She took a deep breath and a gulp of wine then called Stasia and left a message with her secretary. Grinding her teeth, she dialed McGuinness and Lester, Esq., and held while Troy Lester was rounded up. She ordered another wine before the secretary informed her he was out of the office.
“Give me his cell number.” She wouldn’t. “Then give him my number. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
All very well about Courtney then. Just the shock of discovery, being blindsided. She should have guessed something like this — years ago. But what about Sophie? How was she going to tell Tristan that his father had another family, that he had a half-sister? That Harry hadn't been all the father Tristan had wanted him to be, because he was father to another?
Suddenly tears leaked out of her eyes — oh God why now — then as the bartender brought the wine, sobs erupted, blubbering noises. Probably not the first heard in an Irish bar but the bartender looked appropriately shaken. He returned with a stack of napkins.
Merle dabbed her cheeks. Very thoughtful. Love that bartender. “Is that your phone, miss?”
Of course it was. “Merle? Troy Lester.” Traffic noise, heavy breathing.
“Mr. Lester. When were you going to tell me about Courtney Duncan?”
He stammered and spit. His discomfort made her happy. It was good to have someone repulsive like Troy Lester to be angry at. She couldn’t be mad at Harry any more. He was gone, and philanderer that he was, cheat and betray as he did, she deserved it. She had let him go, from her heart, a long time ago.
Reluctantly, Lester spilled the beans. Harry had left Courtney and Sophie the apartment, and the slender remains of his pension fund, also plundered. A second, secret will. Merle threw the phone down on the table.
Stasia arrived fifteen minutes later and, with the help of the bartender, forced coffee down her throat. They were out on the street, walking to the subway, before Merle could tell her.
“He never sold the apartment,” Merle said, stopping for a light.
“What apartment?”
“Twelfth Street. He gave it to his blond thing, and their daughter.”
“You’re drunk.” Stasia glared at her. “Are you serious?”
“The lawyers did it in secret. The bastards. He has a four-year-old daughter. Her name is Sophie. She’s four, Stace.”
Stasia turned instantly crimson, a specialty of hers. “Filthy, lowdown son of a bitch —” She stamped her foot on the pavement.
Merle felt calm now that her sister was mad. “Do you think it was because I couldn’t —" She felt hollow, the way she felt after the hysterectomy. Not her old self, never would be again. Something gone and gone forever. “Did you know? Do Mother and Daddy know?”
“Nobody knows. If he was good at one thing, it was keeping secrets.” Stasia took her arm and led her toward the subway stairs. “Move, now. We’ll talk about it later.”
A picture of Harry came into her head, an outing to somewhere, when Tristan was three or four — Sophie’s age. Mystic Seaport, that was it. Tristan high up on Harry’s shoulders, pointing at the big sailing ships, their tall masts, a clump of daddy’s hair in his little fist. Harry holding his feet, smiling. They were a family that weekend, a strong yearning in her satisfied for at least one weekend. They jumped on the motel beds, sang songs in the car.
Had she loved him then, or just the idea of a family? Was her heart a stone? He had left her, years ago.
Merle stopped. “I don’t blame him. Or her. He deserved love — everyone does — and she loved him. I didn’t. I didn't love him. Not for a long time. I — ” She shrugged. “I just didn’t.”
They were next to a flower stand overflowing with color and petals. Buckets of tulips vied for attention. Which one is the prettiest, the red, the yellow, the pink, the white? Daffodils, pussy willows. Lilacs on woody stems, their smell enticing.
Stasia was talking. Merle could see her lips move. Taxis were honking, an old woman pulled her shopping wheelie down the curb. Merle sucked the air on the sidewalk. Her chest felt like it was in a vise. Why can’t I breathe?
An open palm crossed Merle’s face. The sting felt hot. She didn’t blame her sister. What is family for if you can’t count on them to set you straight when you need it most, even in the middle of Greenwich Village? Her own sister smacked her hard across the cheek, bringing her back, holding her upright, making her grab onto the scraps of her rag-tag life.
“You didn’t love him. It’s fine. It doesn't matter.”
