A Slender Thread (10 page)

Back in the familiar patterns of her life, Margot felt slightly removed from Lacey's terrible news.

“Leonard Witt,” Oliver continued with disdain. “They all love him.”

“Just because June bought one of his paintings doesn't mean she no longer values yours.” Margot was suddenly irritated by Oliver's ill will.

“You're too bloody sweet, Mags.”

“I'm not sweet. You're too concerned about what other people are doing.”

A dark look fell across Oliver's face. He took a gulp from his glass and propped his legs on the leather ottoman between them. He was a big man, long-legged with a broad chest, but narrow through the hips. He had put on weight in the last few years, but he carried it well. He had a full head of lush, dark hair that grayed at the temples, something a woman would cover up. Margot knew he was vain about his hair, indulging in salon shampoo instead of ordinary products from the drugstore.

“And that pompous British accent. What really gets me,” he continued, “is that the guy's only been in the U.S. for two years. He's already got a one-man show lined up with Carl, and Marie said that Stanley Kalvorian's people have been sniffing around.”

The Kalvorian Gallery was a sort of mecca in the contemporary art world. Prices started in the six digits and an armed guard stood at the door of the main gallery on Madison Avenue. Oliver loved to rant about the charlatans and phonies who dominated the art markets.

“That's probably all hype,” Margot said.

“That girl at dinner said he's got two assistants. Two. What ever happened to painters who put paint onto their own canvases? And he's practically a kid.”

Margot could hear the wine talking. “Don't let him get to you.”

“I'm feeling more and more like the old man in this town.”

“Darling, you're not an old man and you're an amazing painter. Your work will be around when this guy is long gone.” Margot took her last sip of wine. “Come on, we've got to go to bed.”

She stood and carried their glasses to the kitchen. When she returned to the living room, Oliver was standing by the window in the dark. The lights across the river glimmered in the starless night. Margot took his hand and leaned against him, knowing the sadness she had carried home with her on the plane was not going to go away. He pulled her close, resting his chin on top of her head. His lips brushed her hair.

“You're good for me, baby,” he said. “I've been acting like a shit. Sorry.”

“I love you,” she said. They stared out at the world that never slept, the noise of the city far below.

“What were you going to tell me about? You looked so sad when you got there tonight.”

“You're not going to believe this, Oliver.” She hesitated, not sure if she had the strength to start. Then, slowly, she told him everything—her arrival, Lacey's horrible news, her wish to keep it from the girls, carrying on as if everything were normal. Oliver took her hand and led her back to the sofa. “Nothing is normal,” Margot went on. “Wink thinks her parents' marriage is in trouble, and Toni says her mother gets so upset about her new boyfriend she can hardly speak.”

Oliver had been stroking Margot's arm absently during this telling. Now he leaned in closer and touched her face. “My poor Mags,” he said. “I'm sorry. You're right. Lacey should tell the girls. They'll be upset, but they need to know. They'll want to help their mom.”

“Lacey wants to protect them. As usual, she's thinking of everyone besides herself.” Margot's voice grew tight. “Her brain cells are slowly disintegrating. One day she won't be able to speak. Nothing can stop it.”

“My God,” Oliver said. “Dementia? But she's young. It's not like she's really old and her body is supposed to shut down.”

“Not the usual kind of dementia. It's a slow progression. She'll lose speech first. Eventually she'll be unable to communicate in any way. At the end her body will break down too. But she's fine now and will be for a while.”

“So she seems okay?”

“You'd hardly notice. Now that she's told me, I see how she pauses when she speaks.”

“And Alex?”

“He's terrified. Trying not to show it.”

Oliver pulled Margot into his arms. “You need to sleep, baby. We'll talk about it again in the morning.”

Margot nodded and allowed him to shepherd her into bed.

She may have needed to sleep, but after telling Oliver about Lacey's illness, she couldn't quiet her thoughts. Describing Lacey's prognosis for him had brought the picture of the future into focus. Not only would Lacey eventually be incapacitated by this disease, but one day she would die from it. All the time Margot had been with Lacey in New Hampshire, she hadn't dared think about that.

Margot pulled the covers up to her neck. She couldn't imagine her life without Lacey. Her earliest childhood memories were of her sister. When she thought of Lacey, so often it was Lacey's hands that came to mind. Did she remember Lacey reaching out to her, a small hand between the rails of Margot's crib? That couldn't be possible. She did have a vivid recollection of the two of them together under the lilac bushes next to the garage, what they called their secret fort, when they were little. Their parents had been arguing, probably over their mother's drinking. Margot fled the kitchen when their dad threw a vase of peonies to the floor. The crashing sound, the pool of water, and the pale blossoms amid the broken glass terrified her. She ran outside to hide beneath the purple lilacs. A moment later, Lacey found her and took her hand.

“Don't be scared,” she said. “I'm here.” Lacey's longer fingers encased Margot's in a warm grip.

Margot continued to sob. “No,” she cried, sitting on the hard dirt in the shadowed enclosure.

“Come on. It's okay. I'll show you the secret shake.”

“What shake?” Margot asked, wiping her face with the back of her free hand, her sobs quieting. One of the lilac branches poked into her back.

“Give me your pinkie,” Lacey ordered.

Reluctantly, Margot offered the little finger of her right hand. Lacey linked her longer pinkie finger with Margot's. They locked fingers. Lacey proclaimed this to be their secret shake, a special handshake they could give no one else. “It means we're together forever,” Lacey said. Later, Lacey took Margot's hand again and pulled her out from under the bush. It was quiet in the house and Margot knew that as long as she had Lacey everything would be all right.

