Treasures (17 page)

“It’s almost out,” Lara said at last, as she rose to her feet.

Connie, burning, assessed the destruction. “ ‘Almost.’
That’s a big help! A light brown stain instead of a dark one.” And it seemed to her that this accident, minor and trivial as it might be, was just the last straw on her pile of woe.

“I’ll buy you another carpet,” Lara said.

Connie, sure she had heard scorn in Lara’s voice, flashed back, “You? You can’t afford what this cost.”

“Well, I’m sorry. People have accidents. I guess it’s not my day.”

“It certainly isn’t mine. I should be having a quiet evening, pulling myself together, instead of this.”

“It should take some pulling together after what you did today.”

Through bitter tears Connie cried, “I’m not psychologically prepared to have a child right now! Can’t you understand that? I’m in the middle of a divorce. What kind of a home could I offer it?”

“I would have given it a home. That baby—that baby was a part of Peg, a part of her that would have gone on, and you destroyed it. God knows whether Eddy will ever have children. I certainly won’t. I’ll never get over this. Never.”

“That’s your problem! I’m going to
make
myself get over it.
I
have no choice.”

Lara’s flushed face was mottled. Her nose dripped while she fumbled for a handkerchief. She seemed to have crumbled into complete disarray, like a heartsick, tired old woman.

And Connie pleaded, “Why are we quarreling over this, Lara? If you think I was wrong, well, it’s your privilege to think so. Let’s understand each other. But I can’t
undo what’s done, can I? And anyway,” she finished gently enough, “it really was my business, my decision, my sorrow.”

Lara shook her head. “I can’t help thinking over and over, What would Peg say? Can you believe she would ever have done it?”

This new reference to their mother stung. It was too painful, it was irrelevant and did not belong here in this room on this night. So Connie’s answer was sharper than she had perhaps intended.

“Peg was never in my circumstances. Furthermore, Peg did things I wouldn’t do, like staying on with a lovable drunkard, for instance.”

“Oh, my God, how can you say such a thing about her?” Lara wailed.

“Because it’s true. It hurts me to say it, but you know very well she never wanted to face facts. Don’t you be like that too. Please, Lara.”

“I faced them well enough all those years when I brought you up. And I’m the one who did bring you up, remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Lara’s kind hands doing her hair. Lara’s kind face in the schoolyard at three o’clock … “But I’m not the little sister now, taking advice at your knee. Sometimes I wish I were. Life was easier then.”

“Advice like this you never got at my knee. If I thought you had I would never forgive myself.”

“Lara, let’s stop this before it goes too far. You mustn’t try to run my life anymore.”

“I never tried to run your life, Connie.”

“You’re trying now.”

“That’s what you think of me? Well, I’ve heard everything.” Lara sobbed. “I came here to help you, came out of love, and this is what I get for it. This.”

Suddenly Connie felt hot. She could feel the heat rising from the very central pit of her body. And terror rose with it. Emotion and conflict could be the cause, but infection also could be the cause. And the sight of Lara’s futile tears infuriated her. She lashed out.

“If there’s anything I despise to see, it’s people feeling sorry for themselves.”

“I’m not sorry for myself. I’m sorry for you, Connie.”

“Well, don’t be! I’ll get along all right. In fact, I’ll get along just fine,” she said, not meaning it.

“This is what you call ‘just fine’? You’re a terrible disappointment, Connie. Terrible. I can only hope that somehow you’ll straighten out your life. I can only hope.”

“Sanctimonious. Holy …” Connie muttered under her breath.

“I heard you. I heard you!”

“So you heard me! Will you just please let me alone? I can’t stand any more preaching or moaning. Just let me alone!”

“Oh, I’ll let you alone. Indeed I will. I’ll bother you no more.” Lara ran to the closet. “Where’s my coat? I’m leaving, Connie. You just go ahead and run your life your own way. And good luck to you.”