Merle held onto her shoulder. “Okay. Thanks,” she croaked.
Stasia pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “Breathe. And repeat after me: Case of courage. Bucket of balls.”
Poor Elise. She had no idea.
Merle looked over the orderly crowd on folding chairs on the lawn at Whitman and slumped lower in her seat. Her mother gave her a little frown and she straightened again. Must be respectful. A solemn and joyous occasion as the last Bennett girl takes the harness.
Elise clutched her diploma to her chest, flushed, her dark hair pulled back and red lipstick on her baby doll lips. Merle was distracted, sweating in a sleeveless navy shift. She’d had to tell Sauvageau about the new wrinkle, that Harry had another child who would inherit. But only if Courtney found out. And how would she? She didn’t seem the suspicious type. On the contrary, she seemed naïve, crushed and pathetic. Another ethical conundrum raised its ugly head. Ah, but to a lawyer, that was nothing. Just a thought to be compartmentalized.
The speeches were mercifully short, the May heat rising from the damp earth to surround the well-wishers in the steamy scents of spring. Finally they rose and gathered around the graduate on the lawn. After an interminable, clammy hugging session they decamped for a cool restaurant.
The Bennett clan was tricked out in understated prep-wear. Her father had gone with the red bowtie, always a winner. Bernie wore a navy blue suit with a collarless white blouse that dated from the sixties, somehow surviving a thousand washings.
Her father had insisted on Merle sitting next to him. Jack Bennett had given her shoulder a pinch of affection and sat silently through the toasts. His hearing wasn’t great so he liked to just smile at these big gatherings. The salad came and he dug in.
On her other side Francie wore a low-cut flowered dress that showed off cleavage and tan. Francie was the knock-out sister, with auburn highlights and turned up nose, a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and bright blue eyes. Merle had invited Betsy, who knew all the sisters and got along especially well with Elise, but her daughter Lynnie had a soccer game. Just as well, Merle thought. No point in the friends suffering.
At the kids’ end of the table, Tristan wore his black blazer and a half-pressed blue oxford cloth shirt with a wonky collar, both last seen at his father’s funeral. Francie had picked him up at school — she lived near Blackwood. She worked in Greenwich but couldn’t afford to live there. Her clients had a different set of problems than Merle’s, lawsuits between neighbors over dogs and parking, bankruptcy, prenups. Francie waffled between loving it and hating it on a weekly basis.
There were sixteen of them around the table, the sisters, one spouse, Stasia’s three kids plus Tristan, a couple boyfriends (Francie’s was chiseled and very young), Aunt Gloria, Bernie’s sister, a cousin or three. Stasia and Annie talked across the table, heads together. They couldn’t look more different: Stace in red polka dots and bangles, Annie in something tie-dyed and a big, furry scarf around her neck. Merle wished she were over there instead of by her father and Francie. She wanted to hear their gossip, laugh a little.
Stasia and Rick’s oldest, Willow, had brought her boyfriend down from college. Willow lived up to her name: tall and slender with gold waterfall hair. Her boyfriend was scruffy, with dirty brown hair and a black t-shirt, but hung on Willow’s every word. Would the children be happy, Merle suddenly worried, examining their expressions. Tristan frowned at her then elbowed Oliver and laughed.
Stasia caught her eye and wi
nked. Annie, who was told the sordid story of Harry’s other life just last night, gave her a ‘buck-up’ smile. After the salad and a polite inquiry into Merle’s state of mind, Francie, not as yet clued into the latest revelations, launched into a lament about her job, social life, and lawyering.
“I can see the appeal of Legal Aid, I really can. At least you get to do some good.”
“There’s that,” Merle said, chewing lettuce.
“If I have one more sixty-year-old chief executive marrying his twenty-something bimbo and wanting to keep all his cash from her, I’m going to kill myself. Why does he even bother? I mean, marriage isn’t all that great. I should know.” Francie had tried it once, briefly. The airline pilot she married was hardly ever home. Her boyfriend gave her a lascivious smile. He was home free.
“I’m taking the summer off,” Merle said. It had a nice ring to it.
