A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) (23 page)

“Thank you, Liza. That’s probably about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should go back and at least hear what Abigail has to say, but if I do, will you promise me something?” She turned back to look at me, her eyes earnestly examining my face for a pledge of honesty.

“I will if I can,” I answered.

“Don’t die, Evelyn. Don’t! I like you so much. Really! I know I haven’t been very nice to you the last few weeks. Ever since you told us about your surgery. I know it’s not your fault, but sometimes I just can’t stop myself. I get so mad at you. At Abigail. At everyone, I guess. I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are. I understand. We all do.”

Liza swallowed hard and nodded, relieved. “Good,” she said. “That’s good. Okay.” She squared her shoulders and took a step away, as if she was ready to go.

“Liza, I can’t do it,” I said. “I can’t promise you I won’t die. That’s the kind of promise that children make. Promises that are really just wishes. You’re not a child anymore, Liza. You know there are some things that no amount of wishing will prevent. This is one of them.”

Liza’s shoulders sagged again. She looked at me, then back to her mother’s grave marker. “I know.”

I reached out and took her hand. Even through the fabric of her black gloves, Liza’s fingers felt like ice. I cupped my two hands around hers, trying to warm them. “Liza, I don’t want to die. Your mother didn’t want to die either. I’m sure that, more than anything in the world, she wanted to live so she could see what an amazing young woman you’re turning out to be. But by the time she found out she was sick, it was just too late. It’s not fair, but that’s what happened. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Sometimes bad things happen and there’s just nothing we can do about it.”

“I know,” she repeated sadly, her voice and face registering a weary resignation. “I just don’t understand why life is so unfair sometimes.”

“Yeah. You and everyone else on the planet.” I smiled. “But I can promise you one thing. I am going to try absolutely everything I can to beat the stupid cancer and live a long, full life. If I’ve got any say about it, I’m going to be around to make quilts to celebrate your wedding, and the births of your babies, and of your babies’ babies. So don’t you dare give up on me yet, Liza. I’m feisty!”

The corners of her mouth twitched into a small smile. “I believe it.”

“Well, you’d better, because I mean it! I’m coming at this cancer with both barrels, or both boobs, or whatever it takes.” Liza rolled her eyes at my terrible joke, but that was all right with me. At least she was smiling. “And I’ll need all the help I can get. You know what I’m saying? I’m expecting you to be right there beside me the whole way.”

“I will,” she said and squeezed my hand.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Back in the car, Liza turned the heater on full blast, then stripped off her gloves and held her frozen fingers directly in front of the heat vents. “That feels so good!”

“Here,” I said, nodding toward her feet. “Pull off your boots too. I’ve got a stadium blanket in the back seat. Bring it up here, and you can wrap it around your feet.” Liza complied and started pulling off her boots and then her socks. Her feet were bright pink with cold.

“Oh!” I clucked. “Will you look at that? You’re lucky you didn’t get frostbite. How did you get all the way up to Winthrop anyway? Please tell me you didn’t walk all night through the snow. It has to be at least twenty miles.”

Liza shook her head. “No. When I took off, I walked into town. I didn’t really have a plan, but next thing I knew I was standing in front of the library. I went inside to get out of the cold and stayed until closing time. Then I decided I wanted to come up here, so I hitched a ride. A guy with a pickup truck stopped right away and gave me a ride.”

Of course he did. Liza was gorgeous. Even dressed in her clunky boots and winter jacket, she had a face and figure that could stop traffic and obviously had. “Liza,” I scolded. “You just got in some stranger’s car? What were you thinking?”

She shrugged and said a little sheepishly, “I wasn’t, I guess. It probably wasn’t the brightest thing I ever did. The guy seemed real nice at first, gave me a ride as far as Brighton. Then said he was hungry and would I mind if we stopped at the diner to get something to eat, and I said sure. He wanted to buy my food, but I wouldn’t let him. I had six dollars in my pocket.”

“That was smart. You didn’t want him to get any ideas. My mother always used to say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, if you know what I mean.” I gave Liza a sideways glance.

“Funny,” Liza said and raised her eyebrows, “my mom used to say that same thing.”

“Well, there you go. Great minds.”

“Yeah, well, this jerk apparently hadn’t heard about that particular rule. When we got back in the car, he started trying to get funny with me.”

