by Nancy Thayer
Marilyn made tea for four, set the tray with pot, mugs, napkins, sugar, creamer, plate of cookies, and spoons. When she lifted the tray, she nearly dropped it, it was so heavy. She thought of asking hulking young Angus to carry it for her, but decided not to, and was glad she hadn’t, because when she entered the living room, Angus was sitting on the sofa, holding Fiona’s dainty white hand and listening to her account of her husband’s death.
Marilyn poured the tea and handed it around.
“Thank you, Marilyn,” Fiona said. “And thank you for taking me in like this. I’ll try not to be a bother—”
“You’re never a bother, Fee,” Ian hurriedly interjected.
“—but I’m just so lonely, so terribly lost without my Tam, and you see”—she leaned forward and took Marilyn’s hand in hers—“Ian and Angus are like my own family. I just couldn’t get through this without them.”
“I’m sorry we don’t have a better guest bedroom to offer you,” Marilyn told her. She gestured helplessly around the living room. “Ian and I are only renting this until we can find a house we both like, and of course we’ve been so busy teaching, we haven’t had much time—”
“Oh, my dear, I do understand. It’s going to be a challenge, isn’t it, finding a home as comfortable as Ian’s Edinburgh townhouse.” She shook her head, smiling sadly at Ian. “I do wish you hadn’t had to give that up. You had it fixed up just the way you liked it.”
“Oh, well,” Marilyn said brightly, “I’m sure we’ll eventually organize just as comfortable a home here.” She hoped she didn’t sound competitive. She couldn’t point out, after all, that they did have a guest room in the attic—and Angus was in it. “Anyway, this sofa makes into a comfortable bed, and there’s a full bathroom just on the other side of the hall, and a closet near the bathroom for winter coats, which we don’t need now, so it’s empty for your things. And the kitchen’s just down the hall, and of course you must help yourself to anything whenever you want it.”
“You’re very kind,” Fiona said bravely. “I would like a shower, and actually a little nap.” She looked down at the sofa as if it were an object she’d never before encountered. “I’m not quite sure how to arrange this into a bed.”
Angus sprang to his feet. “We’ll do it for you, Auntie Fee.”
While Fiona showered, Ian went into his study to check his e-mail and phone messages. Angus and Marilyn opened the sofa and spread it with clean sheets. Fiona came down the hall clad in a thick terry cloth robe, her black hair loose, curling over her shoulders and down her back.
“I’ll take Darwin out for a little walk,” Angus told her, “so he’ll get tired out and won’t wake you barking.”
“You’re a dear boy,” Fiona said, and hugged Angus again.
Ian came down the stairs from his study, a clutch of papers in his hand. “Do you have everything you need, Fiona?”
“I’m fine, my darling,” Fiona told him. “I just need a little sleep.”
“We’ll have dinner when you wake,” Ian told her. “Something hot and nourishing.”
We will? Marilyn thought. Because it was summer, her refrigerator was full of salad ingredients and cheese. She’d have to run out to the store.
“That will be wonderful,” Fiona said. “I find warm, nourishing food very comforting these days.” She clasped Marilyn’s hands in hers. “Thank you again, Marilyn. I’m so grateful to you for taking me in like this.”
“You’re welcome,” Marilyn told her. “We’re glad you’re here.”
Why, Marilyn wondered as she spoke, do I feel like the truth is I’m not glad at all?
Angus took his dog off for a walk. Marilyn and Ian spoke for a while, organizing the rest of their day, and then Marilyn headed down the stairs to see Ruth.
Her mother was changing out of her church clothes into a housecoat. No other creature on the planet shows its age as much as homo sapiens, Marilyn thought as she looked at her mother’s arms, the bones and veins and muscles clearly visible beneath the papery, spotted skin, as if ready to break free of this personal bond and return to the elements. The limbs of youth had a unity, they looked like one thing, an arm, a leg, but the limbs of age exposed the increasing disintegration, bone from muscle, vein from skin. Animals had fur which disguised this aging process. Perhaps the purpose of man’s bareness was to make him aware of his aging, his forthcoming death, so he could prepare for it.
