Nora and Liz

  Chapter Seven

  The rain had stopped by the next morning, and the lake was still, with no ripples breaking its surface. Liz made herself coffee and took a mug of it down to the dock, where she sat, an old flannel shirt over the long t-shirt in which she’d slept; she dangled her legs over the edge of the dock, drinking her coffee and watching the lake steam as the sun climbed higher. As it rose, a gentle breeze sent tiny catspaws scudding over the water; a fish jumped, two darning needles danced—courting, Liz thought—among the lily pads, and a hawk flew low overhead, then turned abruptly and dropped aggressively into the reeds to her left. Bird voices—wrens, thrushes, some kind of warbler—trilled and called. There was one in particular that Liz couldn’t identify, whose notes cascaded up and down and across its non-human scales; it made Liz smile. She’d forgotten what it was like to wake up with “the lake folk” as Dad had called them whenever he’d joined her.

  She could almost feel him with her now, sitting quietly beside her as he so often had, and for a while she was able to bask in good memories of him instead of guilt at his having died alone and horror at imagining what he must have gone through when his heart had given out. The loss still ached, but less sharply than before, here in the place they had both loved above all others. She felt less rootless, too, less abandoned here than in the city where the shock of his death, so soon after Megan had moved out, had made her feel insubstantial, adrift in a world that had lost its meaning.

  Piney Haven had already begun to anchor her again, and she stretched, congratulating herself for her decision. She could heal, she felt sure, if she woke here every summer morning to long, quiet days with nothing to do but read, swim, row, fish, repair the cabin, and perhaps even try to restore the gardens Mom had made at the edge of the woods. Mom would like that, she thought. There’d been a perennial garden, a cutting garden, and a vegetable garden with a small herb bed. The weedy, overgrown perennial garden might be the place to start. She’d have to do some reading; for all her knowledge of biology, Liz was weak in botany, and by the time gardening had begun to interest her, she was already living in the city.

  Piney Haven is so empty now, she thought, the garden bringing back an unexpected wave of sadness. She stood to shake it off, and stretched. So empty.

  ***

  Later, after washing windows and making a list of which ones needed repairing, she made herself a lunch of tunafish salad on an English muffin. Afterward, she took inventory in the tumbledown toolshed at the edge of the cabin’s clearing, and then, as she set off in the car to buy putty and glazing points, she remembered the jack. But after her stop at the hardware store, she found herself driving back roads, retracing childhood Sunday rides instead of going to the Tillots’ farm. When she passed her parents’ favorite vegetable stand, she spotted a plump late middle-aged woman and recognized Clara Davis, who owned and ran it with her husband, Harry. Clara was applying a fresh coat of white paint to the stand’s neat clapboard walls.

  Grinning, Liz pulled into the gravel parking lot and climbed out of the car just as Clara looked up.

  “Liz Hardy, my word!” she shouted jubilantly, her wrinkled, weatherbeaten face one huge smile. “Look, Harry, it’s the Hardy girl,” she called to her husband, who was just coming slowly around the edge of the stand, leaning heavily, Liz was startled to see, on a cane.

  “Mrs. Davis, how nice to see you again.” Liz took Clara’s outstretched hands. “You’re looking well.”

  “And you, too, dearie,” Clara said as Harry reached them. His blue eyes looked a little vague, but he nodded at Liz and touched his hand to his head as if tipping a hat. “What brings you here?” Clara asked. Before Liz had a chance to answer, she went on. “I was so sorry to hear about your father, dear. What a fine man he was! We’ve missed you, all of you, these years since your sweet mother died. What has it been, five, six years? So sad, losing her. And how’s your brother? Is he here with you?”

  “No, but he’s thinking of coming. He’s married now, living in California. And he has a little boy.” Liz pulled her wallet out of her back pocket and extracted a picture of Gus, a chubby, smiling, blue-eyed baby. “He’s bigger now, of course.”

  “Oh, my. Looks just like Jeff, don’t you think, Harry?” she shouted.

  Harry nodded; Liz remembered that he was hard of hearing and stubborn about getting a hearing aid. He didn’t seem to be wearing one now.

