A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

the shadow and began to draw.
    She remembered her first art teacher at college telling her that an artist must draw every day, and that drawing, like breathing, is something you must never stop. When she was little she had spent rainy summer afternoons drawing at Bow Lake, moving her colored pencils on the paper to the sound of pattering drops on the roof. She did a drawing once of their rowboat, Pigtail, floating at the end of the dock. Even then, she had known not to draw a round yellow sun with straight lines shooting out at the top of the paper. Instead, she had made the sky three bright shades of blue with the fancy pencils that Granny Winkler said came from France. One knew from that sky that it was a beautiful day. Lacey had told Margot how good her picture was and that none of the girls in her class could draw as well as Margot. To Margot, Lacey’s praise meant everything. She didn’t care what anyone else thought.
    Margot looked again at the bittersweet. For the next few minutes her pencil flew across the page. The lines were pale and broken. She examined the result. Her hand had been unsure, as if she was wary of what would end up on the paper. The drawing was all wrong.
    Margot’s ex-husband, Teddy, had liked the idea of Margot becoming an artist, but he had taken no interest in her actual paintings, particularly after they were married. When she had moved in with Oliver, she had started painting again. Initially, he was encouraging, telling her the work was good, though he never understood why her canvases were so small and he kept insisting that she might try to open them up. He suggested she set up and work in a corner of his studio. When he advised her to try deeper colors, she did. The more she loosened her brushwork, the more uneasy she became, as if she might lose control. His criticism hadn’t bothered her at first, but gradually every new technique she tried made her feel more and more uncertain. Her life was stressful enough with trying to placate temperamental artists at her job, as well as coping with some of Oliver’s fragile moods. Most of all, she feared that Oliver would see her lack of talent and think her an impostor.
    Eventually she put her work aside. And now she saw that she no longer had the confidence to draw.
    The sound of voices rose up the stairwell. Kate and Hugh must have arrived. Margot put down her pencil and crumpled up the paper. Thanksgiving dinner was about to begin. Glancing at the clock on the dresser, she hurriedly changed from her turtleneck into a black cashmere sweater, something that Lacey would say was “very New York.” Margot’s throat constricted. She closed her eyes, not wanting to cry at the unbidden thought that one day, maybe one day soon, her sister would not be able to say anything at all.

3
    Castle: The largest upright part of the loom.
    T he Georges’ home was a large shingled house built at the turn of the century. Though it was not as old as the smaller houses surrounding it, Alex and Lacey had chosen it because even on a gray day the rooms were filled with light. Margot and Lacey’s grandmother Winkler had left them each a bequest, stipulating that it be used to purchase “Real Estate.” This was her way, as it had been explained, of ensuring that her granddaughters would not have to depend on a man for providing them with a place to live, a sort of old-fashioned feminism. Margot and Lacey had called their inheritance “the house money.”
    Alex hadn’t minded selling the small cape in Exeter, New Hampshire, where they had been living and moving to this house in New Castle. He had been running his family’s company in Newfields, getting it ready to sell. It had been Lacey’s dream to live near the water and this house had room for a studio for her as well as an office for him. As a businessman, he viewed the new house as a good investment.
    Margot, then still in her twenties, had used her