Souvenir of Cold Springs (39 page)

“I was practically around the corner at the undertaker's, Nell. Bogan and McKay.” Rosemary came in and sat on the edge of the sofa. “I thought I'd stop in and tell you Dad passed away this afternoon not long after you left.”

Nell would have preferred a phone call, under the circumstances—ten o'clock at night, Nell in her nightgown, popcorn crumbs on the sofa where Rosemary perched—but she knew Rosemary meant to be nice. “Was it peaceful?” she asked. “At the end?”

Rosemary hesitated. “Well—for a while he was kind of difficult, but the hospital chaplain talked to him and gave him the last rites and he calmed down quite a bit. Yes—I think he died in peace.”

Nell didn't comment. She had a feeling the old man had asked for her again, but she didn't want to know. It wasn't fair that the dead were so needy, could still load you up with guilt.

“The poor old guy,” she said.

“He lived too long,” Rosemary said, and sighed. “Well. It comes to all of us, doesn't it?”

“We who were living are now dying, Rosemary.”

“More or less, I suppose.” Rosemary half opened her bag, shut it again. Nell knew she wanted a cigarette, but she didn't encourage her. “Nell,” she said, and stopped, started again. “Nell, I think Dad may have left you something.” Rosemary looked up, into her eyes. “In his will, I mean. A little token of his remembrance. Did he—mention anything about it to you?”

Nell was surprised by a desire to laugh. She imagined the Pepsi truck pulling up once a month for the rest of her days to deposit a case on the doorstep of her condo. She said, “No, not a word.” She looked at Rosemary's eye makeup, too much and freshly applied—imagined her ducking into the ladies' room at the undertaker's with her little zippered bag while Jerry negotiated the price of caskets. She decided that whatever Mr. Fahey had left her she'd turn over to Margaret. “He didn't have to do anything like that, Rose,” she said. “But he was a very sweet man.”

“Yes—he was.” They sat there looking at each other sadly. Nell was impatient for Rosemary to go, but she offered her a cup of coffee, a glass of wine. Rosemary said, no, she was exhausted, she'd be off, she had to pick up Jerry at the funeral home and drive all the way home out to Fairmount. At the door, she hugged Nell and said, “You've meant a lot to our family.” Nell was touched; she always felt bad that she could never warm up to Rosemary and Jerry. She said she'd see them all at the funeral, though she had no desire to go: funerals were for the living. What did Rosemary's mournful face have to do with all those Thanksgiving dinners, all those cases of Pepsi-Cola?

It seemed somehow disrespectful to poor Mr. Fahey not to tell someone he was dead, so she called Lucy in Boston. She described her last conversation with him, and Lucy said, “He sure was fond of you, Aunt Nell.”

“Yes, he was.” What would Lucy say if she told her? The creeping fingers, the fierce whispers. It was all so long ago; it seemed so harmless now. “He liked you, too,” Nell said.

“Did he say anything about me?”

“He wanted me to tell you hello,” Nell lied. What harm? He'd said that when she saw him in the spring:
say hello to that pretty little Lucy for me
. She said, “I suppose good-bye is more like it.”

“Ah, the poor old guy. Should I come for the funeral? It would be difficult—I have to be in Vermont Thursday.”

“I don't think you need to,” Nell said. “I mean—Jerry and Rosemary. Really. I wouldn't bother. Go to Vermont.”

“I was thinking that maybe on my way back I could cut over on Route 20 and see your new place—if you can put me up. I'm going with a friend, but we'll probably be taking separate cars.” Nell knew all about Lucy's friend—Philip Talner, her old art professor. Not the first of her affairs, but it looked like he might be the last: it had gone on eight, ten years. The last time she saw Teddy and Marie, they had hinted that, this time, Lucy might even divorce Mark and marry the guy.

“Whatever you decide,” Nell said. “I'm not going anywhere. You know I always love to see you.”

The idea pleased her. She'd get some California Chili and give Lucy a vegetarian dinner. Things had been strained lately between them. Mark was still angry with Nell for financing Margaret's move to California. He had called her up and said that Margaret's whims shouldn't be encouraged, after what she'd put them through—that Nell had overstepped the bounds. Why should Margaret be rewarded for her behavior? Lucy had told Nell several times that she personally didn't agree with Mark, she was glad to see Margaret happy for a change. And certainly Margaret was an angel, a paragon, compared to some of her cousins: Ann somewhere in the East Village, calling her parents only when she wanted money, and Peter rumored to be living in some kind of paramilitary commune in Montana. But Nell knew Lucy missed her daughter, and she couldn't help feeling responsible. How complicated life was, especially when you tried to be good.

She poured herself a glass of wine and settled into bed. Dinah jumped to the foot and sat there washing herself. Nell took the volume of Joyce poems from her bedside table and opened it at random:

O cool is the valley now

And there, love, will we go—

Reading poetry always reminded her, pleasantly, of Thea, but tonight she couldn't concentrate. She looked across the room to the crowd of photographs on the dresser: the laughing snapshot of Thea, Peggy in spit curls, an ancient sepia picture of Caroline and John as children, little Teddy and Lucy holding hands, a sullen school photograph of Margaret, Teddy's three troubled kids in better times, her parents' wedding picture. So many. So much sadness. And in spite of everything, always a comfort, that collection of photographs. She never looked at them without an awareness of how much they had taught her, how much, still, she could learn from them, the living and the dead.

Nell sipped her wine, and when the wine was gone she turned on her side, and was instantly asleep. The window was open; from outside came the sound of traffic on Grant Boulevard and a drone from an airplane passing overhead. A car door slammed, a voice down in the street laughed and called goodnight. Dinah quit washing and curled up at Nell's feet, nose to tail, with a sigh. Jamie's painting hung over the bed, and, in the dim light from the streetlamps, the vague blue shapes—a woman bending forward, offering or pleading—were lost in shadow.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2001 by Kitty Burns Florey

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9341-8

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