The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “Shh.” One less breath to breathe. “Cushion.” One less. “Chair.” How few now. So few he could count them on two hands. Maybe a foot, too. “For you.”

  Alfonse let go her hand. Cecibel’s tears were bliss on his skin. She turned from him, went to the chair where Cornelius sat waiting. Still grinning. He didn’t move when she reached into the cushions, but made a face as if he’d been goosed. To laugh? Or breathe a few more breaths? He breathed.

  Cecibel came back with the book—Night Wings on the Moon. Not his masterpiece, but the thing that linked them long before they’d ever met. He blinked. She understood. Cecibel flipped to the title page.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He blinked again. Attempted to smile. Cecibel flipped through the dog-eared pages, found the place he’d left his last words.

  “Read,” he said. Only a few breaths more. He’d hold them just long enough.

  Olivia stood at Cecibel’s shoulder, a hand tenderly comforting there, but her eyes were on him and his on hers. She would understand. Of course she would. And she would see it done, even the parts he’d not written had he enough foresight to have known he should.

  “‘Never and forever are not opposites,’” Cecibel read. “‘They are two parts to a whole. Like love and pain. Joy and sorrow. Life and death. Like monster and princess. But between love and pain there is comfort. Between joy and sorrow there is contentment. Between life and death’”—her voice hitched—“‘there is experience. Between monster and princess, there is courage. And between never and forever, there is everything.’”

  Cecibel took his hand again, kissed his fingertips, so cold. Alfonse felt the tears and did not stop them this time. So many words he had left to give her. So many. And none.

  She continued, “‘You gave me words, those my truest and most abiding love. I can never sufficiently thank you for that, except to bequeath to you my suite in the Pen . . .’ Alfonse, no.”

  “Hush, child,” Olivia said. “Don’t argue with a dying man.”

  Cecibel bowed her head and wept.

  Please, darling love. Please. I can’t go until you let me. I can’t go until you’re done.

  “‘Except to bequeath to you my suite in the Pen, Cecibel Bringer, my dear child, my last love, as well as my share in the Bar Harbor Home for the Elderly, its proper name. It was ours, Cornelius’s and mine. Now what of it still mine becomes yours. I have no doubt he would have approved’”—her voice, so thick—“‘but it is, as always, what I want that matters. All my love ~Alfonse Carducci 8/1/99.’” She held up her finger, a smile making its way through her tears. “There is a P.S.,” she said, a hitch more like laughter in her throat. “‘Any lawyers or accountants or long-lost family members who dare contest this gift be duly warned—I will haunt you to your end of days.’” Cecibel lowered her head to his chest and wept. “Oh, Alfonse.”

  Over and over. Over and over. His name whispered from her lips. The sound became a song Alfonse remembered from long ago, when he was a boy and his mama was his world; became Roberto shouting at play; became Cornelius’s laugh, Olivia’s scolding, hundreds and hundreds of voices calling out, calling him.

  Alfonse.

  The cheering of multitudes. People who’d read his work and been somehow changed, if only for a little while.

  “Alfonse.” Cecibel’s voice again. Hers and hers alone.

  One breath left. “Cecibel.”

  And none.

  Chapter 38

  New York City

  April 1977

  Tressa

  New York. City of her heart. The place she’d dreamed of all her young, underestimated life. Her home. Her job telling its stories day after brutal, beautiful day. Tressa had made it happen. She made everything in her life happen. The good. The bad. No excuses, done by her own machinations. She regretted nothing. Even now.

  “It’s still so cold. This better be worth it, Aunt T.”

  Antee. So insectlike, so diminutive. Tressa put her arm around her niece’s shoulders. You could take the girl out of Jersey, but you couldn’t take the Jersey out of the girl. Patricia’s accent had only intensified over her years in New York City, while Tressa’s southern drawl softened into something more elegant. Nicky always liked her drawl. She tried to keep it, for his sake, but the r-lessness was more Katharine Hepburn than Scarlett O’Hara. He didn’t seem to notice, in any case. Or he’d ceased to care, after all.

  “It will be. I promise. You have to trust me.”

  “Haven’t I always?”

