He shook his head. “Publishing was ruined. Amazon, Germans, the end of antitrust laws, printing in China, take your pick. You left in the golden age. Keep those happy memories.”
“But what did I ever do with my life? I didn’tdoanything,” she said.
“You’ve had a full and beautiful life,” Eddie told her.
She ran her fingers across the spines like keys on a piano. “Nothing like this,” she said.
Eddie, I knew, still carried the burden of the novel he had meant someday to write, while my mother regretted that she hadn’t come up with more publicity campaigns. Still, from the perspective of a daughter standing in the living room of a Chelsea apartment, it didn’t seem that either of them had done a bad job.
Marta brought the plates to the table. Four of us opted for orange juice and two of us went for mimosas, which were followed up with glasses of champagne. “I never understood the need toput orange juice in champagne because it’s Saturday afternoon,” my mother said. Eddie agreed.
“Did you know,” Leda said to the table, “that when Daphne was nine years old, she climbed out of a wrecked car in a snowstorm by herself to go find help?”
“Leda,” our mother said sternly.
“She saved Eddie’s life,” Leda said.
“That’s a little hyperbolic,” my mother said, holding her glass.
We all looked to Eddie, who smiled at me. “No, she did. Daphne saved my life.”
I had never thought of it that way, but if it were true, I would never need to do anything else.
“I didn’t know about it,” Leda said. “I thought I did, but all I knew was a story I’d made up when I was seven. Daphne’s been telling me what happened, how you were in the hospital with me”—she nodded at our mother—“and Eddie picked her up from school and they went to the raspberry farm.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t do this,” our mother said.
“Why not? I’m telling you, Daphne did the most amazing thing. She should have had her picture on the front page of the paper.”
“It was a terrible time,” our mother said, “and I don’t see why we have to dredge it up on an otherwise happy occasion.”
“I want to hear what happened,” Eddie said to me. I was across from him at the table. Leda was on his right side and our mother was on his left. “I never knew. We weren’t ever alone again, or we were alone for a minute when you would come to my room in the hospital, but we didn’t get to talk. I never told you how petrified I was after you left, or how much I missed you. That time in the car, before you came back, I think that was the loneliest I’ve everbeen. Isn’t that funny? I felt like we’d been in that car together for months and then you shot out the window and were gone.” He looked at my mother. “She was afraid that someone was going to snatch her, that she’d knock on the wrong door or get in a car with the wrong person, and I said, ‘No, no, everyone’s nice. You’re going to find good people who want to help you.’”
“I remember that,” I said.
“Then I’m alone with my broken ankle and my foot pinned under the emergency brake, thinking, Someone is going to take her and lock her in a basement and I won’t be able to get her back.”
“I’m glad you didn’t tell me that,” I said, thinking of how his case for human decency had informed my life. I believed him, and by believing him, I had found it to be true.
“I had a pack of cigarettes in my jacket pocket, but I was too afraid of striking a match and blowing up the car.”
“Whathappened?” Jonathan asked. He was as scared as Eddie.
Leda looked at him. “You don’t know?”
“I knew Daphne was in a car accident when she was young, but I had it in my head that Abigail was driving.”
“ThatIwas driving?” our mother asked.
Leda laughed.
“You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,” I said. “Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?”
“It’s all people think about,” Leda said.
Eddie put his hands flat on the table, like we were going to do this as a séance. “Tell us now.”
My mother shook her head. “Please don’t.”
