The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [82]
She stood up and walked to the mirror-fronted wardrobe and opened the doors.
The clothes were Muire’s, not Jack’s. Long black pants, wool skirts. Cotton shirts, linen blouses. A fur coat. Her hand felt, in her search, what she thought was a silk blouse. Parting the hangers, she discovered that it was not a blouse but a robe, an ankle-length silk robe with a tasseled sash. An exceptional garment of deep sapphire. Trembling slightly, she lifted the neck of the robe away from the hanger and looked at the label.
Bergdorf Goodman.
She had known that it would be.
She moved through the bedroom to the bathroom, noting everything, as if this were a house she might one day buy.
On the hook by the tub was a man’s maroon flannel robe. Jack had not worn a robe at home. Inside the medicine cabinet, she found a razor and a hairbrush. There was a bottle of English cologne that was not familiar to her. Inspecting the brush, Kathryn found short black hairs.
She stared for a long time at the brush.
She had seen enough.
She wanted to get out of the house now. She shut the door to the master bedroom. Downstairs, she could still hear Muire Boland on the phone, the voice somewhat louder now, as though she might be arguing. Kathryn passed the open door of the girl’s room. Dierdre lay on the bed on her stomach, her chin in her hands, the same remarkably solemn expression on her face. She wore a long-sleeved blue T-shirt and a pair of overalls. Blue ankle socks. So absorbed was the child in her program that at first she did not notice the stranger in her doorway.
“Hello,” Kathryn said.
The girl glanced in her direction, then turned on her side to contemplate this new person.
“What are you watching?” Kathryn asked.
“Danger Mouse.”
“I’ve seen that. They used to show it in America. My daughter used to like Road Runner. But she’s bigger now. She’s almost as tall as I am.”
“What’s her name?” The girl sat up, more interested in the stranger.
“Mattie.”
Dierdre considered the name.
Kathryn took a step forward and glanced around the room. She noted the Paddington bear, almost identical to one that had once been Mattie’s. A photograph of Jack in a baseball cap and a white T-shirt. A child’s drawing of an adult man and a little girl with dark curls, which might have been done recently. A small white desk covered with scribbles of Magic Marker, blue sky that had gone off the page. What had the girl been told? Did she know her daddy was dead?
Kathryn remembered a basketball dinner of Mattie’s when she was eight, and both Kathryn and Jack had wept to see their daughter’s nearly uncontainable pride in the dinky little trophy.
“You talk funny,” Dierdre said.
“I do?”
The girl had a British accent — no Irish in it, no American. “You talk like my daddy,” the girl said.
Kathryn nodded slowly.
“Do you want to see my Samantha doll?” Dierdre asked. “Yes,” Kathryn said, clearing her throat. “I’d love to.” “You’ll have to come over here,” Dierdre said, gesturing. She hopped off the bed and walked to a corner of the room. Kathryn recognized the doll’s wardrobe and trunk from the popular American Girl series. “My daddy gave this to me for Christmas,” Dierdre said, handing the doll to Kathryn.
“I like her glasses,” Kathryn said.
“Want to see her wardrobe?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, let’s sit on the bed, and you can look at all my stuff.” Dierdre brought out dresses, a school desk, a red plastic pocketbook, a blue and red sweater. A minuscule pencil. An Indian Head penny.
“Did your daddy give you all of this for Christmas?”
The girl pursed her lips and thought. “Saint Nicholas left me some of it,” she said.
“I like her hair,” Kathryn said. “Mattie used to have a doll that was like this, but she cut her hair. You know that with a doll the hair doesn’t grow back, and so you shouldn’t cut it off. Mattie was always sad that she had done that.”
Kathryn had another memory. Mattie, at six years of age, setting off down a hill on a new bike, the bicycle wobbling beneath her as if it were made of jelly, Jack and