Dear Rosalie,
Get yourself a nice brandy and take a seat because I have a story for you. I’m not joking now, Rosalie, pour the drink. Make sure Paul and Lars are sorted.
I fell. Please don’t panic, I’m fine, but let me tell you the story. About five days ago I couldn’t sleep after I woke around four. Typically I’ll switch on the light by five to read, but I was lying in the bed and feeling agitated. It was like I’d woken to a sound but couldn’t reach back to it. I lay there listening to the wind for a while, and you know I just decided to go outside and be sure everything was OK. The moon was bright and it was that crisp February cold, so I put on a sweater and my coat, my boots, and I walked outside. How strange it was to stand in the front yard looking up into the tall trees, all their limbs moving shadows like sticks under the moon, not a sound but the wind in the leaves, and the garden I know so well felt like somewhere entirely foreign. Just beautiful. I wondered, have I ever come outside in the garden at this time of the morning in February? Anyway, I decided to take the path down to the river and walk a bit, you know, it was just so lovely, everything lit by moonlight. I did go, and I walked for a while, and then I sat out by the river for some time just thinking, really. You know, just pondering. My age. The survey of my life thus far. My career, things I’d have done differently (which for years I could not admit, and thinking about why that is. Fear, I guess). I was thinking about the children, of course Gilbert, but moreover wondering what good reason there is that I get on fine with Bruce but cannot seem tohave any sort of rapport with Fiona, you know. I sat for some time pondering things of this nature.
When I walked back up the path it was just barely getting light, maybe around six, and wouldn’t you know Theodore Lübeck came down the path and scared me half to death, Rosalie. Not half, 80% of the way. I nearly died. He came from behind the magnolia that rather blocks the path wearing his cap and dark jacket and I screamed and jumped, and of course I tripped, went sideways on my ankle, which rolled and positively exploded in pain, and then I fell and caught myself on the right hand (mercifully not my left, God in heaven, can you imagine if I didn’t have my left hand? Take me out back and shoot me). I felt it snap! I know you broke your foot in ’94, wasn’t it? But yours was crushed under that wheel, wasn’t it? (Awful, I’m sorry, how vulgar) But my point is that my wrist snapped like a branch. It was no good, my ankle and my wrist just throbbing, and then Theodore coming barreling down the path, getting down on his hands and knees just like when I killed his cat (the humiliations keep coming) and begging my forgiveness and trying to help me to stand, which I did, cradling the hand, so of course he brought me back to my house (it was only another hundred yards or so, wasn’t it, just there at the top of the hill) and he got me to the chair, and he was coming undone, trying to call 911 and I was chastising him, what a stupid fool thing to do calling the cavalry when one can simply get in the car, it’s not as if I was bleeding out, but then I was in a bind because I knew the wrist was broken, and I knew I’d need Theodore Lübeck to drive me to the ER. So that’s just what happened. He put me inmy own carbecause he drives a very low to the ground old Porsche and he said it would be hard for me to get in and out (which I thought was rude, as if I would have trouble where he is fine!) and he took my own keys right from the hook and he drove me to the ER there in Annapolis. I was MORTIFIED, them assuming he was my husband at every turn,Rosalie. So they are examining me, you know, the ankle, the wrist, but also pressing on my stomach and listening to my lungs, making a whole to-do and it’s not even time for coffee, I’ve got the night shift people, and I am howling like an idiot with none other than Theodore Lübeck sitting there, asking me if I want water, asking me if he should be calling the children to tell them (again, as if I’m dying and not suffering from a sprained ankle and broken wrist). I ended up in an X-ray machine and an MRI machine to confirm what I already knew, and then a surgeon came into the room to talk to me about the possibility of surgery on my wrist if the bones don’t reset correctly. This surgeon turns out to be the son of a friend, Helen Dittmyer, and then we had to have the whole conversation about his mother, and on and on. Benji (now he’s Dr. Dittmyer) also said my bones look strong for a woman of my vintage, and that made me feel great I’ll say, but otherwise it was absolutely terrible. They put me in a splint that looks like something a child makes in art class, and now I’m home, and going back again in a few days for another X-ray and seeing what is to come. I dread if it’s surgery. I do. It would be one or two nights in the hospital, and I imagine I would have to ask Bruce to come help me, which I would really rather not do, not wanting to mess up his life.