“Oh, Liza! He didn’t! Are you all right?” She nodded. There was a trace of a smile on her lips. “What did you do?”

“Nothing much. Just picked his hand up off my thigh very slowly, held it real close to my lips, and then bit it as hard as I could. Of course, he dumped me out by the side of the road and I had to walk the last six miles, but it was worth it. You should have seen the look on his face.” She was grinning from ear to ear. “Served him right, the big creep.”

I put my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh. I knew I should lecture her about the terrible chance she’d taken getting into that car. But instead, I replayed the picture in my mind, Liza sitting in the cab of the pickup, gently lifting the hand of that masher, giving him a sultry glance, and then ever so slowly and sensually taking his fingers and moving them toward her lips while the eyes of that pervert darted from the road to Liza’s luscious lips, certain that this was his lucky day, and then—crunch! Liza was right. I’d have walked six miles through the snow to see the look on that guy’s face.

I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing, and Liza joined in.

She’s going to be all right,
I thought.
It won’t be easy, but she’s going to get through this thing.

Just like her aunt, Liza Burgess was one tough cookie. And I loved her for it.

L
iza hardly looked at me when Evelyn brought her home. Not that I’d expected her face to suddenly light up at the sight of mine, but her muttered one-word responses to my questions about how she was, and where she’d gone, and how sorry I was, were not encouraging. I was glad she was home and safe, but what good would it do to have her back if we were just going to fall into the same old patterns of resentment and recrimination?

Completely ignoring me, she turned to Evelyn and said she was exhausted and was going to sleep for a while. Then she gave Evelyn a quick squeeze and trudged up the stairs.

It had been a long night for everyone. I walked Margot and Evelyn to the door and thanked them both for all they’d done. And I really meant it. If not for them…Well, I didn’t even want to imagine how badly things could have turned out without their help. Of course, it still wasn’t over. Liza was home, but the situation between us was far from resolved.

“Good-bye!” I stood at the door and waved to Margot as she climbed into her little car and drove off. “Thank you again!”

Evelyn was in the foyer, putting on her hat and gloves. “Good-bye, Abigail, and don’t look so worried. Everything is going to turn out just fine.”

“How do you know that?” I asked. “Did you see the look in her eyes when she came in here? She hates me.”

“Give her some time, Abigail. She’s cold and tired.”

Certainly that was true, but I noticed that Evelyn hadn’t made any attempt to deny my assertion. “It’s no use,” I said. “The girl simply hates me. That’s all. There’s no point in trying to make up with her. She’s never going to forgive me. I know. She’s a Burgess, and if there’s one thing a Burgess knows how to do, it’s hold a grudge.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that.” Evelyn yawned. “Abigail, calm down. Really. Liza is exhausted. She needs some rest, and so do you. Go lie down for a while, and then, after you’ve both had some sleep and can think more clearly, you can talk to her.”

Panic filled my breast. “Talk to her. But how? What am I supposed to say?”

Evelyn sighed and tipped her head to one side, her eyes weary. She put a gloved hand on my shoulder. “The truth, Abigail. Just tell her the truth. It’s the only thing that ever works anyway.”

I tried to take Evelyn’s advice and take a nap, but two hours later I was still sleepless under the blue and yellow Grandmother’s Fan quilt Evelyn had given me for Christmas. Tell the truth, Evelyn had said, but what was the truth? I had spent so many years of my life, decades, trying not to think about the past, that I wasn’t even sure how to explain it to myself anymore, let alone to Liza. Liza—the collateral damage in a war between two sisters who, once upon a time, had been inseparable. When I had been Liza’s age, more than forty years ago, I could never have imagined that anything in the world could have come between my sister and me. Where had it all begun? With Susan? With David? No. It started before that. Long before.

For the first six years of my life, I was an only child, a situation that suited me perfectly at the time.

But on a summer day in 1950, my father pulled up in front of my grandmother Alice’s house in Winthrop, jumped out of the Packard and ran around the passenger side to open the door for Mother, and then took the pink flannel bundle from her arms, and my world changed forever. I ran down the walkway toward my beloved father, thrilled to see him, thinking only of him. But as I ran near, pigtails flying and arms open wide, Father got down on one knee and pulled back a corner of the pink flannel.

