Mating Rituals of the North American WASP (17 page)

I do not have a crush on my husband.

She bit the inside of her cheek and remembered Luke standing by nonchalantly while Milo flailed in the mud. She saw him in
the library, reciting his petty limerick.
Don’t you make my mistake, or you’ll pay.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t help Milo,” she said. When he didn’t answer, she repeated herself, louder.

After the third time, Luke said, “He wasn’t hurt. He didn’t need help.” He pulled into the driveway of the Sedgwick House,
white with black shutters, and cut the engine.

“He was crying!”

“Only after Tiffany fussed over him.” He got out and walked around to open Peggy’s door.

“She was not fussing! She was helping Milo up, the way I’m sure your mother picked you up when you fell down.” She checked
herself. Good—her brief moment of attraction was gone.

At the front door, Luke stood back so she could enter first, but once inside, Peggy felt lost. She wasn’t ready to face the
disrepair, the drafty parlors, her lonely room. The time stretched out endlessly until tomorrow afternoon, when she could
return to the city.

She’d go for a walk in town. She’d been meaning to see what was down there anyway and to find out what Annette and the others
were protesting, and there was a good hour left until dark. She’d just go up to her room to get a warmer sweater and check
in with Bex.

“It went perfectly. I feel fine. I’m in bed, and, look, here’s my husband, bringing me cookies and milk on a tray. Thanks,
Josh, sweetie,” Bex said.

More relaxed already, Peggy changed sweaters, put her jacket back on, and hurried back downstairs, nearly bumping into two
figures in the dusky entryway.

“I have it!” Miss Abigail was saying to Luke. She was holding out her right hand, which was clenched, as if she held something.

Luke reached out to take whatever it was.

Miss Abigail pulled in her fist. “Follow me. You, too, Peggy.” Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared into the house.

Luke hesitated, then followed.

Peggy groaned to herself. She was vaguely curious about what Miss Abigail was holding, but once she let the house swallow
her up, she’d never make it back out for the afternoon. On the other hand, it would be rude not to follow, and Miss Abigail
was intimidating, even though Peggy could probably bench-press her. At least she could have at one time, when she was in better
shape.
I have got to start going to the gym,
she thought.

The den, when they arrived, was in a greater state of disarray than normal. The portraits on the walls hung at odd angles.
The fireplace mantel and the tables had been cleared, and the floor was littered with tarnished silver candlesticks, a ceramic
ashtray with a picture of a ship on it, a scattering of pennies, dozens of faded copies of
Life
magazine, and a needlepoint pillow that read: “Use it up / Wear it out / Make do / Do without.” Luke gaped. Peggy confirmed
her own suspicion that she, too, had her mouth open and closed it.

Miss Abigail seemed oblivious to the mess. Luke caught his great-aunt’s elbow before she could step squarely on top of the
May 1981
Life,
featuring Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat, and tried to guide her to a chair. As usual, she didn’t sit. Instead, she picked
her way with surprising steadiness to a tilted painting of a young woman whose oval face was framed with wings of dark hair.

“This is Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick, the wife of Silas’s favorite son, Josiah. Elizabeth bore Josiah five children, four of whom,
tragically, died. Elizabeth herself passed away giving birth to the fifth.”

“How awful.” Peggy tiptoed up to the painting and leveled it. Of all the portraits in all the museums she’d visited in her
life, it had not sunk in before that the people in them had once been real, flesh-and-blood human beings with lives and loves
and losses. She searched Elizabeth’s gently curved lips and placid eyes for a clue that this woman understood her fate and
was at peace with it. Luke, meanwhile, was stooped over, restacking the magazines mechanically, as if he’d sat through Miss
Abigail’s story a thousand times.

“That fifth child was Luke Silas Sedgwick. Our Luke, as you’re aware, is Luke Silas Sedgwick the Fourth.”

Peggy hadn’t been aware. She glanced at Luke, who was returning the magazines to their place on a low shelf.

“That makes Elizabeth your husband’s great-great-grandmother. This portrait was painted the year she was married. The brooch
she’s wearing was a wedding present from Josiah. Now it’s my wedding present to you.”

Miss Abigail opened her hand. On her palm gleamed a small, dome-shaped gold flower, with a single perfect pearl at the center.
It was indeed the same pin fastening the delicate lace cape that lay across Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick’s ivory shoulders.

Luke was paying attention now. His freckled, ruddy face was pale. “Abby, where in the world did you get that?”

