“Squeaky?”
“Quite unpleasant. There’s no wonder you became a writer. What else could you do?” Mrs. Lanigan smoothed her ratted hair.
“Mother, be nice,” Ardan said as he opened a shade.
I laughed. “It’s true. No one ever asked me to be in a movie or even a school play.”
Mrs. Lanigan turned toward the light. “Why bother with the shades? It’s not like I can see out.”
“It’ll warm the room,” I said. “It’s freezing in here.”
“Son, you may leave now. Charlotte and I need to have a little chat.”
“Do you promise to behave?”
“Get out,” Mrs. Lanigan said.
Good luck, he mouthed to me as he left the room.
I glanced around, wondering if I should sit. The room was large for a guestroom, with its own bathroom. An easy chair and desk were situated by the window. A wheelchair was parked near the bed. I grabbed the hardback chair from the desk and set it next to the bed.
I put on my invisible warrior armor. Nothing penetrated me when I was in this mode. Years of working for jerks had taught me that.
“Why are you here?” Mrs. Lanigan stared down at her lap.
“I heard Idaho is lovely in the spring.”
“Ardan read me your book,” she said. “Awful. Written for a third-grade level.”
Good one. Go after my writing. Well played.
“I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it,” I said.
“Bliss brags about you all the time,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “As if knowing an author is like knowing the president.”
I smiled. “Not exactly like that, no.”
“I’m assuming you’re broke, or you would never have agreed to come here,” Mrs. Lanigan said.
“Yes, sadly, that’s true.” I spoke calmly. Teflon. Never let them see you flustered. “Completely my own fault, too.”
“Overspending?”
“No, I’m quite frugal. I fell for a man named Zeke. He had a gambling problem and stole my savings, including my book advance money.”
“What did you expect from a man named Zeke? I mean, really.” There it was. A spark. Not dead yet. There was life in the old goat.
“In hindsight, that and his lack of a job might have been good indicators.” A flash of Zeke played before me. His charming smile that first date. The way he’d wrapped himself around me like a snake with its prey. I’d told him every vulnerability within the first weeks. Later, he’d used every single one in mental warfare.
“What would you like to do today?” I made my voice as bright as the sun streaming through the window. “Ardan says you’re supposed to take short walks to build up your strength. We could go out on the deck and get a little vitamin D.”
She laced her knobby fingers together. “I’m not interested in going outside.”
“Would you like me to order you an audible book to listen to? Or we could put on a movie.”
“I don’t want to do any of those things. I prefer to stay right here and wait to die.”
“I don’t think you’re dying,” I said. “You’re much too mean to die.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “I ran the others off. I’ll do the same to you.”
“Not anytime soon.”
“Because you’re desperate, aren’t you? At the end of your rope. Broke. Mediocre talent. No husband.”
“I suggest putting your energy into something else because I’m not going anywhere.”
A flush had settled on Mrs. Lanigan’s cheeks as we talked. She liked sparring with me. Arguing might bring her back to life.
“What about your children?” I asked. “Surely you’re interested in them?”
“My children don’t come to see me much,” Mrs. Lanigan said.
“They’re busy?”
“They think I’m critical of them,” she said.
“Are you?”
“They do a lot of stupid things,” she said.
I stifled a laugh. “They’re all grown. Maybe it’s too late to help them now. The chance to do that would have been when they were young.”
“What about you, Miss Wilde? What kind of mother did you have that raised such an insecure girl as to fall for a man named Zeke? Describe her succinctly. I don’t have all day.”
“Cashmere and pearls. Peach cobbler and lemon furniture polish. Calls everyone ‘darling.’ Ran my dad’s dental practice with a light touch that hid an iron fist.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Wears the words smitten wife and adoring mother on her forehead.” Although not actually written on her forehead, they were the description on her Facebook profile. “My parents were college sweethearts.” And still acted like it.
“What does she look like?” Mrs. Lanigan asked.
“Tall and reed thin. Curly chestnut hair. Fair skin.”
“And your father?”
“The girls who worked for him called him a Clooney.”
“How disgusting for you.”
“Amen.”
“Tell me more.”
“College track star. Daddy and daughter dances. Generous.” I touched the tennis bracelet on my wrist he’d given me when I graduated from college. “Voted best pediatric dentist in Lake Oswego.” He has dark skin like mine, with chocolate brown eyes, and salt and pepper hair. Women fell all over themselves the moment he appeared.
“So, there’s money,” she said.
“Yes. Not Lanigan money, but they did well.”
“Are they disappointed in you?”
“No. They’re proud. They believe in me. Always have,” I said.
“You’re overly attached to them.” She said this as a definite statement.
“Quite.” I smiled, remembering our weekly Thursday dinners. I’d keep that to myself.
“Only children. It happens. How old are you?”
“A bit over thirty,” I said. “Too old to be heartbroken that they sold their house and dental practice to travel the country in an Airstream.”
“An Airstream? I can imagine nothing worse,” she said.
