that perhaps even more than she and Gracelyn, her delicate, pristine sister had been bruised severely in her marriage. She had missed out on a man’s giving of himself, and didn’t really understand her own body. Rebecca felt for Claudia; to be so exquisite and so deprived of warmth seemed criminal. Gracelyn, she knew, enjoyed her sensuality and was unafraid of where it would lead her. Her confinement with Bernard over, it would not take long for her to reopen her heart, and her art would always sustain her, be a place for her to pour out her love and be loved. She hoped that Claudia was not afraid of what she had never known, and that her inkling of it had not faded from her consciousness. If Rebecca could herself be blessed with meeting Leighton, she reasoned, Claudia could be similarly blessed.

  Leighton. She was certain they were soul mates, that theirs was a spiritual union. Rebecca knew she could make short shrift of Reverend Wilson by telling the trustees about Julia’s breasts. But she would have to talk to Leighton first, letting him know she had deceived him to get the information, even if it punctured his trust and aborted the growing intimacy with him she found herself craving. In her heart, Rebecca knew she would have to trust the universe to right things for her.

  Her bond with Leighton was strong. He came to Peoria three times without calling her first or coming to the house. Somehow, he managed to find her. The first time this happened, she was in a furniture store looking for nesting tables. She and Claudia had started collecting bonsai. Rebecca had imagined the small trees terraced on the tiered tables in the library. When she found the store clerk, he directed her upstairs to the sales floor, knowing he had seen several nesting tables in various woods. Rebecca strolled slowly through the large room past a row of ergonomic lounge chairs from the Caribbean, a half-circle of elegant slipper chairs covered in pastel suede, brocade sofas, and pine wardrobes.

  Thinking she had missed the nesting tables, she peeked behind a partition. There they were, at least a dozen, reminding her of papa bears, mama bears, and baby bears from an alien planet. Rebecca smiled at her thought and thoroughly browsed the trios. Many of the tables were crafted with the Shaker simplicity she liked, but they were made of lighter woods—teak, cedar, and pine. Then she saw a larger set, lacquered a dark green, and knew this one would be perfect. She leaned over to the low surface, stroking the grain.

  “Hello, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca turned to see Leighton standing a few feet from her.

  “Randall.” Rebecca spoke her lover’s name, confused by their meeting in such an unlikely place.

  Reading her surprise, he stated simply, “I knew you would be here.”

  The second time Rebecca encountered Leighton, she was driving east along the Interstate just leaving the Missouri border. Her appointment that afternoon was with a consortium of florists who bought top-of-the-line species in larger quantities at lower cost. They grunted appreciatively over Rebecca’s album of photographs of her orchids. Pleased with the meeting and wanting to relax, Rebecca decided to take a longer route home, and pulled off onto a road where she knew she would spy antiques vendors. Stopping at the first sign, she pulled into the rocky driveway of the shop.

  Inside, a prim but pleasant-looking saleswoman called out to her, “We have several new items. Let me know if anything catches your eye. Take your time, dear.”

  Rebecca smiled and began ambling carefully down rows of small knickknacks interspersed with larger furnishings. While browsing the shop, she enjoyed a pleasant reverie about her sisters, Harriet Tubman, the food she anticipated having for dinner, and Leighton.

  “Rebecca.”

  Hearing his voice, Rebecca turned, a glass angel in her hand. Leighton stood before her, touching her arm.

  “I knew you would be here.”

  “How do you always find me? How do you know where I am?”

  “I don’t know how I know.”

  The third time Leighton found her in an unlikely place, the periodical section of the county library, Rebecca accepted their mystical connection as natural.

  • • •

  Leighton arrived Friday evening, a few minutes after Gracelyn had left for the church and Claudia had sauntered off to do grocery shopping with Wayne. An hour before, Rebecca had fed Jake, then gave him an oversize book on the Negro baseball leagues, and closed him in his room where he sat engrossed in photos of lean, muscular players. She made sure Timothy ate something and was clean, and knowing he was heavily sedated, expected him to sleep through the night. She prayed that Jake would do the same.

  Rebecca led Leighton upstairs to her room, then cl
osed and locked the door behind them. He began immediately to undress her, unbuttoning her blouse.

  “When do I have to leave?”

  “It’s best to leave around eight, before my sisters get back.”

  “Couldn’t I stay the night and leave while they’re still asleep?”

  “No, Randall, you can’t. It’s too much of a risk.”

  “Why can’t you just tell them I’m your lover? We’re both adults.”

  “In a few days, after Timothy’s gone. I have to keep them focused.”

  Leighton stroked Rebecca’s breasts, his long fingers caressing the roundness above the edge of her bra. Then, pulling the fabric down, he leaned over to cover her nipples with his mouth. He let his tongue dart quickly over her aureole, sucking and wetting as much of her breast as he could hold in his mouth. Rebecca watched him, happy and aroused, through half-open eyes. Leighton pulled back from her, and watching her face for a moment, smiled broadly.

  “You’re wearing lace.”

  “You said to wear lace.”

  “I said I wanted to buy you some lace to wear.”

  “You still can.”

  Leighton was happy, understanding that in her desire she wanted to please him. He pulled her close, locking her in a long, slow kiss on the mouth. They sat on the bed, undressed, and talking about when they could be alone and travel together. Leighton told Rebecca he would be leaving the country again sometime in August, traveling to Senegal by way of Paris, and wanted her with him.

  “Is that a good time for your business?”

  “I can work that out. I’ll have Jake settled by then.”

  “Good. Then it’s a promise?”

  “Randall, I promise. I’d love to be in Paris and Africa with you.”

  Leighton, in one strong and sudden motion, moved Rebecca underneath him, and locked her eyes in his gaze.

  “You’ll come as my wife?”

  “I won’t be divorced.”

  “Then I’ll make you my wife. Now.”