“Hey, Kitten! Look here! This is your new baby sister. Susan. What do you think?”

I thought she was the most beautiful baby in the whole world, and from that day forward, I’d have come to blows with anyone who said differently. Not that anyone would have said such a thing. Susan was, in fact, a beautiful child, and she grew into a beautiful woman. I adored her. We adored each other. Everyone in Winthrop used to comment about it, telling my mother they’d never seen more devoted sisters. And it was true. No big sister could have been more committed to her baby sister than I was. I’d have done anything to protect her, and did. But as we got older, that job became harder.

My father was a handsome man, witty, charming, and something of a dandy. Even at home, I never saw him dressed in anything less formal than a three-piece suit and tie. He’d met my mother, who was just seventeen at the time, at a dance. Four weeks later, they were married. Father was a broker on Wall Street, but he insisted that Manhattan was no place to raise a family, so, as soon as Mother became pregnant, Father moved her out to Winthrop to live in his family home with Grandmother Alice. Father kept a little apartment in the city and came out to see his young family on weekends. That was how we grew up, and, when I was younger, I thought nothing of it. While I adored my father and would have loved having him at home during the week, I was very proud of the glamorous life he led in New York.

My friend’s fathers only worked at boring jobs in boring Winthrop. They and their families lived in poky little houses and drove even pokier old cars, but every two years Father drove up in a brand-new Packard, and, even though Mother complained about having to share it with Grandmother Alice, we lived in the biggest, most beautiful house in town. My friends’ fathers came home every night cranky and tired from the long workday. But every Friday night, my father would drive up from New York, bearing smiles and presents and eager to hear every little thing that had happened to us while he’d been gone. It was like Christmas every weekend. Some of my friends’ parents barely spoke to each other. Their parents were about the same age as mine, but somehow they seemed decades older. Mother and Father were the handsomest couple you’d ever hope to see. Father took Mother out to supper every Saturday night. Susan and I didn’t like having to stay home with Grandmother Alice on those nights, but when mother floated downstairs, smelling of White Shoulders cologne and wearing a new dress Father had bought for her at Bergdorf’s, and took Father’s arm as he escorted her out the door, I was entranced. When I grew up, I planned on marrying a man just like my father. We were the happiest family in town.

I believed that for a long time.

I can’t remember when I first heard the embarrassing rumors about my father and what he did all week in town, or the angry, hissed conversations between Mother and Father that abruptly stopped whenever I’d enter the room, or began noticing the red rims around Mother’s eyes on those increasingly frequent Friday afternoons when Father would telephone to say he was swamped with work and couldn’t come out that weekend. The only thing I know for certain is that, as the years passed, my beautiful and bright princess of a mother became a bitter and complaining nag. The second Father came in the door, she would start in, quizzing him about what he’d done all week, complaining about how he neglected us, demanding an explanation of how he spent the hours away from her. After a few minutes, Father would start to shout at her, saying that nothing he ever did was enough and he didn’t know why he’d bothered to come home at all. Sometimes he would become so angry that he would get in the car, drive to the city, and not return to Winthrop for weeks at a time.

I blamed my mother. It was her complaining and criticism that was keeping Father away. That’s what I believed, and that’s what I told Susan, that Father was a good man, a wonderful man, and that, if we wanted him to come home, we had to be very good too and never complain. Father worked very hard all week on Wall Street, I told her. When he did come home, we mustn’t make him feel badly or ask him why he hadn’t come sooner. We mustn’t bother him by asking questions about the nasty things other children whispered at school. None of it was true. Those other children were just jealous of our fine house and our pretty cars and our handsome parents. We shouldn’t bother Father with such things; if we did, he might turn around and leave again.

“No one wants to be around someone who is sad or complaining, Susan. People like to be around people who are happy,” I instructed my six-year-old sister. “Even if you feel sad inside, just smile and tell Father how happy you are to see him. Then he will want to stay here with us.” I learned at a very young age to keep my true thoughts and feelings to myself.