Margot awoke once in the night. The apartment was silent except for Oliver's gentle snoring beside her. He made a muffled sound, more like a purring cat. There in the dark, she remembered Lacey slamming her hands onto the steering wheel. She thought again of Alex, Wink, and Toni. How would they manage?

Margot pictured the night sky in New Castle, the large wooden house on the tiny New Hampshire island, a world away from the dense, pulsing island of Manhattan. Wink would be dreaming of tides, bird migrations, the dancing numbers that charted the miracles of nature. Toni, equally innocent of her mother's plight, probably dreamed of the raptures of first love, vulnerable, blissfully ignorant of the possible hurt that could follow on the heels of that fragile, emotional state. And Lacey? Did words come easily in her dreams when they didn't in real life? And Alex? Margot squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face against Oliver's wide back.

 

The next morning a heavy rain spattered the city streets. Had it been snow it would have been a blizzard. Oliver poured hot water over Margot's tea, the faintly smoky Lady Grey that he bought for her from an eclectic tea and coffee purveyor on Broadway. He wished he hadn't gone on last night about Leonard Witt. He had no patience for artists who complained endlessly about how the art world was unfair. He didn't want to be one of those snivelers. What mattered was getting back to work. He had awakened with the image of woods, some dark wet trees, and he could feel himself being drawn deeper into the story that was emerging from the paint. Something was about to change.

He carried the tray in to Margot. She looked small on their vast bed, but she had started to stir, instinctively caught in the rhythm of their morning ritual, almost awake. He placed the tray on his side of the bed and opened the curtains. The Hudson River looked cold and nasty in the gloom.

Margot sat up and eased back onto the pillows. “Thanks,” she said, accepting the cup. “Have you been up long?”

“Before six. I know it's Sunday, but I wanted to go down to my studio for a few hours. I was dreaming of my painting, the one of the forest. I think I see birches now. Not in the foreground, but deeper. Isn't there a tree called silver birch?”

Margot nodded and sipped her tea. “I have to
do
something.”

“Lacey?” he said.

“All those years she was there for me. Now she needs me and I feel powerless.”

“You can visit,” he said. “You said it might be years before it gets worse.”

“She may have already had it for years.”

“I can see why she would want to keep things as normal as she can for as long as possible,” he said.

“Oliver”—Margot looked at him, her eyes as sad as the river outside—“it's already pretty bad. I'm so afraid for her.” She crumpled back onto the pillows.

He reached toward her and gently smoothed the hair away from her face. “Lacey is a strong person,” he said. “You know how tough she is.”

“Alex isn't.”

Oliver drew back. “What do you mean?”

“I can see he's suffering. He's terribly afraid. I can feel it.”

Oliver drew in his breath. “Alex is a grown-up. He can deal with it on his own terms. It's the girls you need to worry about.” He looked quickly at his watch. “I'll be home in time to take you out for a late lunch. Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course.” She set her cup on the tray. “I'll read the paper for a while. And I need to unpack.”

Oliver stood in the shower and let the hot water pummel his head. Perhaps he should have gone to New Hampshire.
Poor Margot had had to deal with everything on her own. He closed his eyes. His attention shifted back to his painting. Silver birches, he thought. Maybe a few, mere slivers through the trees.

A
fter Oliver left for his studio Margot lingered in bed, not feeling ready to face the world. The newspaper remained on the covers beside her, untouched. Oliver was right. She should be thinking about her nieces. They were losing their mother. Margot was close to the girls, as close as aunts and nieces could be, she thought, but she could never be Lacey. Lacey always knew what to say to her daughters; she listened to them when they wanted to talk and she hugged them not only in spontaneous, joyous moments but also when they suffered disappointments, when hugs were more important than words. Her way of touching, her lovely arms, and her hands seemed to know exactly how to move with an instinct that Margot knew she would never possess.

Yet Margot couldn't think of Lacey and her family without thinking of Alex too. The girls would not be the only ones to suffer. He was facing a future without his wife. Margot closed her eyes, picturing them together. Alex had a way of keeping Lacey in his gaze, as if he could never get enough of her. On the Friday hike, the day after Thanksgiving, he had shot Lacey a glance that in a mere second said everything. Just after they had reached the overlook point at the summit, Lacey had drunk from her water bottle and passed it to Alex. Her cheeks were pink from the climb, and her gesture, so quick and automatic, expressed their tacit understanding. Lacey knew Alex was thirsty, not just for the water but for her attention, to know that she was there. He smiled when he handed the bottle back to her, his breathing now level and calm, his thanks implicit. During that small exchange they had forgotten her illness.

When Margot glanced at them later, after they began the descent, Alex's expression was closed, his mouth tightly drawn. Following closely behind them, Margot saw him look over at Lacey periodically, watching her straight back, her steady gait, her feet avoiding a tree root, deftly stepping across rocks or fallen logs on their path. Had Alex been thinking about what his life would be like without Lacey?

And what about herself? The idyllic summers at Bow Lake were long past.

Once they had grown up, their lives had changed. Lacey had married Alex, and there was no room in a marriage for a full-time sister. Margot had accepted that. Over the years if she thought of Alex at all, it was in terms of Lacey. They were a couple, a unit. With the knowledge of Lacey's illness, everything had altered. Margot considered his life apart from Lacey. How would he cope with the uncertainty ahead?