Gail Godwin

by Unfinished Desires (v5)

  “That’s what I have asked myself. Did I love Antonia more than God? But if I had never met Antonia, I think I would still have chosen it. I loved the school, I loved the life, and I do love God. And maybe I also chose it because it made me feel safe and gave me some authority. I just wish the whole thing had been, well … purer.”

  “But Sister! How many of us entered with the pure motives of—of—well—someone like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux? I know I didn’t. I wanted the authority, too. And I wanted the—exemption. I didn’t want to be like my mother, raising seven kids and sipping cheap sherry. I wanted to be like a certain nun I admired, standing in front of a classroom teaching, belonging to no one but an invisible spouse. And now here we both are, my Golden Jubilee fast approaching and you headed for your Diamond. You know the thing I came away with from those tapes of yours, Sister, after I got over being furious? You are eighty-five years old and still growing as a person. Or as you would say, still a work in progress. That dream about your mother. After that terrible relationship, you find common ground with her and wake up feeling closer. There’s another thing, too, and I am going to confide it to you before I tell the others, since you have already dreamed it. That nun from another order you dreamed about—who was living in our house?”

  “Oh, I have no idea what she meant about learning to praise God even when he is behaving badly. We’d have to ask Freud about that.”

  “It wasn’t that; it was that she was from another order and living in our house. You see, this is what I’ve been wrestling with and will present to the four of you in chapter this evening: we have been offered a stipend to take in the five remaining sisters of the Order of St. Gertrude—they were founded to run orphanages, but since the seventies their main work has been resettling refugee families. The stipend will just about cover our shortfall and allow us to go on living in this comfortable house.”

  “But—Sister—where are they all going to sleep?”

  “That’s the downside. Every one of us will have to take a roommate. The upside is that, with careful management and goodwill on everybody’s part, we’ll be able to stay together as a community. Your dream was very timely, Sister. Though after I considered it, it seemed natural for someone who has been organizing people for most of her life to foresee what has to be done.”

  “When”—Mother Ravenel was determined to keep her voice as steady as she could—“is the earliest they would be moving in?”

  “As soon as we say the word. Their building was sold out from under them. But I’ve given some thought to the privacy you’ll need to dictate the rest of your memoir, Sister. Would you accept the use of my office until, say, ten each morning? We can set up a corner for you and no one will disturb you. I can reroute phone calls and take them in the little parlor.”

  “That is very thoughtful of you, Sister Bridget. Thank you, I accept.”

  “You’re very welcome. As you said at the end of your last tape, praise be to God for my family in Christ.”

  LORD, HELP ME SEE—whatever I need to see about this unexpected exchange. Do I feel shriven? Somewhat, but mainly through the act of shaping my own confession and handing it over to another soul for “comments.” Do I feel railroaded by my stodgy, stealthy superior? Yes. Though You are mercifully permitting me to see the humor of it, too.

  I think the best thing for me to do now, Lord, is to say a prayer for the person who will have me as a roommate until the ambulance comes through the gates for one of us. God, help her, and grant her the forbearance she will need!

  CHAPTER 36

  Reunion

  MAUD

  Saturday afternoon, October 27, 2007

  Storage unit 1516

  Lake Worth, Florida

  “HELLO?”

  Maud Martinez, slick with perspiration, was sitting on a crate catching her breath when her cell phone rang.

  “Maud?”

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s Tildy. I just this minute got your letter. I was so excited I could hardly read it.”

  “Oh, Tildy, I don’t believe this—”

  “You sound out of breath. Are you out jogging or something?”

  “No, I’ve been moving boxes.”

  “Where are you right this minute?”

  “I’m in my storage unit out on the highway. I sold our house. I’m sitting on a crate.”

  “Are you out of the house yet?”

  “No, but it’s almost empty.”

  “What’s in the crate you’re sitting on right now?”

  Such a Tildy question!

  “My mother’s china. She was so proud of it. When she married Art Foley, they went out and bought everything new.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “They both are. He died first, and Lily’s been gone since eighty-eight. And your parents?”