  “Getting ready to open, are you?” Liz said.

  “Yes. Though we had such a strange winter, we’re not at all sure how we’ll do. Lettuce is coming along, though; we’ll start selling it next weekend, I think. And the peas don’t look bad.”

  “I’m thinking of restoring my mother’s old perennial garden, “Liz told them. “So I might be bothering you with questions.”

  “Oh, no bother, dear, no bother. We’ll be glad to help. Your mother would have loved that, you restoring her garden. She loved all her gardens, she did, especially the perennial one, remember, Harry? Why, for a few years we even bought flowers from her, annuals along with the perennials, and sold them, she grew so many. The customers loved them. We could do that again, dear, if you want.”

  “Why, sure,” Liz said. “If I can get it going. I didn’t remember Mom did that.”

  “It was years ago, dear, when you were just a wee one.” Clara paused, looking at Liz a moment as if considering whether to say something else. Then, shyly, she said, “But I heard you were selling the cabin?”

  “We were going to, Jeff and I, but we’ve decided to hold on to it at least for a while. I think I’ll be staying here this summer. I’m still a teacher, you know, so I get summers off.”

  Clara seized Liz’s hands again. “Oh, my, that’d be wonderful! We’ll have to have you for dinner, then, and of course we’re just down the road so if you ever need anything, you can just shout.” She paused again, with the same expression, hesitant but curious. “But surely there’s a young man or two, a pretty girl like you?”

  “No, Mrs. Davis, there isn’t.” Liz tried not to mind the assumption. “I’m fancy free.”

  Clara squeezed her hands, then let them go. “We’ll just have to see what we can do about that.” She winked at Harry, who looked startled, then puzzled, but finally chuckled. “There’s one or two nice hardworking fellows around here.”

  “That’s kind of you, Mrs. Davis, but I’m not in the market right now.”

  “Oh-oh. I’m sorry. Broken heart?”

  Well, why not, Liz thought. “You might say that,” she told her. “I’ve just split up with someone and I need to be by myself for a while.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t deserve you, dear. Don’t stay alone too long, though; that’s no way to heal, I always say!”

  The phone rang inside the white frame farmhouse.

  “There’s your phone,” Liz said hastily, giving each Davis a hug, surprised again at Harry’s frailty. “And I should be going. I’ll see you in a few weeks, when I come back for the summer.”

  By the time she’d finished driving to all her old haunts and treating herself to an ice cream cone at Harmony’s, where she and Jeff had always argued over which was better, butter pecan or peppermint royale, it was late afternoon and Liz had no inclination to stop at the Tillots’ farm. What a depressing place, she thought, turning deliberately away from the farm road; that poor woman, stuck there with two old people and no electricity! I’d have left long ago.

  Maybe she enjoys it, though; maybe she’s some kind of masochist or one of those do-good types, a martyr to duty.

  But Liz had to admit that Nora really didn’t look the part.

  Back at the cabin, Liz baked a huge potato, cooked herself a steak, and ate them, plus a salad, at the table overlooking the lake. She sat there for a long time, sipping red wine and watching the sun set, then took her wine out to the dock and, wrapped in a thick sweater, watched the moon and the stars rise and listened to soft night sounds till she felt sleepy enough to go to bed.

  T
his is the life, she thought as she dropped off, the life I want.

  But toward morning she dreamed uneasily of Megan and woke aching and covered in sweat.

  ***

  The cabin seemed full of ghosts again the next morning: Megan, her parents, she and Jeff as children. Liz felt too restless and too sad to go back out to the dock, so after a quick breakfast of toast, coffee, and an orange, she set about pulling things—dishes, pots, cleaning supplies, books, games, knickknacks, clothes too old to wear anyplace but at the cabin—out of cupboards and closets and off shelves, sorting, rearranging, and throwing away. By noon, there was nothing she hadn’t touched, but the ghosts were worse than before, especially when she handled the clothes and found an old green suede jacket of her father’s and a matching one of her mother’s, the latter with a broken zipper. Liz, blinking back tears, slipped her mother’s jacket on. It fit perfectly, and she returned both jackets to the closet, though she doubted that Jeff would want their father’s or that she’d ever replace the zipper or actually wear her mother’s.