By the time we were back it was nearly two o’clock and I was starving, so we went through the drive-through at McDonald’s and then we sat in the car eating the food, right there in my driveway. That was funny. Theodore was very good about the whole thing. He made me laugh. We were laughing about sitting there having lunch together for the first time out of bags in our laps. He mentioned a bit about his wife who did die rather young—sixty-eight. He has one daughter and she lives in California. I also learned that he is Jewish. I told him, all these years he’s been bringing me Christmas gifts, and he said he celebrates both holidays (he lights his menorah) but it was sweet I thought. Andthat’s the whole story! It was nice with Theodore despite the circumstances. I will keep you posted on the wrist situation. My ankle is wrapped in a bandage I remove at night, but it will just have to heal. I’m using a cane for the moment, can you imagine? I refuse to use it beyond the weekend. I’ll crawl on all fours if it comes to it.
Write me,
Syb
Feb. 29, 2016 (Leap year)
Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,
Thank you for the cherry streusel cake you had delivered from the German bakery in Baltimore. There was no need for you to go to the trouble, you have already thanked me multiple times, though it meant a great deal to me that you remembered that small thing I told you about my mother. I haven’t thought in such detail about my mother in years, and I didn’t know there was a German bakery until the cake showed up at my door. I was surprised to find it looking identical to my mother’s, and tasting almost as good. I looked the bakery up in the phone book. The woman who answered, her grandmother started the shop when she came to Baltimore from Germany. She said her family is from the center of the country, whereas my family is from Küssaberg, just there at the very bottom, almost in Switzerland, but I told her the cakes were much the same, hers only a bit sweeter. She was glad to hear from me and we talked for a good while. She has never visited Germany. I think I will drive up to Baltimore and go to the shop so we can share a coffee and she can give me samples of other cakes and pastries she is trying to keep in the German style. She is a gentle sort of girl. That’s the way Katharina, my wife, was. Quiet, though with Katharina there was always a bit of mischief. You’d see this little edge of a smile on her, made her look like she was so young, and even when she was completely vacant with dementia it was like that. Like the joke was on me.
It was also very nice to talk to you when we spent the morning together, though of course it was not good for you. Just as you seem determined to keep thanking me, I am determined to keep apologizing for startling you and setting things in motion. How are you getting along with the cast? I am relieved you don’t have to have surgery. When I had surgery on my shoulder two years ago it was difficult for months in ways I didn’t consider going into it, and I agree with something you said, that you dreaddragging the children into your life when theirs seem busy enough already. You mentioned three children, but I think I’ve only met the two—Bruce and Fiona.
If you’re not busy tonight, do you want to come play gin rummy? We can eat this cake. I also have a bottle of scotch, if you like. I rarely have company, but I’ve just dusted and mopped this morning. No need to let me know, just pop over around seven if you’re free. If not, I’ll drop a few slices of cake to you in the morning after my walk by the river.
This is the longest thank-you note I have ever penned. By the way, if I go to the German bakery, would you like to come? I estimate a thirty minute drive. We can talk about it if you come by tonight.
