The Yellow Braid

by Karen Coccioli

  They rode in silence with Livia in the lead. The fat tires of her mountain bike dispersed gravel in wavy rivulets as she swerved from side to side, keeping time to some inner rhythm.

  Before long, she spotted a female osprey who had built her nest on the top mast of a dry-docked schooner. “Look!” Livia pointed and sped up for about fifty yards before turning into the driveway of Gates Marina. She jumped off her bike under the nest. When Caro caught up, Livia exclaimed, “She’s so huge! Awesome, right?”

  “Awesome,” Caro mimicked. “I never saw one this close up before.”

  “Know what the coolest thing about them is?”

  “What?”

  “They can make the toes on their talons go backward or forward depending on the prey they’re trying to catch. Like this.” She demonstrated with her fingers.

  “I think this one is scary-looking with its beady eyes. And its beak looks like it could tear into anything.”

  “That’s because they’re related to the hawk…very protective of their nests. Watch how it tracks my every move.” Livia made a slow rotation around the schooner.

  “You sound quite the expert.”

  “Uncle Tommy taught me. He’s the one that got me interested in this stuff.”

  Caro followed Livia’s lead around the nest. The gawking of the predator chilled Caro. She felt as if it intuited her own ravenous attraction toward Livia. Afraid, Caro withdrew.

  Livia tugged at Caro’s arm.

  The girl’s touch startled Caro and she was rocketed back in time to when her daughter used to get her attention in the same way. Sometimes when Caro didn’t want to be bothered she’d yank her hand out of Abby’s reach. With Livia, she welcomed the girl’s touch and so she relaxed her hand. “What?”

  “We have to move away so she’ll feel safe enough to leave her nest. Then we can watch her take flight.”

  “All right.” Caro followed Livia to the road, where they waited behind the massive trunk of an old sycamore.

  Within a minute the osprey gave the area one last inspection and then pushed off her perch. Her long body arched and executed a deep dive. As it neared water level it pushed upward and settled into a slow, steady wingbeat.

  Livia sensed Caro’s reaction and turned to her. “I told you it would be awesome.”

  “It definitely was,” Caro said.

  The girl’s broad smile was a wreath around her face. After the shared moment with the osprey, she loosened up. By the time they got to Coecles Harbor Livia claimed hunger and thirst with unguarded exuberance.

  “You seem to get along really well with your uncle,” Caro said over a platter of fried clams and chips.

  “Yeah, he’s great. Aunt Nina, too, when she doesn’t have her camera. Last spring they took me to Maine for a birding festival. Was great fun!”

  “I don’t know about birds. Is there a special species that you like better than most?”

  “Sea birds. The ospreys are cool because they’re predators and supposedly big, tough guys, but all they hunt is fish.”

  “Fish aren’t sacred?” Caro asked only half seriously.

  “Nah, just boring.” Livia munched on french fries and then almost as an afterthought she added, “Plus you can spot the osprey without using binoculars.”

  “I’d think you’d want to see them up close,” Caro commented.

  Livia shook her head, and then swung her leg around over the bench and chucked her half-eaten food in the trash barrel. She sat down again, but this time with her back to the picnic table, and made noises through her straw in the soda.

  Livia’s body language made Caro wonder if the girl felt the camera lens to be as invasive as being objectified by the binoculars? Caro pressed the issue. “But you like using your uncle’s telescope and that zooms objects in.”

  Livia didn’t answer.

  Caro attempted a matter-of-fact tone. “In poetry, details make the poems work. Elizabeth Bishop was famous for her eye for detail. She believed it was a poet’s task to examine things at close range. In one of her poems, she wrote, ‘… from the window I see an immense city, carefully revealed, made delicate by overworkmanship, detail upon detail, cornice upon façade.’”

  Livia appeared unresponsive, but Caro knew differently by the discernible tilt of her ward’s profile in her direction. “She’s talking about love. We know that from the title. Love enabled the lover to make even a big city delicate because of the details. If you’re going to be a poet, Livia, you’re going to be under scrutiny. Just like being viewed from behind binoculars, or a camera lens.”