Francie smiled. “Sure. What would you do, Merle, paint your toenails every day? No, wait, you’re going to a Buddhist retreat. Yeah, that’s it. Ommmm.” She laughed and her boyfriend, Willie or Dick or somebody, laughed along.
“I'm done in Harlem. I got packed off to Development. They don't need me until fall, or until I get my attitude adjusted.”
“They said that? Come on.” She squeezed Merle’s hand, suddenly serious. “You’re really taking summer off? Are you all right?” Despite her stunning beauty and a bright, easy charm unknown to the other sisters, Francie could be a loving sister. Merle squeezed back, thinking she should call her more often. Tell her about the nasty family secrets. One of these days.
Merle raised her glass. “To attitude adjustment — it’s not just alcohol anymore.”
Francie giggled. “I’ll go drinking with you any time!”
Someone called: “To Elise!”
As they clinked crystal Merle stood up. “Excuse me, Elise, for using your graduation day for this.” Elise smiled, dipping her head in gratitude. She was a little tipsy, draining her glass as if another toast in her honor was in the offing. She turned for a refill to her boyfriend, a pudgy classmate who wouldn’t last, they all could tell.
“As you know in his will Harry left me — and Tristan — a house in France. His family home. Sort of a surprise but what the heck, right? Who are we to look a gift-horse in the mouth? Let’s just hope it’s not a Trojan gift-horse. Anyway, at the end of the term we will be traveling to the small village of Malcouziac, somewhere in France, to throw out the freeloaders and see if we can sell it.”
After a shocked pause Annie said loudly, “Hey. You mean, no work? A vacation? An honest-to-God summer holiday?”
Her father turned to her frowning: “You’re going where?”
“To France,” Bernie shouted in his ear.
A holiday. Mystic Seaport popped into her head. That was a holiday. Those days, whatever they were, were over. Long over, if they only knew.
Put a face on it, Merdle. Vacation sounded a whole lot better than the drudgery, legal wrangling, and endless spending ahead. Harry would have liked that. He goes his own way and she gets stuck with his dirty work.
Oh, yeah, let's see that smiling face.
She raised her glass. “To vacations. What a concept.”
BOOK TWO
France
Chapter 11
After all these weeks, from a wet April morning to a hot June day, not so long in time but emotionally an obstacle course of peaks and valleys, she was here. Across the sea, over the deep blue ocean. Exactly ten weeks and three days, nine Sundays, a Memorial Day. Over the miles and the hours, after packing and arranging and explaining, here she was, in France where Harry was born. Where he lived. Where not a trace of him remained.
They stared at the house. Monsieur Rancard — ‘Arnaud’ after four hours together in his perfumed Benz — rolled down the window, letting in hot, dry air. The lawyer, although handsome in that suave Mediterranean way, was business-like, even blunt. No passes, no intimate taps on the knee. She had sweated through her safari shirt and stuck to the seat. They talked nonstop and she was exhausted. Yet, a flutter of anticipation rose in her as they turned the last corner, pulled up to the curb.
No cottage, the house rose two stories of washed-yellow stone with a tile roof at various angles. Four windows, one extra-wide, faced the street. Only a narrow cement sidewalk with a granite curb separated the living quarters from the cobblestones. The shutters were devoid of paint, a weathered gray, an upstairs one hanging on one hinge. A high wall circled the place, starting at both front corners. The only house on the block with side yards, it was slightly grander than most yet looked abandoned.
The house sat adjacent to the crumbling city wall, six feet high here, eight there. Across most of the street it was lower, knee-high, as if a Nazi Panzer tank had crashed through. Beyond the broken wall the slope fell away into rows of staked vines. Across the swale stone-and-tile houses nestled close to the earth, thick forests darkened the hilltops, more grapes undulated with the curves of the hillsides, marching relentlessly toward wine.
They got out of the car and stretched. Merle had seen a lot of country with Arnaud between Toulouse and Malcouziac, villages along streams and on hilltops, bigger towns with gas stations, supermarkets, and modern buildings, but this land of vineyards and buttery stone was as pretty as it got. Maybe she was already biased toward the village, proprietary in a way. Maybe she was just tired.
