by Laura Brodie
But what was David thinking? That Nate would believe a ghost had used a Sharpie? She lifted a washcloth from the towel rack, held it under the sink, then wiped at the letters, streaks of black tears dripping down the glass. When the mirror was clean she wrung the towel into the sink until it was a muted gray, then hung it up and did another circuit of the condominium, checking every mirror, every window, every picture frame, any surface where David might have scratched another message from the grave. By the time she had finished, her brain was throbbing against the front of her skull. Exhausted, she climbed into Nate’s bed and shut her eyes.
Early in the morning Sarah woke to a dim apparition—a smiling Nate, standing at the foot of the bed. Garment bag in one hand, laptop in the other.
“This is a surprise.” He put down his luggage and stretched out beside her. “I saw David’s car outside. That was weird. Is yours having trouble?”
She nodded. “Where have you been?”
“In Washington, on business. When did you get here?”
“Last night.”
“Didn’t you call first?”
“It was a sudden impulse.”
“I like sudden impulses.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Why are you sleeping with your clothes on?”
“I was exhausted.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“Why did you come if you’re sick?”
“I wanted to see if you were all right.”
He smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Sarah looked at his bare fingers as they pulled away from her hair.
“What did you do with your father’s ring?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where is it?”
“How should I know? You’re the one who took it.”
Nate laughed at her pale stare. “I saw you, when you spent the night back in January, after our New Year’s trip. You got up in the middle of the night and were moving around in the dark. I didn’t want to disturb you, since you’d told me about your sleepwalking. So I watched you go into my closet and take out David’s wool sweater. Then you went to the dresser and took Dad’s ring from my top drawer. Don’t you remember?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Well, maybe you were sleepwalking. Anyway, you walked outside in your nightgown, and you opened the back of your wagon and put them in a box. I could see you from the window. I was a little worried because it was freezing outside and you were walking around in bare feet. When you came back to bed your toes were like icicles. I didn’t want to say anything about it in the morning because I thought I understood your reasons.”
“What reasons?”
He shrugged. “I have too many things of David’s.”
It all rang true, but how could she have no memory of walking at night in the January frost? And if she couldn’t remember that, what else had she forgotten?
“I do wish you’d give me the ring back,” Nate continued. “It would make sense for me to have it now, since it was our dad’s.”
“Yes,” she echoed. “It would make sense.”
He walked his fingers down her arm, trying to coax her thoughts his way, but Sarah remained distant. “I’m going to make some breakfast,” he said, rising from the bed. “Would you like some?”
“Yes. Some breakfast.”
Nate paused in the doorway. “How would you like your eggs?”
She almost replied “over easy,” but the question and answer seemed too familiar. “None for me. Just juice and toast.”
Ten minutes later, when she walked into the kitchen, Nate was sitting behind The Wall Street Journal, her plate of buttered toast lying neatly on a place mat. She took a sip of orange juice and stared at the world news column: budget worries and roadside bombs and motorists trapped in the winter storm.
“I think we should stop seeing each other.” She addressed the newsprint.
The headlines sank an inch. “What?”
“I think we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
Nate lowered the news and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
He sighed and folded the paper. “Well, I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I mean, it’s not like you and I would ever get married.” He gave an awkward laugh and scanned her eyes for confirmation. She nodded.
“It’s just funny,” he said. “I’m used to being the one who calls things off.”
Sarah cringed. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Sure.”
“I think you should ask Jenny to marry you. Tell her that you’ll have a three-year honeymoon. Time to do all the traveling she wants, and to set up a household. But promise her that by the time you turn forty you two will start a family. That way she’ll be a wife by thirty and a mother by thirty-three. What more could she want?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“It’s as simple as you make it.”
He placed his hand over hers. “But we’ll still see each other?”
“I’m still your sister-in-law.”
“And maybe I could see you on a professional level? You might need a financial expert to help manage your assets.”
“That’s right,” and unexpectedly, Sarah laughed. For in the end she was just another potential client, a widow who had inherited a small fortune, in need of an investment adviser. Perhaps that was how Nate had always viewed her. If so, she didn’t mind; the thought drained all emotion from their parting. She had no fear of hurting him, no likelihood of guilt.
Still, when he leaned forward to kiss her cheek, she was swamped by a wave of doubt. With the slightest encouragement she would have taken it back, crawled into his bed and stayed forever. Argue with me, she thought. Tell me that I’m wrong. Say that you and I have a future together. But Nate did not even look at her. He finished his orange juice, carried his plate to the sink, and walked away.
• 34 •
Home by midafternoon, Sarah stood at her living-room window, watching a tow truck drag her station wagon up the street. How humiliated the car appeared, its rear end hoisted in the air, the right front fender scratched and muddy.
“You must be Sarah McConnell,” the truck driver said when she walked outside, checkbook in hand.
“I must be.”
“You’ll need to have your tires realigned. Otherwise it seems to be in pretty good shape.”
