The Yellow Braid (6 page)

“Tommy’s nephew, Alex,” Nina explained.
“He’s like her big brother.”

Caro crossed her legs in an attempt at a
casual posture even though her stomach twittered with delight at
Livia’s presence. “Is he from around here?”

“About thirty minutes west, near
Bayport.”

Livia reared her head back in laughter as
Alex jerked on her braid. She punched him playfully on the arm when
he pulled her hair a second time.

“It worries me how immature she is,” Nina
confided. “She’s going into high school in September and the kids
are going to tear her apart. Almost fourteen and she acts like
someone half her age.”

Caro kept quiet. To her, Livia’s naiveté
elevated her beauty and made her worthy of deeper introspection,
and Caro would resent any alterations that would modify her
behavior or appearance.

“Not too long ago I tried saying something,
but the idea of makeup, hard rock, and boys has absolutely no
attraction for her.” Nina’s words came out like a lament. And then
out of frustration she uttered, “Sometimes I feel like yelling at
her to wake up!”

“On the contrary, I sympathize with her
because I was the same way,” Caro said. “I never felt that I fit in
as a teenager.”

“When did you start becoming interested in
boys?”

“I wouldn’t dare tell you that, you’d laugh.
But I was…older.”

Nina grimaced and shook her head.

Caro pondered how Livia shouldn’t have to be
made to grow up before she was ready. Nina was an artist. Why
couldn’t she recognize the rarity of Livia’s innocence and her
potential to develop intellectually and creatively?

Livia propped her feet against the base of a
parking meter, and with one hand secured on the coin deposit and
her body tilted outward, swung around the pole. Her madras blouse
and pony tail held high in a bright red scrunchie reflected her
youthful character.

“Was Abby a late bloomer?” Nina asked.

Caro shook her head emphatically. “She
matured very early and liked all the supposedly
normal
teen things…” Caro noticed Nina scowl as
she turned her camera over in her hands.

Nina gave a small sigh and gazed across the
street at Livia. “Do you think Abby would have liked posing for
me?”

“Audiences of any kind or number exhilarate
her. And she inherited her father’s magnetic presence, the kind
that prompted people to look around when he walked into a room even
though he was quite ordinary looking.”

“Wouldn’t it have been nice then if Abby was
my niece and Livia your daughter?”

Caro’s immediate reaction was to say, Very
nice indeed. She didn’t know Livia well enough to know for sure,
but so far Livia was easy to be with, expected little in the way of
entertainment, and wanted nothing more than an attentive ear to her
verse, unlike Caro’s daughter, who navigated life blinkered and
unbending. Nevertheless, wasn’t it wrong for a mother to want to
trade off her daughter for another more genial model? To Nina she
said, “I think Abby would like you a lot.”

“Do you get over to London often to see
her?” Nina asked.

“Time has a way of flying by,” Caro said.
She was embarrassed to admit that in the year and a half Abby had
lived in London, she had yet to visit. She kept telling herself she
loved her daughter—it was just such hard work being with her. Abby
was her daddy’s girl, and it seemed that the only common thing they
had in common was their DNA.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Nina said. “With
myself I can hardly believe where the years went. I’m going to be
forty-three next birthday and my accomplishments are a husband and
a house in the Hamptons.”

“You sound disappointed,” Caro said.

Nina was about to reply when Tommy jogged
across the street toward them with Livia and Alex tagging
behind.

“
How about an early supper and a movie
tonight?
Harry Potter
for
us,” Tommy said, indicating Livia and Alex along with himself.
“
Julie and
Julia
for you
two?”

“Caro?” Nina asked.

“Sounds great,” Caro said and tugged lightly
at Livia’s braid.

***

Caro mounted her bike on her car and went
next door.

Livia was sitting on the porch steps, her
face smothered in her palms. The twin tufts of baby-fine hair that
were her eyebrows rose above her fingertips at Caro’s unexpected
appearance.

“Hello.” Caro noticed a faint crease across
the bridge of Livia’s nose, the beginning of a glower behind her
hands.

When Livia didn’t respond, Caro sat down
next to her. “You’ve got quite a frown for such a beautiful, sunny
day.”

