The Wishing Thread (35 page)

Meggie had followed the trail that Lila had left in the years before she’d disappeared, which was as messy and meandering as a tornado cutting through a countryside of trees. And even after the trail had gone cold, she kept looking, because
there was a hollow, empty place in her heart where her mother had been and perhaps, if she was lucky, could be again. The sense of loss drove her and drove her and drove her, sometimes with mindless sadness, sometimes with frantic optimism—and Meggie often felt she’d been doomed to chase the horizon line.

When she stopped talking, her sisters pounced.

“She left something she knit?” Aubrey asked.

“She told off a senator?” Bitty said.

Meggie nodded. “As far as I can tell.” She glanced at one sister’s face, then the other. She could see Lila’s eyes in Bitty’s; could see Lila’s chin beneath Aubrey’s mouth. Her sisters looked bereft. Aubrey’s electric-blue eyes flickered like a live wire touched to a puddle. Bitty did not cry, but Meggie could see from the look on her face that she was pained. For the first time Meggie understood: All her lonely years had been spent searching for Lila because Lila was missing. But maybe, just maybe, Meggie had
found
her—as much as she could be found. And maybe there was a way she could give her mother back to her sisters, too. Slowly, she unfolded her legs and made her way across the tower.

“It’s really cold out here,” she said.

Her sisters scooted and shuffled and lifted the corner of the blanket. Aubrey said: “Always room for one more.” And when Meggie lowered herself and wrapped the edge of the quilt tight around herself, she was surrounded by the pocket of warmth that her sisters had made, and she felt raw and weepy, and so very, very glad that she had not left.

“I have my notebook,” she said. “I can show you the things I found.”

“That would be wonderful,” Bitty said. “We’d like that.”

“Are you sorry?” Aubrey asked. “That you spent so much time looking?”

“No,” Meggie said with certainty. “Not at all.” And she knew that it would not be a betrayal of Lila to finally cease her searching. Because even though she didn’t yet know much about herself, she knew her life was here, with her sisters. Maybe the thin possibility of doing right by her mother’s memory paled in comparison with the absolute certainty of doing right by her sisters, who were here, who had not left her, who loved her, and who were unquestionably alive.

Meggie hitched the blanket a little higher. “I shouldn’t have left without telling you; and … I shouldn’t have tried to do it again.”

“It’s okay,” Aubrey said.

“Let’s not do this anymore,” Bitty said. “No more fighting—or not talking to each other. No more arguing about the Stitchery or magic or anything else.”

“Agreed,” Aubrey said.

“Aubrey, I know you want to stay here,” Meggie said. She squeezed her sister’s hand. “In the Stitchery I mean. And if you want to, then I’m okay with that. I won’t pressure you to sell the place anymore. It’s your place. It’s our family’s place. I don’t want it to go away.”

“Thanks,” Aubrey said. But Meggie wondered if there was a glint of something uncertain in her sister’s eye. “And you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know. Both of you.”

“Thanks,” Meggie said. “I’ll think about it.”

“What about you?” Aubrey asked Bitty. “We still have to talk about your … situation. And I think staying at the Stitchery might be a good idea.”

“I’ll think about it, too,” Bitty said.

“Can we finish this elsewhere?” Meggie said. “Because I’m seriously going to die of hypothermia. And it’s not helping at all that I have to pee.”

“It’s always worse in the cold.” Bitty laughed. “I think if we bang on the door loud enough they’ll let us out.”

“Is Nessa going to get in trouble?” Meggie asked.

“Well … a little,” Bitty said. “A lot if she doesn’t actually let us out.”

“It’s okay,” Aubrey said, standing. “I know a way.”

“You do?” Bitty said.

“What—the window?” Meggie asked.

Aubrey shook her head. She got to her feet and picked her way across the room. She moved a tall painting, and Meggie saw that there was a crude, narrow door behind it.

“Are you kidding me?” Meggie said.

“Is that a secret passage?” Bitty asked. They both stood and went to Aubrey.

