At six o’clock Willow was still sleeping and neither Diana nor Clarice had any appetite. They each drank a cup of coffee and sat in the library, talking quietly about everything except Penny. Clarice told Diana about her honeymoon with Henry, how they had started out for Niagara Falls and Henry’s old car broke down a hundred miles out of Huntington, so they’d stayed in a tiny town with one diner and one theater while the car was being repaired at the town’s one garage. Diana described how two days after her wedding, her husband came down with measles. They tried to laugh, but neither was really concentrating on the other’s story.
At seven o’clock Simon called to say that Penny was still alive, but failing. They were basically on a deathwatch. He said Jeffrey simply sat like a man carved out of stone and had raised no objections to Simon’s and Tyler’s presence. Simon emphasized that Jeffrey hadn’t even asked Tyler’s identity, as if he already knew. Blake and Lenore also sat vigil, Lenore hovering over Jeffrey, Blake looking like he was steeling himself for a storm that lay ahead. “I have no idea when we’ll be home, Diana,” Simon told her. “How is Clarice?”
“All right. We’ve just been talking about old times.”
“You’re too young to remember old times,” Simon informed her crisply. “And Willow?”
“Still sleeping. We decided not to wake her to force dinner on her.”
“Good idea. Well, love to you all. I’ll call again as soon as . . . well, soon.”
As soon as Penny dies, Diana thought, feeling oddly numb. She supposed the body could withstand only so much stress, and then it simply went into a hibernation mode until it could gather enough strength to face another blow.
“Clarice, Penny is still alive but she won’t be for long,” Diana told the woman gently. Clarice’s face puckered. “Jeffrey isn’t putting up any fuss about Simon and Tyler being there, thank goodness. They both should be with her.”
“Yes, they certainly should. I suppose you and I should, too, but I’m such a weakling. I’m so ashamed of myself. What kind of friend am I to Penny?”
“The same kind of friend I am,” Diana said. “We love her. She knows we do, but I don’t think she’d want either of us at the hospital. She’d want to know we’re here with her little girl.”
Clarice wept into a handful of tissues for a good five minutes. Diana made no move to comfort her, knowing nothing could comfort the woman. When her sobs finally began to lessen, Diana said, “I think you should go in your room and rest for a while, Clarice. I know your arthritis has been worse and you look exhausted. I’ll make some tea. Chamomile. It’s supposed to be relaxing. Want to see if the claims are true?”
“They are, dear. I’ve had the tea before and I suddenly feel as if I’d like a cup. Or a whole pot.”
Even with Diana’s help, Clarice had to use the walker to reach her bedroom. Diana turned down the bedspread, blanket, and sheet, helped the woman take off her shoes, and tucked her in as if she were a child. “Be back in a jiffy with the tea.”
Later Diana sat in Clarice’s room while each drank tea and talked desultorily. Soon the elder woman began to look drowsy. Diana told Clarice to nap if she could. Clarice put up no argument—she just nodded and closed her eyes. Diana left the bedroom door opened an inch and ambled back into the library. As soon as she sat down, she heard the elevator descending. She rose and when she reached it, she saw Willow standing inside with Romeo and Christabel.
“You’ve never worked the elevator by yourself,” Diana said.
“I didn’t wanna bother anybody.” Her clothes were rumpled and her cheek bore a pillowcase crease. “I haven’t heard Tyler and Simon talkin’ for a while. Did they go someplace?”
“Yes.” Diana’s thoughts scrambled as she anticipated Willow’s question of “Where?” Instead the little girl held up one of Diana’s CDs. “I got this in your room. I hope that doesn’t make you mad, but the picture of the big yellow sun and the beach on the front is just like a CD Mommy has. It’s her favorite by some boys who live at the beach. Would you play it for me, Diana?”
Diana took the CD—a compilation of songs by the Beach Boys called Sounds of Summer. “Certainly I’ll play it for you, honey. Uncle Simon has a big stereo in the library.”