This violence, this rupture, was too ugly to bear. Again Connie’s legs went weak. She had to sit down.

“Wait, Lara. What are you doing?”

“Taking the first plane home,” said Lara, fastening her coat.

“You won’t get one at this hour. Wait.”

“Then I’ll sleep at the airport.”

The door clicked shut.

For a while Connie sat staring at the door’s blank face. Presently she got up, walked past the pathetic stain that would exist as a reminder of this day as long as the carpet lasted, and lay down on the sofa in the den. Never, never had such stormy anger come between her sister and herself, or for that matter, among any of the family! Anger simply wasn’t their way. This sense of outrage must have come up from deep within Lara, from a deeper place than she herself knew existed, perhaps so deep that she would be lost to Connie forever. And the pain within Connie was now palpable, a knot, a clenched fist in her chest.

The room was absolutely still, the charming room that she had planned, with the English-country-home effect that she had desired. The curtains were drawn for the night, shutting out the world, accentuating the stillness. She sprang up and pulled them open onto the city, onto the street below where life moved.

Life. Only this morning, a few hours ago, she had been accompanied by another life, now gone. A strange thought came fleeting: We would have loved one another. I would have loved you, even though I didn’t want you. A strange, lonely thought.

Tomorrow she would tell Eddy what had happened. Or maybe she wouldn’t, just yet. He had his own affairs, he was a busy man, and he had already done so much
for her. Maybe, though, she might just ask him for some advice. It would be long before the art courses could materialize into a really important job. So in the meantime, should she think of going back to work in a boutique? There had to be something to fill the days. She needed advice.

The little dog crept around her feet, and she bent to stroke it. Its love was pure and simple. It, unlike the human animal, neither judged nor disappointed.

“Without you, Delphine,” she whispered aloud, “I don’t know how I’d get through this night.”

C
HAPTER
S
IX

L
ara looked across the small parlor to where Davey was sitting, as if to find affirmation. This was the final moment, the climax, the arrival after some months’ journey through time and some miles’ journey through a fading autumn countryside to this plain clapboard house in a plain clapboard town. Now here they were. And she was suddenly conscious of her thundering heart.

Mrs. Elmer was an unpretentious gray-haired woman of the type often described as “motherly.” And for the last half hour she had been relating a sad, simple story.

“Susanna is a very intelligent little girl, but she’s lived through what I call a war. Her father died in a factory accident while her mother was pregnant. The mother, an immigrant from eastern Europe without family, was so devastated that, although she did take good care of the child, she was not able to provide the happiest environment. Then, when she herself fell ill with leukemia—well, you can imagine.”

Lara’s eyes never left Mrs. Elmer’s face. “Who took care of Susanna then?” she asked.

“Neighbors. First one family and then another. When, after the mother died, they weren’t prepared to keep her, the state took charge and she went to a foster home.”

“A good home?” asked Lara.

Mrs. Elmer shrugged. “Let’s say, not a bad one. Now I’ve had her here for the last two weeks, after your telephone call prepared the path for a possible adoption. I’m sort of a way station. They come and they go.”

Davey spoke. “Is she a very, very frightened child, would you say?”

“Actually, I think she’s been remarkably brave in the circumstances. Nothing’s ever lasted for her. Nothing. She’s in first grade, and has already changed schools three times. What she needs is permanence and a lot of patient love.”

When Davey asked, “Are there no relatives on the father’s side either?” Lara knew he was concerned lest some stranger arrive in years to come to claim her.

Mrs. Elmer understood immediately. “No, not a soul. If you adopt Sue—she likes to be called that—she’ll be your child without question. Now, would you like to see her?”

Davey smiled. “I think we’re ready, Mrs. Elmer,” he said.

“I’ll go get her. They’re all playing in the yard.”

