The Marble Quilt (19 page)

Audrey arrived, as promised, on Tuesday. That morning, Rose woke up worried about tea. Generally speaking, tea wasn't part of her vocabulary; like Minna, she preferred coffee. Although Minna was about to turn ninety-six, she still had lunch every day at Ravelstein's, where she drank black coffee with her corned beef sandwich. She even drank coffee at supper. She had no patience for the cappuccinos and espressos and whatnot that you found at the new Starbucks, which she called Starburst, or sometimes Starbust; no, she preferred good old American coffee, she said, made in a stainless-steel pot. As for Rose, what little she knew of tea she had learned from
Masterpiece Theatre
,
programs like
Upstairs, Downstairs
, on which much always seemed to be made over who poured. The details she tried to excavate from memory. At Publix she bought Peek Frean biscuits and cucumbers and Pepperidge Farm thin-sliced bread, as well as several varieties of tea: Queen Mary, Earl Grey, Prince of Wales. But then when she got home she realized that she didn't have any butter. Could you make cucumber sandwiches without butter? Would it be all right to add mayonnaise instead?

She cut the crusts off the bread, spread them with Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise. From outside, barking sounded. She looked out the kitchen window and saw that Dinah, her puppy, was trying to kill the pool sweep again. Round and round Dinah went, chasing the little mechanical monster as it circled the pool, lunging at the water whenever it neared the periphery.

Rose rapped on the windowpane. “Dinah, no!” she scolded. But Dinah didn't stop. Catching the pool sweep between her teeth, she yanked it out of the water. “Dinah, no!” Rose repeated, hurrying out on the deck. “Bad girl! No!”

Dinah looked at her. From the pool sweep's underside, water jets sprayed the deck, the lawn chair, the silk dress Rose had put on for the occasion. “Oh, Dinah!” she said, extracting it from the dog's mouth. “Look what you've done. And now I'll have to change.”

Then she picked Dinah up—as the dog lady on television had instructed—by the scruff of the neck. When they misbehave, this dog lady had said, just grab them by the scruff of the neck, the way their mothers did; that way they'll know you mean business.

Hem dripping, Rose carried Dinah inside. Dinah's belly was brindled, the fur on her vulva turned upward in a wet-kiss curl. With adoring eyes, eyes full of lamentation and
contrition, she gazed up at Rose, who gazed back. “Oh, Dinah, why can't you learn?” she asked. “And to think that this dress cost more than you did!”

She was just undoing the buttons when the doorbell rang.

Audrey turned out to be a wisp of a thing, with short black hair and squinty eyes. A slender gold ring pierced her left nostril. She wore Groucho Marx glasses, a black turtleneck, black jeans, and carried a black backpack.

“Well, look at you,” Rose said, kissing her on the cheek. “Little Audrey, all grown up.”

Audrey flinched. Her shoulder blades, when Rose touched them, were bony; static electricity clung to her turtleneck. They stepped into the living room, and Rose sat her down on one of the recliners. From the kitchen she brought the tea things on a tray: the Peek Freans, the sandwiches, the cups and the sugar bowl and the milk pitcher. “You'll have to excuse my appearance,” she said, “I've been having a little trouble with the puppy.”

“You have a puppy?”

“A Wheaten terrier. Dinah. She's out in the yard now. You see, George—that's my oldest boy—gave her to me last autumn when your uncle Burt passed on. And she has this thing about the pool sweep. She loves to chase the pool sweep.”

“What's a pool sweep?”

“Well, it's—how do you describe it? It's that little thing that circles round the pool and cleans it.”

“I've never seen one of those.”

“Newer pools don't have them. Ours is almost thirty years old, if you can believe it … oh, but I've forgotten to give you tea. And what kind would you like? As you can see, I've got 'em all. Earl Grey, Queen Mary, the whole royal family.”

“Actually, I don't drink tea. Could I have a Diet Coke?”

“Of course. If I have any. I'll check. Otherwise it may have to be normal Coke.”

“That's fine.” Audrey was opening her backpack, arranging notebooks and binders and spreadsheets on the coffee table.