  Livia glared at Caro over her shoulder.

  Caro held the youngster’s stare with equal resolve, until without warning, Livia’s face dissolved into tears.

  Caro pushed up from the bench and reached out to her.

  Sniffling and swiping at her nose, Livia rejected the gesture and sprinted to her bike. With one foot on the pedal ready to take off, she asked in a choked voice, “Can we go now?”

  Caro nodded, then watched Livia wheel down the road and around a bend before coming to a stop behind a grove of white birch. She hadn’t meant to get so serious on their inaugural jaunt and castigated herself for frightening Livia away. She could see the girl through the netting of leaves and tree branches, an incomplete puzzle—the tail of a beribboned braid, the corner of a scraped elbow, sections of a shin and a forearm, the sock-covered turn of an ankle.

  Caro couldn’t clearly make out the pieces of Livia’s face. Were the green eyes turned to sharp slivers the same way Caro’s had when first introduced to the notion of scrutiny?

  As a child-poet, Livia had to learn the importance of play. Her poetry had suffered in her early years because of a rigid upbringing where laughter was the odd surprise, as rare an occurrence as someone knocking at her family’s door on a neighborly whim. Indeed, even as a young adult, Caro wondered about the success of her father’s business, given his somber personality.

  Not until Zach did she experience her first full belly laugh. Or view her writing with any sense of humor. She’d believed that serious poetry warranted solemnity both in mood and language. As it turned out, in later years she drew from the absurdities in life for some of her most important work.

  So, yes! Today was reserved for fun. Caro approached Livia, dangling in front of her the bright green stem of a gladiola to which clung a furry yellow caterpillar. “Think he’ll want to tag along for a boat ride?”

  Livia screwed up her face. “That? It’s a dumb insect.”

  Caro twisted the stem for Livia to get a better look. “Technically, it’s in the larval form of the moth family. It’s not considered an insect until its metamorphosis into a butterfly.”

  “I know they turn into butterflies,” Livia said churlishly, and then in a more civil tone asked, “What’s the word you used?”

  “Metamorphosis. Means transformation. An example every child knows as the ugly duckling that becomes the swan, or the frog that turns into the handsome prince.”

  Livia grinned. “A handsome prince? In that case,” she said and entwined the end of the stem in the metal prongs of the basket on her handle bars. “Hang on,” she called to her passenger and they took off for the harbor.

  After that, Caro made sure to keep the conversation light and consequently, Livia’s mood remained buoyant for the rest of the excursion. They returned to Westhampton at dusk, and Caro noted with pleasure the enthusiasm with which Livia recounted their day to her aunt and uncle.

  ***

  After a supper of cold chicken and a salad, Caro took her coffee out to the deck to enjoy under the full moon. The heady aromas of wild rosemary and thyme merged with those of the basil and lavender she’d potted. Their distinctive fragrances resurrected memories of Zach and Marcie cooking one of their Saturday-night gourmet specials for Caro.

  Zach had begun the tradition with Abby. When their daughter moved to Boston for graduate school, he had been excited to discover Marcie’s culinary skills an
d together they had prepared meals that were artful both in presentation and taste.

  Suddenly Nina’s voice rang out, eclipsing Caro’s peace and quiet. Both Caro’s and the Winters’ houses sat on narrow, pie-shaped slices of land with decks that were side-by-side with only an alley the width of a city sidewalk bridging the distance. Thus, it wasn’t unusual to overhear fragments of conversation when the breezes were swirling in the right direction. Twice Nina had even called over and invited Caro to join her and Tommy for a nightcap, knowing she was within earshot.

  Tonight no wind was necessary to hear Nina’s loud retort to her husband. “It’s not your decision if I publish them.”

  Caro flipped onto her side on the chaise lounge. In the brightness of patio lamps she spied Tommy pacing in front of Nina, who was sitting in a dining chair.

