“I’ve got my crosswords,” Daisy said. “And I’m reading War and Peace. At least, I’m trying to. And I practice my clarinet every day. Well, every other day.”
“I practice my flute,” Violet announced. “And I’m reading the Arthurian legends for the first time. And I’m thinking about learning how to knit. Or maybe do macramé, like people did in the seventies. I saw something about it on the Internet. But I don’t know if Grimace will let me alone. All that string.”
“And what about you, Poppy?” Freddie asked. “Have you been challenging yourself intellectually?”
For a moment Poppy felt as if she were back in fourth grade, pinned under the eye of a particularly strict teacher. “Uh, no,” she said. “Not really. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. It’s your own self you’re hurting. You know, having finished your formal education doesn’t mean one is allowed to let the brain atrophy. Why don’t you take the opportunity of being on hiatus from work to read one of your father’s books?”
Poppy laughed. “I’m afraid I’m too dumb to read Dad’s work!” And the trouble was, she half believed that. Sometimes she wondered how a daughter of two such prominent people as Annabelle and Oliver Higgins could feel so lacking in skill and talent. Maybe, she thought, it was because they were so prominent that she felt so insignificant.
Freddie harrumphed. “No,” she said, “you most certainly are not too dumb. But you will need to apply yourself if you’re to follow his arguments. Your father was a rigorous thinker and he challenged his readers. The payoff, of course, is worth the effort.”
“That reminds me,” Poppy said suddenly. “I got something from Adams College today. An invitation to take Dad’s place on the committee that awards the scholarship in Mom’s name.”
“How wonderful,” Sheila said.
“Not really. How can I possibly accept? I’m totally out of my depth in the academic world.”
“You won’t be making decisions on your own,” Freddie pointed out. “You’ll be part of a committee. You can learn from the more senior members.”
“Who probably all have a PhD. Won’t they resent my being there? I’m just Oliver Higgins’s pretty daughter. I have no credentials.”
Freddie sighed. “How do you think you earn credentials? By showing up. By listening and asking questions.”
“But you’re Dad’s literary executor,” Poppy argued. “You have more right than I do to determine who deserves a scholarship in Mom’s name.”
“Poppy, one thing has nothing to do with the other. Anyway, I strongly advise you to accept the invitation.”
“Go ahead, Poppy.” Daisy grinned. “The worst that could happen is you totally embarrass yourself and will never be able to hold your head up in Yorktide again.”
“Adams College isn’t in Yorktide,” Violet pointed out, before Poppy could retort. “It’s in South Berwick.”
Sheila rose from the table. “If everyone is finished, I think I’ll bring out the dessert.”
Poppy rose with her. “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll help you clear. And no more talk about the scholarship committee, please.”
Chapter 25
About some things Violet Higgins felt very certain. About others, she felt less certain, like, for example, her current state of mind.
The dream, that awful dream that took place in a fantastical garden, had returned twice in the past ten days. In the third version, which had taken place the night before, her parents’ roles had been reversed. It was her father that Violet accidentally killed with a poison flower, and her mother who pursued her to the well. The demon was the same horrible character he had been in the first two versions of the nightmare.
Violet sat in the old armchair she had rescued from being thrown out and realized that even though she was in the haven that was her room, at that moment it didn’t feel like the safe and calming place she had created it to be. That was weird and upsetting, as was the fact that she had lied to Daisy when she had told her that she was not scared of death. Well, at one time she hadn’t been, but lately . . . Lately, the thought of Death with a capital letter seemed horrifying. Lately, a feeling of generalized apprehension seemed to creep over her at the most unlikely moments, not always but often, like when she was watering the rosebushes or reading from one of her favorite novels. Why should such usually pleasant activities suddenly cause—or be invaded by?—apprehension? Too often she found herself expecting something bad to happen, someone else to die, some unnamed tragedy to occur. Too often she felt vulnerable, and that was something she had never felt before. Never.
