Fiona Range

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “At the time I thought she was afraid she was affecting my life in some negative way. She’d get so nervous around me.”

  “She’s always been that way with changes in her life,” Fiona said. “Big events were the worst. It got so with Ginny’s wedding they’d just tell Lizzie when and where to show up. The worst was our high school graduation party. She spent most of the night in her room, asleep from all the Xanax she’d taken.”

  He sighed, “Well, be that as it may, the light bulb has finally come on in this mush head here. The real reason Elizabeth left New York was to get away from me. Because she couldn’t bring herself to say she didn’t love me. Elizabeth can’t bear hurting anyone. But then you probably know that better than anyone.”

  Fiona had been nodding. It might be true. Elizabeth had gone to New York without ever actually breaking up with George. The relationship had just faded away, and she might have hoped the same thing would happen with Rudy.

  “Yah, well, like I said, it’s big events, all the pressure. She just goes to pieces.”

  “I think she feels stuck, trapped with me here, so now she’s taken to just avoiding me,” he said with a shrug of resignation.

  Once again Fiona found herself trying to explain her cousin’s emotional tailspins over the years. “A lot of that may be making you think she doesn’t want you here. Her own anxiety. She’d probably be shocked to know we were even having this conversation.” She paused, watching him finish his coffee. “Have you said these things to her?”

  “I’ve tried, but she doesn’t want to hear it.”

  She wasn’t surprised. Poor Rudy, drawn here by Elizabeth’s genuine goodness, was now hostage to it. “So what are you going to do?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.” He tried to laugh, but it splintered into a painful sputter.

  “Well then, maybe you should go back to New York. Let her come to terms with her real feelings without having to feel so . . . so obligated,” she said, wincing. She didn’t want to hurt him.

  “I’ve considered that. Unfortunately I have a year’s contract with the hospital. Jesus.” He sighed, slapping the table softly. “I feel like such a fool.” He leaned across the table and said in a low voice, “I know you’re not going to believe this, but I’m probably one of the biggest losers you’ve ever met.”

  “You are not!” she said, surprised, then laughed when she saw him smile.

  Off to the side the door opened and she was aware of three women entering. She still did not look their way, though she heard a faint gasp as one of them loomed over the table, her narrow chest heaving as she pointed in Fiona’s face.

  “You slut,” she spat. “You disgusting pig, you slut you!” Krissy Glidden was still saying as her mother and sister managed to pull her back out the door.

  Unable to move, Fiona sat with her eyes closed and her hand covering her mouth.

  “Fiona?” Rudy said as the door opened and closed again and footsteps moved to the table.

  “How can you just sit there? You should be so ashamed of yourself, Fiona Range,” hissed Mrs. Soule, Krissy’s mother, who had been her Girl Scout troop leader in third grade. “So very, very ashamed for what you’ve done! Do you have any idea how much unhappiness you’ve caused? How many lives you’ve—”

  “Excuse me,” Rudy interrupted quietly. “But this is no place to—”

  “Krissy’s right. You are disgusting!” Mrs. Soule declared before hurrying outside.

  Fiona still hadn’t opened her eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Rudy kept saying. “Come on, Fiona, stand up now. Let’s go.”

  It was two-thirty in the afternoon and Rudy was still with her. He offered to stay longer, but she insisted she was fine. She’d taken up enough of his time. Time was something he had plenty of, he said. She was relieved when he finally got up and went to the door. Unaccustomed to so much attention anyway, she found his hyperkinetic energy completely draining. He had left the apartment twice, once for Tylenol at the drugstore, and the second time to get them both pizza.

  “I’ll call in a while to see how you’re doing,” he said, his hand on the knob.

  “You don’t have to call. I’m fine,” she said from the sofa where she sat shawled in blankets he’d taken from her bed. “Really!”

  “You sure now?”

  “Yes!” She couldn’t hide her exasperation with him, with everyone. Mrs. Soule had been right. She was ashamed, and now she was angry.

  “Well just so long as you don’t dwell on it,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said, remembering what Patrick had said about Vietnam. It had happened. But it was over now and she wasn’t going to keep smelling it and tasting it all the time.

  “Good then,” he said with a sharp nod. “Because from everything you’ve said it seems pretty obvious you were the one taken advantage of—not him.”

  “I know. That’s what you said before.”

  “Well, just don’t dwell on it, that’s all.”

  “I’m not, but you are.”

  His hand fell from the door. “It’s just that I hated seeing you so . . . so humiliated like that.” He walked back to the sofa and stood over her. “I know how painful that can be.”

  “Yah, but what you don’t know is how resilient I can be.”

  “If that’s what it is,” he said, looking so concerned that she laughed.

  “Of course that’s what it is! I’m the queen of second chances. Everyone knows that.”

  “Kind of like your high threshold for pain. Is that what you mean?” he asked with an indulgent smile.