With tears in her throat, Peggy touched the brooch longingly. What stories might it tell of the parties it had attended, the
women whose dresses it had adorned, all long departed through the coffin door. “It’s lovely,” she said, “but I can’t accept
it.”

Miss Abigail pressed the brooch into Peggy’s hand. “Nonsense. You’re a Sedgwick. That’s the end of the discussion.”

“Thank you. It means a great deal to me,” Peggy said sincerely.

“Then for goodness’ sake, young lady, put it on. Luke, help your wife.”

“I can do it myself.” The idea of forcing Luke to pin this precious family heirloom on her was more than Peggy could bear.
She caught his eye and held the gaze for a long beat, desperate to make him understand, to signal that she would return the
brooch to him and in no way felt it was rightfully hers.

But Miss Abigail was also staring at Luke in that intense way she had, leaving Luke no choice but to do her bidding. Peggy
slowly took off her jacket, and Luke leaned in, the back of his hand grazing her cheek. At his touch, Peggy felt her breath
catch. Luke fastened the brooch to her sweater. Could he hear her clamoring heartbeat? Could he see into her thoughts, know
she’d been reliving their moment on the make-believe Brooklyn Bridge? She stepped back hastily.

Miss Abigail regarded Peggy with suspiciously bright eyes. “It looks well on you, dear.”

She was a remarkable woman. Peggy couldn’t imagine how, at ninety-one, Miss Abigail could keep straight all those names and
dates and events. How sad must she be to watch the family die off, to be at the end of a breed of fragile dinosaurs?

On impulse, Peggy darted forward and wrapped her arms around Miss Abigail’s rigid body.
I’m sorry I won’t be giving you an heir,
she wanted to say.
I’m sorry we’re deceiving you. You have to believe it’s in everyone’s best interest. I want you to be safe as much as Luke
does.

Miss Abigail patted Peggy’s back awkwardly and retreated to a safe distance. “I’ll take my sherry now,” she announced, and
left to fix herself her nightly glass.

Peggy picked up a candlestick and replaced it on the mantel, then knelt and gathered up a fistful of pennies. “Where should
I put these?”

Luke laughed humorlessly. “In a sack. Then take the sack down to Seymour’s Hardware and tell them the Sedgwicks finally have
enough to get their roof replaced.” He turned back to the bookshelves. Peggy searched for a suitable coin container and settled
for the empty copper firewood caddy on the cold hearth. The pennies clanged to the bottom.

She brushed off her hands and got to her feet. “You can have the brooch back. As soon as our deal is up, I’ll return it, I
promise. I know it isn’t mine.”

Above her, dead Sedgwicks peered out from their frames. Peggy watched Luke return a silver cigar box to its place next to
the magazines. If only she knew what he was thinking.

“We should probably talk about the house,” she said, “and how we should go about selling it.” She lowered her voice so the
portraits of Luke’s ancestors wouldn’t overhear. “And what needs fixing before we do.”

“That’s easy, everything,” Luke began as Miss Abigail returned with her drink.

“What’s that, young man?”

“Never mind,” he said.

Miss Abigail sipped from her diminutive sherry glass.

“That brooch looks lovely,” she said to Peggy. “Almost as if it were made for you.”

“I have work to do.” Luke excused himself and left, his footsteps disappearing down the hall.

He didn’t appear the rest of the evening. At six, Peggy and Miss Abigail ate frozen beef potpies and peas together in the
kitchen, on the blue-and-white china, and Miss Abigail shared more tales of the Sedgwick ancestors—about two of her own older
brothers, Henry and George, who’d succumbed to influenza in 1918, the year she was born; and her oldest brother, Luke Silas
Sedgwick the Second, who was Luke’s grandfather. And about Luke’s father, the Third, known as Trip, who in midlife had married
Nan Woodruff, from an old Maine clan. The Sedgwick family had assumed the couple would have no children, until to everybody’s
surprise, including Trip and Nan’s, Nan had given birth to Luke at the shocking age of forty-seven.

“They’re both gone now.” Miss Abigail dabbed at her lips with a dinner napkin showing evidence of multiple mendings. “It’s
a pity. They would have been pleased Luke found you.”

Peggy wasn’t so sure. She speared a cube of beef with her fork. “Have you…Why did you not…?”
Get married,
was the ending of the question. She caught the look on Miss Abigail’s face and wished she hadn’t begun.

