Sara saw him first, weaving between the other passengers, his eyes scanning the platform. She touched his arm and he turned, that lovely straight profile framed against the gray stone and hoary steam of the station. She smiled at him and knew he knew why she was smiling. His golfing attire—a dove-colored, single-breasted jacket, knickerbockers, argyle socks, and tweed flat cap—all very serious and appropriate.
“Lovely outfit.” She laughed.
“Isn’t it, though.” Gerald colored slightly.
Their hands brushed, but there was nothing else, no other contact between them as they boarded the train from Penn Station to East Hampton and sat primly next to each other. She glanced at his face from underneath her straw hat and could see he was still smiling too.
She’d been back from India only six months, six months and everything was different. When she’d set out on the journey, she’d had no idea what was waiting for her; her future had seemed like a flat road, one she could see all the way down. Then Gerald’s voice had reached her, his words had happened to her. Those letters; her astonishment at being perfectly understood by another person. Not only understood, but delighted in. Of finally being seen.
Her life was only now beginning in earnest, in color. And she was terrified that something would happen to snatch it from her grasp.
They’d agreed to keep their engagement a secret until they could come up with a plan of attack. So much about it was problematic that at times she felt it might be hopeless. There was the Catholic question, not to mention his small income from his job at Mark Cross and his father’s feeling that he would come to nothing. And then, of course, her mother’s vocal opposition to marriage as a general rule.
But today she didn’t want to think about that; she wanted to think about the pressure of his thigh against hers. To all appearances, they were a young couple out for a healthy round of early-spring golf—although in fact, they were heading for the Dunes. The house would be closed up this time of year and the prospect of spending some time alone with him, away from the bounds of friends, family, servants, made her chest tight. She peered over the backs of their seats and at the gentleman across from them.
“There’s no one,” she whispered. No one we know was what she meant, of course. Then she carefully unbuttoned and slipped off her glove and pressed her naked hand to his face.
He looked at her. That was all. Nothing more was needed. It was simple: He loved her and she loved him. She loved him in a way she hadn’t thought possible, in a way that surprised her and made her glad to be alive. Her own capacity for it amazed her. She had previously thought that kind of love was something found in novels and sonnets. Or worse: an insidious lie to make one discontented with one’s real lot in life. But she was drunk with it, and now she believed. That you could be in someone else’s head, really and truly. That it was impossible to be wrong with that person because everything about you was what he wanted.
The last time she’d seen him had been two weeks ago, that February evening at her parents’ club when everything had been settled between them. They had managed to steal time before she left for Montreal with Adeline and Hoytie and Olga, and he for Westchester with his parents. She had been sitting on the settee in front of the fire in the club’s small library, her head back, eyes partially closed, as if resting, but inside, her heart had been tapping a hard rhythm against her chest. She’d wanted him to touch her; she wanted to feel his lips against hers.
She’d been thinking of all the secret kisses they had shared. There had been the first one, stolen, sweet, almost chaste, and then longer embraces, others, hot and hard, her hand snaked around his neck. But the more she’d received, the more she’d wanted.
Yet that evening, Gerald had been uncharacteristically quiet, and so she was just thinking these things, not moving, trying to keep herself decent and still. They’d remained like that for what seemed an eternity.
“Sara,” he said finally, and the grave tone of his voice made her open her eyes fully.
His tone wasn’t just serious; there was also a distinct edge of anxiety. Please, God, she thought, don’t let him be changing his mind, and she felt slightly sick.
“You said…” He stopped. “You said you could see me everywhere, the two of us doing everything together.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m feeling…What I’m trying to say is: I can see it. I see you everywhere. I love you. I didn’t think I would ever be able to love anyone, be able to show anyone how I feel about…But now…There’s only you. Now, there can’t be anyone else.”
And all she’d said—all she’d had to say—was “Yes, I know.” And that had been that.
In the large drawing room at the Dunes, Sara drew back the mustard-gold drapes, exposing dust motes rising from the covered furniture, although the wood paneling and gleaming floorboards still smelled freshly of wax polish. She set the food she’d brought on the worn and loved Oriental rug in the middle of the room.
