The Angry Woman Suite (42 page)

And then my world not only went still, it went incomprehensible and impossibly heavy—and I let it go.

What choice did I have? I lay flattened against that porch floor, breath sucked out of me, because somehow the last play of this round had ended on the worst possible note. The master had gotten all his pawns in place first. And I’d lost my Bean—Bean, trying to protect Stella from Lothian, had shot Lothian with a gun from Grayson House. And then she’d shot herself so that Daddy wouldn’t be mad at her for being bad, for leaving doors open, for being ungrateful, for being unloving.

The war was almost lost. Nothing left. Nothing but the dregs of a day followed by another useless day, and then another, and so on for the rest of my life without Bean.

***

Aidan thought I didn’t know. He thought maybe I’d forgotten, like I had amnesia or something, because I didn’t talk about it.

He was half right. I’d taken a page from Bean’s play book. I wouldn’t talk again—ever.

Sometimes, when the light was just so, I imagined Magdalene sitting in the rocker at the side of my bed. I imagined I was in a room on the ground floor of Grayson House. A room lined with shelves, like a pantry might be, but now furnished with a bed and rocker, and a wing chair where I imagined Aidan sitting. And then I’d remember more, realizing neither Magdalene nor Aidan could really be in a pantry with me, because something horrible had happened. Something horrible had happened to everyone—and then I’d close my eyes and drift away.

One time, though, when the light was particularly right, I
did
see Magdalene and I heard her talking to Aidan and I even understood what they were saying to each other.

Aidan had just asked, “How much do you think she knows?”

And Magdalene replied, “She knows. But she doesn’t want to know. She saw everything.”

Papa confirmed it.
“Liebling.”

I’d been out of bed for a week, in the rocker, rocking for hours.

“Never been on a plane before.
Am erstaunlichsten!”
He set his hat on the bed, then kissed my forehead. “Now, Elyse, listen. I must tell you a story …”

I had to listen. I’d always listened to Papa.

“The world is rarely a safe place …”

And then, just like that, I
wanted
to talk. Because I had to tell Papa I’d
tried
saving Bean. I’d
always
tried making Bean feel safe. But Papa’s lips kept moving, not giving me time to speak, even as I couldn’t comprehend just how fiercely Bean had used silence her whole life. As a wall, as a weapon—or how, when she saw Stella’s throat getting cut, Bean had instinctively fired that gun. Then looking to see that I was safe, and believing Stella dead, she’d raised the gun to her head and left a world she’d never understood.

I couldn’t deal with it. But more than that, I’d no intention of even trying. Who cared? Bean was gone.

And I never did deal with the fact that Mother
hadn’t
come to Pennsylvania with Papa, that she’d let me down again.

But I
did,
eventually, start talking.

Over the next week or so, more of the story was told to me gently, at odd times, sometimes by Aidan, sometimes by Magdalene, sometimes by Papa, all of them the tenderest of storytellers. They told me Stella would recover. And when I was ready I could take flowers to the hospital.

It was pruning shears that an enraged Lothian had ripped from her pocket and attempted to plunge into Stella’s throat—and
would’ve
succeeded in killing Stella had Bean not shot at Lothian first. I couldn’t comprehend the other, though: how Magdalene could watch a sister die, even considering that Lothian hadn’t been the nicest person in the world, and then go on about everyday life,
like normal,
while my sister had also died and I could scarcely breathe without my insides feeling scalded.

And I couldn’t find things: my hairbrush, the radio, a pencil, the book I was reading—nothing looked right anymore. I walked into all the wrong rooms all the time, and I couldn’t find my way out of them. I was and always will be lost without Bean.

***

I’d begun a recovery of sorts by reading the history books I found in the Grayson House library, seeking connection with miseries before mine. And after awhile, with some connections made, I asked Papa to accompany me to Washington’s Headquarters and on walks alongside the Brandywine, where the battle had been fought. I
made
myself become engrossed in the Battle of Brandywine. I made myself do all kinds of things to keep from thinking of Bean.

