“Oh, honey.” She honked her nose into the Kleenex.
“You were in your fifties, it must’ve been kind of a shock. But I always knew you wanted me. Oh, I was so lucky.”
Nana wiped her face and smiled, watery-eyed. “Course I wanted you. You were my baby.” Her face crumpled again. “But dammit to hell, I never wanted to be yours.”
Caddie hummed in sympathy, then ruined it by laughing. They slipped their arms around each other and held on, smearing the tears together on their faces.
“I love you.”
“I love you, Nan.”
“I’ve decided I don’t want you to shoot me anymore.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Which is funny, since I’ve never needed shooting more. But the whatchacallit’s always the last to know.”
“The shootee.” She kissed her. “Are you sleepy? Should we read for a while?”
Nana slid down in the bed and got comfortable, closing her eyes and folding her hands over her stomach. She used to love to read, but she said the words wouldn’t stay put anymore. “Where’d we leave off?” she asked, yawning. “I can’t remember.”
“I can’t, either. Shall we just start over?”
“Good idea.”
Caddie opened the book to chapter one. “ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged,’ ” she began, “ ‘that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ ” It was where they started their story every night.
28
Caddie called her aunt on Christmas Eve.
“Your present just came!” Dinah exclaimed in a hoarse voice—she had a cold. “Who told you I had a sore butt from that school bus?”
“You did,” Caddie said, laughing. Dinah drove the elementary-school bus in the mornings while Earl stayed with Mother. Caddie had bought her a special foam-filled, shape-retaining, shock-absorbing seat pillow she’d seen on television. “Be sure and tell me if it works.”
“How could it not work? Did you get mine yet?”
“Yes, but I didn’t open it. I’ve got willpower.”
“Well, call me when you do, I want to hear what you think.”
“Will I like it?”
“Could be, could be. I just wish you could be here when you open it. Sherry and Phil and the grandkids are coming for dinner—I feel like I’ve been cooking since last month. And Earl’s gone overboard on the house again, I told him it looks like Chernobyl. I just wish you could be here.”
“I do, too,” Caddie said. “I wish I could, too.”
Dinah’s gift was a photograph album full of copies of all the pictures of Bobby she could find. Caddie sat with it on her lap on Christmas morning, looking and looking, feasting her eyes, wishing she’d opened her present sooner. Nana only cared about the pictures of Bobby with Jane, and there weren’t very many of them. But when she heard there was a tape—Dinah had also sent a copy of the Red Sky demo—she insisted Caddie play it immediately. “Are you sure?” Caddie worried. “It won’t make you sad?” Nana made a face and said “Pshaw,” and Caddie played the tape.
Her grandmother listened as if she were hypnotized. “Play the second one again, Caddie, I love that high, sweet part. Oh, what a pretty voice she had. Play it again.”
Caddie played the song for her over and over.
It started to snow in the afternoon, big flakes sifting past the kitchen window, but before long Caddie could only see them under the street-lights. It got dark so early these days. Smells of the turkey she was cooking for dinner filled the house. It would be too much food for two people. Too much of everything, tree, stockings, the wreath on the door, candles in the windows, Christmas music on the radio, all for two lone women. It was stifling. Nana felt it, too; she claimed she was tired and went up to bed for the afternoon, leaving the whole overheated, overdecorated downstairs to Caddie.
She missed Thea. She had all day; she’d woken up missing her. She thought of calling Cornel, just for someone to talk about her to. He hadn’t gotten to read his poem for her in Cape May, and they’d probably never go back now. Oh, Thea. If she were here, she could help take this ache away, this pointless loneliness. Last night Caddie dreamed she was walking in a dangerous part of town and someone shot her in the back. It was a low-key dream; she wasn’t frightened or surprised. She could see herself from behind, a perfect, gaping hole in the middle of her, like a cartoon character shot with a cannonball. She could see right through herself.
