A Lily in the Light(58)
“You were always so responsible,” Esme said sadly.
“It would’ve been nice not to be a mom for a little longer.” Madeline sighed. The relief in her voice was palpable now that she wasn’t carrying a baby and a secret.
“How pregnant are you?”
“Six weeks or so. I’m not showing, just starting to feel sick. Everyone thinks it’s stress.”
Madeline, who had an answer for everything from some book she’d read once, who flicked the channel when kissing scenes came on, who hated ironing her father’s shirts or folding his laundry, the same sister who said marriage was for people who didn’t know what to do with themselves. Madeline, who’d watched The Pelican Brief seventeen times because she wanted her own conspiracy one day, was going to be a wife. She was going to be a mom.
“Madeline? Are you really in love?” She couldn’t imagine perfect Madeline full of butterflies or anything less than composed, but Madeline must have felt something with Nathan, some shift in the energy around him that made her accept this new life. Or therapy. Hours of talking about the past had given her a decent shot at a normal future. Please, Esme hoped, make a map for me.
She wouldn’t have Madeline all to herself anymore. She couldn’t call at any time because there would be a husband and a baby, someone to question what was so important at two a.m. Madeline might not care what their parents said or did because she’d have in-laws to drive her nuts, and Esme wouldn’t understand. Madeline would have her own family with whispered secrets and inside jokes. Their shared room so many years before would be obsolete, like a Walkman thrown in a drawer.
But worse, Madeline would disappear into her new life. It was already happening.
“Yes,” Madeline said simply.
Esme wondered if her sister ever wanted to take the private world inside and spill it out, but she never did. Madeline’s private life was much more intriguing because she kept it to herself. “You should have told me,” she said.
Another sigh slipped through the line. Madeline’s voice was only a whisper. “I just wanted a plan first.” It hurt that Madeline took more comfort in planning, but Esme brushed the hurt away. This wasn’t about her.
“You can tell me stuff now because I know. Who else knows?”
“Just Nathan.”
Poor Nathan. He wouldn’t understand. He was nice enough, serious minded with clean half-moon fingernails, tall and quiet and midwestern, patiently waiting for people to step off the subway before stepping on instead of pushing through. He knew things about soil from growing up on a farm and wanted to be a lawyer because he believed the law could protect people. He had a patience about him that Esme didn’t understand, a cornfield quiet, she called it. He wouldn’t understand why her parents acted the way they did when his probably slept with their doors unlocked. His painful stability would point out how deeply screwed up the rest of her family was in comparison.
A fly buzzed past, throwing itself over and over again into the glass. There were dancers outside now, smoking in the streetlight. She wanted to go before they drifted in. She didn’t want to talk about the show tonight. It was too special to talk about. The silence on the other end of the line unnerved her.
“Madeline?”
“The news is on.”
The volume blared, but Esme couldn’t make out the words. She slid forward on her seat, crushing the bag at her feet by mistake. The phone booth filled with the smell of cheese. Esme pressed the phone against her ear.
“Fifty-seven-year-old Gloria Garcia,” Madeline repeated distractedly. “Lived alone. Daughter and husband died in a car accident. Daughter was seven years old. The girl in the basement says she’s the daughter. Searching for family members, other information. Blah, blah, blah. The neighbor says she was a nice lady, had a garden, looked after old people. Sounds like a real saint.”
“What are they showing?”
“Her house.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s white with a gray roof. Chain-link fence, hydrangeas. Nothing special.”
Outside the phone booth, the concierge arranged red roses in a vase, added fresh water, snipped stems. CHRISTOPHE, the name tag on his red jacket said in blocky letters that didn’t match his long, delicate lines. He caught Esme’s eye and smiled. Being seen warmed her. He pulled one long rose from the vase and left it on the table. Red. Something stirred in Esme’s memory, an unsettled feeling from long ago.
“Is there a tree house in the yard? Or a tree?”
“There’s a tree.”
“With red leaves?”
“I don’t know, Es. It’s August, and it just looks like a tree. They’re not exactly zooming in on it. Please don’t tell me you’re thinking about that stupid psychic.”
“Psychics take away hope where it should be and give hope where there’s none.” Wasn’t that what the church-basement grief counselor had said? “Technically,” she’d told him, “God does the same thing. What kind of God lets hundreds of people disappear every year? Explain that,” she’d said before walking out. It had been a stupid idea anyway, meant to help her nightmares, but it had only made them worse the year she’d made SFB. She’d been the most tired she’d ever been in her entire life but hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d tried Xanax instead.