The Uses of Enchantment (29 page)

Mary didn’t respond.

Regina pushed the Peugeot’s gear shift into drive and floored the accelerator. A good half-second later, the Peugeot’s tortoise engine lurched to life. Then the two back wheels spun grudgingly to attention and the rusted body swayed back and forth as though threatening to capsize. The car hurled itself downward, the bumper grinding against the asphalt until the shocks retracted and the car pitched dopily forward.

“Feel better?” Mary asked dryly.

“Much,” Regina said.

“Good,” Mary said.

“So,” Regina said, “while we’re baring our sisterly all. I thought you should know that Gaby thinks you went to Boston to see Dr. Hammer.”

“Why would she think that?” Mary said.

“She thinks that Mum’s death is prompting you to have a moment of castigating self-reflection, and that this is making you act secretively again.”

Mary reached into her pocket to touch the piece of paper Roz had given her.

“That’s idiotic,” Mary said. “Besides, he’s been disbarred. Or whatever the equivalent is for therapists. De-couched.”

They passed the cemetery. As they neared the spot where the Mercedes used to park, Regina jerked the wheel to the right; the car’s tires ground along the shoulder, kicking gravel against the undercarriage and creating an unmelodious series of
pings
.

“Watch it!” Mary said.

Regina returned to the road.

“I was avoiding the dog,” she said innocently.

“What dog?” Mary turned around. There’s been no dog.

“In addition to being nicer to one another,” Regina said, ignoring Mary’s bewilderment, “we also need to start being honest with one another. The way I was honest with you.”

“Obviously,” Mary, still distractedly searching for the dog over her shoulder.

“You agree,” Regina said.

Mary refused to reconfirm this.

“So then you’ll tell me what you were doing in Boston. I mean if you weren’t meeting Dr. Hammer.”

“I was following a lead,” Mary said.

The windshield fogged. Regina poked the Peugeot’s DEMIST button.

“How euphemistic,” she said tightly.

“Sorry,” Mary said. “I went to Boston to see Dr. Biedelman.”

Regina cast her a sidelong withering look.

“Don’t insult me, Mimsy,” she said.

“I went to see Dr. Biedelman,” Mary repeated.

“I know you probably think that one dishonest turn deserves another. That’s how you’re rationalizing your behavior, am I right? We went behind your back so, you think, it’s justified that you go behind ours.”

Mary didn’t respond.

“So what did Mr. Bolt tell you?”

“Who’s Mr. Bolt?” Mary said.

“
Please
. The painting’s worth a lot more, as you obviously discovered.”

Mary fingered the DEMIST button. When she was younger, she’d thought DEMIST was a French word, she hadn’t realized it was the English word for getting rid of mist.

“I hope you know it wasn’t my idea to try to cheat you out of your share of the money. Gaby doesn’t think you deserve anything from Mum’s estate. Because, as Gaby sees it, you’re the reason Mum got cancer and died.”

Mary’s vision turned white, then black, then white again. She thought she was having a stroke then realized they were driving past St. Hugh’s new outdoor hockey rink, with its blinding, distantly spaced overhead lights.

“How about you? Is that how you see it?” Mary said.

“It doesn’t matter how I see it,” Regina said. “Everything’s always about
you
. We even had to have Mum’s funeral on the anniversary of your disappearance.”

Mary’s heart was beating inside her face. Hot and staccato, just under her cheeks.

“Dad insisted on the date,” Mary said. “Because of Reverend Whittemore’s schedule.”

“So you say,” Regina said.

“It was a coincidence,” Mary said. “A really, really shitty one.”
For me too
she refrained from adding. She didn’t want to sound self-pitying.

Regina wasn’t listening.

“Even
Dad
blames you for Mum’s death. He’d never admit it, but don’t for a second think that Mum was the only person who didn’t want you coming to the hospital last week.”

This stung. More than anything else, this stung, and made Mary feel not only alone but stupid and naïve and alone.

“I think we should leave Dad out of this,” Mary said quietly. “I’d also suggest leaving all speculative causes of terminal diseases out of this.”

Regina sniffed. “I was only telling you how Gaby felt.”

“Gaby actually
said
that?”

“Don’t act surprised. If you knew your sister you’d understand: Gaby is a steel-mouthed bitch.”