  Maybe I shouldn’t stay here after all, she thought later, nursing a beer at the table and looking out over the lake. Maybe I should go back to the city tonight instead of tomorrow. Think it over some more, staying here this summer.

  Maybe I really can’t take the memories. Or so much solitude.

  Restlessly, she got up and took her beer outside, surveying the overgrown perennial garden, where a few bright green mounds showed among the decaying fallen leaves and pine needles. Intrigued, she knelt, pulling off the mulch and studying the emerging plants. Then she went back into the cabin, found a pad and a pencil and, outside again, started sketching them.

  When she finally stopped, stiff and damp from kneeling, she realized more than an hour had passed. So, she thought, going back inside, maybe I can deal with solitude after all. And the memories, if I lose myself in stuff like that. She’d felt as close to her mother, drawing her reviving plants, as she had to her father on the dock in the early morning. It was as if the ache of being reminded of them by the static cabin and its contents receded temporarily when she was outside and gave way to a nearly comfortable nostalgia.

  If being here doesn’t work, she thought later, packing to return to the city, I can always leave.

  And go where, you jerk? Not back to the apartment if you sublet it. And if you don’t sublet it, you won’t be able to afford to come here. So you’ll have to burn your bridges, kiddo, at least for the summer.

  Feeling trapped, she opened the car’s trunk to toss in her suitcase—and groaned, seeing the borrowed jack wrapped up in its towel with the other tools.

  Chapter Eight

  After knocking at the Tillots’ door and getting no response, Liz went around back and spotted Nora kneeling in the large garden, with Thomas stretched out in the fading sun on a bare patch beside her.

  “Hello,” Liz called, approaching slowly, not wanting to frighten her. “It’s Liz Hardy again. I’ve brought back your tools. Thanks so much for them.”

  Nora scrambled to her feet, wiping her hands on the enormous apron that covered her faded housedress. “Thank you,” she said. “For bringing them back. I was just weeding.”

  Liz nodded. A neat row of young lettuces marched along the edge of the garden where Nora had been working, and new pea vines rose against a firm, straight trellis. A row of something with large leaves and red stems grew between two lettuce rows.

  “Radishes,” Nora said, nodding at them. “I don’t know why I grow them. My parents hate them, but I love them. Sometimes I even cook them in a cream sauce for a private treat. And they grow really fast.”

  Nora seemed more relaxed this time, happy even, not like a masochist or a martyr at all. There was a smudge of dirt on her face that Liz found herself wanting to wipe away. “Maybe,” Liz said impulsively, “you can give me lessons this summer. I’ve decided to stay in the cabin and fix up my mother’s old garden.”

  Good grief, she thought, astonished; why on earth did I say that, especially since I already more or less asked Mrs. Davis?

  “I’d love to,” Nora replied. “That would be nice. But weren’t you going to sell the cabin?”

  “Yes. But I decided against it, at least for now.” She paused. “Too many memories.”

  Nora nodded sympathetically. “I don’t think I could ever sell this place,” she said, “although I dream about it sometimes.”

  “You do?” Liz was surprised. Despite the fantasies about refrigerators and plumbing that she’d voiced earlier, Nora seemed too settled, especially now outside in her garden, to think about leaving. Liz could see her fixing the place up, perhaps, but not leaving it.

  “Oh, yes. Silly dreams. But only when I’m tired.”

  “That must be pretty often,” Liz said. “I mean,” she went on, flustered, afraid of being rude, “yours must be a pretty hard life.”

  “As I said, it’s how people lived not so long ago. And I do like the peacefulness of it, the solitude. But then when I get the Sunday papers—a woman from church takes me to get them after the service—and I read casual references to things like computers and see ads for appliances and TVs, I realize how much free time most people must have. Oceans of time. Then I guess I do get a little envious.”

  Liz grinned. “We should have oceans of time,” she said, watching Thomas, who had stood up and was intently stalking a butterfly. “But most of us don’t. I guess we don’t know how to use the leisure all that helpful stuff has given us. It seems ridiculous, but there we are.”

