Sybil at Sixteen

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  “Then Nicky would have favored Robby,” Claire said. “That was the way he operated.”

  “Old resentments die hard,” Thea declared.

  “Yes they do,” Claire said.

  “We all had a different Nicky,” Sybil said. “I thought about that a lot, especially the last couple of years. Megs was pretty much the same for all of us, even you, Claire. But Nicky was a different person for each one of us. Maybe because we each had our best view of him at different spots in his life. Not ours, but his. I never knew him as well as I did the day he died, and you didn’t really know him at all then, Evvie.”

  “I didn’t know anything or anyone then,” Evvie replied. “I was so confused about so many things.”

  “I knew Nicky,” Thea said. “He never changed for me.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Sybil replied. “Nicky changed enormously after my accident. We all did, but Nicky changed the most. It isn’t that I knew him the best, that I had the single best view of him. Just that the Nicky I knew was the one who was changed by my accident, and the Nicky you knew was the romantic, and the Nicky Claire knew, well, I shudder to think about that one, and the Nicky Evvie knew was the ambitious and loving family man. Do you know what I mean? Am I making sense?”

  Claire nodded. “You’re making sense,” she declared. “After all, Megs knew a completely different Nicky. She fell in love with him when she was sixteen, and no matter what happened, that was the Nicky she knew.”

  “It isn’t like that with Sam and me,” Evvie said. “We grow, we change. We just do it together.”

  “You and Sam aren’t Nicky and Megs,” Sybil replied. “The only thing you have in common is that you fell in love at sixteen.”

  “That’s not the only thing,” Evvie said. “But I guess the differences are more relevant than the similarities.”

  “You even sound like a psychologist,” Claire said.

  “Have you been in therapy?” Thea asked.

  “Moi?” Claire replied, raising her eyebrows in mock horror. “Perfect me?”

  “What’s the matter?” Thea asked. “Afraid it would lower your cheekbones?”

  Claire shook her head. “There was a moment,” she said. “Right after that ridiculous elopement business. We were back in Missouri, Megs and I, while Nicky was staying on in Portland with you, Sybs, and I was feeling really very wounded. Megs wouldn’t talk to me about what I’d done, and frankly, I wanted some kind of reaction from her. Approval, rage, I almost didn’t care, just as long as she would acknowledge it. Which, of course, she couldn’t, because to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge that I was stronger than Nicky, that I had taken on his responsibilities.”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” Evvie said.

  “Maybe not,” Claire replied. “But it seemed that way to me. So I was hurting. And I was feeling bad about the elopement itself, what I’d done to Scotty, what he’d done to me for that matter. I was only sixteen. At the time I felt like I was thirty. Nicky knew that. He even told me how young I was, but I didn’t believe him. Look what I’d just pulled off. Getting all that money from his father.”

  “What’s the point?” Thea asked. “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not my favorite topic, that elopement. I was involved too, you know. I was used.”

  “You weren’t even there,” Claire pointed out. “You had to be told about it.”

  “Exactly,” Thea said. “I had to be. Do you think Scotty would have gone along with your grand scheme if he hadn’t been in love with me?”

  “It was seven years ago,” Sybil said. “Do we have to fight about it today?”

  “I’m sorry,” Thea said, and she managed a smile. “Some battle wounds don’t heal.”

  “I think that’s my point,” Claire said. “You were the one who asked me about therapy, after all.”

  “I’m sorry I ever did,” Thea said. “Can we change the subject now?”

  “No,” Evvie said. “Let Claire finish. Neither one of you has ever been any good at that, letting the other one finish.”

  Claire shrugged. “It isn’t important,” she said. “Just that I decided then I could either be whiny and miserable like Thea, or I could accept who I was and what my life had been and go on from there. Which I did. So no, I’m not in therapy, never have been, never will be. No insult intended, Evvie, I’m sure you’ll be brilliant at it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Evvie said. “But I’ll give it my best shot.”

  Sybil looked at her sisters and laughed. “Why is it we love each other so much and whenever we get together, we want to kill each other?”