“So…”

“
So
what’s wrong?” Caro asked.

“I’m lonely. And I’m bored, that’s what’s
wrong.”

“We can do things together,” Caro blurted.
“That’s why I came over today.”

“It’s different. Aunt Nina understands. She
felt really bad,” Livia said.

“About what?”

“About that my cousin had to cancel her
visit because she got mono and has to stay in for six weeks. That’s
half the summer!”

“How long was she planning to stay?” Caro
asked.

“Two weeks. We get together every summer.
Either I go to her house in Maryland or she comes to me. This year
she was coming here to be at the beach.”

Two weeks without Livia alone! Caro exhaled
in relief. “I think what I planned for us today is especially,
exactly what you need now.”

Caro saw a subtle rise in Livia’s
expression. “Your aunt told me you like to bird-watch so I thought
we’d go over to Shelter Island. Interested?”

“I guess,” Livia said, and took off to look
for her aunt.Caro and Livia boarded the ferry at Sag Harbor for the
ten-minute ride across Noyack Bay, one of three deep harbors along
the twenty-five-mile coastline. An eight-thousand acre windswept
island town tucked between the twin forks of eastern Long
Island—the rural northern fork with its horse farms and apple
orchards and its posh southern counterpart, the Hamptons—Shelter
Island was known for its mist-laden bluffs, vast tracts of salt
marsh, and pebbled beaches.

As they drove off the ferry, Caro headed
toward the Visitors Center at the Mashomack Preserve, which was to
be their starting point. “I went online and downloaded the
bird-watching trails. But I thought you might want to first bike
along the coast and check out the boats in the marinas. Your Aunt
Nina said—”

Livia interrupted. “You talk a lot to Aunt
Nina.”

“Guess I do. Is that a bad thing?”

Livia shrugged and focused on unfastening
her bike from the trunk rack.

Before long, Caro’s car was left in the
distance as they pedaled toward Coecles Inlet on North Ferry Road.
She’d estimated the nine-mile ride to take about an hour, given the
hilly terrain, and praised herself for having stayed in shape over
the years. In the city she bicycled often. It was so much easier
than hailing a taxi or fighting the elbowing throngs in the
subways.

They rode in silence with Livia in the lead.
The fat tires of her mountain bike dispersed gravel in wavy
rivulets as she swerved from side to side, keeping time to some
inner rhythm.

Before long, she spotted a female osprey who
had built her nest on the top mast of a dry-docked schooner.
“Look!” Livia pointed and sped up for about fifty yards before
turning into the driveway of Gates Marina. She jumped off her bike
under the nest. When Caro caught up, Livia exclaimed, “She’s so
huge! Awesome, right?”

“Awesome,” Caro mimicked. “I never saw one
this close up before.”

“Know what the coolest thing about them
is?”

“What?”

“They can make the toes on their talons go
backward or forward depending on the prey they’re trying to catch.
Like this.” She demonstrated with her fingers.

“I think this one is scary-looking with its
beady eyes. And its beak looks like it could tear into
anything.”

“That’s because they’re related to the
hawk…very protective of their nests. Watch how it tracks my every
move.” Livia made a slow rotation around the schooner.

“You sound quite the expert.”

“Uncle Tommy taught me. He’s the one that
got me interested in this stuff.”

Caro followed Livia’s lead around the nest.
The gawking of the predator chilled Caro. She felt as if it
intuited her own ravenous attraction toward Livia. Afraid, Caro
withdrew.

Livia tugged at Caro’s arm.

The girl’s touch startled Caro and she was
rocketed back in time to when her daughter used to get her
attention in the same way. Sometimes when Caro didn’t want to be
bothered she’d yank her hand out of Abby’s reach. With Livia, she
welcomed the girl’s touch and so she relaxed her hand. “What?”

“We have to move away so she’ll feel safe
enough to leave her nest. Then we can watch her take flight.”

“All right.” Caro followed Livia to the
road, where they waited behind the massive trunk of an old
sycamore.

Within a minute the osprey gave the area one
last inspection and then pushed off her perch. Her long body arched
and executed a deep dive. As it neared water level it pushed upward
and settled into a slow, steady wingbeat.