The Brandywine River, also called the Brandywine Creek (also called the Christina River), was about 150 feet across, and ran fast in places. The side of the river where Papa and I walked was meadow, and below us rough woodland banks where the Revolutionary War-era Americans had waited for the British in a miles-long defense formation concentrated at fords crossing the river, but mostly at Chadds Ford.

Papa didn’t press conversation. And as I examined the area, I pushed my old life farther back into the compartment I’d erected for it, next to the compartment where I’d stored Stephen Eric, and I imagined horses and bayonets instead of Bean and Morningstar Street. I heard the rustle of leaves and broken branches, the fifes and the drums, and then screams. I saw bloodshed.

But, then, because I was a game player from way back, I couldn’t help returning to the big thing, because, you know, there’s always
one
particular thing that carries the biggest weight in winning or losing a game, besides skill and luck, that is. And all those elements making up that
one
particular thing must be considered
before
even thinking of sitting down to a game table.

So I kept thinking of the British
having
to cross the Brandywine if they intended taking Philadelphia, and the Americans having to know that they
had
to stop the British at the river first. It was
very
big, this particular thing. Huge, actually.

But hindsight is ridiculously untimely, as everyone knows. Still, I also kept thinking that while it hadn’t been easy getting up or down or around at either end of the Brandywine (even though it wasn’t as if the river started in Canada), if you absolutely
had
to stop somebody from crossing over to your side of a river, because the whole outcome of the game rested on making sure your opponent
didn’t
cross, well, wouldn’t you make it a point to find
every
single ford on that river? Crossings you’d assume your opponent would also be looking for? And then block those fords? So that your opponent
couldn’t
cross? Wouldn’t you?

But.

I reminded myself that chance is still a major factor in any game. And George Washington had lost his when his scout had failed to report the British flanking army marching across the fords of the Brandywine
way
far to the north of Chadds Ford.

But, still … how could George Washington have been so careless as to not have made sure
every
single ford on the Brandywine had been accounted for and guarded? Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he sent out a
dozen
scouts? Two dozen? Why just one scout?

Instead of being pissed at Lothian for taking Bean from me, or Mother or Daddy for being so crazy-weird in the first place, I got pissed at George Washington.
Washington.
And that’s what pulled me away from my grief: getting pissed at Washington for losing the battle by missing the setup. And that’s also when I decided to claim my own independence, at Chadds Ford as Washington had
not.
But to accomplish this I had a lot of work to do, because the only way I could win a game started years before me was to learn everything about the terrain, as Washington
should’ve
done.

And then outmaneuver, like the British
did
do.

When Aidan got wind I was more interested in talking about Brandywine country than I was in talking about Bean dying, I’d have bet his sigh of relief was heard all the way into the next county. He insisted on escorting me and Papa around the battleground, where we spent several hours getting lectured to, until Papa finally managed to get this in edgewise, “Getting so beat up on the Brandywine makes me wonder how the Americans ever won this war.”

“Takes lots of battles to win a war,” Aidan said, in such a way that I knew he’d said that same thing countless times before.

I decided then was as good a time as any to call
my
game.

I started off with, “I’ve been thinking—” and both men fixed me with expressions so expectant it was obvious they were sure this was
it.
What they’d been hoping against; that I would now commence having a
total
breakdown.

“About Washington holding himself back,” I surprised them. “I’ve been thinking Washington was probably pretty much like a lot of us. He had a tendency to want to hurry things along. But I’ve been thinking that squashing that instinct of his might’ve also been Washington’s greatest strength. Because here’s the thing: Washington
purposely
didn’t
pitch for a major battle against the enemy. Wait, Aidan, let me finish. You’ve got to admit Washington
was
a little careless with the Brandywine.”

I bore Aidan and Papa’s looks of amazement with equanimity.

“Well,” Aidan finally said. “That’s definitely one point of view, although not a new one.”

“I know it’s not new.”

But Papa kept staring, and I knew he was trying to see straight through me, onto my true intent.