She could call Magill. It was the only way she’d ever be able speak to him again; he wasn’t going to call her, that was for sure. And yet, all day she’d thought he might. Both times the phone rang, she thought it was him. But the first time it was Dinah and the second time it was Morris, her stand partner in the orchestra, inviting her to come to a party tomorrow night. Last-minute. She told him she couldn’t leave Nana and it was too late to get someone to stay with her.
So Christmas passed. Only a handful of students wanted to bother with lessons during Christmas week, so the short, gray days yawned dull and empty. She tried to fill them with trips to the mall with Nana for the after-Christmas sales, violin practice on a new piece she was learning, reorganizing her lesson schedule for the new year. But the stretches of time when she only sat with Nana in the living room and stared at the TV or played sad songs on the piano came too often and brought her down. Even Finney, curled under the piano with his chin on his paws, looked depressed. Just the thought of New Year’s Eve made her want to run away from home. Then, in midweek, Brenda called.
“We’re having a party, can you and Frances come? It’s for New Year’s, but it’s also a farewell party for Cornel.”
“Cornel! Where’s he going?”
“His daughter-in-law talked him into moving down there with her and her son.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Caddie rejoiced, even though it felt like one more friend abandoning her. “Yes, absolutely, we can come.”
“Good. Eight-thirty, and don’t bring anything unless you want champagne. We’re only serving punch.”
“Is Magill coming?” she asked casually.
“I haven’t called him yet, but I hope so. It’s short notice, Cornel didn’t decide till yesterday.”
After they hung up, Caddie ran upstairs, thinking what a pity case she was, thrilled because she’d been invited to an old folks’ home for New Year’s. But even knowing she was hopeless couldn’t keep her from making a beeline for her closet to check out the possibilities.
“I’m not going,” Nana said. “I don’t feel like it. New Year’s Eve, I’m not going anywhere. Those days are gone.” Caddie argued, but she wouldn’t budge. What was the real reason? Every time Caddie suggested a trip to Wake House, Nana found an excuse. It was as if she’d shut a door on that life and nothing could make her walk back through it. “Okay, then. If you’re not going, I’m not, either,” Caddie threatened, but Nana said, “Good. We can watch Guy Lombardo.”
Caddie called Rayanne Schmidt, the teenage neighbor she’d been trading piano lessons for Nana-sitting with. She was free on New Year’s Eve. “You, Rayanne? You don’t have a party to go to?” Secretly she was delighted, but mystified, too—Rayanne was cute, bright, full of personality. Nana loved her. “I did,” Rayanne said, “but I got grounded.” For? “Smoking. Mom walked in and caught me, she didn’t even knock. She’s the one who should be grounded.” Caddie didn’t ask, so she could only hope Rayanne was talking about tobacco.
The tasteful white lights across the front porch roof and the candles in all the windows of Wake House made Caddie think of Dinah and Earl and their little rambler in Clover, lit up “like Chernobyl.” She’d always wondered what kind of people did that to their houses at Christmas, and now she knew. People like Earl. She wished Dinah would send a picture.
She could hear music before she even got to the porch steps. And singing; Doré’s voice, that unmistakable atonal soprano. Could it be—the karaoke machine was out already? She saw Cornel in the foyer, talking to Cl
audette, but he abandoned her and darted under the chandelier—and the mistletoe—as soon as he heard the front door open. “Happy New Year,” he said perfunctorily, and kissed Caddie on the lips. Bull’s-eye; lipstick smears on his cheeks said his aim had been less deadly with others.
“Happy New Year. You’re leaving!”
“She wore me down, I got tired of saying no.”
“I think it’s wonderful. Richmond, that’s not so far, I’ll come and see you all the time.”
“Richmond.” He sniffed. He had on his brown suit with a festive red tie. “They wave the Confederate flag down there at the drop of a hat, y’know. Just what I—”
“Now, don’t you start. You’re going to like it, Cornel, you’ll be with your own family, your very own grandson.”
“Kid’ll probably ignore me, probably be ashamed of his old—”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook. “Quit it.”
“What?”
“Being an old grump.”
“I am an old grump.”
