The Yellow Braid (17 page)

In order to know virtue, we
must firs
t
acquaint ourselves with vice. ~
Marquis de Sade

Caro returned home, hooded and wearing
sunglasses. After locking herself in and letting down the blinds,
she went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her, even though
no one was in the house.

The bathroom mirror confirmed her stunned
reaction in the beauty salon. She’d hoped that after Tommy had
washed the excess dye out and had styled her hair, the heavy
coloring would have appeared less garish. It hadn’t, and she was
the same caricature here at home that she’d seen in his
mirrors.

Beside herself with the anxiety of what
she’d done despite Tommy’s warning, she sent a three-word text to
her daughter:
I need you
.

Almost immediately, Abby was on the phone.
“Mom, I knew something’s going on.”

Caro sat hunched on the floor against the
door. “I’m not used to this, Abby. I used to confide in Marcie. If
she were here, I wouldn’t be where I am in my head, ready to
explode.”

“Try telling me. I’m not Marcie, but at
least I’m here,” Abby said.

Caro took a breath. “I got my hair dyed
and I look ugly and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m scared
because it’s like…like the ugliness of my hair and my face is who
I’ve become on the inside. Can someone have a pure heart and black
soul?”

“Mom, you’re talking crazy.”

“
I’m trying to explain,” Caro said. She
held her hand to her mouth, and then to the side of her face. “I
made a pattern for myself this summer, going to the same places to
eat, sitting on the same beach…repeating the same things because I
felt too bereaved of love without Marcie to go or do differently.
My way seemed safe, and all with very little effort. And then I met
Livia, and she completed my narrow world. She was satisfied to stay
in it with me.”

There was a level of distress in her
mother’s voice Abby didn’t recognize. “But that’s good then.”

“
No, because I still wasn’t content. I
tried to be young again, look younger…to be more appealing,” Caro
said. “I couldn’t afford to be old.”

“For who?” Abby asked.

“
For Livia—
” A pocket of sudden nerves seemed to burst inside
of Caro for mentioning Livia’s name.

“Mom, she’s not going to care what you look
like. From the little you’ve said about her, she sees you as a
mother figure. I’m confused why you’d be this upset. She’s only a
young girl, for God’s sake. I would think she’d be more interested
in boys than with someone who’s like her mother. Besides which,
you’re not ugly, and I’m sure your hair is not as bad as you
think.”

Caro wiped at her tears and tried not to cry
aloud, but couldn’t hold back a small eruption of sobs.

“
Mom…”
was all Abby said, a reminder that she was there for her
mother.

When Caro sniffled away the last of her
tears, she said, “Sorry for being so melodramatic about this. I got
overwhelmed.”

“A lot’s happened this summer that’s been
really upsetting. You finding out about Marcie and Dad brought it
all up for me again, but at least, I knew about it already. I
didn’t have to deal with it for the first time.”

“Abby, one more thing. I’m wanting to make
amends as much as I can given that you’re going to be thirty
soon.”

“Never too late, Mom,” Abby said.

Caro heard the lift in Abby’s voice and she
hoped that for a moment, at least, she was smiling. “Are you
jealous of Livia?”

“I tried to convince myself I wasn’t. I am
though. Seems like she’s what you would’ve dreamed of in a perfect
daughter,” Abby said.

Caro wasn’t used to being honest with Abby
and she struggled against reverting to her habit of prevarication.
“In the beginning, yes, I sought her out as a daughter. The
emotional distance between you and me seemed so great, and I saw an
opportunity to make amends for my failings as your mother. She’s a
poet and could easily relate, and she needed a sympathetic
supporter in the absence of her own mother.”

“And now?”

“Believe me when I say with all of my heart,
there is no need to be jealous. I have one daughter who is not
perfect, but I’m not seeking perfection. Your dad’s affair was
worth every second, if its discovery has opened up a new beginning
between us. I never stopped loving you, Abby, not for an
instant.”

“I think I always knew that.”

“I’m glad for that,” Caro said. “So now tell
me what’s going on with Phillip.”