Miss Abigail’s eyes were blank. Her lower lip trembled. She held a forkful of peas halfway to her mouth. “Who are you?” A
few peas tumbled off her fork, bounced off her chipped plate, and rolled underneath the table. “What are you doing in my house?”

Peggy had just bitten into a piece of crust. It was dry and salty, and she had to force herself to chew and swallow, willing
the food not to get stuck in her suddenly unyielding throat. “I’m Peggy. Luke’s…wife.”

She flinched as Miss Abigail’s fork fell to the table with a nerve-shattering clatter.

“He’s dead!” Half howl and half shout, the cry filled the kitchen. Miss Abigail tried to lift herself out of her chair. Peggy
wasn’t sure whether to restrain her or help her up. She felt sure asking whom Miss Abigail was referring to—Silas Sedgwick?
Luke’s father?—was the wrong thing to do.

“Charles is dead!” Miss Abigail shrieked. “Gone!”

What had Peggy said? The anxiety dug its bony fingers into Peggy’s lungs, wringing them, twisting them, making each gulp of
air an exercise in mind over matter.
Breathe, Peggy. Breathe.
“I’m going to get Luke. Please, just stay in your chair. Okay?”

Miss Abigail gazed ahead vacantly, but at least she didn’t move.

“Don’t leave. I promise to be right back.” Peggy walked calmly from the kitchen, breaking into a run the second she was out
of Miss Abigail’s view. She tore down the hall toward the front staircase and had just about made it into the front entryway
when she slipped on a bare spot of wood, lost her footing, and fell with a crash. Pain shot through her right leg, but she
ignored it, picked herself up, and sprinted up the stairs.

The tea had served its intended purpose. After finishing it, Abby had agreed to change into her nightclothes, ordering Luke
out of her room. He took the cup and saucer downstairs to the kitchen, which was otherwise spotless; Peggy must have done
the dishes and cleaned up Abby’s mess. By the time he’d gotten to his great-aunt’s side, Abigail had managed to spill most
of her food and knock over her drinking glass, and water had been cascading off the edge of the table onto the floor below.

When he returned to Abby’s room, she was in bed, snoring gently under a blue-striped Hudson’s Bay blanket Luke remembered
from his childhood as the roof to many a rainy summer Saturday fort. He tucked the blanket around Abby’s shoulders as Quibble
jumped onto the bed and prowled it silently, a black shadow with a tail arched into a question mark.

Luke lined up Abby’s slippers at the end of her bed, where she would find them in the morning, and crept out of the room,
leaving the door open a crack and turning on the hall light. He climbed the back stairs to the third floor, hoping to catch
Peggy in her room, but the door was closed. After he knocked and she didn’t answer, he opened the door cautiously. All he
found inside was the barest whisper of her flower-and-fruit fragrance. He stood still, trying to capture the scent in his
nostrils, to take apart its components and decipher its mysteries, then shut the door with a soft click and went downstairs.

Peggy was in the den, her back toward the door, her face inches from the portrait of Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick as if she were
memorizing every paint crackle. Luke coughed, and she spun around, her left hand flying to the brooch on her sweater as if
to check that it was still there. The diamond sparkled on her fourth finger. It was almost too much to bear, the sight of
another man’s engaged-to-be-engaged ring covering the wedding present Abigail had given Peggy in good faith. “You’re a Sedgwick,”
his great-aunt had declared, and he’d had to turn away; Peggy might not be a real Sedgwick, but just then, wearing that brooch,
she’d looked like a Sedgwick, and the image had been a shock. It made no sense to him that he could simultaneously rail against
his heritage and be so taken by the way this woman seemed, through no conscious effort of her own, to embody it.

Peggy moved back from the portrait. “Is Miss Abigail all right?”

“She’s fine. I made her chamomile tea.” He didn’t add that he had fortified it with a healthy shot of sherry. “She can get
like that when she’s overtired or overexcited. It upsets her when it happens. She thinks it’s undignified.”

“But she can’t help it,” Peggy said. “She’s ninety-one. No one expects her to keep up appearances every minute of the day.”

She expects it of herself,” Luke told her. “Keeping up appearances is what Sedgwicks do.”

Peggy dropped into a chair now free of the items Abby had spread throughout the room. Luke realized Peggy must have cleared
those, too, and put back the remaining books and trinkets. For the first time, he was thankful to have someone else helping
him look after his great-aunt, even if Peggy was here only because she knew eventually she’d be compensated for it. She must
be as desperate for money as he was.