Nora and Liz

  “And she’s done a wonderful job. I’m very grateful.”

  “Yes, but now it’s over. No more. She needs to go back to her regular schedule.”

  “Mr. Tillot,” Liz said hesitantly, “with all respect, I think it’s good for Nora to get out once in a while. When I go back to New York in the fall, I guess she’ll go back to her regular schedule anyway. But shouldn’t she have a little fun in the meantime? It’s summer, after all, and…”

  “Nora is a grown woman, Miss Hardy, not a child. She doesn’t need ‘fun.’ That’s all right for you New York folks, probably, but here in the country we believe in hard work and the satisfaction we get out of it. Where is Nora? Nora,” he bellowed. “Bring my pills! My head’s killing me.” Dramatically, he ran his hand over his forehead.

  “Let me get you some water.” Quickly, Liz pumped a glass full of water and handed it to him.

  “Water’s no good without the pills, you damn fool!” Ralph waved the glass away just as Nora tossed the pill bottle to Liz from the doorway. “Here you go,” she called. “Mama and I will be right in.”

  “Shall I open the bottle for you?” Liz asked.

  He snatched it from her. “I’m not a cripple,” he shouted. “At least not yet.”

  Liz, giving up, pulled out a chair, but before she could sit, Thomas mewed at the back door, so she let him in. He wove himself in and out of her legs, purring.

  “You remember Liz Hardy, Mama,” Nora said cheerfully, rolling Corinne’s wheelchair into the kitchen.

  Liz was startled to see that Corinne’s head lolled and that one side of her mouth drooped, leaking a thin thread of saliva.

  “Hello, Mrs. Tillot.” Liz bent closer. “How are you?”

  Corinne lifted her head a little. “Hello, dear. Have you come for the eggs? Get a dozen, Nora, for the lady.”

  “No, Mrs…” Liz began, but Nora held up her hand.

  “Yes, Mama,” Nora said. “I will.” She pushed her mother’s wheelchair to the table and began opening cupboards, handing dishes, cutlery, and napkins to Liz.

  “Now, Mama,” she said after a minute or two. “What do you think? This is Liz Hardy, my friend. She’s going to stay to supper. Isn’t that nice?”

  Corinne smiled sweetly at Liz. “Nice,” she said. “Hello, dear. What’s your name?”

  “Liz, Mrs. Tillot.” Liz shook Corinne’s limp hand.

  “Are you in school with Nora?”

  Nora nodded, so Liz said “Yes,” and the conversation, such as it was, went on from there while Nora served the meat loaf and they began to eat.

  “Today she’s stuck in my junior year in high school,” Nora whispered to Liz as they cleared the first course; Corinne had called Liz “Marsha” several times and asked about someone named Peter; Liz remembered they’d been Nora’s friends. Ralph had eaten silently and messily, staring down into his plate, not speaking except, once, to bark, “Where the hell’s the salt?” and, later, to say, “Those damn pills don’t do any good.”

  “Does your head still hurt?” Nora asked, pouring Liz more wine. “I’m sorry, Father.”

  “My head hurts, too,” Corinne said softly. “A little. Maybe it’s bedtime?” she said to Nora. “And Marsha needs to go home or her mother will worry.”

  “Wouldn’t you like some dessert first, Mama? Liz—um, Marsha—brought a lovely carrot cake and some ice cream. We have to eat the ice cream,” she said merrily, “before it melts. I’ll get it, shall I?”

  “And I’ll get the cake.” Liz followed Nora out to the back stoop. “You didn’t tell me she’d gotten worse again,” she whispered.

  “Didn’t I?” Nora opened the ice box and took out the carton she’d placed against the rapidly melting ice block. “She does seem kind of fuzzy tonight, but no worse than at other fuzzy times, except for the headache. That’s unusual, but not unheard of; she’s had them before, now and then. Nothing’s consistent with her. The doctor’s not sure why. Something about the blood supply to her brain, he thinks.”

  “I wish you could take her for tests.”

  “So do I, but she’d be terrified and Father would never stand for it.”

  “You managed the car.”

  “With your help.” Nora leaned over, standing on her toes, and to Liz’s astonishment, gave Liz a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for that. For the car. For the driving lessons. For—for a taste of freedom. And for you yourself.”

  Before Liz could say anything or react, Nora fled back into the house.

