Chapter 8 - The Sunset Begging
The master bedroom was already mostly empty.
Over the past three weeks, while Ryan was at his job sites and Margaret was taking her afternoon naps, I had slowly packed my life away into six neat, heavy-duty cardboard boxes stacked inside the closet of my guest studio downtown. My grandmother’s antique jewelry, my architectural portfolios, my winter coats, my favorite books—they were already gone.
All that remained was my leather weekender bag, sitting open on the duvet cover, packed with three changes of clothes, my toiletries, and my passport.
I zipped the bag closed. The metallic slide of the zipper felt like the locking of a heavy iron vault.
I slung the leather strap over my shoulder and walked back down the long hallway toward the front door.
Outside, through the floor-to-ceiling bay windows of the living room, the winter sun was beginning to set. The sky had turned a violent, bruised shade of blood-orange and deep violet, casting long, sharp shadows across the mahogany furniture and the half-eaten New Year’s feast.
Ryan was sitting on the bottom step of the main staircase, his head in his hands, staring blankly at the divorce petition resting between his feet. He looked like an empty shell. He didn't even look up as my heels clicked across the hardwood floor.
At the end of the hallway, near the front door, Margaret was waiting.
She had managed to wheel herself into the foyer. Her high-backed motorized wheelchair hummed softly in the stillness. Her hair, which I had styled so carefully six hours ago, was falling out of its pins, gray strands hanging wild around her gaunt, wrinkled cheeks. Her pearl necklace hung crooked against her collarbone.
As I approached the front door, Margaret reached out her right hand—her good hand—and clamped her fingers onto the sleeve of my coat.
Her grip was surprisingly tight, driven by pure, animal panic.
“Clara,” she begged.
Her voice wasn't the voice of the imperious matriarch who had tapped her crystal glass with a silver spoon three hours ago. It was the voice of a terrified child lost in a dark forest.
“Clara… please,” Margaret cried, tears streaming down the deep creases of her face, dripping off her chin onto the floral print of her blouse. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t walk out that door.”
I stopped. I looked down at her hand on my arm.
“Let go of my sleeve, Margaret,” I said gently.
“No! No, I won't let go!” she sobbed, her fingernails digging through the wool of my coat. “I was wrong! Do you hear me? I was wrong, Clara! I am a wicked, foolish, prideful old woman! I let Nicole poison my mind! I took you for granted! I thought… I thought blood was the only thing that counted, but Nicole threw me away like garbage!”
She leaned forward in her wheelchair, her forehead pressing against my hip, weeping openly into my coat.
“Ryan can’t take care of me,” she wept, her body trembling with violent sobs. “Look at him, Clara! He’s broken! He doesn't know what medications I take! He doesn't know how to puree my food so I don't choke! If you leave me here with him, I’m going to die! I’ll die in this house, Clara!”
“You won't die, Margaret,” I said, my voice steady, devoid of cruelty, but devoid of pity as well. “Ryan will figure it out. Or he’ll use what little money he has left to hire someone. But that someone isn't going to be me.”
“Clara, I’ll get on my knees!” Margaret cried, her good leg kicking desperately at the wheelchair footplate, trying to lever herself out of the chair to throw herself at my feet. “I will crawl on the floor and kiss your shoes! Just don’t sell this house! Don’t send me to a home! Let me stay here! I’ll call you my daughter! I’ll tell everyone you’re the head of this family! You can have Arthur’s room! You can have everything!”
I reached down with my free hand. Slowly, finger by finger, I peeled her wrinkled, trembling grip off my coat sleeve.
“You don't understand, Margaret,” I said, looking directly into her red, terrified eyes. “I never wanted Arthur’s room. I never wanted your late husband’s money. And I certainly never wanted to be the head of this miserable, parasitic family.”
Margaret looked up at me, her mouth trembling, her eyes wide with desperation. “Then what did you want, Clara? What did you ever want from us?”
“I just wanted to be loved,” I said softly.
The simple, unadorned truth of those words hung in the cold air of the foyer like an epitaph.
Margaret stared at me. She had no answer. Because in six years, with all her pride, all her family loyalty, and all her high-society airs, she had never once considered that love was something you gave to the person keeping you alive.
“The sun is down, Margaret,” I whispered, glancing out the glass transom above the front door at the fading purple sky. “And just like I promised you at the dinner table… by sunset, you are begging the outsider not to leave.”
I stepped past her wheelchair.
I reached out, turned the heavy brass handle of the front door, and pulled it wide open. The crisp, clean winter air filled my lungs, cold and sharp, washing away the scent of roast turkey, stale wine, and decades of deceit.
I stepped over the threshold into the twilight.
May you like
Behind me, Margaret’s broken wailing echoed through the empty hallway, but for the first time in six years, I didn't turn around to see if she was okay.
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