“Georgie's a stockbroker,” Rose called from the kitchen. “He lives in New York. Oh good, here's some Coke. Anyway, he worries about me—too much, if you want my opinion. That's why he got me Dinah. At first I wasn't too happy about it, let me tell you. I mean, I've raised three boys, the last thing I needed was something else to take care of. But since then, Dinah and I, we've gotten to be good friends. And I must say, it's nice having something to shout at again!”

“My mother has a Rottweiler,” Audrey said.

“Does she now?”

“For protection. I always say to her, Mom, with all those alarms and window grates, you've got nothing to worry about, you could be living in Fort Knox. Still, she says she can't sleep at night. So she bought this, like, killer dog.”

Rose, popping open the Coke can, nodded gravely; sat across from her niece. “Cucumber sandwich?”

“No thanks.”

“Cookie?”

Audrey was studying a spreadsheet. “Maybe later.” She looked her aunt in the eye.
“Well, Rose—do you mind if I just call you Rose?”

“You have to ask? We're family.”

“Okay. So, Rose, like I told you, for my master's thesis I'm doing a medical history of the whole family, looking at which illnesses crop up most commonly, environmental factors, genetic predispositions—that sort of thing.”

“What a wonderful idea. Your mother must be very proud of you.”

“She's too out of it to be proud of anything I do … but never mind.” Audrey opened her pen. “To begin with, I'd like to get the basic data on your branch of the family—you know, dates of birth, places of birth, that sort of thing.”

“I got it all ready for you.” Rose pushed the manila folder in Audrey's direction.

“And the full names of your children—let me make sure I have these right. George Robert, born July 7, 1954—”

“He's my oldest. Not married yet, but we're still hoping.”

“Then Daniel Jeremy, born October 20, 1957.”

“He's back in New Jersey. Tenafly. Teaches high school English. Got divorced last year, I'm still sorry about it, she was a lovely girl—”

“And finally Kevin Leon, born February 14, 1960.”

“The baby of the family. They just moved to Singapore. The company sends him all over the place. First Germany, then France, and now—”

“And he's got kids, right?”

“That's right. His wife is Denyse—with a Y, not an I. The little ones are adorable. David Bernard and Sarah Rose. Would you like to see pictures? I've got pictures.”

“That's O.K. And all the documents are in here?” Audrey pointed to the manila folder.

“All there.”

“May I take these with me and make photocopies? I'll bring them back, of course.”

“Of course.”

She scribbled. “So when did you move down to Florida?”

“It must have been … 1970? Could it have been 1970? Hard to believe, the time's gone by so fast. It's funny, most people assume that just because I'm an old lady, I must have retired here, but the fact is, we raised our kids in this house. Our boys all went to high school in West Palm.”

“And Minna?”

“Oh, Minna was already here. Minna retired … it must have been sixty-five, sixty-six. She's been retired longer than you've been alive! But if you don't mind my asking, what have you found out so far? Anything about migraines? All my boys get terrible migraines.”

“My data is really too preliminary to share. But I have prepared a survey”—she pushed some more sheets across the table—“which I wonder if you might fill out. Also your sons.”

“And Minna?”

“Well, if she's—you know—clearheaded enough.”

“Minna?” Rose laughed. “She's sharper than any of us. Oh, maybe she can't get around as easily as she used to, but she still drives, and she's got a mind like a steel trap. We should all be in such good shape at her age!”

“Good, then maybe you could give her a copy.”

“But why don't you go see her yourself while you're here? She's just a little ways
down the coast. And I'll tell you, it would make her day. She loves all the nieces and nephews, keeps up to date on all of you, I suppose because she never had children of her own.”

Audrey coughed. Over her folder, she gave Rose a look of—what to call it? Curiosity? Pity? Some hybrid of the two?

“Yes, well, that was something else I wanted to talk to you about. I meant to wait until later, but since you've brought it up—”

“What, dear?”

“According to your birth certificate, you were born August 11, 1920, is that right?”

“That's right. A Leo.”

“In Cape May, New Jersey.”

Rose nodded. “You see, Momma wasn't feeling well that summer, and it was so hot that Poppa decided to send her away from Newark, so she went to stay at a hotel in Cape May. Minna went too—to take care of her.”

