4
Warp: Threads running vertically in weaving.
The next day Margot surveyed her bedroom, or what she thought of as her bedroom, across the hall from Lacey’s studio. Her suitcase was packed and she had put fresh sheets on the bed. The pillowcases, old linen ones that required ironing, had embroidered sprigs of lavender along the edges. Lacey collected antique linens and textiles, and actually used them. Now the bed was ready for the next guest, or for her, when she returned, whenever that might be. The bittersweet berries had started to fall from the branches on the dresser, so she had carefully carried the arrangement to the kitchen trash.
She was leaving today with a heavy heart. The time with Wink and Toni, the family meals, the hike in the woods—all the makings of a happy family Thanksgiving were now tinged with sadness for Margot. She likened the last few days to a brilliant painting that had been covered over with a thick varnish, rendering the colors dull and joyless. The way she saw the world had changed. As Lacey had asked, she pretended nothing was amiss, yet in her mind the apparently perfect Thanksgiving had been a charade.
It was after two. Lacey had made brunch for the family late that morning, a good-bye meal in honor of Margot on her last day. Afterward Alex went to his home office to work and Margot helped Wink and Toni with the dishes, telling Lacey to go have some time in her studio to weave. Margot stepped across the hall, knocked lightly, and opened the studio door. “Okay if I come in?”
Lacey nodded while continuing to thrust the shuttle back and forth on her loom. The sound of harp music drifted from a CD player on the shelves along the wall and the airy melody contrasted with the even, mellow thumping noise from her weaving. She sat in the center of the room, her shoulders rounded slightly, her eyes focused on the project before her. Her feet worked the loom’s pedals in a steady rhythm as her hands shot the shuttle from side to side, a controlled dance in point/counterpoint. Strands of light wool flew through the open area called the shed, not making contact, like a hovercraft across the water.
“I just want . . . to finish this part,” Lacey said.
“No hurry,” Margot replied.
This space was nearly twice as large as the guest room across the hall, and with the white walls and wide-planked pine floors it had the spare, open feeling of a dance studio. Margot blinked in the unexpected brightness. Besides the two dormer windows that faced the front of the house, three skylights flooded the room with light. Lacey’s brow was furrowed in concentration. Her upper teeth periodically ran across her lower lip, a rhythmic biting that appeared to have gently bruised her mouth.
The loom, dominating the middle of the room, was like an anchor keeping the ethereal space tethered to the earth. On the opposite wall, a lavender-colored hollow-core door resting on bookshelves at each end served as a desk, and a wicker settee painted an apple green was placed next to the front windows. The back wall was covered with shelves. Along with several rows of books, the rest of the space was filled with spools of wool in a rainbow of shades lined up in meticulous order. The colors, all clear and bright, made Margot think of flowers, sun, and blue skies. All was immaculate, and other than a few wisps of dust from the wool that floated across the floor like dandelion heads in spring, nothing seemed out of place.
On the wall above Lacey’s desk was a huge bulletin board filled with an inspirational collage of photographs, clippings, and pictures from magazines. There were postcard reproductions of paintings. Margot recognized the work of most of the artists: an impressionist painting of a woman with two children in her lap by Mary Cassatt, an image of clouds on a blue sky by Georgia O’Keeffe, and an abstract work by Helen Frankenthaler that looked like washes of color poured onto the canvas.
Margot leaned closer to study a photograph tucked into the edge of the frame. It was a snapshot of the three of them at Bow Lake: Lacey on the right, about sixteen; Margot, still childlike, on the left, squinting into the sun; and Alex between them, the summer he got tall. Margot thought wistfully of that time—the endless summer days when they were so young and happy, the three of them together all day long. Who had taken the picture? Granny Winkler, or their father on one of his rare visits to the lake? Who had captured the three of them at that fleeting stage of innocence? If only she could jump back in time to the very moment of that photograph.
“I’ll be done in a minute,” Lacey said.
Margot looked away from the picture and went over to the loom. Different from the colorful assemblage of fibers along the walls, Lacey’s current project appeared to be all white. Then she saw that the place mat was actually not pure white; there were shades of cream, and even a bluish white that formed even triangular shapes every few inches. When she looked more closely she noticed slender threads of silver woven in at regular intervals.
“Who are these for again?” Margot asked. “They look too elegant to actually use.”
“The . . . scholarship fund at the high school. The auction is next weekend. I hope I can get them done in time. I promised to make six.” Unlike the vivid display around her in the studio, Lacey wore faded jeans and a gray T-shirt along with the beige fleece vest that she always kept on the back of her chair.
“Listen, Lacey, I can get one of the girls to drive me to the bus. Or Alex?”