Livia sensed Caro’s reaction and turned to
her. “I told you it would be awesome.”

“It definitely was,” Caro said.

The girl’s broad smile was a wreath around
her face. After the shared moment with the osprey, she loosened up.
By the time they got to Coecles Harbor Livia claimed hunger and
thirst with unguarded exuberance.

“You seem to get along really well with your
uncle,” Caro said over a platter of fried clams and chips.

“Yeah, he’s great. Aunt Nina, too, when she
doesn’t have her camera. Last spring they took me to Maine for a
birding festival. Was great fun!”

“I don’t know about birds. Is there a
special species that you like better than most?”

“Sea birds. The ospreys are cool because
they’re predators and supposedly big, tough guys, but all they hunt
is fish.”

“Fish aren’t sacred?” Caro asked only half
seriously.

“Nah, just boring.” Livia munched on french
fries and then almost as an afterthought she added, “Plus you can
spot the osprey without using binoculars.”

“I’d think you’d want to see them up close,”
Caro commented.

Livia shook her head, and then swung her leg
around over the bench and chucked her half-eaten food in the trash
barrel. She sat down again, but this time with her back to the
picnic table, and made noises through her straw in the soda.

Livia’s body language made Caro wonder if
the girl felt the camera lens to be as invasive as being
objectified by the binoculars? Caro pressed the issue. “But you
like using your uncle’s telescope and that zooms objects in.”

Livia didn’t answer.

Caro attempted a matter-of-fact tone. “In
poetry, details make the poems work. Elizabeth Bishop was famous
for her eye for detail. She believed it was a poet’s task to
examine things at close range. In one of her poems, she wrote, ‘…
from the window I see an immense city, carefully revealed, made
delicate by overworkmanship, detail upon detail, cornice upon
façade.’”

Livia appeared unresponsive, but Caro knew
differently by the discernible tilt of her ward’s profile in her
direction. “She’s talking about love. We know that from the title.
Love enabled the lover to make even a big city delicate because of
the details. If you’re going to be a poet, Livia, you’re going to
be under scrutiny. Just like being viewed from behind binoculars,
or a camera lens.”

Livia glared at Caro over her shoulder.

Caro held the youngster’s stare with equal
resolve, until without warning, Livia’s face dissolved into
tears.

Caro pushed up from the bench and reached
out to her.

Sniffling and swiping at her nose, Livia
rejected the gesture and sprinted to her bike. With one foot on the
pedal ready to take off, she asked in a choked voice, “Can we go
now?”

Caro nodded, then watched Livia wheel down
the road and around a bend before coming to a stop behind a grove
of white birch. She hadn’t meant to get so serious on their
inaugural jaunt and castigated herself for frightening Livia away.
She could see the girl through the netting of leaves and tree
branches, an incomplete puzzle—the tail of a beribboned braid, the
corner of a scraped elbow, sections of a shin and a forearm, the
sock-covered turn of an ankle.

Caro couldn’t clearly make out the pieces of
Livia’s face. Were the green eyes turned to sharp slivers the same
way Caro’s had when first introduced to the notion of scrutiny?

As a child-poet, Livia had to learn the
importance of play. Her poetry had suffered in her early years
because of a rigid upbringing where laughter was the odd surprise,
as rare an occurrence as someone knocking at her family’s door on a
neighborly whim. Indeed, even as a young adult, Caro wondered about
the success of her father’s business, given his somber
personality.

Not until Zach did she experience her first
full belly laugh. Or view her writing with any sense of humor.
She’d believed that serious poetry warranted solemnity both in mood
and language. As it turned out, in later years she drew from the
absurdities in life for some of her most important work.

So, yes! Today was reserved for fun. Caro
approached Livia, dangling in front of her the bright green stem of
a gladiola to which clung a furry yellow caterpillar. “Think he’ll
want to tag along for a boat ride?”

Livia screwed up her face. “That? It’s a
dumb insect.”

Caro twisted the stem for Livia to get a
better look. “Technically, it’s in the larval form of the moth
family. It’s not considered an insect until its metamorphosis into
a butterfly.”