  Later, when the old folks were in bed, Nora and Liz sat out near the vegetable garden, facing each other with their lawn chairs almost touching as they finished the wine.

  “I’d forgotten,” Liz said, “how bright the stars really are till I came back here to Clarkston.”

  “They must be even brighter at the lake, reflecting off the water.”

  “They are. You’ll have to come some night and see them.” She leaned forward. “Come now? Come tonight. We could have a midnight swim.”

  Nora leaned forward also and gave Liz’s hand a squeeze, then held it. “I’d love to. But I can’t leave them alone.”

  “No.” Liz squeezed Nora’s hand back. “I know. Of course you can’t.”

  “Maybe sometime I can get Patty to stay with them for a couple of hours at night. Sometime before you go back. I’d like that.”

  “I’d like it, too.” Liz said, stroking Nora’s hand.

  And then they both leaned forward a little more, till their faces were close together, and they kissed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  For a long time neither of them said anything, but Nora rubbed her cheek against Liz’s and then slipped off her chair to the ground, kneeling, her head in Liz’s lap, while Liz stroked her hair.

  Awkwardly, Liz, too, slipped off her chair. She took Nora in her arms, hoping Ralph wouldn’t get out of bed and look outside, then was annoyed with herself for thinking that. She felt heady, a little dizzy, and she realized, as her mind leapt ahead, that she was beginning to do what she had done with Megan: editing her feelings, verbalizing them as she felt them, putting words between them and herself so that she, or some part of herself, remained distant—even as she stroked Nora’s back, tipped her face up to her own, looked into her eyes, and, seeing trust in them and no fear, kissed her mouth, first gently, then more insistently.

  Her internal commentry receded.

  “All right?” she whispered, smiling at Nora. “Are you all right? Is this?”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes!”

  Nora snuggled closer. But then she turned her face away from Liz’s, and Liz quickly pulled back.

  Nora caught her. “No,” she said. “No. Don’t move. I don’t understand this, but I… Well, maybe I do understand it. Do you?”

  “I understand,” Liz said, “that I care for you deeply and that…”

  “I care for you, too,” Nora whispered. “I never felt this way before. Did you?” She sat back on her heels. “You must have,” she said, “for the man you lived with. Did you?”

  Clumsily, Liz shifted back onto her chair. “Nora, I didn’t live with a man. The person I told you about was a woman. I’m gay, Nora. A lesbian.”

  Nora stared. “Oh,” she said in a very small voice. “Oh.” For a long moment she looked at Liz, her head cocked in the way that had charmed Liz in what now seemed centuries earlier. Did I fall in love with her then, Liz asked herself, when she first did that? But she felt as if she’d loved Nora for a very long time.

  “I think I sensed that,” Nora was saying. “All along.”

  “Does it matter to you?” Liz asked quietly.

  “Not in the way you think. It matters only in a good way, in that it means you can—can care about me in a special way and I can care about you. I—I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I’m anything. I’ve read about lesbians, but it’s feelings that matter, isn’t it, more than labels. Maybe since I never thought much about men, or cared much for them, I’m a le
sbian, too. I don’t mind that. I just care about how I feel about you.”

  “Maybe it just means you haven’t met the right man.”

  “Maybe. But now it feels as if I’ve met the right woman. And it also feels as if I want to kiss you again, want you to kiss me…”

  A cry from inside the house made them both spring apart, made the blood drain from Liz’s head and fear clutch at her stomach.

  “NORA! NORA! GOD! OH, GOD! NORA!”

  For a moment Nora and Liz clumsily held each other back, tangling together as they tried to run. Then Nora broke free and ran ahead of Liz, stumbling over roots and nearly falling up the steps to the back door.

  Ralph stood there, ashen, trembling. “Corinne,” he cried brokenly. “Mama! Oh, God, oh, Jesus!”

  Nora clutched his shoulder briefly, then ran past him. Liz tried to steady him, her hands on his waist, steering him back inside, to the kitchen table, to a chair. “Here, Mr. Tillot, sit down. It’s all right; Nora’s with her, it’s all right…”

  “You!” Ralph choked out the word, making it an accusation, his hands thrusting at her as if to push her away. “You—you interfering—you! Get away from me! It’s your doing, your fault; you did it with your lessons and your mechanics and your, your damn carrot cake! Yes! The carrot cake! You—I…”

  “Liz,” Nora called in an oddly conversational tone from Corinne’s room. “Liz, please. Please come.”