So the question was: Why was she suddenly not okay? Maybe, Violet thought now, she was suffering from delayed post-traumatic stress disorder. But she hadn’t even been with her father when he died and wasn’t PTSD caused by something horrible you had witnessed or experienced firsthand? True, she had been with her mother when she died, but her passing had been peaceful, and Dad and Daisy had been there, too.
Or maybe, Violet wondered, the cause of her distress was hormonal, all due to the phases of the moon and Diana, the goddess of nature and fertility and childbirth. She was still developing both physically and emotionally; her period still wasn’t regular. Maybe this—this disturbance—she felt was normal, but the trouble was that Violet wasn’t in the habit of sharing her fears and worries. She didn’t really know how it was done.
Violet glanced over at her bookcase, crammed with books she had been collecting since she had first learned to read at five years of age. Several of her books on astrology stated that a career in the field of medicine was a good choice for someone who was born under the sun sign of Pisces, so her own decision (if it could be called that and not a calling) to become a holistic healer someday made perfect sense. But now Violet wondered. Shouldn’t a good healer be able to heal herself first? If you were sick or troubled, how could you possibly make someone else well?
The night before, as Violet lay awake after the awful dream, the idea of going to a psychic had occurred to her. A good psychic might provide some useful insight into what was happening inside her, but getting to one wouldn’t be easy to manage. First, and most importantly, she didn’t know a genuine psychic and she didn’t know anyone who did. Surely word of mouth was very important in these matters. But even if she did manage to get the name of someone reputable there was the problem of getting there and back and of paying for her services. An even bigger problem was that Violet wasn’t sure Poppy would allow her to see a psychic; she wasn’t a believer as far as Violet could tell and she suspected that because her older sister was taking her role as guardian so seriously she might insist that Violet see a psychologist or a counselor instead and that was not what Violet wanted at all. It was not what she needed. She knew that.
For the first time since Poppy had come home to live with them on Willow Way Violet felt a tiny thread of resentment toward her sister. Her parents would have let her go to a psychic, she was sure of it. Her parents got her.
But maybe she shouldn’t assume that Poppy would object.... Violet hated to think or act unfairly and she suspected that she was guilty of unfairness now. She truly believed that Poppy and Daisy were there for her. The problem was that try as she might she couldn’t imagine turning to them for help or understanding. And the biggest problem with that was why she couldn’t imagine it, when imagining was usually so easy for her.
“I’m all confused,” Violet told Grimace, who had just woken from one of his many daily naps and was stretching magnificently. “I don’t like being confused.”
In response, Grimace leaped off the bed and clear across the room to land in Violet’s lap.
Chapter 26
A woman stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. She was wearing a long black dress with a cinched waist, tight sleeves, and full skirts. It was a dark, overcast day and the waves were crashing against the rocky shore. Poppy wondered if the woman was one of the Civil War heroines her mother had written about so feelingly. O
ne of those kind and beautiful and brave women. Except that women in the nineteenth century usually didn’t wear their hair down in public, did they? So maybe . . . Yes, of course, Poppy saw it now! The woman was her mother, it was Annabelle! And suddenly she was going over the cliff, her long dark skirts billowing around her, her arms outspread as if she would fly, her long dark hair spread out against the moody gray sky. . . . An awful cry of anguish rose from Poppy’s lips as she rushed toward the cliff’s edge. She would go after the woman. Her mother. She would save her, bring her back. It was only a mistake, her going over the cliff, only a misstep. It hadn’t been meant to happen. Poppy spread out her arms in imitation of the woman, her mother, and then gentle but strong hands were gripping her waist. An angel from heaven above, she thought, come to help carry her over. She turned her head to see this angel, but it was Jon Gascoyne and he was holding her back, he wasn’t helping her at all! She plucked at his hands around her waist. “Let me go!” she cried. “I have to go after her! I have to!”