Sarah knelt to pull a chunk of leaves from the grille. “Thanks for bringing it back.” Once the man was gone she gathered a bucket, rag, and hose, and rinsed away the rest of the mud, thinking that this whole day had been spent in acts of erasure.
That night she slept restlessly, waking past three to the certainty that someone was watching her. A dim figure sat at the foot of her bed, an echo of her mother, years ago. But there was nothing maternal about this form, and as her eyes adjusted to the bathroom light (she always kept it on these nights) she could discern David’s outline.
“I thought you would come.” She settled back into her pillows.
“I had to,” he replied. “You were sick and crazy when you left the cabin. And you drove off with that stranger.”
“I was afraid that you had done something terrible . . . I saw what you wrote on Nate’s mirror.” David bowed his head, as if his brother’s name was a heavy burden. “What would you have done if he had been home?”
David shrugged. “I wasn’t going to hurt him, if that’s what you mean. I was just planning to give him a good scare. Remind him that Big Brother is always watching. Maybe let him see my face at the window.”
“That is your modus operandi.”
“You’re not in a position to be critical.” His voice had hardened.
“Neither are you,” Sarah replied.
They were silent for a while, David’s fingers running over the bedspread. “It’s hard to come back here,” he said, “after last time.”
Sarah was glad for the darkness t
hat hid her blush. “All of that is over. I said good-bye to Nate yesterday. We won’t be seeing each other again.”
David shook his head. “Who can say what will or won’t happen again?”
He scanned the room, as if searching for something. “I’m going to be leaving soon. I’ve decided I want to go someplace where it’s always warm.”
Sarah felt the pressure of his hand on her leg. “Come with me, Sarah. We can travel for a month or two, go out west, see the canyons, all the places we’ve meant to visit. We could find a town with a few art galleries and a college for you to teach at. If you’d sell this house and the cabin we’d have enough money to buy another place without a mortgage. Between our savings and your Social Security, we’d never have to work unless we felt like it. Just paint and write and read.”
Amazing, thought Sarah, how all of his sentences were a mirror of her dreams, or at least what her dreams had been three months ago. But much had changed in the intervening weeks.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t answer right away. Think about it for a while.” David rose and walked to the door. “You know where to find me.”
Once he was gone, Sarah did not sleep. She turned on the Weather Channel and watched spring arriving with intermittent graphics of snowflakes and sunshine. By six A.M., when the sky had lightened to a purplish blue, she opened her curtains and saw the crocuses tight fisted against the morning frost.
For the next several days she did little other than read and think. She left the house only at Margaret’s bidding, when she insisted that Sarah come for tea. Their Friday ritual had dwindled in recent weeks, with traveling and illness and Sarah’s vague excuses. This time Sarah prepared apologies and a loaf of banana bread.
When Sarah arrived at Margaret’s door, the boiling kettle sounded like a train whistle ushering her aboard. She sat at the kitchen table and watched the steam form wispy clouds around Margaret’s fingers.
“I saw your car,” said Margaret. “Last week. Getting towed up the street. Have you been all right?”
Sarah shrugged. “I slid into a ditch during the snowstorm. No harm done.” Seeing another question form across Margaret’s brow, Sarah hurried to change the subject. “The last time I saw you was at the movies.”
“Yes.” Margaret smiled. “What an awful film.”
Sarah recalled the elementary school teachers watching Nate’s hand progress across her shoulders. “I suppose you had a better show to watch than I did?”
Margaret brought the mugs to the table and sat down. “Real life is always more interesting than the movies.”
“Well, Nate and I won’t be putting on a show anymore. I said good-bye to him a week ago—told him he should patch things up with his old girlfriend.”
“So,” said Margaret, “should I offer condolences or congratulations?”
“He and I never would have lasted.”
“Why’s that?”
Sarah smiled. “He’s a Republican.”
“God forbid.” Margaret warmed her fingers around her mug. “So what’s next?”
Sarah concentrated on the swirl of cream in her tea. “I’m not sure . . . I might want to travel for a while. Go someplace warm.”
“It’s getting warmer here.”
“Yes.” Sarah nodded. “The weather is changing.”
“So you want to go to a beach?” Margaret asked.
“Maybe a beach, maybe a desert.”
Margaret took a sip of tea. “I have a message to pass along. Adele is hosting the next widows group, and she asked especially if you would come. It’s this Sunday evening, and I’m going.”
Outside the window Sarah noticed a row of jonquils blooming beside Margaret’s driveway. “Adele is a nice old lady.”
Margaret nodded.
“But I don’t want to become a regular.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I suppose I could come for one last time.”
On Sunday evening Margaret drove the two of them to Adele’s house. Normally they would have walked; she lived less than a mile away. But a late winter freeze had descended, and the sidewalks glittered with ice. Margaret’s jonquils bowed their heads to the ground in supplication.