“Do you think you’ll be able to get a fire going?” she asked. “I’ll hunt us up some plates and things.” She fled before Gerald could answer.
In the pantry, Sara was a mess. She almost dropped one of the plates getting it off the shelf, and the silverware clattered around her as she tried to stuff it all into a gardening basket she’d found in the hallway. When she finally did break something—a glass—she stopped.
She touched her hair, piled tightly, sportily, on top of her head, and took a breath. She knew what might occur; she had, of course, known all along. And she feared it and desired it and thought she might have a heart attack before anything could actually happen.
Earlier that morning, as she lay in her large walnut bed in the city pulling the linen sheets around her body, her hand warm on her skin, she’d imagined feeling languorous, sensual at this moment. Instead, she felt stiff and nervous and altogether unattractive. She realized she had no idea if Gerald had been with a woman before, and she suddenly feared their age difference; how would she, at thirty-one, compare with all those lithe, budding girls? It was too awful to contemplate.
Still, there was no going back now. Besides, they were to be married, so this would happen sooner or later. Mustering her courage, she swept up the broken glass and set it on the counter before picking up the basket and making her way back to the drawing room.
In her absence, Gerald had managed to get the first flames to catch the seasoned logs, and she could smell the comforting perfume of ash and applewood. At the sound of her footfall, he turned and smiled. Sara cleared her throat anxiously and busied herself pouring milk into a couple of glasses, trying to affect an attitude of cool domesticity. Her hand shook so badly that fat white drops fell onto the rug.
He came towards her. Her whole body was shaking and she had a momentary desire to run from the house. Gerald took the glass and bottle from her hands and set them down.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just very nervous.”
He pulled her to him and held her and she could hear her heart beating and wondered if he could hear it too. They stayed like that for a while, until she could feel her muscles unwinding, her breathing slowing, and then he let go of her.
“That’s better,” he said quietly, looking down at the floor.
“Shall we eat?” She had no appetite, but the picnic seemed the only way of postponing the inevitable.
They pulled the rug closer to the stone fireplace and sat cross-legged, both of them picking at the chicken, absently eating the grapes. She had placed the basket between them but, perversely, also wished it weren’t there.
She poured herself a second glass of milk and said: “Oh, this is really lovely milk.”
Gerald looked at the milk and at her and said: “Yes.” Then, carefully, he pushed everything out of the way until they were sitting side by side. He traced his index finger down her neck, along her collarbone, around the curve of her breast, and down to her waist. Sara, her heart in her mouth, lay back and uncrossed her legs until she was stretched out fully on the rug.
“You’re beautiful like this,” he said. “Are you cold?” Now he seemed nervous, doubtful.
She shook her head.
“I imagine you like this all the time. The time when we slept on the beach and then you watched me,” he said. “The time when you came back from Europe and had seen the Ballets Russes and you lay like this, and the sun was going down.”
She looked at the thin light hitting the wooden floorboards. Then she couldn’t stand it anymore and she pulled him to her, feeling his weight, agonizingly, exquisitely heavy on top of her, and found his mouth and pressed her own against it. His hands were light and quick on her hips and her waist. And then they struggled with jackets and skirts, the tiny buttons on the back of her blouse, petticoats, stockings, socks. But the whole time, turning to see the other, hands on each other’s face, mute, impatient.
He was over her, bracing himself on his palms above her, his words too quiet to hear. Then he was whispering into her ear, his breath humid against her skin, and she found herself whispering back, things she wouldn’t be able to remember later. She watched him as he moved above, his throat curved, perfect; he watched her as he touched her, and afterward he told her about what had happened and about herself and how he felt.
“I really do love you,” he said finally.
Sara knew it was true; she knew it now in her bones, in her flesh, knew it inside and out, like a perfect truth. And so, because of this, she turned her face away, her hand over her eyes, and cried.
They were quiet on the train ride home, the station names passing like signposts leading them slowly back to reality: Eastport, Bellport, Patchogue, Babylon, Massapequa, Bellmore, Freeport. Finally, Penn Station.
