Nora

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Nora

Maybe a Ghost Story

Constance C. Greene

For Linda Zuckerman, with love and thanks.

—c. c.
G.

One

Our father might get married again soon. Patsy says she won't go. She says even if he drags her, kicking and screaming, she won't go. She says if she
does
go, if he makes her go to the church, she'll make a scene. Patsy used to be famous for her scenes. She'd go limp and collapse in a heap on the nearest tarmac. Then she'd lie there squalling like a scalded cat if she still didn't get her way.

When she did that, I'd turn my face away, pretending she wasn't my sister. I guess she did it to get attention, but I have always hated to have people stare at me.

When Patsy was really little, she pulled one of her scenes at the children's museum and Daddy turned her over his knee and smacked her bottom. I kind of liked that. I clapped, I remember.

Patsy and I are what my grandmother calls Irish twins; not quite a year apart. Patsy just turned twelve and I'll be thirteen next month. I'd die before I'd carry on in public the way Patsy does. Or did. She's improved. Our father says she must get her penchant for making scenes from Baba, our mother's mother. Baba was, and still is, an actress. She starred in a local little theater production of
Auntie Mame
last year and got rave reviews. Baba also starred in a movie once, years ago when she was young and foolish, she told us. Patsy says she bets anything Baba starred in a skin flick.

She really is outrageous, Patsy is.

Our mother died almost three years ago. She had cancer. She died at home, the way she wanted. She knew she was going to die. Her hair fell out and she got so thin her cheeks were hollow and her eyes huge.

She was beautiful, even then.

First she had one breast removed, then the other. As if that wasn't bad enough, losing both breasts didn't do any good. She died anyway.

“Don't cry, little Nora,” my mother had said to me. “I will always be with you in spirit and love you. You are my life and my joy, you and Patsy and Daddy. Please don't cry.”

If she
could
be with me in spirit, I'd like to know.

Your chances of getting breast cancer increase if your mother or aunt had it. I thrust the thought from my head every time it pops in.

Patsy has breasts. Hers are bigger than mine. We don't discuss the reason our mother died. We talk about her all the time, though. We pretend she's still here. We keep her alive that way.

“I'm telling Mom, Nora!” Patsy yells when I do something she doesn't like. “You're gonna get it. She'll kill you!”

“Go wash your face,” I say in a fierce imitation of Mother's voice. “Children don't wear earrings and eye shadow to school. Not in this house they don't.”

Even as a kid Patsy was always trying to skin out of the house all done up like a gypsy queen. Mother would nab her and make her wash her face and take off all the jewelry.

The voice is the hardest to bring back. I can remember how Mother laughed, how she smelled. Lots of things she said. But the voice is the hardest.

The night Daddy told us he might be getting married, you should've heard Patsy.

“Mrs. Ames is going to Hong Kong next month on business,” he said. “If I can get away, I'm going to join her.”

Patsy pushed back her chair noisily. “May I please be excused?” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Sit down, Patsy,” Daddy said. “This won't take long.”

Patsy sat, but only just. She balanced her behind on the edge of her chair and jiggled to prove she really
did
have to go.

“I am going to ask her to marry me,” Daddy said.

Patsy put her head on the table, as if she was fainting. I held my breath.

“Have some water, Patsy,” Daddy said. “I'm not quite through.”

Patsy raised her head. “What if she won't marry you?” she asked, eyes glittering. “Suppose she says no? Suppose she's been married so many times she's bored with getting married? What then?”

I stole a look at Daddy's face. He looked old. His mouth was a thin line, and I knew he was holding onto his temper with an effort.

“She has been married and divorced once,” he said. “You know nothing about her. If you knew her, you might like her. Nora,” he turned to me, “what have you to say? How do you feel about this?”

“I don't know,” I mumbled. It was the truth.

“I would like your opinion. Patsy has given hers, in a manner of speaking. You must have some feelings, some ideas on the subject.”

I could feel Patsy's hot eyes burning holes in me. “Oh, she has plenty of ideas, Daddy,” she said. “You oughta hear her.”

“Silence!” Daddy thundered. He doesn't thunder very often, but when he does, he does a first-class job. “Let Nora talk.”

“Well,” I said, “if you want to marry her, you want to marry her, I guess. I don't know her very well so I really can't say.”