Lacey’s hands stopped. “I want to take you. I always do.”
“I know that, but . . .”
Lacey looked at her watch and stood up. “Sorry. Forgot the time. I get lost sometimes.” She glanced back at the design on her loom. “I don’t know if they’ll like them.”
“You usually use so much color.”
“I’m after a . . . different effect now.”
“It reminds me of snow. The silver is like sparkling flakes.”
“Last winter . . .” Lacey paused and drew her fingers across the upper part of the cloth, as if she were a blind person reading a story in Braille. “Last winter in one storm there were huge drifts. It came so . . . fast. One could easily have been buried in it.” She pulled her hand away. “We’d better go.”
They went down to the kitchen, where Lacey put on her coat and picked up her handbag and car keys. Margot had already said good-bye to the girls and Alex. No one seemed to be about. The house was quiet.
“You’ll be happy to get back to Oliver,” Lacey said.
Margot glanced quickly at her sister. Lacey had not always been a fan of Oliver. After Margot’s divorce Lacey had fixed her up with a series of “eligible men.” She had been particularly unhappy when Margot chose Oliver over Frank, a friend of the Georges’ from Boston who had moved to New York. Lacey had thought Frank was perfect for Margot. He was a pediatric surgeon and the widowed father of a little girl the same age as Lacey’s twins. Instead, Margot had chosen Oliver.
Margot remembered Lacey asking, “What sort of future does an artist have?” Lacey kept urging Margot to go out again with Frank, who had called several times after their first date. She knew he liked her, and by the end of their dinner together, he was already talking about how he wanted Margot to meet his daughter. Frank was kind, serious, and very much in the market for a wife. After her failed marriage with Teddy, Margot was afraid of making a second mistake. As hard as she tried, she just couldn’t get her nerve up to fall into that kind of life, a doctor’s wife in a pretty house in Connecticut, and having to make a commitment. Being with Oliver was easier. He had suffered from one bad marriage and a few longer relationships and seemed content to let things roll along in a sort of romantic limbo. And what was wrong with that? Once Margot had moved in with Oliver, Lacey stopped questioning her choice and seemed to accept her decision.
“I miss Oliver,” Margot said.
“And things are . . . good with him?” Lacey pushed open the back door and Margot followed her out to the car.
“Everything’s fine,” she said in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. She loved Oliver. She couldn’t imagine her life in New York without him. His recent bouts of insecurity were part of life. Alex and Lacey’s marriage couldn’t always be perfect either. How would they cope with all they were facing now? Wink was right in sensing that something was wrong. Yet a child had no way of discerning what her parents were like as a couple. That private side of marriage was unknowable. Margot tried to imagine Alex and Lacey alone together. In light of all that had happened, what did they talk about? Were they able to tell each other everything? Perhaps they knew each other so well there was no need to talk. After all, they had been together since childhood. Maybe they shared a tacit understanding, some kind of marital telepathy that went beyond words.
Margot had not told Oliver everything about her own past. Some things—yes. But not all. Was she making a mistake in holding back?
Lacey backed up the car and began the drive to the bus terminal. The sky was blue today and the air cold. “I just wish,” she said, “that your . . . life was more . . . stable.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Margot said, feeling defiance creeping into her voice. “We’re fine.”
“I know that.” She gave Margot a brief smile and said nothing for a while. After a series of bridges and causeways they wound their way into Portsmouth.
“Have you ever thought of painting again?”
“I could never go back to it now,” Margot said, thinking of her awkward attempt to draw the bittersweet. She was glad that Lacey had dropped the topic of Oliver. It was hard to explain to Lacey that she didn’t need marriage, children, and hosting family holidays to be happy. “It’s been too long,” she added. “Besides, I love choosing art and showing it. That’s more than enough.”
“You were very good.” Lacey pulled the car to a stop at a light. The traffic was heavier. Holiday shopping season had officially begun.
“Not really.”
“You were. You just let . . .” Lacey closed her mouth.
Margot waited. Lacey seemed to have given up her thought.
Finally Margot spoke. “I don’t want to paint now.”
The light changed to green. Lacey accelerated. “That’s not right,” she said emphatically.
“It’s fine with me. Having Oliver around is enough artists for one household,” she said in a joking way.
“You are better,” she said.
“Come on.”
“You are.”
“Look, it’s ridiculous to argue about this.”
They had arrived at the bus terminal. Lacey pulled the car into one of the fifteen-minute parking places and turned off the engine. The bus was due to leave on the hour.
Margot stared down at her lap. Why were they even talking about painting or her life with Oliver? How could she have forgotten the real problem, even for a second? “Lacey,” she said, “the girls are concerned. They sense something’s wrong.”