  “That isn’t true,” Thea said. “Sure, Claire and I have our moments, but otherwise we all get along just fine.”

  “I seem to remember a certain moment at my graduation,” Sybil said. “Just six weeks ago. A battle royal between you and Evvie.”

  “The twins were too young to be weaned,” Thea said. “That’s all. I am going to be a pediatrician, after all. I would have thought Evvie would be happy to benefit from my experiences.”

  “You experience nursing twins and working on your thesis simultaneously,” Evvie said. “Then come back to me with your profound advice.”

  “They’re going at it again,” Claire said. “Good move, Sybil.”

  “I was just making a point,” Sybil said. “Not trying to start World War Three.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thea said. “It’s this damn wedding.”

  “Ah,” Claire said. “The truth comes out.”

  “Will you listen for just once,” Thea said. “I know I should be happy for Megs, getting married again. But inside of me, there’s a part that’s just dying. It’s been like that since she told us, which, if you remember correctly, was at Sybil’s graduation. That was when I started picking fights with all of you. And that was when you were all more than willing to fight right back.”

  Evvie nodded. “He’s a good man,” she said. “And it’s obvious how much he loves her.”

  “But does she love him?” Claire asked.

  “Does it matter?” Evvie asked.

  “Of course it does,” Thea said. “Megs is still a young woman. She shouldn’t settle, the way Claire seems to be willing to.”

  “Potshot, Thea,” Claire said. “Not really called for.”

  Thea ignored her. “I want to be happy for Megs,” she said. “The wedding’s tomorrow, for God’s sake. It’s just, do you remember that night when Clark brought over the videotape?”

  “Thea,” Claire said. “Drop it.”

  “I can’t,” Thea replied. “I think about it a lot. How many people get to see the moment when their parents met? The moment when they fell in love.”

  “They didn’t fall in love just at that instant,” Claire said.

  “They didn’t?” Thea said. “Then you didn’t see the same videotape I did.”

  “They did,” Sybil said. “I know they did, and what’s more important, they know they did. But what difference does that make? You can’t possibly want Megs to stop her life at that moment, Thea. Of all of us, you know the most about loss and the need to go on.”

  Claire smiled. Thea didn’t seem to notice.

  “We all want Megs to be happy,” Evvie declared. “We just have different images of how that should be.”

  “Do you like the idea of this marriage?” Thea asked her. “Honestly now.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Evvie replied. “Sometimes I’m very happy for her. Sometimes I think about Nicky, and I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel like she’s betraying him. If their love was so perfect then how can she be marrying someone else?”

  “Would you ever remarry, if Sam died?” Sybil asked.

  “I can’t even think about that,” Evvie said. “It panics me. Isn’t that ridiculous? Levelheaded Evvie, in a state of total terror.”

  “I’m happy for her,” Sybil said. “I think it’s really nice she’s getting married.”

  “You have a vested interest,” Thea declare
d. “Megs moves out of this house, and you move right in. Your very own Beacon Hill mansion. At least until there’s a legitimate Christian grandson.”

  “That’s not fair,” Claire said. “This house is available to all of us. Sybil’s just going to be going to graduate school here, that’s all.”

  “That isn’t all, and we all know it,” Thea said. “We know what Sybil was willing to do to keep this house.”

  “My,” Claire said. “We are in an ugly mood today.”

  “We have our share of ugly truths,” Thea said.

  “She was sixteen,” Claire said. “Just. And you know the kind of pressure Nicky could assert. Besides, whatever happened was between Sybil and Evvie and Sam, and if they can all handle it, I don’t see why it should bother you.”

  “I hate this house,” Evvie said. “Megs offered it to Sam and me when I was expecting, and I’m so glad I turned her down. It does ugly things to us to be here. Sybil may think of it as home and she’s welcome to it as far as I’m concerned, but it’s a cruel house, and it makes us all say and think cruel things.”

  Thea started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sybil, I know it wasn’t your fault. It’s just I associate that business, your birthday, all of it, with Nicky’s dying, and now Megs is getting remarried, and somehow that makes it feel like Nicky really is dead. Is that dumb? It’s been five years, but I still have dreams that he’s alive, that it’s all been a scheme of his, and he and Megs are just waiting, the way they waited all those years ago, when Aunt Grace wouldn’t let them get married. It’s like when Megs gets married tomorrow, we’re really burying Nicky, and that hurts so much.”

