Beloved (2 page)

Jane had become so used to the thick sound of silence that she jumped a little.
"
Not at all; I
'
m glad you
'
ve come,
"
she said, as if his showing up made a quorum.
"
I
'
m Jane Drew.
"

"
Sylvia
'
s great-niece. Of course. I
'
m glad to meet you at last. Phillip Harrow,
"
he said, taking her hand in his.
"
I
'
m sorry about your great-aunt, Miss Drew,
"
he said softly.
"
Ninety-four is a wonderful old age, but a hundred and ninety-four would have been better still.
"

Somehow Jane didn
'
t want to argue with him, didn
'
t want to admit that just a month earlier her aunt had slammed her tiny fist on the bedstand and shouted,
"
I
'
m ready to go, goddammit!
"
So Jane nodded and said simply,
"
Yes.
"
She added,
"
How did you know my aunt?
"

"
She was a neighbor. She
—
"

Just then the funeral director, his lips pursed in sympathy, appeared in the entryway; it was time to close up shop. Phillip Harrow acknowledged him with a somber
"
Evening, Fred,
"
and turned back to Jane.
"
I
'
m leaving the island tonight. I
'
m sorry
—
I won
'
t be attending the funeral,
"
he said, his voice low with regret.

Jane was sorry, too, though for a split second she wasn
'
t quite sure why.
Because I want
someone
else to be there,
she decided as she shook Phillip Harrow
'
s hand good-bye.
I want
someone
else to care.

Harrow began walking out, then stopped suddenly and turned.
"
Will you be staying on Nantucket past tomorrow?
"

Jane smiled and lifted her shoulders.
"
I don
'
t know
..
.
maybe a day or two
."

His blue eyes
—
piercingly, hauntingly blue
—
settled on her for a long, long moment. And then he, too, smiled and shrugged.
"
Well, good-bye, then.
"

There were seven people huddling under seven umbrellas at the funeral. Jane knew only one of them: her mother. Gwendolyn Drew had flown from London to Boston, caught an air shuttle, and much to Jane
'
s astonishment, arrived at Prospect Hill Cemetery right in the nick of time.

"
I had to come back to the States early and it wasn
'
t that out of the way,
"
her mother whispered over the eulogy.
"
And after all,
"
she added with a sigh,
"
Sylvia
was
family.
"

The morning was wet and cold; Jane felt pierced through to her bones. But her mother faced down the weather with a kind of noble indifference, as if she were waiting in her BMW at a red light in her beloved San Francisco.

How does she do
it? Jane wondered, not for the first time. Her mother couldn
'
t possibly have got more than a couple of hours
'
sleep, even in first-class. And yet here she was, fresh and poised and uncomplaining. Every highlighted hair was in place; the belt of her trench coat was tied exactly so. The makeup she wore was perfectly applied and unstained by tears.

Jane
'
s eyes, on the other hand, were puffy from weeping, her nose bright pink from blowing. She
'
d forgotten to open her umbrella at one point, and now her long auburn hair was plastered to her face in dark wet ringlets. Yesterday it hadn
'
t sunk in, but sometime during the night she realized it: Aunt Sylvia
—
funny, eccentric, shrewd Aunt Sylvia
—
was gone.

The minister finished with a short prayer and offered his condolences. The service was over; the small gathering began breaking up. Gwendolyn Drew took her daughter aside with a look of loving horror.

"
Darling, you look positively awful,
"
she said, peeling a wet strand of hair from Jane
'
s forehead.
"
Would you rather skip lunch and go to bed, and I
'
ll be on my way?
"

"
No,
"
Jane said quickly. She flapped open her big wet hanky and blew one more time.
"
I
'
ll be all right. I don
'
t know what
'
s come over me ..
. I knew Aunt Sylvia was ready to
...
but I never knew she cared enough about me
....
Oh,
mother ...
she left
me
Lilac Cottage
!
"

Gwendolyn
'
s eyes opened wide.
"
She
did
?
That
is
a surprise. I assumed the house would go to an animal shelter or some such. Well!
"
she said, lowering her voice in deference to the one other mourner who remained.
"
That really is a surprise.
"

The mourner, whose back was to them both, was a solidly built man with shaggy hair. In one hand he held a big black umbrella; the other was jammed into the pocket of his canvas jacket. As they watched, he took something from his pocket and tossed it into the open, still-empty grave. His profile was grim as he turned and left without acknowledging them.

