The Paper Palace(99)

“That looks nice,” I say.

“You must be exhausted.”

“I am.”

“I still don’t understand why on earth you wanted to go to Memphis with Peter.”

“He asked me. He never asks.” I wander into the pantry. “I’m glad I went. Do you have any idea where the corkscrew has gone? It’s not here.”

“Last time I looked it was right there on its hook. It may have fallen down. Grab me a head of garlic while you’re in there.”

“Got it. I saw Rosemary,” I say, bringing it to her. “I went to her house.”

“Rosemary,” she says. “I’d practically forgotten she existed.”

“It was Peter’s idea.”

“She was such a strange little girl. The way she clung to her father. Those hollow eyes. I remember there was something about her that drove Anna running out of the house every time Rosemary came to visit.”

“She hated the way Rosemary smelled.”

“That’s right,” Mum says. “Anna said she smelled of formaldehyde. Sickly sweet.” She crushes five fat cloves of garlic with the wide flat of her knife and throws them into a cast-iron pan. Finely minced carrots, celery, and onions are already caramelizing in olive oil and browned butter. She opens a package of ground meat wrapped in butcher paper—veal and pork—and adds it into the pan bit by bit, then milk, to make the meat tender. An open bottle of warm white wine sits on the counter for deglazing.

“Hand me that, would you?” She points to a slotted spoon. “What’s she like now?”

“Still an oddity. Direct. She’s a musicologist. Lives in a ranch house. Short feathered hair. Slacks. That sort of thing.”

“Married?”

I nod.

“And her mother?”

“Died a few years ago.”

“Poor woman. What a sad life.”

I watch my mother stir the sauce slowly, round and round. I hesitate. “Leo went back to her. Did you know that? They got remarried.”

“I did not know that. I assumed he was dead or in prison.”

“There was a wedding picture on the mantel. A photo of them on a cruise. Just an ordinary-looking older couple.”

She picks up a cucumber and starts peeling it. “Let’s not talk about Leo. As far as I’m concerned, he died a long time ago. He was a bad man. I don’t like to think about him, and you shouldn’t, either.”

She takes the bottle of white wine from the counter, pours some into a glass.

“Isn’t that cooking wine?”

“It’s wine,” she says, drinking it down.

“I need to talk to you about Leo, Mum.”

“Eleanor, people will be arriving soon and I’m trying to cook. So, whatever it is will have to wait.”

Jonas and I haven’t spoken since I called him from Memphis yesterday, from the dizzying sidewalk outside Rosemary’s house. When I see his mother and Gina appear at the door, my stomach does an odd drop—something familiar and yet forgotten. It takes me a moment to realize what it is: I am nervous, excited, anticipating his arrival. It is the strangest sensation, like a sense memory from my past—something I haven’t allowed myself to feel in so many years; and yet there it is.

But Jonas isn’t with them.

“He insisted on taking a shower even though he’d just had a swim. Complete waste of water,” his mother says, coming in through the screen door.

“He’s right behind us.” Gina hands my mother a bottle of wine. “I brought white.”

“We’re drinking red,” my mother says, taking it to the kitchen.

“Ignore her.” Peter comes over and gives Gina a hug. “She’s been an utter cow all afternoon.”

“Be fair,” I say, though I completely agree with him. “This is always a difficult day for her.”

“You’re right,” Peter says. “I take it back.”

“I’m sorry I never got to know Anna,” Gina says. “She seemed like a cool person.”

“She was,” I say. “The coolest.”

My mother comes out holding a platter of cheese and crackers.

Jonas’s mother waves it away. “I’ve cut out gluten and dairy. My arthritis.”

“You should have told me,” Mum says, annoyed. “I’m serving pasta. But we have olives.”

“How was Memphis?” Gina asks.

Peter sighs. “Muggy. Tired.”

“I’ve never been,” Gina says.

“Elle liked it.”

“I did. It’s a city full of ghosts,” I say.

“Do you want wine or a ‘drink’ drink?” Peter asks Gina.

Over Gina’s shoulder, through the screen, I see Jonas walking down the sandy path. His hair is wet and messy. He’s barefoot, in torn Levi’s and a blue chambray shirt. His cheeks are flushed. He looks like he did when we were young. Lighter on his feet, clear. When he sees me, he smiles: not his usual “happy to see his old friend” smile that I have grown so accustomed to, but something more, intimate and open, as if to say: finally, after all these years, we can look at each other without the scrim of shame between us.

Peter gets up from the dinner table, stretches. “That was delicious, Wallace. What’s for pudding?” He lights a cigarette and wanders inside to the shelf where Mum keeps a stack of old LPs next to what may be the world’s only living Victrola.