  Awkwardly, Liz reached over to pat Ralph’s shoulder, then thought better of it and of saying anything to him; she withdrew her hand and, dreading what she’d find, she went into Corinne’s room.

  Corinne lay on the bed, her face distorted, her eyes open, but obviously unseeing. No breath stirred her chest, and she looked absent from herself, as if she no longer inhabited her body.

  “Oh, God.” Liz put her arm around Nora. “Oh, Nora, dearest…”

  “I can’t tell,” Nora said, looking up after a few moments during which she’d clung to Liz, her head buried in Liz’s neck. “I’m not sure. Would you…?”

  Liz bent closer, put her hand on Corinne’s chest, then felt for the pulse in her neck, but there was nothing. “Do you have a mirror?” she asked, not at all sure if that was the right thing to do. “A small one?”

  Nora fumbled among objects on Corinne’s dresser and at last gave Liz a small hand mirror. Liz held it up to Corinne’s mouth.

  It remained clear, fogless.

  Liz felt for a pulse again, fruitlessly.

  “I’m afraid…” she began, and then stopped, for Ralph had lurched into the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” Liz began again, this time to him.

  “Murderer!” Ralph howled, flinging himself on Corinne’s body as if to protect it. Or to merge with it, Liz thought; that’s what he wants, poor man.

  “Murderer!” he shouted again, twisting around to look at Liz over his shoulder.

  “Father!” Nora, terror and horror mingling on her face, tentatively touched his shoulder. “Father, it was another stroke! It has to have been.”

  “Brought on by her.” His eyes snapped with brittle fire. “Lessons, taking you away, the car. And then that carrot cake. Poisoned, she poisoned my Corinne!”

  “You had some cake yourself,” Nora said, swaying a little.

  “Steady.” Liz put an arm around her again. I should be terrified, she thought. Terrified. But she felt oddly removed, and fascinated. Yes, that’s it, she thought, as she watched Ralph pull Corinne’s body closer. His mouth was slack and he was drooling a little; saliva was dribbling onto Corinne’s nightgown, onto her neck. His eyes still burned, but tears showed in them along the bottom lids, little contained rivulets of tears.

  “No, I didn’t have any cake,” Ralph said, his voice muffled, for he was lying across Corinne now, awkwardly, holding her, cradling her head. The rivulets overflowed, sending tears down his grizzled cheeks. “I didn’t.”

  “Well, I did,” Nora said, “and so did Liz.”

  “She served it,” Ralph said. “She cut it. She could have put anything in it. But it’s all right,” he crooned to Corinne. “It’s all right, my sweetheart, my best girl. It’s all right. I’ve called them; they’ll come, they’ll take her away and punish her. Don’t you worry. She won’t get away with it.”

  “Father!” Nora said as Liz felt cold sweep over her, and terror at last, and disbelief. “What? Who did you call?”

  “I called the police.” He twisted around, facing Liz, and his eyes gleamed coldly, triumphantly. “I called that 911 number for emergencies. I told them there’d been a murder.”

  Book III

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  For a moment none of them moved.

  I must remember to breathe, Liz thought, realizing she had stopped and seemed to be standing outside herself, watching strangers: a dead woman, a crazy man practically lying on her, two horrified women staring…

  Then Nora cried out, “Father, no!” and seized Liz’s hand. Liz, herself again, felt a sharp stab of fear and her stomach knotted, for he had said, hadn’t he, that she had killed Corinne?

  “The phone,” Nora gasped, dropping Liz’s hand and rushing from the room. “Maybe…”

  Liz followed her.

  The phone was dangling from its cord; Nora picked it up delicately, as if handling something hot, and held it to her ear. “I’ll call them back,” she whispered to Liz. “Tell them that…” Then her face changed, and she said into the mouthpiece, “Yes? Hello?… No, I—Nora. Nora Tillot… Yes, he’s here. He’s in with my mother… Yes, I think so… Yes”—she glanced at Liz—“my friend, Liz, Elizabeth Hardy… What?… No, of course not!… We were outside in the yard. My father yelled and we went in… Yes, into my mother’s room and—and found her… No, she wasn’t… Yes, my father’s here.” Nora put her hand to her forehead.

