Chapter 5
The telephone rang on Harry’s desk, buried under towering piles of files that Merle had pulled from cabinets. She’d decided to go back to work on Monday, even though Tristan had another week at home. The calendar in her head was on overload, screaming in the night about the things she had left undone, responsibilities untended, duties ignored. The calendar didn’t care about dead husbands or traumatized youths. It demanded her presence.
Anyway she had to get out of the gloom and back to what she loved. So with only the weekend ahead, she’d plowed through her dead husband’s computer files, printing out obscure stuff, rifling his cabinets for investments he didn’t tell her about (no luck there), and generally making a mess in the room that was always off-limits while he was alive. Betsy had come by in the afternoon to help sort through the debris of a lifetime, drink tea, and once again cheer her up.
A dusty account book she couldn’t understand fell to the floor as she answered the phone. There was a lag, and the echoing sound of faraway. “Harold Strachie, if you please.” A British accent.
“He’s not — in. May I ask who’s calling?”
“The name is Rogers. Atlantic Investments. Mr. Strachie is a client. I’ve been trying to reach him at his office for several weeks.”
Merle remembered the name from the pink call slips. One of many unreturned calls. “Well, there’s a reason for that. Harold is — dead.” It was odd to say. It stabbed like a nail in the heart.
“Sorry?”
“Passed away.” People liked that better. “No longer with us. He had a heart attack three weeks ago. ”
“I see. Oh dear. And you are?”
“His wife. Widow.”
“Yes, well, my condolences." He cleared his throat. "Mrs. Strachie, your husband had promised a sizable investment in Bordeaux futures, some fifty-thousand pounds. We were to receive a wire on the 15th.”
“Bordeaux futures?”
“Yes, for this year's wine. We simply cannot wait any longer.”
“That’s impossible, Mr. Rogers.” Did she owe him an explanation? “There is very little cash in the estate.”
“How odd. He was a wealthy man, was he not?”
“Well. I hope you can sell the futures elsewhere.”
There was a pause, and Rogers’s voice smoothed out. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m shocked that Mr. Strachie, as a man of financial brilliance, did so little to protect you — and your children? You have children?”
“We — I have one child. Thank you. It was all pretty shocking.”
“He left you a house, I hope, your home there in — is it New York?”
“Close by. And another property. Which is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”
Rogers sighed. “Poor man, so young. He had a brilliant nose and an instinct for investment. He bought futures from me for several years. This year’s were special to both of us, it being such a fine year for French wine. Do you know France, Mrs. Strachie?”
“Not really. No.”
“Did he never take you there?”
“I have to go.”
Rogers set down the phone and called his assistant in. “Strachie’s dead. Get Marseille on the line.”
Who to trust, and how much, was a constant juggle but one he enjoyed. He didn’t think of it as a problem, just a sort of masked ball. A bit of theater, actors playing their parts. He almost liked it better before the curtain went up, and definitely a lot more when it fell. It had taken so long to set up, to find the right sort of sap who would play along. He had been worried that Strachie had caught on and was stonewalling him. But he’d only died, that’s all.
Rogers’s eyes went to his father’s photograph, framed in a battered wood trim. The old man was young then, wearing a poncy suit and full of himself. His niece, pretty and delicate, sat on the grass at his feet. The black-and-white photo didn’t show his father’s determination to live large in his world. But the brittle slip of paper tucked in the corner of the frame did. His last dinner at his club, on account and never paid so Hugh had kept it as a reminder of how to live, as if death were around every corner. Might as well have oysters and champagne because tomorrow you might die.
Like Strachie. Dead at what — fifty? Not much more. And now Hugh would never get his father’s full revenge. It was disappointing. His father would have been proud of him sticking it to the Strachie’s after all these years. Prouder than he’d ever been while alive. But the game would still be played, and won. And it would still be sweet.
