The statement. The speech. All those words rehearsed in anger for Katrinka, "that you never seek my company again, that you never cross this threshold, that you never..."
They all died and blew away.
It was the hospital corridor. Katrinka cried. In the room the strange California priest baptized Lily with water from a paper cup. Did my beloved atheist Lev think I was a perfect coward? And Katrinka was crying then as she cried now, real tears for my lost child, our Lily, our Mother, our Father.
"You were always . . ." I said, "so good to her."
"What are you talking about?" Katrinka said. "You don't have a million dollars!
What is she saying? What is this? Does she think that-"
"Mrs. Russell, if you will allow," Grady began. He looked to me. He rolled on even before I nodded.
"Your sister has been left most comfortable by her late husband, with all arrangements made before his death and with the knowledge of his mother, arrangements which do not involve any will, or any such instrument, which can on any grounds be contested by any of his family.
"And indeed Mrs. Wolfstan sigued numerous papers some time before Karl's death, that this arrangement would not in any way be questioned upon the loss of her son, Karl Wolfstan, and could and would be most speedily transacted."
He went on.
"There is no question as to the validity or the integrity of the check that you hold in your hand. This is your sister's gift to you which she would like you to accept, as your portion of whatever this house might be worth, and I must say, Mrs. Russell, I do not think even this house, charming as it is, would sell for one million dollars, and of course you have in your hand a check for the entire sum, though you also, as you well know, have three sisters.
Rosalind gave a little moan. "You don't have to," she said.
"Karl," I said. "Karl wanted me to be able to-"
"Ah, yes, to make it possible," said Grady, stumbling now to fulfill my last commission to him, realizing that he had failed to carry out my whispered instructions and now off the beat and for the moment lost. "It was Karl's wish that Triana be able to provide a gift to each of her sisters."
"Listen," said Roz. "How much is there? You don't have to give anything to us.
You don't have to give anything to her or me or anyone. You don't... Look, if he left you...
"You have no idea," I said. "Really, there is plenty. There's so much it's purely simple."
Rosalind sat back, drew in her chin, raised her eyebrows and peered through her glasses at the check. Her tall willowy husband, Glenn, was at a loss for words, touched, amazed, confused by what he saw around him.
I looked up at the wounded and quivering Katrinka. "Don't worry anymore, Trink,"
I said. "Don't worry ever again... about anything."
"You're insane!" Katrinka said. Her husband reached out to take her hand.
"Mrs. Russell," said Grady to Katrinka, "let me recommend you take the check to the Whitney Bank tomorrow and endorse and deposit it as you would any check, and I am certain you will be happy to discover that your funds are readily available to you. It is a gift and carries no tax penalty for you. No tax whatsoever. Now, I would appreciate some statement with regard to this house, that you will not in future-"
"Not now," I said. "It doesn't matter."
Rosalind leant towards me again. "I want to know how much. I want to know what this costs you to do this for me and for her."
"Mrs. Bertrand," said Grady to Rosalind, "believe me, your sister is amply provided for. In addition, and perhaps this will make my point as delicately as possible, the late Mr. Wolfstan had also endowed a new hall in the city museum to be entirely devoted to paintings of St. Sebastian."
Glenn in great distress shook his head. "No, we can't."
Katrinka narrowed her eyes as if she suspected a plot.
I tried to form words. They were just beyond my reach. I gestured to Grady and mouthed the word "explain." I made an open shrugging gesture.
"Ladies," said Grady, "let me assure you, Mr. Wolfstan left your sister very well off. These checks really, to be quite literal and frank with you, do not make a particle of difference."
And so the moment was over.
Just like that. It was over.
The terrible speech had not been made to Katrinka, take this million and never...
and there had been no stunning realization for her that she had forfeited forever in hate the possible share of something much larger.
The moment was gone. The chance was gone.
Yet it was ugly, uglier even than I could have planned it because she stood now, furious with hate, and she wanted to spit in my face and there was no way in the world she was going to risk losing one million dollars.
"Well, Glenn and I are grateful for this," said Roz in her low, earnest voice. "I honestly never expected one thin dime from Karl Wolfstan, it's kind, it's kind that he would even, but are you sure, Grady? Are you telling us the real truth?"
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Bertrand, your sister is well off, very well off-"
I saw a vision of dollar hills. A true vision of them flying towards me, each dollar bill with tiny wings on it. The most insane vision, but I think for the very first time in my life there was a relaxed realization of what Grady was saying, that that type of worry was no longer required, that that type of misery was no longer part of the larger picture, that the mind could turn now in perfect peace and quiet upon itself, Karl had seen to that, and his people, it had been nothing to them to see to it, the mind could turn to finer things.
"So that's how it was, then," Katrinka said, looking at me, her eyes tired and dull the way eyes get after hours of fury.
I didn't answer.
Katrinka said:
"It was just all a dry financial arrangement between you and him, and you never even had the decency to tell us."
No one spoke.
"With him dying of AIDS, you might have had the decency to let us know."
I shook my head. I opened my mouth, I started to say, no, no, that's abomination, what you're saying,I... but it struck me suddenly as just the perfect thing that Katrinka would do, and I began instead to smile and then to laugh.
"Honey, honey, don't cry," said Grady. "You're going to be all right."
"Oh, but you see, it's perfect, it's . .
"All this time," said Katrinka, her tears returning, "You let us worry and tear our hair out!" Katrinka's voice carried over Rosalind's pleas for quiet.
"I love you," Rosalind said.
"When Faye comes home," I whispered to Roz as if the two of us, sisterlike, had to hide from all the rest, at this round table in this front room. "When Faye comes home, she'll love the way the house looks now, don't you think, all of this, all that Karl did, it's so beautiful."
"Don't cry."
"Oh, I'm not, am I? I thought I was laughing. Where is Katrinka?" Several people had left the room.
I got up and left the room. I went into the dining room, the heart and soul of the house, the room in which so long ago Rosalind and I had had that terrible fight with the Rosary. Good Lord, it is a surfeit of memory that drives people to drink, I think so sometimes. Mother must have remembered such terrible, terrible things. We'd torn Mother's Rosary to pieces! A Rosary.
"I have to go to bed," I said. "My head aches, I keep remembering. I'm remembering bad things. I can't get them out of my mind. I must ask you something.
Roz, my love...
"Yes," she said at once, both hands extended, her dark eyes fixed firmly on me with utter sympathy.
"The violinist, do you remember him, the night that Karl died. There was a man out there on St. Charles Avenue and-"
The others crowded under the small chandelier in the hall. Katrinka and Grady were in a furious discussion. Martin was being stern with Katrinka, and Katrinka was almost screaming.