A Slender Thread (12 page)

“Ladies, may I help you?”

The florist, dressed entirely in black, as if to set herself apart from the flowers and plants, approached them. Margot looked at Lacey, who seemed to know just what to do. Within the next half hour they placed an order for the table arrangements, a bride's bouquet, and a few stems for Lacey to carry as Margot's only attendant.

A wedding was supposed to be a young woman's dream. Now, in the throes of planning it, Margot was consumed with wedding jitters. Why did it all seem so complicated? Lacey and Alex had been married on a farm in New Hampshire that belonged to one of his mother's friends. Lacey had planned the entire weekend for 150 guests—complete with a square dance in the barn the night before the wedding and an exchange of vows in a hillside field, followed by dinner and dancing in a tent next to the barn. The apple trees had been in bloom and Lacey and Alex had wired sprays of flowering branches to the tent poles.

How had Lacey pulled it off? There hadn't been a drop of rain. The blackflies, usually in their prime in June, seemed to be off duty and the sky remained light for hours. When Lacey stood next to Alex repeating her vows, Margot had wanted to feel only joy for her sister, but instead she felt a profound sense of loss. Alex and Lacey were leaving their childhood behind, a time they had all shared. They were stepping into a grown-up world without her.

All Margot needed to do for her own wedding was to send the invitations and make a few phone calls. She wanted her wedding to be lovely, but she also wanted it to be over.

 

Margot's marriage ended less than a year after the ceremony. Lacey had stood by Margot on her wedding day and Lacey had been with her at the very end, when Margot needed her most. Even now, Margot didn't know how she would have survived without her sister.

“When is Teddy getting home?” Lacey had asked. It was July, nine months after Margot's wedding.

Margot sat crumpled on the sofa in her apartment, just home from the hospital. The doctors wouldn't discharge her without the company of another adult. Teddy was away on a fishing trip. She had called Lacey.

Margot began to shiver. “Sunday,” she said.

Lacey got a blanket from the bedroom and covered her sister. Margot was still in shock. She hadn't felt well when Teddy left for his annual fishing trip with three other designers from the office. When he didn't offer to give up the trip, she was secretly glad to have time on her own. Finally, when the pain in her abdomen was too severe to bear, she called in sick and went to her doctor.

The examination, the barrage of questions, the hospital stay and massive doses of antibiotics had swelled into one giant hurt. The diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease had shocked her. Teddy had given her a sexually transmitted infection.

“But it could have been from sexual activity before you got married,” Lacey had suggested.

“Maybe. It hardly matters.” Margot began to cry. “I don't think he's been faithful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some nights he just doesn't come home.” Margot squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about it. “He calls and says he's going out for drinks after finishing a project.” She drew in several ragged breaths. “Then he'll say it got too late and he didn't want to wake me, so he stayed the night with a friend.”

“You're sure that means an affair?”

“I know. I just know.” Teddy hadn't been able to look her in the eye on those strange, tense mornings when he'd come home to change before going to work. His clothes had been rumpled. Once, she'd noticed a rip by the top button of his shirt and she'd wondered if he had been in a fight. That sordid possibility had filled her with alarm. Margot could never tell Lacey that.

“Oh, Magsie, I'm so sorry.” Lacey stroked Margot's forehead. Her touch was cool and soothing. Margot tried to shut out the pain by thinking of Bow Lake, the gentle lapping sound on the shore on a perfect July day. It helped to take her mind off this current disaster.

“You're going to be okay.” Lacey's voice was soft. “You could try to get counseling. If you could talk to someone . . .”

“Never. It's way too late for that.”

Lacey's hand stopped stroking. “What do you mean?”

“I think he's gay,” Margot said. “Or maybe bi.” All the months of pushing this possibility deep inside of her were over. A month into her marriage she had an odd feeling that something wasn't right. Initially, she had brushed off the small moments that had raised doubts later on. She had noticed one guy looking at Teddy in a bar in a way that seemed too intense, a cloying sort of attention that didn't seem appropriate. Once, a man asked for Teddy on the phone, but refused to leave a message, saying he must have made a mistake.

Telling this to Lacey made Margot feel sick and ashamed, as if Teddy's sexuality was somehow her fault. During one argument when he was furious that she didn't want to go out for a drink after dinner, he had called her a frump. Later, he bought her some sexy underwear as an apology, though he seemed less and less interested in sex. Margot hadn't known what to think.

“Oh, Margot.” Lacey reached for Margot's hands and held them in hers.

“I've been tested for HIV,” Margot said. “It's negative, but I'll need to be checked for the next few years to be in the clear.”

Lacey bit her lip as if to keep from crying herself. “You'll be okay, Margot,” she said. “I just know it.”

“They told me I'll never be able to have children.” Margot started to sob. “He's endangered my life, and now there's that too.” She swallowed hard, hoping she would not be sick to her stomach. “What am I going to do when he gets back?”

“I'll be here. I won't leave you.” Lacey handed Margot a tissue.

“This is so awful.”

“I wish you'd said something sooner.”

“I couldn't.” She thought of Lacey and Alex, happy and in love, in that clean New England house, while her life with Teddy was so out of whack. Her own marriage reminded her now of looking into a fun house mirror, their reflections elongated and twisted, like something out of an Edvard Munch painting. She had done everything wrong.

“It's okay. We'll figure this out.”

“I don't want him here. I want it over.”

“You're certain?”

Margot nodded and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Lacey stayed for the rest of the week. She coddled Margot, bringing her cold soups, cut-up fruit, icy sorbets, glasses of iced tea. She made phone calls: Margot's office to arrange for her sick days and follow-up doctor appointments. And she tracked down a divorce lawyer. Margot, still on high doses of medication, had been ordered to rest. Lacey saw to it that she had everything she needed. Though she had to sleep on the pull-out sofa in the living room and leave Alex behind in New Castle, Lacey never complained, saying it was good to have the one-on-one sister time they hadn't had in ages. Margot realized later that Lacey had been fighting the early weeks of morning sickness, newly pregnant with the twins, and had never said a word.