Merle leaned back in the leather chair, feeling the sway it had cradled Harry’s back. French wine, of all the asinine ideas. He probably bought all sorts of crack-pot investments, if the state of his file cabinets was any clue. Swamp in Florida, Internet porn, penny stocks: nothing was too mundane or ridiculous.
She pulled open the heavy drapes that covered the window overlooking the pool. Harry never swam, never had time for such a frivolous activity. He worked all summer, preferring air conditioning to cool water. Soon Stasia’s kids would come over every day to swim. Tristan loved his cousins. He was spending the night over there.
The words of the man on the phone: Did he never take you there? Of course not. They hadn’t had a vacation together in years, not since the three of them went to Disney World when Tristan was seven. She took Tristan on trips, once to the Grand Canyon with Stasia and Rick, another time to Vermont. Why hadn’t she insisted Harry come? She couldn’t even remember trying to convince him. There was no point. He was a workaholic.
He never talked about going to France, or mentioned this house where his parents had lived. She’d found nothing in his files about it, nothing about France at all. It was the one place he'd made no investments. It was clear: he didn’t care. Probably why he foisted it on her in death.
Suddenly she had to see what that part of France looked like. Logging onto the internet from his computer she did a search for the little town, la petite ville, Malcouziac.
Chapter 6
The first time she sees the village she’s riding in a dusty autobus, holding Weston’s hand. The dry wind blows back Marie-Emilie's hair and settles a fine dust on their clothes. She wears her last good pair of stockings, and the new shoes he bought her, delicate Italian leather with small heels, so soft they feel like slippers. He wears a linen suit and has taken the jacket off and folded it over the seat. The weather is warm, much warmer than Nice where the breeze off the Med cools the city, and in the evening the pine-scented air drifts down from the hills.
There are pine trees here, and hills, yet the Dordogne seems like a foreign land. Weston’s business dealings in Nice had gone well for almost a year and they had been able to save a little. He spent too much on clothes for her, she scolded him even as she adored the things he gave her. He wanted to get away, he said, to see another part of France, do some writing. But she had also heard a man talking loudly to him, grabbing his lapels. They left the next day.
The rolling hills, dotted with sheep and goats, are brown already. Along the creek bottoms the trees are lush, a tangle of green. Pretty country, but hard, very hard during the war. Her uncle had been gone for years during the fighting, her aunt told her, and she didn’t know if he was alive or dead. The women had persevered alone, even as the Nazis came through, vanishing those they considered traitors or conspirators or Resistance. Aunt Josephine likes to say she helped in the Resistance, but Marie-Emilie thinks it unlikely, an old woman, almost thirty then. What could she have done? Besides the Nazis would have shot her.
No, Aunt Josephine is just a sweet woman who moved away after the war and left the house she inherited from her mother vacant. She thought she might come back someday. She lives on some rich man’s estate now, helping with the animals and working in a produce market, selling fruit. Times are hard, she can’t afford the taxes any more. So she gave Marie-Emilie the house with the stipulation that she keep the garden alive, water the lime tree and the wisteria, and keep the birds out of the attic.
The village is quiet in mid-afternoon as the autobus stops near the place. The walls of the city are tall, sloping down to the green sward and bushes in the ditches. She hadn’t realized it is an old bastide town, walled to keep out the nasty English. At the top of a hill, surrounded by thick stone, she feels safe, as the ancient French must have felt. The plaza in the middle of town is ringed by arched market stalls where Marie-Emilie will soon be browsing, basket over her arm, smiling at the farmers as she, only nineteen but so, so happily married, picks discriminatingly through their produce.
Marie-Emilie helps Weston open the shutters and let out the stifling air inside the house. It is quite large, five rooms, bigger than any apartment in Nice she’s ever seen. The back garden takes her breath away: walled with a pretty arched gate, bursting with flowers she has yet to learn the names of, anchored by a sturdy stone pissoir and a large cistern to catch water. Big enough for outdoor meals all year, for intimate candle-lit parties, for tomatoes. She stands in the middle of it, turning slowly round and round, mouth agape in wonder, until Wes calls to her to help with the mattress.