  “Like I’m some kind of worm? One part breaks off, I grow another, no big deal? No! I just know I can’t be afraid to live in my own life, that’s all. I mean, it’s the only one I’m going to get, right? So I better not be afraid to take a few chances in it. And if I screw up, then guess what?” Her voice dropped. “It’s not the end of world,” she whispered, thinking of Patrick now. Forcing herself into his life was the best thing she had ever done for herself. And if there were bumps along the way, then so be it.

  Rudy stared at her, nodding. “You know something, you’re right! You’re absolutely right! This is ridiculous! I’m just going to come right out with it. Yes! That’s what I’m going to do! Just insist that we get it all out on the table once and for all.” He looked at her. “But then I don’t want to be too hard on her right now either. She’s been in such a fragile state lately.”

  “What are you afraid of, Rudy?” Fiona asked, saying his name for the first time. “You don’t think Elizabeth’s going to go to pieces on you, that she’ll flip out or something?” She wondered if he thought all women were as emotionally precarious as his mother.

  “I don’t know.” He looked genuinely perplexed.

  “Well take my word for it, she won’t.”

  “Fiona.” He sat back down on the chair. “Would you do me a favor? Would you talk to her? I just don’t want to force anything on her right now. I think it’s me. I think I just keep making things worse.”

  Elizabeth’s long dress hung in deep folds from her bony shoulders. With every breath, her clavicle ridged up against the cloth like some mechanical appurtenance about to come loose. Her narrow mouth and fine features appeared oddly sharp in the harsh light of the early-afternoon sun. They were sitting in the TV room. A fire burned in the small corner fireplace, and from time to time puffs of smoke blew back into the room. A cold wind had begun to sway the bare trees and rattle the old farmhouse windows. The first significant snowfall of the season was expected tonight. It would be nice to spend a night at home again, Fiona thought. They would make popcorn, each huddled under his own afghan, watch old movies while Uncle Charles dozed in his chair, his eyes opening wide with feigned astonishment every time Aunt Arlene, her needle slipping in and out of the bright canvas, suggested he go up to bed.

  He was downtown now, doing his Saturday errands, the greater part of which was always lunch at Hegman’s D
iner with three or four old friends. Aunt Arlene was on a stepladder in the dining room, hanging the new, white curtains she had been ironing when Fiona arrived. Fiona asked if Aunt Arlene was getting the house ready for September.

  “For September?” Elizabeth asked with a vague look around.

  “The wedding,” Fiona said. “Remember how with Ginny’s everything had to be cleaned and changed? She even had us clearing out the attic, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Elizabeth acknowledged with a weak smile.

  “That’s when she had all these made,” Fiona said of the blue-and-yellow chintz slipcovers on the chairs and sofa. They were just beginning to fade. The four walls of what originally had been a grim back shed were now a wide expanse of pale walls and window glass that overlooked a sweeping lawn and a small pond whose newly frozen edges glistened with ice. Always a lovely home, the house’s maintenance was less a chore for Aunt Arlene than dutiful pride. For the last few years the Hollis house, as it had come to be called after one hundred years of being known as the Range house, had been featured on one or another of the many house tours local women’s groups ran to raise money.

  “Do you think there’ll be new ones for your wedding?”

  Elizabeth looked around, startled. “Thanksgiving’s in three weeks,” she said. She pressed her glass of soda water against each cheek as if to cool herself. “You know how Mother gets around the holidays.”

  “That’s right, Thanksgiving!” Fiona said. “Will Rudy be having dinner here? With us?” she added.

  “Probably,” Elizabeth said. “Unless he has to work that day.”

  “I’ve run into him a few times lately,” Fiona said, struck by Elizabeth’s impassive gaze. “He seems a little down. Unhappy is more like it. Miserable,” she said when Elizabeth still did not respond.

  “I knew he wouldn’t be happy in Dearborn. I told him that before he even came.” Elizabeth’s eyes glistened, but her voice was as flat as if they were discussing a stranger.

  “I think he’s just lonely.” Fiona paused, wanting the words to come out right. “He said he hasn’t seen much of you lately,” she explained, watching her cousin pick at her cuticle, then strip it away, exposing a long raw slice next to her thumbnail.

  “I’ve just been so busy,” Elizabeth said in a low voice. She closed her eyes and tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Lizzie!” Fiona got up and sat on the arm of her chair. “Don’t you love him anymore?” she whispered, and Elizabeth looked up. Just beyond the door they could hear the squeal of Aunt Arlene’s stepladder being folded up, then dragged into the hallway closet.

  “It’s all just very hard right now,” Elizabeth whispered. “It all seems so confusing.” She shook her head.

  “What do you mean?” Fiona leaned closer.

  “He shouldn’t have followed me. He shouldn’t have come here. The thing is, I was trying to figure out what to do. That’s why I came home. To see what I should do.” There was something almost cataclysmic in the tremble of her exquisite jaw.

  Fiona held her breath.

  “And I thought I knew, so I tried to tell him,” Elizabeth whispered. “I was, I was going to tell him. I thought it would be easier if I was here, but then he came!” She buried her face in her hands. “And so I never did. I never did anything,” she sobbed.

