her such a thing? Christ, that wasn't the worst thing, not by a long shot.
Outside in the garden, the grass was uncut but very green in the clear winter sun. The Chinese elm wept like a willow. The bulbs were done, but the roses bloomed furiously, the red hallucinatory glow of Mr. Lincoln, the pale blush of Pristine. The ground underneath was pooled with red and white petals. In here, the room was steeped in L'Air du Temps from the bottle I'd shattered. I picked up the top, the frosted birds. Now they looked like something to decorate a headstone.
In a drawer, I found the book of pressed flowers she made from the gleanings of our walks on the McKenzie that summer. How happy she'd been in her Chinese hat, tied under the chin, canvas bag full of discoveries. Here they were, labeled in her round feminine hand, pressed on pages tied together with taupe grosgrain ribbon, Lady's Slipper, Dogwood, Wild Rose, Rhododendron with their threadlike stamens.
What do you want, Astrid? What do you think? No one would ever ask me that again. I stroked her hair, her dark eyebrows, her eyelids, the delicate formation of cheekbone and eye socket and temple and brow, the sharpness of chin like a drop of water upside down. If only I'd gone to her right away. If only I hadn't made her wait. I should never have left her alone with our disgust, Ron's and mine. It was the one thing she couldn't stand, to be left alone.
At ten o'clock, the mail came. At eleven, Mrs. Kromach practiced her electric organ next door, her parrot squawking along. I knew her entire repertoire. 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.' 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' 'Chattanooga Choo Choo.' She liked state songs: 'Gary, Indiana.' 'Iowa Stubborn.' 'California, Here I Come.' 'Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City.' She made the same mistakes every time. 'She's doing it to drive us crazy,' Claire would say. 'She knows how to play those songs.' She'd never have to hear it anymore
At noon, a leaf blower droned in the air. At one, the Orthodox nursery school let out. I heard the high- pitched voices on the street, the cheerful querulousness of the Hasidic neighbor women in their guttural languages. How they frightened you, Claire, those simple women in their long skirts with their infinite broods, arrogant sons and big oafish daughters, strong enough to lift a truck but timid in gaggles with bows in their hair. You always thought they were trying to hex you. You made me paint my hand blue and print it on the white stucco above the doorbell, a spell against the evil eye.
My knee touched hers, recoiled. Her leg was stiff. She was far away now, she was passing through the seven mortal coils, going up to God. I ran my fingers down the pretty, pointed nose, along the smooth forehead, the slight indentation at the temple where no pulse fluttered. She never seemed more complete, more sure of herself. Not trying to please anyone anymore.
She loved me, but she didn't know me now.
From 1:45 to 4:15 the phone rang five times. She missed her hair appointment with Emile. Two hang-ups. Ron's friends were meeting for drinks at Cava. MCI wanted to give the Richardses a break on their phone bill. Each time the phone rang, I somehow expected her to jerk awake and answer it. She could never stand not answering the phone. Even when she knew it wouldn't be for her. It might be a job, though she'd stopped going out on auditions. It might be a friend, though she had no friends. She could get involved in long winding conversations with boiler room operators, Red Carpet Realty, Gold Star Construction.
I couldn't understand how she could be gone. What would happen to the way she had of opening a jar like an orchestra percussionist hitting a triangle, a single precise gesture? The reddish highlights in her hair in the summertime. Her aunt who served at Ypres. I was the one who had them now, like an armload of butterflies. Who else knew she put mirrors on the roof, or that her favorite movies were Dr. Zhivago and Breakfast at Tiffany's, that her favorite color was indigo blue? Her lucky number was two. The foods she could never eat were coconut and marzipan.
I remembered the day she took me to Cal Arts. I was intimidated by the students, they seemed pretentious for people with funny haircuts, and their work was ugly. It cost ten thousand dollars a year to go there. 'Don't think about money,' Claire said. 'This is the place, unless you think you want to go east.' We'd sent in the application in November. I had to forget all that now.
I sat cross-legged next to her on the bed, counted the pills in the jar. For Insomnia. There were still plenty. More than enough, and the last person who would ever think about me was gone. My mother? She just wanted possession. She thought if she could kill Claire, she would get me back, so she could erase me some more. I felt the pull of that dark circle, the neck of the bottle. It was a rabbit hole, I could jump down it and pull it in after me. You never knew when help might come. But I knew. It came and I turned my back, I let it go down. I pushed my savior out of the life raft. I panicked. Now I reaped my despair.
I sat with the jar in my hand, watching that winter sky's blush, weak pink strained through blue haze, coming through the angle-pruned branches and weeping boughs of the elm. Sunset came so early now. She loved this time of day, loved feeling beautifully melancholy and sitting under the elm, looking up into its branches, dark against the sky.
In the end, I didn't take the pills. It seemed too grandiose, a big gesture, fraudulent. I didn't deserve to forget that I had turned my back on her. Oblivion wiped the books clean. It was too easy. I was the keeper of the butterflies now. Instead, I dialed Ron's pager, added the 999 that meant emergency. I sat back down and waited.
RON SAT NEXT TO ME on the bed, his shoulders sagging like an old horse's back and his face pressed into his hands, as if he could not look at one more thing. 'You were supposed to watch her,' he said.
'You were the one who left.'
He gasped, and broke into long, shuddering sobs. I never thought I would feel sorry for Ron, but I did. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he pressed his hand over mine. It occurred to me I could make him feel better. I could stroke his hair, and say, It's not your fault. She had problems we couldn't have helped, no matter what we did. That's what Claire would have done. I could have made him love me. Maybe he would keep me.
He held my hand and stared down at her silk slippers beside the bed. 'I've been afraid of this for years.'
He pressed my hand to his cheek. I could feel his tears spill over the back, seeping between my fingers. Claire would have felt sorry for him if she weren't dead. 'I loved her so much,' he said. 'I wasn't a saint, but I loved her. You don't know.'
He looked up at me with his red-rimmed eyes, waiting for me to deliver my lines. / know you did, Ron. Claire would say it. I could feel Olivia too, pressing me. He could take care of me. A man's world1.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Claire was dead. What did it matter if he loved her or not?
I pulled my hand away and got up, started picking up some of the things I'd thrown on the floor. There was his Cross pen. I tossed it in his lap. 'She had it all the time,' I said. 'You didn't know her at all.'