Here, she thinks, beating a rug in the garden, here we will be happy. Here we will make babies and fill the house with love. Here, she thinks, looking at her handsome American husband, we will be a family.
Chapter 7
Annie Bennett, antithesis of regimented time, arrived too early and without an appointment. Merle was doing laundry and avoiding her face in the mirror. Sunday morning, the most depressing hours of the week. She opened the front door, stunned for a moment by sunshine and lilacs. She had forgotten about their power. The oldest Bennett sister — and the shortest — stood under the oak tree, pulling a string of colored fabric squares along low branches.
“Are we having a yard sale?”
“Great idea. Get loose of excess. Free the mind and body of clutter.”
In a pink leather motorcycle jacket Annie wore her wiry hair in a tangle of gray and brown tamed by combs and clips. She consulted for environmental groups and governments, about landfills and recycling and generally keeping the land and water and air as clean as humanly possible. Merle’s hero, the activist lawyer fighting the corrupt corporations to save the planet. She took Merle’s hand, dragging her to the curb to admire the handiwork. “Tibetan prayer flags.”
“Ah, so you’re a Recycling Buddhist.”
“Hey, good karma is where you find it. They bring you happiness.” She explained the colors of earth, water, sun, sky: white, blue, green, yellow, red. The neighbor across the street peered suspiciously out of her tidy saltbox colonial. Merle gave her a wave. She’d either be calling the neighborhood association or dropping by for a great deal on a good used car.
Inside Annie settled herself at the kitchen table. Their faces had similarities, the same nose with a bump on the end, same widow’s peak, now too apt. Annie’s eyes were hazel, lighter than Merle’s, and sparkled as she told her sister about the convention in Manhattan for mayors of all stripes. “Where are you staying?” Merle asked.
“At the Rabid Capitalist Repressive Inn. Unless I get a better offer.”
“Ah, well, there are ground rules—no jumping on the beds or playing ‘Eleanor Rigby.’” They had strict ideas about Beatles songs, from a childhood full of them.
“What about ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’?”
Merle snorted. “Absolutely not.”
“’Dear Prudence?’”
“Oh, all right.”
Annie disappeared in her environmentally-friendly car to find the nearest organic market. Rick, Stasia’s husband, dropped off Tristan. In the kitchen Merle made him a tuna sandwich. “I made an appointment with this Dr. Murray. Betsy says he’s a very nice guy.”
His eyes flew open — at least one did. “I’m not going. You can’t make me.”
“No, but the school can. You can’t go back until you talk to Dr. Murray. It doesn’t have to be all touchy-feely.”
“Right. We're going to talk about the Yankees.”
“It doesn’t matter what you talk about. He knows what’s going on. He’ll be nice. The sooner you go, the less behind you’ll get.”
Tristan had inherited her compulsive time gene so he agreed. Anything but getting behind in studies. She just hoped he didn’t develop the full-fledged calendar in his head.
That night Annie cooked mushroom-filled crepes, two colors of asparagus, and strawberry sundaes for dessert. She made Tristan laugh and help with the dishes while Merle forgot about the future, and the past, for an hour. Afterwards, curled up on the sofa in the cold living room, Merle told her sister about the will and the life insurance, about her chat with Harry’s lawyer.
Annie cocked her head. “Hold on. Troy Lester? Yalie with fat sideburns?”
“He’s bald now. You know him?”
“We spent one ill-fated year together. Met at a mixer. Remember those?” She shuddered. “He wore full Yale regalia, right down to his regimental socks.”
“What a turn-on. He was your boyfriend?” Gad.
She laughed. “We wrote to each other. We pretended faithfulness. Then he met some chick from Smith or Vassar and that was that.”
“You must have been crushed.”
“Devastated. Now. You and Tris. No starvation in the immediate future?”
“There are debts, his debts, and I won’t pay them. I can’t pay them.” She sighed.