His turtle-lipped smile melted her. “Oh, gosh, you are.” She put her arms around him and squeezed. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
“You really going to come see me?”
“I promise I will. Magill, too, I bet.” She looked around. Milling people in both parlors, and blazing Christmas trees, fires in both fireplaces. “Is he here?”
“Said he’d be late.”
He started talking about packing, what a pain that would be, and how he could’ve accumulated so much stuff when he was down to living in half a room. A sight distracted her; she lost track of the conversation. “Edgie? Oh, my goodness—look at you!”
She was walking. Slowly, and tilted to the side, using a three-pronged cane for balance, but she was walking. “Speed demon, thass me,” she said with a crooked grin. “Lookit you. So pretty.”
Caddie rushed over to kiss her. “Oh, you’re gorgeous.” She had a new perm; it framed her face like soft yellow cotton balls. “What a treat to see you up and around!”
“Where’s Frances? You all by yourself?”
“She didn’t quite feel up to it. Where’s Bea?”
“In there.” She shrugged toward the Blue Room. “With the new man.”
“The new man. How exciting.”
“Take off your coat and stay a while. Bea!” She didn’t call out with much force, but over the music and the chitchat her sister heard. Her face lit up. She turned back to the new man for a second—Caddie had a glimpse of white hair and broad shoulders—then left him and came toward her with open arms.
“You! Months since we’ve seen you, months!”
“One month,” Caddie countered, letting herself get swallowed up in a bear hug. She’d forgotten how strong Bea was. She looked like a new woman—or rather her old self, tough and handsome and no-nonsense.
“No, it’s more than a month. You said you’d come see us all the time, and here—well, never mind, we forgive you.”
“In the spirit of Christmas,” Edgie said.
“How’ve you been?” Bea’s voice went low with sympathy. “Has it been rough on you, hon? Bet the holidays weren’t much fun.”
Caddie was afraid of sympathy. “Oh, not too bad.” She shrugged off her coat and hung it on a hook behind the staircase. “So tell me about the new man! And who’s the lady over there in the hat?”
“Well.” Bea rubbed her hands together.
“Tom Kowallis,” Edgie said before she could speak. “Bea’s boyfriend.”
“Oh, he is not.”
“Everybody’s boyfriend, then.”
“That’s more like it,” Bea said ruefully.
Caddie moved to get a better view of Tom Kowallis, who was talking to Doré. “Handsome.” He looked like somebody, she couldn’t put her finger on who. Gregory Peck? He was tall and erect, with thick, shaggy white hair and black eyebrows, a wide chest, an imposing belly, and no rear end at all. “What’s he like?”
“Thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. Look at Doré. See that handkerchief in his pocket? She made it for him.”
“Doré made a handkerchief?”
“She had to—Sara made him slippers.”
“Sara. Who’s Sara?”
“Mrs. Sha…Shar…” Edgie’s tongue got tied up.
“Shallcroft,” Bea said. “I thought you met her already, she came after Susan left. Over there.” She nodded toward a slender, attractive woman in a long black dress, wearing her silver hair in an elaborate chignon.
“Oh, Mrs. Shallcroft, I remember. She just lost her husband.”
“And don’t we get to hear about that every day.”
“Edgie,” Bea said, tittering.
“Thinks she’s the world’s firs’ widow. Hasn’t been outta black since she got here.”
“She’s a tragic figure,” Bea said, eyes twinkling. “Meanwhile, Mr. Shallcroft’s been gone for at least three years.”
“And—” Edgie leaned over on her cane and spoke in a stage whisper. “Maxine and Doré speak. Tell her, Bea.”
“I don’t believe it. To each other?”
“It’s true,” Bea confirmed. “Not a lot, they’re not girlfriends, but they talk.”
“ ’Cause they’re in league against Sara,” Edgie said. “For the love of Tom. It’s a regular Peyton Place around here.”
“I can see. Who’s the new lady?” A tiny, birdlike woman in a pillbox hat with a veil, sitting on the sofa in the Red Room beside a portly, pink-faced bald man.
“Mrs. Spinetti. Very nice. She’s ninety.”