They knew they had to leave each other, but this seemed impossible after what had passed between them.
“We have to speak to your parents,” Gerald said. “We can’t go on like this.”
“Let’s give them more time,” Sara said, afraid again.
“I’ll write you,” Gerald said. “We’ll figure it out. But we have to do it soon.”
“Yes,” she said. Then, leaning into him slightly: “I never thought…”
“No,” he agreed, a small smile curving on the lips she had so recently kissed.
Sara pressed his hand and then they parted.
The next day a letter arrived from Gerald. A delicate paper grenade.
My darling Sal,
You have left me awed. And I could never take what happened between us casually. As I held you, I felt as if everything that came before, everything I feared about myself and my ability to communicate my feelings, was nothing but terrors in the night.
But now I have to tell you that I can no longer live alone with this feeling, and they all must know our plans for the future. I am coming Wednesday morning to ply my suit with your father.
I know you are afraid; I am not entirely at ease with this prospect myself. But we must be brave. It is the only way. I love you.
G.
Sara put the letter on her nightstand and regarded it. She paced her bedroom, fiddling with the chintz drapes and staring distractedly out the window at the traffic passing on Fifty-Fifth Street. She picked it up and read it again, sighing. Then she went to find her sisters.
Sara slept terribly Tuesday night. For someone whose only problem with sleep before had been waking up in the morning, it was a new and torturous experience.
When she did sleep, she dreamed of Gerald, of that afternoon at the Dunes, the luminous, whispering hours they’d passed together. She rose before dawn and didn’t lie down again. Instead, she took out Gerald’s letters and reread them, partly to reassure herself, in that unreal hour of the day, that what she felt was indeed real.
The last letter, his most recent, had been sent the day before.
My darling,
I got your note and I understand everything you say. But this is the worst of it and it must be gotten through to get to the other part. Because this is the other part: Think of a relationship that not only does not bind, but actually so lets loose the imagination! Think of it, my love—and thank heaven!
G.
Sara was already dressed when her father knocked on her door at nine o’clock.
“Yes,” she said, pretending to be arranging things on her dresser.
Frank Wiborg strode over the threshold and stood there, his large body filling the doorframe. “I have received Gerald Murphy’s card requesting an interview in half an hour.”
“Oh?” Sara inspected a powder pot.
“Do you know what this is about, Sara?” He waved the card at her.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, I hope not. For your sake.”
When she did not respond or even turn to face him, he grumbled, “Gerald Murphy,” but left her alone after that.
She waited until she was sure he had gone into his study and then she opened the door and scooted along to Olga’s room.
“Oh, it’s beginning,” she said, pacing. “Father knows.”
Olga, in midbrush at her dressing table, shook her small, neat, curly head. Everything in Olga’s room was neat, all her little things in perfect order. “Oh, Sara. I feel like it’s happening to me, I’m so nervous.”
“Well, it’s not,” Sara said.
A knock at the door and Hoytie came in. “Father’s making a racket in his study.” She perched on the bed, watching Sara. “For heaven’s sakes, stop fidgeting.”
“Don’t,” Sara said, sitting down.
“Is Gerald here yet?”
“No, but Father knows. The card gave it away, I suppose.”
“Right. When is he expected?”
“Not for another half an hour,” Sara said, getting up and pacing the small bedroom.
“Good,” Hoytie said.
“Oh, there’s nothing good about this. What if he says no?”
“Stop with the dramatics,” Hoytie said. “I’ve been thinking: When Gerald arrives, you go and tell Mother the news. That way it will be a flank attack and she won’t have time to change Father’s mind.”
“Oh, Hoytie,” Olga said. “How can you be so calm? This is Sara’s whole life we’re talking about.”
“I feel sick,” Sara said.
Hoytie rose. “I’ll get some sherry.”
“Oh, yes, good idea,” Olga said. “I think we could all use a little Dutch courage.”
Hoytie returned with the decanter and poured them each a glass. “To success.”
“Yes.” Olga raised her glass.
“Oh God,” Sara said.