“I’ll have to agree with you there. Their house was beautiful. My mother kept it just so.” I missed the way it smelled like bacon and maple syrup on Sunday mornings.
“You know, one learns how to negotiate the world by interacting with their siblings. Perhaps this is your trouble. You’re strange and needy, thus no luck with men.”
“It’s a good theory,” I said.
“Your lack of self-esteem is curious given your father’s obvious devotion.”
“My issues can’t be blamed on my parents,” I said.
“How refreshing. My children love to blame me for all their problems.” She drew in a deep breath.
“I have a few fatal flaws for which I have no one to blame but myself,” I said.
“Can’t you have only one?” she asked.
“In literature, perhaps. But in real life most of us come with at least a half dozen.”
“List them, please.”
Her expression was almost animated. Mrs. Lanigan was interested in people and what made them tick. This was something we had in common.
“Off the top of my head, I’d have to say foremost is bad judgment when it comes to men. I always choose the wrong ones. I’m in love with love which makes me blind to their faults until it’s too late.”
She tilted her head to the side. “If you know this about yourself, then why do you keep doing it?”
“That’s why it’s a fatal flaw.”
“Or is that you don’t feel you deserve someone good?” she asked. “Blind as I am, I can see you wear your insecurity like a crown of thorns.”
“I’m not the type who gets asked to the dance,” I said.
“You need to wait for the right one to ask. Don’t give yourself to an unworthy man. You haven’t been patient enough.”
“I’m not sure that’s it. Have you ever thought maybe some people are meant to be alone? Like there’s just n
o one right for them?”
I surprised myself with how vulnerable I was with Mrs. Lanigan. Despite her bite, I liked her. She was strong and insightful under her fear.
“Don’t be morose,” she said, gentler than previously. I’d gotten to her. She liked me too. “You’re young. My son told me you’re beautiful. You’ll find the right one.”
Ardan had said I was beautiful. Angels sang in my ears.
“You’re pleased by that?” she asked.
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“Tell me who you look like. Someone I know from my era”
“I look like my father’s Italian mother,” I said.
“Do I know your grandmother? Honestly, you can’t follow a direction to save your life.”
“Right. Someone you know.” Who were movie stars from her era? “A friend of my father’s once told me I looked like a fat Audrey Hepburn. He could make a compliment into an insult like no one’s business.”
Mrs. Lanigan sniffed. “Bliss and Blythe are always talking about that waif.”
“Audrey Hepburn?”
“Yes. They love her for some reason. I always thought she looked like an elf.”
I laughed. “I would love to look like her.”
“My son said you look like a modern Sophia Loren. She was a great beauty.”
“I’m no Sophia Loren,” I said. “Trust me.” My insides hummed with a thousand happy bees. Ardan thought I looked like Sophia Loren? How was that possible? Who cared? He thought I was pretty.
“It’s unbecoming to be so insecure,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “Let me tell you about my friend Sky. She wore these awful socks instead of stockings because she thought her ankles were too big. They made her ankles look big by drawing attention to them. Don’t point out your flaws. Most people are too stupid to see them anyway.”
“Maybe they’re just too polite to point them out,” I said.
“Either way, keep them to yourself.”
“I’ll try and remember that.”
“Ardan’s also had disastrous love affairs. Like you, he isn’t able to discern a woman’s true nature.”
“Until it’s too late,” I said.
“Exactly.” Her skin was remarkably smooth for a woman in her eighties. Too smooth. Taut. She’d had work done. Good for her.
“It’s perfectly obvious what one of your other fatal flaws is,” she said. “You’re remarkably frank without any sense that you should hide your vulnerabilities. You shouldn’t tell people things they can use against you.”
I laughed. “It takes too much energy to be fake. Plus, I only do that when I really like someone.”
She played with the edge of a blanket with her fingertips. “Whether you like me or not means nothing to me.”
“Excellent. I feel the same way about you.”
“Good. We can agree this is a relationship of captor and guard.”
I laughed. “That works. As much fun as this has been, it’s time to get you up and into the fresh air.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “No thank you.”
“You can’t stay in this bed all day.”
“I told you. I’m waiting to die. Nothing else.” She lifted her chin to the ceiling like a stubborn child.
“You’ve plenty of life left,” I said.
“Trite, Miss Wilde. You can do better.”
I took a moment to think through my strategy. “Ardan said you see only shadows and shapes?” I asked.
A curt nod.
“How long?” I asked.
“It’s been deteriorating for a year. That’s why I fell. I hadn’t told any of the children, but now the cat’s out of the bag.” She set her mouth in a firm line.
“But why would you keep it from your family?” I asked.
“I’m afraid they’ll put me in a home.”
“Not Ardan. You’re here at his home, aren’t you?”
“Because he thinks he can get rid of me soon. If they could, they’d ship me off to one of those places that smells of urine.”
“I don’t think so.” I studied her. What would it take to get her out of this bed? “What do you like to do? I mean, when you’re not recovering from a hip fracture?”