“Did they say something?” Lacey’s face was pale in the unflattering light of the car. The fine lines around her eyes seemed deeper.
“Wink is worried that things aren’t right between you and Alex.” Margot felt guilty about betraying her niece’s confidence. She had never been disloyal. Being younger, and not their mother, Margot had found her nieces were inclined to share their feelings with her. “Toni senses something, too.”
“Alex and I are going to be fine.”
“I think you should tell them.”
Lacey slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “Don’t tell me that. I know what I’m doing. I’m their mother. Not you.”
Margot moved closer to the door, feeling as if she’d been slapped. A few fat clouds blew across the sky, covering the sun. The air in the car grew chilled.
“If I say it,” Lacey said, her voice measured and determined, “if I tell them, then it’s . . . true.”
“I just think it’s better to be honest with them. Please, let’s go back to the house.” Margot tried to keep her voice gentle. She wanted to persuade her sister, not anger her further. “I could change my ticket and stay another day,” she said, realizing that taking some kind of action might make a difference. “It might be easier for you if they knew what’s going on.”
“Absolutely not.” Lacey straightened and drew in her breath. “I don’t want to upset them. We’re going to be fine.”
“But you’re not fine. I want to help you.”
Lacey shook her head and jutted her chin out resolutely. “We’ll be okay. I can manage.”
“Lacey, you can’t manage everything.” Some things with her sister never changed. Lacey always had to be in charge, the one in control. Margot had convinced herself that this was a good quality, this strength, this endurance. Alex was usually willing to go along with his wife. Yet during the course of the last few days, his outlook had seemed to alter, as if his determination to carry on was draining out of him, like a tire with a slow leak.
A huge silver bus roared past them toward the bay designated for the route to Logan Airport. Other travelers got out of the waiting cars.
“I don’t have to leave,” Margot said. “Let’s go home and talk to the girls together.”
Lacey shook her head and turned to open her car door.
Margot got out of the car and took her bag from the backseat. Lacey came around and hugged her sister. “I don’t want to go,” Margot said.
“You have to.” Lacey inhaled deeply and smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
Margot hesitated and then went to the bus. She was the last to board. After stumbling down the narrow aisle, she took a seat by the window at the rear. A moment later the driver backed out of the bay and circled to the far side of the terminal. Margot looked back at the parking lot. Lacey’s car was gone.
Saturday evening Oliver prepared to leave the apartment at five thirty to take the subway downtown. His return flight to New York had been easy. That morning Jenna had served him a bagel, as good as any in New York, and delicious strong coffee. He had been grateful for the time with his daughter. Maybe Margot would come with him on his next visit.
Leonard Witt, a thirty-year-old British artist, was having an opening at the Gearing Gallery in Chelsea. Another young talent on the way up. Carl Van Engen, Oliver’s dealer, had told him that some important collectors might be there; he thought it would be politic for Oliver to make an appearance. This whole business of art was wearing him down. He hated parties, schmoozing, talking the talk, trying to act like some kind of personality, the famous artist who’d soared to the top in the nineties.
Oliver particularly hated going to parties alone. Margot’s flight arrived at six and he had asked her to join him at the gallery. He wished they could just spend the evening at home, and felt bad that they had to go out. He’d kept missing her calls while in Atlanta, and realized too late that he’d forgotten to charge his cell phone.
Tonight Hector was the doorman on duty. “Hey, Mr. Levin. Evening on the town? Senora Margot still away? Must be—I don’t see you smiling.”
“Margot’s on her way, Hector. After she leaves her things here she’s joining me downtown. She may need a taxi.”
“Don’t you worry. I take good care of her.”
Oliver thanked Hector and walked to the subway. Oliver had purchased his apartment, located on Riverside Drive and 109th Street, from an elderly aunt when he first started to make money as an artist. This was not a typical artist’s address, not being in one of the edgier neighborhoods downtown or in Brooklyn. Indeed, Oliver was somewhat embarrassed by his upper-middle-class background. He didn’t advertise the fact that he lived in this upscale West Side location, though when he had bought the apartment twenty years ago it was a neighborhood in transition, inhabited by Columbia professors and students. Over the years, with the inevitable gentrification, fancier shops and restaurants had taken over the commercial blocks.
The cold night air improved his mood somewhat. He would get back to work tomorrow. He had three canvases in progress now, each one pulling him, begging for his time.
The subway car was bearable at this time of night on a Saturday. It irked him to see young kids, plugged in, legs extended, lounging in the train while an elderly, obviously tired woman held fast to a pole after possibly a day of cleaning hotel rooms or offices. Looking around at the young people in his immediate vicinity tonight, he realized that they would consider him old. How had that happened?
