A Slender Thread

After 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?

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?

Once she had finished college, Margot moved to New York, determined to seek a different life. More than anything, she dreamed of becoming an artist. She found a job as an assistant in an advertising agency and took painting classes on weekends. Eventually her college friends had scattered, and her last boyfriend, a sweet guy, tall and awkward in ways that reminded her of a younger Alex, left for law school in Oregon. He asked her to join him there, but she decided there was not enough between them to warrant a move all the way across the country.

Soon enough there had been other men in Margot’s life. She had friends from the office and went off after work to bars and restaurants with different groups. Some guys wanted sex on the first date; others were workaholics. No one seemed right for her. More and more she yearned for the easy, steady, adult kind of happiness that Alex and Lacey seemed to share. At times she wondered if she would ever meet the right person. During her fifth spring in New York she met Teddy at a restaurant not far from her office.

Margot looked up. She was wedged in the corner of a tiny lunch place called Soups and Savories. Since there were only a dozen tables, customers were expected to share with strangers. “Sure,” she said, moving her cream of carrot soup closer to her. The man taking the seat opposite her had neatly trimmed brown hair. She glanced at him again while reaching for her roll. He had bright blue eyes and a dimple in his chin. Good-looking, she thought, and what Granny Winkler would have called a “snappy dresser.”

So much for a peaceful lunch alone. She nodded and began to eat. The cream of carrot tasted too spicy. This was the soup she usually ordered, but the cook must have been experimenting with a new recipe. Now she’d have to find a new favorite. New Yorkers didn’t like it when you couldn’t make up your mind, holding up the hungry people in line, everyone with little time to spare.

Margot stared at him directly and tried to be pleasant. This man, probably a few years older than she was, had an engaging smile. Something charismatic about him made it hard to look away. He wore a very crisp blue shirt and a striped red and silver tie. Preppy but cute, Lacey would have said.

“I know I’m lucky. Believe me, it’s nothing I ever thought I’d be doing. My grandmother died and left me some money.” Should she be telling this to a stranger? She could sense his interest, though it didn’t feel threatening. “She stipulated that I use the money to buy a place to live. Otherwise, it goes into some charitable trust.”

“Hardly. What seems like a lot of money to me doesn’t go far around here.” He ate his soup while she told him about her apartment search. Not a drop fell on his fancy tie. He looked like a guy who would keep his place neat, meticulous even. She glanced down. His shoes, brown leather European loafers, probably Italian, were shined. He must be older, closer to Alex and Lacey’s age. “Even if I can afford the price of an apartment, I need to find something where I’ll be able to pay the monthly maintenance.”

In the next few minutes he told her about himself and his job in the art department of a nationally known advertising agency. She liked his name, Teddy Larkin. He spoke quickly, was lively and energetic. When she told him she wanted to become a painter he seemed impressed and said that the Frick was his favorite museum in New York. He asked her if she’d been to any of the new galleries in Chelsea. He made it easy for her to like him.

Over the next weeks they met for dinner, drinks, hung out at some clubs. Teddy seemed to know people everywhere. He liked going out, trying new places. Margot, who hadn’t been dating anyone recently, rarely went out after work. Her favorite friend at the office had moved to Brooklyn to live with her boyfriend and she disappeared right after work. The woman who liked going to movies with Margot had started night courses toward her business degree and no longer had any free time. Margot couldn’t paint at night and she was growing tired of lonely evenings. Teddy seemed to make it his job to show her how to have fun.

He also relished the real estate search. Margot had found it daunting to face real estate agents on her own, and together they went all over the city, checking on leads, investigating ads from the Sunday Times. Then, through a friend of a friend of his, they had found Margot an apartment—small, but with the charm he insisted on; no WBF, but a terrace. The monthly maintenance fee was manageable. Margot had a small legacy from her grandmother in addition to the money for the apartment that would help. She never told Teddy about that extra income. A month after she moved in, he proposed. Margot still wondered how it had happened so quickly.

