Elizabeth's Daughter (13 page)

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?” Peter asked.

  “Afraid so.” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose.

  “Then I guess I’d better get out of here.”

  “You don’t have to leave! I think I’ll laze around for a few more minutes, then Amy and I’ll sneak off to bed. I bet you and Gail have a lot to talk about. Don’t let me poop the party.”

  Peter opened the cover of the book Gail had handed him and scrawled a paragraph or two.

  “Writing another book?” Elizabeth teased.

  Peter closed the cover and handed the book back to Gail. “I got inspired. I almost can’t believe I just met you tonight, Gail, I feel like I’ve known you for... ages.”

  “She’s like that!” Elizabeth thought of the strong sense of
déjà vu
she experienced when she first met Gail.

  “And
you’ve
stolen my heart,” Peter said to Amy. He stood and they all meandered to the front door. Peter took his leave with nothing more than a poof of chill night air.

  Elizabeth and Gail wandered wordlessly back to the fireplace, even though Elizabeth knew she should go up to bed.

  “So
–
is he everything you fantasized?” Elizabeth asked.

  “He’s quite a bit more, isn’t he? You didn’t tell me he was so attractive. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Do you think he is?”

  Gail’s face registered surprise. “My goodness. How can you ask?”

  “I remember when I first saw him I found him both homely and attractive
–
if that makes sense. As I got to know him better I found... find him more and more attractive, but....”

  “I hardly know what he looks like, physically,” Gail interjected, “but spiritually, emotionally and psychically, he’s highly attractive
–
as in
magnetic
. You just want to be close to him and talk with him.”

  “
You
just,” Elizabeth clarified.

  “Yes, me, I mean me. Don’t you too?”

  “Well, yes. But I met him at a difficult time and all those things happened... switching houses and selling him the car. Nothing has been usual around him. I haven’t been able to separate the person from the events.”

  “People bring events to themselves,” Gail said.

  “You believe that?!” Elizabeth asked, incredulous. “What a frightening thought. It’s enough for me to try and make sense of the events I’m consciously trying to deal with, without being responsible for what I might unwittingly produce out in the ether.

  “Anyway,” she continued, changing the subject, “I think the two of you make a great couple.”

  “Peter and me?” Gail burst out. “Oh, no, it’s not Peter and me. I think he’s wonderful, but it’s a brother-sister feeling. No, dear heart. The couple is Peter and you.”

  “Oh, Gail, please. I’m not Peter’s sort. He’s too... everything. Wise, intelligent, worldly, clever. Well read. I mean, I act like a pal around him, but the truth of the matter is that I’m awestruck by him. Intimidated even.”

  Gail said nothing more, and they lazily watched the fire.

  “But it was a wonderful evening,” Elizabeth said.

  “A wonderful evening,” Gail agreed.

  Elizabeth stood, cuddling Amy. “Nighty-nite, Gail.”

  “Nite-nite, my two pets.”

Chapter XV

The next Friday, Elizabeth and Gail and Amy came in through Peter’s back door like family.

  “Smells good!” Gail announced.

  “I’ve made a vegetable baked-feast,” Peter said.

  “What’s that?” Elizabeth turned Amy around so Peter could give the baby a little kiss. “A huge breakfast, only later in the day?”

  “No, I baked everything, whole and in its natural state. Potatoes, carrots, big red onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, brocolli.”

  He turned on the oven light and they all peeked in at the phalanx of beautiful, whole vegetables.

  “It looks like you know what you’re doing,” Gail said, “everything will be ready at the same time.”

  “Hah!” Amy said.

  They all laughed. “You’re not about to be left out, are you, baby,” Elizabeth said, cuddling her. “So, Peter, show us what you’ve done to the homestead.”

  “I haven’t done anything down here except in the front room.”

  They all trouped through the dining room, then the foyer. They came to the front room that had been Grandfather’s study. Peter had turned it into his library and books were shelved from floor to ceiling.

  “Wow! I didn’t realize you had such a library,” Elizabeth said in awe.

