Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Winter 1963
It was one of the coldest winters on record, and the snow fell in sheets. It thrilled Eby to no end. She’d seen very few snowfalls in her life. It was so cold the canals froze solid, and she and George would skate on their shoes for hours, finding cubbyhole restaurants along the way to fortify themselves with alcohol and stew. The girl from the bridge in Paris, whose name they discovered was Lisette, followed them most days, but she tired of the cold. It didn’t amaze her as much as it did Eby. George had written to Lisette’s family in Paris the moment they realized Lisette had followed them to Amsterdam. Lisette wouldn’t tell them how old she was, but she couldn’t be more than sixteen. Her family was bound to be worried. Lisette’s father wrote back to George in French, which the man at the desk in the hotel translated for them. Her father said Lisette was moody and stubborn and would not come home until she was ready. Maybe, her father said, this would make her grow up.
Eby was secretly glad for Lisette’s presence. Eby liked to think she understood the girl better than anyone. She understood her frustration. She understood that the hardest times in life to go through were when you were transitioning from one version of yourself to another. And Lisette was doing just that. Eby had managed to glean that Lisette’s parents had sent her to a school for the deaf when she was young, but Lisette had run away from it. Her world was not quiet, and she could not live among those for whom it was. She’d never learned sign language, so her only source of communication was through notes. Her pockets were full of crumpled pieces of paper. Every night she would stand on the balcony of her room and light a match to each note, letting it fall in the snow to the frozen street below. She started losing weight, only eating what she herself was allowed to cook. And never, ever, would she eat an evening meal. It was, Eby discovered, because Lisette had broken her dead lover’s heart over dinner, and now the thought of it literally made her nauseated.
There were hints, though, that Lisette was improving. It became routine for Lisette to walk along the sidewalk as Eby and George skated on the canals. She watched them closely, clapping her chapped hands loudly to warn them if Eby and George were getting too close to careless children on sleds.
That particular day, as Eby and George skated, they broke out into an impromptu dance. George let Eby step away from him, holding her hand as she executed a twirl that went so well and felt so good that she immediately twirled again. She kept twirling, so fast that George lost hold of her and she spun like a whirling dervish down the canal, George racing after her. He finally caught her by the waist and ending up twirling along with her, caught in her tornado. They finally lost momentum and George fell onto his backside, taking Eby with him, her legs straight in the air. Eby rolled over and looked at George. The moment their eyes met, they started laughing. It took them a few tries to get up. Several strangers got involved, Amsterdam natives in beige shoes and beige pants, with brightly colored scarves around their necks. Finally, they made it up, like support walls being hoisted in a barn raising, and everyone cheered. Eby turned to see Lisette doubled over, laughing so hard her body was heaving. No sound came out, but there was such joy and such release. By the time Eby and George made it off the canal and walked over to her, Lisette was on her knees, tears frozen to her skin. When she finally looked up at Eby, she was exhausted but purged. She looked like she felt something other than guilt for the first time in months.
That was the moment Eby knew that Lisette was going to be all right. Lisette had been following them because she was looking to Eby as an example of what true happiness was. She was trying to learn from her all that she’d never been taught. It was a remarkable realization to Eby, that we are what we’re taught. That was why Morris women were what they were. It was because they knew no different. Eby had forged new ground, and it made her feel powerful and useful. It fed her lifelong need to make things right. There was a certain hubris to it, though. And she would soon learn her lesson. Lisette was changing because she wanted to. When it came to Eby’s family, no amount of love and no amount of money would change people who didn’t want to change.
They made their way back to their hotel, cinnamon cheeked and watery eyed. Later, Eby and George were going back out for dinner. Getting lost in Amsterdam during a snowstorm was exciting because of its danger. Buildings began to all look the same, snowbanks hiding storefronts and sometimes entire streets. She and George had once had to find refuge in a strange family’s home overnight. The family didn’t speak English, and she and George didn’t speak Dutch. They’d played games with the children and slept on the kitchen floor. It had been wonderful. But Lisette had been beside herself when they’d finally showed up at the hotel the next morning.
That afternoon, Lisette went up the stairs to her room while Eby and George stopped at the front desk for their mail. They’d spent enough time in Amsterdam that their Paris letters were catching up with them, and it was always Eby’s least favorite time of the day. Eby took the letters to the small round sofa in the lobby, while George, as he did every night, asked for food to be delivered to Lisette’s room, even though she never ate it. When she got hungry enough, Lisette would sneak into the manager’s kitchen early in the morning and stealthily make something, leaving sugar-crusted palmiers and cracked bread for the employees to find later, convinced the feast was made by elves.
A letter from Eby’s sister, Marilee, was on the top of the stack.
Resignedly, Eby opened it.