  “Oh, Lizzie.” Fiona stroked the back of her cousin’s head while she cried. They sat like that for a moment and then Fiona said, “This is the worst part, all this worrying and agonizing and not doing anything.”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t know what to do,” Elizabeth said, looking at her.

  “Just tell him the truth. That’s all you can do. You have to tell him you made a mistake, that he’s a really great guy and the problem isn’t him, but you, and you’re sorry, but you just don’t love him.’

  “But I do!” Elizabeth gasped, starting to cry again.

  “Do what?”

  “Love him. That’s why it’s so hard. It’s all so complicated.”

  Fiona’s sympathy was ebbing. There had always been this incredibly blind aspect to Elizabeth that could be so maddening. “Can I ask you something?” she began, explaining that she wasn’t bringing it up again to hurt Elizabeth, but only because it might help her understand her own feelings better. “That morning when you and Rudy walked in on . . . on George and me . . .”

  Elizabeth’s eyes locked on hers. Don’t, they seemed to warn.

  “What was Rudy’s reaction when you got so upset?”

  “He understood,” Elizabeth said.

  “But I didn’t,” she blurted. “Okay, I can see if you were embarrassed, but it was more than that. I mean, you and George haven’t gone together in years and the way you were acting it was like you’d walked in on me with your husband or something.”

  Elizabeth flinched. She bit her lip and took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s what it seemed like. That’s how it felt to me,” she said as gently as she could.

  “And I guess you’d know something about that, wouldn’t you?” Elizabeth said, her tiny tongue darting in and out of her mouth as if savoring the bite of each bilious word.

  Fiona was shocked. She jumped up and Elizabeth’s head jerked back. She remembered hitting her once when they were six or seven. Elizabeth’s nose had bled, staining her shirtfront and shorts by the time they got into the house. “What have you done?” her aunt had demanded, shaking her. “What have you done?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that,” Elizabeth gasped now as Fiona threw open the door. It banged back against the wall.

  “Bad enough being a hypocrite, but don’t be a liar too,” she said. “The only thing you’re sorry about is that you waited this long to say it to me!”

  “No, Fiona!” Elizabeth called, following her into the hall. “I shouldn’t have said that without hearing your side of it.”

  “My side of it!” she roared. “Jesus Christ, that’s good! That’s really good! I’d like to know when the hell my side of anything’s ever mattered around here!” she shouted at Elizabeth, who stood in the doorway.

  Aunt Arlene paused on the stairs, a pot of yellow chrysanthemums in her arms. “Fiona! What’s wrong? What’s going on here?” she demanded, looking from her niece to her daughter.

  Uncle Charles was coming up the porch steps. He opened the front door. “Fiona!” he said, his brief smile disappearing. “Is something wrong?” His wary gaze settled on his wife. “What seems to be the matter here?” he asked, peering over his gold-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m not sure,” Aunt Arlene said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs. She set the pot on the table, then picked it up again quickly. She kept looking around. All this discord would surely cease if only she could find the right spot. She continued into the dining room.

  “Are you two headed out somewhere?” Uncle Charles asked with a gesture between them.

  “No,” they said in faint unison.

  “I was just leaving,” Fiona said, and Aunt Arlene hurried out of the dining room to kiss her cheek. Elizabeth muttered goodbye, and now her uncle was walking onto the porch with her. He asked what had just happened in there. Nothing, she said.

  “I was coming up the walk, and I could hear yelling.”

  “It wasn’t anything, believe me,” she said, conscious of his slow, deliberate pace, his arm brushing hers. He stopped, turning, and she glanced past him to her dented, rusting car in the sweep of the gravel driveway.

  “I heard what happened with Patrick Grady in the coffee shop the other day,” he said.

  She shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid it’s a very big deal.”

  “He’s a good guy. He just lost his temper, that’s all.”

  “Believe me, there’s nothing good about him. Nothing.”

  “Really? Then why’d you get him a job at the courthouse if he’s so bad?”

  “Do you want to know? All right, I’ll tell you
then. I was hoping that way I could keep him away from you.”

  “Or me away from him, you mean,” she said with a bitter laugh.

  “There are some things, Fiona, that can never be taken lightly.” He stared at her. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

  “I think I do. I know I do.”

  “No, you couldn’t. You couldn’t possibly. All you know is what you choose to believe, some fairy tale version of a terribly difficult time.”

  “Well,” and again she shrugged with upturned hands, “until somebody wants to tell me what really happened, I guess I’ll just have to keep trying to fill in the blanks myself.” She started to walk away, more to make her point than to actually leave.

  “You’ve been told. You’ve known since you were a little girl!”

  She whipped around. “Known what? What have I known?” she demanded, charging back at him.

  His pallor deepened to purplish red, his earlobes and the tip of his nose raw with uncharacteristic fury. “The truth, of course,” he gasped. “The truth!” He paced a rigid path back and forth. “And now you’re putting yourself in the most vulnerable position. You know he’s unstable. You’ve always been told the truth about that. And yet you persist in this misguided notion that he . . . that he somehow matters in your life, that he cares, that he’s someone worth caring about.”