  “I didn’t believe he was dead until we scattered the ashes,” Claire said. “When was that, a year after he died? Scattering them in the ocean at Eastgate. I could feel him then, so intensely, what he was and what he wanted to be, and then for the first time ever I guess, I felt at peace about him, and I felt he was at peace too. I know you think I didn’t love Nicky, but in some ways I loved him more than any of you.” She paused for a moment. “And in some ways, not,” she declared. “No point getting too maudlin.”

  “I wish Megs would come downstairs already,” Evvie said. “Clark is coming over in an hour or so, and we have a lot of things to do this evening.”

  “Let her stay up there as long as she wants,” Thea said. “The longer she stays there the less it feels like she’s getting married tomorrow.”

  “She needs the time alone,” Sybil said. “She’s burying a few of her own ghosts this afternoon.”

  The sisters were silent for a moment, then Thea changed the subject.

  “Do you really think you’ll be happy here?” she asked Sybil. “Megs can rent out the house, you know, and you could get an apartment, or live in university housing. You don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to,” Sybil said. “I’ve wanted to since the moment we first moved here. Evvie may hate this house, but it’s where I feel strongest. It’s funny. I even walk better here.”

  “It’s all yours, as far as I’m concerned,” Claire said. “I promise if I marry Schyler or what’s his name, Donald, I won’t reproduce.”

  “I wish I had time to,” Thea said. “I wish I had time to sneeze. They run you ragged when you’re an intern.”

  “And you love it,” Evvie said. “Admit it, Thea.”

  “I love it,” Thea said. “And I love all of you, my lousy mood notwithstanding. I even love Clark. What’s he going to think if the bride to be is hiding in the attic reading old love letters when he comes in?”

  “I doubt he’ll be surprised,” Evvie said. “Clark doesn’t have any illusions.”

  “Clark is nothing but illusions,” Sybil said. “He even thinks we’re wonderful.”

  Claire laughed.

  “You too,” Sybil said. “He had your first Vogue cover framed, and gave it to Megs. I thought that was a wonderful thing for him to do.”

  “I’ll be nice to the old goat today, I promise,” Claire said. “Sybil, you absolutely have to straighten out this room. I cannot bear to see such chaos.”

  “Help me, then,” Sybil said.

  “We all will,” Evvie said. “Come on, Thea. Let’s show some family unity here.”

  Thea nodded. “Family unity,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”

  The sisters threw Sybil’s things around, trying to make some order out of the mess. They worked mostly in silence, and could hear the sounds of their mother in the attic, moving boxes, pausing to examine things.

  “Margaret Winslow Sebastian,” Evvie said suddenly. “I guess today she’s putting that name to rest as well.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What a dump,” Margaret Winslow whispered, and then, as she was in the habit of doing at her aunt Grace’s home, she looked around to confirm no one had heard her.

  Not that there were spies listening to her every word. Far from it. As far as Meg could see, no one cared a whit what she said, or why she said it. But there was so much Aunt Grace disapproved of, and calling perfectly lovely places dumps would probably rank high on her list.

  Meg examined her bedroom at Aunt Grace’s summer cottage in Eastgate. It was, she knew, a perfect room. One window overlooked the gardens, the other window showed the ocean. Aunt Grace had had the room redecorated three years ago when Meg had officially moved in with her, and given Aunt Grace’s rather peculiar attitudes toward what young girls liked, she had done a fine job. Or the decorator had, and Aunt Grace hadn’t cared enough to argue. The walls were powder-blue, the woodwork a gleaming white, and there was even a canopy bed. The first time Meg had seen that bed, she’d burst into tears, and that had precipitated one of those dreaded confrontations between her and her aunt.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Aunt Grace had demanded, not unreasonably, Meg knew then and now.

  “It reminds me of the one I used to have,” Meg wept.