Inside Adele’s living room, the wallpaper resembled wedding gift wrap—almond, with white and silver flowers that twined toward the ceiling, where a gold chandelier suspended a dozen electric candles, crystal saucers at their feet to catch the imaginary wax. Their light mingled with the flames from an immense fireplace, five feet tall and framed with Doric columns, its mantel covered in hazy brown photographs—rose-lipped babies in christening dresses, and grim men in uniform, cheeks tinted pink.
Adele presided from a wingback chair, her yellow blouse ruffled at her neck like a daffodil’s petals. She patted the divan to her right when Sarah entered.
“I’m glad you’ve come.”
Platters of lemon squares and brownies covered the coffee table, and Sarah took a macaroon from a passing tray. “If I’d known it was a dessert potluck, I would have brought something.”
Adele waved as if brushing away a gnat. “The group always insists on bringing food to my house. They seem to think that baking is too strenuous for an old woman. Are you planning to help with the Easter food drive?”
“I hadn’t heard about it.”
“I think you’d like it. On the Saturday before Easter we pack huge baskets with food for the adults, and chocolate bunnies and toys for the children. We deliver them that afternoon; I was hoping you’d drive with me.”
“I will if I’m in town.”
“You have travel plans?” Adele asked.
“Possibly.”
Around them, the widows were sharing news, the conversation a moving talisman that each woman was required to touch. Ruby’s stepson had dropped his lawsuit; in return she had willed the house to him upon her death. She expected the “son of a bitch to knock her off” any day now. Meanwhile, the water-skier’s widow had just returned from Florida. She had begun to swim again, and was allowing her children to sail sunfish and catamarans—nothing with speed or deadly propellers.
When the conversation reached Sarah she tried to pass it along lightly—“I don’t have much to report”—but the red-haired soci ologist wasn’t satisfied.
“Have you seen your husband lately?”
“Yes.” Sarah hesitated, feeling the women’s eyes upon her. “But he’s not happy with me. He doesn’t like what I’ve been doing with my life.”
“That’s classic.” The professor took over. “I’ve been reading ghost narratives from the past seven centuries—real accounts, not Edgar Allan Poe. And from the seventeenth century forward the most common hauntings have been from legacy ghosts who didn’t approve of what their widows were doing, either with their money or their children.”
“What were the ghosts worried about before the seventeenth century?” Sarah asked.
“Mostly purgatory. They wanted their widows to pray for them or give the church a lot of money to buy their way into heaven.” The professor bit into a brownie. “And of course there are the ghosts who don’t like their widows’ sex lives, sort of like the king in Hamlet.”
Sarah blushed at the affinity between herself and Shakespeare’s Gertrude while Margaret, who had been sitting nearby, rose to place another log on the fire.
“Well,” said Ruby, turning to face Sarah. “I don’t know about disgruntled husbands, only obnoxious stepsons. But as I see it, it’s your life. So fuck him.”
Adele gave a disapproving cough, and the conversation moved along. Sarah concentrated on her macaroon, until she felt Adele’s hoarse whisper at her ear. “You know, dear, I love my visits with Edward. I wouldn’t give him up for anything in the world. But I’m a great-grandmother, and my life is in the past. You’ve got most of your life ahead of you. If your husband isn’t making you happy, maybe it’s time to let him go.”
Sarah patted Adele’s hand. “That’s easier said than d
one.”
When Margaret pulled into Sarah’s driveway late that evening, she shifted the car into park and lowered her hands into her lap. “There’s something that’s been bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“The things you said tonight about David. How he doesn’t approve of what you’ve been doing with your life.”
“I should have said that I don’t think he would have approved.”
“It’s not your verb tense that’s the problem.” Margaret raised her hands and gripped the steering wheel. “This has been around for a long time, and I just never thought that I should bring it up.”
“Go ahead and tell me.” Sarah braced herself while Margaret paused, looking out the windshield.
“Remember three years ago when we went shopping in Charlottesville? We both bought new outfits to wear to the fund-raising dance for the free clinic? And you chose that red dress with the gold thread woven into the fabric?”
“The flapper dress?” Sarah laughed.
“I thought it was lovely,” said Margaret.
“I did, too.”
“Then why didn’t you wear it?” Margaret turned to face Sarah. “You arrived in a black skirt and white satin blouse. I remember it clearly. After all that talk about having some fun with your wardrobe. I never said anything, but I’ve always had my suspicions.”
Sarah remembered it, too—how, on the night of the dance, she had gotten ready before David was home from work. The new dress had inspired her to paint her fingernails red and wear raspberry lipstick. She thought that the colors complemented her dark hair; when she smiled in the mirror she was a woman on fire.
David entered the bedroom just as she was putting on her gold earrings.
“What do you think?” she asked, spinning around so that the dress floated above her knees.
David hesitated for one second too long. “You look great in whatever you wear.”
He might as well have said that she looked like the whore of Babylon; diplomacy was wasted on her paper-thin ego. “I guess the dress is a bit much?” She forced a smile.