  “Oh, very much gone. And—ohhh!—but listen, Maud, what are you going to do now?”

  “You mean today, or for the rest of my life?”

  “Both, but let’s start with today. Do you have a date or anything tonight?”

  “A date! Good Lord, no.”

  “Now listen, Maud, and don’t interrupt until I’ve finished. You could get on the Florida Turnpike and be at my house in nine hours. What’s stopping you?”

  Glorious, dramatic Tildy. As though they were still fourteen. “About ten more trips to the recycling center tomorrow, then the floor sanders finish Max’s office and surgery on Monday, and I want to be sure they leave it spotless for the new owner—the closing’s a week from Tuesday—and I have a doctor’s appointment this Tuesday—”

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s just a routine checkup. She likes to scold me about my LDL and cross-examine me about my wine intake.”

  “What time Tuesday is your doctor’s?”

  “Ten-thirty”

  “Why don’t you plan to get here for a late supper on Tuesday night? Why are you laughing?” The old Tildy: quick to sniff out insurrection.

  “I can’t drive after dark. I’ve got cataracts.”

  “Oh. Well, if you started out at daybreak Wednesday morning you could be here before dark. We could still celebrate Halloween together.”

  Saturday night, October 27, 2007

  Maud’s house, formerly part of the Palm City Animal Hospital

  Sunset Avenue, Palm Beach

  Maud salsa danced in her socks in the empty upstairs living room by moonlight. Even in the pit of her depression after Max’s death, she had danced, telling herself, “If I am doing this, I’m not dead yet.” But she danced without sound; she couldn’t have stood the songs. The songs would have turned it into a weeping extravaganza. She danced alone, without sound, taking care with the precise steps, to honor the love between Max and herself.

  The last incision from Daisy’s toenails had been sanded away yesterday by the machines, but Maud could still summon the resolute click-click-thump of Daisy’s final arthritic years. When the dog could no longer climb up to lie beside her on the bed, Maud had dragged the mattress to the floor, where they’d continued to sleep together until the day Daisy snacked on the fatal debris at the beach. That was March, seven months ago. Max had now been gone two and a half years.

  Max had been an inspired and passionate dancer. And thanks to Miss Bianca Mendoza back at Mount St. Gabriel’s, Maud had been able to astonish him by sliding right into the tango the first time they danced.

  Daisy, as a puppy with a broken hip and then as an aging dog with arthritis, had watched them dance in this room, keeping time with her tail—her contribution to the family ritual. Max had found her lying on oily rags in the lid of a cardboard box on his surgery porch a week before Christmas 1989. He set her hip and carried her upstairs, still woozy from anesthetic. “I bring you an early Christmas present,” he told Maud. They made a bed for her on soft old towels in a laundry basket. She was mostly four big golden feet and terrified brown eyes. “What do you think happened?” Maud asked, already in love. “She could
have been kicked or thrown downstairs or hit by a car. Then left on our doorstep by a guilty son of a bitch or a Good Samaritan. Poor little nerviosita, we will make it up to her.”

  They named her Daisy. As in “I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.”

  Max and Maud: twenty-eight and a half years. Max and Maud and Daisy: sixteen years. Maud and Daisy: two years.

  I am grateful to have had so much.

  Sunday morning, October 28, 2007

  The email from Tildy had been sent at 3:48 this morning, with two attachments.

  Dearest Maud, I’m so excited I can’t sleep. Now, don’t you dare back out. Here are MapQuest directions from your house to mine, and a recent picture of me with my oldest granddaughter, Jane. Just so you won’t be shocked when this old ruin opens the door on Halloween. What kind of wine do you drink? Your Tiddly.

  Maud phoned Lake Worth Haircutz. She had to look up the number; her last appointment had been before Max’s funeral. The stylist’s gravel voice answered on the first ring. “Lucia, it’s Maud Martinez. Remember me?”

  “Maud! I thought you’d moved away.”