Lacey and Alex had come to New York to see Margot’s new apartment and meet Teddy. On that weekend visit Teddy, probably hoping to impress them, had reserved a table at Yaeger’s, the most sought-after restaurant in New York. The meal was expensive, the dining room noisy, and the entire evening awkward. At first Teddy dominated the conversation with his tales of the art department where he worked. His enthusiasm for his job had sounded more like bragging to Margot that night. Lacey was quieter than usual, and Margot sensed that she wasn’t taken in by Teddy’s charms. Alex barely said a word, certainly nothing to Teddy. Alex seemed to avoid looking at Margot too, though later in the evening when she asked about their new house in New Castle and their plans for Bow Lake later in the summer, both he and Lacey acted more like themselves. Margot didn’t have enough vacation to go to New Hampshire that year. She planned to stay in New York to paint the walls of her new place.

Now thinking back to her marriage, Margot tried to remember if she had ever really loved Teddy. She had felt a flutter of excitement each time she was with him, certainly during that first spring. He had beautiful manners, always opening doors for her, sliding across the seat of a taxi so she wouldn’t have to, holding his big black umbrella over her in the rain. He even sent her postcards, sort of old-fashioned love notes of places he wanted to take her in the city—the Empire State Building, the sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art, cherry trees in bloom overlooking the reservoir in Central Park.

He paid attention to her at a time when no one else did. While vain about his clothes, he also loved to take her shopping to find the perfect dress in a certain shade of blue that he thought suited her. She remembered him saying, “You deserve the best, Margot. I want you to have beautiful things.” And later, “God, how I want you, darling. I want you for my own. I want you all to myself.” Eventually, she had learned that for Teddy it was all about wanting, and not about loving. Maybe his wanting the best for her, the little indulgences, his attention, was his way of loving. Maybe it was all he was capable of. Teddy, so handsome, living the fast life with his fast talk, had given her no time to listen, no time to think.

Lacey had come back that September to help Margot plan her wedding. “You’ve had quite the whirlwind romance,” she said. They were in Paris Blooms, a fancy Upper East Side florist, choosing flowers.

“Dating. And then together.” Margot found herself blushing, as if she were an old-fashioned girl telling her sister she was having sex. Sex with Teddy wasn’t quite what she had hoped for. Not yet. They always seemed to make love hurriedly, late at night, after drinking more than they should have. Teddy’s drinking had started to bother her. She tried to sip one drink slowly, making it last all evening. Why did every night have to be like a party? Once she and Teddy were married, she assumed, they wouldn’t go out as much. She looked forward to settling down.

“I know that,” Lacey said softly, reminding Margot that her own voice had grown loud. “At least think about waiting until next summer. We could have the wedding for you in New Castle. That way you could take your time.”

Obviously hurt, Lacey looked away. Margot felt like a liar. There was a lot she and Teddy hadn’t talked about. She hadn’t wanted to spoil their time together. Teddy was the one who wanted to move ahead quickly, and Margot had agreed. There would be plenty of time to figure out their future. After five years alone, she was a little afraid of taking this leap and losing her independence, but like any scary thing, she had convinced herself, she would feel better when it was over with. Wasn’t it normal to have doubts before making any big change? Teddy wanted her, she wanted to be married, and at the time it seemed like enough.

Margot relaxed a little. It was hard to remain angry while surrounded by towering tropical blooms and the wafting sweetness of the giant bouquet of cream-colored lilies at her elbow. “It is what I want,” she said, still upset about Alex’s view of Teddy.

They studied the vast buckets of blooms in rows at their feet. Margot hardly knew where to start. “What were Mom’s favorite flowers?” she asked, calmer now but suddenly determined. Teddy was the right person, she told herself, and she would make this marriage work. She would prove Alex wrong.

Margot shook her head, though she was glad to have this information about her mother. “Are peonies expensive?” Margot worried about what the wedding was going to cost. She and Teddy had agreed they should host the wedding themselves, and in the end they had decided on a noon service the first Saturday in October, followed by a lunch for forty guests at the Lancaster, an elegant hotel on the Upper East Side.