  “I won’t allow you to exploit her,” he was saying. “In spite of what you may think, I have a say in this matter. She’s my niece, too.”

  “Technically she’s not,” Nina retorted.

  “Technically she’s still a child.”

  Caro’s heart kicked in her chest, knowing they were discussing Livia.

  “How should I have dressed her? In a goddamn flannel nightgown?” Nina was screeching. “She was in a cotton slip.”

  “Stop shouting at me,” Tommy warned. “It’s the poses. The facial expressions. They’re wrong for someone her age.”

  “That’s what critics said about Sally Mann’s work of her children and she turned out to be one of the top female photographers of the century,” Nina said.

  Tommy grabbed the arms of his wife’s chair and leaned in close to her. “So this is what the photographs are all about—angling for a controversy that might jump-start your career.”

  Nina’s posture stiffened, her mouth a drawn, thin line across her face.

  “Resonates, doesn’t it, Nina? If so, use any rationale you want, you’re still dead wrong.”

  When Nina didn’t speak, Tommy yelled, “Fuck! You’re stubborn!” Turning on his heel, he started for the house.

  When Nina also stormed inside and their deck lights went out, Caro sat up. She mentally replayed what she’d overheard to try and figure out exactly what they were arguing about. Photographs of Livia obviously, but disagreeing about what she was wearing…her poses. Tommy was furious over the pictures, but how bad could they really be?

  Caro ran inside to her computer and typed in Sally Mann’s name in the Google search bar.

  Apparently, Mann became an overnight success in the early 1990s with her collection of black and white photographs of her three children, all under the age of ten. The pictures, taken at the family’s summer cabin, explored typical childhood themes such as dressing up and playing board games. Others, however, touched on darker themes of injury, sexuality, and death.

  Caro read that the controversy over the collection included accusations of child pornography. One nude image in particular of Mann’s four-year-old daughter was banned in certain publications because it displayed the child’s nipples and vagina.

  Caro’s breaths came in short bursts while she tried to conjure what kind of photos Nina had taken of Livia. She stared into space, attempting to retrieve Tommy’s words to his wife. He hadn’t said anything of nude images. Of that, Caro was certain. She would have remembered that; Caro couldn’t even begin to contemplate strangers viewing Livia nude!

  Her own obsession with the girl produced another kind of inner explosion. Vague imaginings of Livia half-dressed in seductive poses caused a shudder that purled along her spine to the pit of her belly. Caro dwelled in her thoughts for moments longer than she wanted. Yet, she was helpless to pull away until guilt overcame her and she ran outside and onto the beach. She didn’t stop running until she was ankle-deep in the cold, midnight surf.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind. ~Dorothea Lange

  Caro peered out at the rain, the kind of steady stream that showed no sign of letting up. She had awakened to the spattering on the roof during the night, then heard an irritating plunk on the tiles in the bedroom hallway. Gwen had forgotten to mention a leak. By morning, the pail Caro had put in place was a quarter full.

  The grim grayness that accompanied the wet weather also produced an indolence in her that she couldn’t shake. Instead of working she ate snacks and watched TV until late afternoon, when she finally sat down to write.

  Because it was smaller than the other bedrooms, Caro preferred the intimacy of her space in the guest room. Gwen had covered the walls with fabric of dark carmine, and hung matching triple panels on the windows. Caro felt cushioned by the heavy décor, hidden to the point of invisibility. Covered windows and no mirrors—she’d stored the dresser mirror in the closet. Nothing in the room reflected her image.

  She picked up her favorite pen, a Montblanc fountain pen, whose design honored Virginia Woolf. Whenever Caro held this pen she was brought back to her initial encounter with the author.

  Before Caro studied Woolf, she had subscribed to the notion that Zach, as her husband and, at the time, the main breadwinner of the family, deserved a study in the main part of their house. She’d set up a makeshift office in the basement next to the exercise equipment. But once Caro embraced Woolf’s sentiments regarding the importance of women writers, she and Zach had numerous arguments about her new priorities.