Lacey was with Margot at the dreaded moment when Teddy returned. The scene was as terrible as she had imagined it would be, Teddy denying everything, saying it was Margot who had probably infected him. His reaction made Margot all the more sure of her decision to end the marriage. Had he married her for the apartment or merely to have a wife at his side, like one of his possessions, just another silk tie or a pair of designer shoes? Had he ever loved her?

Lacey stepped in and fought for Margot when she didn't have the strength. After his initial protests, Teddy packed up his things and made arrangements for moving the rest. He agreed to a divorce. It almost embarrassed Margot how quickly he fled.

Lacey didn't have to teach in the summer, so she took Margot to Bow Lake to recover. Fortunately the cottage was available. The sisters owned the place jointly after their grandmother's death, but kept it rented except for the final few weeks of August, which were reserved for the family. The rental income paid for the maintenance and taxes.

The softness of the air, the shifting light on the water, the deep silence at night helped Margot to regain her physical strength, but something deep inside of her remained broken. At the end of her visit she was able to return to New York, move on to other jobs, and eventually go out with other men, but for a very long time she no longer cared about her art.

After her divorce she felt numb. Painting required her to look within herself, to search deep inside for the creative spark to bring color or line onto a canvas. In a sense, she had to keep her life simple, on the surface, out of range of any troubling emotion. Some days she could barely muster the creative energy to decide what to wear in the morning. Perhaps she was afraid of digging too deeply. Instead of thinking about her own art, she grew into the habit of looking at other people's work, finding solace in galleries and museums.

During those last summer days at the lake, Lacey never once reminded Margot of her prewedding jitters or their conversation in the flower shop. That week in August had been perfect. The sun glittered on the lake. The sky remained a cloudless, vibrant blue. They swam, paddled the canoe, and soaked up the sun on the dock. Alex hadn't come to Bow Lake that time either, because of work or a conscious decision to leave the sisters by themselves. Margot slept in their childhood bedroom—the room they called “up above”—and Lacey stayed in their grandmother's old room on the main floor. The walls were thin. Once, late at night when Lacey heard Margot crying, she climbed the stairs and got into her old bed across from Margot's.

“You can tell me anything,” she had said.

Margot nodded, her warm tears spilling down into her ears. She couldn't seem to form words, but she felt better knowing that her sister was there, listening in the dark.

“Go ahead and cry. It will make you feel better.”

Lacey didn't say anything else and gradually Margot's tears subsided. She pulled the cotton sheet, worn thin from years of use, around her shoulders, letting her body soften toward sleep. Later, before going back downstairs to bed, Lacey took Margot's hand and whispered, “Pinkie shake?”

They hooked fingers in their silent bond.

Now Margot looked down at her hands. Her pinkie finger was pale against the covers in the New York winter light. Where would she be today if Lacey hadn't been there when her life with Teddy had fallen apart? Now, almost two decades later, Lacey was the one facing a frightening future, an eventual silence closing in on her in this cruel twist of fate. Margot knew that she owed it to Lacey to help her in any way she could. She pushed back the covers and rose to face the day.

A
lex passed through the automatic sliding doors into the lobby of the Rollinsford Retirement Community. An artificial white Christmas tree covered in pink and purple dangling balls stood on the center table, where a huge bouquet of silk flowers was usually placed. His mother would have hated the fake tree with its false sense of cheer. Edith George loved real things, and as long as she had lived in their family home in Newfields, she had decorated an enormous fir tree each Christmas.

The Rollinsford Retirement Community, nestled in the valley at the foot of Fulham Hill, was once the site of a local ski resort, with a T-bar and a rope tow, but the enterprise had folded in the early seventies. Alex and his older brother, Daniel, had skied there when they were boys. With the aging population and a string of warm winters, ski areas in New England had been suffering. Only the larger resorts with snow-making equipment managed to survive. Alex had been asked to take on one of those struggling businesses a few years ago to help it reorganize, but the family that owned the company lost heart and declared bankruptcy before he could begin the project.

Built twenty or so years ago, Rollinsford was thriving, and the owners were adding another string of cottages for independent living. Alex's mother, now eighty-one, lived in the Maple Tree wing, which was set aside for patients with Alzheimer's disease. Edith had moved to one of the regular apartments at Rollinsford after her husband died, but once she reached her late seventies she declined quickly. In the beginning she forgot appointments, and either went to dinner at the wrong time or missed it entirely. Once, she left a pot of soup on the stove and wandered outside to the community garden plot looking for some fresh herbs to add. Two hours later black smoke poured into the hallway while she dozed on a bench near the garden in the September sun.

It was now December. The community garden at Rollinsford had long been put to bed. Alex approached the receptionist sitting at the “welcome desk,” as it was labeled.

“Mr. George, good to see you,” Donna Peters said. She had worked at Rollinsford for as long as Edith had been there. While she was not a nurse, she wore a white hospital-style jacket over what appeared to be a pink jogging suit. Alex doubted that Donna, with her reading glasses on a jeweled string around her neck, ever did much jogging, but her kindness as she greeted all the regular visitors by name made him feel grateful to her and the others who worked here, for their steadfast goodwill. It had to be depressing to be among people all day long who were in the last stages of their lives, and most of them in a pretty miserable state.

“These are for you and the rest of the staff,” Alex said, handing over a big box of cookies wrapped in holiday paper covered in green holly with red berries. Lacey had tucked a sprig of real holly under the red satin ribbon.