Neither of them earned much money, and Margot felt Teddy’s taste often exceeded his salary. He was still a junior member of the design team at work, but he insisted that one day he’d be at the top, making buckets of money. At first, all Margot and Teddy had agreed upon was the size of the wedding. She wanted a lunch party, knowing it would cost less. He wanted an early-evening service followed by drinks at the Four Seasons. He finally conceded, provided she purchase the flowers at Paris Blooms.

Margot pushed away the anxious feeling that had come more and more often over the last few weeks. No peonies, then. She had also promised Teddy no chrysanthemums, as they reminded him of death and he hated the smell.

The florist, dressed entirely in black, as if to set herself apart from the flowers and plants, approached them. Margot looked at Lacey, who seemed to know just what to do. Within the next half hour they placed an order for the table arrangements, a bride’s bouquet, and a few stems for Lacey to carry as Margot’s only attendant.

A wedding was supposed to be a young woman’s dream. Now, in the throes of planning it, Margot was consumed with wedding jitters. Why did it all seem so complicated? Lacey and Alex had been married on a farm in New Hampshire that belonged to one of his mother’s friends. Lacey had planned the entire weekend for 150 guests—complete with a square dance in the barn the night before the wedding and an exchange of vows in a hillside field, followed by dinner and dancing in a tent next to the barn. The apple trees had been in bloom and Lacey and Alex had wired sprays of flowering branches to the tent poles.

How had Lacey pulled it off? There hadn’t been a drop of rain. The blackflies, usually in their prime in June, seemed to be off duty and the sky remained light for hours. When Lacey stood next to Alex repeating her vows, Margot had wanted to feel only joy for her sister, but instead she felt a profound sense of loss. Alex and Lacey were leaving their childhood behind, a time they had all shared. They were stepping into a grown-up world without her.

Margot’s marriage ended less than a year after the ceremony. Lacey had stood by Margot on her wedding day and Lacey had been with her at the very end, when Margot needed her most. Even now, Margot didn’t know how she would have survived without her sister.

Margot sat crumpled on the sofa in her apartment, just home from the hospital. The doctors wouldn’t discharge her without the company of another adult. Teddy was away on a fishing trip. She had called Lacey.

Lacey got a blanket from the bedroom and covered her sister. Margot was still in shock. She hadn’t felt well when Teddy left for his annual fishing trip with three other designers from the office. When he didn’t offer to give up the trip, she was secretly glad to have time on her own. Finally, when the pain in her abdomen was too severe to bear, she called in sick and went to her doctor.

The examination, the barrage of questions, the hospital stay and massive doses of antibiotics had swelled into one giant hurt. The diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease had shocked her. Teddy had given her a sexually transmitted infection.

“Some nights he just doesn’t come home.” Margot squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about it. “He calls and says he’s going out for drinks after finishing a project.” She drew in several ragged breaths. “Then he’ll say it got too late and he didn’t want to wake me, so he stayed the night with a friend.”

“I know. I just know.” Teddy hadn’t been able to look her in the eye on those strange, tense mornings when he’d come home to change before going to work. His clothes had been rumpled. Once, she’d noticed a rip by the top button of his shirt and she’d wondered if he had been in a fight. That sordid possibility had filled her with alarm. Margot could never tell Lacey that.

“Oh, Magsie, I’m so sorry.” Lacey stroked Margot’s forehead. Her touch was cool and soothing. Margot tried to shut out the pain by thinking of Bow Lake, the gentle lapping sound on the shore on a perfect July day. It helped to take her mind off this current disaster.

“I think he’s gay,” Margot said. “Or maybe bi.” All the months of pushing this possibility deep inside of her were over. A month into her marriage she had an odd feeling that something wasn’t right. Initially, she had brushed off the small moments that had raised doubts later on. She had noticed one guy looking at Teddy in a bar in a way that seemed too intense, a cloying sort of attention that didn’t seem appropriate. Once, a man asked for Teddy on the phone, but refused to leave a message, saying he must have made a mistake.

Telling this to Lacey made Margot feel sick and ashamed, as if Teddy’s sexuality was somehow her fault. During one argument when he was furious that she didn’t want to go out for a drink after dinner, he had called her a frump. Later, he bought her some sexy underwear as an apology, though he seemed less and less interested in sex. Margot hadn’t known what to think.