Patsy burped. It was only a little burp, but I heard her.

“I want you both to know that Mrs. Ames never would take your mother's place,” Daddy said stiffly. “No one could. She knows that and wouldn't even try.”

“Oh, sure,” Patsy said under her breath.

“I've not been very happy since your mother died,” Daddy said.

I put out my hand to touch his. “How about when we hiked up the mountain last fall? And how about when we went fishing on the lake in Vermont? And when we went to the county fair? I thought you were pretty happy then,” I said. “You acted happy.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Daddy said. “And we'll have lots more happy times, all of us. But I've found someone to love who loves me. And you won't always be here, don't forget.”

“We really
want
you to get married again, Daddy,” I said.

“We just don't want you to marry ‘The …'” Patsy stopped just in time. “Marry
her
,” she said. We call her “The Tooth.” If you saw her, you'd know why.

“If I waited until I found someone who you two would put your stamp of approval on,” Daddy said, “I might be a very old man.”

First time Daddy brought The Tooth to the house, she stood in front of our mother's portrait and said in the phoniest voice, “Oh, Sam, she's lovely, so ethereal.”

Patsy and I exchanged looks.

Later she topped it by exclaiming at length about our napkins, which we brought out along with the chicken casserole from Glorious Grub, the local caterer. “Oh, what beautiful double damask napkins!” The Tooth went on and on. As if the napkins were made of solid gold or something.

“They were our mother's,” I said in a cold voice. “She had excellent taste.”

And all the time she was there, her eyes were slipping and sliding around the house, checking everything out.

We decided she was a fool who never said what she really meant.

“She's an old witch,” Patsy said in a rush. “That's why I don't like her!”

“You may go, Patsy,” Daddy said. “Leave the table, please.”

Patsy left. She sat on the stairs behind Daddy and made faces at me. She always does that. She used to make me giggle so much I almost threw up. I have never been sent from the table.

I chewed every mouthful thoughtfully and stared at the wallpaper in the dining room as if I'd never seen it before. It was blue and white, to match Mother's favorite china. Flower prints hung on the walls. I remember when Daddy gave them to her. It was the last Christmas before she died. It was a pretty room, I thought. My favorite in the whole house.

“Things seldom go as planned,” Daddy said. “Better not to plan, I think.”

He didn't expect an answer, so I didn't give one. Even if I'd had one, I would've stayed silent. I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

“I'm going to do my homework now,” I told him. “Are you all right?” He patted me absentmindedly and said, “Go along, Nora. You're a good child.”

I went upstairs. “You really blew it,” I said to Patsy, who was now sitting on her bed painting her toenails black. They'd had a big sale on black nail polish down at Magoon's Variety Store. Patsy bought two bottles.

“Why'd you have to go and call her a witch?”

“Listen—he's just lucky I didn't call her the real word,” Patsy said fiercely. “If I'd said ‘bitch,' do you think he'd have grounded me?”

“Probably,” I said.

“If Mother heard what you said to Daddy last night,” I said to Patsy the next day when we got home from school, “she'd wash your mouth out with soap. She'd be furious.” I'd been thinking all day about it and knew she'd hurt Daddy's feelings. She shouldn't be allowed to get away with that talk, I thought.

“Yeah, well, she'd be plenty furious if she knew Daddy was thinking of marrying The Tooth,” Patsy said. That's the name Patsy gave her. Her real name is Wynne. She has this fantastic overbite. Even when her mouth is closed, her teeth peek out. We can't figure out how Daddy kisses her without getting bitten.

“She doesn't fool me with that sweetsy, cutesy routine about how adorable we are—all that crap she puts out,” Patsy glowered. “She doesn't mean a word of it. She knows we hate her, too. Just wait until she hooks Daddy. Just wait. When that happens, she'll start to think of ways to get rid of us.

“Well,” Patsy drew herself up to her full five feet five and one half inches and thrust out her bust. (That's what we call it when she thrusts it out, Patsy's “bust.”) “Two can play at that game. We eliminate
her
before she eliminates
us
,” Patsy told me. “She's very jealous because she knows Daddy loves us best. She knows he'll never love her the way he loved Mother, the way he loves us, and that drives her bonkers.
If
he loves her at all, which I doubt.”