When I was fifteen and Susan was nine, Father had a heart attack and died. In the aftermath of his death and the financial ruin that followed, I finally had to face the truth about our family. My father had been leading a double life for years, keeping his family tucked up in a corner of rural Connecticut, playing happy family on the weekends, while, during the week in Manhattan, he led the life of a playboy bachelor, carrying on with a number of women, spending lavishly in pursuit of them, and, when he ran out of his own money, borrowing more to maintain his sumptuous lifestyle. He died penniless and in debt. For the first time in her life, Mother had to work outside our home. She got a receptionist position that paid enough to cover our basic expenses, but barely. Thank heaven our home in Winthrop was owned by Grandmother Alice. She died shortly after Father and left the house to Mother. If not for that, we’d probably have been put out on the street.

Truthfully, I don’t know when Father’s dalliances began; perhaps my parents’ marriage had been a sham from the very first. But, at the time, I continued to lay the blame for the disintegration of our family at Mother’s feet. No matter what he had done, Father was my hero. I was certain that, in the beginning at least, we were that perfect family of my memory and that my mother’s suspicious and complaining nature was the cause of all our problems. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. But one thing I do know for sure, after Father died and left us penniless and everyone in town knew why, Mother’s negative nature became worse and she lived the rest of her life as an embittered, angry woman. I hated being around her, and I promised myself that, no matter what, I would never be like my mother.

Eventually, I just couldn’t bear living at home anymore, enduring Mother’s daily barrage of acrimony and resentment. I applied to New York University, was admitted on a scholarship, and escaped to the city. I felt guilty about leaving Susan, but came home to see her nearly every weekend, neatly stepping into Father’s old schedule.

Manhattan was like a breath of fresh air after life in Winthrop. I felt so alive and independent in the city, so completely free. It was the early sixties, and a good part of the nation, especially the younger part, was likewise throwing off the perceived shackles of their parents’ expectations. Freedom was the mantra of the decade—free speech, free living, free love. To a young girl recently arrived from rural New England, it was an exhilarating time to be alive.

Not too long after moving into the tiny apartment I shared with three other girls, I met David Collier. David was six years my senior, a sculptor. I fell in love with him almost immediately. With his deep brown eyes and broad shoulders, David looked a lot like my father, but he wasn’t quite like anyone I’d ever met. He was free-spirited, expressive, and always so happy and carefree. I adored him. When he asked if I wanted to move in with him, I threw my arms around him and nearly smothered him with kisses.

“Whoa!” he said with a laugh. “I guess that must be a yes.”

“Oh yes! Yes, David! Can we bring my things over tonight?”

He nodded. “Sure. If that’s what you want, Abbie. But listen,” he said, his laughing eyes growing serious for a moment, “you need to understand something. I love you, Abbie. You make me so happy. There is no one I’d rather be with than you, but I don’t plan on ever getting married. I don’t believe in it. Marriage is just a lot of bull invented by society and religions, just one more way they try to control us. A piece of paper couldn’t make me love you any more than I do right now. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to be pinned down to just one man.” The smile returned to his face. “I mean, you might wake up one day and decide you couldn’t stand me anymore.”

“Oh, no, David! That would never, ever happen! I’ll love you till the day I die.”

David nodded. “I feel the same way, Abbie. But still, you have to understand, I’m never going to get married.”

“Yes, David. I understand,” I said and kissed him again.

But deep in my heart, I didn’t suppose he really meant it. I was sure that once he saw how much I loved him, how happy I made him, he’d surely change his mind. It might take a while, but that was all right. All that mattered to me at that moment was David. I needed him and would have agreed to anything he proposed just to keep him near.

For almost four years, we lived together in David’s artist’s loft, behaving as man and wife in every sense except legally. I went to class during the day while David worked in his studio, and then scurried home in the evenings to make our dinner. At night we’d go to poetry readings in the Village, or take walks in the park, or meet up with some of David’s artist friends. On Friday nights, we’d drive David’s beat-up station wagon to Connecticut and spend the weekend with Mother and Susan. Susan was crazy about David. She used to watch at the window, waiting for our arrival, just like I had waited for Father when I was a little girl. Then she’d run out the front door to greet us. Mother liked him too. Even when she was in one of her moods, David was always able to get a smile out of her.

Of course, I never told Mother that David and I were living together, but I’m sure she suspected. One Sunday morning, while David and Susan were out in the garden picking strawberries for our breakfast, Mother, clearly embarrassed, tried to talk to me about “the facts of life.” I laughed and assured her that it wasn’t necessary, that I knew all I needed to know in that regard. Mother looked relieved, and that was the end of that.