“Shopping. Lunching with my friends. Hosting parties. Art openings. The opera. All the usual things. Now, I’m useless.”
“We could choose a classic novel. I could read to you.”
“With your squeaky voice? Dreadful.”
“Television? Do you like to binge watch series?”
“Pedestrian,” she said. “Plus, I can’t see the screen.”
“Music?”
“Miss Wilde, you’re boring me now. I preferred when you were spilling your guts.”
I looked around the room, hoping to find inspiration. Decorated in sage green and black, the room was tidy but without much life. A guest room, not a home. A shipping box on the table by the window drew my attention. “What’s in that box?” I asked.
“There’s a box?”
I crossed over to the table. “It’s addressed to you.”
“From who?”
“Carly Cooper.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Would you like me to open it?”
“Suit yourself.”
I found a letter opener on the desk and used it to cut open the box. A card addressed to Mrs. Lanigan lay on top of tissue paper. “It’s a card.”
“Read it to me,” she said.
“In my squeaky voice?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
I slid the notecard from the envelope and read to her from the thick card stock.
Dear Mrs. Lanigan,
My husband and I bought the home once occupied by your parents. We recently did a renovation that required structural changes in the attic. We were surprised to find a box of letters tucked behind an eave, making them impossible to see without proper light. Given the dates on some of the envelopes, they’ve been hidden away up there for many, many years. As you’ll see when you open the box, they are a jumbled mess.
I thought to ask around the neighborhood if anyone recalled the previous owners. Our next-door neighbors are in their eighties and remembered you from school. They said they lost touch with you after your parents’ death the summer after you all graduated from high school. They knew only that Augie and Nicholas’s daughter had married the famous Edward Lanigan of Lanigan Trucking. Because of that, I was able to locate your sons and daughter on Facebook. Your son, Ciaran, and his wife, Bliss, are easy to find, given their philanthropic work. Ciaran was kind enough to answer my email message and asked that I send the box, thinking you might be interested in the contents of the letters.
Wishing you a wonderful trip down memory lane. I’d give so much to have a glimpse into my mother’s young adulthood. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had I not made sure you received them.
Sincerely,
Carly Cooper
* * *
I set aside the card and investigated further. There were at least a hundred letters strewn about the box. I rummaged around until I found one in an envelope with a date stamp. “This is addressed to Augusta Devin from Nicholas Garfield. The date stamp says January 1938.” I glanced over at Mrs. Lanigan, expecting her to be as excited as I. “Are they your parents?”
“Quite the curious cat, aren’t you?”
“I’m a writer,” I said. “I can’t help myself.”
“Yes, those are my parents. 1938 is the year they met. I was born two years later.”
“Do you think they’re love letters?” I asked.
“I remember Mother saying they’d written letters when they were courting because she lived in a chaperoned house and wasn’t allowed out at night very often. Don’t expect anything riveting. My parents were middle class country people.” She sniffed and gestured toward the box. “But still, I might like you to read one or two.”
“So, you are curious? Dare I say interested?�
�
“Yes, I’m curious. Are you happy?” She tugged at the blanket in a gesture of impatience.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Voyeurism is a very unattractive quality,” she said.
I laughed, which made her mouth twitch again. There was something so familiar about Mrs. Lanigan that made me more comfortable than I should be. I picked up another envelope. “Some are from him to her. They’re all mixed up though. Most aren’t even in envelopes.”
“My mother probably thought she’d go through them at some point and put them in order. They didn’t expect to die in their early forties.”
“How did they die?”
“They were killed in a car accident on the way home from dropping me at the train station. I was leaving for college in California. We lived out in the country in Indiana. Long country roads. People drove too fast.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“The only comfort is they went together. I couldn’t imagine either of them wanting to live without the other. They were fiercely loyal and madly in love. Other than my father’s time overseas for WWII, they spent every evening of their marriage holding hands on the porch swing or the couch.”
“I want that with someone someday,” I said dreamily.
“Charlotte Wilde, no good ever came from being a romantic. You must be realistic. Fairy tales aren’t real.”
I blinked, yanked from my dream world into the real one.
She clasped her hands together. “Are they all typewritten?”
“No, the ones from Augusta are handwritten.”
“What’s the writing like?”
“Loopy and round,” I said.
“That’s her writing, yes.” She clapped her hands like I was a misbehaving pet. “Open one and read it to me.”
I tried to remain calm, but I was practically twitching. I unfolded the one in my hand. “There’s no date or envelope,” I said before reading out loud.
* * *
Dear Augie,
My brother is dead. The doctor and police said Boyce drank poison. They think it was suicide. He would never take his own life. He loved Mother and me too much to leave this way. I am certain he was murdered. You and I both know by whom and why. There’s no way I’ll ever prove it.
I love you, my dearest Augie. I won’t be able to come for you tomorrow as planned. I must stay and bury him. I’ll send this note over with Fred. Wait for further news. I’ll come get you as soon as I can. Keep your bags packed.
Blue Ink Page 4
