"She hit him back. So that was fine. I wonder when the word went from caretaker to caregiver." He stood at the foot of Betty's chaise. She looked chalky and thin--her wrists protruded from her sweater, tight veined sinews. "How are you?" he said, suddenly serious.
Betty said, "I never hit my caregivers. Or my caretakers."
Annie came out with her mother's pills.
"Do I, Annie?"
"Hardly ever."
"Sit down, Lou," Betty said. "It's very pleasant, just sitting. I had no idea I would like being a patient so much. I highly recommend it. I think I have found the career at which I excel. Of course, I am still a widow. I won't give that up."
"Multitasking," Annie said. She was worried. Betty really did seem to like reclining on her chaise, staring out at the trees and the sky. She was dreamy and faraway, preoccupied.
"There's a goldfinch here," Betty was telling Cousin Lou as if it explained everything. "A goldfinch I see when I'm very quiet and patient."
Roberts came that evening and brought bunches of daffodils for Betty.
"This one is for you," he said, handing a stem to Annie.
He came almost every day now. Poor man, Annie thought. Miranda was hardly ever there, yet he sat so patiently, entertaining Betty with stories of some of his greediest clients and their twisted estates, often staying for dinner.
"Do you miss it? Do you mind being retired?" Betty asked. "Because we can get another chaise and you can come to my sanitorium. It keeps me busy."
"Oh, I keep my hand in. I have a few clients still."
"Like Charlotte Maybank? She seems very excited about her posthumous financial dealing."
Betty expected Roberts to smile as he did when regaling her with the eccentricities of clients and the absurdities of cases over the years. Instead, he set his jaw and said nothing. Betty said, "Sorry. None of my business."
Annie often came home from work to find them sitting in silence, the lengthening day casting a pale light on their faces. How tiny and frail her mother looked in her wispy black outfits beside Roberts, who was tan, almost ruddy, a tall, lean man in a tall, lean suit.
His face would crease into a smile when he saw her. He would rise from the invalid's side and lean over to kiss Annie's cheek. She would compliment his bow tie. And they would have cocktails.
"Miranda didn't pick you up at the station?" he asked on the first of these evenings, when Annie arrived alone.
Poor Roberts, she thought. "No Miranda. Just us chickens tonight, I'm afraid."
"Ah." He took a martini from her. "Did you walk from the station? You know, I could always come and get you, Annie, if Miranda's busy."
Annie smiled. Gallant Roberts. Very old-school. Like me, she thought. "I dropped Miranda off after she picked me up. At Leanne's. But how thoughtful of you."
He nodded. "Miranda's been a blessing to Leanne. Charlotte is a handful. But . . ." He paused here, then said, "Well, Charlotte's been going through so much."
Miranda was not coming home until much later, so Annie didn't ask him to stay for dinner. He joined them anyway.
Lonely, she thought. Not like me. What was the opposite of "lonely"? The word to describe someone who could not stand to be around people? "Togetherly"? "Loneless," she decided. Yet she found that he was one of the few people she did not feel like running away from. No hiding in the attic from Roberts. In fact, he rather reminded her of an attic, the air soft, the light filtered, the contents dusted with recognition or obscurity or gentle surprise.
Felicity decided to treat the girls, by which she meant Gwen, Amber, and Crystal, to lunch at Cafe des Artistes. Amber was such a . . . she smiled . . . she had been about to use the word "treasure," as if Amber were an exceptional maid of long service. There was something a little servile about the girl, in an ambitious way that Felicity recognized. Crystal was a silly nonentity, but Amber . . . even with her aging teenager slang . . . there was something about her. She was so attentive, and yet one felt the steel behind her acquiescence. She reminded Felicity of . . . Felicity. Which intrigued her. And then, all those free massages. Felicity was the envy of her friends.