“Darling!” Ruth stumbled as she turned to greet her daughter. “Did Ian get back all right? And have you met Fiona? Such a pretty name, Fiona.”
“They’re here. Fiona’s lovely. She’s taking a little rest and I’m going off to the grocery store to buy a nice roast. Would you like to come with me?”
“Thank you, dear, no.” She collapsed in her chair. Immediately her cat jumped into her lap. “I’m exhausted from church and my lunch with the girls.” She grinned. “Bettina wore such a cute heart-shaped brooch. It said, ‘Let me call you sweetheart. I can’t remember your name.’”
Marilyn laughed. “I can sympathize with that!”
“What will you serve with the roast?” Ruth asked. “It’s so hot today.”
“Ian thought a hot meal would be comforting to Fiona. After the flight, and because she’s in mourning. What do you think?”
“That’s very thoughtful of Ian. I suppose he’s right. A nice roast and baked potatoes and carrots, oh, and nice hot rolls with butter. Nothing’s as soothing as a hot roll with butter.”
“Good idea.”
“And why not make one of your chocolate pudding cakes for dessert? With vanilla ice cream. Soothing and cooling.”
“I don’t think I’ll have time to cook today, Mother. I’m just going to buy a pie. Will you eat with us?”
“I’ll come up and sit with you. But I doubt if I’ll eat much. I had such a big lunch. We decided to try that new Chinese restaurant. I had Moshe Dayan, very tasty, chicken with bits of cashews and celery and an unusual spice. With rice, of course…”
Marilyn opened her mouth to correct her mother, then closed it. Why interrupt her now, when she was so obviously enjoying the memory of her delicious lunch?
“Afterward, Sonya’s daughter drove us through Mount Auburn cemetery so we could see all the trees and flowers. It’s so beautiful there. And have you ever read the lines inscribed above the sundial? John Greenleaf Whittier wrote them—no one reads him anymore, do they? He was a bit of a windbag, I think, but this little verse touched me so deeply. I scribbled it down to be sure I had it right for you.” She bent over, found her purse, and began to search through it.
Marilyn suppressed a sigh of impatience. She hated it when she felt like this, trapped by her mother, as edgy as if she were sitting on tacks. But she had to get to the store and buy a roast, then return and start roasting the roast, and she wanted to spend some time alone with Ian, and she hadn’t prepared her lessons for tomorrow…life pressed in on her from all sides, and it didn’t help that her sweet old mom was bumbling around like this.
“What?” Ruth was patting the sides of her head. “What’s happened?”
“You’ve put your reading glasses on upside down,” Marilyn told her.
“Oh, dear!” Ruth clapped her hands and laughed and laughed. “Silly me! Wait until I tell the girls about this one!”
“I’d better get off to the grocery store…” Marilyn rose from the sofa.
“Wait, dear!” Ruth waved a piece of paper. “I found it. Let me get my glasses on the right way and I’ll read it to you.” Carefully adjusting the stems over her ears, she pressed the frame firmly against her nose, then cleared her throat. “This is over a sundial, now, remember.” She read:
“With warning hand I mark time’s rapid flight
From life’s glad morning to its solemn night.
Yet through the dear God’s love I also show
There’s light above me by the shade below.”
Marilyn said, “That’s lovely, Mother.”
�
��I thought you’d like it, dear. Actually, I thought I might give it to Fiona. Perhaps it will bring her some comfort. The image, I mean, the metaphor.”
Tears stung Marilyn’s eyes. How sweet of her mother to think of consoling this woman she’d never met. Why couldn’t Marilyn be more kindhearted, more sympathetic?
Ruth’s face creased as she broke into an enormous yawn. “I’m sleepy now. I’ll see you later. Thank you for visiting me.”
Marilyn felt oddly cheered as she climbed the stairs, found her purse, and organized a shopping list. When she was younger and married to Theodore, they’d had one son, Teddy, and their house and her life had been full. Now she lived in a house with four other people and an omnivorous bulldog, two of whom she sort of wished would go away. And yet, this was life. All too soon her mother would be gone, evaporated into the mysterious elements, perhaps into the heaven in which she believed. All too soon Marilyn herself would disintegrate, finding a peace and silence like no other.