There was a finality in the man
'
s gesture that made Jane say,
"
I guess we should go.
"

She touched her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss gently in the direction of her aunt, then fell in alongside her mother. But at the grave
'
s opening she stopped, attracted by a small red spot of color in the dirt at the bottom. It was a rose, tiny and exquisite and impossibly out of place in February, in a grave.

The two women moved on.

****

They had lunch in town at the Crowninshield Saloon, a casual bar and restaurant with a scrubbed wood floor that was popular with the locals and one of the few that remained open all year long. At her mother
'
s insistence that she eat something, Jane forced down a bowl of hot kale soup, a Portuguese
specialty
that took away some of the chill that had plagued her since the night before.

Her mother had a chicken salad and a glass of Perrier. Her mother
always
had a chicken salad and a glass of Perrier whenever she was in what she called
"
a place like this.
"

"
Nantucket. What a desolate place to live,
"
Gwendolyn said, staring out at the rain pounding the bare windows.
"
Fog
...  rain ...
penetrating cold
...."

"
Mother, you live in San Francisco,
"
Jane said, recovering her sense of irony.
"
You
have fog and rain and penetrating cold.
"

Gwendolyn Drew gave her daughter a good-natured grimace.
"
Yes, but we
'
re open all year. We also have compensations: opera and ballet, museums and theaters, not to mention charity balls for all of them. But here
! What does one do on this ...
this rock?
"

"
One sits by the fire, just as we
'
re doing now, and warms one
'
s buns.
"

"
One gets rock fever.
"

"
I
wouldn
'
t.
"

"
Jane. If you
'
re thinking what I think you
'
re thinking
— don
'
t. You couldn
'
t possibly afford to keep Lilac Cottage as a weekend retreat. You have no job. The property taxes alone
—
"

"
I didn
'
t say I was keeping it,
"
Jane answered defensively. She hated when her mother acted like her father.

"
I should hope not. This inheritance is an absolute godsend. You
'
ve been living on your savings for six months now; how long could you have gone on? The mortgage on your condo alone
—
and what about your father?
"
she said suddenly.
"
When he learns about the inheritance, of
course
he
'
ll want you to sell.
"
She brightened.
"
You can go back to school and retrain; law school maybe
—
"

"
Mother, I
'
m not going to become a lawyer just because Dad
'
s one. And I
like
being a graphic designer. This downturn can
'
t last forever. I
'
ll get another job. Eventually.
"
She spread a hard pat of butter so viciously onto her slice of bread that it fell apart in her hand.

Her mother circled her daughter
'
s wrist and said soothingly,
"
Don
'
t blame me, darling. Blame the economy. Blame the advertising sector. Or better yet
—
blame your father,
"
she said with a smile.
"
He
'
s not here; he
'
ll never know.
"

"
Oh no, Mother, I blame
you,
"
Jane said, only half kidding.
"
You stopped having kids one boy short. Think how much easier my life would be if Dad didn
'
t look to me to carry on his tradition of workaholism. If you
'
d had a Neal Drew, Jr.,
he
could
'
ve been the lawyer.
"

Her mother shrugged and said,
"
Well, it
'
s too late now. Anyway, we
'
ve been all through this. If you don
'
t want to be pressured by your father, you should find yourself a nice rich man and settle down with a family. Like your sister.
"

"
Those are my choices? Law school or marriage? This is practically medieval,
"
Jane said, throwing her hands up and rolling her eyes. It was an overly dramatic gesture, she knew; but she wanted to irritate her mother, and being melodramatic in a public place was a quick and easy way to do it.

Her mother gave her
a sit-up-properly-and-eat-your-
food look. Jane went back to her Earl Grey tea.

"
I feel really guilty about the house. What will Lisa say?
"
Jane murmured, wrapping her hands around the tea mug to warm them.

"
Your sister is married and financially secure. She won
'
t begrudge you your cottage. Besides,
she
didn
'
t spend a summer with Sylvia.
"

"
I only spent a month.
"