They were on their second round when they heard the front door open, murmurings in the hallway, and then the snap of their father’s study door.
“It’s time,” Hoytie said.
“I don’t want to,” Sara said. “Can’t you just do it?”
“Don’t be a little idiot.”
“Come on,” Olga said, “we’ll come with you.”
Hoytie pushed Sara down the hallway to their mother’s bedroom. Quietly she opened the door. She could hear her mother humming, strangely, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as she splashed around in the adjacent bathroom.
Sara stood in the middle of the room and Hoytie gave her a sharp shove.
“‘He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.’”
Sara could imagine her mother’s rounded body floating and plunging in the bathwater, like some kind of glorious, avenging porpoise.
“‘Glory, glory…’”
“Sara, do it,” Hoytie hissed.
She knocked on the door and heard the splashing and singing go quiet.
“Who is it?”
Sara opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. She looked helplessly at her sisters. Olga smiled weakly.
“Yes? Who’s there?”
She tried again, but again, she had no words. Finally, Hoytie administered a swift, mean kick to her ankle, and Sara, in a cry of pain and slight insanity, yelled “I’m marrying Gerald Murphy” at the bathroom door and then turned and ran, her sisters in tow.
“That was the best fun I’ve had in ages,” Hoytie cried as the three of them streamed back down the hallway to the relative safety of Olga’s bedroom.
“How could you? How could you do this to me?” Adeline Wiborg, dressed in black as if in mourning and lying on her chaise longue, threw Sara an accusatory look.
“Mother,” Sara said. “But you love Gerald.”
“I do not, I do not. Why should I love Gerald Murphy?”
“What did Father say?”
Sara’s father was out, lunching with Patrick Murphy, presumably trying to come up with a plan to control the damage. Gerald himself had stormed out before she’d had a chance to confer with him.
“What do you think he said? He doesn’t want to sell his daughter and break up the family any more than I do.”
“Break up the family?” Sara paced, exasperated. “But we’ve been together so much longer than most families.”
“It doesn’t seem that long to me,” Adeline said, real sadness in her voice.
“And we wouldn’t be far. We’d find a place in the city, of course.”
“Find a place in the city? You’d move out?”
“Oh, dear,” Sara said.
Adeline sat up, brushing aside her tears. “Sara, dearest, be reasonable. He’s a Catholic. What do you know about being a Catholic? About raising Catholic children?”
“I don’t know. It’s never seemed that important.” Sara put her hand to her head and went and stood by the small bay window in her mother’s dressing room.
“Well, this is just it. You haven’t thought any of this through.”
“We love each other and we want to make a life together. That’s all,” Sara said, but she was beginning to feel the weight of her mother’s question pressing on her.
“And what will you live on? A place in the city, indeed. Who’s to pay for this place? Your father?”
“I—”
“No, no. This is all too much. It’s out of the question. It’s untenable, impossible, it’s…I can’t do without you, anyway.”
“Mother—”
“I can’t talk about this anymore; I’m ill. Let me rest.”
Things hadn’t gone much better with her father, who’d accused her of naïveté and indolence and profligacy with money.
“I’ve spoken with Patrick Murphy,” her father began when she’d seated herself in his study. “While we’re both very fond of you and Gerald, this does not seem like a sound plan. Mr. Murphy seemed extremely doubtful in particular on the subject of Gerald being able to provide for you in any meaningful way.”
“Mr. Murphy has never been exactly…”—she searched for the right word—“favorable to Gerald.”
“Well, I think he should know,” her father said hotly. “Gerald is his son, after all.”
That afternoon, Sara received an invitation from one of her cousins, Sara Sherman Mitchell, to take tea at her house.
Sara Sherman had lived with the Wiborgs for a time, after her parents’ death and before marrying her husband, Ledyard. If anyone would know about the difficulties Sara now faced, it was her cousin, who had managed not only to marry a Roman Catholic but to do it with Sara’s parents’ benediction. Also, Sara was sure—and this was what made her heart beat a bit faster in her chest—that the invitation was no coincidence; Gerald must be behind it.