“I called and asked him out on a date. We’re
meeting for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Good girl,” Caro said. “You let me know
what happens. In the meantime, a big hug for you.”

“Night, Mom. I love you too.”

After Caro hung up from Abby, she felt an
internal shudder, a loosening of nerves that had twisted around her
stomach. At the same time, she had one very clear realization that
made her clutch at her shirt with her fist. As much as her
conversation with Abby reminded Caro of how much her daughter loved
her, Caro was still alone in the matter of her heart regarding
Livia.

Even now Caro imagined Livia straddling the
boogie board with her arms and thighs hard from surfing; her hair
bleached by the sun; her skin weathered to a Caribbean brown. When
Livia dove deep and rose up again, the Greek sea goddess Tethys
could have looked no more beautiful or athletic.

Caro had spent the summer seeking the solace
of perfect love and learned along the way that Platonic love was
for the gods. She was human.

I postpone death by living, by
suffering, by error, by risking,
by giving, by losing. ~
Anais Nin

When the phone rang the next morning, Caro
saw that it was Gwen, the owner of the house. “Hello.”

“I was looking over the lease,” Gwen said,
“and forgotten I’d extended with you until the end of September.
The problem is my situation has changed. I’m having to cut my
holiday short and plan to be home in two weeks.”

“But that’s Labor Day,” Caro said.

“I realize that. It just happens that I met
a woman who turned out to be the CEO of a marketing firm in
Manhattan. It was a week-long tour and by the time we returned to
Rome she offered me a job.”

Caro lowered the handset and stared at it in
disbelief. When she raised it to her ear again, she did so
gingerly, hoping Gwen would be recanting her message. She heard the
voice, but not the words she wanted to hear.

Gwen was saying, “ … sorry, and of course,
I’ll discount this month for your trouble.”

Caro replied in high, stuttering tones. “I
can’t go back early. I—I’ve made plans, commitments here on the
Island. It’s not possible.”

“I realize we have a lease. The only way I
know how to honor it is if you stay on with me at the house. I just
didn’t know if that was something you really wanted to do.”

“No. Not at all,” Caro said firmly.

There was a brief silence. “I don’t know
what else to say except that I was hoping you would be
agreeable.”

Caro managed to collect herself and
attempted an offensive line of argument. “It may seem like it to
you because you’re not hearing what you want, but I’m not the one
who’s being difficult. It’s not realistic to think I’d be okay with
cutting
my
holiday short
by
three
weeks
based on a decision you made on a whim.”

“You’re being ridiculously unreasonable, and
there’s no excuse for it. It’s my house,” Gwen retorted.

“And we have a contract. I’ll spend whatever
money for a lawyer I have to, to see who stays and who goes in your
house. Bitch!” Caro spat.

“Attacking me is not helping,” Gwen
said.

“Neither is this conversation,” Caro said
and threw the handset onto the divan.

Even before Gwen’s phone call, Caro had
begun to experience brief periods of sorrow when she realized that
summer was coming to an end and with it, Carmen’s return from her
honeymoon to get Livia. There was no way Caro would relinquish even
a second of her time with Livia before that.

***

Later that evening, Caro became suddenly
aware of an absolute quiet that pervaded the house in spite of the
fact that Livia and Beatrice were somewhere inside. It wasn’t yet
eight o’clock. Yet no music blared and the forty-eight-inch TV
mirrored her reflection darkly when she passed in front of it. She
strained to catch any kind of noise, and heard nothing. She’d been
in her bedroom, but assumed the girls would have called out to her
had they left.

She walked to the side of the house where
their bedrooms were and without thinking pushed open Livia’s door,
which was partly ajar, at the same time that she called her
name.

The girls were on the bed, half-dressed;
Livia was on her side facing Beatrice, her hand on Beatrice’s
stomach.

“Livia! Beatrice! What are you doing?”

The girls scrambled off the bed.

“Why did you come in here like that?” Livia
shrieked.

Caro’s grip on the door handle
t
ightened. “I was
looking for you…I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“We were only messing around some,” Beatrice
said as she drew her T-shirt over her head.