  Liz moved swiftly to her. Why couldn’t the police—for it must be them, she reasoned, still on the phone after Ralph’s call—why couldn’t they leave her alone instead of badgering her with questions?

  “…in with my mother,” Nora was saying; she was leaning against Liz now, heavily; Liz felt the slightest change in her own position would topple her. “Well, all right. Just a minute and I’ll… What?”

  A moment later, Nora put her hand over the mouthpiece and said to Liz, “He doesn’t want me to leave the phone, but he wants to talk to Father. Would you get him, please?”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Nora nodded, but Liz dragged a kitchen chair over to her and pushed her gently into it before she left the room.

  Ralph was lying full-length next to Corinne now, tears on his cheeks, caressing her face and murmuring. In spite of herself, Liz felt a pang of sympathy for him. It seemed cruel to disturb him, to intrude on his grief, but she leaned over, touching his shoulder. “Mr. Tillot?” she said quietly. “Excuse me, but the police want to talk with you. They’re on the phone.”

  Ralph twisted around and looked up at her, his eyes glazed with grief and then, as he recognized her, grief gave way to fury and hatred. “You!” he said, pushing her away, then gripping her arm painfully. “You! Get out of my house, get away from here. Poisoner! Murderer! Get out! Get out!” His face reddened and sweat beads stood out on his forehead as he shook her arm violently.

  “I can’t leave,” Liz said, wincing in pain, “as long as you’re holding onto me. The police really do want to talk with you, sir. Won’t you go to the phone?” She realized she was shivering inside, as if she’d caught a sudden chill.

  He shook her again. “You’ll come with me, then.” He pulled himself up via Liz’s arm; she nearly fell over onto him as he tugged. “You won’t stay with my sweetheart.” He turned, still gripping Liz, awkwardly forcing her partway down on the bed as he twisted down again, kissing Corinne. He’d closed her eyes, Liz saw, or someone had. Had she? Had Nora? But they weren’t all the way closed; she could see white in the slit between the upper and lower lids.

  “I’ll be back,
my sweetheart,” Ralph said, caressing Corinne’s face. “I’ll be back.”

  Roughly, he sat, then stood and, shoving Liz in front of him, went to the kitchen and snatched the phone from Nora. “I’ve got her,” he said into the receiver, his eyes snapping.

  Crazy, he’s crazy, Liz thought, shaking her head at Nora, who, standing again, was trying unsuccessfully to pry Ralph’s fingers away from Liz’s arm, which was turning red and white where he was gripping it.

  “I’m holding onto her. But she’s strong. You’d better come and get her… Well, good, but where the hell are they, then? It’s been hours since I called, God damn it!… What?… No, it has not been just fifteen minutes, young man. Who the hell are you anyway?”

  As Ralph barked into the phone, Nora edged the chair over to Liz and tried to steer her into it. But Ralph’s grip was too strong and too high for her to be able to sit, and Liz, again feeling oddly disconnected from what was happening, found herself on the verge of laughing. But if I laugh, she thought, shrugging helplessly at Nora, I’ll never stop, I’ll have hysterics—I’m almost having hysterics already. That thought in itself made the urge to laugh stronger, so she forced herself to listen to Ralph’s meanderings:

  “Supper, yes, like a viper. She’s been taking my daughter from me, disrupting us, making trouble, nothing but trouble… Oh, something with her car—wanted to borrow a jack, she said, but it was a lie, just to get in here, just to destroy us, to kill my sweet Corinne and then me next, I suppose, and maybe Nora, too, and then take the house and all our land, our money.”

  “Father,” Nora whispered, her face stiff with renewed horror, pulling at his hand where he was holding Liz, “Father, don’t. That’s not true, none of it is true.”

  But Ralph shot his elbow out, catching Nora under her ribs and she gasped, clutching her side, and reeled away emitting loud, rasping, painful sobs that seemed to rise from deep inside her, as if they’d been buried for years—for all her lonely life, perhaps, Liz thought, reaching for her as best she could.

  But Nora slowly collapsed to the floor, gradually curling into a ball, as if first her knees, then her hips, then her waist and shoulders melted. Liz struggled toward her, but Ralph, still barking, now into the phone, now at her, wouldn’t release her.