by Hood, Ann
“Yes,” Claire said softly, a feeling of great affection for this woman filling her. “Yes, that’s what I need. Tea and toast and someone to listen to me.”
“We all do, darling,” Birdy said.
12
The Return
VIVIEN, 1919
Vivien returned home, tired and weary, from all the travel and from all the disappointment. She made a cup of Darjeeling tea, the kind that Duncan MacGregor had told her was most restorative. Sipping it, she thought of how David would say that Duncan probably made that up, but if the tea restored her, then that was all right. For the first time in over a dozen years, when she thought of David, he seemed far from her, a long-ago memory. This trip to Denver had almost erased possibility for her. Had almost erased hope.
A knock sounded on her door, soft, almost tentative. Vivien waited. For all these years, she had turned her life over to her clients and their grief. Tonight, she thought, she needed to turn to her own grief.
Another knock, firmer this time.
With a sigh, Vivien stood, smoothed her skirt and patted her hair in place. She imagined a person out there, heartbroken, desperate for someone to listen. Funny, she thought as she went to the door, that described her as well.
The woman standing there looked surprisingly like a younger version of Vivien herself. She had the same dark red hair, but with the glimmer of gold streaks that Vivien had had as a young woman. Her skin was smooth and pale, her lips full and pouty, just as Vivien’s had been before the lines of grief and age had arrived, before her own lips had grown thin and set. Even the woman’s eyes were the same cat-like green of Vivien’s.
“Are you the obituary writer?” the woman said immediately. No hellos or how are yous.
“I am,” Vivien said. She made allowances for bad behavior. Who knew what had brought this woman here to her doorstep?
Vivien stepped aside to let the woman in, but she didn’t move.
“So you’re her,” she said. “The obituary writer.”
Vivien nodded.
“You’re famous, you know,” she said.
“Well,” Vivien said, her cheeks coloring.
It was true that she had gained some fame for her obituaries, but she preferred to stay out of the limelight. Newspapers had offered her money to move—to Chicago or Los Angeles—and be their obituary writer. Collier’s magazine had wanted to interview her, and The Saturday Evening Post had asked if they might run some of her obituaries. But she’d declined all of these offers. She even refused to take an office at the Napa newspaper. She liked to meet people here in her home, to not have to interact with newspapermen and editors.
“No, you are. That’s why I want you to write my husband’s obituary. It has to be perfect. Special,” the woman added.
Vivien nodded. “It will be,” she said. “If I write it, it will be special.”
The woman peered over Vivien’s shoulder, into the parlor.
“Do you want to come inside?” Vivien asked.
The night air was cool, and the woman wore only a thin blouse in the palest green. Celadon. Like Fu Jing’s jade bracelet, the one she never took off.
“What I wonder,” the woman said, “is whether you ever write obituaries for people who are still alive?”
“Alive?” Vivien said.
The woman laughed and pointed a finger at Vivien. “That’s a good one, right? But that’s what I need. An obituary for my husband who is still alive.”
For an unsettling moment, Vivian wondered if the woman meant to kill her husband. But she was just a slight thing, and she had the nervousness, the skittish look and darting eyes of someone preparing to face grief.
It was unusual, but not the first time someone had come to prepare the obituary for a person about to die. Usually, the illness had been so long and slow that the wife was ready to be done with the business of dying.
“Your husband is ill then?” Vivien said.
And at the very sound of those words, the woman crumpled, bending in on herself and crying hard.
“There, there,” Vivien said, putting her arms around the woman and leading her inside. Her bones felt fragile beneath Vivien’s hands.
“Let me make you some tea,” Vivien said as she urged the woman onto the loveseat.
This made the woman cry even harder.
Vivien sat beside her, trying to soothe her. “I’ll make you some tea and then we’ll have a nice talk. I’m sure I can help you.”
“Tea?” she said. “Yes, that sounds good. Thank you. Do you have Darjeeling?”
“You want Darjeeling tea?” she said. “So few people know Darjeeling.”
The woman studied Vivien’s face carefully.
“I’ve heard it’s restorative,” Vivien continued.
“How did you come to know such an exotic tea?” the woman asked. Her eyes never left Vivien’s face.
“A man I knew in San Francisco,” Vivien said. “A long time ago. He had lived in India and was something of an expert.”
“I see,” the woman said.
“As I said, it was a long time ago,” Vivien said again, suddenly uncomfortable.
They sat in silence until Vivien rose. “I’ll make us both some nice tea and we can talk,” she said.
She felt the woman’s eyes on her as she left the sitting room and went into the kitchen. There, she filled the kettle with water. She lit the burner on the stove, watching the blue flame appear. She took one of the porcelain teapots and carefully measured the loose tea into it. Her hands were shaking.
Vivien paused and leaned against the sink, feeling the cold slate against her back. It was as if this woman had come for something else, not for an obituary at all. The way she’d studied Vivien. The business with the tea. Vivien could almost hear Lotte telling her to stop being ridiculous.
The kettle whistled. Vivien filled the pot and placed it on her black lacquer tray with two teacups and a bowl of sugar. She added a few pieces of shortbread on a plate. Sometimes a grieving person craved sweets.