  As her determination intensified, his refusal to give in progressed from polite denial to outright forbiddance. But she’d stood fast, and for a few years they were at loggerheads. Strangely, this was the only point of difference Zach ever had regarding her career. And it was one of most importance to Caro.

  The sale of her first book finally forced him into accepting her right to have her own room to work in. When they built their last home, her study was on the third floor overlooking the Hudson River.

  How would Woolf have advised Livia? Ignore the pressure of peers. Forget worrying about wearing the right shade of lipstick or the trendiest jeans, the author might have said. If there was to be any concern, it should be bolstering Livia’s already burgeoning sensitivity to life’s ordinary miracles.

  Caro copied out what she had of the unfinished poem she’d begun for Livia; she added the title as well as the final lines of the second stanza.

  The Yellow Braid

  A golden twist of nouns and verbsin mute and mock displaywith flying curls of metaphors in costumed disarray.A buried mix of hidden rhymesso seldom sought to heara drawstring bag of adjectivesso difficult to bear.

  A solitary arc of sunlight crossed Caro’s desk and she opened up the French doors. The rain had diminished to a mist; she spotted a rainbow in the western sky. It was a sign she thought, a sanctioning of her thoughts.

  Then a figure in a navy slicker intersected her line of vision. Livia lifted her face, causing her hood to fall away.

  Waving, Caro jogged down the catwalk and called out Livia’s name. “Hey, come on up for awhile.”

  “I can’t. Aunt Nina’s going to show me how to make fudge.” Livia spoke to Caro from the bottom of the steps that led up from the beach.

  After a lopsided life of ignoring her family and friends for her poetry, it was, ironically, a younger version of herself who was reeling her back in toward her center at the same time that Livia was driving Caro to the edges of reason.

  ***

  The next day was sunny. The sky appeared sharper and brighter, as if a person was experiencing it from an elevated place of consciousness. Caro put on shorts and was just about to head out to the deck when she heard someone knocking.

  It was the chauffeur she’d seen waxing the Bentley owned by the people who lived in the mansion that faced Dune Road. “Can I help you?” she said.

  “I’m Jimmy. Mrs. Tyler sent this.” He handed Caro an envelope.

  Caro fingered it and was about to thank him and close the door when he said, “She wants me to return with a reply. Said to tell y
ou she didn’t know there was a celebrity in her backyard.” He tilted his head and peered at her from an odd angle, apparently trying to see if he recognized her from television. “Are you really a celebrity?”

  His sincerity drew out her lips in a smile. “A minnow in a sea of whales, Jimmy.” She extracted a hand-written invitation from its linen paper envelope. It was for a supper in her honor. Mrs. Tyler noted she’d read all of Caro’s poetry and could hardly wait to meet her in person. She’d have each of her books open and waiting for a personal autograph.

  Caro hesitated. She would like to have asked Nina about Mrs. Tyler before giving her answer. But she didn’t want to risk being rude to someone who appreciated her work. Anyway, it was only one supper. “Tell her, thanks. I look forward to meeting her as well.”

  After Jimmy left, Caro trudged next door over the dunes to talk to Nina. She found her wearing her apron and holding a whisk.

  Caro lifted a mug from its chrome hook and held it out for Nina to fill. “Got a batch of chocolate chunk to put in for Tommy and then I’m done.”

  “What do you know about the Tylers?” Caro asked.

  Nina folded the chocolate into the batter, offering the spoon to Caro for a lick. “You got the invitation, huh? Are you going?”

  “Hard to say no when I’m the star guest. I was just wondering what I was getting myself into.”

  “It’ll be a superlative gig,” Nina said. “Phyllis Tyler doesn’t do anything half-assed. She’s a patron of the arts. Donated the bulk of the money to restore the library.”

  “Do you know her well?”

  “Tommy more than me. Both families bought in Westhampton long before it became chic so they’ve known each other for eons. Aside from that, she’s one of his favorite clients. Very down to earth. Soft-spoken and easy to please. A real lady and not at all the Hampton socialite type. You’ll love her.”