  That turned out not to be an adequate enough reason to get rid of it, so the canopy, and for that matter, Meg, remained. In three years’ time, Meg had learned to like the bed. She liked the room too, she supposed, at least as much as any other room she’d stayed in since her parents’ deaths.

  Meg sighed deeply, and looked through the window toward the ocean. It was her sixteenth birthday, and she knew she shouldn’t be spending it thinking about her parents. There was no point thinking about them anyway; dead was dead and they would never come back and rescue her. The thought made her smile. Before her parents had died, her favorite book had been A Little Princess. In there, the orphan truly needed rescuing. Only by Meg’s own lonely standards, could she claim to be so burdened.

  Birthdays, Meg realized suddenly, were the worst, the absolute worst. She’d been unhappy the entire week, without being able to figure out why, and now the truth was staring right at her. She hated her birthday. When her parents were alive, her birthdays were splendid, filled with festivities, and presents, and sweets. There were at least twenty children at her party, and for weeks, she and her mother would conspire about all the details, going shopping for new dresses for both of them, having endless discussions with the cook about just how the birthday cake should be decorated, debating which lucky children should be invited, and which should be left out. Her birthday plans had been fun, and the days themselves were never anticlimactic. She could still remember the morning she woke up to find the four-foot-high doll-house in her bedroom, with real electricity, and the most cunning furniture: a Queen Anne style dining room, and a perfect Victorian parlor, which, now that she thought about it, bore a strong resemblance to Aunt Grace’s Beacon Hill parlor. Had the furniture been commissioned to match? She would never know, since with her parents’ deaths, the dollhouse, like so much else of their lives, vanished, sold or put away in storage, or given to some cousin or other, to help pay off her father’s debts. Not for the first time, Meg was uncomfortably aware of how similar the words death and debt were.

  But that do
llhouse! It had simply materialized in her room that day. She woke up to find it there. How had her parents managed that? It seemed magical to her then, and now as well, now that she lived with Aunt Grace, whose every footstep seemed to thunder through the houses she owned.

  Meg turned away from the ocean and tried to remind herself how fortunate she was. When her parents had died, she’d been left with nothing. Her parents, Aunt Grace had explained to Meg on more than one occasion, thought the sole function of money was to spend it. Meg couldn’t see what else one was supposed to do with it, but she was always too frightened to challenge Aunt Grace on that, or any other subject. What few assets did remain, though, Aunt Grace, and Uncle Marcus, Aunt Grace’s younger brother, managed to save and invest, and turn into what was always referred to as a “small” trust fund for Meg. How small Meg was never sure, but she assumed it was very small indeed.

  “You are fortunate you have family to provide for you,” Aunt Grace had declared at the funeral. That was the only real memory Meg had of the funeral, that, and the strange feeling she had because such an important dress had been bought for her without the help of her mother. It couldn’t have been easy to find a black dress for an eleven-year-old. It was velvet, Meg remembered, and hot in the early-fall weather. It had a white lace collar, but so many ladies had bent down to kiss her that the collar ended up permanently stained with lipstick and powder, and the dress had been given to the poor. They were welcome to it.

  Meg tried to remember if her eleventh birthday had been her most perfect one, but it didn’t seem any better than any of the others she could remember. The dress, the cake, the party, the gifts, nothing stood out at the time or now. A week later, she and her parents had taken the Queen Mary to England, and spent the summer traveling around Europe. She remembered Switzerland the most fondly, but she’d always loved Switzerland. They’d spent a winter there, when she was younger, and it was a magical country. Meg had flown home alone, to start the school year at Miss Arnold’s School, which she had begun attending the year before, and her parents had flown to Kenya for a safari. It was in Kenya that their plane had crashed, a small chartered airplane, whose pilot had made a fatal miscalculation. The communication system was so primitive that Meg’s parents had been dead for almost a week before anybody knew. Their bodies, Uncle Marcus had explained to her, had been destroyed so badly that cremation was the only proper thing to do. Meg supposed the bodies had burned, but possibly the heat had swollen them, or animals had eaten them. No one told her, and the choice of nightmares kept her awake for many, many nights thereafter.