“Yep. It goes out to the attic.”

“You knew there was a way out all this time and didn’t tell us?” Bitty asked.

Aubrey smiled. “The Stitchery has its secrets yet.”

If Tappan Square had still been an actual square, Vic’s house would have been right across the green from the Stitchery. But thanks to the intrusion of new roads and the crop of mid-century houses, it was now a few blocks away. He had called it a fixer-upper. Another person might have called it a dump. Aubrey thought it was perfect; she loved the house’s hard-scrabble bone structure, its husk of blotchy and sun-faded paint. Vic ushered her from room to room, upstairs and down, and she could see how excited he was to be showing off his new cabinets, his newly upgraded wiring, his refinished floors. He even took her into his sister’s side of the two-family house, though she was out for the evening. Owning a home had been a dream for him, one that his immigrant parents had not accomplished.
All this hard work
, she’d thought. They could not lose Tappan Square.

Now, on a Wednesday night in the third week of October, she stood in Vic’s little bathroom-in-progress. The light was green and filmy and the walls were stenciled with faded, melon-orange flowers—relics of some prior owner. She took stock of herself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Her hair was pinned up in funky little twists and swags of Nessa’s creation. Her brown-lensed sunglasses perched on the bridge of her
nose. Her clothing was her best attempt at sexy: a navy cotton sundress embellished with tiny white camellias. Unfortunately, the dress was meant for summer sun, not damp October evenings, and she’d had to cloak its fitted bodice and spaghetti straps under a slouchy black cardigan. She slipped the sweater from her shoulders, the friction of cotton on her skin making her shiver with something other than the cold.

Days had passed since Vic had kissed her on the porch, and since then, desire had been with her constantly. It was with her when she woke in the morning, when she stretched beneath her blankets and her body felt sore and coiled with need. It was with her when she reached for her shampoo in the shower, when she pulled on her clothes, when her mind wandered away from her tasks at the library and she found herself wrapped up in a daydream of Vic’s mouth, his skin. And it was with her now; it had been all evening. Each laugh, each casual brushing of hands, each glance was like a shot of oxygen that flared hot coals. Aubrey didn’t know how much more she could stand.

She pulled the chain on the bathroom light and turned it off. Then she flung open the door. Vic was waiting for her in the tiny living room, standing as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. She lifted her chin, her sweater draped over her forearm, her breasts sitting high in the cups of her dress. His eyes went wide.

“Hi,” she said.

There were two mismatched glasses of iced tea on the scuffed coffee table, but he did not offer her one. His face was grave. “Aubrey …”

She put her sweater down.

His hands skimmed up her arms. He tipped his head. She expected him to kiss her, she wanted him to kiss her—she
thought she would combust. But he didn’t move. “Do you need these to see with?”

“My glasses? Oh. Not really.”

“It’s not very bright in here,” he said. With two hands, he slid the glasses from behind her ears. She closed her eyes rather than look at him. She worried that the proximity of his face to hers, with her eyes hot as sparks from a welder’s blowtorch, would quash any possibility that he thought she was sexy. In her self-contained darkness, she thought:
He’ll kiss me now
. But still, she waited. And still he did not.

When at last she lifted her eyelids, she found he was looking at her, straight-on. “I like you without the glasses. You have a nice face.”

“But my eyes …”

He chuckled. “Fishing for compliments?”

She searched his face. “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Why would it make me uncomfortable to look at you?”

His gaze was focused and intent. In the back of her mind, a little bell had begun to ring. “You haven’t heard what people say about me? About my—my eyes?”

“No,” he said. He smiled, amused. “What do people say about your beautiful eyes?”

Her heart misfired. “You … you think they’re beautiful?”

“Now you
are
fishing,” he teased.

She laughed. She touched Vic’s cheek and looked at his face, indulged in looking. She felt as if she were being filled up, filled right up to the brim, filled right up to overflowing. Was he meant for her—this man? Was there any other way to interpret the miracle between them except to say that they were made for each other, that this was fated to be? She drew him down to her, kissed one of his eyelids, then the other. She
took her glasses from his hand and put them on the coffee table beside the iced tea. “Are you thirsty?” she asked.