  “Most of the books were in storage. I’ve been planning my library in my mind’s eye since long before I saw this house.” He gestured through the other door of the library and they could see the length of that side of the house. “As you can see, I haven’t done anything to those rooms. Aside from setting up the library, I’ve been concentrating on the upstairs.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to be in her life-long home the first time since she’d moved out, until this moment, crossing the threshold into Grandfather’s study. Even though it looked entirely different, she had a nearly palpable sense of Grandfather’s presence.

  Elizabeth shifted Amy from one hip to the other. “Do you have the heat shut off in here? It’s kind of cold.”

  Gail had been standing quietly in the doorway of the room. She came and took Amy from Elizabeth. Elizabeth pulled her cardigan tight around her, leaning close to Gail.

  “Ah, well,” Peter hesitated, “I had the room closed off most of today.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said. She looked around the room, hoping for any little nook of warmth. But there was none. She studied Peter, who was eying his books as if they seemed strange to him. “You don’t like this room very much, do you?”

  “Quite frankly, no. And it’s disappointing, I had hoped to spend most of my time writing in here. But, I have to tell you, the room is always sort of cold....”

  “That’s really strange because this room always used to get too hot,” Elizabeth said. “If we turned up the heat so that the rest of the house was comfortable, this room would be so hot, you couldn’t stand to stay in it.”

  “I’ll have Ralph give the duct-work a going over.” Peter led them out of the library back into the foyer. “By the way, he said he’s available next Wednesday, ready to work, if you want him.”

  “I want him,” Elizabeth said cheerfully, relieved to leave the library.

  “He’s fantastic,” Peter went on as they climbed the front stairs. “He takes care of things I wouldn’t even think to tell him to take care of. And he does superior work.”

  “I’m glad you decided to keep him on,” Elizabeth said. “He belongs here.”

  Peter nodded. “Yes, he does, more than I do.”

  As they toured the upstairs, it turned out that Peter had taken over Elizabeth’s bedroom for his own. Elizabeth observed that her Samarkand carpet looked even more stunning with Peter’s masculine furniture than it would have with hers.

  “Look at the workmanship,” Peter raved. He pulled up a corner of the carpet to show Gail the reverse side. “Flawless!”

  “Hon, that’s beautiful,” Gail said to Elizabeth. “I wonder if I’ll ever be lucky enough to see such magnificence on the floor where I live?”

  Elizabeth felt shy. “Oh, come on you guys, it’s not that remarkable.”

  “Yes,” Gail said in her not-to-be-contradicted voice. “It is.”

  “Well, I did start that one for the baby’s room... before there was a baby. I guess I should get back to it. It doesn’t set a very good example to start and not finish a project, does it, Amy?” Elizabeth shyly hoped to redirect the focus of attention away from her and onto Amy.

  Amy looked at Elizabeth from the billowy cradle of Gail’s arms, seeming to understand that her opinion had been solicited. “Arr–Bet!” She squiggled and clapped, and smiled her bitsy, self-satisfied smile.

  Elizabeth looked over at Peter, staring at Amy in awe. “She has so much personality.”

  Elizabeth and Gail both laughed. “That’s because she has such personable role models,” Gail said, imitating Amy’s little self-satisfied smile with amusing accuracy.

  They moved out of Peter’s bedroom and down the hall to what had previously been Elizabeth’s rug making room. It was plain to see that this was where Peter did his work. He’ had desk built along three walls, with cork board above. Colored notes by the hundreds were stabbed into the cork board with push pins, and piles of paper were stacked everywhere.

  “I guess this is my favorite room in the house,” Peter confessed. “Out this window, on a clear day, I can see the mountains. And there are all kinds of birds living in these trees. With three walls of desk, I work on three books at a time. This is the most productive period of my life.”

  “Wonderful!” Gail exulted. “That’s all I want to hear! If you wrote a book a day, that’d be about right for me!”

  “Well,” Peter chuckled, “the probability of developing that skill seems fairly remote. But I bet I know what we can accomplish in one evening.”

  “What?” Gail and Elizabeth chorused.

  “Demolish an oven-full of food.”

  “I’ll bet you’re right,” Gail agreed as they hustled down the back stairs into the kitchen.

  They had dinner in the dining room, all the aromas of the baked foods and Gail’s spicy salad and sweet cherry cobbler filling the air right up to the antique chandelier. The warm light glowed off the red mahogany wainscoting, reflecting a rubescence on their faces, and not a niche of darkness was allowed among the happy banter.

