Mary sighed.
“You awake?” Lizzie asked softly.
“Yep,” Mary answered.
“This is like the old days.” Lizzie sat up in bed.
“Not really. I was with Kitty and Lydia. You were with Jane.”
“It’s never been just the two of us,” Lizzie said.
“Nope.”
“Do you think Pa can handle the stairs when he comes home?”
“I was thinking about that. We could put a bed in the back parlor.”
“But there’s no bathroom,” Lizzie said practically.
“And the stairs. Even from the street. The stoop is steep,” Mary said. “Maybe William Collins is right. Maybe it’s time to let go of this house.”
“You can’t give up, Mary.”
“I don’t know what to fight for. I couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere else, but it’s untenable. It’s all too much. The debt. The repairs. Our parents and their bad knees and hips. It is too late to plan for the future. Here it is. Dad should’ve planned ahead. He should’ve thought about being eighty in an old, rickety house. Mama has never been strong. She’s always been a mess. And now I have a wizened father and an emotional mother, and there’s no way to hold them together along with the demands of this old house. If we let the house go, we get nothing. There’s debt and taxes. Collins knows it.”
“I can talk to Charlotte. They’re wealthy. They could do a kind turn for our parents.”
“Lizzie, the wealthy don’t think like that. They sit on their money and wonder why everyone else isn’t rich, too. To them, it’s easy. But you have to start with something to be rich, and while Pa inherited this old house, it seems we won’t end with it. What good is a house if you don’t have the money to keep it up? We should be grateful to Collins and Charlotte; they’re patient—and certainly have helped in the past—but it has never been a fair playing field. Collins always had money, because he was the only son in his family. Everything—on both sides—went to him. If Pa could have seen his way through, he could havekept this place in good enough shape to sell it and pay off the Collins family for their help through the years. But he only ever made enough money to get by.”
“And Mom didn’t work.”
“Oh, please. Remember when she got a job in the shoe store on Eighth Avenue? They actually lost business because she talked people out of buying shoes. Said the leather wasn’t good enough. Who does that?”
“Our mother.” Lizzie laughed.
“So I don’t know what to say, or how to say it, but we have to let it go.” It was dark in the room, so Lizzie couldn’t see Mary wipe her eyes.
“You can live with us, you know. My husband adores you.”
“He wouldn’t if he lived with me.”
“Mary, you’re important to us. To Darcy. To all of us. To Jane. To Kitty. To Lydia. We love you very much.”
“I know that.”
“And we want you to have everything you dream of.” Lizzie’s voice broke.
“I know you worry about me. I’m alone. I’m interested in things no one cares about anymore. Playwriting is like whittling or glassblowing or working a loom.”
“That’s not true.”
“People don’t read. They don’t go to the theater. You know, I go to plays in preview—I get free tickets—and since I was a kid everyone in the audience was old. And now I’m grown up, and the audience is still old. I don’t understand it.”
“You enjoy playwriting, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“You work with interesting people. Donna DeMatteo—and actors and directors and designers. It sounds so exciting.”