“The tea is ready,” Vivien said as she lifted the tray and carried it out of the kitchen, into the sitting room.
She took a step in and stopped.
The woman was gone.
The next morning, Vivien baked: bread, corn muffins, molasses cookies. As she stirred and chopped and measured, the woman kept coming into her mind. But no matter how hard she thought, Vivien could not make any sense of the mysterious visitor. She made a pot of vegetable soup, then put everything in a wicker basket to bring to Lotte. Sebastian had left her a note, offering to pick her up and take her to visit Lotte. And Vivien had accepted, hesitantly. What had happened that night Pamela died was a onetime thing, a mistake made in the throes of grief. Vivien could see that. But could he?
By the time Sebastian arrived, Vivien had talked herself out of any civility she might have offered him. If David was dead, then she was going to mourn him properly. After so many years of helping others grieve, Vivien had to figure out how to do it for herself now.
She met him at the door with the basket already in her hand, her coat on and buttoned.
“Perhaps I could have some coffee?” he asked her. “After the long drive?”
“Of course,” Vivien said reluctantly. She couldn’t refuse him coffee, not after he had come for her like this.
She held the door wider to let him in. As he walked past, she noticed how he’d shaved and put on what seemed to be his Sunday best for her. That night in the vineyard had led him on, of course it had. What kind of woman does that, then pretends it didn’t happen? But what kind of woman talked about sex, especially when it was a mistake?
Sebastian found his way into the small kitchen, and was already at work on making coffee when she met him there.
He took up so much space, Vivien thought. She realized that despite all the men who had come here for her help, none of them had ever been in the kitchen with her. It felt intimate, standing so close, the steam rising from the kettle, the
smell of Sebastian’s soap in the air. She saw that he’d prepared two cups for coffee, and this gesture struck her as so kind that she touched his arm.
“Vivien,” he said, the syllables of her name tumbling from his throat.
And just like that, she was in his arms and he was kissing her again, and to her surprise, Vivien was happy to have it, his mouth on hers and his rough hands already unbuttoning her coat and then her white blouse beneath. The kettle whistled, and Vivien reached over and turned off the stove.
“You have a bedroom here?” Sebastian was whispering.
“I do,” she said, taking his hand and leading him toward it.
Later, they lay naked beneath her crisp white sheets. Vivien had never seen a man so hairy, the curly black hair covering his stomach and chest. Although he had arrived freshly shaved, already she saw the blue-black beginnings of hair on his cheeks and chin. The strangeness of him delighted her. She told him this, and he laughed.
“Vivien, Vivien,” he said. “How I love your name in my mouth.”
“You haven’t asked about Denver,” she said, watching the slant of the light through the blinds. Afternoon had arrived, she realized.
“I don’t need to ask,” Sebastian said. “If you had found him, I would not be here naked in your bed.”
“I think . . .” Vivien began, but she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Vivien,” Sebastian said. “Do you know this little bird that sings? A little yellow bird?”
“Canary?”
“Yes. Ca-na-ry,” he said carefully. “Your name in my mouth is a canary. You in my arms makes my heart sing like a canary. You are my little bird.”
“A poet, you,” Vivien said, turning her head so he did not see the tears that had unexpectedly come to her eyes.
“Birdy,” Sebastian whispered, taking her chin in his hand and turning her face toward him. He placed his lips on hers. “Birdy,” he whispered again.
For two days, Vivien tended to Lotte and her family. She washed their clothes and swept the floors. She opened the windows to let fresh air in. She made a tamale pie and a chicken pot pie and put them in the refrigerator so that there would be dinner for them during the week. The ways to help the grieving, Vivien thought as she hung the wet laundry on the clothesline outside the kitchen, were similar to helping the sick. Except mourners did not show any immediate signs of recovery.
Lotte stayed in bed most of the time, either sleeping or pretending to sleep, Vivien wasn’t sure which. She left her tea and toast on the night table and placed a vase of golden poppies beside it.
“Lotte?” she said late Sunday afternoon.
When Lotte didn’t answer, Vivien continued. “I’m going back to town now, darling.”
Still no response.
“Lotte, you have to try. If not for Robert, then for the boys.”
Vivien waited, but Lotte remained still, her face turned away.
“In time,” Vivien said softly as she bent to kiss her friend on the head. “In time.”
The ride back to town with Sebastian was quiet, Vivien lost in her thoughts. She looked out the window at the sky darkening, and tried to imagine her future. Would she go back to her routine of weekly trips to the library scouring the newspapers for amnesiacs? Although Sebastian had offered her nothing, she wondered if she might make a life with him. For the first time since the earthquake, she felt a glimmer of possibility. Vivien snuck a glance at Sebastian as he drove, a cheroot between his lips, his face lined and brown from the sun.
“Next week?” he said. “I pick you up again on Saturday?”
Vivien kept her eyes on him. “Why don’t you come Friday night?”
“And stay overnight?” he asked, surprised.
“And stay overnight,” Vivien said.
On Monday morning Vivien was awakened by the sound of soft knocking on her door. She slipped on her lavender robe and hurried, barefoot, down the stairs. Opening the door, she found the young woman from the other evening stood there.
