Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [91]
Bridget heard a song floating in from Brian’s study. It was a Beatles song she used to love, “I’ll Follow the Sun,” and with Bailey safely asleep, she let herself cry. They were tranquil tears, even philosophical ones, but deeply sad as they slid down from the corners of her eyes into her hair and ears.
How could you have left her, Tibby?
It was the question that poked and nicked and needled her a hundred times a day, but only now had she put it into words.
How could you choose to spend even one day away from her?
Bridget had thought maybe when faced with the daily tribulations of an actual child she would understand it better, what Tibby and Marly had done. But she didn’t. She understood it less. Every day she spent with Bailey the mystery grew darker.
How could you have done it?
And because she was not completely without shame or self-awareness, Bridget thought of the thing in her uterus, not a thing but a person, a soul, and she felt chastened. Just look what she was willing to do. Had been willing to do.
The tears rolled on and Bailey rose and fell on her chest. Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what few precious gifts they would ever get. She cried for Bailey, for Tibby, for the resolute clump of cells making headway in her uterus, and for Marly, her poor, sad mother, who’d missed everything.
Lena half expected that the day known as Wednesday, March 15, would not occur. It would somehow get swallowed by the calendar. The earth would give a little heave in its orbit, and Tuesday would turn into Thursday. People across the globe would miss dentist appointments and soccer matches, but they would reschedule them and life would go on.
The time to open Tibby’s portentious letter would be gone without ever having arrived, and life in the post-disappointment era would go on unchallenged.
Lena’s life had come down to a very few things, and on the evening of March 14, even those were beyond her. She couldn’t take in the words on the pages of her book. She couldn’t hear the words of the songs she played. She couldn’t taste her dinner. She couldn’t fall asleep. She didn’t want to cede what slight hold she had on the world in case the appointed day might just tiptoe past without her notice. But wouldn’t that be easier, in a way?
At midnight she crept out of bed and woke her computer. Her computer wouldn’t lie to her. If it skipped the day, it would at least let her know.
At 12:00 a.m. it recorded Wednesday, March 15. Was it being honest with her or just conventional?
She thought of Julius Caesar on this day. So it has come, she thought. It has come, but it has not gone.
Should she open it now? She thought of Kostos. What time was it where he was? Later. He hadn’t already read it, had he? No, not that much later. He was probably asleep in his bed. She didn’t want to picture his bed in the likely event he wasn’t alone in it.
She picked up the letter. She could open it—it was the proper day. But somehow her desperate-in-the-middle-of-the-night-in-her-bare-feet status would seem to follow the letter of Tibby’s law rather than the spirit. The spirit was what she was going for here.
She brought the letter into her bed and clutched it until morning.
At six o’clock in the morning she tried to be casual. She ate a bagel casually. She went out to the newspaper stand two blocks away and bought The New York Times. Wednesday, March 15, it said along the top. It was probably midday in London.
As soon as she got back to her apartment, she walked directly to the letter still lying in her bed and opened it. In the envelope were two things. First was a one-page letter, folded, and second was yet another small sealed envelope with her name on the front. On the back the envelope said Please open on March 30.
How long would this go on? She put the sealed envelope beside her on the bed, and unfolded the page to which she was now entitled. It was printed sort of like an invitation.
Someday is now. (Or it is never.)
Please come to the following address on