  Her smile, like Tressa’s own. Always easy and sweet. Looking at her was like looking into the past Tressa loved to imagine, all she might have been had she not been orphaned and sent to live with relatives who adored and spoiled her, who kept her apart from any and all family not theirs. Guardians she called Mama and Daddy but weren’t, she was never allowed to forget. They formed her into the perfect southern lady, the epitome of grace and beauty.

  But you couldn’t take Jersey out of the girl.

  Two long blasts turned her attention to the harbor. The Circle Line. She smiled. Not a real boat, Aldo always said. He’d been on so many ships, all over the world. She, for a time, visited him in ports from sea to sea. Then came misfortune. Hers. Cecilia’s. Enzo’s. Her chosen family. Chosen for Patricia’s sake, if nothing else. She’d come to love them all, even Nicky, despite the ain’ts and gonnas. Despite never getting Enzo out from under her skin. Lust at first sight. Love, over time. Cecilia hadn’t noticed, or she pretended not to, until she couldn’t anymore. And Nicky. Poor Nicky. Damn him to hell.

  Prima la famiglia.

  None of it ever touched Patricia, because of who she was to them all. Daughter. Granddaughter. Niece. Beloved and innocent and beautiful to her soul. That was the important thing. The only thing that mattered.

  Prima la famiglia.

  “You okay, Aunt T?”

  Tressa forced the melancholy away to smile down upon her niece. Patricia had gotten Tressa’s beauty, but not her stature. That, she got from Cecilia. Tiny, like a china doll. A bird. But not fragile. Neither Giancami women nor Wronski had ever been made of such stuff.

  “I’m fine, darling. Tell me. How’s school?”

  “Not again.” Patricia groaned. “We’ve talked about it and talked about it. I’ve got another year until graduation and it can’t be over soon enough. I’m sticking it out because I promised Daddy I’d be an educated woman, and that’s the only reason.”

  “Enzo would have been very proud of you.” Even after death, he still made her heart thump. “When did you see your mother last?”

  Patricia chuffed, an unladylike sound so like Cecilia it nearly brought Tressa to tears. “Christmas, I guess. You know, the big party.”

  Her throat constricted. “I remember it well.”

  “You could still come, you know. You and Uncle Nicky are still married. Maybe it could mend some fences. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re the one who found Daddy dead, rest his soul. I never understood why Mama and Uncle Nicky got mad at you.”

  “Angry, darling. Dogs go mad. People become angry.” Tressa shuddered, crossed herself. The betrayal. The blood. The best of them gone. The worst of them still hanging on to the tatters. “Grief does terrible things to us all. At least I still have you?”

  At least. The very least. The price of keeping her secrets. “When will you see your mother next?”

  “Easter, maybe.” Patricia shrugged. “She’s so wrapped up in Frankie she hardly notices we don’t talk. It’s okay.” She smiled, though her lips trembled. “I’m used to it, since Daddy died, anyway.”

  Tressa kissed her forehead, both her cheeks. This child, more like her own than any she might have borne, a woman now. How many promises she’d made on her behalf. To Aldo. To Enzo. Cecilia and Patricia and herself. Tressa had kept them all, even when they hurt so much she thought she’d break. I’d do it all again, a thousand times over. “You know, the master’s-of-fine-arts program at NYU is—”


  “—not happening.” Patricia laughed. “Aunt T, you’ve done enough. And besides, I hate school. I want to travel. See some of the world. Like you have.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “When you were my age.” Patricia nudged her. “Was it a man you followed around the world? Is that why Uncle Nicky made you settle down and marry him?”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “A million times.” Patricia laughed. “That’s why I don’t get why—”

  “A man, yes.” Tressa inhaled deeply. “But not a lover.” Slowly. “My brother.”

  Patricia cocked her head. “You have a brother?”

  “I do.”

  “Why don’t I know about him?”

  Because I promised. “I’m sure I mentioned him.”

  “I’d know if you did. He’d be my uncle.”

  Laughter threatened. Tressa swallowed it. “Not really. I’m your aunt through marriage.”

  Patricia squeezed her arm, rested her beautiful blond head against Tressa. “Everyone in Paterson is related to everyone else in some way,” she said. “I’m sure there’s blood between us somewhere. How else would we look so alike?”