“And when was Minna born?”

“When would that have been? 1902, 1903? 1902, I guess. Funny, isn't it, that of all eleven kids, only the two of us are left? Oldest and youngest. Like bookends.”

Audrey pulled a stack of photocopies out of her briefcase. “Last year, I went to the hall of records in Newark,” she said, “to see when all of you were born. And then, when I couldn't find your birth certificate, I asked my mother, and she told me about your being born in Cape May. So I went down to Cape May. It took me a while, but I tracked down the information.”

“But, darling, you didn't have to go all the way to Cape May! You could have just
called me!”

“Yes, I know. But I had another reason.” She pointed at the photocopies.

“And what was that?”

“I'd better explain. As I'm sure you know, my grandmother was a major pack rat.”

“Boy, do I. Harriet never threw anything away.”

“Well, after the house was sold—your parents' house—she was the one who took charge of packing it up, on account of being the closest to home, and what was in the attic she just basically moved to her own attic. All those trunks and boxes, which no one ever opened. For years. My grandfather used to gripe about it, every now and then he'd threaten to burn it all, or have a sale, but Grandma wouldn't hear of it. And I suppose she had her reasons, because what Grandpa saw as just a fire hazard turned out to be a treasure trove for me, for my study. I mean, when I started going through those trunks last summer, I found everything: every doctor's bill, every dentist's bill, every medical record. Your high school grades. Your mother even made notes of all your illnesses, in a big black ledger. One for every year from when Minna was born until Grandma died.”

“Momma was very meticulous.”

“But here's the thing—that summer, the summer of 1920, there's just nothing.”

“Well, as I said, she was in Cape May. And it was a hard pregnancy. She had to be in bed for most of it.”

“And Minna went with her?”

“To take care of her. Poppa could only get away from the shop on weekends. You can ask her yourself when you see her, she remembers everything—the name of the hotel, what their room number was.”

Audrey picked up the photocopies and started shuffling through them. “Have you ever seen these?” she asked, handing them to Rose.

“What are they?” Rose put on her reading glasses, which hung from a rope around her neck. “Let me see … Oh, doctor's bills.”

“Dr. Homer M. Hayes, Cape May, New Jersey. An obstetrician.”

“Oh, so this must have been the doctor that Momma saw when she was pregnant with me.”

“But look at the top. Under patient's name, it doesn't say Effie Miller. It says Minna Miller. And not only on one—on all of them.”

“Oh, it does, doesn't it?” Rose's hands fluttered, so that the papers made a slight noise, like birds passing overhead.

“There are bills here for ten different visits. All related to a pregnancy. And on every one of them the name is Minna Miller.” Audrey leaned in closer, across the undrunk Coke and the Peek Freans. “Do you see?” she asked. “Do you understand why I had to talk to you?”

Rose played with her wedding ring. Glancing at one of the cucumber sandwiches, she observed that a little mayonnaise was dripping over the edges of the thin-sliced bread. She picked up the tea tray and carried it toward the kitchen.

“What's the matter?” Audrey asked, almost hungrily.

“It's nothing, dear,” Rose said. “I think I hear Dinah, that's all. I think Dinah is crying to come in.”

Once, in her youth, Rose had been thought a wild driver. Oh, how her mother had wailed
whenever she'd gone off in her little roadster, in those years when it was considered shocking for a girl even to have a license! To Rose's mother driving was, quite simply, unladylike, the sort of thing you would have expected of Harriet. “But you let Minna drive!” Rose had countered.

“It's different in Minna's case,” her mother had said. “Minna needs to drive to go to work.” For Minna was an elementary school teacher, and the school at which she taught was out in the country, near New Vernon.

Fifty-some years later, Rose still drove—slowly. It was not that she was any less bold; rather, it seemed that the velocity of the world had increased while her own pace stayed the same, leaving her the object of impatient tailgating on the part of young women in station wagons: young women with children in the back seat, as she had had children in the back seat, not so long ago.

With Minna the problem was worse. She was always losing her car in the parking lot at Publix. That afternoon, just after Audrey left, she called Rose, and said, “I can't think where I've left it. I've been up and down every row. I can't think—”