Poppy woke in a cold sweat. A dream. Of course. Just a dream, but an awful one. She shivered and pulled the damp sheet up around her neck. Her mother’s book was beside her in the bed; she had been reading from it before falling asleep. With a trembling hand she opened it to the photo on the inside of the back cover. Annabelle Higgins, alive and vibrantly beautiful. Even a professional photographic portrait, which so often could fail to capture the real nature of the sitter, couldn’t mask her mother’s lively spirit.
Like death could.
Poppy had been dragging all day, and not even three cups of coffee had helped wake her fully. She had been unable to get back to sleep after that nightmare. The image of her mother falling through the air like a dark angel dogged her every step, from the time she took the garbage to the curb for the weekly morning pickup to the time she started the preparations for dinner. Why hadn’t she recognized her mother sooner? If she had, she might have reached her before . . . And for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why Jon Gascoyne had been involved, why, indeed, he had come to her rescue. She barely knew him, after all. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had been her mother’s student once upon a time. Not that that was much of a connection.
At least she had managed to be productive in one small way. She had gone to the OfficeMax in Kittery for a whiteboard and markers. The purchase made her feel a bit like a throwback. Most people these days seemed to keep track of their schedules on an electronic device. But electronic devices could be ignored and they were often temperamental. What was the worst thing that could happen to a whiteboard? It fell off its hooks?
“What’s that for?” Daisy had asked when Poppy had finished nailing the whiteboard to the wall next to the fridge.
“It’s so that I don’t forget another doctor’s appointment or whatever else it is I’m supposed to be remembering. We’ll all write down our weekly schedule and that way we’ll all know what everyone else is doing and when.”
“Sounds like a police state to me,” Daisy had muttered.
Damned if I do and damned if I don’t, Poppy had thought, watching her sister tramp out of the kitchen.
There was still some time before dinner would be ready (she had put a casserole in the oven to bake, the lazy cook’s dream concoction), and she decided to call Allie Swift. They hadn’t talked in over a week and a text here and there didn’t really count for much.
“Is this a bad time?” she asked when Allie answered the phone, sounding a bit breathless.
“Not at all. I’m just in from my yoga class—what a workout! —and I’m pouring a chilled glass of wine as I speak.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Such enthusiasm!” Allie laughed. “What’s going on?”
Poppy sighed. “Nothing. And that’s the problem. What’s the point of my life, Allie? What am I here for?”
“Whoa, not even some meaningless chitchat? Why all the existential angst? And maybe you need a glass of wine, too.”
“Because I feel so useless,” Poppy told her, knowing that she probably sounded like a whiny teen but unable to help herself.
“Poppy,” Allie said sharply, “you’re not contemplating doing something drastic, are you?”
“You mean, am I suicidal? No, absolutely not! I’m not even close to despair. I just wish I could be certain that I’ll—I’ll leave a legacy. A good one, I mean. Like my mother did. And my father. You know, when each of them died, we got hundreds of cards and notes from colleagues and former students and even people who had read their books but never met them. Literally hundreds. It was extraordinary. I guess I want that kind of recognition for myself. But only if I’ve really earned it. And that’s the problem: How am I to earn it? Where do I start?”
“If I might quote Soren Kierkegaard,” Allie replied, “ ‘Life can only be understood backward; but it must be lived forward. ’”
Poppy laughed humorlessly. “Good ol’ Kierkegaard.”
“You’ll find out someday if your choices and decisions were right,” Allie assured her. “But you’ve got to make them first.”
“But how!”
“You’re going to have to trust your instincts, take a leap of faith,” Allie said patiently. “There’s no other way, Poppy. We’re all in the same situation. None of us knows what’s going to happen tomorrow or even in the next twenty minutes. We’re all pretty much stumbling around blindly, if not always then most of the time.”
“That’s not a very comforting thought.”