Regina hit the last straightaway before Rumney Marsh and floored the Peugeot again, filling the car with the stink of diesel and vaporized salt.

“So?” she said.

“So what?”

“Now you know we tried to cheat you out of your inheritance. What do you have to say to that?”

Mary fingered the scrap of paper in her pocket. She had nothing to say for herself. Nothing at all.

“Weegee’s tired,” she said tightly, staring at the lightless woods.

A
unt Helen’s station wagon was still parked in front of the house.

“She’s going to be too drunk to drive home,” Regina said.

“She can stay in the guest room,” said Mary coldly.

“She cannot stay in the guest room. I am staying in the guest room.”

“I thought you were staying in your room.”

“My room is the guest room,” Regina said.

“I guess I meant the study,” Mary said.

“She can’t stay there. Weegee will eat all of Mum’s stuff, which you left in piles on the floor.”

“I’m still sorting,” Mary lied.

“Whatever. Aunt Helen is not staying in the study.”

“Fine,” Mary said. “We’ll just let her drive home and kill herself.”

Regina opened the door and, in her haste, dropped the car keys; Mary heard them skitter off to a distant shadowy place.

“
Damnit
,” Regina said. “Will you jump around? I need some light over here.”

Mary positioned herself directly under the motion-sensitive light angling from the garage eaves. She jumped up and down. She waved her arms. Nothing happened.

“Come
on
,” Regina said.

“I’m
trying
. It’s broken.”

“It’s not broken,” Regina said.

“Maybe I’m invisible,” Mary said, feeling suddenly quite worried about this possibility. It wouldn’t have been the first time that day.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just retarded when it comes to very basic activities.”

Regina waved frantically at the eaves. The light clicked on.

“See?” she said.

The side door opened.

“What are you doing?” said Gaby.

“Mimsy can’t find the car keys,” Regina said.

“You lost the car keys?” Gaby said to Mary.

“I’m looking for the car keys,” Mary said. “Which does not mean that I lost them.”

“We’ll find them in the morning,” Regina said, and then added somewhat ominously: “Nobody’s going anywhere tonight.”

“Dad got a hole in one,” Gaby said.

Mary pushed past her younger sister, looking falsely innocent in her raggedy Semmering field hockey team sweats. She wore the cuffs like a pair of gloves, her thumbs extruding from two large holes, the sleeves stretched long and covering her fingers. Mary felt far more betrayed by Gaby than by Regina, but then, she reasoned, what right did she have to feel betrayed? One sisterly weekend with Gaby in three years did not count as knowing someone. She had no one to blame but herself if she was feeling emotionally swindled by a person who was, in essence, a stranger to her.

Aunt Helen sprawled in the breakfast nook, one scrawny leg snaked around the other scrawny leg, bobbling a large scotch in her two palms. The overhead fluorescents rendered Aunt Helen even more skeletal and translucent than her usual skeletal translucence. When drinking, her veins became prominent and she resembled the giant diagrams of the human vascular system that used to hang on the wall of the Semmering biology lab.

Weegee appeared from the mud room wearing a red dog sweater, the phrase
CA VA
? knit into the pattern with white yarn. He burrowed his muzzle into Mary’s crotch.

“Weegee was so worried about you,” Aunt Helen observed.

“It’s nice to be missed,” Mary said.

“Mary went to Boston to have Abigail Lake appraised,” Regina said. She stared meaningfully at Gaby.

“Did you,” said Aunt Helen.

“Apparently I did,” said Mary, no longer caring what anyone thought.

“Thinking of selling the painting,” Aunt Helen said, eyebrow raised. “Of your own ancestor.”

“It’s a painting of Mimsy in a bonnet,” said Gaby. “
Regardons
. Weegee has a hard-on.”

“Can I refresh your drink?” Mary asked Aunt Helen as a way to further agitate Regina.

“Well!” Aunt Helen said, handing Mary her glass without actually looking at her. “I’m glad I came over. I had plans to eat at the club but I thought no way should you girls be alone tonight. People
will
make some poor decisions after a funeral.”

“Did Dad go to bed?” Mary asked.

Aunt Helen nodded. “It’s all been a bit
too-too
for Clyde. He’s not a coper, your father. Your mother was fine with that, of course. She preferred to be the one in control. Weegee! Don’t be so aggressive!”