  “I suppose.” So close to the truth, and yet oblivious to it. Had she ever been as naive as Patricia? No. Not ever. Cecilia had been. The proof clutched her arm, stood shivering upon the docks. And for the first time, the only time, Tressa doubted. Promises would be broken. At last. At long last. And everything was about to change. Her world. Patricia’s world. Everyone’s to some degree. But her niece was a woman now, just as Tressa had been when she stepped onto this path, finally coming full circle.

  A polka-dot blob of bobbing uniforms came en masse along the pier. White-clad seamen, dark-clad officers, sailors all. Tressa’s heart stuttered. She took both Patricia’s hands in hers. “Remember I said your birthday present would be late?”

  “Sure, but the pearls were more than enough.”

  “Pearls are tradition. Every girl must have them.” Tressa’s gaze darted to the sailors ever closer. She was not hard to spot. Still tall. Still beautiful. She wore her signature white coat, just to be certain. The first men passing eyed both her and her niece as men always did. “Your gift just came in.”

  Patricia stood on tiptoe, searched beyond her aunt to the pier beyond. “Is it a car? An Italian convertible! Did it come in a big crate? Oh! Will they have to get it off the boat with a crane?”

  Tressa laughed. “No, darling. Not even I can afford such a luxury.” Though she could, of course. Her trust fund was—thanks to good lawyers and investment brokers who had no problem keeping secrets—inexhaustible. “It’s a bit simpler than that, but I hope, even better.”

  “Better than an Italian convertible?” Patricia sighed, hand dramatically at her brow. “Impossible!”

  This darling girl. The best of them all. Even Enzo, with whom she shared no blood, but a bond that had been unshakable. Tressa clenched her teeth. Thoughts for another time. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

  A man waved. Big, over his head. Tressa gasped. Still so handsome. A career made. Success had. He’d been heartbroken, of course, when Cecilia never appeared in Barcelona. It had taken every trick in Tressa’s arsenal to convince Cecilia not to, to make her brother accept his fate. But he’d known happiness and fulfillment of a different kind. The kind without a family that could be taken from him in an instant. She hadn’t been wrong. She hadn’t been. The proof was coming toward her, tanned from the sun in Saint-Tropez, his last destination before this extended leave he was considering making permanent. Tressa had nothing to do with that decision, though it had everything to do with hers.

  She waved back to him. He was near enough now for her to see his gaze move from one woman to the other, to note the question forming a line between furrowed brows. Tressa’s heart beat so hard her head lightened and her vision swam. Squeezing her niece’s fingers, she kissed the tips. “You must trust me. Okay?”

  “You said that already. Aunt T? What’s going on? Who is—?”

  “Tressa?” His voice, beautiful and deep. His expression already softening, changing and changing again.

  “—he?”

  Tressa stood between them, one last moment before letting it all go. Stepping aside, she gently pushed Patricia forward. “Happy birthday, darling.”

  Chapter 39

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  June 2014

  About Alfonse Carducci, say, “There was never a wine

  he would not drink, a woman he would not love,

  a man he could not best, or a song outside his key,”

  and you will have spoken only half the truth.

  —Olivia Peppernell

  Cecibel clicked save. She closed her eyes, slumped back in the chair. The sunset coloring the sky all shades of purple, pink, and blue seeped through her eyelids—two of them, since the last surgery, and an ear. Scarring tamed but never erased—the last rays dipping into the always-gray sea. She’d seen it too often to need her eyes.

  You were his muse. Do with it what you wish.

  Sitting forward again, Cecibel brushed aside a tear and saved the file to the thumb drive, logged out of her computer. She hadn’t intended to. It just happened. It was this room, hers, and seldom used. It was the cherished memories of a time more magical than real. More real than the prior, unmemorable existence. It was Alfonse and Cornelius, Switch and Judi come to collect Olivia, the last of them to leave. It was Aldo and Cecilia, Enzo and Tressa waiting a decade and a half for their endings. All Cecibel had meant to do was save the ancient floppy onto a thumb drive before all Judi’s work got lost to technology.

  A knock, and the door opened. “Hey, you ready?”