But for today, she had lots of food to buy and cook. She’d open a couple of bottles of good red wine. And later, when she was alone in bed with Ian…She smiled in anticipation.
39
In Nantucket, Faye sat next to Adele Spindleton on the older woman’s ancient sofa in her living room. They were looking at Adele’s photograph albums and scrapbooks from the early part of the twentieth century. Outside, a summer storm rained down, churning the roads by the harbor into rivers, drenching the summer flowers, and making landscape painting impossible. Faye was quite content to put aside her work for the day. She loved spending time with Adele. It was a kind of stepping back in time.
“And here I am with Roger, on our way to the theater. We had wonderful live theater out in ’Sconset back then, you know.”
“Oh, Adele, you look so glamorous!” Faye touched her fingertip to the faded black-and-white photo of Adele in a long summer dress and her husband in a straw boater.
Adele laughed. “Youth has its own glamour. Now here we are with our first baby, Morris…”
As Adele talked about her children, their birthday parties, their high school graduations, Faye’s mind drifted back to her own life and its celebrations. Her daughter’s life and the lives of her grandchildren were being recorded in photographs and on videotape, or DVDs. Technology had changed, but the important occasions were the same.
“Oh, how pretty!” she said, touching a photograph of the garden of Adele’s house. Paper lanterns hung from lines strung from tree to tree, and the flames of candles burned from a long picnic table covered with flowers and food.
“My fiftieth birthday,” Adele told her. “Just think, almost half a century ago! I’ve been so fortunate to remain in the same house all my life. My parents gave us this house when we announced we were going to have our first child. Well, they lived with us for a few years, and that was very helpful, what with the way the babies came, one two three!”
As Adele rambled on, Faye thought how different their lives were in one respect. Adele had lived in only one house, while Faye had moved houses often, especially in the last few years. And even though she loved the new little house she’d settled in, just the right size for a widowed woman, with a guest room and a room that became her studio, she didn’t miss it while she was on Nantucket. She was quite happy to have her temporary residence in Nora Salter’s grand old mansion.
She was quite happy to be here, on this island.
Strange, how she felt so at home here. The beauty of the land was so generous, the light that revealed it so haunting. She felt she could paint every day of the rest of her life and not exhaust the varied glories of this island. Slowly, she was getting to know other artists and gallery owners. Every Friday night the galleries held openings and the level of the work was exceptional. Many of the artists exhibited in New York or Boston, many had homes in Nantucket and also in Santa Fe, or France, or in the Caribbean. Two of the gallery owners had expressed interest in Faye’s work, which both thrilled and terrified her. She had told them that her pictures were shown at the Guild of Boston Artists on Newbury Street, which was, after all, an achievement of some magnitude. And she could show them her older paintings. They were good. But what would they think of her new landscapes? This had become one of the most important questions in her life. She thought about it all the time, although she wasn’t ready to show anyone her new work.
“My husband had just turned sixty when he passed away,” Adele was saying. “This is the last photograph taken of us together. I’m glad I arranged such a grand party for him. It always was balm to my soul to think that he knew how many friends he had, how many people loved him.” She opened a new album, full of photos of that particular birthday party with its crowd of people in pointed birthday hats.
This made Faye think of her Hot Flash friends. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised that Shirley was in love again. Shirley was the most romantic of them all. She’d spent the weekend at the home of her new beau, Harry, coming in briefly this morning to bundle up a set of clean clothes into her duffel bag.
“I’m not going back to Boston until tomorrow night,” Shirley told Faye. “The Haven will manage just fine without me for a day or so. You know it’s always slow in the summer. Oh, Faye!” She’d hugged herself gleefully, looking like a little girl at Christmas. “Harry is so wonderful! He’s so handsome! He’s so—delicious! Faye, we are just so comfortable with each other. I mean, we can just sit and do nothing and not even talk, and we’re still connected. Wait until you meet him!”
“I can’t wait,” Faye had said truthfully.