When the Mitchells’ maid opened the door, Sara Sherman was already there, and she practically pushed the poor girl aside to get to her cousin and clasp her hand, her eyes bright beneath her frizz of dark hair. (Why did Sara Sherman’s hair always look like she’d been beekeeping in the hot sun?)
“Come, come. Tea’s all laid out,” she said, dragging Sara behind her.
Once in the upstairs parlor, Sara looked around to see if Gerald was lurking somewhere, but the room was empty.
“So,” Sara Sherman said, patting the cushion next to her. “Gerald Murphy. I’m so glad for you, Sara. Really.”
“Well, don’t be too glad,” Sara said. “It’s not on, as it turns out. At least not according to the parental council. There are so many…complications. I don’t know,” Sara said, “I’m beginning to get slightly afraid.”
“What are you afraid of? Let’s think this through logically.”
“Well, first, there’s the Catholic question. As Mother pointed out today, what do I really know about it? About raising Catholic children?”
“Yes,” Sara Sherman mused. “Well, it is hard—terribly hard at first—to get used to all that. But it works itself out, eventually. Ledyard was quite fierce about it in the beginning, but we’ve found a rhythm, if you will. You just sort of get along with it.”
“I don’t know…” This did not seem very clear to her.
“What else?”
“I’m rather ashamed to admit this, but there’s the age difference.”
“Are you afraid that he won’t find you…” Sara Sherman seemed to be searching for the delicate phrase. “Feminine enough?”
Sara colored, thinking of herself lying back for Gerald, offering herself to him too quickly, so easily, like a bitch in heat. “No,” she said sternly. “Only, what will it be like in ten years, in twenty? And what will people say? ‘Poor Gerald Murphy, caught by the old spinster Sara Wiborg’?”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. I can’t see that age makes any difference at all. And if it’s just other people you’re worried about, let Gerald worry about it for you.”
“I know you’re right—” She was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Sara Sherman rose to answer it and, after conferring with her maid, came back and sat down.
“Now,” she said, “there’s someone here to see you and I must make myself scarce.” She squeezed Sara’s hand. “What was it the Romans said? Fortune favors the bold? Be brave, darling Sara.”
Then there was Gerald’s dear, dear face at the door: the long, aquiline nose and serious brow, currently furrowed; the lovely bowed lips, just a bit too full, that kept his expression from looking too ascetic.
Sara was scarcely aware of her cousin’s exit as she met Gerald across the room and put herself into his embrace.
“What a day,” she finally said, pulling away from him.
“An autopsy and coroner’s inquest in one,” he said darkly.
They sat close together on the sofa.
“What did your mother say?” Sara was thinking of her own mother.
“She seems to think we’re playing a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Never mind her. It’s my father that’s the real problem. I was told in no uncertain terms what a disappointment I have been and continue to be and that he blames himself for my lack of any fundamental grasp of my duties in this world.”
“Oh, I got that too—a little less harshly, perhaps—from both of my parents.”
“The trouble is, how is one able to live up to one’s duties if one isn’t given any?”
She traced a fine line in his brow, trying to smooth it away. “Do you think…” She wanted to say this carefully. “I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps…perhaps I may not be the best wife for you.”
He looked at her sharply. “Do you want to get out of it?”
“No. No, I don’t. But…well, do you?”
“My God, I do not.” He held her gaze.
“We’ve never talked about religion.” She toyed with her tea doily. “Yours, I mean.”
He let out a sigh. “Is that all? I was afraid you might be beginning to agree with my father.”
“I don’t care one bit what your father thinks about you,” she said fiercely.
“And I don’t care one bit about the Catholic Church. The only thing it has given me is cold, distant parents and floggings in the woodshed by nuns too dense to know when a young boy misses home, such as that home may be. You will never have to set foot in one if I have anything to do with it.”
Sara laughed.
“Well, I’m glad you find it funny. You wouldn’t have found Sister Martha and her nasty switch all that amusing, I can tell you that.” But he smiled at her.
“No, it’s just…” She felt relief, not just because of his words, but also because they were them again, together against the world.