“
Can you leave now? Can you
close the
door
, please,” Livia
said, buttoning her blouse.

Caro hurried out. When she got to her
bathroom, she splashed water on her feverish face—the heat arising
as much for her embarrassment at walking in on them as for her
desire to have been lying on the bed with Livia in her arms instead
of Beatrice’s.

Naturally,
love’
s the
most distant possibility. ~
Georges Bataille

Fate intervened in the relationship between
Beatrice and Livia. Beatrice’s grandmother got pneumonia, sending
Beatrice and her mother to Tucson with a plan to stay through the
Labor Day weekend. Sitting in Nina’s kitchen, Caro, barely
concealing her glee, asked after the woman’s health.

Nina poured tea. “Talking about stress, have
you heard any more from Gwen?”

“She’s arriving next Sunday, and staying at
a friend’s house. Seems that when she checked with a lawyer friend,
he told her that with me having a contract, by the time the case
went to civil court, I’d be long gone from the house. Still, I can
hardly believe the summer’s over.” She let her words hang like
clothes strung out on a wash line.

“Well, I have news from Carmen,” Nina
said.

Caro detected a slight hesitation in Nina’s
voice and looked up from the magazine she’d been absently thumbing
through as they talked.

“Carmen wants Livia on a plane to Hong Kong
on Thursday.”

“Thursday! That’s—that’s in three days.”
Caro jumped from her chair.

“Livia’s been on a waiting list for a
private American school. The headmaster contacted them for a
personal interview. The semester starts next Monday.”

A frightened child would not have appeared
as lost as Caro did, with her eyes wide in dismay, her jaw
trembling.

“I know how close you’ve gotten to her but
you had to know this was coming soon,” Nina said, reaching for
Caro’s hand.

Caro backed away; she couldn’t stand Nina
touching her. “How long do they plan on staying overseas?”

“Two years. After that, her husband figures
his company will be established to the point the family can return
and then he’ll make intermittent trips over alone.”

Caro turned and went out the back door, then
fled down the catwalk to her own house. Once there, she collapsed
onto the twin bed where Livia slept, and thrust her face into the
pillow. She hadn’t done the linens since the last sleepover so that
the smells of sea salt and the girl’s scented body wash made Caro
inhale deep and long. Livia! It couldn’t be that in three days she
would be gone. That Caro would lose her so prematurely. A low wail,
in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, reverberated in her
face and filled her ears.

She longed for sleep. Every night in recent
weeks the young beauty had drifted across Caro’s dreamscapes and
metamorphosed her world. But now, even after the sun had risen
toward zenith, sleep evaded her; she had to bear the full weight of
Livia’s impending departure in full consciousness.

At two o’clock Livia knocked at the
door.

Caro sneaked behind the panel of rattan
blinds and peeked at Livia shifting her feet and twirling the tail
of her braid, habits of impatience. How was she going to face Livia
and not cry? But she must, or allow Livia to leave thinking she
wasn’t home.

Caro stepped outside, her emotions appeared
like script across her face.

“Aunt Nina told you.”

Caro pulled the appropriate words up her
throat one by one to keep from blurting out something she’d regret.
“You must be … excited. Hong Kong will be so different for
you.”

Livia gave her a sidelong look. “Aunt Nina
said you came home because you were sick.”

Home. Caro turned her gaze to the ocean, the
endless rotation of waves that she’d come almost to memorize. Such
wasn’t the case with Livia. She would be gone from her home here,
never to come back.

Livia patted Caro’s shoulder. “We still have
three more days.”

***

That night Livia stayed over. They’d come in
early from outside. A thick fog rolled in along with hot, humid
weather that made their clothes stick to their skin. After Livia
took a shower, she went into Caro’s bedroom to say good night. Her
wet hair clung to her arms and back like slivers of gold lamé
against the bronze patina of her scrubbed skin. When she flopped
lengthwise on Caro’s bed wearing only bikini briefs and a tank top,
Caro lost her breath.