  “Isn’t Peter a good cook?” Gail asked Amy, as Amy downed more mashed carrots.

  Amy looked right at Peter and cried,”Beetie!”

  “Wow! You’re
in
‘Beetie’!” Gail laughed.

  Peter glowed. “I’ve been knighted!”

  Gail and Peter and Amy laughed, while Elizabeth smiled serenely.

  A while later Elizabeth excused herself. She left the dining room in the direction of the kitchen, then crept quietly through the rooms on the other side of the house until she came into Peter’s library.

  What was this hollow feeling?

  Finally she turned away from the walls of books and went into the foyer to continue her circuit back to the dining room. Out of the corner of her eye she
sensed
–
or
did she really
see
?
–
movement on the dark winding stairway.

  She held her breath. An amorphous light shadow hovered on the stairs, then it disappeared. Elizabeth could have perhaps convinced herself it was a stray beam of light through the stained glass windows, if not for the strong scent of liniment. How well she knew that relentless odor that had resided for years on Grandfather’s bedside table.

  Elizabeth waited for several moments, trying to dissuade herself of the sensory impressions she’d just received, but she couldn’t. She returned to the dining room, to the wonderful tangible realities of Amy’s soft, sweet-scented skin, Gail’s pleasant boisterous laughter, and Peter’s quiet study of her.

  She kept the intangible event
–
the presence of her grandfather
–
to herself.

Chapter XVI

Ralph came over to Elizabeth’s with his tool box and tool belt the following Wednesday. He installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. Then he, Elizabeth and Gail sat at the kitchen table and designed a fence for the patio. Ralph sketched Elizabeth’s and Gail’s numerous suggestions and they finally came up with a sturdy redwood lattice fence, three-and-a-half feet high, with a gate to the lake shore. Ralph showed them the baby-safe latch he’d bought for the gate.

  Elizabeth hadn’t thought of having a gate in the fence, and she was touched when she realized that Ralph had been ahead of her in the planning of ‘Project: Baby-Safe’ before he even came over.

  Ralph and Gail got along fabulously. Elizabeth had never seen Ralph smile except shyly and deferentially. And, although his demeanor was still shy and deferential, he laughed at Gail’s jokes. Elizabeth had never heard Ralph laugh, either. But then, Grandfather never joked with the “help.”

  Ralph had begun working for Grandfather when Elizabeth was only nine, and all she’d noticed at that time was that when this man was with Grandfather, Grandfather was too busy for her. She’d learned to stay out of their way.

  Since she’d only seen Ralph with Grandfather most of her life she had it in her mind that they were close to the same age, that Ralph was much older than, in fact, he was. But now she saw that he was a youthful and energetic man, probably only in his late forties, good-looking, lean and silver-haired. For the first time in her life she watched him work. He made an art of it, handling his tools as if they were extensions of his mind and hands. Which, she realized, they were.

  It was apparent that it didn’t hurt Gail’s eyes to watch him, either. Elizabeth came up beside her, stopped in her chores to watch Ralph constructing the fence.

  “Interesting?” Elizabeth whispered.

  Gail nodded. “He’s a good worker, isn’t he?”

  “I mean, as a man,” Elizabeth clarified.

  “Oh, Lizzie!” Gail protested. “Will you stop matching me with every man you see me talk to?”

  “It’s only been Peter and Ralph,” Elizabeth pointed out. “And only because they seem to like you and you seem to like them.”

  “Oh, well, men always like Gail,” Gail said, continuing into the kitchen.

  Elizabeth understood that Gail was probably right... men probably always did like her.

*   *

As Amy’s surgery drew nearer, Elizabeth became more and more nervous. She found it difficult to go to work and almost impossible to sleep.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” Gail finally said. “I thought we agreed that you would
not
upset yourself about this routine surgery.”

  “I’m hopeless, I know!” Elizabeth acquiesced.  “But... if you knew everything I’m thinking, you probably wouldn’t like me very much anymore.”

  “What?”

  Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table and watched Gail knead bread. The kitchen was permeated with the scent of yeast.