Her opportunity came when Harry returned from doing errands to fetch Shirley. She rushed out to his red truck. Faye had followed, and Shirley made the introductions. Harry was handsome, in a craggy, weathered way, and Faye was reassured to see that he was as old as Shirley. His golden Lab Reggie was adorable, and she liked men who had such happy dogs. But his truck was ancient, the back filled with oily wrenches, toolboxes, fishing poles, and rags. A working man, then. Might he assume Shirley was wealthy because she was staying in this fabulous house?
As the red truck rattled away on Orange Street, Shirley leaned out the window, waving good-bye, smiling from ear to ear. Faye had winged a silent prayer to heaven: Don’t let this man break her heart, too. She wondered as she returned to the house just how she would describe Harry to the other Hot Flash friends.
Especially to Alice.
“Now what’s in this one?” The older woman’s quavering voice brought her back to the present. With arthritic, crooked hands, Adele lifted another scrapbook from the cardboard box. She opened it and studied the photos. “Oh, goodness! Here’s an old photograph of a picnic I went on when I was younger, and look! Here’s Nora Salter when she was a girl! She was Nora Pettigrew back then. And oh, my goodness. Look here!” She stabbed a photograph with one plump finger. “Here’s Lucinda Payne.”
“You were going to tell me about a scandal between them,” Faye remembered.
“You’re right. I was.” Adele leaned back against the sofa. “I wonder if you’d mind making me a nice glass of iced tea first. Talking this much gives me a dry throat.”
Faye went into the kitchen, took a pitcher from the refrigerator and the ice tray from the freezer, and prepared a glass of iced tea for them both. When she returned to the living room, she half expected to find Adele asleep. The older woman nodded off so easily. But she was rejuvenated by the photos of earlier years, and after a good long swallow of the tea, she began to tell her tale.
“Nora Pettigrew Salter, your friend, is the child of Amelia and Pascal Pettigrew. The house you’re staying in was built by the Pettigrews around 1845. The Paynes, as you know, own the house next door to the Pettigrews. Both the Paynes and the Pettigrews are old Nantucket families, you see, having inherited their houses from whaling ship captains. Now, around 1908, the Paynes had a son named Wetherford. Everyone called him Ford. Pascal Pettigrew was born in 1908, too. Ford and Pascal were best friends. They did every
thing together, and, oh my dear”—Adele chuckled—“they got into quite a lot of mischief when they were youngsters. Even when they went off to separate colleges, they were still best friends; they were like twins even in their twenties. Then.”
Adele took a dramatic pause. Leaning forward, she sipped her iced tea, patted her chest, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“Then,” she continued, opening her eyes, “then Amelia arrived on the island. She was a stunning beauty. I can find a picture of her in here—” She bent toward the albums.
“No,” Faye forestalled her. “Show me her picture later. I want to hear about the scandal first!”
Adele giggled. “I don’t blame you. All right. Amelia was a bit of a rascal. She allowed both Pascal and Ford to court her, and she led them both to believe she would marry them. I believe she enjoyed playing them off against one another. I was fifteen years old when Amelia arrived, and she was such a figure of glamour to me. Oh, how excited I was just to catch a sight of her in her beautiful clothes! Everyone talked about Amelia and which man she would choose. She was our own Elizabeth Taylor!” Adele’s memories brought back a blush of youth to her face, making her cheeks rosy and her eyes shine.
“Go on,” Faye urged.
“Well, in the end, she chose Pascal. They had a stupendous wedding, the most expensive, gorgeous occasion we’d ever seen on this little island. She had ten bridesmaids! And the flowers! Oh, my. Of course, the marriage caused a break between Pascal and Ford. After the marriage, Ford just hated Pascal. Ford married a local woman, Cornelia, who was pretty and sweet, but no match for Amelia. Pascal was a lawyer, who set up his practice on the island. Ford was a banker, and he became obsessed with making money. He was determined to be richer than the Pettigrews. He’d lost Amelia, so he was going to have more financially. He amassed quite a fortune. Pascal and Amelia had two sons, Sylvester and Frederick. Ford had four children. Double Pascal’s, don’t you see. Ford moved his family to New York but they kept their house on Orange Street for the summer. And then—”