“Sara,” he said, his face serious, “this is important: the only life I want is the one we invent for ourselves. I don’t want what my parents have or what your parents have. I want something entirely of our own creation. I’ve felt inauthentic for most of my life and I want to be finished with that.”
She took his hand: “You will never, ever have to be other than you are with me.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
“My God, Sara, we’re really going to do it.” He laughed, a bit crazily. “I feel slightly hysterical.”
“Well, don’t get too hysterical. We have to come up with a new plan now. I’m afraid you’re going to have to become a serious businessman, at least for a little while, if we’re going to convince them.”
“I can be anything you want. Anything.”
In the days and weeks that followed, their parents showed little sign of relenting. Gerald was working hard at Mark Cross to prove to Patrick Murphy that he was deserving of promotion, or at least favor, but to Sara, he seemed to grow more and more depressed, suffering bouts of what he called the Black Service. She wasn’t happy either about keeping their secret when what she wanted to scream was I am loved; I am lovable. But she had decided: she was not going to be at the mercy of fate one minute longer.
So, in between private lunches at La Goulue and tea at Sara Sherman’s and evenings out under the veneer of family chaperones, they wrote to each other.
Dearest Jerry,
I visited the studio of H. Mann (horrible man) yesterday and caught my heel on his unfinished floor and have been thinking ever since how much I love boards with knots in them, unfinished, imperfect. In our house, I don’t want everything polished and trussed up. When I think of all the chintz in the world…
Dear Sal,
You and I prefer the imperfect, the lady without her corset, to the grande dame roped and hemmed and hoisted. Shabby genteel, as I like to think of our style. I don’t want a house that reeks of Vogue’s latest hints to the housekeeper. You, Salamander mine, shall never again live in a tableau vivant.
Smart chintzed apartments. Bah. None of these for us. I was just at Billy Forsythe’s place this afternoon, which is indeed just a bit too “smart apt”—shall this become a popular phrase?—and when I was finally at liberty to flee said abode, I came across a wonderful antiques shop. I went a bit nuts and, in a fit of optimism, bought the first things that will (they shall!) adorn our home: two milky-white glass vases for your room, a terrifying stuffed pheasant, a silver box for your dressing table, a set of six pewter goblets, an octagonal ashtray, which you’ll love, one gold-flecked lamp, a set of glass bottles the color of sea, and a miniature tureen decorated with the bust of a family dog.
I’ve had them sent to the familial manse, although I have no idea where I’ll hide them from prying eyes. It doesn’t matter, it gave me such comfort because I felt your presence so clearly while I was choosing them, it was as if you were next to me…
Dearest Jerry,
I am coveting a set of Sheraton benches. But where to keep them? I really can’t alarm Mother any further. Also—a lovely, sturdy bassinet, made of some kind of reeds that could have come from the Nile.
Does that alarm you?
Dearest Sal,
I love the bassinet already. And what will go in it. My God, can’t you see them? Curious, creative, humorous, lithe, and clean…
Dearest Jerry,
Most of all, loved and kept safe. Their life—our life—will be loaded and fragrant, filled only with everything that is beautiful and different and wonderful…
My darling Sal,
I think it’s the details in life that are important, all the small things that create the larger picture. When I think back on my own childhood, it’s my father’s study I see: the bust of Emerson, the small, mean black notebooks full of his limericks, that smooth cruel desk. All of it adding up to a controlled distance we were kept at. All that contained sadness.
I’ve never said this to anyone before…
Dearest Jerry,
It’s so strange to think of our lives before we knew that we loved each other. For me, it’s almost unrecognizable, and there are times when I wonder that it took us so long. But I can’t be sorry about anything, because it brought us to this point.
