Far-Flung Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, as they ate dinner.
    “What accessories?” Jack asked.
    “Accessories,” she said. “My gloves, and hats and jewels.”
    “Why are you going to sell them?”
    “Why not?” his grandmother said. “Why keep them? Since you have disowned my great-grandchildren, there is no family to inherit them. And I am told there is an appreciative market for vintage accessories. I have spoken with several dealers.”
    “I haven’t disowned the twins,” Jack said. “I just don’t have custody. There’s a difference.” Jack was the father of twin girls, Sigourney and Yvette. Shortly after they were born, he and his wife were divorced; Barbara immediately remarried, and his bitterness somehow poisoned his paternal love. Jack knew this was wrong, he knew that his feelings for these children should be separate from his feelings for their mother, but somehow they were all inextricably tangled, threads with many sharp needles, and he cast the whole net off and moved away.
    “Call it what you will,” Mrs. Carter said. “I never see them.”
    “Maybe I’m interested in your accessories.”
    “Why would you be interested in them?”
    “I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll remarry. There’s no need to sell them. You don’t need the money.”
    “Are you contemplating remarriage?”
    “No,” he said.
    “There is no one in your life?”
    A vision of Langley, his lover, drying her hair with a white towel beside the aqua swimming pool, presented itself to him. He smiled. Why did he not want to tell his grandmother about Langley? It was probably her age—an unacceptable twenty-three—but he liked the fact that Langley was a secret, that she was unofficial, that she existed only in the palmy air of, as his grandmother would say, Californeea. “No one,” he said, but the vision lingered.
    “That is too bad. I wish you were in love. You are always a nicer person when you are in love.”
    “Isn’t everyone?” he asked.
    “No,” said Mrs. Carter. “Love makes some of us villains. Come upstairs. I will show you my treasures. Whatever you want, you can take. The rest I will sell.”
    He followed his grandmother out of the dining room and into the front hall. Mrs. Carter had had an elevator chair installed along the banister, which was long and curved. She sat down and buckled a seat belt. “It won’t go unless this is fastened,” she explained. “Stupid thing.” She pressed a button and the chair began to rise. Jack climbed the stairs next to her, one step at a time, trying to match her slow ascent. “For heaven’s sake, walk normally,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the top.”
    On the second-floor landing he looked down and watched his grandmother rise. She was facing away from him, traveling backward, her hands clasped in her lap, her head bowed. That afternoon when he had driven her into town to buy groceries, she had sat the same way. Her loss of mobility was, in her eyes, a loss of dignity. The chair curved around and arrived at the top of the stairs; she unbuckled the belt and the chair tilted forward, depositing her next to him.
    “This way,” she said, all business in an attempt to transcend her humiliation. Jack followed her down the hall into her bedroom, then into her dressing room. She approached a large armoire that was made of either ash or pecan: some golden wood that was so highly polished they were both reflected in its veneer. It was dusk, and an imported, antique light filled the room. “Damn it,” she said. “I forgot the keys. They’re downstairs.”
    “Where are they? I’ll get them.”
    “They’re in my bag, in the front hall, on the credenza.”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    When he returned with the ring of keys his grandmother was sitting in an easy chair by the window. She held out her hand.
    “Why do you keep it locked?” Jack asked.
    “I keep everything locked,” Mrs. Carter said. She flipped through the keys and found the one for the armoire. “Voilà,” she said,