“Parched,” he said, and he touched her lower lip with his thumb.

If there was a thing she’d meant to tell him, she had only the barest memory of it. She lifted herself on tiptoe and brought her mouth to his. His hands gripped her dress, smoothed along her waist, into her hair. Her breath came fast and sharp, her body ached, her hands sought Vic’s skin under his clothes. They danced across his floor, shuffling and frantic. She tugged his shirt from his jeans, pushed her nose against his chest to smell him. She felt a tightness around her loosen, and she realized Vic had found the zipper at the back of her dress and slid it down. Taut straps went slack. Cool air touched her spine between her shoulder blades. Vic made a sound in the back of his throat, and she pulled away from him in a panic.

“Shoot,” she said, more breath than sound. “Wait.”

Vic still held her waist. His own eyes were wild, searching. She knew what she must have looked like: her kiss-battered mouth, her clutched dress, her tousled hair. It was a moment before his disappointment set in. “Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

She collected herself and took a step away. “I just … I …”

“It’s okay,” Vic said, adjusting his shirt on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to … we don’t …”

“No—I want to,” Aubrey said. She saw a flare in his eyes. “I do … it’s just …”

“What?”

“Can we sit down?”

He gestured and she sat, holding her dress against her to keep it from falling.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Too fast?”

“God, no. I’ve been waiting forever.”

He grinned and sat beside her, not touching. She glanced around his living room: no posters or framed pictures, just blank walls, necessary and mismatched furniture, a laptop, a few books. His things—simple as they were—gave her some courage.

“There’s something you might want to know.” She paused; he was quiet. His face was different now, more hard and strained. She squeezed her eyes tight. “I’m a virgin.”

He laughed.

She opened her eyes. Her face burned. “No. I mean, really.”

“Jeez.” He was still laughing, though it was more of a chuckle now. “I thought you were going to tell me you had a communicable disease.”

“I’m pretty sure what I have isn’t catching.”

His hands reappeared in front of him. He ran his palms down his thighs. “I’m not sure what this means. Are you … waiting for marriage?”

“God no,” she said.

“Then … why?”

She shrugged.

“And now you want to … with me?”

She nodded again and hitched her dress higher on her chest. She knew asking Vic to be her first was not a small request—not at her age. There would be too much meaning attached to the thing. “It’s finally happened, hasn’t it?” She stood and crossed the room; she needed air. “You’ve finally realized the extent of just how weird I am and now you’re having second thoughts.”

He got to his feet and went to her. His hands brushed down her back, which was bare where her dress had fallen open. Goose bumps rose under the pads of his fingers. Her legs were weak. “Text your sisters. Tell them you’re not coming home tonight.”

She began to move away from him to get her purse, but he caught her wrist. “Not right now,” he managed. Her dress fell around her ankles to the floor.

Later—which might have been minutes later or might have been days—Aubrey looked out into the cottony darkness of Vic’s bedroom, the simple writing desk limned in orange streetlight, the walls that smelled of fresh spackle, the dark rug in the center of the floor. Vic had wrapped his body around hers. His breath was quiet in her ear, his hand curled around her breast while he slept. She felt so light in both body and mind that if his arm hadn’t been thrown over her she might have floated straight up and out of the bed.

Sometimes
, Mariah had said,
life will surprise you
. The long expanse of it, of the expected and ordinary going along day in and day out, can be rocked by bursts of the unbelievable. Rainbows appear like massive girders across the sky—or like tiny pinpricks of color caught in a single drop of rain. In the evening dusk over the valley, the moon appears fearsomely monumental, but so small as to fit under a person’s thumb.
And yet
—Mariah said—
all of that surprising beauty is just ordinary magic
—like life that first formed from stardust, like the miracle of a baby drawing breath, like time that is space that sways and bends. The best kind of Mysteries, Mariah said, were sometimes not Mysteries at all.