  She sniffed, and she nodded. Fin took her into his arms.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “She was ninety-nine, Bel. Kind of time, don’t you think?”

  “I wanted her to live forever.” She stepped back but not out of his arms. “Where’s Joy?”

  “With Sal.” Fin kissed the tip of her nose. “And Richard. He says this needs to be done today. No knowing who’s going to show up tomorrow and raise a fuss.”

  “They can all go to hell.”

  “There’s no one left to go,” Fin said. “She outlived them all.”

  Cecibel breathed in slowly, out carefully. Ungrateful children. Misinformed. Willfully oblivious to the end. Dead and gone, like their father. Olivia had cried for them anyway.

  “We were her family. All of us. She belongs here, not in that family’s crypt. This is what she wanted. What’s right.”

  “Then let’s get out there and get it done.”

  Fin held out his hand. Cecibel took it, and he kissed their joined knuckles. Simple. Sensitive. Sensible. She’d made him wait and wait and wait. Through all the surgeries. Through the birth of their daughter, and the change of her career. The first book published. The second, the third. He waited still, as if the question of their forever needed to be asked, or validated with ceremony and paperwork. Cecibel would marry him. Someday. Maybe. They were happy in the space above the maintenance barn, she and Fin and Joy. Their Joy. She had curly blond hair, and freckles. She laughed all the time, except when she was screaming. And she was their everything.

  At the edge of the cemetery, a small gathering waited. The day’s last rays streamed down over the sea. Dusk lasted forever in June. The fey half-light. The magic therein. Olivia had been specific in her wishes. The time. The variety of tree. The exact spot. She’d spent the last five years of her life planning her ultimate send-off from a wheelchair, and though Cecibel was an orderly no more, she had usually been the one pushing it.

  Don’t argue, my dear. It was decided long ago, just after Alfonse died.

  Olivia had pressed the notebook—brown leather and gilt edges—and Judi’s floppy disk into Cecibel’s hands. She’d returned the book to the drawer where Alfonse once kept it. Where it belonged. For now. It took some doing,
finding a computer that could still read a floppy. And now their story was finished. Aldo and Cecilia and Enzo and Tressa. Cecibel’s insides trembled, even while her heart danced.

  “Good, good. You’re here.” Dr. Kintz kissed her cheek. “Sun’s going down fast.”

  “Where you been, sugar bean?” Sal let go of Joy’s hand and nudged her gently to her mother. “You okay? You look like you seen a ghost or something.”

  If only. Cecibel smiled, smoothed Joy’s wild hair. “I’m here now. We ready?”

  “Ready, Freddy.” Sal handed her the plastic cylinder. Fin stood by with the shovel. The tree had already been set in place, at the edge of the cemetery, where it would grow, reach limbs over, roots under. Protecting and protected.

  Cecibel unscrewed the lid. How a whole person fit inside seemed ridiculous, and yet there Olivia was—ashes and bits of bone and teeth. Moving away from her daughter—old enough to understand death, not old enough to comprehend the enormity of Olivia’s life—Cecibel held the container to her chest.

  “Could you give us a moment?” she said over her shoulder. They moved off. Fin suggested Joy pick some wildflowers to leave when they were done. Cecibel hugged the container closer.

  “I don’t know how the story would have ended had you, Alfonse, and Switch finished it. I don’t think any of you did either. But Tressa . . . he made her me for a reason. I hope this was the reason. I hope it’s all right.” Cecibel laughed softly, tearfully. “You planned it, the moment he died, didn’t you? You’d never have given it up before that, but after? I can see it now, the three of you hatching your plot. How did you keep it from me, all this time? I looked and looked for that notebook.” She sniffed. “How I’m going to miss you, Olivia. How I miss all of you. Rest well, my dear friend. Rest well.”

  Wiping the tears from her cheek, she looked over her shoulder, called the rest back with a glance. Cecibel squatted beside the hole and shook Olivia’s ashes into the roots of the tree. Wispy clouds of errant ash drifted up, curled along the ground like smoke. Come back. Come back. Joy tossed the flowers she’d collected into the hole. Sal sprinkled glitter and Fin a handful of earth.