Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

Marguerite could see the girl trying to process what she’d just heard, trying to relate. Marguerite wasn’t sure, however, if Renata was intuiting what Marguerite was telling her. I loved your mother too much, and the love destroyed her .

Marguerite looked down at her dessert. It was beautiful enough for a magazine shoot, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to eat a single bite. “Your mother brought you downstairs and she made the three of us breakfast. Tea and toast. Cinnamon toast, cut into squares. She did all this but she didn’t speak, except to soothe you. She didn’t speak to me; we didn’t speak to each other. What to say? Then, once we were finished eating and the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, she started talking about a run.”

You can’t run , Marguerite said. Look outside. The weather .

Candace had stared, said nothing, disappeared upstairs. She came down bundled in workout clothes.

Is it okay if I take the Jeep? she said.

Where are you going?

I need air , she said. I need to clear my head. I feel like you, like I…

What?

I need to get out of the house for a while. Is it okay if I take the Jeep?

Candace…

Please, Daisy? You’ll watch Renata? If not, I’ll take her with me…

You can’t take her with you. It’s too cold. You shouldn’t be going at all. I’ll bet the roads are a sheet of ice .

I have to get out , Candace said. I need to get out of this house! She was yelling now. Renata was scared, hugging her around the knees. What else could Marguerite have said?

Okay, yes, the Jeep. Take it. The keys are on the hook by the door. Renata will be fine. I’ll take care of her. We’ll have fun. And you’ll…be careful? It’s not the car I’m worried about, it’s you…

“But Candace didn’t answer; she was halfway out the door. She couldn’t wait to leave. She wanted to escape me.”

Renata nodded.

“I helped you crayon in a coloring book, I got down on my hands and knees and played with blocks, and when Candace still didn’t return I put you down in front of Sesame Street , where you fell asleep. I made myself a cup of tea. I swept up the hair trimmings; I started a stew.”

“Were you worried about her?” Renata asked.

“I tried to tell myself I was being silly. Your mother used to run for hours.”

“I remember being here,” Renata said. “That must be what I remember. I drank tea with honey and burned my tongue. You sang to me in French, or we read in French. I remember the pattern of flowers on the sofa.”

“Yes,” Marguerite said.

When Renata woke from her nap, she was crying. Her hair was tangled. She was thirsty. Marguerite fixed her a small cup of tea and added honey. Together they sat on the sofa and read from Babar . When the phone rang the first time, Marguerite ignored it.

Renata set her spoon down in her empty ramekin. Ching! Marguerite flinched.

“The roads were covered with ice. Walter Arcain was drunk; he was out on the very same road you were on today, joyriding, doing doughnuts, going way too fast. He claimed he didn’t see Candace at all; he claimed he felt a thump, he thought he’d hit a deer. He stopped the truck and found Candace underneath.”

Renata’s breath caught. Her mother. “It was his fault,” Renata said. “He went to jail.”

“For ten years,” Marguerite said. “And yes, technically, it was his fault. But it was my fault that Candace was here in the first place. I guilted her into coming. And then the things I said that last morning…undid her. She was not herself when she left here. I had scared her; I had created a rift, a horrible awkwardness. I had pushed our friendship beyond its limit. Your mother would have been thinking that it was all Porter’s fault; he had hurt me, made me needy; he had left me for her to sweep up; she would have been screaming at him in her mind. She would have wondered if the Valium was a mistake; she would have chastised herself for bringing it. I guarantee you she was thinking of these things, some, if not all, of them. She didn’t hear Walter Arcain’s truck; she didn’t sense the rumble on the road. She was preoccupied, muddled, distracted. By me.” Marguerite put her hand to her forehead. It was hot and damp, like she had a fever. “I should never have let her leave the house. But she wanted to get away from me. She said she needed air. She wanted to go.” Marguerite searched for words that would soften the blow, but if the girl had been listening, she would see the truth, plain as day. “I have always felt responsible for your mother’s death, Renata.”

Renata blinked. Marguerite hadn’t been driving the electric company truck, she wasn’t the one who was drunk at ten in the morning, and yet Renata could see why Marguerite blamed herself. She was here because I guilted her into coming. I abused our friendship. I upset her. She left the house upset… God , Renata thought. Yes . Marguerite had admitted to Candace what few people would ever be honest enough to say, even to themselves. I love you more. I need you more . Was it wrong to love someone too much, to love them in a way you knew they could never return? Was it possible to kill someone by loving them? Clearly, Renata’s father thought so, and that was why she’d been forbidden to see Marguerite, banned from this house, from hearing this story. Was Renata supposed to feel angry at Marguerite? Was she supposed to hate her, to shun her, to judge her the way Daniel had? Maybe she was; maybe she should. But strangely, Renata didn’t feel angry. She felt relieved that there was someone else in the world as confused, as guilty, as flawed, as Renata herself was. That very day she had taken her eyes off of Sallie; she had cheated on Cade, then deserted him. Was it possible to kill someone by not loving them? Renata’s head swam.

“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

“I’m sure not.”

“What if she wasn’t thinking about you?” Renata said. “What if it was just an accident? What if Walter Arcain ran her down on purpose? Or what if it’s all part of some predestined plan that we can’t control? It might not have had anything to do with you. Have you considered that?”

“No,” Marguerite said.

“In which case, all you’d be guilty of is telling her you loved her before you left. I wish I had told her I loved her before she left.”

Marguerite twirled the stem of her empty champagne flute. If anyone could have kept Candace from going running that morning, it was the little girl in pink overalls. Renata had wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs and refused to let go until Candace bent down, kissed her, and gently pried her arms away. You stay with Aunt Daisy , she said. I’ll be back in a little while .

At that moment, Marguerite understood why Renata had skipped out on Hulbert Avenue, why she ran all that way with a heavy bag, in her sandals. She had come not to hear Marguerite’s confessions but for another reason altogether. I feel so peculiarly at home . Home: The last place she felt her mother’s touch.

“You did,” Marguerite said. “You did.”

She could have stopped there, maybe. It was late, nearly the start of a new day, but Marguerite was determined to finish.

“You’ve heard people say I’m crazy,” Marguerite said. “Your father, and other people?”

Renata wanted to deny it, but the words were too fresh in her mind. Not stable , her father had said. Rather like Vincent van Gogh , Mrs. Robinson had said. And then there were all the things Renata had picked up in the past: She lost it, complete mental breakdown, miracle she didn’t kill herself, no one in her right mind would have…