  “I think people use the time they have,” Nora said, also watching Thomas. “People don’t like being completely idle, at least most don’t. So they find things to do in whatever time they have.”

  “Lots of people waste time, though. The mothers of some of my students spend hours watching soaps, for instance.”

  “Soaps?”

  “Soap operas. On TV”

  Nora nodded uncertainly, and Liz realized she’d probably never seen one.

  “They’re like little dramas,” she explained. “Continuing stories. Each day there’s a new episode.”

  “That must be nice,” Nora said. “I remember now. I’ve read about them. They must be like novels. Serial stories.”

  “Well, sort of. But most of the stories are dumb. Lots of sex, lots of complicated relationships, very melodramatic. If they were books, they’d be considered trashy by anyone who’s really into literature.”

  “Are you?” Nora asked. Thomas batted at the butterfly and missed.

  “Am I what?”

  “Into literature?”

  “I suppose so. I don’t have much time for reading, though.”

  “I like Jane Austen,” Nora said. “And Emily Dickinson, and Henry James. More than modern books. I sometimes get best sellers when they come in to the library, though. Mrs. Brice, that’s the church lady, gets them for me. But I don’t think most of them are very good.”

  “No,” Liz replied uncomfortably, “I guess not.” She hadn’t read Jane Austen or Emily Dickinson since school, and she’d never read Henry James. You’re outclassed, kiddo, she said to herself, amused, by someone who’s never seen a computer or watched TV. How about that?

  “Would you like to come in? I made some lemonade earlier, for my mother. Or we could have tea.”

  Liz looked at her watch. “I’d love to, but I think I’d better get going. It’s a long drive to New York.”

  “Won’t it be dark when you get there?” Nora asked, concern spreading over her features.

  “Maybe,” Liz said, amused again. “Depends on how many stops I make. But that’s okay. I actually like driving in the dark.”

  Nora shuddered. “I’d be afraid,” she said. “Not of the dark itself; I’m used to that. Of the city in the dark. But I suppose there are lots of lights.”

  “Yes. There are. Well…” Liz held out the bundle of tools. “Here’s your jack and stuff. Thanks again for helping me out.”

  Awkwar
dly, Nora took the package. “You’re welcome. Um, stop by when you come back. If you want. You know. In the summer.”

  “Sure,” Liz said easily, sure that she wouldn’t, then not sure. “That’d be fine. Okay, then. See you.”

  “Yes.” Nora smiled. “See you,” she added, more comfortably than she’d said it when Liz had left with the jack.

  Nora watched Liz go, and realized only after the car had disappeared that she was still holding the tools. “I wonder if she’ll come back,” she said out loud to Thomas, who had given up on the butterfly and was scratching his neck. “Do you think so, puss?” She put the tools on the ground and picked Thomas up, cuddling him next to her cheek, but he squirmed and leapt down.

  Unaccountably, tears sprang to Nora’s eyes. She stood there for a moment, uncertain what to do next, then returned the tools to the barn and ripped the few remaining weeds away from her lettuce rows.

  ***

  She’s halfway to New York now, Nora thought later, beating eggs for supper. She’d made a roast for Sunday noon dinner, putting it in the oven before church and asking Patty, who as usual had sat with her parents while she was out, to make sure that it didn’t burn and that the oven temperature stayed constant. Halfway to New York.

  What’s Liz Hardy’s life like, Nora wondered, grating cheese into the eggs. Parties, cocktails, the theater, movies? Or does she go home every night to an empty house? No, an apartment, it would be, in New York City. Wouldn’t it? Maybe she lives with a man, her boyfriend. She doesn’t seem to be married. Or maybe she lives with women, with roommates. Career girls, isn’t that the term? Does she have a job? But she said she’d be here for the summer. Maybe she’s rich and doesn’t need to work. A socialite. Or maybe she’s a teacher.

  Yes, that could be it; that way she’d have the summer off to come here…

  “Nora!”

  Nora put down the grater. “Yes, Father? What is it?”

  “I have to piss.”