Kate took a moment to process that. “I can’t believe my dad let her come here to do that.”
“I don’t think he knew. When he figured it out, he made you and Quinn leave with him.”
Eby was surprised how easily Kate accepted what Eby had told her. But it all made sense when Kate said, “She was never the same after he died.” Quinn was as high-strung as her mother had been. And Quinn had obviously been as torn up after her own husband died. Kate had seen it, and Eby was sorry that she had.
“It’s the Morris curse.”
“It almost happened to me—when Matt died,” Kate said quietly, looking up at the ceiling. Eby wondered if it was telling her anything.
“But it didn’t,” Eby said. “If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn’t get anywhere.”
They stayed there, side by side, for a while. Eby decided, once she sold Lost Lake, that she would stay in touch with Kate. This felt good, to finally be able to be in a room with her family and feel nothing but camaraderie, where conversation and moral support were the only things asked for and given freely. It took fifty years for this to finally happen.
Kate stood and dusted herself off. She put her hands in her pockets and considered Eby for a moment. “It’s not official, is it? You haven’t signed over Lost Lake yet?”
“Not yet.”
“So it’s still a thing that almost happened.”
Eby smiled to herself. She caught on quickly. “For now.”
“So no inventory yet.”
“Not physical inventory, at least. Now, mental inventory; I’m doing a lot of that.”
“What are you going to do,” Kate asked, “when you sell?”
“Travel,” Eby said. “George and I always wanted to go back to Europe.”
“What about after?”
“After what?”
“After you travel, where will you come back to?”
Eby laughed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Kate’s brow lowered. She looked like she was going to say something, then thought better of it. “I’ll leave you to it.” She turned to go, then stopped. “Thank you, Eby.”
“For what?”
“For being a misfit.” She smiled. “You give the rest of us hope.”
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Winter 1963
It was one of the coldest winters on record, and the snow fell in sheets. It thrilled Eby to no end. She’d seen very few snowfalls in her life. It was so cold the canals froze solid, and she and George would skate on their shoes for hours, finding cubbyhole restaurants along the way to fortify themselves with alcohol and stew. The girl from the bridge in Paris, whose name they discovered was Lisette, followed them most days, but she tired of the cold. It didn’t amaze her as much as it did Eby. George had written to Lisette’s family in Paris the moment they realized Lisette had followed them to Amsterdam. Lisette wouldn’t tell them how old she was, but she couldn’t be more than sixteen. Her family was bound to be worried. Lisette’s father wrote back to George in French, which the man at the desk in the hotel translated for them. Her father said Lisette was moody and stubborn and would not come home until she was ready. Maybe, her father said, this would make her grow up.
Eby was secretly glad for Lisette’s presence. Eby liked to think she understood the girl better than anyone. She understood her frustration. She understood that the hardest times in life to go through were when you were transitioning from one version of yourself to another. And Lisette was doing just that. Eby had managed to glean that Lisette’s parents had sent her to a school for the deaf when she was young, but Lisette had run away from it. Her world was not quiet, and she could not live among those for whom it was. She’d never learned sign language, so her only source of communication was through notes. Her pockets were full of crumpled pieces of paper. Every night she would stand on the balcony of her room and light a match to each note, letting it fall in the snow to the frozen street below. She started losing weight, only eating what she herself was allowed to cook. And never, ever, would she eat an evening meal. It was, Eby discovered, because Lisette had broken her dead lover’s heart over dinner, and now the thought of it literally made her nauseated.
There were hints, though, that Lisette was improving. It became routine for Lisette to walk along the sidewalk as Eby and George skated on the canals. She watched them closely, clapping her chapped hands loudly to warn them if Eby and George were getting too close to careless children on sleds.
That particular day, as Eby and George skated, they broke out into an impromptu dance. George let Eby step away from him, holding her hand as she executed a twirl that went so well and felt so good that she immediately twirled again. She kept twirling, so fast that George lost hold of her and she spun like a whirling dervish down the canal, George racing after her. He finally caught her by the waist and ending up twirling along with her, caught in her tornado. They finally lost momentum and George fell onto his backside, taking Eby with him, her legs straight in the air. Eby rolled over and looked at George. The moment their eyes met, they started laughing. It took them a few tries to get up. Several strangers got involved, Amsterdam natives in beige shoes and beige pants, with brightly colored scarves around their necks. Finally, they made it up, like support walls being hoisted in a barn raising, and everyone cheered. Eby turned to see Lisette doubled over, laughing so hard her body was heaving. No sound came out, but there was such joy and such release. By the time Eby and George made it off the canal and walked over to her, Lisette was on her knees, tears frozen to her skin. When she finally looked up at Eby, she was exhausted but purged. She looked like she felt something other than guilt for the first time in months.
That was the moment Eby knew that Lisette was going to be all right. Lisette had been following them because she was looking to Eby as an example of what true happiness was. She was trying to learn from her all that she’d never been taught. It was a remarkable realization to Eby, that we are what we’re taught. That was why Morris women were what they were. It was because they knew no different. Eby had forged new ground, and it made her feel powerful and useful. It fed her lifelong need to make things right. There was a certain hubris to it, though. And she would soon learn her lesson. Lisette was changing because she wanted to. When it came to Eby’s family, no amount of love and no amount of money would change people who didn’t want to change.
They made their way back to their hotel, cinnamon cheeked and watery eyed. Later, Eby and George were going back out for dinner. Getting lost in Amsterdam during a snowstorm was exciting because of its danger. Buildings began to all look the same, snowbanks hiding storefronts and sometimes entire streets. She and George had once had to find refuge in a strange family’s home overnight. The family didn’t speak English, and she and George didn’t speak Dutch. They’d played games with the children and slept on the kitchen floor. It had been wonderful. But Lisette had been beside herself when they’d finally showed up at the hotel the next morning.
That afternoon, Lisette went up the stairs to her room while Eby and George stopped at the front desk for their mail. They’d spent enough time in Amsterdam that their Paris letters were catching up with them, and it was always Eby’s least favorite time of the day. Eby took the letters to the small round sofa in the lobby, while George, as he did every night, asked for food to be delivered to Lisette’s room, even though she never ate it. When she got hungry enough, Lisette would sneak into the manager’s kitchen early in the morning and stealthily make something, leaving sugar-crusted palmiers and cracked bread for the employees to find later, convinced the feast was made by elves.