The Bookseller(64)
The day we broke ground, we were all there: Lars and I, the babies, my parents, the job foreman, and the construction crew. Everyone clapped when the diesel engine on the backhoe roared to life, when the first shovelful of earth was removed to dig our basement.
I remember that the neighbors strolled by, the Nelsons. George and—well, of course, her name is Yvonne; how could I forget that? George and Yvonne came by, introduced themselves, pointed out their house at the end of the block. “Such beautiful babies,” Yvonne said longingly, admiring the triplets. Yvonne was young, in her early twenties, I guessed, and pretty, with brown, curly hair, long eyelashes, and indigo Elizabeth Taylor eyes.
“When it comes to family, Kitty—I mean, Katharyn—hit the jackpot,” Mother said, snuggling Missy against her bosom. I smiled; my dear mother was trying her best with the Katharyn business, but I was pretty sure that I would always be Kitty to her. “My go-getting daughter went from career gal to mother of three in just over two years.”
I winced. I knew she meant well, but at the time I was unsure where that “career gal” business was headed. I was working at the shop full-time, with my mother and various hired babysitters taking over the triplets’ care during my working hours. We had tried a few full-time nannies, but none worked out; they generally left after a few days, proclaiming the job too difficult. Each time that happened, my mother swooped in until I could find someone else. But this revolving-door arrangement was taking its toll—on me, on my mother, on the babies, and, though he never said so, certainly on Lars.
Not to mention that Frieda was getting fed up with my wishy-washy stance on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And I couldn’t blame her, really. “You just need to decide,” she’d said more than once—hands on hips, lips pressed together in exasperation—when I was yet again being summoned home from the shop early by one family crisis or another. “You just need to figure it out, Kitty. What do you want? Because here’s a news flash—you can’t have it all, sister.”
Yvonne broke me out of these weighty thoughts. “We’re still hoping to be blessed with a bundle of joy . . . someday,” she said longingly, reaching out a tentative finger to stroke Mitch’s little blond head.
I nodded and asked her if she wanted to hold Mitch. She did . . . gratefully, as if she’d been given an unexpected gift. Mitch rewarded her with a sweet smile, a giggle, and the tug of a fistful of her dark hair into his mouth.
Later, back in our apartment, I remember praying—a little appeal to whoever might be listening—that Yvonne might have a child soon. It was several years before my prayer was answered and Kenny came along for them, but he did finally come along.
Oh, it’s all falling into place for me. I remember so much that I didn’t understand before.
But how is it possible that I can remember events from a life that never even happened?
Linnea’s voice brings me back to the present. “Goodness, you were off in dreamland,” she said. “I’ve been busy as a bunny here, and you’ve been a million miles away in your thoughts, madam.”
Busy as a bunny? I look at her quizzically, then remember how she mixes up American expressions. She must have meant a bee.
Linnea smiles playfully at me in the mirror and ties a plastic kerchief over my head. “Under the dryer you go, and then I’ll have you finished and out of here in a snip.”
“Linnea.” I reach over my shoulder and take hold of her warm, firm hand. She is startled into silence.
“I just wanted to say . . . I just . . . I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Sorry for what, Kitty?”
“Sorry about your brother,” I go on hastily. I need to say this, no matter how absurd it might sound to her. “I feel . . . I don’t know, Linnea, I don’t know why, but I feel a connection with him, with you . . . and I’m just . . .” I look down, then back in the mirror, meeting her eyes. “I’m just sorry . . . I never met him. He sounds like a wonderful man. I think . . . I think we would have liked each other.”
Linnea nods slowly. “Lars should have had someone like you in his life,” she says. “I wish that he had. It would have made all the difference.”
She shrugs sadly and withdraws her hand from mine.
Chapter 23
Once again, I don’t remember going to sleep, but when I come to wakefulness, I am in Lars’s office in the house on Springfield Street, standing next to his desk. A pair of scissors is in my hand. For a moment I stare at them, wondering what I was planning to do with them.
I look around, confused, and then it comes to me. Of course. I look at the desk and see Mitch and Missy’s school photographs lying there. I sort through them and find the sheets that contain three-by-five-inch photographs, the right size for the frame on Lars’s desk, the one meant to hold three photographs.
In the school pictures, Mitch and Missy are a matched set. Mitch wears a mustard-colored button-down shirt under a brown vest. His hair is combed carefully to one side, the curls cropped close. Someone, probably Linnea, must have cut his hair not long before the photograph was taken. Missy is wearing a brown dress with a white collar and a wide bow that matches the dark yellow of Mitch’s shirt. Her hair is in pigtails, tied with brown ribbons. Both children are smiling merrily, their eyes no more than slits in their round faces.