I feel only with you have I become an actual living, breathing woman. Dearest Jerry, I want to be the best wife to you, to make a home and a place in the world for you where there are only round edges…
Dear Sara,
I fear I am getting nowhere with the paternal figure. I want to believe in these things, but truly I am losing faith. I feel that all the secrecy, the playing of games, playing the bachelor in New York among men who not only don’t understand me but seem to regard me with suspicion, is breaking me down. I’m not certain of anything anymore. I wish I were stronger for you, for us…
Dearest Jerry,
None of this is easy; not for you or me. It feels unjust, but it will come right. I promise you…
Dear Sara,
I know I sound petulant and pouty, which only makes me feel worse, because it’s small and I hate anything that’s small. But at times you leave me a little frightened—frightened by your goodness, your discretion, your self-containment, while I go all to pieces. At times your perfection leaves me wondering what I can offer you in return…
Dear Gerald,
Don’t talk nonsense.
The problem was, of course, that she knew exactly what he meant. As time dragged on with no resolution in sight, it became harder to sustain the fantasy, and despite herself, Sara began to feel like she was back in that Whistler painting, a sense of inertia slowly overtaking her.
Then, one morning, she found she couldn’t, or just didn’t, get out of bed. She lay between sleep and waking, without even the energy to write Gerald, who, needing to escape the city and their predicament, had gone off on a retreat with some former members of his Yale secret society.
She missed breakfast, and when lunch was threatening to pass by as well, her mother knocked at her door. Sara expected a reprimand, but her mother’s voice was gentle.
“Sara, dearest,” she said. “May I come in?”
Sara turned on her pillow and regarded her mother. “Of course.”
“Are you unwell?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She felt sleepy, that was really all. Her limbs were heavy, sinking into the mattress.
Her mother at first sat on the edge of her bed, then lifted her whole self in and wrapped her arms around her eldest daughter. She stroked her hair.
They lay like that for a while, listening to the traffic outside the window, watching the afternoon sun move against the wall. Sara was reminded of the time, so many years ago now, that her puppy had been run over by a sleigh, the tiny little body crushed and bloody under the cruel metal runner, all the warmth gone out of her pelt. Sara had carried the dog all the way back to the house and collapsed at her mother’s feet. Adeline had lain in bed with her for days, just as she was doing now, cradling her daughter until Sara’s grief had lightened.
She wanted to tell her mother that it might not work this time, but Adeline spoke first.
“Is it really so untenable here with us?”
Sara squeezed her mother’s soft hand. “Unbearable, you mean? No. Of course not.”
When Sara didn’t say anything else, her mother started again. “You are our dearest child, and we want you to be happy. That’s all.”
“I know that, Mother.” She felt safe there in Adeline’s arms. “It’s just I want my own life. And…”
“And children,” Adeline finished for her.
“You do know how old I am.” She turned and looked at her mother. Then, feeling that hard little shame that had been lodged in her for years as she’d been passed by, she said quietly: “This might be my last chance for happiness.”
Adeline looked away, as if she couldn’t bear to see that pain. She sighed and then nodded. “I forget, I suppose, sometimes. You girls have been my greatest happiness, my favorite accomplishment.”
“I know.”
“Yes,” she said after a while, “you’re right, after all. You are a woman. You must have a household to manage.” She kissed Sara’s head. “I’ll speak to your father if you promise to rise for tea.”
“I love you, Mother.”
“Yes, yes.” Then: “My darling girl.”
Sara lay there for a while longer, then rose and began to dress herself. She picked through the post lying on the silver tray in the hall and found a letter from Gerald.
My dearest Sal,
I am writing this from Deer Island, with an enormous mounted bear head hanging over me. You know that I was rather dreading this retreat; I do hate the awful feeling of being “inspected” when I’m with a group of men, the feeling of being incomprehensible to them, such as I am. But it has turned out to be a relief, for I can finally speak to men I admire about the woman of my life without the hush and secrecy that has been following us.
I just wanted to write and tell you: you have kept alive the man in me. Everything else I have done and appeared to be has not been real. I will return to you with the full confidence that what lies ahead of us will be new and good and will erase the smudged years that have gone before.
All my love,
G.
When she finished reading it, she went to her writing desk and took a pen and a piece of stationery. She sat for a moment and then put her pen to paper.
My dearest Jerry,
Do hurry home. I believe the storm has broken. I love you.
Sal