He came over and laid his hand on Lara’s shoulder. Feeling the tremble of the hand, she thought, This is how he would be if I were giving birth, only it would last longer and he would be walking the length of the corridor
getting in people’s way, lighting and relighting his pipe with these trembling hands—

At that moment the door opened, and the woman returned, urging a small girl ahead of her, a thin child with extraordinary blue-black eyes in a narrow, delicate face, and a long brown ponytail. And Lara’s immediate reaction was a kind of shock: She doesn’t look at all like either of us. I’ll never have the quiet joy of seeing Davey or part of myself in her. Then, swiftly, she admonished herself: There is no perfect joy, Lara.

“Sue,” said Mrs. Elmer, “these are Mr. and Mrs. Davis. Will you shake hands with them?”

Fearfully, the child raised her gaze from her own scuffed shoes and looked down at Lara’s shoes. A small, cold hand was held out, and an almost indistinguishable word was murmured.

I mustn’t cry, Lara told herself. And softly she said, “Sue … We’ve heard so much about you, about what a lovely girl you are. So we wanted to bring a present for you, a surprise. It’s in this box. Do you want to open it, or shall I?”

As if unsure what answer would be the right one, Sue waited, and Lara said quickly, “Here, we’ll do it together. You hold one end of the bow, and I’ll pull it open.”

Under layers of tissue paper lay the most extravagant, the most beautiful doll that could ever be imagined, a perfect little girl with real blond hair, an expressive face, and a party dress of white lace and pink ribbons.

The child stared, not touching it.

“Take it, pick her up,” urged Lara.

Still the child just stared.

Mrs. Elmer spoke almost pridefully, “You see how well behaved Sue is.”

Lara and Davey glanced at one another with a common thought between them:
She’s well behaved because she’s terrified.
And lifting the doll out of the box, Lara placed it in Sue’s arms.

“She’s yours, dear. She wants you to love her. What would you like to name her?”

This time a reply came promptly and clearly. “Lily.”

“Oh, I like that name,” Lara said, while above Sue’s head Mrs. Elmer’s lips moved silently to say, “That was her mother’s name.”

I can’t bear this, Lara said to herself.

Suddenly, passionately, Sue clutched the doll to her chest and ran with it to the armchair at the other end of the room.

Davey’s raised eyebrows, furrowing his forehead, asked a question of his wife, a question similar to her own: Should we? Will this child’s problems be more than we want to undertake?

And yet, what child brought to live among strangers, wrested from whatever home it once knew, did not carry problems in its baggage? Some baggage was heavier than other kinds, that was all. Only an infant could come without memories.

Mrs. Elmer drew her chair close to Davey’s and Lara’s, out of Sue’s hearing.

“Well, what do you think?” she asked. “Do you think you want her? She’s really a sweet child.”

The question was an eager endorsement, too much
like salesmanship. As if they were buying a new car:
Do you want it? It’s really a good buy.

“She has good manners for a six year old, hasn’t she? She’s really been no bother. I’ve seen children who haven’t gone through as much as she has, who cry and have tantrums, which is surely understandable, heaven knows, but it’s hard to deal with.”

Davey was paying no attention to Mrs. Elmer. And Lara, following his look, saw that Sue was rocking the doll in her arms and smiling. The smile, most feminine and most endearing, would, Lara saw, go straight to Davey’s heart, obliterating there any last regret he might have over not getting a boy.

That smile, unselfconscious, as if Sue were alone in the room, went straight to Lara’s heart too. She had a sudden revelation: I can make happiness bloom again in this child. The result will be worth the effort. Almost gaily, she thought—silly, frivolous, happy vision—oh, I will braid her hair when it grows longer, I’ll make one thick braid with a ribbon bow at the tip, I will—

“Of course,” Mrs. Elmer was saying very low, “your taking her depends on whether she wants to go. I will not send an unwilling child away from here. You wouldn’t want it either.” She raised her voice. “Sue, will you come over here? We want to ask you something. Would you like to go home with Mr. and Mrs. Davis?”