The Things We Keep(76)

“I … I’m so sorry.”

Clara pffts. “Sorry isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. What matters is action. Righting the wrongs. You know what I mean?”

I frown. “I’m not sure I do.”

“A long time ago, Eve, I did something terrible to my sister. Betrayed her in the worst way. Now I have to make amends.”

“Make amends … how?”

“I’m going to give her Laurie back.”

I stare at her. “What?”

Clara looks out the window. “Laurie grew up in the house right opposite ours. By the time he was sixteen, any fool could see he was sweet on Enid. I used to watch them through the window, Laurie chopping wood for Mama while Enid sat on a tree stump beside him. But Enid was a lady. She didn’t giggle or flatter Laurie. To anyone else, it would have looked like she wasn’t interested in him. Not to me. Sisters know these things.” Clara shakes her head. “Then, one day, Enid was given the opportunity to go away with our church, to be a missionary. She was a giver, Enid—that kind of thing was right up her alley. It all happened quite fast, someone had dropped out or something, and she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to anyone. And when Laurie came around the next day to chop wood, well … I told him she’d gone away.”

I blink. “But that’s hardly a betrayal—”

“In our day, if a young woman went away suddenly, it meant she was in the family way.” Clara smiles ruefully. “Let’s just say I did nothing to dissuade Laurie from that belief.”

“Oh.”

“While she was gone, I sat with Laurie while he chopped firewood. And, unlike Enid, I smiled. I giggled. I couldn’t help it. I told myself I was better for him than her. By the time Enid came back, Laurie and I were engaged. As soon as he saw her, I knew the feelings were still there. I still see it, whenever she’s around.”

Sisters can be treacherous. It all makes sense now.

“So … what are you going to do?” I ask.

Clara looks away from the window and straight in my eye. “I’m going to make things right. While I still can.”

“But … how can you possibly do that?”

Clara clasps her hands together in her lap and gives a light shrug, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m fairly sure dying should do the trick.”

*

I leave Clara’s room without so much as vacuuming and pause at the entrance to the parlor. Clem is in there now, talking to Bert. The two of them seem to have developed quite the friendship. May has fallen asleep in her chair and Gwen is knitting. But my eyes lock on Laurie. Clara’s sister has disappeared and he’s sitting alone. I lower myself into the chair beside him. “I just saw Clara.”

He looks up, scans my face. “She told you?”

“Yes.”

“I still can’t believe it,” he says, looking back at his lap. “My Clara. I always thought she’d outlive me by twenty years.”

“I’m sorry, Laurie.”

He dismisses my apology with a wave of his hand. “We’ve been lucky, Eve. We’ve had a long marriage. Four sons. A long life.”

“A happy life?”

He glances up, surprised. “A very happy life.”

“Tell me,” I say, sliding forward in my chair until my knees nearly touch his. “Tell me why you chose Clara. What was it about her that made you decide she was the one?”

A smile inches onto his face. “Clara made me feel like the only man in the world. She still makes me feel like that. No one else has ever come close to making me feel as good as Clara. No one is stupid or blind enough, probably.”

“No one?”

Laurie is still for a moment. He sweeps a gray strand off his temple. “Well, there was one other person, if I’m being honest. A long time ago. She was very different from Clara.”

I think I might be treading on thin ice, but I have to ask. “Any regrets?”

He frowns at me, less annoyed, more curious. And I find myself holding my breath. “When you get to my age,” he says, his face softening, “you don’t waste time with regrets. In the end, you just remember the moments of joy. When all is said and done, those are the things we keep.”

And just like that, I let go the breath I’d been holding.

*

That afternoon, as I’m making up Bert’s room, a memory comes at me. Clem was a tiny baby, and I’d been up half the night with her. I’d woken first thing in the morning with a start—full of the terror reserved for new mothers. The bed beside me was rumpled and empty, and so was Clem’s crib.

I followed the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot” to the downstairs bath, where Richard was stretched out in the water, cradling Clem’s tiny, nearly sleeping, body. He glanced up, smiled, and kept on singing. I still remember his face, saccharine but warning, making clear that stopping the song would be a disastrous option.

So I sat on the edge of the bath and sang, too.

Every time the song came to an end, we’d pause, holding our breath, and every time her little eyelids fluttered, we broke back into song. In the end, I took off my pajamas and got into the bath, too. After about an hour of it, Clem fell asleep.

Another memory comes at me after this one. Then another. The way Richard used to bring home recipe books when I was ill. The time we were on holiday in Vietnam and he tried to get me tampons from three different pharmacies that didn’t understand a word he was saying. The night he waited up to show me the lipstick that Clem had put on him—because he’d promised her he would.