The Color of Water in July Read Online Free PDF Page B

grown used to that. It was that implacable face, that innocent tone of voice . . .
    The long ash on Margaret’s cigarette tumbled off, missing the green brocade, leaving a little soiled pile on the tufts of the cream-colored carpet. I picked up the sheaf of papers I had before me, my notes about Journey’s End written out in blue ink on a yellow legal pad.
    “I own a piece of property in Michigan, as you know.” I read to her from my handwritten notes. “There are two separate matters. One is the cottage with its contents, and the other is the adjacent woods.”
    Margaret continued to look at me without curiosity, as though I were describing a completely unfamiliar place, though she had spent every summer of her childhood there.
    “Last month, I donated the woods to the Little Traverse Conservancy—a charitable organization that will preserve the woods in their natural state and protect some bird habitats. For now, I have retained the cottage and its contents.”
    Margaret leaned over and stubbed out her cigarette.
    “Upon my death, I have appointed the trustees of the Wequetona Club to act as executors.” I stopped for a moment, watching Margaret, wondering how she would react.
    “I have chosen to let the cottage pass out of the family, Margaret. There are many worthy Wequetona families . . . ” Margaret didn’t look up. “The proceeds from the sale, of course, will go to you and Jess.”
    “That’s fine, Mother. Just fine. Whatever you want to do . . . ” Margaret wasn’t even looking at me; she was picking some dirt out from underneath one of her fingernails. I never could understand that girl. I paid for her to go to the very best schools, and she always affected this lower-class drawl, and the most repulsive kind of personal hygiene you could imagine.
    “I’m afraid that’s all there is,” I said.
    It was the last kernel of my daddy’s once-impressive fortune. I think I have lived in a way that was appropriate to a woman of my station. I can’t say I have ever had to scrimp on anything, and I was careful to set aside whatever might be needed for the future.
    About Journey’s End, though, I confess a muddleheaded sentimentality. In the cottage above Pine Lake, I could always close my eyes, and there they would all be: Mama before her nerves set in, Lila smiling and skipping down the walk, even Daddy, tall and clear-eyed, cheeks flushed with success.
    For the longest time, I thought I could hang on to that thread, imagined passing the cottage on to Jess, taking her through it step-by-step, teaching her the rhythm of the year. Open it in May: throw wide the windows and let in the light. Close it in late September: shut it up tight as the fall chill creeps into the air. At Wequetona, I see that other families have managed to do it, passing their cottages along from generation to generation, just as they pass their characteristic blue eyes or stooped posture or thin hair.
    I’ve arranged it so that Jess and Margaret won’t have to return to Journey’s End in order to pack it up and sell it. The Club will handle the sale, and I know that they will see to it that the cottage goes to the right kind of people—another family that will doubtless go in and brighten up the inside with fresh paint and colored summer chintz. New people, new dreams, another try.
    That first night, after Margaret left, I slept in my own bed in Coventry Manor, in my little white room, with only three pieces of my mahogany furniture: a bed, a dresser, and a vanity table. Two sketches of Pine Lake, one in rain, one in sun, hung on the pastel wall. Even with the TV on low, sitting in my bed, I could hear the hum of the elevator as it sped along its tracks, the electric ding that it made when it stopped at my floor to let passengers out.
    I thought, Mamie, you’re a free woman again. I didn’t sleep much at all that first night, awakened less by the few buzzy and metallic sounds in the building than by the absence of the