Diana put in the CD, then honored Willow’s request that they sit on the window seat beneath the pane of glass with the blue-water-lily inlay. Willow leaned against Diana, who stroked her hair as they listened to the happy-go-lucky sounds of “California Girls,” “Surfin’ Safari,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” When “In My Room” began to play, Diana felt teardrops on her arms. She put her fingers under Willow’s chin and raised it.
“My mommy loves this song.” Willow wept. “She plays it when she was sad, though. She kept playin’ it the day our house blew up. That’s how I knew somethin’ was wrong. That’s why I went out to get her some sparkle bugs. She liked sparkle bugs almost as much as I do.” Willow’s chin drooped. “But she didn’t get to see the sparkle bugs.”
“But if you hadn’t gone out to get them, you would have been caught in the explosion, too, and that would have made your mommy so unhappy.”
“I guess.” Willow stroked Christabel who had jumped up to sit on her lap. “Diana, when I was asleep this afternoon, I had a dream.”
“About what?”
“About Mommy. I’ve been tryin’ real, real hard to act happy ’cause everybody looks all upset when I don’t, but today I felt weird. When I said I wanted you to take a picture of me and Tyler so I could give it to Mommy, I knew I’d never get to give it to her. Then when I went to sleep, I dreamed of Mommy dancing. Did you ever see Mommy dance?”
“Just at the country club with Glen.”
“That wouldn’t be a real dance. Sometimes she danced at home just for me. She’d put on a dress with a real full red skirt. It even had ruffles. And she’d put on red lipstick and dangly earrings and she’d dance so beautiful you wouldn’t believe it. Some of it she said was ballet, and some was what she called Latin. I never saw her look so happy! And she’d dance over to me and end up bowing down at my feet. I always clapped and then she’d try to teach me how to dance like her, but I wasn’t very good. She said I would be when I got bigger.”
Willow paused. “In my dream this afternoon, she was dancin’ but she didn’t dance over to me. She was dancin’ away from me. She went farther and farther away and I kept chasin’ her and askin’ her not to leave me, but she said, ‘Don’t be sad. We’ll dance together another day.’ And she said she loved me and then she was gone.” Willow looked up, dry-eyed and bereft. “My mommy’s dyin’ tonight, isn’t she?”
Diana had an overpowering desire to tell the child, No. Of course your mommy isn’t dying. But she knew that would be the cruelest thing she could do. Simon and Tyler would be home soon, when Penny was gone, and Willow would be totally unprepared.
“Willow, darling, I’m afraid you’re right,” she said softly. “Someone from the hospital called earlier. Tyler and Simon went to be with her. Your mommy isn’t gone yet—”
“But she will be soon. I knew it. Diana, I wish people and animals didn’t have to die,” Willow said brokenly.
“Me too, Willow. Me, too.”
“Can we just sit here and listen to the music until Uncle Simon and Tyler come home?”
“Honey, we can sit here and listen to the music all night long, if you want.”
Almost an hour later, the music was still playing while Diana sat on the window seat with Willow lying asleep with her head in Diana’s lap. The child had never cried—she’d simply folded up nearly twenty minutes earlier and drifted off. Diana was relieved that Willow could find comfort in the oblivion of sleep. She, on the other hand, felt as if she’d never sleep again.
Even with daylight saving time, dusk was beginning to fall. Far earlier than this, Simon always turned on the lights in the library, the drawing room, the stairs, and the second-floor hallway. Without the lights and the enormity of Simon’s personality that permeated the whole dwelling, the house had an empty, desolate aura. Diana had never experienced a moment of uneasiness in this house, but tonight she felt small and alone in a house large, dark, and somehow threatening. Fleetingly, she thought the house wanted her to leave then told herself she was being absurd. Too much sadness and turmoil had turned her foolish.
Her cell phone rang and she jerked then grabbed it before a second ring could awaken Willow. She expected to hear Simon’s voice. Instead, silence followed her soft “Hello?” Nothing. “Simon?” she asked.
At last came a thin, distant, whispery voice. “Diana. Diana.”
Her heart thudding, she looked at the caller ID. It read GLEN AUSTEN.