  “No, I’m still here. Sorry to bother you on a Sunday.”

  “I work on Sundays by appointment now. I’ve got this guy coming in for an emergency makeover.”

  “That’s what I need. Have you any openings before Wednesday?”

  “Tomorrow is terrible, and Tuesdays I’m off. Could you do one o’clock today?”

  “Oh, Lucia, thank you. I’ll be there.”

  “Good to have you back, love.”

  Sunday afternoon

  “Well, let’s undo all these clips and pins, Maud, and see what we’ve got here. My God—it’s Rapunzel!”

  “A gray-headed Rapunzel, I’m afraid.”

  “But human hair’s amazing, no? Who was it?—some movie star’s mother, in the thirties—sent a stylist to the cemetery every month to keep her daughter looking good. How long has it been now since Max passed away?”

  “Two years and six months.”

  “And hair grows an average of a half inch a month—but I think yours must grow faster, because it’s halfway down your back. Good hair, though. Still got body and shine, even without me. So what were you thinking of doing?”

  “On Wednesday, I’m going to get together with someone I haven’t seen since I was fourteen.”

  “Wow! It’s none of my business, but is this by any chance an old flame?”

  Maud fished the color print from her purse and handed it up to Lucia. “My best friend, Tildy, from grade school. We haven’t seen each other in fifty-five years. When she emailed this to me this morning, I realized how much I’d neglected myself.”

  As Lucia scrutinized the picture, Maud, watching her in the mirror, felt pangs from that long ago day when she had proudly handed Tildy’s picture to Anabel Norton on Worth Avenue and Anabel had raised her plucked eyebrows and laughed. “This is the superior being called Tildy? Why, Maud, she looks like—Orphan Annie without a neck. She is such a little girl compared to you. … What exactly do you see in her, darling?”

  “Your friend takes good care of herself,” said Lucia. “So does the daughter.”

  “That’s her granddaughter. And in the email I had this morning, Tildy described herself as an old ruin.”

  “It’s a very clever three-color process. Her stylist must do gazillions of teensy-tiny highlights and lowlights, all mixed in together. But how does she get it to stand up in a crest like that? A brush cut usually collapses past a couple of inches. What was her hair like as a girl?”

  “It was tawny and curly. Like Orphan Annie’s.”

  “When is it you’re going to see her?”

  “I’m driving up Wednesday; she lives just outside Atlanta. And I’d like to look my best.”

  “Well, love, you’ve still got the basics. Bones, bones, bones. And those you can’t buy with any number of processes. We used to cut it in that swingy bob just below chin level. Is this going to be a fancy occasion?”

  “No, we’re just going to celebrate Halloween together at her house.”

  “Aha! I think I’m starting to feel inspired.”

  Halloween, Wednesday, October 31, 2007

  Six hundred and twenty-six miles, from Maud’s to Tildy’s. But the ideal MapQuest driver must have a steel bladder and a bottomless gas tank and a body younger than hers to make it in nine hours and twenty-nine minutes. It was already close to ten hours when Maud crossed into Georgia, and after the events of her trip she was beginning to feel a little spooky. When she’d left home at dawn in a downpour, the local radio stations were already announcing indoor sites for Halloween activities. Hurricane Noel, a latecomer in the season, was expected to blow out to sea, but not before he ruined the day for costume parades and trick-or-treaters. “You’re going as Morticia, aren’t you?” said the girl waiting on her in a service plaza near Orlando. “And that lavender wig is a great touch.” Stopping at a Burger King for a late lunch in Waycross, Maud was befriended by four seriously costumed adults in the booth across from her. At first she had taken them for two couples; but no, they were all men: proudly they ticked off their identities: a pimp, a French maid, the grim reaper, and Bette Midler. The pimp asked her if she was in costume, adding, “Or do you just normally dress, like, stylish goth?” Maud told them she was on her way to celebrate Halloween with a childhood friend in Georgia and that she’d gotten in the habit of wearing too much black “but the hair is mine, not a wig. My stylist put a lavender rinse on the gray and wove in a few dark attachments. Do you think I can pass for Morticia?” From the way they laughed, Maud knew she had been accepted as a game old girl out to have herself a cool Halloween.