“It’s big,” she said, taking off her sunglasses to look at the house. The day was sunny and warm in a way a Connecticut summer so rarely was. Heat reflected off the stone house opposite hers, a tidy, plain house with geraniums in pots. Next door to her house the shutters and door were freshly painted in a glossy royal burgundy. Upstairs music and a lace curtain blew out the open window while at the Strachie’s all was closed and silent.
“So you see, all these shutters are locked,” Arnaud said. He rattled the door shutter, its curved top matching the rock framework. “I can see the padlock there, through the crack.”
As Merle peered through the half-inch space between the shutters the shouting began inside. Through the inner glass she caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow. She looked at Arnaud and raised an eyebrow.
“That is the lady,” he said, sighing. He yelled back at her in French.
“What is she saying?”
“Babble. This is her house. Leave her alone.” He took Merle’s arm and led her back toward the middle of the village. “Perhaps best not to provoke her too much,” he said, though he obviously had. “She has the ear of the village now, some of the old people especially. They had no good to say of her when I first came but now? Suddenly, pfft! She is the poor old lady, the martyr.”
She heard them again, outside the shutters. Devils, trying to enter her sanctuary. Evil ones.
Sister Evangeline said God would smite them, but He was taking His sweet time. Justine called out with her own curse. Satisfied they had gone, she turned from the dark room back into the sunshine of the garden. Eden, she sometimes called it, it was so lovely. She lived out here in the summer. With the hammock stretched into the corner, the only reason she had to go into the house was to store her meager ration of food and to curse the Devils.
The batteries on the radio seemed to be going out. The music sounded faint. She must ask Sister Evangeline for more batteries. Carefully she picked at the plastic cover on the back of the pink box radio, trying to ease it off with a fingernail. She knew how things worked, she’d been around. This radio had been with her for years, a reliable friend.
The sun beat down on her head. Her grip turned moist with sweat. Her finger slipped, slipped again, and suddenly the radio lay in pieces at the bottom of the wall. No sound came from it — no music — no Piaf — nothing. She stared at the pieces. It was the Devils’ fault.
Evangeline came through the back gate, locking it quickly behind her. Justine became aware of the tears on her face from Evangeline’s shocked look.
“Qu’est-ce que tu fait?”
/> Justine let the sun dry her cheeks. “Batteries,” she mumbled.
Evangeline frowned at the broken radio. “It’ll need a whole lot more than that.” She took Justine’s hand. “Did you have trouble with it? Don’t worry, dear. Sister will get you another. Sister takes care of her flock.”
The woman’s hand on Justine’s bony shoulder was warm and sticky. Justine didn’t like to be touched. She frowned at the old nun. Sister E was to be tolerated. She was kind, she brought food, and a pretty rose-colored blouse just yesterday. And she kept the Devils away, those who would take Eden away from Justine.
Still, she couldn’t help but step back, away from Sister’s humid grasp. What did the old nun really want, her mind shouted. Why had she showed up here? Who had told her to come, that Justine needed help? Did she hear it directly from above?
“I’ve brought you something,” Sister E said, smiling, holding a paper bag. Her hair made her look like a man, Justine thought, a friar really, with the short, bowl shape. And so gray, very sad. Nuns disliked their hair — why was that? Hair was meant to be adored by all, even God loved hair or he wouldn’t have put so much on the angels. Justine patted her own locks, once famous for blocks and blocks, all the way to the Gironde. She felt pity for Sister’s plainness, her ugly shoes and baggy trousers.
“What?” Justine said.
Sister reached into the bag and pulled out a small bottle of pills from the pharmacy. “Some pills to help you sleep. See? One before bedtime,” the nun said.
“I sleep fine,” Justine said. She eyed the small bottle warily. The Sister was trying to poison her now?
Sister E looked at her, making her squirm. Justine felt like she was under a microscope. “The American is in town. I know how that upsets you,” the nun said. “Just take one at bedtime.”
Justine hesitated then took it.
Sister E smiled. “I’ll clean up the radio. Okay?”
“They were here.”
Blackbird Fly Page 7