“We’ve got quite the budding historian on our hands,” Aidan said to Papa, who nodded.

I decided to clue Papa in a little. I gave him a certain look.

“Wars are like games, don’t you think, Papa? Except wars are the most
serious
kind of game. And the Revolutionary War was our greatest war ever, in the sense that we won our independence and became a real country. So, because you and I’ve always liked games, Papa, I’ve been thinking about how this war got won despite so many battles lost.” I paused, knowing the length of the pause would help Papa get my drift.

“In order to win this war, Papa, all Washington basically had to do was
check himself
—” I saw the sudden gleam in Papa’s eye, and I went on, “So Washington had to be patient, and while being patient he also had to—”

“Outlast
him,”
Papa whispered.

Papa was just too brilliant for words.

“Exactly,” I breathed. “Washington didn’t wear himself so thin that he couldn’t keep moving. He paced himself. He kept himself mentally together. He got centered. But he allowed his opponent, the British, to pitch their fights and run through
their
men and resources until they’d run
themselves
right into the ground. And, basically, that’s how Washington moved to the front and won the war.”

“True,” Aidan concurred. “Washington did win by outlasting his enemy.”

“The checkmate,” Papa said softly. “Washington was the last big thing left standing.”

“That he was, Papa. He was the checkmate.”

Papa gave me free rein while I explored the grounds of Grayson House. Every day I walked down one side of the long driveway, then turned left onto the road at the bottom of Grayson Hill and crossed over to where there was a nice flat boulder on the other side, on the shoulder of the road—and I could actually see the house from there. So that’s where I sat and thought and studied the huge house above me, using binoculars, its comings and goings; all those things nobody thought I’d care enough to notice. And my anger grew as I watched, and I gave it permission because Papa had told me that anger is pain’s bandage. It took everything I had to
not
tip my hand, to
not
run screaming back up Grayson Hill to tell everybody on every single floor, in every single room of Grayson House, just how really ticked I was getting. And to hurl blame. I wanted to hurl in the worst way.

But blame had always been part of my daddy’s unraveling, so I had to avoid it.

When I grew restless watching, I walked back across the road and up the other side of the driveway, back inside Grayson House, where I went through the rest of the drill. Eyes averted from the prize, I’d admire the elaborate wainscoting in the biggest living room, what Magdalene called a parlor, running my fingers over its delicate carvings, around the entire periphery of the room. Then I’d examine the cornices and built-in cabinets, and the odd books and intricately patterned rugs, and then the old, elaborate furniture. Until, finally—and this was the prize I held out for—I came face to face with the portrait of Magdalene hanging front and center in the room. I considered the portrait a bit of a puzzle because Magdalene’s beautiful pale eyes looked expectant, as if she were watching for someone.

For whom, or what, did Magdalene wait?

I examined the river in the painting’s backdrop, believing it to be the Brandywine. What other river could there be in Brandywine country? It circled Magdalene’s head like a halo—and farther behind her, on the opposite riverbank, was that merest outline of a boy, maybe a man.

I’d stare at the portrait for the longest time and wonder at Matthew Waterston’s intent, melding Magdalene’s stubborn chin and secret smile with that mysterious male—
what
was his
significance?
—and the hideous dark clouds just past the river’s start. I’d turn to the left, to the right, admiring the synchronicity of light and shadow, of beautiful and ugly.

“Somewhere in the center,” Aidan said one day, coming up from behind me, “is the balance. It’s around the eyes, don’t you think?”

He’d startled me. “But she’s supposed to look angry,” I protested. “Even though it’s Magdalene, it’s
still
a Matthew Waterston Angry Woman, so why doesn’t Magdalene look angry?”

Aidan gazed at the painting. “Maybe because it’s the only painting of the suite that’s not representative of a very bad union—maybe it’s about renewal, maybe peace.”

I took the plunge. “Gordon LaFitte … I want to know everything about him.”

Aidan hesitated. “An art expert. Probably not all bad. Got in over his head. Easy enough to do with Lothian.”