Oliver arrived at the gallery just after six and tried to make his way over to Marie Stone, an artist close to his own age. They had had a joint show together a few years before. She was a large woman, easy to spot in the crowd on the far side of the room. After many years of working as a painter, she had recently switched to sculpture. The humorous clay statues that she had been producing lately made him think of mythic figures on Valium. It was hard to look at her work without smiling. Marie was easy to talk to. It was as if they shared the same artistic vocabulary, yet her work had taken off in an entirely new direction. She saw him and waved.
Oliver nodded and eased past a group of young people dressed in black, presumably other artists. One girl’s blond hair stood up in short spiky tufts. A wraithlike redhead beside her was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt. A green and purple snake tattoo slithered down her pale arm. Two men, both in black leather jackets, looked like they needed shaves, and one had the kind of thick black glasses that Oliver’s father had worn back in the sixties.
The room was packed and the hot air was filled with the scent of cheap wine and overripe cheese. Margot called it gallery breath, and refused to drink at openings. He paused and looked at one of Witt’s paintings. Abstract, intense color, and yet the swirl of paint on the canvas grabbed Oliver, sucking him in and making him wonder where this energy came from. Forget spare minimalism. This guy was a cross between a controlled Renaissance master and the splattering of a Jackson Pollock. The canvas was not large and yet, the painting worked. This young guy had talent.
Oliver took a glass of white wine from a waiter passing with a tray and headed toward Marie. Just then he felt a tug at his arm.
“Oliver, how are you, dear?” Hannah Greene looked up at him.
Oliver dutifully bent and kissed both of Hannah’s leathery cheeks. Her silver hair smelled of cigarette smoke. “Good to see you,” he said. “How’s June?” He looked across the room in search of Hannah’s partner, June Wallace, a stringy woman who wrote bad poetry. But she was a rich poet, thanks to her father, who had once owned motel chains in the Midwest. Hannah and June had been a couple for more than twenty years and lived in a brownstone on West Eleventh Street. They owned two of Oliver’s paintings.
“She’s at a reading, a woman from her poetry group.” Hannah was in her sixties, a short, heavy woman who had probably never had a waist. “June is loyal to her friends.”
Oliver nodded, trying to think of a reply. Someone behind him jarred his elbow, nearly causing him to spill his wine down the front of Hannah’s dress. “Sorry,” he said, glancing at her.
She patted the brown velvet that rippled across her bosom. “Not a drop.”
Oliver shifted his glass to the other hand and tried to wipe his wet hand on his corduroy trousers.
“That’s quite some painting you have at Van Engen’s,” she said.
“Does that mean you like it?” He forced a smile.
“Ha!” Hannah barked a laugh in reply. “Well, of course it’s good. June says she doesn’t know where you get those odd figures, the ones who just seem to turn up.”
Oliver was momentarily taken aback by June’s blunt comment. He didn’t know where some of the lone people came from either. He had explained once in an interview for Art News that his paintings were stories that came to his mind, and as he worked, the figures often seemed to emerge from the paint itself, as if he had no say at all as to who came onto the canvas. Over the years, he had come to accept his process. Still, the unexpected shapes in his work disturbed him.
“I’m working on something new. You and June should come down to the studio.”
“We’ll do that. Junie likes to keep an eye on her artists.” Hannah looked beyond Oliver to the entrance. “Oh, my,” she said. “There’s Leonard Witt. Do you know him, dear? June already bought one of his pieces. Come on. I want to introduce you to him.” She took Oliver’s still moist hand in a decisive grip. Oliver swallowed his annoyance and let himself be led across the room toward the throng of people circling the artist. He glanced back toward Marie, hoping he could excuse himself from Hannah, but she was now lost in the crowd. Hannah bulldozed ahead, and just before reaching Leonard and his admirers Oliver saw Margot come through the front door.
She looked dazed as she entered; then a second later she nodded and moved toward him. Her lovely eyes, the color of the sky after a rain, met his. He pulled his hand out of Hannah’s grip, excused himself, and made his way over to Margot. He held her briefly. She smelled of the cool night air, and faintly of lily of the valley, her favorite perfume.
He sensed that something was wrong. “Are you all right?”
She squeezed his arms. “Later,” she said.
Oliver handed Margot a glass of wine. She leaned back into the sofa cushions, finally at home, totally exhausted. They had gone to dinner with Carl Van Engen, Marie Stone, and some younger artists from the opening who had studied with Marie at NYU. Margot had never figured out who was with whom, and she had remained on the periphery of the conversation. The restaurant was a Korean barbecue restaurant and her sweater now smelled of kimchi.
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.
