“All right. I’m all right.” Her voice was only the dry husk around the usual Aunt Julie snap and crackle.
“You should rest, Aunt Julie. You need to heal. We’re just glad you’re back with us.”
She made an impatient movement of her chin. I couldn’t blame her. I’d have done the same thing if she said that to me.
“Max,” she said, or something like it.
“What’s that?”
“Her. Vivian. I mean Violet.”
I leaned in. “What did you say?”
“Violet.”
My heart delivered a few hard smacks against the wall of my chest. I stroked Aunt Julie’s hair with my fingers, nice and slow. I counted to three, and I said: “What about Violet?”
“Max. Maxwell.”
Dr. Miller, soothing voice: “I know you mean well, Miss Schuyler, but we really shouldn’t encourage her to talk just now. She’s not thinking clearly anyway. It’s probably just nonsense.”
Only I, simpatico, could have caught the flash of indignation in Aunt Julie’s eyes.
“Never mind, Aunt Julie. You can tell me later.” I leaned forward, making busy with the tucking and the stroking, and as I brushed past her ear I said: “Maxwell who?”
Aunt Julie’s pale and cracked lips moved: “Institute. Paris.”
? ? ?
I STAYED with her a long while, as the others filed in and back out again. When I returned to the waiting room, everyone was asleep except Dad, who sat in a stiff chair with Mums’s head in his lap. He was stroking her hair. He turned his head as I entered and raised his finger to his lips, and I thought, that’s odd, he looks ten years younger.
I knelt next to him and spoke in a whisper. “She’s fine. Resting now. But I think she’ll be all right.”
Dads nodded. “Thank you.” He mouthed the words.
I rose and kissed the top of his head and went to my own chair. I gathered up my coat and gloves, my hat and pocketbook. Dad cast me a curious look. I pointed to my watch and whispered, “Work.”
I opened the door and bumped straight into Lily Greenwald. “Vivian! I just found the telephone message. How is she?”
“Awake now, thank God. Gave us a little scare. They’re all sleeping now.” I nodded to the room behind me.
She pressed her hand to her chest. Her cheeks were all flushy-peach, all luminous Lily. “Oh, thank goodness. The note said something about a coma. Scared me to death.”
I laughed. “That’s just Mums. She had a knock to the head, but she’ll be just fine, if I know Aunt Julie. Go wake up Pepper. She’ll clue you in.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to London, Lily.”
Her head made a satisfying little jerk. “London!”
“Research, you know.” Sophisticated working-girl wave of the fingers. “I’ve decided it’s time to find out more about this Lionel Richardson.”
“I see.”
I laid my hand on her blue-woolen arm. “You’ll take care of them while I’m gone, won’t you?”
Lily took the hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll keep you posted. Just . . . well, enjoy yourself.”
“Enjoy myself?”
“If that’s the word. You’re so young, Vivian. Just try to step back a bit and enjoy yourself.”
A trolley clattered behind us, a murmur of voices. Rounds of some kind. I breathed quietly and allowed Lily’s dark blue Schuyler eyes to draw me in, to connect with me. “I will, Cousin Lily.”
“Good, then.” She smiled and gave my hand a last squeeze.
“Oh. Wait. Lily. One thing.”
“Yes, Vivian?”
“The Maxwell Institute. Paris. Ring a bell?”
The brow wrinkled. The eyes squinted. “Maxwell Institute? I don’t think so. Why?”
I hoisted my pocketbook on my shoulder and smiled my Mona Lisa. “No reason.”
? ? ?
I STEPPED outside and found that dawn was breaking all over Manhattan, the kind of fragile pearly pink sunrise that makes you want to climb on board a jet airplane and start a brilliant new life.
I looked down at my shoes, sensible old sneakers for once, the first ones that had come to hand when I left my apartment in a blurred rush seven hours ago.
Maybe I’ll walk home, I thought. Five or six miles of therapeutic New York City sidewalks, as good as an afternoon with a shrink. I could buy my airplane ticket on the way.
A long walk. Just the thing.
Violet