  The rain had stopped by the time she crossed into Georgia, and from then on the local stations were saying this was Georgia’s worst drought since 1931. From too much water to too little, in a day’s drive. Eleven hours on the road at age seventy, with lavender hair and attachments, having conversed with more strangers than she’d met in months. No wonder she was feeling spacey.

  Left, left, left, right, left. Charlton Terrace, Westersham Place, Denmeade Walk, Bolingbrook Drive, Cherbrooke Lane. Dusk was falling on the parched lawns. Costumed children carrying bags patrolled the sidewalks: Spider-Men, Batgirls, Wonder Women—a glut of Harry Potter robes.

  A Muslim woman in red stood in a driveway passing out packages of candy to a circle of children. Maud drove on by, wondering which Muslim sect wore red chadors—or maybe it was a Hindu sect, though it was most likely a mother in costume. Then she saw that she had gone past the house number at the end of her quest. She turned around and headed back. The woman in red was at the curb now, waving her on with both arms and laughing. It wasn’t a chador; it was a religious habit. In red fabric, but with the white headband and the neckcloth and the silver crucifix of the Order of St. Scholastica.

  Maud pulled over, shut off the ignition, and stepped out into Tildy-land.

  THE FRIENDS HUGGED. Tildy felt bulkier, yet frailer. Wrinkles fanned out from her eyes and made a little fence along her upper lip, but after fifty-five years, her way of scrutinizing you hadn’t changed.

  “You’re skinny!” she accused. “I hate you. Is that a wig?”

  “No, it was my stylist’s contribution. She got inspired when I said I was going to spend Halloween with an old friend.”

  “You are still beautiful, Maud, though a little sad, I think. Tell me what you want first: bathroom, drink, or food.”

  “All of the above. In just that order. Should I pull into your driveway?”

  “You’re fine just where you are.”

  Carrying Maud’s overnight bag (“This doesn’t feel heavy enough. You are going to stay a few days, aren’t you?”), Tildy led her through a roomy kitchen with a sewing alcove and up some back stairs, hiking up her skirts like a practiced nun. “This is the shortest way. I’m putting you in my granddaughter Jane’s favorite room. It has privacy and a view of the woods—or what’s le
ft of them. Our twins grew up in another house.”

  “You had twins?”

  “God, we do have a lot to catch up on! Yes, identical twins, just like Mama and Antonia: one sour, one sweet. Now, you take your time and do what you need to do and I’ll go down and start the wine. White or red? I got your choice of each.”

  All Hallows’ Eve 2007

  Tildy’s screened porch, off the kitchen

  Marietta, Georgia

  Before the light has left the sky, they are already tipsy. Maud reclines on a chaise and Tildy, in her nun’s habit, is ensconced in a wicker chair, with her feet up on an ottoman. She is also wearing red shoes. (“The Pope wears them with his outfits, so I figured, Why not?”) There’s a nip in the air, and Tildy has brought out a mohair lap robe and draped it around Maud like a tender straitjacket. On a table within reach of both of them is a half-empty bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc in its marble chiller, cheese straws and olives, and a glass dish filled with the candy corn of their childhood Halloweens.

  “I can’t get over your habit,” Maud says. “Except for the color, it’s an exact replica of the St. Scholastica ones.”

  “Right after our phone call I rushed over to Fabric Warehouse and found this remnant of brick-red Tencel just waiting for me. I sewed straight through the weekend. The nuns would have killed for this material: you can ball it up and throw it in the machine and it comes out looking better than ever. It didn’t exist when my girls were growing up, but I made Jane some hostess pajamas out of it. Maisie, my other granddaughter, isn’t into clothes. She raises Tennessee walking horses.”

  “I don’t remember you ever sewing.”