“They told me I’ll never be able to have children.” Margot started to sob. “He’s endangered my life, and now there’s that too.” She swallowed hard, hoping she would not be sick to her stomach. “What am I going to do when he gets back?”

“I couldn’t.” She thought of Lacey and Alex, happy and in love, in that clean New England house, while her life with Teddy was so out of whack. Her own marriage reminded her now of looking into a fun house mirror, their reflections elongated and twisted, like something out of an Edvard Munch painting. She had done everything wrong.

Lacey stayed for the rest of the week. She coddled Margot, bringing her cold soups, cut-up fruit, icy sorbets, glasses of iced tea. She made phone calls: Margot’s office to arrange for her sick days and follow-up doctor appointments. And she tracked down a divorce lawyer. Margot, still on high doses of medication, had been ordered to rest. Lacey saw to it that she had everything she needed. Though she had to sleep on the pull-out sofa in the living room and leave Alex behind in New Castle, Lacey never complained, saying it was good to have the one-on-one sister time they hadn’t had in ages. Margot realized later that Lacey had been fighting the early weeks of morning sickness, newly pregnant with the twins, and had never said a word.

Lacey was with Margot at the dreaded moment when Teddy returned. The scene was as terrible as she had imagined it would be, Teddy denying everything, saying it was Margot who had probably infected him. His reaction made Margot all the more sure of her decision to end the marriage. Had he married her for the apartment or merely to have a wife at his side, like one of his possessions, just another silk tie or a pair of designer shoes? Had he ever loved her?

Lacey stepped in and fought for Margot when she didn’t have the strength. After his initial protests, Teddy packed up his things and made arrangements for moving the rest. He agreed to a divorce. It almost embarrassed Margot how quickly he fled.

Lacey didn’t have to teach in the summer, so she took Margot to Bow Lake to recover. Fortunately the cottage was available. The sisters owned the place jointly after their grandmother’s death, but kept it rented except for the final few weeks of August, which were reserved for the family. The rental income paid for the maintenance and taxes.

The softness of the air, the shifting light on the water, the deep silence at night helped Margot to regain her physical strength, but something deep inside of her remained broken. At the end of her visit she was able to return to New York, move on to other jobs, and eventually go out with other men, but for a very long time she no longer cared about her art.

After her divorce she felt numb. Painting required her to look within herself, to search deep inside for the creative spark to bring color or line onto a canvas. In a sense, she had to keep her life simple, on the surface, out of range of any troubling emotion. Some days she could barely muster the creative energy to decide what to wear in the morning. Perhaps she was afraid of digging too deeply. Instead of thinking about her own art, she grew into the habit of looking at other people’s work, finding solace in galleries and museums.

During those last summer days at the lake, Lacey never once reminded Margot of her prewedding jitters or their conversation in the flower shop. That week in August had been perfect. The sun glittered on the lake. The sky remained a cloudless, vibrant blue. They swam, paddled the canoe, and soaked up the sun on the dock. Alex hadn’t come to Bow Lake that time either, because of work or a conscious decision to leave the sisters by themselves. Margot slept in their childhood bedroom—the room they called “up above”—and Lacey stayed in their grandmother’s old room on the main floor. The walls were thin. Once, late at night when Lacey heard Margot crying, she climbed the stairs and got into her old bed across from Margot’s.

Lacey didn’t say anything else and gradually Margot’s tears subsided. She pulled the cotton sheet, worn thin from years of use, around her shoulders, letting her body soften toward sleep. Later, before going back downstairs to bed, Lacey took Margot’s hand and whispered, “Pinkie shake?”

Now Margot looked down at her hands. Her pinkie finger was pale against the covers in the New York winter light. Where would she be today if Lacey hadn’t been there when her life with Teddy had fallen apart? Now, almost two decades later, Lacey was the one facing a frightening future, an eventual silence closing in on her in this cruel twist of fate. Margot knew that she owed it to Lacey to help her in any way she could. She pushed back the covers and rose to face the day.