Eby,
Surely you’ve heard by now. Mama said she wrote. Everyone has written. It’s been two weeks since Talbert died. Where are you? Why are you being so selfish? Mama has tried to call, but that stupid hotel where you’re staying acts like they have no idea who you are. Now you’re forcing me to write to you, when I can barely even hold a pen. What do you want me to do, beg? I need you, Eby. My husband is dead and I don’t know what to do. Quinn won’t stop crying. She doesn’t understand why her aunt Eby isn’t here when everything is falling apart. You need to be here. Talbert died in your house. This is your fault. Come home and make it right.
Marliee
Eby let the letter drop to her lap, suddenly numb to the bone. Talbert, dead? It couldn’t be. He’d been so young and full of life. Eby remembered him at her and George’s wedding, the way he’d made her sister smile, the way he’d taken her to the dance floor and held her close, making Marilee forget her jealousy. He’d known how to navigate her vain and troubled moods. Marilee had always been high-strung. Talbert had been good for her. His love for her had been a balm on the wound of their mother’s disappointment that she didn’t marry better.
Eby looked at the other letters, all forwarded at the same time from Paris. They glowed greenly, as if lit within, all bearing the same bad news. She wanted to slap them off her lap, like spiders.
“What’s wrong, Eby?” George asked, walking over to her.
She silently handed him the letter, then stood, letting the others fall to the floor. Home. They had to go home. Marilee sounded frantic in her letter. But mentioning Quinn had been deliberate. Eby loved that child. From the moment she was born, Eby had tried to be an anchor for her, letting her know that she didn’t have to become the crazy that was their family. That she could be whatever she wanted to be.
George read the letter, then rubbed his face with his hand. “It might take a few days. Roads are closed with the snow.” He turned and went back to the desk. He took the letter with him. She never found out what he did with it. She never saw it again.
As Eby stood there, agonizing over her sister’s loss, she realized her grief had a personal edge to it. This was it. The end of their dreamworld. She knew it was going to happen, she just didn’t realize it would happen so quickly. She thought the decision to leave would be theirs, that months and months from now, when they’d seen everything they could see twice, George would turn to her and say, “Let’s go home” in a way that made home sound like a haven, a place they wanted to be.
They left two days later. Lisette had wanted to go with them, but Eby said no. Eby told her to make amends with her own family before something like this happened to her. They left Lisette crying silently, the force of her emotion nearly rattling the lampshades and shaking loose icicles on the eaves outside. Eby ran back to her and hugged her one last time. “We are conduits for happiness,” she whispered to her. “Remember that.”
The trip back was uncomfortable and jarring, like that moment you wake from a dream and have no idea where you are, what is real. The air in Atlanta was humid and warm when their plane landed. As the taxi drove them away and sweat began to stain her pink silk dress, Eby kept turning around as if winter was just behind them, still in view, as if she could still see swirls of Amsterdam snow.
They didn’t stop by their house first. George had bought the place, a neoclassical mansion that had once belonged to a mayor of Atlanta generations ago, in the months before they married, but they had never actually lived there. They’d slept there on their wedding night, on a bundle of blankets in the dining room in the cavernously empty home, laughing just to hear the echo and jokingly calling out to any ghosts. They’d left for Europe the next day. They’d sent home enough furniture from their honeymoon to fill the place, and Eby had imagined, when they eventually returned, that her days would be spent going through crates and remembering their trip fondly. She would carefully decide what would go where, which memory she wanted in the study, in the hallway, in their bedroom. It was what was going to make being home bearable.
What had actually happened was that her sister, Marilee, had used the key Eby had given her in case there was an emergency (Marilee’s suggestion) to make the house her own in the eight months George and Eby had been away. Soon after they’d left on their honeymoon, Marilee’s husband Talbert had been unable to pay their rent, and they’d been kicked out of their apartment. Marilee had then decided that it would be okay to move into George and Eby’s home. It had just been temporary at first, but the longer George and Eby had stayed away, the more comfortable Marilee had become.
Thinking back to the letters Eby had received in Europe, she’d thought it odd how many of her friends had told her how beautiful the house was. Eby had assumed they’d meant from the outside. But they’d all actually been inside. Marilee had been throwing parties there nearly every month. And she had unpacked all the crates of furniture that had been delivered and had decorated the house herself.
One of the last things George had shipped home was an extremely heavy Louis XV marble-top dresser. When it had arrived, Marilee had loved it and had wanted it in the bedroom she and Talbert were sharing. The two of them had tried to push it up the grand staircase by themselves, but Talbert had lost his grip, then his footing, and he’d fallen back down the stairs, the marble-top dresser landing on top of him. It had killed him before Marilee could get the neighbors over to help her. He had died in front of three-year-old Quinn.
Eby had learned this when she’d finally been able to reach Marilee on the phone when they’d arrived in London the day before. The first thing out of Eby’s mouth had been, “Why did you leave Quinn there alone with him?” She’d been aghast that the poor child had been subjected to such a thing.