Your neighbor,
Theodore
Sybil Van Antwerp
17 Farney Rd.
Arnold, MD 21012
April 19, 2016
Dear Sybil,
I apologize that our conversation on the phone last week was cut so short on my end and that it’s taken me this long to sit down to write. I did end up having to take Paul to the emergency room the next morning (it was pneumonia again). I had to ask a neighbor to sit with Lars, just complicated, but Paul’s fine now and I had a full night of sleep and I’m here at last. Thank God the wrist business is almost behind you—cast off in a few more weeks—no surgery. That was the best case scenario. I just went and read over your letter from the week you fell and it made me laugh (now that I know you’re all right). God, doesn’t Mr. Lübeck sound like the most wonderful man? Honestly, Sybil. You know what I think, so I’m not going to keep saying it, but SYBIL. (This is unrelated, but I had a moment when I was reading the letter again thinking about all the letters we have exchanged—those boxes in my closet!—and thinking how if we pieced them back together we would have a MASSIVE decades-long tale to tell. Probably boring to anyone other than ourselves.)
I know you don’t like me to bring up your vision, so typically I don’t, but you mentioned it in your letter. What is the latest? When have you last seen Dr. Jameson? And here, speaking of your health, I know you were joking about the cane, but take your recovery seriously. You are very stubborn, and that is a wonderful quality except when it’s not. I worry about you down there by yourself.
Now, another thing. In your letter you very briefly mentioned the strain in your relationship with Fiona, and while that wasn’t the main point of your letter, I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m sure ifI had a daughter (or a standard child of any sex) it would be easier for me to relate, but I don’t, and when you named Lars and me as Fiona’s godparents, already knowing that I wouldn’t ever have what you had, it was the greatest gift. I understood you were offering me an important, lifelong position and, as you know, I have always taken being her godmother very seriously. My relationship with Fiona is dear to me, and probably because I amnother mother she has felt, she feels, a strong connection to me without any of the tricky dynamics that always (inevitably, it seems) plague the relationships of mothers and daughters, and in fact, I have always had the feeling, even from the time she was a little girl, that Fiona knew she was providing me with something I could not otherwise have by allowing me to be a part of her life. I am exceedingly grateful to you for this gift.
Over the years there have been certain times when I have felt that I needed to pirouette between you and Fiona. I have a very strong allegiance to your family, but also to my individual relationships with you and with her. I have typically found a way to do this with what I think (I have tried) is integrity and honesty, respecting you both. However, after I read your letter I was moved to tell you something I kept from you.
After Daan passed away last fall Fiona came to visit me in Connecticut. She was having a very difficult time with everything and then a few weeks before Christmas she had to be in Boston for a work conference, so she added a few days to the trip and came to see me. It was a total surprise to me. She called the day before and asked if she could stop in, and I didn’t realize until she was here that you didn’t know she was in the US, and she asked me not to tell you. I agreed. (I regret this) We really just talked. That was all we did for two days, just sat on the porch out there and talked and talked, and it was Fiona doing most of the talking. She talked a lot about Daan’s dying, and she was still in shock, very emotional, troubled by death in general, and stillgrieving all the agony of infertility, which I obviously understand, the years of negative pregnancy tests and the miscarriages she suffered before beginning IVF (I didn’t know about any of it, and was surprised you hadn’t told me), and she was just grappling with a great many things, one of which was her relationship with you. It isn’t my place to disclose the details of the things she said, and I want you to know that I have always kept my loyalty to you primarily, and I did then, too, but in the same way you are disappointed by the way it is with her, the same is true for Fiona, and it seems like an honest conversation might fix it. In your letter of May 25 you said you were pondering the reason for which you cannot seem to have a good relationship with Fiona. The thought of you losing sleep over this bothered me, and I remembered you had told me she’d written you a mean note after Daan’s funeral, mad you hadn’t attended, and now I feel like I’m sitting on the sidelines when perhaps, by suggesting you deal with this issue head-on, my position between the two of you could actually be put to use. You both love each other.
All right then. I think that’s all I wanted to say. I apologize for not telling you before now that she visited. Not telling you has made my stomach sour for the last six months and now I do imagine of course you will be hurt when you read this letter, so I am sorry. I’ll wait to hear from you,
Rosalie
P.S. I am readingInferno, the newest Dan Brown. What are you reading?
FROM: [email protected]