“It’s OK,” Mary said. “My crotch isn’t seeing a lot of action this week.”

“Grief will kill the libido,” Aunt Helen said. “Look at me.”

“But don’t look at Weegee,” Gaby said. “
Ca va?
”

“I’m still grieving over my divorce,” said Aunt Helen.

“Tom left you twelve years ago,” Regina said. “Do you want any pizza? You should probably have some pizza.”

“I don’t eat pizza, Regina. And twelve years is not such a long time when your husband was sleeping with the golf pro.”

“I didn’t know Tom was
gay
,” Regina said.

“The golf pro was a young woman from Saugus,” Aunt Helen said. “What a sexist assumption. And speaking of gay, how’s your divorce from Bill going? You know your mother thought he was a homosexual. I’m sure she was very relieved to hear you were getting divorced a third time.”

“He was my third fiancé,” Regina corrected. “I’ve never been married.”

“Not that I expected to be invited to the wedding,” Aunt Helen said. “You’ve made it quite clear how you feel about me.”

“I’m eating in the living room,” Gaby said.

“Your mother hated it when you ate in the living room,” Aunt Helen said.

“Which is why I’ll enjoy doing it,” Gaby said.

Mary and Regina followed Gaby into the living room. They sat quietly on the couch and ate with plates on their knees. Gaby balanced her pizza on her thumbs and knuckles. With her fingernail Regina pried the mushrooms from the cold cheese, ignoring the rest of her slice. Weegee wedged himself under the coffee table and whined for a handout. Mary couldn’t eat. Minutes later, Aunt Helen joined them with a freshened drink and no plate. Regina was right: Aunt Helen was drinking her way toward becoming an obligatory houseguest.

“So!” said Aunt Helen. “When would you girls like me to pick up my painting?”

“What painting?” Regina said.

“What painting! The painting of Abigail Lake.”

“Abigail Lake belongs to us,” Regina said.

“Did you read the will’s fine print?” asked Aunt Helen.

“There was no fine print,” Regina said. “Mum left the painting to us.”

“She left you the painting
so long as you didn’t sell it.
The fine print states that if you decide to sell it, the painting’s ownership would revert to me. Probably because I have a graduate degree in fine arts and can appreciate Abigail Lake as valuable in terms not involving cash.”

“But Mr. Stanworth read us the will,” Regina said. “There was nothing about ownership reverting or whatever you just said.”

“He was ordered not to read that subsection. Your mother wanted to see whether or not you were sentimentally attached to the only thing she left you.”

“She was testing us?” Regina said.

“You could interpret it that way,” Aunt Helen said. “I certainly would.”

Gaby laughed.

“You find this funny?” Aunt Helen said.

“Mum is dead,” Gaby said. “Whatever we decide to do with the painting, it’s none of her fucking business.”

Aunt Helen’s already scotched face blushed a shade darker.

“
Ca va!
” Gaby yelled at her.

Aunt Helen jumped.

Gaby widened her eyes psychotically.

“You’re such a quietly angry girl, Gabrielle,” Aunt Helen said. “You’ve always been angry. It killed your mother to see you so angry. And to what end? Where has rage ever gotten you?”

“I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who killed Mum,” Mary said.

“I was speaking figuratively, Mimsy,” Aunt Helen said.

“Not everybody’s been speaking figuratively,” Mary said. “Gaby thinks that I’m the reason that Mum got cancer and died, don’t you Gaby?”

Gaby looked at Regina, dumbstruck.

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Aunt Helen said.

“I’m just repeating what I heard,” Mary said.

“It’s what you think, even if you’ve never articulated it,” Regina said defensively.

“I didn’t have to articulate it,” Gaby said. “
You
articulated it.”

Aunt Helen appeared stricken. “You girls are so cruel,” she said. “What is it about sisters that makes them behave so hideously toward one another? Your mother was an expert at hideous behavior. Do you remember when she went to that doctor of yours, Mimsy—what was his name?”

“Dr. Hammer,” Mary said.

“She went to Dr. Hammer and pretended to be me so she could wheedle information about you. What a lark! What an absolute riot! Weegee knew what a bitch she could be, didn’t you Weegee? She
hated
Weegee.”

“Spare us the victim monologue,” Gaby said.

“Can I get anyone another slice of pizza?” asked Mary.