“Bea likes her ’cause she’s older than she is.”
“That’s her son with her, the bald one, visiting from New Jersey. He’s sixty-two and still a bachelor.”
They gossiped in the hall until Bea said, “Well, we can keep this up all night, except you probably came to see somebody besides us.” But Caddie thought the real reason she made them disperse was because she knew Edgie was getting tired and needed to sit down. “Mingle,” the sisters told her, and moved off into the Red Room.
Wake House looked beautiful, and not just because of the Christmas decorations. The wood floors shone with fresh polish, every mirror gleamed, the chandelier sparkled, even the walls looked brighter, less dingy or something. Caddie had never seen a fire in either parlor’s fireplace before, much less in both of them. Mr. Lorton was fast asleep in front of the one in the Blue Room. Caddie kissed him on top of his bald head, and he smiled up at her fondly and without surprise, as if he saw her every day.
She found Brenda, festive in a green sweater with a sequined Santa Claus on the chest, and complimented her on how pretty everything looked.
“Well, we could afford to do a little more this year. Thea’s estate isn’t settled, won’t be for a while, but I’ll tell you she made a very generous bequest to Wake House.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
“Caddie, you just don’t know.” She shook her head as if at a near miss. “Last summer, I wasn’t sure we could last out the year. And now—isn’t it grand? This is how it should look. I’ve got a new cleaning service that actually does what I tell them. This is just the tip of the iceberg, what you can see. We’ve got plans for a new elevator and a new roof, storm windows on the third floor, heavy-duty washers and dryers—”
“But, um, if the money is still tied up…”
“Oh, I know! If it doesn’t go through, we’re in trouble!” She didn’t look worried, though. She threw her head back and blared out her great, booming laugh, and everybody within hearing distance smiled in sympathy. “Where’s Frances? Didn’t she come with you?”
“She wasn’t feeling up to it. Sends everybody her love.”
Brenda sobered. “How is it, having her home? Not wearing you out, I hope.”
“No, we’re fine. She’s—there are a couple of things I didn’t really realize we’d be dealing with, but so far—”
“Like?”
“Well, the forgetfulness, I didn’t k
now how bad that was getting. We’ve been to the doctor and he put her on some pills, but it’s hard to say how well they’re working. Especially with Nana—I mean, with her it’s hard to say anyway, what’s just her normal, you know, and what’s…”
“Oh, honey.” Brenda put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s an awful thing, isn’t it?”
“Thank you for keeping her for so long,” Caddie said past a lump in her throat. “She really—she loved it here.”
“We miss her.”
“The worst is that she knows.”
Brenda gave her shoulders a sad, buck-up squeeze. “Yes, but in time she won’t. I’m so sorry, dear. That’s the good news and the bad.”
Caddie saw Magill before he saw her. He had on a tuxedo, an orange bow tie, and high-top sneakers. Everybody was hugging him, thrilled to see him, even the grieving Mrs. Shallcroft. Caddie could see why. They were glad to see her, too, of course, but she was still one of them. Not Magill. He didn’t belong here any longer. He’d healed and moved on, back to the world of the healthy and young.
Everything about him looked vivid to her, from the blueness of his eyes to the shine of his hair. His cheeks weren’t gaunt or sunken any longer, so he looked older—he looked his age. Even his voice came to her sounding stronger. No wonder everybody wanted to touch him, try to catch some of his spirit. She did, too.
She nodded to him and smiled a welcome, but she was in the middle of a conversation with Dolores, Mrs. Brill’s daughter, and she couldn’t break away. “Mama sent her life story in her Christmas card to all the children, Caddie, all my aunts and uncles, and they loved it. And guess what—Aunt Belinda called her. Those two haven’t spoken in ages, and now my aunt wants to come visit next summer so her littlest child can get to know his grandma.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
“Mama would thank you, I know she feels grateful, but you know how funny she is about ‘family business.’ ”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Caddie protested. “I just wrote it down.” She could feel Magill’s eyes on her from all the way across the room.