“You’ll figure something out, Merle. You always do.”
Merle looked at her sister across the room. She wrapped a wool shawl around her shoulders. It was a struggle to bring the words into the air, but she made herself do it. “What if I told you he was — you know, dead to me. For a long time.” She was whispering.
Annie crossed her arms. “Are you saying that?”
Merle frowned. “I should have told you. I just — I hardly noticed.”
“You didn’t notice?”
Merle cringed, shrinking into the shawl. It sounded, it was, so lame. There were so many ways to fail in life, but she hadn’t had that much experience with failure until now. She’d always been buoyed by her family, her sisters, her choices. She’d never let herself fail. But now — she stared into her wine glass, horrified at the mess she’d made.
“I haven’t told anyone. But I —" She gulped a breath. “I didn’t love him. There’s some — something wrong with me.”
Her sister moved to the sofa and put her arm around her. Merle felt the tears rise in her throat. “Now listen, Merdle. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just the shock of all this. You’ve got some of the most productive years of your life ahead of you. You could get married again — god forbid. Or get an incredible new job doing something you love.” Annie got her a tissue and Merle wiped her eyes. “You have to open yourself to possibility.”
“Possibility? Now that worries me.”
“Because you can’t schedule it into your Day-Timer?” Annie smiled. “It’s the stuff that’s not on the calendar that’s most interesting.”
It seemed too late to change her internal workings. She was 49. Life inside the brain was fixed. Even if she wanted to change, which she wasn't really sure she did, how did you do that? How did you change who, and what, you were? She would just have to live with her calendar.
“I should have paid more attention. To him, or at the very least, to myself, to my lack of feelings for him. I’ve already forgotten what he smelled like. I can’t remember the last meal we ate together.”
“You had a good life together. You have a wonderful son. No regrets now.”
“Yes. I guess. I mean, I know. But — was I sleepwalking all those years? Why didn’t I wake up one day and say, this isn’t how I want to live my life? I mean, I’m fairly smart, aren’t I? Why didn’t I notice?”
“Let’s see. Skipped two grades, graduated from law school at twenty-one — ”
Merle smiled. “In the top quarter, as Mother always says."
Annie grinned. “ — In the top fucking quar
ter, partner by thirty. Wife, mother, housing rights crusader. You are an embarrassing overachiever.”
Their usual shtick. They buoyed each other. When one was down, the other sister lifted her up. No small matter, and she never forgot that, even if she didn't believe the shtick anymore. Annie’s opinion mattered, it always would. She cared, that was the important thing. Now more than ever.
“But why did I let him handle all the money?”
“You were too busy saving the poor from slum-lords? It’s not a crime. Millions of women do it.” Annie cocked her head. “You know what you’ve got, don’t you?”
“A financial nightmare? Acid reflux? An AARP subscription?”
“Come on, Merle. Repeat after me. Case of courage —”
The Bennett girls’ code, first a joke from the summer they took golf lessons, an experiment that didn’t stick, then a solidarity hand-smack between sisters. When all else failed, they had each other. Even when they didn’t get along, even when they didn’t talk for months, if disaster struck there was a shoulder to cry on. When they had a fight with a husband or got divorced or somebody died or got expelled or lost a job, or any other crap that life threw your way from time to time, the sisters had each other. Sometimes Merle forgot, but it was only a matter of time before one of her sisters reminded her.
“Come on now. We’re together. Case of courage,” Annie repeated. Merle held out her fist. Annie whacked it, then they reversed.
“Bucket of balls,” they crowed.
When she tried to sleep that night, Merle had too many thoughts. She reminisced about Dr. Farouk’s pills, swirling in the toilet. She got up and went back to Harry’s office. Dumping all the files into a corner, she cleared the desk. Behind the chair was the McDonald’s bag full of stuff from the safe deposit box. She'd been putting off looking at it, afraid there might be some grim secret about Harry, something that would make her feel even worse about her loveless marriage.
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