“Sorry. I meant you to realize that you’re not alone. Look, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Poppy said firmly. “It’s just been a tough day. I slept badly last night.”
“Well, get to bed early tonight. Doctor Allie’s orders.”
“I will,” Poppy said. “And thanks.”
Daisy and Violet appeared in the door to the kitchen as Poppy put her cell phone on the counter. “We’re starved,” Daisy announced. “Is dinner ready?”
Poppy sighed. “Five minutes.”
“It smells delicious,” Violet said.
At least, Poppy thought, I’ve mastered the art of the casserole.
Chapter 27
Daisy pushed the vacuum cleaner across the living room floor. For the life of her she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had used the room. It had seen a lot of life in the old days, back when both of her parents were alive. Annabelle and Oliver Higgins were naturally gregarious people and had been known for their frequent parties. How many times had Daisy come downstairs on a Sunday morning to find one or more of her parents’ friends or colleagues asleep on the couch here in the living room, and also often in the study and sunroom?
We should shut this room up, she thought now, turning the vacuum cleaner off and winding the cord around the handle. It would be one less room to clean. Daisy wasn’t sure why her father had fired their housekeeper not long after her mother had died. It meant that she and her dad were left to keep the house clean and in order; Violet was too young to be expected to pitch in, though she did keep her own room clean. Maybe he just hadn’t been able to bear a relative stranger puttering around the house that his wife had loved so much; maybe the presence of Mrs. Olds felt like a violation, even though the family had known her for years. Daisy had never asked her father and now she would never know the answer to her question.
“Rats!” Daisy retrieved the figurine she had accidentally knocked to the carpet with the dust cloth. It was Columbine, one of the commedia dell’arte figurines her mother had collected. Poppy loved the figurines; what would she have said if Columbine had broken? Daisy decided she would talk to her sister about hiring a new housekeeper. They had the money to hire someone, maybe even a team of people, to come in at least once a week. It was silly to think that a bunch of kids—and that’s what they were—could keep a huge house clean and in working order. Besides, housekeeping was boring.
Daisy gave the mantel of the magnificent stone fireplace
a quick pass with the dust cloth, careful not to disturb the framed photograph of her father taken by one of his colleagues at a conference in Geneva about a year ago. (Though he had cut back on the number of public appearances he made since his wife’s death, there were those occasional conferences he felt compelled to attend.) He was impeccably dressed beneath his head of wild white hair, wearing a tiepin that had once belonged to his father, Henry. That tiepin was another item Daisy had chosen to treasure after Oliver’s death, along with his scarf and favorite dictionary. She didn’t think that Poppy knew she had taken it from the safe. If she did know, she hadn’t mentioned it. Poppy still hadn’t gotten around to clearing out Dad’s things and Daisy was in no rush to remind her.
Housework abandoned for the moment, Daisy flopped onto the couch. She remembered so clearly the day her father had died. He had been very upset that morning about not being able to find a particular photo of her mother, an old one taken before they had married. Daisy had assured him that the photo would turn up, but her attempt at consolation had fallen on deaf ears. And then, the letter had come, the letter relating devastating news about a respected colleague, a man with whom her father had gone to school. Dr. Morris, who had once been accused of plagiarism (her father had been a staunch supporter of his innocence, and indeed, he had been proved not guilty), had now been fired from his university for sexually harassing several students.
Not that Daisy had known what the letter contained. She had simply given it to her father in the sunroom and gone off. But what if she hadn’t given her father that letter, what if she had read it first—not that she was in the habit of reading her father’s correspondence—but what if she had, just that once? She might have broken the news to him another time, when he wasn’t already so upset. She had left him alone while she started dinner (a cold salad and pasta with sauce from a jar) and then Freddie had come by the house and gone into the sunroom to see Oliver and then . . . And then Freddie had come back into the kitchen where Daisy was setting the table and the look on her face was enough to tell Daisy that the very worst thing that could happen had happened.
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