“You again,” Vivien said, frowning.
“I apologize for my sudden departure,” the girl said. “My emotions got the best of me.”
“I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet,” Vivien said.
“Should I come back then?” the girl said. She wore a green coat with a red fox collar. The animal’s head and amber eyes unnerved Vivien.
“No, no. Come in.” She opened the door wider so the girl could enter. “Would you like to join me?”
The girl turned, her eyes narrowing.
“Are you making espresso?” she asked.
“Goodness, no,” Vivien said, trying to act nonchalant despite the question. She had not made espresso since David taught her to use that complicated machine of his.
The girl began to slowly remove the bobby pins that held her small green hat in place, her eyes never leaving Vivien as she did. The hat was the type that hugged the top of the head, with a stiff short veil on the front. Sequins sparkled from the veil in the early morning light.
“I don’t eat breakfast,” Vivien said, heading toward the kitchen. “But I have some biscotti if you’d like.”
To her surprise, the girl followed her into the kitchen, boldly taking in everything there: the china in the old cupboard; the three small paintings of cafés in Venice that hung, one on top of the other, by the window; the shadow box that Vivien had made in those first weeks after the earthquake. She had collected broken things from her flat—bits of glass and wood and porcelain—and arranged them in a wooden box. The act of building something out of all of the destruction around her had brought her a strange hypnotic comfort. It was this that the girl fixated on. She stood directly in front of it, examining each item as if it held a clue to something important.
Setting the teakettle on the stove and measuring the coffee into the pot kept Vivien from yanking the girl away from her things.
“When you were here last week,” Vivien said, working hard to keep her voice steady, “you had an unusual request.”
“Yes,” the girl said. “To write my husband’s obituary, even though he is still alive.” She paused. “He has cancer, you see.”
“I’m sorry,” Vivien said.
Abruptly, the girl turned away from the shadow box, her finger pointing back toward it. “That red and white porcelain,” she said. “Where is it from?”
Vivien didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. She knew every item in that box by heart.
“A milk pitcher,” she said. “That’s all that’s left of it. It shattered a long time ago.”
“I have matching pieces,” the girl said. “A small creamer and sugar bowl.”
Vivien didn’t answer. What could she say? The pattern was a rare one, made in England to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria, and never produced again. She knew too that David had given several pieces to his wife as a wedding gift. He had removed the milk pitcher from their home on Nob Hill and used it every morning to froth the milk for coffee.
“I’ve never met anyone else who owns it,” the girl said.
The teakettle whistled. Vivien poured the boiling water over the coffee grounds to wet them, then counted to thirty before she filled the rest of the pot. She tried to make sense of this girl. Perhaps she was related to David’s wife. Margaret had died shortly after the earthquake, from cholera like so many others had. In her panic and grief, Vivien had gone to the house, hoping that David was there, alive. But Margaret came to the door, tall and thin and ashen, clutching a pale orange silk kimono closed. She was already ill, too ill to say all the things she wanted to say to Vivien. I have imagined our meeting for years. And now I am too weak to scream all the things at you that I have screamed in my head.
Slowly, Vivien pressed the plunger, watching the water turn dark with coffee.
“Where did you get it?” the girl was asking.
“It was a gift,” Vivien said.
She poured the rich, strong coffee into cups and placed a few anisette
biscotti on a plate. Queasy, she took one and bit into it, letting the licorice flavor fill her mouth. Licorice had healing properties, she knew. It settled stomachs and soothed throats. Some believed it helped insomniacs to sleep.
The girl followed Vivien into the living room, and perched on the loveseat where she had sat during her last visit. They set about the business of fixing their coffees, adding cream and sugar, stirring. Vivien dipped her biscotti into the coffee, and chewed the softened cookie, waiting.
But the girl did not say anything. Again, she took in everything around her, narrowing her green eyes, taking stock. Her hair shone a lovely red as the morning light grew brighter.
Watching her, Vivien became aware of her own dull hair, pulled back into a messy bun, and of how she must look with the deep lines that had developed over time between her eyes and around her mouth. Sorrow lines, that was how she thought of them. She saw these same lines on younger women who had experienced great loss. Not this young woman, though. Her skin was smooth, her cheeks rosy, her eyes lively.
Vivien cleared her throat.
“How sad about your husband,” Vivien said. “And so young too.”
The girl smiled ruefully. “My husband is quite a bit older than I am, actually.”
“Oh?” Vivien managed. She found herself shoving back the idea trying to force its way into her brain. Her hands trembled when she picked up her cup, sloshing coffee onto her lap. She wiped at it halfheartedly.
“He’s almost sixty,” the girl said. She now turned her scrutiny on Vivien. “Does that surprise you?”
“Older men marry younger women all the time,” Vivien said.
The girl simply stared at her.
“I don’t even know you,” Vivien said. “I certainly am not judging you. Or your husband.”
Again, the girl said nothing.
“Tell me about him,” Vivien said. She placed her hand at her chest, wanting to slow her racing heart.
“Why?” the girl demanded.
“How can I write an obituary if I know nothing about the deceased?”
