“So that’s what this farm will become—two windows looking out on a street.”
“More windows than that, and maybe a cottage on the Cape.”
“You’re not even ashamed,” Shirley said.
“Why should I be ashamed? You made your choice, I made mine. You never worked,” Miriam added dryly.
“Never worked!” She heard her voice squeak and knew it was a hopeless argument. “It still isn’t fair,” she rasped. Her voice felt as though it were cracking open, letting something hidden escape. “Why did they do that, Miriam, when they knew I loved this place?”
“They had to divide it up some way, probably thought you and Brian would rather have the house. They knew I’d never live in it, while you two—”
“Oh stop,” Shirley pleaded. “Please stop! I’m not talking about fairness now. This isn’t a court of law! I’m talking about how much I love this piece of land.”
“Then sell the house and buy land someplace else.”
“The house won’t be worth anything, surrounded by your subdivision.”
“Not a subdivision,” Miriam said wearily, “a village.”
“You can’t build a village from scratch. Villages take time. Houses have to come and go, fall down, be replaced, people have to move in and out, leaving their scents, their traces, shops disappear, new ones open—it takes time, lots of time, to make a village, and here you go and try to plop one down, ready-made. It’s crazy,” she said heatedly, “and all those people who want backyards for their barbecues are going to take one look at your houses all squinched up together and go elsewhere.”
“My, what a sermon. I didn’t know you felt so strongly.”
Shirley yelped. “You didn’t know?”
“I mean, I thought it was all about the land. You despise my plan, as well.”
“I’d despise anything that takes my land away,” Shirley admitted.
“By what right of ownership—”
“The ownership of walking on it! Looking at it! Smelling it! You talk about how you have to live in New York, your life is there. My life is in every broken cornstalk and milkweed pod on this place, every wild turkey footprint, every mock orange and walnut, and here you come and just sell it like some kind of old . . . remnant!”
“To me, it is a remnant,” Miriam said reasonably, “of a life I never wanted to live, and I still don’t understand why you want it, after all these years, particularly with no babies.”
“So we’re back to that again.”
They stopped, staring at teach other.
“Well, babies—children—would have given this place a meaning.”
“I give this place a meaning,” Shirley said.
“Well, yes, of course, but if you’d had children—”
“Another meaning, but mine is just as valid!”
Miriam stood up suddenly, discarding her patience as she used to discard her clothes, strewing them around her room and tramping over them to the bathroom door. “I want to take you out to dinner before I have to catch my plane. Where should we go?”
Stunned, Shirley stared at her. It seemed they’d barely begun to talk.
“We can go on arguing in the car,” Miriam said resignedly.
Shirley got up the way the trainer had taught her, hands and knees first and then a wobbling ascent to upright. Too late, Miriam slid a hand under her elbow. “I don’t need help,” Shirley croaked, shaking her off, but she was gasping.
Miriam withheld a comment, visibly. They walked single file back across the ruts to the car.
“Don’t you see, it’s the end of the world,” Shirley said after they had climbed into her car and she had started the engine.
“It’s certainly the end of our world,” Miriam agreed. “We’re the last, and with no heirs, the name will die out.”
“There’s cousin Harold, somewhere in Africa.”
“Yes, but I doubt if he’ll ever have children.” They let that rest without comment. “How different it would have been if that last baby had survived,” Miriam went on thoughtfully.
“Whose last baby?”
“Mama’s. It was a boy, but he died right away. They didn’t want you to know—they thought you were too young. Didn’t want you to be upset, the way you were when Johnny drowned the kittens. You were always so sensitive,” Miriam said.
“You never told me till now!”
“It wasn’t my secret. After Mama died, I knew I could tell you. Should tell you,” Miriam admitted,” but I didn’t want to at her funeral, or over the phone. The reason Mama regretted, so bitterly, you never had sons. She cherished that name—Papa’s name—way more than her own.”
Shirley was speechless. She was driving so slowly another car, behind them, began to push in close to her bumper, and she pulled over on the shoulder so it could pass. “It makes the whole past look different,” she said finally, “as though it’s changed colors. I never knew that baby existed—”
“Well, it didn’t really exist—”
“—And I never knew Mama regretted I didn’t have sons. Or daughters,” she added, her eyes fixed on the road. Ahead, the thruway appeared between the trees, car roofs flashing.
“Daughters wouldn’t have counted,” Miriam said. She was staring at the road as though she might need to grab the wheel to correct her sister’s wavering.
“I never knew,” Shirley said, “and Mama and I were so close those last three years. At least I thought we were close.”
“Mama knew what a hard time you were having, taking care of her, and she didn’t want to add to that,” Miriam told her.
“Hard time! She told you that?”
“Said you were exhausted, as of course anyone would be,” Miriam said kindly.
“But it was my last time with her—I valued that!”
“She knew that,” Miriam said. “Maybe you should pull over a minute, before we get to the thruway.” She reached for the wheel.
Shirley tightened her grasp. Traffic rushed by them like water released from a dam and she realized she’d been holding up the whole late afternoon procession. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know I was going so slow.”
“Doesn’t matter. Cut the motor, I want to get out of this belt.” Released, Miriam stretched as though she’d been clamped in for hours.
“What else don’t I know?” Shirley asked, staring at the passing cars.
“There’re probably some other things—little things,” Miriam said, “but I can’t remember right now.”
“Will you tell me when you remember?”
Miriam smiled. “I’ll tell you if you’ll let up about the farm. Deal?” she asked hopefully. “I don’t want to go on arguing with you, Shirl. And it’s done. There’s no way back. We need to protect our relationship,” she added. “We’re all we have left.”