Winter Garden - Page 49
“You’re so much smarter than I am, Nina. So tell me, what am I wrong about?”
“That wasn’t nuts. ”
“Oh, really? And just what was it?”
Nina finally faced her. “Fear. ”
Nina was hardly surprised when Meredith started cleaning the kitchen, and with a martyr’s zeal. She knew her sister was pissed. She should have cared about that, but she couldn’t.
Instead, she thought about the promise she’d made to her father.
Make her tell you the story of the peasant girl and the prince.
At the time it had seemed pointless, really; impossible. A dying man’s last desperate hope to make three women sit down together.
But Mom was falling apart without him. He’d been right about that. And he’d thought the fairy tale could help her.
Meredith banged a pot down on one of the remaining burners and then swore. “We can’t use the damn stove until we can get rid of this pot you melted. ”
“Use the micro,” Nina said distractedly.
Meredith spun around. “That’s your answer? Use the micro. That’s all you have to say?”
“Dad made me promise—”
Meredith dried her hands on a towel and threw it on the counter. “Oh, for God’s sake. We aren’t going to help her by making her tell us fables. We’ll help her by keeping her safe. ”
“You want to lock her away again. Why? So you can have lunch with the girls?”
“How dare you say that to me? You. ” Meredith moved closer, her voice lowering. “He used to pore through magazines, looking for his ‘little girl’s’ pictures. Did you know that? And he checked the mail and messages every day for calls that hardly ever came. So don’t you dare call me selfish. ”
“Enough. ”
Mom was standing in the doorway, dressed in her nightgown, with her hair uncharacteristically unbound. Her collarbone stuck out prominently beneath her veiny skin; a small three-tiered Russian-style cross hung from a thin gold strand coiled around her neck. With all that pallor—white hair, pale skin, white gown—she looked almost translucent. Except for those amazing blue eyes. Now they were alight with anger. “Is this how you honor him, by fighting?”
“We’re not fighting,” Meredith said, sighing. “We’re just worried about you. ”
“You think I have gone crazy,” Mom said.
“I don’t,” Nina said, looking up. “I noticed the new column in the winter garden, Mom. I saw the letters. ”
“What letters?” Meredith demanded.
“It is nothing,” Mom said.
“It’s something,” Nina said.
Her mother made no sign of having heard. No sigh. No flinch. No looking away. She simply walked over to the kitchen table and sat down.
“We don’t know anything about you,” Nina said.
“The past does not matter. ”
“It’s what you’ve always said, and we let you. Or maybe we didn’t care. But now I do,” Nina answered.
Mom looked up slowly, and this time there was no mistaking the clarity in her eyes, nor the sadness. “You will keep asking me, won’t you? Of course you will. Meredith will try to stop you because she is afraid, but there is no stopping you. ”
“Dad made me promise. He wanted us to hear one of your fairy tales all the way to the end. I can’t let him down. ”
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